Truthout Daily Digest February 6, 2014

William Rivers Pitt | Diary of a Dying Country

William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: Unlike the energy policies that are filling the rivers and the air with poison, drying up the water out West while making the tap water back East flammable, speaking your mind does no harm. Who knows? They may even listen.

Read the Article

Massive Coal Ash Spill Chokes North Carolina River as EPA Considers Waste Rules

Mike Ludwig, Truthout: A ruptured Duke Energy pipe in Eden, North Carolina, caused the release of up to 82,000 tons of toxic coal ash and 27 million gallons of contaminated water into the Dan River. “The ecological disaster that is unleashed here is going to play out in the order of months, if not years,” said Matt Wasson of Appalachian Voices.

Read the Article

Shocking Facts About America’s For-Profit Prison Industry

Beth Buczynski, Care2: The prison system has become a for-profit business in which inmates are the product – a system that has shocking similarities to another human-based business from America’s past: slavery.

Read the Article and View the Infographic

Vermont Students, Workers Object to Tuition Dollars Being Used to Fund Poverty Wages

Jonathan Leavitt, Truthout: Rising tuition, faculty cuts and non-living wages for janitors and food workers in Vermont institutions of higher learning are prompting student labor organizers to ask if tuition dollars should be used to exacerbate inequality.

Read the Article

Keystone XL Pipeline to America: Bend Over and Take It

The Daily Take, The Thom Hartmann Program: We need to make it clear to Big Oil, the Obama administration and their supporters that we aren’t just going to “lie back and enjoy” the Keystone XL pipeline and the toxic, dirty and dangerous oil that it would be transporting.

Read the Article

Being the Wolf of Wall Street

Jared Rodriguez, Truthout: What makes The Wolf of Wall Street so vitally important is that it illustrates the entitled, master-of-the-universe mindset that is actively mucking up the world for the rest of us. The problem isn’t that this movie encourages viewers to idolize people like Jordan Belfort – the problem is they already do.

Read the Film Review

The Too-Appealing Wolf of Wall Street

Natasha Adams, Truthout: Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street delivers high craft and a rollicking good time. And that’s a big problem.

Read the Film Review

With AIPAC’s Power in Doubt, Is Peace With Israel Now Possible?

Robert Naiman, Truthout: President Obama has raised questions about the effectiveness of AIPAC’s tactics and even its role as the unchallenged voice of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. If AIPAC can lose on Syria and lose on Iran, could it also lose on Israel-Palestine?

Read the Article

Selling Your Secrets: The Invisible World of Software Backdoors and Bounty Hunters

Pratap Chatterjee, TomDispatch: The world of NSA mass surveillance involves close partnerships with a series of companies most of us have never heard of that design or probe the software we all take for granted to help keep our digital lives humming along.

Read the Article

California’s Water Wars: 2014-2030

Craig Collins PhD, Truthout: What happens after California drought, peak oil, climate chaos, economic depression and water privatization finally get to the population of the Golden State? Those who hope to keep water in public hands are at odds with those who connive to gain private control of this vital resource.

Read the Article

In the Name of Love

Miya Tokumitsu, Jacobin: The “Do What You Love” mantra distracts us from the working conditions of others while validating our own choices and relieving us from obligations to all who labor, whether or not they love it. It is the secret handshake of the privileged and a worldview that disguises its elitism as noble self-betterment.

Read the Article

It’s Not “All Psychological”: How the Medical Establishment Fails Transgender Patients

Molly Knefel, RH Reality Check: For transgender and gender nonconforming people, just going to the doctor means risking mistreatment, misdiagnosis, hostility or aggression.

Read the Article

On the News With Thom Hartmann: Alaska Could Be the Third State To Legalize Recreational Pot, and More

In today‘s On the News segment: Organizers in Alaska have obtained enough signatures to put recreational marijuana up for a vote in August; Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has introduced a proposal to guarantee every high school senior in his state can go to a community college or technical school for free; there’s new legislation aimed at putting government back in the hands of the people; and more.

Watch the Video and Read the Transcript

Economic Update: Public vs. Private Enterprise

Richard D. Wolff, Economic Update / Truthout: Updates on economic democracy from Jackson, Mississippi, to Marseilles, France; credit card scandals; phony labels for chicken; and overcharging inmates for calls. Major discussions of re-municipalization of water and electric utilities; post office banking; and new book on capitalism’s inequalities. Response to audience questions on TPP, corporate tax breaks and minimum wage.

Listen to the Radio Segment

BuzzFlash

Barclays Bonuses Rise to Nearly $4 Billion: Where Is the Outrage?

Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: At a time when banks too big to fail are continuing to admit to illegal activity and pay huge fines, Barclays is flush enough to pass out billions of dollars in bonuses. Meanwhile, in the second economy, most Americans struggle to get by.

Read the BuzzFlash Commentary

Indigenous Groups: “No Keystone XL Pipeline Will Cross Our Lands”

Read the Article at Common Dreams

Bullying Is Bad, Except When We Do It

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Some in Congress See Just One Option for NSA Spying: Scrap the NSA

Read the Article by McClatchy News

New Electronic “Eyes” Can Track Your Every Move

Read the Article at The Washington Post

House Republicans Attempt To Take Control of California Water

Read the Article at Daily Kos

Climate Change Not at Standstill; Warming on Course To Continue for Generations

Read the Article at EcoWatch

Racing To Save the Stray Dogs of Sochi

Read the Article at The New York Times

The manuscript of survival – part 394

So amazing Aisha! Just a few hours before you posted this, I began to feel it myself. A shift of perspective and understanding that is subtle but beautiful. From worrying about certain things to a calm almost joyful feeling that even the stressful difficult things are moving as they must and all is as it should be-shifting and resetting into new more harmonious patterns. The old ego awareness is still here looking around a bit fearfully questioning ‘are you sure you’re not fooling yourself? ‘ but like a breeze of fresh air into a stuffy long closed room it feels clear and open-even if some of the musty air remains clotted in the corners!
Despite being intellectually aware of Unity and the connection between all that is, it still comes as a wonderful uplifting surprise every time I experience these beautiful synchronicities of things coming simultaneously to so many of us in different countries and parts of the Earth. Thank you Aisha and all of you reading this for all you are doing to bring about positice changes in our world!

aisha north

As many of you have already noticed, this influx of energetic transmission is pushing on a whole new set of buttons within you, and by doing this, you will subsequently start to see things in a very new light indeed. And yes, we do mean this in every sense of the word, as not only the inherent quality of this light, but also your ability to perceive it, is changing rapidly now. And with it comes a whole new sense of being not only human, but something far, far more complex than this. In addition, your ability to sense everything that lies beyond the scope of human understanding will also magnify, as you will be brought into contact with spheres of Creation you were not even aware existed. So yes, much is opening up now, and it can be easy to think of oneself as getting lost within this at…

View original post 920 more words

The Oracle Report | Thursday, February 6, 2014

First Quarter Moon Phase: step out, break away, grow

Moon: Taurus

Ruling Mahavidya: Matangi

Mercury the Messenger goes retrograde today, but the news is good! Mercury will be retrograde (appear to move backwards in the sky) until February 27, 2014. During this time, things that need to be revealed, exposed, uncovered, discovered, and unmasked will come to light. We will see what needs to be repaired or rebuilt. We will also become more resilient.

As mentioned earlier this week, this round of Mercury retrograde is perfectly aligned with the mission of being “in place” – strongly grounded with the earth – mentally, emotionally, and physically this month. We are “in stillness” with the earth. This is the position of power and as we practice holding in place, power builds. The events of Mercury retrograde will make things stronger (mainly us.) Keep in mind that this is a state of mind. We are not paralyzed from taking action and living life while a planet is retrograde. It requires that we be more flexible.

Mercury will be retrograde for most of the remainder of this lunar cycle. The next lunar cycle, the New Moon in Pisces, begins March 1. The trifecta of words for effectively navigating the remainder of this lunar cycle is revelation, reparation, and resilience.

The day a planet stations retrograde usually wreaks a certain degree of havoc. With Mercury the havoc comes through communications, telecommunications, travel, and electronics. Don’t get frustrated with the havoc. Slow down. Turn around if you have to; it’s ok if you have to do something again. Invoke patience. Find the place of stillness inside and become a witness to the outer.

If your attention is turned toward something else today, you are right in line with the energy. Heads are turning because there are better, more interesting, more appropriate things happening off of the normal or the usual. Looking at anything from a side view reveals more of the story or picture. Mercury retrograde says, “Hey, what about this?”

Remember…revelation, reparation, and resilience.

http://www.oraclereport.com/thursday-february-6-2014/

Clearing a Space for High-Vibrational Energies to Flow into your Life | D L Zeta

Clearing a Space for High-Vibrational Energies to Flow into your Life

We are moving into a time when high-vibrational frequencies are bio-available and can be brought to a fuller realization in our lives. These energies hold the power to deepen our awareness of our potentials, and to expand our intuitive knowing. When we open to these energies, our experience of inner peace and divine love is more profound as is our understanding of our spiritual purpose.

In this cycle, many older souls are undergoing intense change that will transport them to timelines where the next phase of their healing is serving others. The changes you experience in 2014 will allow you to clear away all that ever dimmed your light. You will move forward brighter, stronger, more empowered, and with a greater sense of love, compassion and discernment. You will be healthier, more awake and alert, and more willing to embrace the changes needed to bring you closer to your soul and higher self.

Returning to your Natural State of Inner Unification

The jolting energies of the last few years were designed to shake you loose from old ways of being. The energies moving forward will help you find a new vision and identity more aligned with your spiritual purpose. For many, this year of service will involve serving as the higher self for your repertoire of past selves within this lifetime. This is a process of clearing and refocusing your energy and returning to your natural state of inner unification. With all aspects of yourself existing in a state of love and harmony, you will be able to extend this outward to assist others. This assistance can take many different forms according to individual gifts, preferences and divine timing.

In order to make the most of this time, we need to undertake clearing of a greater magnitude than what we may have undertaken in the past. Clearing is essential at this time to make room for the abundance of higher energies available. This window of opportunity cannot fully open to us when our lives are filled with unresolved emotions and unhealed wounds. We can’t fully embrace these energies when our minds are held prisoner by thought viruses or when our lives are filled with people and situations that drain our energy. Releasing the things that hold us back is a matter of bringing awareness to them, and a willingness to apply radical discernment to all our circumstances and relationships.

Healing Emotional Wounds opens a Space for Greater Love

Emotional wounds that have never fully healed pose a barrier to the flow of higher energies into our lives. Everyone has a sacred wound that dates to childhood but we don’t have to delve into the archives of the past to discover it. A sacred wound that remains unhealed is very much alive in our present moment. If you are currently experiencing emotional upheaval, the form and nature of this upheaval offers insights into your sacred wound. If you grew up in a family where there was dysfunction, the feeling states accompanying these memories drive your sacred wound and are likely influencing your present-moment relationships. Energies during this window of time are the best they have been in a while for clearing stuck emotions. It’s easy to become used to old feeling states that anchor you to lower-vibrational realities and tether you to old ways of being. As you bring awareness to these trapped emotions and clear them, you open a space for the energies of greater peace and love to flow into your consciousness and transform your life.

Meditation and Journaling as Tools to Clear Trapped Emotions and Free your Spirit

Meditation raises your vibration and over time, can help break loose stuck emotions, allowing them to bubble to the surface of your consciousness to be released. If you don’t currently have a meditation practice, begin now. Sit for at least 15 to 30 minutes every day, releasing all thoughts and relaxing and stilling your mind. This sounds simple and it is. Complications may be posed by the mind and its various forms of resistance but with intention and persistence this can be overcome. It is well worth the effort. A daily meditation practice will transform your life. There are different ways to approach meditation. Some choose to sit in complete silence, while others prefer to meditate to relaxing music. Just before meditation, you can bring your focus to questions for which you are seeking answers; or you can choose to meditate on love or some other topic. There is no right or wrong way. Find a comfortable place where you won’t be disturbed for a period of time and begin. Allow whatever happens to be perfect for you within the moment. Once you become comfortable with daily meditation, you may find meditation a useful tool for connecting with another soul in consciousness or traveling in time to meet a past or future self.

Daily journaling is another technique that will help you bring awareness to stuck emotions and clear them. When you journal, give yourself the freedom to write whatever flows into your mind. Just keep writing even if the voice of your inner critic tells you that what you are writing is worthless and you are wasting your time. Sooner or later, your conscious mind will become bored and stop paying attention. This is when rich material from the subconscious makes its way onto your page. It may take some time for you to get used to this form of writing but if you persist, you will find journaling is an excellent housecleaning tool to assist you in processing emotions and bringing awareness to the landscape of your mental and emotional bodies.

Once you become comfortable with daily journaling, you can begin to incorporate automatic writing. One way to begin automatic writing is to write out questions on one side of your notebook and on the other side, allow answers to flow onto the page. Keep your pen moving; don’t lift it from the page. Automatic writing works best when you write faster than your mind can keep up with. In a sense, you “outrun” the mind with your pen, making it impossible for your mind to micromanage what ends up on the page. When you begin writing things you don’t consciously know, you have tapped into the deep well of your subconscious.

Express Gratitude for your Most Difficult Teachers and the Lessons they bring

Gratitude is another tool that will help you release the past. True healing involves holding gratitude for everyone and everything in your life. It’s understandable if you find there are some things from the past you are still holding energy around. Old resentments and regrets can linger in your energy field throughout your life, taking up energy and space that could be utilized by your present-moment passions and goals. Over time you may have lost touch with these old energies. This makes it hard to access and clear them. Meditation and journaling can help you gain access to them. Whatever comes up in your meditation or journaling practice, embrace it and express gratitude for the insight and healing it offers.

It may be difficult to feel genuine gratitude for the people in your life who have helped you with your most difficult lessons. This is especially true of those you feel have deceived you, lied to you, used you, abandoned you or worse. Bless those who played a role in the most painful scenarios in your life for they have helped you become the wise and spiritually aware being that you are.

Love Yourself by Practicing Radical Discernment and Setting Healthy Boundaries

Forgiving and releasing the past does not mean we wish to repeat painful events. Once we receive the message of a situation, we can bless those who played a role and move on to create new realities based on our new understandings. If there is someone in your life who is treating you with un-love or disrespect, or harming you in any way, now is the time to release that connection with gratitude and love. This is one of the most painful lessons we face in human form – summoning the courage to release a close connection that does not honor the glorious being that you are. Always approach these situations with love and gratitude for what has been and embrace the lessons learned. Once you accept the lesson, you are able to move forward to new visions and new timelines where you’re loved, honored, and appreciated. If a person continues to try and remain in your life, you will need to practice radical discernment by setting and enforcing healthy boundaries and walking away from those who do not honor and respect your choices.

Undertaking this “housecleaning” at all levels helps free your energy and opens a space for new, high-vibrational frequencies to flow into your life. The energies of this time contain powerful frequencies designed to heal and assist you as you move toward the next phase of your spiritual evolution.

For more on timeline and identity shifts, see Timeline and Identity Shifts: the New Science of Reality Creation
For more on accessing the fifth dimension, see The Future is Here Now: Steps to Accessing Fifth-Dimensional Consciousness By DL Zeta

Pelis-Can Do…..

Thank you for posting this. I love pelicans! The brown ones were almost extinct in the 1970’s and here in Pinellas county is one of the places where they recovered really spectacularly. They often nest on little mangrove islands which from a distance look almost snowy:-)

Thank you for posting this. I love pelicans! The brown ones were almost extinct in the 1970’s and here in Pinellas county is one of the places where they recovered really spectacularly. They often nest on little mangrove islands which … Continue reading →

View original post

The Archdruid Report: The Steampunk Future

The Steampunk Future

For those of us who’ve been watching the course of industrial civilization’s decline and fall, the last few weeks have been a bit of a wild ride. To begin with, as noted in last week’s post, the specter of peak oil has once again risen from the tomb to which the mass media keeps trying to consign it, and stalks the shadows of contemporary life, scaring the bejesus out of everyone who wants to believe that infinite economic growth on a finite planet isn’t a self-defeating absurdity.

Then, of course, it started seeping out into the media that the big petroleum companies have lost a very large amount of money in recent quarters, and a significant part of those losses were due to their heavy investments in the fracking boom in the United States—you know, the fracking boom that was certain to bring us renewed prosperity and limitless cheap fuel into the foreseeable future? That turned out to a speculative bubble, as readers of this blog were warned a year ago. The overseas investors whose misspent funds kept the whole circus going are now bailing out, and the bubble has nowhere to go but down. How far down? That’s a very good question that very few people want to answer.

The fracking bubble is not, however, the only thing that’s falling. What the financial press likes to call “emerging markets”—I suspect that “submerging markets” might be a better label at the moment—have had a very bad time of late, with stock markets all over the Third World racking up impressive losses, and some nasty downside action spilled over onto Wall Street, Tokyo and the big European exchanges as well. Meanwhile, the financial world has been roiled by the apparent suicides of four important bankers. If any of them left notes behind, nobody’s saying what those notes might contain; speculation, in several senses of that word, abounds.

Thus it’s probably worth being aware of the possibility that in the weeks and months ahead, we’ll see another crash like the one that hit in 2008-2009: another milestone passed on the road down from the summits of industrial civilization to the deindustrial dark ages of the future. No doubt, if we get such a crash, it’ll be accompanied by a flurry of predictions that the whole global economy will come to a sudden stop. There were plenty of predictions along those lines during the 2008-2009 crash; they were wrong then, and they’ll be wrong this time, too, but it’ll be few months before that becomes apparent.

(Please click the link below to read the entire article on The Archdruid Report at blogspot-
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-steampunk-future.html?m=1)

Fresh water? Or energy from fracking? Pick one. You can’t have both.

Thank you for posting this. I recall when I first heard of fracking and I so naively thought “that is so utterly horrible and stupid-if the choices are that ir switch to renewable sources no one will think twice!”

Tikkun Digest February 6,2014

Visit http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily to read these recent posts!

Rabbi Michael Lerner Reflects on the Passing of Pete Seeger, Shula Aloni, and Ariel Sharon:

Pete Seeger: A Personal Remembrance
Jan 28, 2014 01:26 pm | Rabbi Michael Lerner
I could scarcely believe my ears when staff members at Tikkun told me that Pete Seeger had just called to ask if he could perform at the first national Tikkun conference in New York City in 1988. I had raised my son on Seeger’s music, and had myself been moved by some of his radical songs. He was already a legend, and I was already a fan when I was in high school.

Shulamit Aloni: Israel’s Most Principled Elected Official
Jan 28, 2014 11:42 am | Rabbi Michael Lerner
Shula Aloni was the most principled Israeli elected official I ever met, a champion of the downtrodden and a fearless fighter for the rights of Palestinians.

Mis-Remembering Ariel Sharon
Jan 30, 2014 02:03 pm | Rabbi Michael Lerner
Ariel Sharon was the father of the settlement movement, and his ideological and practical political moves were all about holding on to the West Bank as part of Israel. He was not a closet peacemaker, and the attempts in the media to portray him as such were nothing short of bizarre.

Recent Posts from Tikkun Daily’s Many Bloggers:

Janice Kamenir-Reznik: Photo Gallery: Surviving Genocide in Sudan and Congo

Feb 03, 2014 03:14 pm | Janice Kamenir-Reznik
Ten years ago, the first genocide of the 21st century started in Darfur. It was another in the long list of 46 genocides since the Holocaust, when the world first promised “Never Again!” Despite that promise, we’ve heard a deafening silence from the world as each of these genocides unfolded.

David Harris-Gershon: John Kerry Is an Anti-Semite
Feb 02, 2014 05:03 pm | David Harris-Gershon
At a security conference in Germany this weekend, Secretary of State John Kerry noted that if the status quo persists in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, boycotts against the country will likely grow. This objective observation from Kerry was met with blindingly offensive attacks by Israeli government officials, who tarred Kerry as an anti-Semite interested in Israel’s demise for legitimizing the international boycott movement by … noticing it exists.

Stephen Phelps: Weekly Sermon: A Minor Detail, or a Gospel Mandate
Feb 02, 2014 03:13 pm | Stephen Phelps
Watch the Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes Jr.’s Sermon on Psalm 23 and Luke 8: 40-55 as he explores seemingly minor details in the text that, upon further investigation, hold surprising spiritual power and significance.

Sunita Viswanath: Project Prithvi: Cleaning Beaches to Live Out the Hindu Principle of Ahimsa
Feb 02, 2014 09:58 am | Sunita Viswanath
What would it mean to put sacred calls like these into action? That is the question that our group-Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus-is seeking to answer. We are an all-volunteer group of New York–based Hindus who first came together in 2011. Our purpose is to bring a progressive Hindu voice into the public discourse, and to live out the social justice principles at the heart of Hinduism.

Annie Pentilla: Printmaker Michele Ramirez Celebrates Central Valley Fieldworkers
Jan 31, 2014 04:55 pm | Annie Pentilla
For artist Michele Ramirez, California’s Central Valley is a beautiful place whose solitude she captures eloquently in her work. A great deal of history has gone into Ramirez’s prints, which celebrate the history of Mexican American fieldworkers who have been harvesting fruits and vegetables and feeding the U.S. since World War II.

Saadia Faruqi: Peace Through the Hijab
Jan 31, 2014 09:49 am | Saadia Faruqi
On February 1, women in more than a hundred countries will participate in the World Hijab Day. Women of all faiths, even Muslim women who don’t normally cover, will voluntarily wear this controversial piece of clothing for an entire day. The goal is not conversion, but to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes – or in this case headscarf.

Sharon Goldman: Snapping to the SNAP Challenge
Jan 30, 2014 04:51 pm | Sharon Goldman
SNAP, the acronym for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly known in this country as the Food Stamp Program, suffered in November a nearly five percent cut to entitlements for the millions of Americans who depend on the program for daily sustenance. A Jewish Renewal community on the upper west side of Manhattan, joined others across the country in a five day commitment to curtail their food expenditures to no more than $5.00 a day.

Lita Kurth: Glory, Fame, and Ambition: the Custer Model
Jan 29, 2014 01:50 pm | Lita Kurth
This achievement-compassion nexus can make one’s head spin. A writer friend, Tarn, however, has an approach I admire: she always seems to consider her writing in a spiritual light, as part of her service and connection to others, not just a race for acclaim.

Jeff Garson: Size Matters
Jan 24, 2014 12:20 pm | Jeff Garson
In the last 30 years, there has been an exponential increase in private wealth, and in size and reach of the mainstream culture’s propaganda and reality molding machine; the de-centralized but highly coherent set of values-based messages and cultural cues – compete and win, dominate and control – in which we are immersed. This blog contextualizes these trends; making their magnitude more transparent.

Ira Chernus: Is Israel a “Jewish Nation “? Is the U.S. an “American Nation”?
Jan 23, 2014 06:18 pm | Ira Chernus
As the media spotlight shines on U.S. negotiators talking with Iranians and Syrians, the Israeli-Palestinian talks have faded into the background. They’re still grinding on, slowly, with several contentious issues unresolved.

Arlene Goldbard: The Idiocy of The System: A Cultural Lens
Jan 22, 2014 01:19 pm | Arlene Goldbard
I used to love the original “Star Trek,” each episode a short course in cultural anthropology. The Enterprise traipsed through outer space, often stumbling across civilizations running on a distorted operating system that oppressed some inhabitants to benefit others. The distortions being colorfully different from our own, they were easy to spot.

Jessica Fishman: Finding Fresh Water
Jan 21, 2014 02:28 pm | Jessica Fishman
Rabbi Dr. Haviva Ner-David’s Shmaya Mikveh is Israel’s only pluralistic mikveh. It offers an inclusive spiritual environment to a wide variety of visitors who are often excluded from the state’s public mikvehs.

Timothy Villareal: Make Guantanamo, And All Torture, History
Jan 20, 2014 11:49 pm | Timothy Villareal
On January 11th, the dedicated activists from Witness Against Torture broke new ground: they raised public consciousness about the Obama administration’s ongoing torture regime at the Guantanamo Bay military prison and other military prisons, not by holding signs in front of the White House, but by creating a “living exhibit” at the Smithsonian National Museum.

Valerie Elverton-Dixon: The Power of Unity
Jan 20, 2014 08:26 pm | Valerie Elverton-Dixon
As far as we know, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X only met once. They were both attending the debate on the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, and they briefly exchanged greetings at the US Capitol.

Michael N. Nagler: My Homage to MLK
Jan 20, 2014 07:33 pm | Michael N. Nagler
My personal awakening to nonviolence came one day in Greenwich Village when I happened to listen in to a radio broadcast covering a Civil Rights rally going on somewhere down south. A protester said to the rally organizer, “They beat us, they hit us: why don’t we use violence back?” The leader, whoever it was, calmly said, “Because that is not who we are.” Not only is nonviolence a key to what I want to be, it’s the destiny toward which we have to strive.

David Harris-Gershon: American Dream Deferred: Wealth of Richest 400 Equals that of Nation’s 44 Million African Americans
Jan 19, 2014 10:31 am | David Harris-Gershon
We honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. not just for his heroic championing of social justice, but economic justice as well. Indeed, income inequality was always a central focus for Dr. King, who in 1951 told Correta Scott that “a society based on making all the money you can and ignoring people’s needs, is wrong.”

Craig Wiesner: You Must Remember This, A Kiss Is Just A Kiss, An Executive Order Is NOT A Law
Jan 18, 2014 04:30 pm | Craig Wiesner
Yesterday President Obama spoke about much-needed reforms to how the NSA and other intelligence agencies target, gather, store, sift through, and disseminate “intelligence” information. As president, he can issue executive orders which must be obeyed by those within his chain of command, and that gives him significant power to change the way things are done.

William Bole: Minimum Wage: Rare Case of Moral Consensus
Jan 17, 2014 02:56 pm | William Bole
Picture a world where politics is not so polarized. Imagine that the American people are flat out in favor of a plan that could lift more than a million of their neighbors out of poverty. And they’re arriving at this position not out of narrow self-interests-most Americans aren’t poor-but for essentially moral reasons.

Mark Kirschbaum: Torah Commentary Perashat Yitro: I. Yitro’s Visit As Response II. Seeing the Sounds of Sinai
Jan 17, 2014 01:33 pm | Mark Kirschbaum
This week’s reading is a momentous one, it contains the narrative of the revelation at Mt Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments. What is striking is that this week’s reading doesn’t begin with that crucial section, it actually begins with a family visit of Moshe’s father-in-law, Yitro.

MJ Rosenberg: Tide Turning For AIPAC?
Jan 17, 2014 09:18 am | MJ Rosenberg
It’s Friday and things seem to be breaking our way. According to National Journal, Majority Leader Harry Reed is strongly resisting demands from AIPAC Senators to bring its sanctions bill to the floor for a vote.

Sharon Delgado: Fast Track to Hell
Jan 15, 2014 12:25 pm | Sharon Delgado
If passed, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a monstrous trade agreement, will impact every aspect of our lives, and will be the final undoing of democracy itself. Fast track, if passed, will be a fast track to hell.