Editorials & Actions

Obama: a Civil Libertarian’s Nightmare

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Editor’s Note: Criticism of Obama does not imply support for his political opponents. However one decides to vote in November, one must do so with as full a picture as possible of what policies one is endorsing. How Obama Became a Civil Libertarian’s Nightmare
By Steven Rosenfeld

Obama has expanded and fortified many of the Bush administration’s worst policies. April 18, 2012  |

When Barack Obama took office, he was the civil liberties communities’ great hope. Obama, a former constitutional law professor, pledged to shutter the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and run a transparent and open government.

Editorials & Actions

Günter Grass “the Terrible”

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Note from Tikkun Editor Rabbi Michael Lerner: While Avnery is certainly right that there is nothing automatically anti-Semitic about a German today criticizing the policies of the State of Israel, he is, I believe, underestimating the way his statement, and the predictable denunciations from Israeli politicians, has given cover for actual live German anti-Semites to attack “the Jews” again!!! But that is not to suggest he is wrong to make the points he does make! Please read it!!! Uri Avnery

April 14, 2012

 
                                                Günter the Terrible                          
 

STOP ME if I have told you this joke before:

 

Somewhere in the US, a demonstration takes place. The police arrive and beat the protesters mercilessly.

Christianity

Easter Sacrifice of the Lambs

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Rabbi Lerner’s Note: The argument presented below as a critique of Christian practice is equally applicable to Jewish and Muslim practice as well as to the tens of millions of secularists who do the exact same thing but without giving it a religious sanction. EASTER: SACRIFICE OF THE LAMBS… Inbox
x

Ruth Eisenbud homerific1990@hotmail.com

11:09 PM (10 hours ago)

roast leg of lamb: traditional offering for Easter

EASTER: SACRIFICE OF THE LAMBS… While Christianity claims to have done away with the ‘burnt offering’ or sacrifice of the Old Testament, it has not:.  

“Because Jesus is symbolized as a Lamb…and that is like one of His names or titles….He IS the Lamb of God…..Who takes away the sin of the world….and in “type”…He is the Lamb Who was provided for the burnt offering…..” http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090413075531AAE6UGx

 

There are several problems with this statement.

Editorials & Actions

Uri Avnery on the New Mandela : Marwan Barghouti

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Uri Avnery

March 31, 2012

 

                                                The New Mandela

                                                           

MARWAN BARGHOUTI has spoken up. After a long silence, he has sent a message from prison.  

In Israeli ears, this message does not sound pleasant. But for Palestinians, and for Arabs in general, it makes sense.  

His message may well become the new program of the Palestinian liberation movement.

27.2 Spring

A Conversation with Jeremy Rifkin on His New Book The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World

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The sun shines everywhere on the world, every day. The wind blows around the planet every day. Everywhere we check there is a geothermal core of energy, heat energy underneath the ground. And in the rural areas, we have agricultural foraging waste that can be converted to energy. On the coastal areas, the ocean tides and waves come in every day for energy. Wherever we have garbage, it can be bioconverted back to energy. So these are energies that are found literally in every square inch of the world in some frequency or proportion, enough to provide us till kingdom come.

2012

Loving and Supporting Occupy

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It was forty-seven years ago that I climbed down a rope from the second floor of UC Berkeley’s Sproul Hall, where we in the Free Speech Movement were holding a sit-in. How exciting for me to watch a new generation beginning to open their minds to the possibility that they might take the reins and become tikkunistas—healers and transformers of our world. It’s also important to note, however, that there are struggles in this young Occupy movement whose outcome will determine its long-term significance.

Editorials & Actions

Tikkun’s NY Times full page ad against first strike on Iran appeared on March 7, 2012

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Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Today, our ad saying “No” to a first strike (preemptive attack) by either Israel or the U.S. on Iran, appeared in the New York Times (in the National Edition it is on page A19). The media has distorted what has been going on between Obama and Netanyahu, representing it as Obama standing up to Netanyahu and being a hero for peace. But actually what happened is that Obama legitimated a first strike and preemptive attack on Iran, arguing with Netanyahu about the timing of such an attack, seeking to allow coercive economic sanctions to work first, but stating explicitly that Israel should not be constrained in any way to follow what it decides to be in its best national interest in regard to a strike on Iran. That’s why AIPAC gave him a standing ovation when Obama addressed them a few days ago. Obama has now fully embraced the militarist position of George W. Bush who argued that it was legitimate for the U.S. to take a preemptive attack on Iraq based on the suspicion that they had nuclear weapons, just as Obama two months ago gave the green light to legislation that allows the US to imprison for life without a trial U.S. citizens the govenrnment suspects to be cooperating in some way with terrorists, and just as he has taken the lead in developing drone technology aimed at civilians (which Pentagon militarists say may soon be used inside the U.S.).

Editorials & Actions

Help Tikkun Place a NYT Ad Against Striking Iran

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Would you please help us put an ad in the New York Times, Washington Post (or maybe also Ha’aretz and Yediot in Israel, and other media, depending on how much money we can raise) to put public pressure on President Obama to NOT agree to overtly or covertly approve an Israeli preemptive strike on sites where Iran is developing its nuclear capacities? Click HERE to see the text of the ad with an opportunity to make a donation AND an opportunity to sign it. As of now, Iran does not have those capacities, and though Israeli leaders are arguing that they must strike now before it becomes impossible to block the development of nuclear weapons, U.S. intelligence sources said on Friday, Feb. 24th, that Iran had not made any decision to go forward with developing nuclear weapons. You can view a sample version of the ad below (though when it is layed out beautifully on a full page in the NY Times and Washington Post, it will not look as wordy as it looks now, and there will be room for the names of some who have signed and donated to it).

Christianity

A different way to think about Jesus–evolutionary thoughts about incarnation

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Incarnation: Some evolutionary thoughts

Author: Diarmuid O’Murchu

Is Incarnation 2,000 years old? It seems God has been working since the beginning of time

According to Christian theology Incarnation refers to God’s entry into human life in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, about 2000 years ago. Accordingly, this has not happened in any other religion – for Christians, Jesus alone is the incarnation of God on this earth. I find this view disturbingly reductionistic and anthropocentric, and from a multi-faith perspective, it strikes me as being unpleasantly imperialistic. It seems to me that there are underlying assumptions urgently in need to re-evaluation.

Editorials & Actions

Each one Reach one; Each one Teach one

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Each One Reach One – Each One Teach One
“On the surface of the world right now there is War and violence and things seem dark. But calmly and quietly, at the same time, Something else is happening underground. An inner revolution is taking place And certain individuals are being called to a higher light. It is a silent revolution. From the inside out.

Editorials & Actions

Uri Avnery on Israeli National Suicide

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Uri Avnery

February 18, 2012

Thou Shalt Not Kill (Thyself)

AFTER THE founding of Israel, God appeared to David Ben-Gurion and told him: “You have created a state for my chosen people in my holy land. This merits a great reward. Tell me what you wish, and I will grant it.”

Ben-Gurion answered: “Almighty God, I wish that every person in Israel shall be wise, honest and a member of the Labor Party.”

“Dear me,” said God, “That is too much even for the Almighty. But I decree that every Israeli shall be two of the three.”

Since then, if a wise Israeli is a member of the Labor party, he is not honest. If an honest Israeli is a member of the Labor party, he is not wise.

Editorials & Actions

Honoring “the Other” or “the Stranger” by Rabbi Zalman Kastel

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Racism, Insult, “Other”-ing, Religion & the “rich Jews” comment

Late at night, a Jewish couple, Dr. Jeffrey and Mrs Cheryl Bogan, asked about getting a train home. A State Rail customer service manager, Roman Arnusch commented repeatedly and laughingly, “They’re all Jews living in the Eastern Suburbs. They’re all wealthy – they can afford to get a taxi”. A complaint was made and he was fired but then reinstated by an appeals board that declared his comment “racist, offensive, uncalled for and completely inappropriate” but deemed a six-month suspension without pay to be sufficient punishment[1]. This anecdote highlights one of the controversies about prejudice.

Editorials & Actions

End the Syrian Genocide of its Own People

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News Release February 10, 2012  from TIKKUN Magazine

More info: Contact Ashley Bates   510 644 1200

Progressive Jews Demand an End to Syrian Genocide and a Boycott of Russian and Chinese Products as Long as Those Countries Refuse to Join in Active Measures to Replace the Assad Government!!! Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine (the largest circulation progressive Jewish magazine in the world), called upon the world community to intervene and stop the genocide being waged by the Assad government against the people of Syria. In a statement sent to President Obama, the U.N. and world leaders of Western countries, Rabbi Lerner said, “The world must not sit idly by on the blood of the democracy- and human rights-seeking people of Syria against their brutal dictatorship. The Syrian regime has already killed more than 5,000 of its own citizens, and tens of thousands have been wounded, or arrested and tortured. This is a crime against humanity, and it deserves a powerful intervention from the West.”

Editorials & Actions

Bill McKibben on the Weather and Global Warming

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This week Jews celebrate our “Environmental Day–Tu B’Shvat. If you happen to be in Northern California, come to Beyt Tikkun’s environmental celebration on Saturday along with Torah study at 2115 Vine corner of Walnut St. from 10 a.m.-3 p.m.  Admission: a main course vegetarian dish to share with many others at a veggie pot-luck which will be part of the celebration. Meanwhile, please read Bill McKibben’s reflections below. The Great Carbon Bubble
Why the Fossil Fuel Industry Fights So Hard
By Bill McKibben

If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark.

Editorials & Actions

Dealing with Iran by James Zogby

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Dealing with Iran
Monday February 06, 2012

by James Zogby of the Arab American Institute
If we are to believe what we are hearing and reading from a variety of confirmed and unconfirmed sources, in Israel and the U.S., some day in the next few months we may wake up to the news that Israel has bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. Or maybe not. The Israelis appear to be deeply divided on the issue, sending mixed signals, almost daily, about their intentions, their capacity to execute such a mission, and even whether or not Iran’s reputed program poses an imminent danger. The U.S. is tied up in knots of its own making. Being in the throes of an election, no one wants to appear critical of Israel.