Feminists, facing an escalating “war on women” and recognizing the enormous political stakes, have been organizing with renewed energy. It’s time for progressives of every gender identity to join this bloc and follow our lead.
2012
Obama in Question: A Progressive Critique and Defense
|
Four years ago we seemed to take a shortcut to some kind of national redemption. The same nation that enslaved African Americans until 1865 and imposed a vicious century-long regime of segregation and everyday abuse upon them elected an African American to its presidency. The same nation that elected twelve slave masters to its presidency elected a president whose wife was a descendant of American slaves. The same nation that never would have elected a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement to national office fulfilled some of the movement’s most idealistic hymnody.
2012
Why America Needs a Left
|
The United States today should be engaged in a great debate, not so much over who the next president will be, or over the role of government in economic life, but over the very identity and future orientation of the country itself. On the one hand, powerful right-wing voices argue that America is an essentially conservative country. On the other hand, other voices, led by the president, argue that “there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America—there is the United States of America!” implying that we are an essentially centrist country.
Editorials & Actions
Songs of the Occupy Movement for the 99%
|
Here are some fun songs you can use to convey a part of the spirit of the Occupy movement!
Fight the Status Quo
(Tune: Let My People Go, new words by Hali Hammer)
When Egypt was Mubarek’s land (fight the status quo)
Oppressed ones took the upper hand (fight the status quo)
Step up, fight back, stay strong and make a stand
Time to ta-ake command – Fight the status quo!
The Arab Spring spread far and wide (fight the status quo)
As demonstrations swelled in size (fight the status quo) Chorus
News spread by e-mail, facebook, tweet (fight the status quo)
As people gathered in the street (fight the status quo) Chorus
We work for rights, for what is fair (fight the status quo)
At Occupations everywhere (fight the status quo) Chorus
So now change comes before our eyes (fight the status quo)
This happens when we organize! (fight the status quo) (then chorus)
*************
(Take Me Out to the Ball Game)
Betsy Rose 2011 Download printable version (revised 5/17/12) • see video
Take me out of the big banks
Take me out of their game
The credit union can have my dough
I’ll cut up my credit cards, pay as I go
And it’s root root root for the small banks
Give them our business and thanks
And it’s 1, 2, 3 million more and we’ll close big banks
Let’s go occupy Wall Street
In every city and town
We’ll occupy houses the banks foreclosed
Make sure that no one’s left out in the cold
And it’s root root root for the new world
We’re building right here today
And its 1, 2, 3 billion more! It’s a new ball game.
Editorials & Actions
Move Your Money from Exploitative Banks
|
If you currently use a big Wall Street bank, join the wave of people switching to small local banks and non-profit credit unions. Then walk into the nearest branch of your Big Bank and say: “PLEASE CLOSE MY ACCOUNT.”
Editorials & Actions
Tom Hayden argues for why the Left should support Obama
|
This and other articles on the election from our readers appear at the Spiritual Progressive website where we wil present a range of views of what spiritual progressives can do in the coming months. SAVING OBAMA, SAVING OURSELVES by Tom Hayden
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2012 AT 1:47PM | PRINT ARTICLE | EMAIL ARTICLE | POST A COMMENT
The threat of a Romney-Ryan regime should be enough to convince a narrow American majority to vote for Barack Obama, including the disappointed rank-and-file of social movements. A widening of economic and racial inequality. Cuts in Medicare and Medical. More global warming and extreme weather.
Editorials & Actions
Strategic Voting for Progressives in Nov.2012
|
Editor’s note: Tikkun Magazine, following the regulations that allow you to donate to Tikkun and get a tax-deduction, does not take stands on political candidates or parties. We do encourage people to vote. In the coming two months we will encourage a lively debate on our website and in our magazine in which our readers are free to explain why they do or do not support and given party or candidate. To start that discussion off, we present you with an article by Ted Glick, and as you send in your responses to this or present your own ideas, we will select some to post them on our website. –Rabbi Michael Lerner000000
Strategic Presidential Voting
By Ted Glick
It’s puzzling that there is almost no discussion among progressives about the U.S.’s completely unique way of choosing its top political leader and how we could use that fact strategically.
Editorials & Actions
Dealing with Psychopaths
|
Editor’s note: I have my doubts about parts of this analysis: 1. I doubt if the research he cites can be assumed to hold cross cultures, so I think his numbers are very exaggerated 2. I think there is a big danger in labeling people whose behavior we believe to be ethically offensives as “psychopaths” and 3. I dont know that this gives us much basis for a respectful inervention, but might increase the already strong elitism among many on the Left who now would have a psychologically reductive term to dismiss people with whom we disagree. Still, I think that this piece deserves our attention, even if only to use as a way of showing the limitations of dismissive discourses on the Left.
Activism
Letter to Occupy
|
Occupy is not over, but Stage Two has not yet come together. I will now, audaciously, suggest a Stage Two that I am convinced would rock the world.
Articles
American Mass Murder: A Toxic Cultural Brew
|
Whatever psychological diagnosis ultimately gets pinned to him, Holmes and the act that will forever define him—as he hoped it would—were the products of a peculiarly American set of cultural experiences, values, and motivation, which hold the key to understanding how and the United States seems to produce such a disproportionate number of people who engage in acts of seemingly senseless mass murder.
Articles
Sociopaths Rule
|
A fundamental examination of the nature of our economy and its consequences is long overdue, and widespread distribution of Heist could go a long way toward making this happen.
Analysis of Israel/Palestine
Has Judaism Been Stolen by Right-Wingers?
|
Temperatures have been increasing every decade since the 1970s, producing increasingly severe storms, floods, wildfires, areas of drought, and other signs of climate change. Yet, an alarming percentage of Jews, especially among the Orthodox, still believe that climate change is nothing more than “liberal politics.”
About Tikkun
Reflections after the “Between Two Worlds” Film Tour
|
The Jewish Community’s Drift Toward the Right
by Deborah Kaufman
An American Jewish Identity Crisis
by Alan Snitow
Articles
An American Jewish Identity Crisis
|
“Jewish life had its renaissance because Israel was born,” Rabbi Marvin Hier recently told my partner Deborah Kaufman and I during an interview for our documentary film Between Two Worlds.
Articles
The Jewish Community’s Drift Toward the Right
|
In the absence of a visionary or even steadfastly progressive leadership, the Jewish community has become stuck in a vicious cycle of recriminations, while slowly shifting to the political right.