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  • Compassionate Reasoning

    It is out and Oxford and Amazon are keeping the price below $35. From the Introduction: “This book, more than any of my other books, centers on the creation of a new idea and a new approach to thinking, feeling, and doing that might help transform human relations for the better. I have encapsulated that in the phrase “Compassionate Reasoning” which is founded upon an exploration of and devotion to compassion as one of the most amazing and important emotions and ethical principles that brings healing and hope to human relations. The “reasoning” part rests on the importance for human reasoning, and moral reasoning in particular, as it is expressed and described over the centuries in at least five different approaches to virtue and moral decision-making. I have asked myself how I can acknowledge the roots of this journey toward this new idea and combination of skills and practices. When …

  • The Travelers and the Truth: States with fewest Passports most Opposed to Obamacare | Informed Comment

    States with fewest Passports most Opposed to Obamacare | Informed Comment.

    Travel is and always has been one of the clearest forms of human enlightenment. Fantasy and illusion are best served by sedentary life, by immobility that allows the clever and the creative and the unscrupulous to fool the majority through fears and nightmares. But the traveler walks over the hill, and then walks back, and simply says, “But it is not true over there. What you are saying is not true over the hill.” An then he is condemned and stoned by those whose lies he has challenged. But the traveler’s challenge has ignited the imaginations and curiosity of ten more people. The traveler is the embodiment of human curiosity, of discovery, of science in its deepest sense.…

  • THE SECOND PARALYZED AUGUST FOR OBAMA: SUCK IT UP AND LEAD US, DEAR FRIEND

    obama from below

    I certainly hope that the President can move forward a health care agenda in his upcoming speech, despite the insane descent of the debate this summer. But it was a bad summer for President Obama. It was not long ago that those of us who love Obama held our breath as he seemed to stumble  in August on the way to the end of the election period exactly a year ago. In August he seemed paralyzed before he came roaring back in the Fall to coast to victory. Here we are again with August behind us wondering what has happened to Obama’s capacity to fight for what he believes in. This time, of course, it is about health care, but it is about so much more than that. It is about whether the Right can capitalize on Obama’s soft spots, on the corruption of Washington on  both sides of the …

  • How One of America’s Most Important Jewish Theologians Became a Poster Boy for Lousy Health Insurance

    My Ph.D. is actually in modern Jewish philosophy from Brandeis University. Everyone knows that there has been a fundamental weakness to Jewish philosophy and theology since the loss of European Jewry in the Holocaust. But I have studied and been friends with Arthur Waskow for decades, and I can say that he has emerged as one of the most creative thinkers of contemporary Jewish spiritual life. His books are playful, down to earth, but incredibly creative on a spiritual and textual level.

    More importantly Arthur  is by far the most courageous in standing up to the Jewish establishment which silences all thought that questions the militancy of their supposedly pro-Israel politics, which is not very pro-Israel. Arthur has managed in his senior years, to create a bridge to the mainstream Jewish community through his championing of not only peace and justice but also environmental transformation. The latter has resonated with …

  • OVERCOMING THE ‘AMERICAN PARANOID STYLE’: A NEW STAGE IN AMERICAN HISTORY

    Rush Limbaugh and others have been quick to associate the President with the swine flu and all other ills, it seems. Apparently this is a convenient way for Obama to get his choice for Director of Health and Human Services quickly appointed. The reality of this hate radio is shocking.

    I have been thinking long and hard for many years about Richard Hofstadter’s famous essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics“. This is one of the most important essays in American history by one of the most influential and insightful of America’s historians.

    Here are some critical quotes:

    American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority.

    …

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