The wall that we think we build between life and death, between good and evil, dissolves into mist on All Hallows Eve.

And the shadow of death looms large over us reminding us of our earthly mortality and our complicated selves.

We wear the masks that reveal our internal Otherness. We costume ourselves in our fantasies and look our personal monsters in the face.

On All Hallows Eve we see our own all too human un-holy-ness. And we are not afraid.

The Houston Chronicle reports that the ubiquitous hacktivist (dis)organization Anonymous is celebrating Halloween by threatening to expose the members of Zetas, one of the most powerful drug cartels in Mexico.

My little county, Rio Arriba, in northern New Mexico, has long been overrun by drugs because of this cartel. The guys on the left are not drug kingpins. They are ranchers. And they are seriously put out with the cartels.

Rio Arriba County suffers the highest heroin and polydrug overdose death rates in the US. A few months ago, a beautiful local mountain lake was befouled when a plane flying low to avoid being detected by radar crashed into it, spewing cocaine, fuel, and bodyparts into the water. Nobody knows who was in the plane.

Our rural Hispanic and Native American youth are being systematically plied with drugs by Mexican and Californian gangs to entice them to become mules. We have watched our teen drinking rate creep upward. Children as young as 12 are now addicted to heroin.

I couldn’t be happier that Anonymous has taken on the cartel. However, I wonder if bloggers everywhere will suddenly find themselves targets in a new kind of war. I know how quickly those kinds of wars can sneak up on you.

CROSS-POSTED AT Native American Netroots

#OWS and the importance of the work of worship

Like many words in any language, the word “occupation” has multiple meanings. The English word “occupation” like the word “occupy” derives from the Latin work occupare which means employ, seize and take. When we think about occupation, we think about one’s vocation, the way one earns a living. In a more negative sense of the word, we think about invasion, conquest and control of territory by a foreign force. And when we think of occupation as holding or possessing a place, we understand that the place we occupy also occupies us.

So, to occupy a place requires time and effort. It is a vocation. It is a job. If the Occupy Movement is to go forward and achieve its objectives, it will require vision, organization, commitment love and endurance for the long run. It will require spiritual strength and space to continue when cold winds blow, when icy rain and freezing snow falls. Winter cares nothing about our political economy, and winter is coming. Thus, to sustain the movement, faith communities ought to extend hospitality and commensality to people who are working for social and economic justice both in the United States and in the world. For the movement to make a measurable difference in the lives of people, it must necessarily become political.

With the Knesset set to reconvene, and with the Occupy Wall Street protests reverberating from America, tens of thousands of protesters marched in cities across Israel, reigniting their struggle for social and economic justice.

Over 20,000 gathered in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square to demand social and economic justice, with many echoing refrains now heard at Occupy Wall Street protests.

Protesters railed against a host of social and economic injustices, including the growing gap between the rich and poor in Israel, with many protesters echoing refrains now heard at Occupy Wall Street protests in America. Many held signs that read “We are the 99 percent,” and several protesters mirrored the occupation language that has become synonymous with Occupy Wall Street. One particularly poignant sign read “Occupy Tel Aviv, Not Palestine.”

The rallies across Israel were held against the backdrop of tragic escalations of violence in the southern portion of the country. Rockets fired by Islamic Jihad in Gaza struck several southern cities, killing one Israeli civilian, and an Israeli bombing raid in Gaza killed at least seven Palestinians. In spite of the intense security situation, remarkably, approximately 20,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv, another 5,000 in Jerusalem and thousands more in locations across the country.

In the midst of such a tragic and emotional security event, these types of numbers would not have showed up for a protest of this nature in the past. The security situation – rockets falling in southern Israel – would have likely trumped all else. However, as is the case in countries throughout the world, difficult economic conditions precipitated by government corruption and corporate greed are changing the game.

“It is not nonviolence if we merely love those that love us. It is nonviolence only when we love those that hate us.” — Gandhi

I have not been to OccupyOakland since Saturday. For almost two days, no one was there, as police blockaded the area after destroying the camp early Tuesday morning. As of Wednesday night, occupiers broke through the police blockade and reentered the plaza. Along the way police used so called “non-lethal” weapons, one of which critically injured a young man who has since become a symbol for global solidarity for Oakland.

I sat at the computer intending to write an entirely different piece, one that’s been waiting for days now, about leadership and facilitation in the movement. I was simply unable to do so, because my heart is completely consumed with how to hold all that’s happened with love and human understanding. This includes all the people whose actions I find extremely difficult to comprehend. I cannot write about anything else involving this movement I so want to support until I am able to metabolize these events.

It is easy for me to extend love and understanding to the occupiers who braved the police and continued to march towards the plaza in an effort to reclaim it. It is easy to extend love to Scott Olsen. I read about him a little. I looked at his face. He’s a young man who chose to ally with the occupiers after serving two tours in Iraq and then joining Veterans for Peace. No challenge for me. I find it inspiring that someone who was in the army can wake up to move towards peace and transformation. It is easy for me to extend love and understanding to the people from Egypt who are organizing a march specifically in solidarity with Oakland. It is easy because I can identify with them, see them as being like me. I can see their care, and I connect with care easily.

In downtown Ramallah it may look like business is thriving, but it isn't.

For Thaer, this past month has been hard. He works in downtown Ramallah, in one of the tall, maze-like shopping centers here. The building is five stories high and it has a creaky elevator. Thaer tells me business has been bad.

“Everything is slow in Ramallah these days,” he says. “You might be fooled if you looked at the city because it looks busy.” But Thaer says that he’s been struggling to bring home the money that his family needs.

He and his wife Rula have two daughters together. They live on the outskirts of Ramallah, next to a big, domed mosque and not far from Jerusalem. From his roof, you can see Israel’s Security Wall.

Over lunch, Thaer tells me that his wife is pregnant. She smiles and nods from across the table. Because of health complications from past pregnancies, she’s going to need regular checkups from the doctor, Thaer tells me. She may also need surgery.

Rula has cooked lamb and rice for lunch. She’s also prepared a spinach soup, served with warm bread. After we’ve eaten, washed our hands and sat down for tea, Thaer tells me something else.

“I may go work for Israel,” he says quietly and nods. “I’ve applied for my permit and I should know in a few weeks whether it has been approved. The money will be a lot better there.”

We sip our tea. “I have a clean record. The Israelis can look at everything I’ve done. There has been no political involvement,” he tells me. Thaer moved to Ramallah from his hometown, a small, poor village to the north.

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
- Joseph Campbell

I can remember the moments just like they happened yesterday. On one occasion my friend and I were standing in the parking lot of my high school next to my gray two-door ’88 Nissan Sentra. He was looking at a paper I had written when he casually said, “you write like a girl.” For some reason, unknowingly to me in that moment, time stopped. His words resonated deep in my body. Despite this event occurring 15 years ago I can tell you the first and last name of the person who said it, the weather outside, the time of day, where we were standing in relation to my car…etc. Another time a high school friend told me that my leopard print steering wheel cover “was for girls.” When I bought it I had never even thought twice about it. It was simply what I wanted. But, again time stopped and I became extremely present. On one occasion a coworker told me I looked like a woman. His words shook me. All of these incidents shook me. While I wasn’t thinking this at the time I suppose at some deep level my spirit was saying in each occasion, “Oh, my god he knows.”

When these incidents occurred – in high school and in my early twenties I had never heard the word transgender before. This was in the mid 90′s and early 2000′s. I’m sure I’d heard the term transexual used in a pejorative manner, but my knowledge was extremely limited. Like many other teenage boys I had been called “gay,” “fag,” or “sissy” and a whole wide range of other terms – typical of the homophobia rampant in our culture. I know that I also participated in this homophobia by joining my guy friends in using this kind of language with each other. We’d also throw around sexist and racist jokes not realizing the impact these types of words have in everyday lives of people of color and women. But, despite me being called gay or fag those moments never stayed with me. I can’t remember even one specific incident in which I was called this, yet I can remember in painstaking detail the times I had been called a woman or a girl.

What does the Christian Right have to say about the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement? I have been asking that question for weeks and have not found much about it on the websites I regularly visit.

Now, Pat Robertson has finally spoken out. He says Christians should not be involved in the OWS movement.

I think this is a rebellion. I think it is atavistic. Nobody knows exactly what it is, they don’t know what they’re doing, why are they there? Well they’re just mad. Well, is it right for a Christian to get involved in a protest of anger?

Hmm. Did he think the question was about the Tea Party?

(Actually, he has also recently condemned Republican extremism, but only because it might cause the party to lose the election.)

Robertson goes on to say that he does not condemn all protests.

If you’re going to demonstrate demonstrate for righteousness, demonstrate to lift the yoke of oppression, demonstrate to help those that are poverty stricken. But don’t just go out and mess up a park and just scream and tear up things. Why would you get involved in something like that? It’s formless, it has no purpose, but it could be used for radicals who want to destroy this nation, and that’s the bad part of it.

Hmm. Either Robertson is woefully ignorant about the OWS movement and just doesn’t get it OR he is purposely disseminating misinformation. You decide.

Several days ago, I described how Occupy Wall Street is approaching – or has reached – its Tipping Point. However, there’s a much more subversive, and equally interesting, way to view the manner in which Occupy Wall Street is quickly being embedded into the American consciousness. And that is by thinking about the movement’s progression in consumerist terms.

The chart below illustrates the general way in which a new technology or inventive product becomes firmly entrenched in the marketplace:

First you have the inventors, those who create a product and launch it into the marketplace.

In the case of Occupy Wall Street, the inventor – the creator of the idea to occupy Wall Street as a Tahrir-style tactic – would be Adbusters magazine and the 700 brave souls who marched to Zuccotti Park on September 17. (An argument could be made to include those who began to increase that initial encampment in its first week, as well as those who have begun occupations in different cities around the country.)

Next, you have the early adopters, those souls who choose – at a very early stage – to try out a product before it catches mainstream appeal and sales. (These are your iPad cheerleaders, for example.)

In the case of Occupy Wall Street, this is many of us on the progressive left (myself included) – those who immediately latched onto the idea of occupation as a way to protest the corrupt control the wealthiest one percent have maintained over our political system.

And here is where things get exciting: the early majority. See that graph above? Notice the peak? According to polls released in the past several days, Occupy Wall Street appears to have reached the early majority stage, if we are to subvert this consumerist concept and apply it to the world of principles and ideas.

We just heard from a colleague who was arrested in Oakland for…. assembling. While he was getting arrested we were having dinner with friends, one of whom said that he wished there were a simple, clear message coming from the 99%. Well, this morning, our friend Jim Burklo (The Center for Progressive Christianity) wrote one of his “musings” and in it he had a short and sweet message:

Protect the poor and middle-class with a strong public “safety net”, take strong action to protect the environment, raise taxes on the rich and cut military spending to balance the federal budget, and rationalize regulations so that private enterprise will thrive on a more level playing field.

Want more? Read on!

Activists assemble outside the Supreme Court on January 21, 2011 to call for a constitutional amendment overturning the Citizens United decision. / Brendan Hoffman

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. This is clearly true, but what has not been widely recognized is that with Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, and many other members of Congress publicly challenging the power of corporations over government, the stage is set for interested members of Congress to introduce the amendment itself. As more come out in favor of such an amendment, the amendment can become a prominent campaign issue that will enable the public to easily discern between candidates wishing to be elected to serve corporate interests and those who intend to work for the citizens who actually elect them.

Photo by Alex Sennello

When budding-journalist and photographer Alex Sennello asked if I might be interested in her perspective on the Chicago version of Occupy Wall Street I said of course! She spent October 8th and 15th on the streets gathering stories and taking pictures. Here’s a high-schooler’s eye view of the corner of Jackson and LaSalle.

Gilad Shalit reunites with his father after five years in Hamas captivity. / Photo Courtesy of Israeli Defense Forces

What are the lessons to be learned from the deal to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for more than one thousand Palestinian prisoners?

It took only a few days for the Palestinian and Israeli role players and tactic leaders to get into their costumes and (depending on their assigned parts) either beat the justification or criticism drums. Self-reflection on the timing was as missing as Shalit was for five years. Why not just put away the talking points and revel in the fact that, after a heart-wrenching absence, a son of Israel’s extended family was finally coming home?

Here are some of the most frequently cited lessons, along with some of my thoughts on the teachers and their resource materials:

On my third visit to OccupyOakland, I co-led two workshops hosted by Nichola Torbett, founder of Seminary of the Street. In both of them I collaborated with Nichola and with Kazu Haga, an Oakland-based Kingian Nonviolence trainer. The conversations that emerged in these workshops, along with a recent post by Sharif Abdullah about vision implementation, form the basis of what I am writing below.

Effectiveness of Nonviolence vs. Commitment to Nonviolence
Although only one of the people who came to either workshop expressed an active disagreement with a commitment to nonviolence, her presence was sufficient to spark a profound conversation about the topic. Throughout the two workshops we kept coming back to a fundamental distinction between the question about whether nonviolence works and whether or not we are committed to nonviolence as a matter of spiritual or other belief system. Part of what was so poignant about the position of this person who wasn’t fully committed to nonviolence was precisely how much in her heart she was committed, and came to shift her perspective primarily based on an analysis that led her to question the effectiveness of nonviolence. The more I read about nonviolence, the more I discover that movements tend to choose nonviolence because of their belief in its strategic value, not necessarily because of a principled disavowal of the use of violence in certain circumstances. It’s a pragmatic choice, not a values-based choice.

Full commitment to nonviolence on the basis of values, whether spiritual or secular, means maintaining a nonviolent stance even if it doesn’t seem to work, even if the goals never materialize, even if the movement is crushed by force. This is an extremely challenging position to take. I cannot imagine asking this of anyone whose life has been affected by trauma, severe deprivation, pervasive discrimination, police brutality, poverty, or any other kind of structural ongoing violence. Those are the classic conditions that breed violent uprisings, terrorist activity, or, in less extreme situations, anger or even hatred. The level of internal resources necessary for such a commitment to nonviolence, especially in the face of potential or actual repression, cannot easily be available under such conditions, because those conditions erode the human spirit.

Malcolm Gladwell defines a tipping point as a “moment of critical mass” in which an idea or movement spreads virus-like through the repetition of small, meaningful moments.

In his book, The Tipping Point, he describes it as a threshold moment; a liminal moment. The moment when an idea – pushed to the precipice by untold numbers of tiny, concussive shoves – finally loses its footing and plummets uncontrollably into the hearts and minds of millions.

United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas confronts the NYPD after scenes of police brutality in Times Square.

Over a five week period, we have witnessed in our country the coalescence of thousands of small, meaningful moments that comprise an ever-expanding movement: The Brooklyn Bridge; Zuccotti Park’s canceled eviction; Times Square.

However, while there have been ongoing occupation events in hundreds of municipalities across the country – and while recent polls show increasing favorability trends – the movement has remained on the outside of mainstream America looking in. (Roughly a third of Americans currently view the movement favorably.) This is due, in part, to the way in which Occupy Wall Street has been portrayed by the corporate media as a disorganized, muddled mass. More importantly, though, has been its marginalization by certain politicians and media outlets as an anti-American, dangerous force.

The surest way to dull a popular movement is to brand it as dangerous to America. And with scenes of arrests and confrontations between police and protesters filling living room television screens (no matter that the police are often to blame), such branding has been made all too easy.

However, the moment such branding can be fractured and utterly torn asunder is the moment Occupy Wall Street will reach its tipping point. And I believe it’s now standing on the precipice, ready to make the mainstream plunge as both military veterans and even active duty police officers begin to stand in opposition against those forces intent on ending the Occupy movement.

After my first visit to OccupyOakland I felt inspired. I was connected to the vision, to a sense of possibility. I was fully open to the unfolding, to seeing what would come. I’ve been very encouraged by the response I’ve been getting to my post about that visit.

Before I posted those notes I had a second visit to OccupyOakland, and my current picture is very different, more nuanced, sober, intrigued, concerned, excited, and even more clear that I don’t know much. I notice how much harder it is to write about those experiences. I find it challenging to express concerns about the movement, and yet I know it’s vital to express truth with love, and I am reaching into the courage to do that.

On October 17^th I attended the general assembly meeting at OccupyOakland. I had never been to a large group meeting following consensus rules, and I didn’t know what to expect. So much happened during the evening that I simply cannot speak about all of it, and there is no way to get the feel of it from reading the notes posted on the OccupyOakland site. What’s below is by necessity filtered through my very personal perspective and sensibilities.

One thing that stood out to me is the extraordinary patience of hundreds of people sitting in the small amphitheater outside Oakland City Hall. Most people sat through more than two and half hours of people speaking with more or less discernible relevance, announcements about many activities, committees, requests, offers, opinions, questions.

A painting on an outer wall of the former U.S. embassy in Tehran. Flickr / pooyan

On October 11 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that an Iranian plot to assassinate a Saudi Arabian foreign minister had been broken up by an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent. According to the complaint, an American-Iranian tried to hire a Mexican drug cartel on behalf of Iran’s Quds Force to assassinate a Saudi Arabian diplomat in Washington D.C. As Hillary Clinton said, “You can’t make this stuff up.”

The question is, did the government actually make it up?

Despite Obama’s claim to have secret irrefutable evidence supporting the accusations, his administration has not made this evidence public. Thus, it is too early to pass judgment on the accuracy of the complaint and the truth of the accusation.

While it may sound conspiratorial to suggest that the Obama administration is fabricating intelligence to achieve some ulterior motive, the quality of available evidence is not very persuasive. It is particularly reasonable and perhaps even prudent to reserve judgment in light of U.S. intelligence failures in the past. The accusation is convenient for the administration’s efforts to isolate Iran internationally and many Americans would believe it – some because they want to – even if there isn’t proof. Still, it seems unlikely that the Obama administration will be able to successfully leverage these accusations to achieve increased international support for sanctions against Iran, as Biden suggested would occur, without more definitive evidence.

Flickr/Matters of Justice

by Suzy Karasik

If you answered no, then you definitely need to review the information in this article. At the present time, there is no labeling requirement, so foods that have been altered at the molecular level are on your grocery shelves. Take soybeans for example: 94 percent of all U.S. grown soybeans are genetically engineered. GMO foods are an environmental peril waiting to happen and pose an irreversible threat to the gene pool of all living beings. Think about it.

You believe you support the environment but then you eat corn chips (86% of which are GMO and who doesn’t love em) containing the BT toxin, a pesticide that can transfer into our gut flora and has the potential to create a human pesticide factory. Doctors at Sherbrooke University Hospital in Quebec found corn’s Bt-toxin in the blood of pregnant women and their babies, as well as in non-pregnant women. (Specifically, the toxin was identified in 93 percent of 30 pregnant women, 80 percent of umbilical blood in their babies, and 67 percent of 39 non-pregnant women.) The study has been accepted for publication in the peer reviewed Journal,Reproductive Toxicology.

Sugar beets are the latest crop to be threatened. Very good for your heart and full of folate, manganese, and potassium, they provide dietary fiber for digestion and absorption, magnesium for your bones, iron and phosphorus for energy and Vitamin C for free radical scavenging! Beets are used for sweetening, so even those of you who are aware and think you watch what you eat, may be duped. Migrant workers who pick GMO beets have serious allergic reactions and skin eruptions. This is just one example of the way in which everyone is affected by these transgenic foods.

Cecilie Surasky’s name was withdrawn from the Jewish Federation’s "heroes" contest for her support of boycott, divestment, and sanctions. Rabbi Friedman, who advocates the killing of Palestinian children, remains on the list. / Photo Courtesy of JVP

by Sydney Levy

Who is your Jewish hero? That’s the question that the Jewish Federation of North America (JFNA) has been asking recently. They are holding a contest, which they bill as the largest social media initiative in the Jewish community. To date, more than 147,000 ballots have been cast for 329 nominees. There were more candidates – but at least one was disqualified.

We are talking about my Jewish hero, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Deputy Director Cecilie Surasky. She was running in ninth place and was on her way to make it to the semi-finals, but the JFNA changed its rules half-way through the contest just so that they could boot her out.

Why was she not deemed Jewish hero material? JFNA spokesman Joe Berkofsky argued that it was because of Cecilie’s association with JVP: “The rules [of the contest] expressly state that the people and the project have to support the mission of the federations. It can’t be something that goes against that. JVP very clearly supports BDS.” Case closed.