For deflated optimists and radical pessimists, both, this election boils down to a simple binary choice. Letty Cottin Pogrebin reflects on feminism, the importance of voting, and shares ideas of how we can get out the vote between now and Election Day.
General News
Martin Luther King + 50: Toward a Year of Truth and Transformation
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“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered … We are confronted by the fierce urgency of Now.” –Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Empathy
A ‘Moment’ for our Movement: The Work of Creating a More Perfect Union in 2017
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Following the now-famed Women’s March on the day after President Trump’s inauguration, speculation mounted about whether we were seeing a real “movement” or simply a “moment” of reaction from an outraged electorate. Since that day, there’s been no dearth of citizens speaking up, in town halls, airports and on city streets. People who never imagined themselves “protesters” have seized the reins of citizenship suggesting that surely something is galvanizing America. But the question is an important one, does this yet qualify as a movement?
Environment
Humor From Tikkun
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Wikileaks (or perhaps, electronic espionage experts acting on behalf of the “Deep State” that subtly, covertly directs the course of governance in the U.S.) recently hacked into Trump’s TV feed, seamlessly substituting audio streams from PBS, NPR, MSNBC and Al Jazeera America into what he’s viewing, while the images remain those of the likes of Steve Doocy, Dana Perino, Wolf Blitzer, Ann Coulter—and even Nancy Grace.
Gender and Sexuality
Trump: Jung's Warning
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Many politicians display egotistical personality distortions, some more than others. Trump, however, is of an entirely different order. Do we want a president accessing nuclear codes, shaping the Supreme Court for generations, and leading the world in extreme climate denial, who, in the eyes of many psychologists is a narcissistic sociopath/ psychopath well accomplished in the art of gaslighting, which is when abusers undermine and distort the reality and truth of others’ perceptions and emotions in order to control or destroy them, i.e. Trump claiming victory for ending the birther myth he promoted for years by falsely shifting blame to Clinton.
Gender and Sexuality
Policing Pride
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The theme of San Francisco Pride 2016 was “For Racial and Economic Justice.” Black Lives Matter was scheduled to be one of the parade’s grand marshals. However, divergent reactions to the Orlando nightclub massacre exposed deep rifts between Pride’s organizers and LGBTQ communities of color.
Culture
Professor Johanna Fernández talks with Tikkun about Mumia, Bernie Sanders, Love, and the Power of Radical Empathy
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In honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s recent birthday, we here at Tikkun Daily thought we would mark the day by publishing an interview with Johanna Fernández, a professor of History at Baruch College (CUNY) who edited Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal that was published last year.
Culture
Passover, Parenting and Pardons
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This year, I have exhausted Passover’s eight days writing love letters to President Obama. My letters all close with the same refrain: “Let my clients GO!” Is it a prophecy that Passover’s final day – April 30 – coincides with our clemency deadline?
In 2014 the Justice Department announced an Obama initiative to invite inmates with no significant criminal history, a record of good prison conduct, no history of violence before or during the term of incarceration, who have served over ten years on a federal sentence for a non-violent offense to apply for clemency.
Politics & Society
How the Christian Right Interprets and Tries to Legislate Religious Liberty
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Last week, a Texas Senate committee convened a special hearing to explore ways to “protect” religious freedom.
That’s a noble aim and in a state as religiously diverse as Texas, home to the country’s largest Muslim and second-largest Hindu populations, probably a necessity. But this Senate committee, called in part by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton, was actually not about strengthening current anti-discrimination laws that protect religious liberty.
Culture
SF Police Murders (Murderous Police in the City of Love)
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No city is immune from the American epidemic of police killings that has only recently begun to gain wide attention — not even a liberal bastion like San Francisco. In her latest post, TomDispatch regular Rebecca Gordon, whose new book, American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes, will be published in April, takes a look at officer-involved killings in the “City of Love.”
Politics & Society
Against The Tide: The River Of Discrimination Flowing Against People With Disabilities
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Twenty five years after the passage of the ADA, the river of discrimination against people with disabilities continues to flow. The river is human-made: we created it, designed the very contours that sweep people with disabilities to the outskirts of society. But because we made it, we can also stop it.