Tikkun Magazine Archive 1994 - 2018 (https://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/?utm_source=mass_mailer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=send_mass_email)
Are You Ready for an Epoch Fail? Globalists Really Are Ruining Your Life
By John Feffer
You know the story: the globalists want your guns. They want your democracy. They’re hovering just beyond the horizon in those black helicopters. They control the media and Wall Street.
Toward Empathizing With the Intolerant:
The Unrecognized Core of the Left’s Humanitarianism
By John McFadden
In 1945, philosopher Karl Popper set the standard for validating liberals’ intolerance of conservatives’ prejudices. It’s now common to argue, as he did, that intolerance of intolerance is necessary. Supposedly without it, the horribly intolerant would dominate society. To liberals, strident opposition to intolerance seems like a damn that contains hostile, demeaning words and behavior. Moreover, the Left’s intolerance of the Right’s prejudicial practices is much less damaging than the Right’s often hateful words and sometimes murderous behavior against their “inferiors.” And the Left’s intolerance of intolerance is well intentioned.
By Subhankar Banerjee
If you’ve been paying attention to what’s happening to the nonhuman life forms with which we share this planet, you’ve likely heard the term “the Sixth Extinction.” If not, look it up. After all, a superb environmental reporter, Elizabeth Kolbert, has already gotten a Pulitzer Prize for writing a book with that title. Whether the sixth mass species extinction of Earth’s history is already (or not quite yet) underway may still be debatable, but it’s clear enough that something’s going on, something that may prove even more devastating than a mass of species extinctions: the full-scale winnowing of vast populations of the planet’s invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants. Think of it, to introduce an even broader term, as a wave of “biological annihilation” that includes possible species extinctions on a mass scale, but also massive species die-offs and various kinds of massacres. Someday, such a planetary winnowing may prove to be the most tragic of all the grim stories of human history now playing out on this planet, even if to date it’s gotten far less attention than the dangers of climate change. In the end, it may prove more difficult to mitigate than global warming. Decarbonizing the global economy, however hard, won’t be harder or more improbable than the kind of wholesale restructuring of modern life and institutions that would prevent species annihilation from continuing. With that in mind, come along with me on a topsy-turvy journey through the animal and plant kingdoms to learn a bit more about the most consequential global challenge of our time. Insects Are Vanishing
When most of us think of animals that should be saved from annihilation, near the top of any list are likely to be the stars of the animal world: tigers and polar bears, orcas and orangutans, elephants and rhinos, and other similarly charismatic creatures.
This Economic Policy Has Been a Disaster, a Calamity for Mexico’s Public LifeGreetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research to Tikkun readers and to the interfaith and secular-humanist-and-atheist-welcoming Network of Spiritual Progressives!Andrés Manuel López Obrador – or AMLO – became the president of Mexico on 1 December. The leader of the Morena (National Regeneration Movement) party, López Obrador comes to the presidency from the left. His inaugural address laid out clearly the two reasons why half of the Mexican population lives in poverty: the neo-liberal model of economic and political governance as well as the ‘most filthy public and private corruption’. López Obrador said he would not prosecute the administration of his predecessor because ‘there would not be enough courts or jails’ for the guilty. Over the past four decades, López Obrador emphasised, Mexico has followed a disastrous policy framework – neoliberalism – which has been a calamity for the country’s public life.
Rabbi Michael Lerner refutes a recent NY Times article by reminding us of the meaning of Chanukah: to reject the dominant sociopolitical systems.
Phil Wolfson argues that the Dreidel is “a compass to locate your self in this domain of the material.”
John Smelcer argues that America needs more people who, like Thomas Merton, “realize that protest is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”
Aubrey L Glazer reviews two recent poetry collections and asks: “how does this devotional poetry relate to, and even sing, like prayer in a post-secular context?”
[Tikkun and our interfaith and secular-humanist-welcoming Network of Spiritual Progressives are happy to join with people of all faiths and none to insist that our politics be guided by our recognition of our obligation to welcome the stranger/the Other, and to love them –in Hebrew: ve’ahavta la’geyr. This has been our guide post when critiquing governments that do the opposite, from Trump’s America to the governments of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, India, Israel, and many many others. Our task is to affirm a different worldview which emphasizes the sanctity of all human beings and our obligation to pursue justice, promote love, and protect the earth!–Rabbi Michael Lerner rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com ]
With an exodus of migrants headed towards The United States we have an opportunity to challenge the ways our borders are used to separate instead of welcome. This is a moment to declare that God creates all human beings with inherent dignity. We refuse to tie anyone’s humanity to the labor they produce or their place of origin.
