General News

"Sovereign Citizens:" The Right Wing Hate Group Behind the Attack on a Jewish Congresswoman?

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Crossposted on AlterNet
On Saturday January 8, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head by a 22-year-old man identified as Jared Lee Loughner. Congresswoman Giffords was Arizona’s first Jewish member of Congress. An individual identified as Jared Lee Loughner had recently posted a number of videos on YouTube including one that listed Mein Kampf as a favorite book. At first glance the videos, which consist of incoherent white text on a black background, appear to be the ramblings of a lone, mentally ill individual. Upon closer inspection however, they spew the rhetoric of an anti-semitic, anti-hispanic, “Christian” right wing confederacy known as “Sovereign Citizens.”

Healing Israel/Palestine

Leading Feminist Condemns Judge Goldstone's Critics on Jewish Grounds

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We are always interested in ideas and links our readers send us, though we editors don’t always have time to check them out. For weeks we have been deep in deadlines to get 118 pieces for Tikkun’s 25th Anniversary issue into the print magazine (in bookstores now! buy one here!) or onto the web (where the web exclusives will all be up by week’s end, we trust), plus we just launched a new and beautiful newsletter which you can see here, and sign up for here (along with other Tikkun emails) and we are designing an even more wonderful new magazine website. That’s the Tikkun office headlines. Luckily we did manage to read this email from one of our readers, Scott Rosenblum, which we are very happy to post.

Culture

Moment of Zen: In Defense of “Jibber Jabber” – Reconsidering Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity.

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In conversation with the staff here, Tikkun intern Eamon O’Connor has been developing his critique of the famous rally and of the left critics like Medea Benjamin, Chris Hedges and more than a few Tikkun readers and writers who, in vigorously dismissing the rally, missed something crucial about it. This is about how to engage people in political discourse in the future, not just about what happened at the last election. By Eamon O’Connor
Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity may have come and gone in popular consciousness, and most people will remember it as little more than a hybrid media spectacle/ Halloween party thrown by our nation’s most popular political satirist — a Be-in for a generation raised on a diet rich in irony. The event left many progressives shaking their heads, wondering why worthier causes couldn’t garner the same attention, or attendance. After heaving a collective sigh of frustration, or indifference, we went along with our business.

Politics & Society

How the Tax Bill, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and Civil Cooperation are Related

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Extending unemployment benefits: $57B. Extending tax cuts: $208. Changing the tone in Washington enough to enable the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: priceless. I’m currently reading the book Common Groundby Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel. Written before the 2008 election, they predicted that the time is coming for a growing public demand for bipartisan cooperation in Washington.

Gender and Sexuality

Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Dream Act – Straight Up and Down Please!

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Senator Reid has announced that he’ll take a cloture vote on Saturday on two bills that have been passed by the House of Representatives. The first bill would repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the immoral and harmful rules preventing gay people from serving honestly in the armed forces. The second bill, known as the Dream Act, would help children of undocumented immigrants get an education and allow them to embark on a path to citizenship. The Senate requires 60 votes for cloture, closing debate on a bill and moving it forward for an up or down vote by senators. Senator McCain, among others, has threatened to fillibuster to prevent cloture.

Politics & Society

Why Progressives Should Run Against Obama and "Blue Dogs" in the 2012 Democratic Party Primaries

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Crossposted from Huffington Post. While making a deal to protect billionaires from $145 billion in taxes that they might otherwise have used to solve pressing domestic problems or to create over 3 million jobs at $30,000/yr., some Democrats and their advisers pointed out that the progressives who dissented from the deal Obama had worked out with the Republican leadership — and which, despite the non-binding vote in the Democratic caucus on Thursday to oppose the deal, is likely to retain most of its giveaways to the rich — had really no place to go in 2012 but to blindly support Obama, so why take seriously all their huffing and puffing about Obama’s list of betrayals? Sure, they said, Obama had led peace and justice-oriented liberal and progressive movement people to believe he would end rather than escalate middle east wars, punish rather than ignore those who had lied us into the Iraq war and those who had ordered or carried out torture, end discrimination against gays in the military and elsewhere, secure rather than undermine domestic civil liberties and human rights, fight for rather than duck serious changes in immigration and in environmental protection, and insist on at least a public option in health care and lowered prices for pharmaceuticals. But, hey — those people who paid attention to these details were only a small minority, and they would rally around Obama no matter what, giving him no incentive to listen to them. After all, Obama was just being “realistic” about the limitations of his power.

Politics & Society

Superman Can't Fly

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I’m tired of the excuses being made for Barack Obama’s presidency. I didn’t buy the excuses made about George W. Bush’s term from my friends and family on the Right and I won’t buy into these exhausted reasons as to why we should suck it up and support Obama, “sink or swim.” So many believed in this “Man of Steel,” but this Superman cannot fly. Obama had a majority Democratic Congress when he first stepped in, yet not much has changed. Our president of “change” has become such a lame duck that even Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners has stated:
“Time and again, we heard Barack Obama on the campaign trail say that Washington was broken, and he was running for President of the United States to change it.

Empathy

"I wanted to be part of something bigger… Instead, I felt l was part of something really small, and weak, and I was scared."

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On Sunday December 5th, Afghan children and a U.S. combat veteran shared their experiences of the war with each other and people across the world. Their stories were heart-breaking, their mutual calls for an end to the war powerful and clear, and their gift to anyone willing to truly listen and learn about the situation in Afghanistan is priceless. You can take part in the next two conversations on Sunday December 12th and 19th. Hosanna People’s Seminary, Christian Peace Witness, St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, working with Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers have put together these amazing Sunday morning conversations.

Politics & Society

Thoughts on Rabbi Lerner's Idea of Challenging President Obama from the Left

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I had mixed feelings when I first heard about Rabbi Lerner’s proposal to save Obama’s presidency by running a primary challenge against him by a candidate who is a strong advocate of progressive policies. I definitely agree that if President Obama signs an extension to the Bush’s tax cuts for billionaires, many people would be emotionally tempted to view that as the “last straw” and end their support for Obama. Why can’t the Democrats simply and repeatedly call it like it is on this issue – borrowing $700 billion from our children and grandchildren to give to rich people over the next few years? According to a recent poll, only 26% of Americans (and only 46% of Republicans) actually support this tax cut for billionaires. But I digress, so let’s get back to running a primary challenge against Obama from the left.

General News

Wikileaks, Dr. King, and "War Psychosis"

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In the wake of the latest Wikileaks releases and the predictable response to them by the powers that be we can look to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as an example of someone who persistently and emphatically rejected the standard fear mongering of the political and media establishment. It wasn’t just his powerful critique of the Vietnam War or U.S. foreign policy that deserves attention. We should also remember his explicit distrust of the government fed sound bytes that were designed to evoke base emotions and win popular support for an often illegal and unethical foreign policy. King was so skeptical of his government that he actually advised, “the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated our enemies” (emphasis added). The tribalistic demonization of entire groups, whether communists or the Vietnamese people was due partly to, King believed, an America gripped by a “war psychosis” that needed to be confronted head on.