Environment

The Yes Men's brilliant campaign against Chevron's greenwashing

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In case you haven’t been following the Yes Men’s  latest expose of corporate misinformation check out their recent press releases. The first one was on October 19:

Massive Chevron Ad Campaign Derailed, Media Slapstick Follows
News outlets, citizens duped by web of deceit – but whose? A day-long comedy of errors began Monday morning when the Yes Men, supported by Rainforest Action Network and Amazon Watch, pre-empted Chevron’s enormous new “We Agree” ad campaign with a satirical version of their own. The activists’ version highlights Chevron’s environmental and social abuses – the same abuses they say Chevron is attempting to “greenwash.”
“Chevron’s super-expensive fake street art is a cynical attempt to gloss over the human rights abuses and environmental degradation that is the legacy of Chevron’s operations in Ecuador, Nigeria, Burma and throughout the world,” said Ginger Cassady, a campaigner at Rainforest Action Network. “They must think we’re stupid.”
“They say we’re ‘interrupting the dialogue,’” said Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men, referring to Chevron’s terse condemnation.

Inter-Culturalism

On "The Success of Islamophobia:" liberal fears and stereotyping of Islam

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My thanks to a commenter named Berfrois for a link to an openDemocracy article by Markha Valenta on “The Success of Islamophobia.” Berfrois comments: “The success of Islamophobia in western Europe is both striking and disconcerting. How, after fifty years of the institutionalised nurture of human rights and anti-racism could an ideology of vicious discrimination gain such ground?” But when you read the vehement comments on openDemocracy it’s clear that a good number of people base their Islamophobia on the fear that it is the very “fifty years of the institutionalised nurture of human rights and anti-racism” that is in danger. It’s in danger, they believe, from Islamic immigrants, and not from their own anti-Islamic rhetoric and politics.

Gender and Sexuality

Abolish "don't ask, don't tell" and ask Obama to freeze home foreclosures

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We at the Network of Spiritual Progressives are asking you to write to President Obama and Congress on two critical issues:
1. Ask Obama not to appeal U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips’s decision that the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is unconstitutional. Believe it or not, despite the fact that President Obama says he is still committed to ending the military’s discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, his administration has announced that it will appeal Judge Phillips’s decision. Obama should instead embrace the decision and order the military to comply immediately. Of course, many of us wish that he would also downsize the military and use it to advance peace rather than fight wars.

Gender and Sexuality

Coming (and Being) "Out" as a Spiritual Path

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For those of us who have come out of the closet, National Coming Out Day – which is being internationally celebrated today – is a good reminder of the spiritual journey each of us have undergone since the fateful day we decided to say, “Enough. I am who I am, and from today onwards I will live by it.” The idea that coming out is a defining spiritual moment in a person’s life is not something you’ll find in mainstream LGBT discourse. Understandably so, of course: those who control religious discourse in America and elsewhere have done a tremendously effective job at turning gay people against organized religion. Ask a gay guy if they believe in God and an overwhelming majority of them will say, “I don’t think so,” or “No, I don’t.”

Buddhism

The Dalai Lama's Difficult Teachings

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I was surprised when a friend told me that the well known American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron’s talk this week in a 3,000 seat Bay Area venue is sold out, considering that it’s the same week when the Dalai Lama is teaching in the area for four days, including at a sold-out 11,000 seat venue. (You can get virtual participation in Chodron’s event via live-stream video.)
The Silicon Valley newspaper the Mercury News reports:
…the Bay Area appears eager to listen. Already rich in Buddhist traditions from Japan, Vietnam and other Asian countries, the region has become a mecca for religious thinkers of other faiths who are blending Buddhist traditions with their own, as well as a beachhead for the fledgling “interfaith movement.” I know a lot of people who are blending elements of Buddhism into their lives, without ever saying “I am a Buddhist.” “Interfaith” is a difficult concept, because it requires a different relationship with one’s own religion, quite apart from other religions:
As the Dalai Lama sees it, today’s global reality requires us to accept two premises: First, that no one religion can meet all of humanity’s needs.

Gender and Sexuality

"Temporary Marriage in Islam is Sex for Hire": Fatemeh Fakhraie

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The GOATMILK DEBATES continue… The motion:”Temporary Marriage is a valid option for Muslims in the modern age”
AGAINST THE MOTION: “Sigheh Marriage [Temporary Marriage or Muta’a] is Sex for Hire”

Fatemeh Fakhraie
I support any way that two consenting adults can safely get it on. And so I don’t think sigheh marriage (temporary marriage also referred to asmut’a, or pleasure, marriage) is a bad idea. In a magical, lollipop-and-rainbows land. But in the reality where we all live?

General News

"Beyond Spiritual Activism," ctd.: Responding to the Difficult Questions

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I’ve received many comments and questions regarding my analysis of Off the Mat in the “Beyond Spiritual Activism” article. There is a lively discussion happening for certain. Some of the comments are very thought provoking and tough. I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to respond to individual questions but realize that there are many similar issues being brought up and so I wanted to address them in a post. Also, Off the Mat has responded to my article in the comments section and I responded.

Education

Ecosocialism: Not Your Father's (or Grandfather's) Socialism

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A Rip Van Winkle Experience
When you have lived more than six decades, it is possible to have a Rip Van Winkle experience. Life may have assigned an aspect of the social universe you once followed closely to the bare horizon of your awareness, where it may have lurked for decades, and then events occur that make you again pay attention to it. When you do, it may seem that, like the fabled Van Winkle, you have been asleep and things, though not entirely different from what you once knew well, have substantially changed. The “Death” of Socialism? Not long ago socialism, especially in its Marxist varieties, was widely declared dead.

Politics & Society

Obama (and Biden) Have No Clue About What's Bothering Their Political Base

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Crossposted from The Huffington Post
Shortly before the California Democratic primary in 2008, the San Francisco Chronicle invited me to write a short article explaining why I, chair of the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives, was supporting Barack Obama. Like most other progressive activists, I understood that a president is limited in what s/he can accomplish in limiting the power of America’s economic and political elites and in restraining the military-industrial complex, the pharmaceutical and health care profiteers, the oil industry’s relentless destruction of the environment, or the selfishness and materialism that had become the hallmark of Wall Street and increasingly the “common sense” that was conveyed by the media and advertising into the consciousness of many Americans. But what a president can do is to challenge the ideas of the powerful and rally those who have become aware that the current system is not only destructive to the future of the planet, but also to the possibility of constructing lives that have a sense of higher meaning than accumulating money and things, or building families and friendships that are about love and not dominated by the self-interest “what’s in it for me” consciousness of the capitalist marketplace. President Obama is now traveling the country seeking to rebuild the enthusiasm he generated in 2008, and seems clueless as to why it is not there. And the Democrats who followed his lead seem similarly clueless.

General News

Is the "Anti-Immigrant Tide" Reversible?

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Well, it’s only an apparent tide and to the extent to which it seems to have momentum, it is reversible. Those are conclusions of what is, in my opinion, an excellent analysis of the current political state of play on the immigration rights issue, in a just published article, “The Preventable Rise of Arizona’s SB 1070,” by Justin Akers Chacon. Last June the General Assembly of my Unitarian Universalist denomination adopted Immigration Rights as a 4-Year Study-Action Issue, orienting its associated congregations, as much as possible given UU pluralism, toward a single primary topic of shared conversation. Since then I have been looking for a coherent way to understand the causes, the political forces standing in the way of a just resolution, and a sense of how progressives might engage this issue with some chance of a positive outcome. Chacon’s article is the best analysis I have seen so far.