Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/the-law/page/21/)
Friend and prophet Rev. Jim Burklo shares his thoughts on a quite powerful border experience in his latest “musing.” I’m honored that he lets me share this with all of you on Tikkun Daily. Click here to visit his blog site, Musings. DESCONOCIDO
A small wooden cross stands next to a cholla cactus in the desert of southern Arizona. Across it is written a word in Spanish: DESCONOCIDO.
Darth Vader recently agreed to make an appearance in support of Mr. Yoo, the Bush-era lawyer who wrote the memorandum justifying the use of torture.
Occupy Faith: the Interfaith Tent at Occupy Oakland
Hate crimes? Robbery? Violence against police? If you Google “Occupy Oakland,” you might miss another deeper story, the story of Occupy Faith, the Interfaith Tent, now metaphorical, though no less strong, that has supported and borne witness to Occupy Oakland since October 24, 2011. Nichola Torbett,Director of Seminary of the Street (“At the intersection of radical love and justice”– my favorite neighborhood!) told me about the origins and activities of the Interfaith Tent which are myriad and moving.
Like much of the cleverly-worded legislation presented to Congress, this bill’s title is hardly reflective of its likely pernicious effect. (Remember Bush’s “Clean Air Act”?) What SOPA really amounts to is a destabilization of the Internet by corporate entities.
What could possibly have caused even some of the most liberal and conservative of members of Congress to vote for such sweeping power, handed to whoever happens to be president, for as long as “the long war” (as the Pentagon supposedly calls it), continues?
I’ve noticed a meme beginning to fester among liberal insiders who are positing that the Occupy Wall Street movement is starting to “distract” the citizenry from the wicked machinations of Republicans of the legislative class. Nonsense.
Among other things, I teach business ethics at the university level. I have also been a consultant to Wall Street firms for some 20 years, and have worked in various capacities on the Street since I graduated from high school, in 1979. I know a few things about what ought to be; I know a few things about what is. I visited the Wall Street protest site in New York City, at Zuccotti Park, on Saturday, October 1. Subsequently, I read Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times column on the subject of the protests, known as “Occupy Wall Street” or, alternatively, the “99 Percenters” (the protests have in recent days and weeks spread across the country, taking on other names).
Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen, October 2008. wikimedia commons / Muhammad ud-Deen
On September 30, 2011 a U.S. drone in Yemen assassinated Anwar Al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen accused of participation in terrorist activities against the United States. Until there is transparency and oversight, the policy of executive authorization of CIA targeted killings should not be tolerated.
Most discussions of how to pass a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood dismiss what is likely to be the only possible solution. Instead of calling for a constitutional convention, we should be focusing our efforts on getting an amendment introduced into Congress. While a number of prominent amendment advocates regard this as impossible, the idea of calling for a constitutional convention is far less plausible and much more complicated. With the rapid expansion of corporate power in the politics of the United States, we simply do not have the time to spend focusing exclusively on the unlikely goal of getting a constitutional convention. The assumption behind the skepticism of those who reject the idea of getting an amendment introduced into Congress is that it won’t pass because Congress as a body is too corrupt.
It was heartbreaking and surreal to be at the “crime scene” that was, until recently, Occupy Oakland. I don’t really have words. When I first went down there, the police had the whole area blocked off and you couldn’t get close. There were pockets of occupiers gathered on street corners talking about what they had seen, what had happened, and you could hear a lot of anger and amazement at the number of police that had been deployed. People were naming off the different police departments that were represented, like trainspotters.