Politics & Society

Fear and Loathing at the TSA

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By Neil Hanson
The flap over the TSA searches of airline passengers highlights just how far we’ve fallen into the deep chasm of slavery to fear and the illusion of security. I have zero doubt in my mind that the deep and exhaustive searches that we submit ourselves to when we fly reduces the threat of violence on aircraft, and reduces the risk that we’ll experience another event like 9/11 employing passenger airliners as weapons. We’re absolutely mitigating a risk, and we’re paying a price to do so. The annual budget of the TSA is about $6.3 billion, and that doesn’t count all the collateral financial costs of a nation submitting to this level of scrutiny. We also pay with the loss of one more portion of our privacy.

Education

Young Jewish Activists Attract Positive Press for Anti-Occupation Message

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by Wendy Elisheva Somerson
The five young Jewish activists who disrupted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech in New Orleans earlier this week shouted familiar criticisms of the Occupation. What was unexpected and new was the way the U.S. and Israeli media portrayed the protest, seeming to hear the critiques with fresh ears and unusual sympathy. The five activists from the Young Leadership Institute of Jewish Voice for Peace disrupted Netanyahu’s speech at the Jewish Federation’s General Assembly on Monday, November 8, five separate times. The first activist unfurled a banner that read, “The Loyalty Oath delegitimizes Israel” and yelled the same message until she was escorted out of the hall by security. Separated by pauses of a few minutes, the four remaining protesters each unfurled banners and yelled similar messages while they were escorted out: “Silencing dissent delegitimizes Israel,” “Occupation delegitimizes Israel,” “The siege on Gaza delegitimizes Israel,” and finally, “The settlements betray Jewish values.”

Culture

Compassionate Care During Illness and Loss: The True Nature of Suffering

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by Brenda Shoshanna
Many, many questions arise in our minds when someone close to us is seriously ill. It takes a while to realize that these questions do not have one answer. They have many answers, appear in different ways, and may have different impacts on us at different times. In a sense a finger is being pointed in our direction. These questions are demanding a response .

Politics & Society

A Cry for Humanity from Laos

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This came in from our friend Fred Branfman. It’s very long for a blog post, but I found it gripping and extremely disturbing reading. This is the utter horror of empire. Just read the first five paragraphs to get the gist, along with Fred’s response to today’s expected electoral results. DB.

art

Waking Up Early …

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From Barbara Bash’s visual blog True Nature:

For more about Barbara Bash see Between Heaven and Earth: A Brushstroke by Barbara Bash and her associated exhibit on our gallery. We have reproduced other entries from her blog including here and here.

Politics & Society

A Peace Movement Victory in Court

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“By all accounts, the Creech 14 trial is the first time in history an American judge has allowed a trial to touch on possible motivations of anti-drone protesters,” the local paper said.
While I wish he had immediately found us Not Guilty and sent a signal to the U.S. military that these weapons are illegal, it was astonishing to watch this judge begin with his hostile directives and then slowly listen to the testimony of our friendly experts, and then conclude that he needed more time to seriously consider their argument. That alone was a minor victory. I wish everyone in the United States would take time to reconsider our drone program, beginning with the president, the Secretary of State, Pentagon officials, military officers, and Creech Air Force Base employees. The more one thinks about it, the more we realize how terrifying it is, and the harm it will inflict on the whole world for generations to come.

General News

Pathways to Peace in the Middle East: A Perspective

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by Peter Feinman
Once again an American President has entered into the quagmire of Middle East peace negotiations. Once again leaders of the two sides have come together at the invitation of the American President to break bread in a photo op. Skepticism runs rampant and the desperate plea is heard exclaiming the principals to ratchet down their expectations. Why should this peace negotiation be different from all other peace negotiations? And Joram, king of Israel, said, “Is it peace?”

Rethinking Religion

Talking Through Walls at Park51

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My Take on the Inaugural Interfaith Event at Park 51
By Daniel Tutt
On this year’s 9/11 anniversary weekend, I helped organize the first interfaith dialogue event at Park51. Despite all the protests over this hotly debated Islamic community center in lower Manhattan we brought together over 100 faith, community, and student leaders from all backgrounds and gathered inside the dilapidated sanctuary to watch a film and engage in a dialogue. After a long summer of intensely polarized debate around the center, and the nationwide anti-Muslim sentiments it has engendered, it was both refreshing and surreal to see New Yorkers come together inside this center to model the kinds of programs it will one day offer. As part of the 20,000 Dialogues film and dialogue project, we screened Talking Through Walls: How the Struggle to Build a Mosque United a Community, a film about a suburb of New York that faced similar opposition to the building of an Islamic center shortly after 9/11. We decided to use this film because it offers a mirror onto the Park51 debate as it shows how a small interfaith coalition composed of Buddhist, Roman Catholic, and Jewish members came together to successfully get the mosque built despite the local climate of fear and opposition to it.

Environment

Imperial America and Nature

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By Daniel Schwartz
The United States has a 21st century global imperial design for the future. However, nature presents complex issues for achieving the design. Militarism, technology and economics are seen as far more important to achieve imperial ends than nature or ecological issues. Exceeding the carrying capacity of earth along with chemical and other toxic contamination has led to species extinctions, global warming, degrading of the oceans and atmosphere and a general increase of toxics across all environments. Biodiversity has diminished and the health of the planet is in peril.