Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/the-law/page/14/)
For preachers of the so-called “prosperity gospel,” business is booming. They even have their own cable reality TV show. What First Amendment-sound legal reforms might we consider to stand against the commodification of God?
When a head of state, Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has already used what amounts to mobile gas chambers on his own people, remains firmly in power – with no prospect of end to that power – there is nothing whatsoever about that circumstance that can be remotely characterized as a moral victory. And yet, many on the Tea Party Right and what I’d call the Neo-Soviet Left are indeed crowing about the post-August 20th series of domestic and international political events vis-a-vis the Syria crisis; political events, like the deluge of Americans calling and writing to their members of Congress, which have averted what may or may not have been a pointless and merely “symbolic” cruise missile strike against the Assad regime, a mere “shot across the bow” as President Obama put it. Simultaneously, the one-note nature of this particular brand of opposition against any U.S. military intervention in Syria has effectively midwifed a new – and exceedingly dangerous – geopolitical paradigm: the use of the United Nations to elevate the regime of a gas murdering despot to a legitimate interlocutor on the world stage. As a card-carrying liberal, as a spiritual progressive, that’s not an international system I want this generation, nor future generations, to live in. Earlier this week, at a Syria policy panel discussion held at Washington’s Busboys and Poets, Judith Le Blanc, field director of Peace Action, openly thanked Vladimir Putin – yes, the same Vladimir Putin who is presently making life a living hell for gays in Russia – for his “leadership” on bringing about the recent Syrian chemical weapons disarmament plan.
In so far as any good news can be attached to the case of a man who is dying of cancer after 40+ years in solitary, this is good news: Herman Wallace, of the Angola Three, who was framed decades ago, was cleared by a decent judge and allowed to go home. Amy Goodman had a piece on it yesterday. I am no expert in this case, but I learned about it when a British magazine asked me to respond to a rather starry-eyed article by an English minister who liked the Christian approach of the warden of Angola Prison. Researching Angola became a critical piece of education for me as a white immigrant to this country who lived here for 30+ years without educating myself about the extent of racist injustice in the criminal legal system, the extent of torture (solitary is torture) and the fact that slavery continues legally (the 13th Amendment allowed it for convict labor) in American prisons. No excuses: just one big insight into how easy it is to be white and oblivious, which contributes in a big way to this society’s racism.
Many are complaining about mixed moral messaging coming from Pope Francis, including on the subject of abortion. Is it not better to ask if Pope Francis and Spiritual Progressives can find common ground to that assert all human beings are made in the image of God?
Fast food workers and Wal-Mart employees are today’s heroes, taking back the rights and working conditions that were won in the past.
There have been many threads of coverage and commentary surrounding the March on Washington’s 50th anniversary, and one of them is naturally about nonviolence: the nation’s leadership had assumed that the march would turn violent, but August 28, 1963, turned out to be one of the most notably peaceful days in the history of the District of Columbia. Still, the nonviolent character of the movement that the march defined is being questioned. There has been some interesting historical revisionism surrounding Rosa Parks and other civil rights figures who, unlike Martin Luther King, were less-than devoted to nonviolence as an abiding moral principle. (For my take on that, go here.) And now comes a book that, among other provocations, makes the case that King’s struggle was arguably a violent one. The author is Benjamin Ginsberg, and his forthcoming title is The Value of Violence (Prometheus Books).
Two decisions on Monday August 12th have offered possible opportunities to move away from the tough-on crime-policies that have dominated the American criminal justice system since at least the late 1960s. But we should not expect these rulings and decisions to magically transform America’s political, economic and spiritual culture overnight to a non-racist world of caring. For real change to occur, we need to begin a broad-based movement at least partly rooted in electoral politics led by the people most affected by the policies now being questioned.
The word martyr is used too loosely these days. Manning is a martyr, one who heroically revealed crimes of the American military without trying to use that information for personal gain or fame. Now, Manning will pay for this act of conscience with years of life in prison.
The hunger strike/work stoppage across California prisons, now in its 31st day, is a call to action that crosses racial and geographical lines. I support the hunger strike because in my time in Pelican Bay, I saw the violent, racist, divisive, and torturous practices of the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (CDCR)
When Cornel West, a vocal advocate for the poor and a staunch critic of income inequality, compared Edward Snowden to John Brown, he knew the analogy would be seen by many as provocative or extreme. West’s intention was not to equate the liberation of slaves with the liberation of Americans from a growing security apparatus. Instead, it was to amplify the issue of NSA surveillance as one of critical importance.