The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Politics

Why do right wing leaders always want to tell women how they should be living, particularly with reference to their religion, family roles and sexual activities? Turning this around to what should right wing leaders be doing we find the answer. They should be leading their people into peace, ensuring some measure of fairness and equality in their populations, and generally making things better for their people. Since this is manifestly not what they are doing, they turn to the old reliable mantra, it’s all the women’s fault. After all, if this worked for thousands of years, why shouldn’t it continue working?

To whom does religion belong? Are you allowed to use it to back up your own worldview, or is that going to get you in trouble later with your god? Today, it seems to be up for grabs.

Everybody seems to be using the same tactics. The Israeli right is tied to the most extreme religious males, the haredim, and committed on religious grounds to a policy of settlement which is one of the main blocks to ever securing peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. The regime of Netanyahu was even just blatantly reelected by the ploys of appealing to racism and fear on the part of the Israeli public. 

Young Muslims in the Middle East these days, blocked from even the means of making a decent living, or having a safe living environment, find themselves drawn to making a Caliphate in order to hasten the Apocalypse. This is their response to governments who have stayed in power through the imposition of almost constant military rule over the last few decades, in line with the control and power hungry leadership class.

America’s Republicans, deeply offended that the country has elected a Democrat to the presidency twice in a row, has vowed as their primary focus to prevent him from doing anything at all. Their outreach to the public, Fox News, warns of the dire consequences of Obamacare, of homosexual marriage, of an agreement with Iran – sure to bring in a nuclear era, they tell us. And back in America, the Republicans are looking everywhere they have any power to turn back the clock on personal freedoms that have been won through hard-fought battles since the sixties. They seize every opportunity to restrict access to abortion, they pass laws that clearly make it easier for people to avoid prosecution for discrimination against homosexuals. While Texas clearly leads the way, the south in particular jumps enthusiastically on the bandwagon.

So as all of these right wing governments unite around a common tactic, to  impose their religious views on people, Israel is torn apart from within over conflict between the orthodox and the more secular, or even just less extremely religious, Jews. The Haredim refuse to do their military service, they force the settlements, they openly disdain both Arabs and secular Jews, slashing tires, enforcing their beliefs and practices on the communities in which they live. And their champion is Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is planning on ruling with a coalition made up of a large contingent of the religious right, so he will of course have to make major concessions to their demands.

ISIS, the current self-declared Caliphate in power over a large region, makes no effort to hide their policies. Kill all dissenters, preferably by gruesome public decapitations to maintain and spread fear, enforce major restrictions against women, force them into prostitution if they are not true believers. Israelis now live in fear of an even more powerful Caliphate, the one they are assured is being built step by step by the Iranians, with the help of Obama and the misguided American left. In this climate of fear, the evil of Netanyahu seems relatively inevitable because he serves as their shield against an even bigger evil.

Fear is the main tactic worldwide. In the US we see a major turn back of freedoms, almost unlimited government supervision in the name of the terror threat,  jails overflowing, those running them getting rich, the people getting poor. Worldwide we see policies that channel wealth to the few at the top, while ensuring that housing and daily living expenses are so burdensome that the vast majority of the population is so exhausted with meeting survival needs that they have no energy left over to organize against their governments’ values.

Women worldwide should be very concerned. Even western nations have a huge amount of restrictions coming from their governments. No woman is going to benefit from a Caliphate, an Orthodox-dominated Israel, or a Republican-controlled US, unless they are happy with a world that narrows the opportunities for their children and mandates all sexual behavior and morals.

At the same time, it is only a minority who really think this way, everyone else is drawn along by the need for staying in power or advancing their careers. Sometimes just by sheer lack of reflection. Several Republican women are forging their careers by being the mouth pieces for their party line. Be careful you don’t lose your soul, ladies! Women who are looking to the Republican party to keep you safe and launch your careers, make sure you are not being used in the short term by people who are seeking to restrict your freedoms in the long term. Who should be deciding your values, you or the government? Who should be telling you right and wrong in how you conduct your relationships? Do not be too ready to cast off the hard-won freedoms that required such battles since the sixties, and for religion, the Pope is a better guide than the Republican party, the president of Turkey or the various Caliphates who show their devotion by the number of beheadings they can authorize.

 

Peace in the Middle East Depends on Women

When I think about a plan for peace, I find myself feeling stuck as to how to find time or a spare army that might be out there, or such practical issues. So clearly that is not the way. Anyway, armies have never worked, they just pit one side against another. What we need then is the changing of the underlying reality for people, changing the way people perceive what is happening, and changing their idea that strong government will resolve the problems for them, and keep them safe. This idea has to go, because right now in the world, governments are maintaining the conflict-based status quo while the vast majority of the people are very ready to let go of conflict and live together peacefully.

Government is self-perpetuated by its hold over people’s fears. It likes to stir up fear, because other than the likelihood of terroristic acts by another people, there is little to live in fear of today. Therefore it is to the advantage of a particular government to emphasize the harm that can be done by a neighbor, and to encourage its people to overlook the possibility that their own policies have caused such a situation where one people wants to harm another.

Netanyahu has governed on this basis for way too long, and has steered Israel into a prolongation of conflict with the Palestinians by portraying every incident as being due to Hamas or some Palestinian action, apparently based on irrational hatred rather than on some real issue. Therefore he has allowed Israel to be lulled into more and more devastation poured on to the Palestinians because they have not wanted peace and justice enough to examine his underlying stance.

This is not Natanyahu’s fault alone at this point, though, it also becomes the responsibility of the Israeli people who have not sought to examine their own beliefs and have not thought to look at themselves as people who are allowing continual harm to be visited on another so that they can be left alone to pursue their own goals. Yes, safety is a valid goal, but every society has to ask how it wants to live within the world as it is, and every society has to choose whether to take risks towards peace, or whether to maintain the status quo. Israeli people must ask themselves the question, are we now partly to blame for allowing the continuation of the suffering which the Palestinians currently endure?  Could we do better? Are our goals commensurate with our identity as God’s Chosen People? And the religious people can think deeply about their own identity as a people, about the unfolding of God’s providence throughout history, and about exactly what kind of society that is going to bring about. 

Most of all, they can think in the light of the very different role of women today, the role of an empowered woman within Judaism. Already there are women rabbis in  Reformed and Conservative Judaism. Jewish people generally do not have much to say against the inclusion of women in power, usually an objection to this is reserved for the Orthodox. So given the vast range of differences within Judaism, including the secular Jews, there has already been much change and development.

Therefore at this point, such concerns must be raised in order to look at what sort of society Israel must become if the current situation is allowed to fester unresolved for much longer. It cannot be a Jewish state, at least not one that has much connection to providence as it has been seen over thousands of years.

To provoke this, Netanyahyu’s actions must be seen in context of power-seeking at the expense of  the manifestation of the true Judaic longing, the longing for the realization of a just and righteous nation that fulfills the hope of God.

This is a feminine way to proceed, to seek the underlying change and to change the underlying perception, to allow for the realization of one’s own imperfections and for the realization that one’s own inaction has led to an unjust and imperfect result, without self-judgment or recrimination, but with a resolution to be different. And in this case, there must be self-reflection of women, already apparent in many ways in Israel, in the presence of young women in Herzog’s team, even in leadership, in the actions over time of the older women who seek to oversee the treatment of Palestinians at the checkpoints, and in the establishment of joint Arab-Jewish schools, etc.

This self-reflection must be brought to a national level very quickly, and Netanyahu’s arrogant overstepping of his role in the world by choosing confrontation with the Obama administration offers an opportunity. Today there are many Israelis who already doubt his choices. Israel is not made more secure by Netanyahu's seeking of a relationship with the US Congress behind the back of the President.

Beyond Israel’s problems of conflict with the Palestinians there is also the whole issue of economic and social reality. The average Israeli is becoming poorer in real terms, just like the average American actually, and the reason should be shown up for what it is, the stirring up of conflicts in order to maintain governments in power, and the consequent diverting or resources towards military purposes. Herzog maybe should have emphasized this in his speeches, and pointed out how much danger militarization over the last few years has engendered in the Middle East. The danger is clearly linked with fear-mongering policies of Netanyahu’s government, and the people who are allowing this development, people within the government, must be shown to be supporting it for their own purposes of power and control over others.

But underlying all of this, the real issue is that of women not playing a true role in their societies. America can lead on this, because American women are facing real threats to their own freedom and equality here at home. Every time a Texas state leader gets to his feet to make a speech, another bomb is thrown into the ring to challenge women’s rights, and to turn back the clock on their progress. It would be very good if women can organize here in the US just as they did in the sixties, and get out there on the streets in huge numbers. It would create a great momentum throughout the world, and empower women in countries where their problems are much greater, like India for example. Facebook, Twitter, social media, can actually make this happen if there is enough resolve on the part of a few women.

Even deeper than this, it is time to seriously challenge the worldview of the monotheistic religions on the basis of science itself, and to come to a worldview that can recognize that God is both feminine and masculine. To express the heart of Mother God, and to come up with an explanation of why Mother God has been unable to intervene in the fate of women in history, would be a very productive avenue to explore.

I think we need a serious reexamination of the reality of messianic thinking in light of the yearning of Mother God, even in such obviously male-dominated religions as are expressed in ISIS and in excessively Orthodox Judaism – not that I mean to equate these, in general Judaism has been a non-violent arena, with all violence confined to that done to the original nature of women, starting with Hagar and most likely Abraham's sister/wife, Sarah.

The legal rights of women is probably the path for change in countries such as India, Afghanistan, etc, and this involves the general uprising of women in those countries, with the support of the UN women’s movement, and such international organizations. Once there has been a statement that change is necessary and desirable, such as will happen in the Israeli election, and has happened in the Arab Spring, even happened here in America when the people had the audacity to elect a black person to the presidency, then there will be a much greater empowerment of the path to change worldwide. Israel has always seen itself as central because of its central role in the "providence of God" over so many millennia.

Maybe the biggest danger to the future today is that of planetary destruction of the environment, and this is an issue where women are making real inroads into government today, such as in the Green Party in England and other European countries. Governments must be shown up for their shallow short term profit focus that is destroying hope for the future. This must be emphasized because it deals with the next generation, an issue which has hardly been mentioned by governments who focus solely on their own power. We must stop journalists and TV reported from reporting how decisions are made on the basis of the likely influence on reelection as though it were a valid concern. It must be reported as a shameful concern.

There are so many issues on which women could make progress and be shown to be trustworthy guardians of the safety of a society, especially over the long term. As the perennial flashpoint for so many of the world's disturbances today, let's hope Israel can see its way to testing out the path of peace, rather than continually opting for the reelection of the leader who speaks loudest of the necessity for permanent fear.

Creating an Economic System

Recurrent woes are symptomatic of an underlying problem, and we are experiencing issues with stewardship of external resources. The Western world is struggling with its relationship with the resources of the physical world. Americans and Europeans are facing a new reality of poverty and real challenges to economic growth. We find ourselves trapped in a system where governments have caused the population to become dependent on government income and support, and we seem powerless to go beyond this state of affairs.

But there are solutions, and we must look clearly, then make the requisite changes.

Firstly, women especially do not find it acceptable that any person should be impoverished and left to die by a system that demands they must work in order to survive, and yet cannot come up with enough jobs, let alone reasonable incomes. We cannot accept that humans should be thrown away because they didn’t work hard enough. A reasonable distribution is not a distant goal to be desired, but an immediate reality that must be accomplished.

When it comes to inequality, people get upset (depending on where they are in the distribution), but so far none of the attempts to put things right have worked. This is because any plan encompassing the ownership of property comes up against very deeply hidden barriers.

Historically there was plenty of land, and villages could easily be arranged so that each householder had access to land and the crops he could grow. Simple arrangements for simpler times – and simplicity is usually the best guide even when things seem to have gotten very complicated.

These simple arrangements were not complicated by a burgeoning population or by the industrial revolution, for example, so much as by a ruling monarch who saw his control being potentially eroded as a merchant class grew, or as others in society began to assert their own rights.

Monarchs historically simply took the land, and gave it to the wealthy noblemen, thereby creating the “landed gentry” class as a means to keep them from taking more power. These landowners thus owed their private ownership of land to a right granted by government, making them dependent upon the good will of the state. This has continued as the basis for private ownership of land to this day. Government has triumphed over nature in matters of ownership, to the extent that now most people never even question the right to own land. However, this ownership is not based on labor, on good stewardship, or on natural rights. Government now grants the right to ownership based on wealth.

Therefore when we confront the issue of distribution of land and natural resources, we are facing the issue of power and control.

Capitalism has never gone beyond the “trickle down” theory which few believe in anymore, because money is clearly perceived to trickle up these days, and it takes a very die-hard capitalist to presume that all but the top 0.1% are lazy good for nothings. Socialism hasn’t worked in any of its manifestations, since taking from the rich to give to the poor so often leads to resentment and dependency.

What salient points are being missed?

I suggest we in the US are facing a crucial point: there is a debt of “sin” remaining from the early days in America when the traditional respect for and spiritual sensitivity towards nature among the indigenous peoples was destroyed by the European settlers. The land is not inert and without internal identity, and therefore is capable of participating in a relationship with those who live on it. Instead, it has been regarded as something to be exploited and dominated for our use.

This underlying void in the Western nature in turn evolved from the European drive for expansionism, taking land and resources without care or respect for others. This is not a statement that all colonialism was wrong, but rather that it was undermined by such flawed motivations, and thenceforth manipulated into the current outstanding injustices.

Nature has provided the land, natural resources, the tendency of seeds to grow when supplied with soil and water, rain, soil, air, oceans, living beings…there is no end. Even the most conservative estimate has determined that nature provides at least 50% of the wealth in any economy. Who, then, owns this?

Nature clearly does not discriminate. If we acknowledge our identity as spiritual beings then there can be no doubt that each of us has a natural right to this wealth, even before we start to do any labor to increase the wealth. Indigenous peoples tended to recognize this, since they had not conceived of the idea of owning the land or nature, and this is what the European settlers destroyed when they ended the Native American way of life.

Poor people then have been disenfranchised by our system, not shown up as failures in it. There is systemic discrimination and injustice that creates victims, because a human being is entitled to a share of nature, not because she works for it, but because she is a human being.

America has turned into a rentier economy where it is much more profitable to fundraise from the government than to actually produce something and engage in capitalistic enterprise. The increase in value of land, brought about by the whole, is appropriated into private hands by land owners, while the people whose labor created the wealth face a heavy tax on income. The government has turned into a predator, in the U.S. and Europe, and those countries who have been forced by the financial invasion of the West into some form of capitalistic material-based economics.

Capitalism is great, if its underlying injustices are addressed. Socialism is inevitable if they are not, and redistributive taxation follows whereby labor is taxed, making no sense since we want to encourage labor. Wealth, acquired through speculation and ownership of the products of nature such as land and natural resources, is taxed at a far lower level. While speculation is rewarded, wages tend to a minimum, and those not born into opportunity are forced into wage slavery and devastating poverty.

Poor people then have been disenfranchised by our system, not shown up as failures in our system. There is systemic discrimination and injustice that creates victims, because a human being is entitled to a share of nature - not because she works for it, but because she is a human being. Even a simple tax on the use of nature would serve a fairer distributive function than an income tax.

A new class of the super rich has emerged and consolidated financial power, completely walled off from the economic disaster affecting everyone else, and ideally suited to take advantage of others' distress. They have made unbelievable fortunes due to their special relationship with government, taking over banks, the legal system and alarmingly high rates of land ownership at the same time. In Scotland today, for example, 432 people own half of the private rural land in the whole country. Ownership turns out to be very hard to determine. Why? Because that is how rich people become richer and avoid public scrutiny.

The government itself becomes a predator, finding itself in debt and forced to extend the social safety net to a wider percentage of society. The middle class, having lost their land, find themselves subject to ever-increasing taxation to feed the hungry government, which having taken power over the right of ownership of the land and natural resources, has thereby taken ownership of people’s thoughts.

Any new system – and we must have a new system now in order to move forward – must return a voice and some responsibility to the individual for the activity of the whole. It must also clarify everyone’s basic right to the fulfillment of survival needs. No one should experience loss of the right to basic housing and food security for any reason, and neither should this be considered a handout from the government, since it is the inalienable birthright of any human being, given freely by nature.

The people can collectively choose to create a system based on a just distribution and the values of distributed empowerment and the right to use of the land.

As a first step, it would be a good idea to write a Bill of Economic Rights and Responsibilities. While we are collectively stewards of the land in some way, nature didn’t go as far as providing the housing and infrastructure we need to survive, so it’s not all rights, we have to figure out how to distribute the responsibility for the infrastructure too.

Secondly, the Green Party in Europe is seriously considering a “Citizens’ Income” as a way to ensure that each person captures his or her right to the use of some small part of nature throughout their whole life on earth. If everyone receives this, it ceases to be redistributive and instead helps prevent the capturing of the economic rent on the part of the very few at the expense of the many.

We need to create a system that reflects our own values. We must make decisions which empower the self, and support all efforts to do the same, until those in power see the value of an empowered membership.