“Make Obama GOP nominee for president,” says Huntsman (Satire) + Sanders: It’s a piece of crap

Reposted with permission from Rabbi Arthur Waskow from the Shalom Center.

Image by sandy_sanders via Flickr

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Special Roving Reporter for the Dissociated Press
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
The Shalom Center
July 11, 2011

[Dissociated Press, Washington DC, September 5, 2011. The Dissociated Press seeks to report not the “actual facts” but the deeper “counter-factual” truth. Sometimes that truth is datelined from a hidden place beneath the surface of the facts, sometimes from the future  — as in the photograph of our reporter, above.  Often this kind of truth will read like satire.]

Behind the Tony Kushner story: 3 dimensions by Rabbi Arthur Waskow + Kushner Speaks Out on CUNY Controversy

Image by Chris Beckett via Flickr

Reposted with permission from Rabbi Arthur Waskow from the Shalom Center.

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
The Shalom Center
May 10, 2011

Last night (Monday night, May 9, 2011), the executive committee of the CUNY Board of Trustees reversed the Board’s refusal of an honorary degree to Tony Kushner.

Behind the Board’s original decision and its reversal are three stories.

The first: There has been a concerted attack against the best traditions of open debate and exploration of opinion in academia and in Jewish life, when it comes to criticism of the Israeli government. 

Does the Flag Condone Murder? Do our “chariots” impoverish Us? by Rabbi Arthur Waskow

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

Reposted with permission from Rabbi Arthur Waskow from the Shalom Center

[from an email]

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
The Shalom Center
April 6, 2010

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

The end of Pesach is said to mark the anniversary of the moment when Pharaoh’s imperial horse-chariot army met disaster in the Red Sea.  Just as the festival was ending this year,  flashes of truth about our own imperial army appeared in the ways prophetic truth  rises up in our day — unveiled videotape, unmuzzled journalism.One from the Iraq War, one from the Afghanistan War.

Boycott, Divest From, and Sanction Israel?: A Debate on BDS

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

Democracy Now!
March 4, 2010

Boycott, Divest From, and Sanction Israel?: A Debate on BDS with Omar Barghouti and Rabbi Arthur Waskow

In 2005, a coalition of Palestinian civil society groups called for people all over the world to engage in a nonviolent campaign to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel until it complies with international law. The call was inspired by the international boycott and divestment initiatives applied to South Africa in the struggle to abolish apartheid. We host a debate between Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the BDS campaign and a Palestinian human rights activist and commentator, and Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a longtime antiwar and civil rights activist who is the founder and director of the Shalom Center. [includes rush transcript]

Howard Zinn’s last advice to America – and to me by Rabbi Arthur Waskow

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

Reposted with permission from Rabbi Arthur Waskow from the Shalom Center

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
The Shalom Center
January 28, 2010

Tuesday morning – just two days ago – I wrote half a dozen leaders of progressive thought and action in America, each separately, the letter that follows.

It proposes creating a grand coalition calling for independence from the corporate & military elites that have taken great power over America’s future, and gathering in hundreds of thousands all over our country on July 4 — Independence Day.

What if the Bible’s Ruth came to America today? by Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Dandelion Salad

Reposted with permission from Rabbi Arthur Waskow from the Shalom Center

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
www.shalomctr.org
May 26, 2009

Celebrating Shavuot & Pentecost: Can We Share Our Food? Can We Share Our Talk & Tongues?

Can We Relearn how to Share our Work & Rest?

This coming Thursday evening, May 28, there begins the festival of Shavuot. — In biblical times, it was seen as celebration time for the successful spring wheat and barley harvests. In Rabbinic Judaism, it has been seen as the celebration time for the harvesting of Torah at Mount Sinai, 50 days after the liberation from Egypt.

The ancient rabbis assigned a special reading for Shavuot: the Book of Ruth, which focuses on harvesting, on tongues of native and of “foreign” speech, of wealth and poverty. What does Ruth mean to us today?

For Christians, that day became Pentecost, now counted 50 days after Easter (this year on Sunday, May 31), when the Holy Spirit came like the rush of a strong and driving wind, helping the early community of believers speak and understand all the languages of every nation under heaven.

Which Strategy to Heal the Middle East? by Naomi Klein & Arthur Waskow

Dandelion Salad

Reposted with permission from Rabbi Arthur Waskow from the Shalom Center

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
www.shalomctr.org
Mar. 23, 2009

[During February 2009, a national progressive newspaper called In These Times invited me, Arthur, to take part in a conversation with Naomi Klein, a well-known progressive political analyst and writer, with the intention of transcribing it and publishing an edited version approved by both of us.

The occasion was that Klein, in the wake of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, had for the first time joined the campaign for a “BDS strategy” (“Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions”) directed at Israel. I assume ITT asked me because they knew I supported a very different strategy for bringing peace to the Middle East. (Both of us agreed that the crucial change must be a vigorous, committed, and active US insistence on full regional peace among Israel, Palestine, all Arab states, Iran, and the US itself.]

I agreed to join in the dialogue, and this edited version of our conversation has now been published by ITT.

I want to note that only in the last few days (March 20-22, 2009), weeks after our conversation, have there been published graphic descriptions by Israeli soldiers of what they themselves have called criminal acts, including murder, by Israeli soldiers in Gaza. These descriptions were published in two major Israeli newspapers after being leaked to them by an Army officer who was horrified by the descriptions. They have also been widely reported in the West, and they put to shame assertions that such claims by Palestinians and outside observers were lies.

MLK Day: Covenantal Pledge by the People

Dandelion Salad

Reposted with permission from Rabbi Arthur Waskow from the Shalom Center

From the latest email:

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Jan. 14, 2009

Rebirthing King, Re-Inaugurating America: A Covenantal Pledge by the American People

[This Covenantal Pledge was developed by The Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah as part of an effort to reawaken Americans to work for the vision of America set forth by Dr. Martin Luther King in his Riverside Church speech of April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his death.