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.

This 2010 oil painting "Yard" (70X100) by Elie Shamir depicts the connection of the people of the Jezre’el Valley to their agricultural landscapes. Shamir is distressed about the idea of a major airport being constructed within a short radius of his community. / Image Courtesy of Elie Shamir

by Hadas Marcus

Around this time of year, many Jews worldwide conduct their own moral inventory with the hope of accomplishing more and becoming better people. I too want to make a meaningful contribution…if it is not too late.

This is a period of uncertainty as we await a kind of verdict – not related to Yom Kippur – but rather one that is nonetheless crucial to the people of Israel, particularly residents of the North. On October 23, the Israeli government will announce its final decision on whether or not to erect an enormous international airport next to the Megiddo Junction. That announcement will greatly impact not only me, but the whole surrounding area.

If the proposal for this international airport is given a green light, it will lead to appalling detriment to the residents’ quality of life, and even greater damage to the whole environment. As the daughter of a structural engineer, I am not against progress per se, but it needs to make sense, and this does not. Most people, even those who are less conscientious than I am about sustainability, agree that there is no need for another airport to be located here.

NATBAG 2, as it has been labeled, is reportedly to be constructed off the Kvish HaSargel, or the Ruler Road, in the same fields that attract thousands of visitors annually as the stunning carpet of many-hued flowers blooms in the spring. Across from these fields, tall eucalyptus trees have been standing for decades.It is in these skies that literally millions of birds migrate through a bottleneck from one continent to the next. Planes will disrupt their migration routes and diminish avian populations; large-sized birds can also cause human casualties if they are sucked into a plane engine or collide with the windshield, as has been documented by Dr. Yossi Leshem from Tel Aviv University.

by Dan Brook

The Al Cheyt is a traditional part of the Yom Kippur-Day of Atonement liturgy, in which Jews publicly confess our individual and communal sins, our going astray, literally our missing the mark, each of us alone and all of us together. We are not necessarily personally at fault for each sin, yet we are all responsible for all the sins.

There are 36 sins listed below divided into two sections of 18. In Judaism, the number 18 is associated with life, 36 with justice; a sin means missing the mark; and it is a mitzvah-holy deed to both “remember” and “not forget”. Please feel free to adopt or adapt this Al Cheyt, which is neither comprehensive nor perfect, for your personal, professional, spiritual, or religious practice.

This is the second half of a two-part series. Read the first part here.

Brian McLaren’s description of the problems humanity now faces is more accurate than we usually get from preachers, politicians and the mass media. But has he adequately clarified the institutional resistance that must be overcome to alter or abolish the Societal Machine that he says has become a Suicidal Machine. His largely realistic description of this Machine has a curious blind spot, which needs correction if we are to develop an effective counter-approach. His Christianity is a source of strength but also of limitation: Jesus lived in a social order radically different from ours, one that prevented him from seeing the problems we face today and developing solutions now open to us, if we can act collectively.

The Core of Jesus’ Vision

Ultimately, Jesus’ vision (and McLaren’s) is based on and limited by the idea of radical generosity. Generosity, like its opposite stinginess, is a question of distribution. It is closely related to (though somewhat different from) distributive justice, which is concerned with fairness in distribution. McLaren hardly mentions production except as the source of the goods we consume. Yet even the first “law” of Theocapitalism, Progress through Rapid Growth, is usually understood in terms of growth of production.

The modern system of production, the capital system, did not exist in premodern society; it did not exist in ancient Palestine, in the Roman Empire, or anywhere else for that matter before 1500.

Spiritual progressives often say they are open to wisdom in other faith traditions. One way we can practice this openness is to appreciate what people operating from other perspectives say when they say it well and then present our differences in the framework of basic respect. Starting a conversation of this sort is a way of strengthening a shared spiritual journey.

In April of this year, members of the Bowling Green community in Western Kentucky had a chance to hear Brian McLaren present his analysis of current global problems and his vision of how to confront them inspired by his interpretation of the message of Jesus. A more elaborate version of his view is found in Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope (Nashville, TN, 2007). McLaren is an evangelical Christian — a fairly radical progressive evangelical, in fact.

I intend to summarize his diagnosis of the problems, then explain how he understands Jesus’ message, which he contrasts with the visions advocated by rival social movements forces in Jesus’ time. I will assume that McLaren accurately gauges the social message of Jesus – if you want to question that assumption, we can take it up in discussion. Then I will indicate how he sees Jesus’ perspective addressing our problems today. Finally, in a second, related post, I will discuss the adequacy of this approach as a strategy for our times.

Four Global Problems

Drawing from public official and theological sources, McLaren identifies four root problems, or global emergencies – the “PPPR” problems: Planet (global environmental issues), Poverty (apparent economic injustice in the absence of opportunities for vast numbers of human beings), Peace (the prevalence of war and all the devastation that it causes), and Religion. Not surprisingly, he thinks that some forms of religion hold out more hope for solving our problems than others.

Credit: Creative Commons/g_kovacs

It is a cold spring here in Chicago, all rain and anticipation, and, like everyone in the city, I am still pretending that eventually things will change, that if we hope hard enough, and have enough faith, the world will warm up and bloom.

Our good intentions haven’t brought it yet.

But, I’ve lived here for sixteen years of cold springs. And, as you might notice from that history, I am happy here among my neighbors waiting for flowers — partly because I adore people of good intentions who believe fervently that they are capable of making the world a better place.

I love the Shakers, whom my father revered. I think of them stooped in their fields, cultivating seeds, and thinking always of how better to put their hands to work and hearts to god. I love the Unitarians I share the sanctuary with on Sunday mornings, the way they pledge to heal the world. I love the earnest, deliberate meditating of people all over the planet who send compassion into the wind to make sure that it exists, and that, hopefully, it lands somewhere and takes root.

And, among the pantheon of the earnest that has taken up residence in my heart, I love the scientists who have built an ark for frogs in the Panamanian rainforest.

I am the mother you ought to fear.

I am the mother you ought to regard with awe and wonder.

I am not any of the Mother Gods you think you know. I am not the triune female divine – virgin, mother, crone. I am not the Madonna tenderly caring for her infant child. I am not Mary of the Pieta holding the crucified body of her sacrificed son. I am not Ala, Mami, Gaia or Kali. I am not Woman Wisdom of the biblical book of Proverbs. I am the nameless mother who is the mother of all the elements that come together to make life possible. I am also the mother of all that comes together to destroy every material thing you value.

I am the mother of volcano, earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, cyclone, tornado, blizzard, fire and flood. I breathe heat and bring drought. And my message to you this Mother’s Day is stop with the nonsense.

It’s a sad day in Wisconsin. Yesterday afternoon in less than two hours, our Republican Senators — after insisting for a month that their union-busting law was needed because the state was broke — separated the collective bargaining sections of the bill from the financial parts and then passed it. They no longer needed a Democratic Senator for a quorum, since the bill was no longer ostensibly about finances! They unmasked themselves with this political maneuver. Now everyone can see that it never was about the money. It was an attack on workers’ rights all along. And despite massive protests last night and today, the Republican Assembly passed the bill as well.

Many of us thought Republican legislators were shoving an undemocratic bill down our throats three weeks ago. But at least they gave us six days (a ridiculously short amount of time) to think and talk about it then. Yesterday’s two hours of discussion breaks that record by a yard. The upshot of all this is that 60 years of workers’ rights have been swept away using undemocratic methods for an undemocratic outcome (there will probably be a lawsuit about the tactics). This is especially hard to take, since polls show that anywhere from 65% – 74% of Wisconsinites believe that public workers should have the right to organize.

by Peter D. Goldberg

The Obama administration appeared serious about confronting looming environmental crises, especially global warming and resource depletion. With the new Congress challenged by science doubters and industrial supporters, the prospect of critical reform is considerably compromised. But political and technological adjustments may well not be enough to confront humanity’s ecological challenges anyway. Fundamental personal lifestyle changes, particularly in our Western materialistic values and consumer-oriented ways, may be necessary. Judaism has much of relevance to say on this.

Immigration policy and the Hispanic vote have been a point of contention for Republicans since the beginning of the 21st century. President Bush, to his credit, attempted to pass an immigration policy that would have allowed a guest worker program (and incidentally, broadened the GOP tent), but was stymied by right wing elements in his own party. The strategy was inspired by shifting Congressional demographics and, had Bush succeeded, he might have delivered Republican control of Congress for decades.

Demagogues like Rush Limbaugh who rely on an openly racist base for ratings won the day. The party narrowed and took a sharp turn to the right.

A DIY (do it yourself) art movement is spreading in opposition to the capitalist trends of the “high art” realm. It’s a movement that kindles idealistic hopes for the possibilities of art, even amid the reality of the contemporary art world’s elitism and market-driven nature.

Many DIY artists and collectives are functioning on local, community levels to create projects that benefit the communities in which they are working. Richard Shilling is a fine example of one of these DIY artists.

Artist David Hewson, whose beautiful work has appeared in Tikkun on several occasions, has contacted us about an environmental and social crisis in Peru receiving little American media coverage. Hewson has spent the past two years living in Peru working with a shaman on a series of paintings surrounding the myths of indigenous groups in the Amazon. Through his residency in Peru, Hewson has witnessed some of the harm being done to the sacred jungle of the Amazon and its inhabitants. Peruvian President Alan Garcia and his government have alleviated many sanctions on gas and oil companies working in the Amazon. With increased access to previously protected areas, these companies have created dangerous health conditions for the indigenous groups of the Amazon, including high lead and cadmium levels found in their blood and river contamination. In 2009 many indigenous groups united to form a blockade and protest the government’s support of oil and gas companies in the Amazon. It resulted in violence, and between 30 and 100 deaths of indigenous people and police officers (photo).

Paul McAuley, a British, lay Catholic missionary who has lived in Peru for more than 20 years, has recently been ordered to leave. The Peruvian government is trying to expel him from the country on charges of risk to “the security of the state, public order and the national defense.” His deportation order is being appealed.

Islam has a great tradition of appreciating and revering the earth. More than 700 verses in the Qur’an extort Muslims to reflect on the miracle of creation and make it clear that Allah views the earth as its own entity with the right to be protected and cared for. It even goes so far to say “Greater indeed than the creation of man is the creation of the heavens and the earth.” (40:57)

As Muslims, we understand that our submission to God is intrinsically tied to the way we treat His gift of life on this planet.  A peaceful, gentle reverence for plants, animals and landscapes are part of the fabric of our religion and translate beautifully through Islam’s strong foundation of social justice and activism.

Therefore, the environmental movement is one area where Muslims can make a huge contribution to society at large, and to productive interfaith dialogue.

For example, this month I contributed to a joint interfaith statement about Chemical Regulation Reform:

Interfaith Groups Speak Out on National Chemical Regulatory Reform

Amanda Quraishi, a member of Austin’s Muslim Community, said, “I think it is an ethical and moral imperative for average consumers to be informed on what we are buying and putting into our bodies. As a parent I feel an even greater responsibility to choose healthy foods and products for my children. I tend to support and buy from companies that identify, classify, and test their products for personal and environmental safety. Ideally, this kind of transparency would be the norm.”

Most concerned citizens would happily make a statement like this to voice their worries over the undisclosed exposure to unnatural chemical compounds that we are subjected to on a daily basis. But it is a great privileged to be able to make this statement as a Muslim because it lets me present the tenets of my faith in a positive, constructive and practical way. I am certain that my neighbors feel the same way, and the mutual respect and admiration that is created as we work together to protect the earth within our own faith traditions is miraculous in itself.

I had the chance to talk to Amanda Robinson, Coordinator of Texas Interfaith Power and Light, an environmental program of Texas Impact. When I asked her about her experience engaging various faith groups in environmental activism she told me, “What I see is that different communities are in different places on environmental issues – some have been very engaged and active for a long time, while others are just beginning to connect teachings from their religious tradition to concerns about the environment. Increasingly, people of all faiths are realizing that their tradition, whatever it is, has important things to say about care for the earth and care for other people, and that these concerns are interrelated.”

She continued, “There are many areas where teachings from different religious traditions converge in a shared concern, and environmental issues are one of these areas. The world’s great religious traditions all speak of care for the earth and its creatures. In the Abrahamic traditions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – there is a call to guardianship and care of creation. In the Eastern traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, there is a profound sense of the interconnectedness of all life on earth. Although our traditions use different terms, the message on this subject is the same – it is a unified call for humans to care for the environment. On environmental issues, then, there is a lot of room for people of different faith traditions to work together in common cause.”

Learn more about Texas Interfaith Power and Light on the main website, or check out their Facebook page for current events and news about the organization. You can also email info@txipl.org.

Eleven-year-old Olivia Bouler was horrified by news of the foul oil smearing across the gulf. Her first thought: birds, her favorite animal. Her second thought: how to help them.

I am beginning to wonder if perhaps Obama was right to tackle health care reform as a first initiative. It is difficult to find health care issues to write about these days…our mainstream and alternative media are rightly wrapped up in the crises of the day, the Gulf oil spill disaster, the Afghanistan War and high unemployment rates. Of these, at least two are directly tied to our inability as a nation to confront Big Oil. Frustrated with tepid Congressional efforts to stem the oil tide, I decided to take a small step to wean myself off of oil. I began cooking locally available food: weeds!

Too bad there isn’t a Nobel Prize for news reporting.

If there were one (and nominations were accepted from people like me), I would nominate Rachel Maddow. She has reinvented broadcast news, and completely redefined reporting.

Camino de Paz Team

In May of 2010, a group of northern New Mexico middle school students helped to train the 2nd 45th Agricultural Development Team of the Oklahoma National Guard techniques of organic permaculture farming. The youngsters showed troops how to milk goats, clean eggs and care for bees in preparation for their deployment to Afghanistan in September, 2010. The three week training was coordinated by the Pojoaque, NM-based Permaculture Institute.

These children from my community are the only youngsters who have ever trained US troops.

“Hey, look at this!” I shouted to my husband, early one morning a few weeks ago. “Ian’s on the front page of the Huffington Post!”

Ian is my oldest brother. According to family lore, he went to school in France as an exchange student at 16. He then entered Friends World College where, after listing his interests as French, totalitarian government and oceanography, he was dispatched to Haiti on a fishing boat. He earned graduate degrees in oceanography in Oslo, Norway and then spent an indeterminate amount of time building fish hatcheries throughout the third world, traveling, or both. He is fluent in English, Creole, French, northern and southern Norwegian and Italian. Eventually, he became an expert in the impacts of oil on Gulf ecosystems.

“He says BP is lying about the size of the spill,” I said as Richard brought me my coffee.

You may remember that I wrote about “Earth Day at 40″ a couple of weeks ago. Since then, my brother-in-law has put a video of my sister Amy Vedder‘s presentation online. It’s worth a look — with great photos and description of some of the innovative approaches Amy has developed over the last 30 years to successfully preserve animal species and their habitats.

Amy, who is now senior vice president of the Wilderness Society, offered three examples of her successful projects during this talk. The most dramatic was setting up the Mountain Gorilla Project in Rwanda in the late 1970s. What she and her husband Bill Weber discovered was that the Rwandan people had no connection with the gorillas in their land, to the point that they asked why these two Americans weren’t studying American gorillas. The Mountain Gorilla Project, described in Amy and Bill’s book In the Kingdom of Gorillas, established a win-win situation for the people and the animals in Rwanda, giving jobs to Rwandans who lived near the Virungas National Park, bringing hard currency into this 3rd poorest country in the world, and giving the people pride in the gorillas that lived only in their country and nearby. It was perhaps the first ecotourism project in the world.

CONSERVATION, CONNECTIONS By Dr. Amy Vedder from luciano M on Vimeo.