More layoffs at Focus on the Family

Ministry spent more than $500,000 to pass California's Prop. 8 gay marriage ban

By Cara Degette 11/17/08 11:50 AM

UPDATE: Focus on the Family announced this afternoon that 202 jobs will be cut companywide — more than 20 percent of its workforce. Initial reports bring the total number of remaining employees to around 950.


Focus on the Family founder and president James Dobson. (Photo/Focus on the Family)

Focus on the Family is poised to announce major layoffs to its Colorado Springs-based ministry and media empire today. The cutbacks come just weeks after the group pumped more than half a million dollars into the successful effort to pass a gay-marriage ban in California.

Critics are holding up the layoffs, which come just two months after the organization’s last round of dismissals, as a sad commentary on the true priorities of ministry.

“If I were their membership I would be appalled,” said Mark Lewis, a longtime Colorado Springs activist who helped organize a Proposition 8 protest in Colorado Springs on Saturday. “That [Focus on the Family] would spend any money on anything that’s obviously going to get blocked in the courts is just sad. [Prop. 8] is guaranteed to lose, in the long run it doesn’t have a chance — it’s just a waste of money.”

In all, Focus pumped $539,000 in cash and another $83,000 worth of non-monetary support into the measure to overturn a California Supreme Court ruling that allowed gays and lesbians to marry in that state. The group was the seventh-largest donor to the effort in the country. The cash contributions are equal to the salaries of 19 Coloradans earning the 2008 per capita income of $29,133.

In addition Elsa Prince, the auto parts heiress http://www.coloradoconfidential.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2892 and longtime funder of conservative social causes who sits on the Focus on the Family board, contributed another $450,000 to Prop. 8.

“They should do more with their half-million dollars than spending it to collect signatures to take the rights away from a class of people,” said Fred Karger, the founder of the anti-Prop 8 group Californians Against Hate http://californiansagainsthate.com/ . “I think it’s wrong and it’s hurtful to so many Americans.”

In addition to promoting socially conservative issues such opposition to abortion and gay rights, and supporting abstinence-only education, the evangelical Christian ministry is a purveyor of Christian books, CDs and DVDs. Two months ago, citing Wal-Mart and online retailers as having cut into its product market, Focus announced that 46 employees would be laid off http://coloradoindependent.com/9794/focus-on-the-family-to-do... from its distribution department. Late Friday, Focus spokesman Gary Schneeberger confirmed that more layoffs are in store, but said the ministry will not release details until Monday afternoon. Schneeberger hinted that some programs may be eliminated entirely, but declined to elaborate.

“We’re going to need to talk to our own family first,” he said. “We need to respect the people who are affected.”

Schneeberger also refused to discuss the funding priorities that Focus made this fall, including pumping money and in-kind contributions into Proposition 8.

This is the third year that Focus has laid off employees due to budget cuts. In its heyday, the ministry, which relocated to Colorado Springs from Arcadia, Calif., in 1991, employed more than 1,500 people. Many of those employees worked in mailroom and line assembly jobs, processing so much incoming and outgoing correspondences that the U.S. Postal Service gave Focus its own ZIP code.

In September 2005, nearly 80 employees were reassigned http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4191/is_/ai_n15620318 or laid off in an effort to trim millions of dollars from its 2006 budget. In addition, 83 open positions were not filled in the layoff, which included eliminating some of the ministry’s programs. At the time, Focus employed 1,342 full-time employees.

“To the extent that we can place them within the ministry, we will try to do that,” said then-spokesman Paul Hetrick. “Most of them will not be able to be placed.”

In September 2007, amid a reported $8 million in budget shortfalls, Focus on the Family laid off another 30 employees http://www.coloradoconfidential.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=C... ; 15 more were reassigned within the company. Most of the layoffs were from Focus’ constituent response services department (i.e. the mailroom).

At the time, Schneeberger, who had replaced Hetrick, said that giving was actually up by $1 million during the fiscal year. However, a very “aggressive” budget goal of $150 million did not materialize.

In a statement issued this September, marking the end of the ministry’s fiscal year, Chief Operating Officer Glenn Williams weighed in on the additional layoffs of 46 people. http://www.gazette.com/articles/focus_43380___article.html/fa...

“It is certainly heartbreaking that in this case fulfilling that duty means having to say goodbye to some members of our Focus family, but industry realities really leave us no alternative,” he note in his statement. “We are accountable to our donors to spend their money in the most cost-effective and productive manner possible.”

But Lewis, the Colorado Springs activist, wonders whether the families who donate to the nonprofit ministry, realize where their funds really end up.

“Seriously, I would imagine their supporters have got to be asking the question about whether their church is really practicing their theology.”

For Lewis, who is straight, the issue boils down to the significance of targeting a class of citizens for exclusion, at the expense of the families that the ministry could be helping — in this case their own employees.

Lewis likened Proposition 8 to Colorado’s Amendment 2, the 1992 anti-gay measure that was designed to prohibit gays and lesbians from seeking legal protections. Colorado voters approved the measure, which was marketed by proponents, including Focus on the Family, as an effort to prohibit gays and lesbians from seeking “special rights.” The U.S. Supreme Court stuck down the measure as unconstitutional four years later.

“You can’t make homosexuals second class citizens — we’ve learned that already,” Lewis said. “People will look back on this and see how absurd it is.”

Days before this year’s election, Focus founder James Dobson appeared at a closing rally at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego to rally the anti-gay troops.

Karger of Californians Against Hate, termed the rally a “big bust.” Organizers promised that more than 70,000 supporters would show up; the final tally was close to 10,000, he said.

Yet three days later, California voters approved the measure with 52 percent of the vote. While the measure will certainly head back to court, California has become the 31st state in the country to pass measures that define marriage as being between a man and woman only. In all, Proposition 8 has proven to be the most expensive social issue in the country, with more than $73 million pumped into the cause from both sides. One of the larger contributors to the anti-Prop. 8 efforts was Colorado gay philanthropist Tim Gill, who contributed $720,000 to oppose the measure.

“I’m very disturbed by organizations from out of state like Focus on the Family,” Karger said. “They came in early to make sure the measure got on ballot; they’ve got muscle and they are out to hurt a lot of people and destroy a lot of lives.

note from Rabbi Michael Lerner

There are two issues on the California ballot that have wide societal implications that may come up in other forms in other states in the coming years. In my book The Left Hand of God I address these issues in greater detail and with more sophistication than I have time to do in this email. But with the issues facing us in California seemingly closely divided, I want to speak for myself, not for Tikkun or for the Network of Spiritual Progressives, in stating my views.

Homosexual Marriage (Proposition Eight, if passed, would prohibit homosexual marriage being recognized as a "real" marriage by the State of California).

From the time I became a rabbi, I've been performing homosexual marriages in my synagogue, though with changes in the liturgy and ketuvah (they are not ke'dat moshe ve yisrael, but they are holy kiddushin and treated as such). For Torah literalists and fundamentalists, I argue in my book Jewish Renewal that what the fundamentalists fail to do is to read the actual literal words: that a man should not lie with a man the way that they lie with a woman. The words are striking because in the context all the other sexual commands do not qualify by saying "the way that x does y" but are simply categorical. But here there is no categorical prohibition, but only a prohibition on a certain way of being with a man. So I agree with Torah: men should lie with men in a different way than they lie with women, recognizing and honoring the uniqueness of that relationship. Jesus says nothing against homosexual acts. But Paul goes off against them, probably meaning the way homosexuality was b eing abused in Rome at the time. Nothing in the Hebrew bible prohibits gay marriage. And none of the religious texts prohibits lesbian marriages or affairs.

So why the fuss? I've tried to analyze this in Tikkun and in my books, I mean the source of homophobia. The Left Hand of God gives part of the account, as does Spirit Matters and also my The Politics of Meaning. There is, in my view, no legitimate reason why states should prohibit gay marriage. All the allegedly rational reasons are transparently phony--evidence that gay families do not do as good a job at raising children as heterosexual couples is scant, except for gay c ouples living in societal contexts where homophobia plays a shaping role in the lives of gay parents and their children. Most of the evidence I've seen shows the opposite--that homosexual families range from healthy to neurotic in precisely the same distribution as heterosexual families, usually facing the same severe problems that everyone has sustaining loving relationships in a society that privileges selfishness and materialism.

There is no legitimate reason to deny homosexuals the same rights given to heterosexuals in any sphere, and that includes marriage. But denying those rights is precisely what proposition eight seeks to do.

Parental Notification Before Abortion

Proposition Four on the California Ballot would require anyone under 18 to wait for an abortion till their parents had been notified. Parents, proponents argue, have a legitimate interest in knowing what is happening to their children when engaged in such a dramatic and possibly traumatic procedure. Opponents argue that the fear of parents' knowing and then disowning or otherwise punishing the young woman involved would have a chilling effect (precisely what many of the proponents of this measure actually want) and might force many young women into back-alley abortions as in the pre-Wade v. Roe days.

Jewish law has to side with the opponents on this, since the risk to life of the teenage mother who may seek other ways to abort her child takes precedence over the right to know of parents. So I oppose this measure.

Nevertheless, I would support a different kind of "cooling off process" were it proposed. I believe that an abortion should be thought of as "justifiable homicide" rather than as an act like cutting ones hair or removing unwanted growths on one's face. It is a serious act. And despite the yowlings of some that "every woman takes this act very seriously and suffers the emotional pain," I know that this is not true. I worked for several years at a public sponsored clinic in Richmond, California, in the years when I was getting my training for my license as a psychotherpist after I had received my ph.d. in psychology, and I witnessed numerous (yes, numerous) instances in which abortion was essentially a form of birth control for many young women. And I've personally known many other couples where the abortion was done for reasons that I'd consider rather light. In the final instance, I believe that this decision cannot be governed by law but should be in the hands of the woman who has to carry the pregnancy to term, or not. But I do believe that a process of meeting with a female psychotherapist, a female spiritual counselor, a female financial counselor, and a feminist rights counselor for an hour or two sometime before an abortion takes place, and in circumstances that guarantee absolute confidentiality, could be a reasonable condition that a society might set before financing such an abortion. I think that such mandatory counseling could be a statement by the society that we take seriously the lives of the unborn, that we are prepared to offer various supports for women who do carry a pregnancy to term (including financial supports for after the child is born), and yet that we acknowledge that it is a woman's personal right to make this decision for herself once she has participated in this counseling. This could be a very healthy process, but only if there really are viable options for economic and social support for women who choose to bring their fetus to term. Unfortunately, given the politiicization of this issue by the Right, I would not trust any such process to be non-coercive under the present political circumstances, and hence would likely oppose any ballot initiative that sought this outcome. But I do wish that liberals, progressives, and feminists would create in our communities an ethos that supports this kind of process rather than simply leaving the whole thing to the desires the individual woman without any public display of support or caring for her such as that which I propose. Creating an ethos, of course, is very different from creating a law, and it is the law approach that I oppose.

I again want to say that this is my private thinking and does not necessarily represent the views of others in the Tikkun community or the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

Warm regards, and looking forward to large celebrations after this coming Tuesday's elections!

Rabbi Michael Lerner RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org Editor, Tikkun Magazine

P.S. Feel free to post or send this to your friends, but ask them to please subscribe to Tikkun at www.tikkun.org or join the Network of Spiritual Progressives at www.spiritualprogressives.org. We really need that financial support.



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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-kornbluth/a-yom-kippur-le...

Jesse Kornbluth

Posted October 9, 2008 | 11:30 AM (EST)

A Yom Kippur Letter to Joe Lieberman's Rabbis: Joe Is McCain's Best Jewish Friend. Please Ask Him To Beg McCain to Stop Encouraging Hate

Yom Kippur, 5769
New York City

Rabbi Daniel Cohen
Congregation Agudath Sholom
Stamford, Connecticut

Rabbi Barry Freundel
Kesher Israel Congregation
Washington, D.C.

Dear Rabbis Cohen and Freundel,

Please forgive the presumption -- not only don't we know one another, I'm the kind of "cultural Jew" who makes even Reform Rabbis weep.

But as far as I can tell, now that Joe Lieberman and his family have moved from New Haven to Stamford, you, Rabbi Cohen, are his primary Rabbi in Connecticut. And you, Rabbi Freundel, lead the congregation where Sen. Lieberman worships in Washington.

Sen. McCain loves Joe Lieberman -- he wanted him as his running mate, if press reports are accurate.

Sen. McCain listens to Joe Lieberman.

Sen. Lieberman is, if you will, John McCain's rabbi.

So I thought I would write to you and ask you, as Sen. Lieberman's rabbis, to talk to Sen. Lieberman about the hatred that the McCain-Palin campaign is encouraging --- and the special understanding we Jews have of how that hatred plays out.

Why this public forum? Because I feel this is an urgent moment for American Jews. And because, in this moment, the men who can perhaps do the most to help us all -- Jews, Gentiles and Muslims alike -- should be identified and challenged to step up and do the right thing.

And make no mistake: Your voices do matter. If Joe Lieberman is the devout Jew he professes to be, you two are the most influential voices he can hear. He'd never listen to me. But to you -- how can he turn away?

I often think about Kristallnacht http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht , that terrible night in Germany when it became unmistakably clear what the Nazis intended for the Jews. Almost a hundred Jews murdered, tens of thousands deported, windows smashed, businesses seized -- and hundreds of synagogues burned. Quite the "November surprise," if you will. But even after this horrific orgy of violence in 1938, there were many German Jews who didn't get it, who thought they were safe, who thought this was where it ended.

Now we know better. We say "Never again." But look around you, gentlemen. History does repeat, and in this case, with spooky echoes of Germany's darkest decade. A bad economy. A search for someone who can be dehumanized and blamed. The cries for "justice". And then....?

How would we recognize Kristallnacht if it happened today?

My fear: It's on the horizon, and coming closer every day.

Today "The Other" is Barack Obama. At a McCain-Palin rally the other day, there was a cry from a yahoo in the crowd: "Off with his head!" http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/08/1517943.aspx John McCain and Sarah Palin have not condemned that man. Indeed, they promise to ratchet up their "questions" about Obama in the final weeks of the campaign. At this point, it seems, they'd find nothing upsetting if the audiences at their rallies showed up with torches and pitchforks.

Jews, above all others, should fear this kind of hate speech. It may start with the demonization of one black man. Then it will move on to greedy Wall Streeters and "Jewish bankers" and a "liberal media" owned and controlled by Jews. [It's already happening: The Anti-Defamation League http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Internet_75/5366_75.htm reports "a dramatic upsurge in anti-Semitic statements" on financial message boards on the Web. ] And then -- it sounds crazy, but it sounded crazy to many Jews in Germany -- the mob will come for us. Because that's where this goes. It's where it always goes. No matter where it starts, it ends with the Jews -- we're the ultimate "Other."

On your synagogue's web site, Rabbi Cohen, I note that you have a large family. Six daughters? Mazel tov. We have only one, but she is as precious to us as your girls are to you and your wife, and the thought of having her wrenched from my hand at some 21st century equivalent of a railroad freight yard -- it wakes me in the night.

I know I am asking a hard thing of you -- to confront Joe Lieberman and ask him to talk to John McCain, and, if McCain won't stop this madness, to call upon Sen. Lieberman to condemn his friend.

But maybe if I make this request both public and personal -- maybe if I invoke the images of Germany, just seven decades ago -- and ask that you do what you can to keep our children from harm, you will see how crucial this moment is to each and every Jew. And how much power you have to help us, all of us, who dare to hope for better from this country but find ourselves, in the middle of the night, awake and terrified.

A healthy and productive New Year to you and yours.

Jesse Kornbluth

A note from Rabbi Michael Lerner

A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE OF FORGIVING AND REPENTANCE

You Don't Have to be Jewish to Use these Next Days to Seek Forgiveness and to Forgive Others:

(The ten days of Repentance that Jews observe this year (2008 secular, 5769 Jewish calendar) from the eve of Rosh Hashanah Sept. 29thh to the end of Yom Kippur at nightfall October 9th can be used by anyone, including atheists and people from any and every religion, to focus on this spiritual practice-or any other time in the year that works best for you. Muslims may also find this of value as they complete the Ramadan season. The practices are useful for atheists and agnostics and skeptics of all sorts--you don't have to believe in God to try these practices.)

Practice 1: Repentance

Carefully review your life, acknowledge to yourself who you have hurt and where your life has gone astray from your own highest ideals. Find a place where you can be safely alone, and then say outloud who and how you've hurt others and how you've hurt yourself. In the case of others, go to them and say clearly what you've done and ask for forgiveness. Do not mitigate or "explain"-just acknowledge and sincerely ask for forgiveness.

To assist you in this process, download the High Holiday Workbook 5769 called "America Needs Repentance" at www.Beyttikkun.org. (click on the picture of the workbook when you get to www.beyttikkun.org) Or, on some computers it might be possible to simply click here. This supplement can provide you with more detailed ways to make this Repentance work effectively.

We do not start from the assumption that anyone has become evil. Rather, we vision any 'sins' as "missing the mark." We are born pure and with the best of intensions to be the highest possible spiritual being we can be, as though we were an arrow being shot straight toward God to connect more fully, yet at various points in our lives the arrow gets slightly off track and misses the mark. Repentance is really about a mid-course adjustment to get back on trace.

Practice 2: Forgiveness

Every night before going to sleep or every morning before engaging in your various tasks, projects or interactions with others, review your life, recall who you feel has hurt or betrayed you and toward whom you are still holding resentment or anger. Then, find a place to say this out loud:

MEDITATION OR PRAYER OF FORGIVENESS

YOU, my ETERNAL FRIEND, YHVH, THE POWER OF TRANSFORMATION AND HEALING IN THE UNIVERSE, WITNESS now that I forgive anyone who hurt or upset me or who offended me by

- damaging my body, my property, my reputation, hurting my feelings, shaming me, undermining my friendships or hurting my income or scaring me or making me angry
-
- or damaging people that I love-

whether by accident or purposely-- with words, deeds, thoughts or attitudes.

I think particularly of……fill in here anyone in your life who may have done some of the above).

I forgive (name each person) and every person who has hurt or upset me, whether or not I can remember them at this moment.

May no one be punished because of me.

May no one suffer from karmic consequences for hurting or upsetting me.

Help me, Eternal Friend, to keep from offending You and others.
Help me to be thoughtful and not commit outrage by doing what is evil in Your eyes.

Whatever sins I have committed, blot out, please, in Your abundant kindness, and spare me suffering or harmful illnesses.

Help me become aware of the ways I may have unintentionally or intentionally hurt others,
- and please give me guidance and strength to rectify those hurts--- and to develop the sensitivity to not continue acting in a hurtful way.
Let me forgive others,
- let me forgive myself--but also let me change in ways that make it easy for me to avoid paths of hurtfulness to others.

I seek peace, let me BE peace.
I seek justice, let me be just.
I seek a world of kindness, let me be kind.
I seek a world of generosity, let me be generous with all that I have and to everyone I encounter in my life and to those whom I do not encounter but who need my help..
I seek a world of sharing, let me share all that I have.
I seek a world of giving, let me be giving to all around me.
I seek a world of love-- let me be loving beyond all reason,
beyond all normal expectation, beyond all societal frameworks that tell me how much love is "normal,"
- beyond all fear that giving too much love will leave me with too little.
And let me be open, aware, sensitive and receptive to all the love that is already coming to me, from:
- the love of people I know, -
- the love that is part of the human condition,
- the accumulated love of past generations that flows through and is embodied in the language, music, agriculture & recipes for cooking or preparing food, technology, literature, religions, agriculture, and family heritages that have been passed on to me and to us.

Let me pass that love on to the next generations in an even fuller and more conscious way.

Source of goodness and love in the universe, let me be alive to all the goodness that surrounds me.
And let that awareness of the goodness and love of the universe be my shield and protector.

Hear the words of my mouth and may the meditations of my heart find acceptance before You, Eternal Friend, who protects and frees me.
Amen.

Composed by Rabbi Michael Lerner based on the previous writing of Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi. If you wish us help to spread the consciousness represented in this prayer, please join our Interfaith organization The Network of Spiritual Progressives (which is also open to atheists and agnostics who don't relate to organized religion but who do acknowledge a spiritual dimension to life and reality). Please join us at www.spiritualprogressives.org or by calling 510 644 1200 or by emailing pete@tikkun.org or RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org. And please help us build this movement. If you live in the Bay Area, you may also wish to join Beyt Tikkun synagogue or come to some of our Torah studies (you don't have to be Jewish to do so). Info at www.BeytTikkun.org.

If you wish to be in direct contact with Rabbi Lerner, send an email to RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org (you will have to fill out a short form from "Spam Arrest" which they'll send to you, and then your message will be received). Rabbi Lerner does not consult the email from Monday night till Wednesday night of this week, since he is observing Rosh Hashanah. In general, he reads any personal letter labeled "personal" in the subject matter, but may not be able to respond to each note--please forgive him for that, but as he is rabbi of Beyt Tikkun, editor of Tikkun magazine, and chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives he has more than full plate, and can't always respond to requests, but will always read and learn from your correspondence.

Please feel free to send this spiritual practice to everyone you know! And please direct them to our website www.spiritualprogressives.org


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[Editor's note: It is a sad way to enter the High Holidays, but for those of us who are religious Jews and believe that we have an obligation to repent not only for ourselves but for our community, it is important to pay attention when the same right-wing Jews who are murdering and causing pogroms against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank are now using their violence against peace-oriented intellectuals and writers inside Israel. It is striking that the U.S. media has largely ignored this story, though if the attack had been by an Arab you can be sure it would have been front page news.

In the past, we at Tikkun have received many threats, and our editor Rabbi Michael Lerner continues to be subject to vile attacks and distortions, plus actual death threats from right-wing Israelis. For those who believe that this is all just paranoia and nobody should take them seriously, the bomb that almost killed Tikkun author and Ha'aretz columnist Zeev Sternhell, one of the most famous historians who taught at the Hebrew University about French fascism and who has written in Tikkun about he dangers of the Israeli right and the way it has caused Israel to lose its way, should now be a confirmation that the verbal violence against peace advocates in the Jewish world in the U.S. not only leads American politicians to blindly follow AIPAC politics, but may constitute a real physical threat.

. What is needed now from soon-to-be-interim Prime Minister Tzipi Livni is what Ehud Olmert never delivered: not just more negotiations, but changing the facts of the ground by unilaterrally dismantling many West Bank settlements, removing the roadblocks that exist within the West Bank (not the ones leading to Israel inside the Green Line) and releasing from the prison camps thousands and thousands of Palestinians who have never been convicted of any crime and are held, tortured, and then released without ever having a chance to defend their innocence. Unless the facts on the ground change, and Israel makes dramatic steps against the settlers, the settlers will continue and escalate their violence against fellow Jews who want peace. Bring the settlers back within the Green Lines, and create facts of peace insted of facts of war. And provide resources for protection of the Jews most well-known for speaking out for peace. And yes, even writing this feels scary, because who knows what right-winger will read it and escalate their violence? But this is the kind of question Jews should be addressing during aseret yemey teshuva--the 10 days of repentance.


May we all be inscribed for a year in which the US, Israel, and all others on the planet make major leaps forward toward a world of peace, justice, ecological sanity, and generosity of spirit! Shana tova! ]


Prof. Zeev Sternhell Speaks Out from His Hospital Bed
Interview By Akiva Eldar in Ha'aretz, Sept.29, 2008 Tel Aviv Erev Rosh Hashanah


Professor Zeev Sternhell's house on Jerusalem's Agnon Street is easily located by the iron gate with the broken glass. Sternhell says the bombing could have ended with him having to have both legs amputated.

Fortunately, last Thursday night he and his wife Ziva had returned from abroad and their suitcases, left in the narrow hallway, separated him and the pipe bomb that had been attached to the door.

The living room is filled with flowers and the telephone doesn't stop ringing. The news is quoting ministers' statements from the cabinet meeting.
Advertisement

Sternhell, while still in the hospital, drew a direct line between the state's surrender to the extreme right rampaging in the territories and the terrorist or organization that tried to kill him.

"What are those ministers talking about," he asks, when Vice Premier Haim Ramon blasts the government on the television news for fearing "those hooligans," as Ramon called them.

Sternhell: "Who has to deal with the outposts? Me? You? Who's to blame for the semi-autonomous state in the territories? Groups of settlers do whatever they feel like. Police officers and reserve soldiers go home with broken arms. How did they let things deteriorate to this lack of control in the West Bank? I told my students that not intervening for a weak child who needs help against a strong child is intervening for the strong child. Whoever fails to enforce the law and protect the Palestinians from the settlers who attack them is cooperating with the hooligans and lawbreakers."

The settlers argue that they are the weak child. Especially since the evacuation of the Gaza Strip.

"I understand exactly what it's like to be a refugee and I'm sorry the Gush Katif settlers were not allowed to build a new life within the Green Line. [But] every time the government takes a step in the right direction, like pulling out of Gaza, it hastens to console the settlers and promise them this will go no further.

"I'm suggesting an alternative to exclusive ownership of the land that justifies occupation. It would be based on a rational view of universal rights, especially the right to liberty and dignity, including for the Palestinians. This is the social-democratic approach that shaped 20th century Europe. It would strengthen Zionism, unlike the insistence on exclusivity over all the Land of Israel which rejects the other's rights, undermines the Zionist ideal, and is a proven prescription for disaster."

Are the extreme right wing and settlers anti-Zionists?

"Certainly. The right wing advocating the greater Israel is the real post-Zionist body. Whoever supports the occupation, i.e. a binational state, is no Zionist. This could also be said of politicians who drag their feet in negotiations intended to bring about a two-state solution for two nations. They're putting off this solution to the unforeseeable future, endangering the Jewish state's future."

Will you use the bombing to increase your influence?

"My job is to criticize. I have no intention of returning to politics. I'm glad my injury shocked the cabinet and Knesset. But what remains of [prime minister Yitzhak] Rabin's murder, which caused a much greater shock? A one-day annual festival.

The politicians must declare war on the extreme right and occupation - that's the swamp where those mosquitoes breed. Otherwise they won't even be a footnote in history."

As a member of the Zionist left and a historian specializing in 20th century fascism, are you pleased with the role of the Israeli left in the confrontation with the right?

"The Israeli left has made no political mark. It has good people, like [MK] Ophir Pines and [Education Minister] Yuli Tamir, but they have no impact on their party. No one is trying to shape the future of war and peace, or of social progress. Instead, the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker, even as the free market's mythology is crumbling around us and begging for state intervention to save it. This is the very moment when the left should rear up and proclaim its difference, remind us that the rightist ideology is a total failure and delivers only political, social and economic disaster. A left-wing party worthy of the name should be shouting from the rooftops by now."

In an interview with Haaretz six months ago you said your children's and grandchildren's future did not seem secure.

"I fear that unless an immediate change takes place, in 50 years my granddaughters will have no reason to live here. If we're doomed to be a minority in a multinational state, why live in Tel Aviv rather than California? For that I had to sacrifice so much? Our grandchildren will not understand the justification for the colonial reality here. That's the greatest danger to our society.

"Despite the difficulties my generation has experienced, we were always accompanied by the hope of a better future. My students don't have the feeling that next year will be better, they feel that tomorrow is not safe. We believed we were going in the right way, that justice was on our side.

"Today young people's conviction of that is crumbling. Occupation is rotting our society. The terrible violence in the territories is spilling over the Green Line. This is inevitable - different standards and laws for different people cannot exist without affecting all of society. I'm not seeking absolute justice, only an end to building a de facto apartheid, only to ensure the creation of a society that future generations will not be ashamed of."
*************************************************************

Uri Avnery
27.9.08

It Can Happen Here!

THE GERMAN name Sternhell means bright as the stars. The name fits: the positions of Professor Ze'ev Sternhell indeed stand out sharply against the darkness of the sky. He warns against Israeli fascism. This week, Israeli fascists laid a pipe-bomb at the entrance of his apartment and he was lightly injured.

The choice of victim seems surprising at first. But the perpetrators knew what they were doing.

They did not attack the activists who demonstrate every week against the Separation Wall in Bil'in and Na'alin. They did not attack the leftists who mobilize every year - this year, too - to help the Palestinians pick their olives near the most dangerous settlements. They did not attack the "Women in Black" who demonstrate every Friday, or the women of "Machsom Watch", who keep an eye on events at the army checkpoints. They attacked a person whose entire activity is in the academic field.

The struggles on the ground are essential. But their main purpose is to influence public opinion. That is the main battlefield, and there the man of letters has an important part to play.

On this battlefield, two visions confront each other, two visions that are as far apart as the West is from the East. On the one side: An enlightened Israel, modern, secular, liberal and democratic, living in peace and partnership with Palestine as an integral part of the region. On the other side: a fanatical Israel, religious, fascist, cut off from the region and civilized humanity, a people that "dwells alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations" (Numbers, 23:9), where "the sword will devour for ever" (2 Samuel 2:26).

Ze'ev Sternhell is one of the outstanding guides of the enlightened vision. His positions are bright as the stars, resolute and incisive. Not a surprising target for the Neo-Nazi pipe-dreamers and pipe-bombers.


THE FIELD of Sternhell's academic expertise is the origins of Fascism, a subject that has occupied me all my life. The reasons for our interest are similar: Nazism left an indelible stamp on our childhood and fate. As a child, I witnessed the rise of Nazism in Germany. As a child, Sternhell saw it in Poland, when, after the death of his father, he lost his mother and sister in the Holocaust.

"He who has been scalded by boiling water is cautious even with cold water," a Hebrew adage goes. Those who experienced Fascism bursting into their lives in childhood are sensitive to the slightest symptom of the outbreak of this disease. In 1961 I wrote a book called "The Swastika" (which exists only in Hebrew), in which I tried to crack the code of the roots of Nazism. At the end of the book I posed the question: Can it happen here? My unequivocal answer was: Yes, indeed.

Because of this, I am sensitive to every warning sign in our society. As a journalist and magazine editor, I shone the searchlight on all such signs. As a political activist, I fought against them in the Knesset and in the street.

Sternhell, on his part, after a military career, is a pure academic. He uses the instruments of academia: research, teaching and publication. He strives for exact definitions, without seeking popularity or avoiding provocation. In one of his articles years ago he asserted that the violent response of the Palestinians to the settlements is quite natural. By this he attracted the lasting wrath of the settlers and the extreme Right, which made an effort to prevent him from receiving the Israel Prize, Israel's highest distinction.

Now the pipe-bombs are speaking.


WHO LAID the bomb? A lone individual? A group? A new underground? The terrorists from the settlements? That's for the police and the Shin-Bet to find out.

>From the public point of view, the matter is much more simple: it is quite clear in which flowerbed these poisonous weeds grow, which ideology serves as fertilizer, and who is spreading it.

Israeli Fascism is alive and kicking. It is growing in the flowerbed that produced the various religious-nationalist underground groups of the past: the group that tried to bomb the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount, the underground that tried to assassinate the Palestinian mayors, the "Kach" gang, the perpetrator of the Hebron massacre Baruch Goldstein, the murderer of peace activist Emil Gruenzweig, the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin and all the underground groups that were uncovered at an early stage before their deeds could bring them to public notice.

These acts cannot simply be attributed to individuals or "rogue groups". There exists a definite fascist fringe at the margin of Israel's political society. Its ideology is religious-nationalist, and its spiritual leaders are mostly "Rabbis", who formulate its world view and the practical application. These Jewish idolaters do not work in secret. On the contrary, they offer their wares on the open market.

This sector is concentrated in the "ideological" settlements. That does not mean that all settlers are fascists. But most fascists are settlers. They are concentrated in certain well-known settlements. By accident or not by accident, all these settlements are located in the heart of the West Bank, beyond the Separation Wall. The first of these, in the Hebron area, were installed with the help of "leftist" leader Yigal Allon, and in the Nablus area by "leftist" leader Shimon Peres.


DURING THE last months, there has been a marked increase in the number of incidents in which settlers attack Palestinians, soldiers, policemen and "leftists".

These acts are committed openly, in order to terrorize and deter. Settlers riot in the Palestinian villages whose lands they covet, or for revenge. These are "pogroms" in the classical sense of the term: riots by an armed mob intoxicated with hatred against helpless people, while the police and the army look on. The Pogromchiks destroy, injure and kill. These days it is happening more and more frequently.

In the few cases when the army or the police intervene, they do not turn on the settlers, but on the Israeli peace activists who come to help the beleaguered Palestinian farmers. The spokesmen of the Security Establishment and the commentators try to sound balanced and speak about "rioters from the Left and the Right". That is a false even handedness, which itself belongs to the Fascist arsenal of tricks.

The Settlers' pogroms are violent by nature, both in thought and deed, while the peace activists are non-violent on principle. If there is violence, it comes from the army and the border police, the pretext being that local boys have been throwing stones. What is not mentioned is that the well-protected soldiers and border policemen pursue the Palestinian demonstrators into the alleys of their villages.

The "boldness" of the extreme right-wing thugs - or "rightist activists" as the media insist on calling them courteously - is increasing by the day. They do whatever they want, knowing full well that no harm will befall them. The police do not interfere, since anyhow the courts will not mete out meaningful punishment.


ANYBODY WHO knows the history of Nazism is familiar with the shameful role played by the courts and the other law-enforcement agencies in the German republic vis-à-vis the law-breakers whose declared purpose was to put an end to the democratic system. The judges imposed ludicrously light penalties on Nazi rioters, whom they considered "misguided patriots", while treating Communist rioters as foreign agents and traitors.

Now we are experiencing this phenomenon here. The law-breaking settlers get symbolic sentences, while Palestinians who are accused of much lesser offenses get harsh penalties. Nowadays, even a settler who sets his dog on a company commander goes free, as does a settler who breaks the bones of a battalion chief.

The army's internal justice system can only be called monstrous: the commander who held up a bleeding woman in labor at a checkpoint causing the death of the child, was punished with two weeks detention. The commander who told a soldier to shoot a handcuffed Palestinian prisoner in the leg was "transferred", meaning that this war criminal can serve in another unit.


DOES THE increase in the number and severity of such incidents testify to the increasing power of Israeli Fascism? At first sight, one might get this impression.

However, on second thought I think that the opposite is true.

The fanatical settlers know that they have lost the support of public opinion in Israel, and that ordinary people consider them dangerous thugs. Their actions, as seen on television, arouse distaste, even abhorrence. The vision of "All of Eretz-Israel" has not only lost altitude - it has crashed on the ground of reality. The Zealots are acting out of weakness and frustration.

Much as the Nazis hated the German republic, these fanatics are starting to hate the State of Israel. And with good reason. They see that they have no place in a national consensus that is solidifying around the concept of "Two States for Two peoples", whether it is being accepted for negative reasons, such as demographic fears or the burdens of occupation, or for positive reasons, such as the hope for peace and prosperity after the withdrawal from the occupied territories.

The discussion about the borders is still going on, but the majority sees the Separation Wall as the future border. (As we made clear right from the beginning, the wall was not really being constructed in order to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers, as was claimed, but as a future border between the two states.)

The Israeli establishment wants to annex the lands between the wall and the Green Line, and is prepared to give the Palestinians Israeli areas in return. What does this tell the settlers?

Most settlers live in settlements near the Green Line, which according to this concept will be joined to Israel. These are, not by accident, the non-ideological "lifestyle" settlers, those who were looking for cheap apartments and "quality of life" at a short distance from Tel-Aviv or Jerusalem. These settlers will, probably, agree in the end to any peace that leaves them in Israel.

The great majority of the extreme settlers, those motivated by a religious-Fascist ideology, live in the small settlements east of the wall, which must be dismantled when peace comes. This is a small minority even among the settlers, supported by a radical minority on the extreme right. That is where violent Israeli Fascism is growing.


ONCE UPON a time it seemed that a Red Line ran parallel to the Green Line - that nationalist-religious terrorism would hurt "only" Palestinians, not Israelis. Even Rabbi Meir Kahane, a born fascist, said so.

That illusion was shattered with the murder of Yitzhak Rabin. Israeli Fascism was found to be like any other classical Fascism, which thunders against the "foreign enemy" but directs its terrorism against the "enemy within". The pipe-bomb at the entrance of Sternhell's home must turn on all the red lights, as it joins the murder of Emil Gruenzweig and the threats on the lives of other conspicuous peace activists.

The decisive battle, the battle for Israel, is entering a new phase - much more violent, much more dangerous. But more serious than any danger to individuals is the danger to Israeli society as a whole. Especially if it does not mobilize all its resources - government, police, Security Service, the law, the courts, the media and the educational system - for an all out battle against this danger.

I do not believe that Fascism will win in our society. I believe in the strength of Israel democracy. But if I am pushed into a corner and asked: "Can it happen here?" I am bound to answer: "Yes, it can."

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HNN Podcast: Andy Rooney on Atheism




Humanist Network News #35
Show Notes


Segment 1: Andy Rooney on Atheism

Andy Rooney is America's favorite curmudgeon, known for his commentaries on the CBS news program 60 Minutes and for his syndicated newspaper column. Most people know Rooney for his lighthearted, somewhat perplexed observations about everyday things. But in this short interview with HNN, Rooney gets serious about his atheism. He also shares his views on all the faith talk coming from the candidates in the presidential election.

End: 5:15

Segment 2: Spokesmen for Secularism in the U.K.

Terry Sanderson is the executive director of the London-based National Secular Society. Keith Porteous Wood is the president of the National Secular Society. In this segment, the two secular activists swap humorous stories about appearing in the national media spotlight. They also explain their recent victory in seeing the blasphemy laws repealed in Britain. As part of the celebration of the repeal of these laws, they convince a famous Shakespearean actor (who also appeared in the Lord of The Rings) to read one of the blasphemous poems that had been subject to prosecution under the blasphemy laws. Not the most dignified role this famous actor has played, but one that he accepted enthusiastically nonetheless.

End: 26:26

Links:

Andy Rooney's Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Rooney | National Secular Society http://www.secularism.org.uk/ | Podcast Awards http://podcastawards.com/

Call the HNN listener Comment line: (877) 659-1515.

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* Direct Download: http://media.libsyn.com/media/ihs/035-HNN_09_24_2008.mp3 (right click the link to save the mp3 file or left click to listen).
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An Open Letter to God, from Michael Moore

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Dear God,

The other night, the Rev. James Dobson's ministry asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in Denver would have to be cancelled.

I see that You have answered Rev. Dobson's prayers -- except the storm You have sent to earth is not over Denver, but on its way to New Orleans! In fact, You have scheduled it to hit Louisiana at exactly the moment that George W. Bush is to deliver his speech at the Republican National Convention.

Now, heavenly Father, we all know You have a great sense of humor and impeccable timing. To send a hurricane on the third anniversary of the Katrina disaster AND right at the beginning of the Republican Convention was, at first blush, a stroke of divine irony. I don't blame You, I know You're angry that the Republicans tried to blame YOU for Katrina by calling it an "Act of God" -- when the truth was that the hurricane itself caused few casualties in New Orleans. Over a thousand people died because of the mistakes and neglect caused by humans, not You.

Some of us tried to help after Katrina hit, while Bush ate cake with McCain http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/images/200508... and twiddled his thumbs. I closed my office in New York and sent my entire staff down to New Orleans to help. I asked people on my website to contribute to the relief effort I organized -- and I ended up sending over two million dollars in donations, food, water, and supplies http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDa... (collected from thousands of fans) to New Orleans while Bush's FEMA ice trucks were still driving around Maine three weeks later.

But this past Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that the Republicans had begun making plans to possibly postpone the convention. The AP had reported that there were no shelters set up in New Orleans for this storm, and that the levee repairs have not been adequate. In other words, as the great Ronald Reagan would say, "There you go again!"

So the last thing John McCain and the Republicans needed was to have a split-screen on TVs across America: one side with Bush and McCain partying in St. Paul, and on the other side of the screen, live footage of their Republican administration screwing up once again while New Orleans drowns.

So, yes, You have scared the Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of them, and more than a few million of your followers tip their hats to You.

But now it appears that You haven't been having just a little fun with Bush & Co. It appears that Hurricane Gustav is truly heading to New Orleans and the Gulf coast. We hear You, O Lord, loud and clear, just as we did when Rev. Falwell said You made 9/11 happen because of all those gays and abortions. We beseech You, O Merciful One, not to punish us again as Pat Robertson said You did by giving us Katrina because of America's "wholesale slaughter of unborn children." His sentiments were echoed by other Republicans http://mediamatters.org/items/200509130004 in 2005.

So this is my plea to you: Don't do this to Louisiana again. The Republicans got your message. They are scrambling and doing the best they can to get planes, trains and buses to New Orleans so that everyone can get out. They haven't sent the entire Louisiana National Guard to Iraq this time -- they are already patrolling the city streets. And, in a nod to I don't know what, Bush's head of FEMA has named a man to help manage the federal government's response. His name is W. Michael Moore. I kid you not, heavenly Father. They have sent a man with both my name AND W's http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/08/20080830-2.html to help save the Gulf Coast.

So please God, let the storm die out at sea. It's done enough damage already. If you do this one favor for me, I promise not to invoke your name again. I'll leave that to the followers of Rev. Dobson and to those gathering this week in St. Paul.

Your faithful servant and former seminarian,

Michael Moore
http://www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. To all of God's fellow children who are reading this, the city New Orleans has not yet recovered from Katrina. Please click here http://troublethewaterfilm.com/content/pages/learn_what_you_c... for a list of things you can do to help our brothers and sisters on the Gulf Coast. And, if you do live along the Gulf Coast, please take all necessary safety precautions immediately.

Dobson vs. Obama

By Peter Wehner
Saturday, June 28, 2008; 12:00 AM

Earlier this week, Focus on the Family's James Dobson criticized Sen. Barack Obama, accusing him of "deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit ... his own confused theology," of having a "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution" and of appealing to the "lowest common denominator of morality."

Dobson's judgment was based on Obama's keynote address at a "Call to Renewal" conference on June 28, 2006. In fact, this speech was impressive in many respects. As an evangelical and conservative who has deep concerns about Obama's policies and political philosophy, I nonetheless welcome such a statement by a leading Democrat.

For one thing, Obama took on liberals "who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant" and "caricature religious Americans ... as fanatical." He went on to say: "Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square.... To say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of our morality, much of which is grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition."
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So Obama was doing what people like Dobson have long urged: making the public square more hospitable for people of faith and calling for a halt to their demonization. Obama made his case in ways I found to be respectful and authentic.

Dobson took particular umbrage, for at least one obvious reason, with this passage from Obama's speech: "And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is okay and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount -- a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our Bibles now. Folks haven't been reading their Bibles."

Dobson was critical of Obama's biblical references here and suggested that he had set up a series of straw men to support his "confused theology." But as I understand him, Obama was pointing out why the words of Scripture do not provide a ready policy blueprint for modern American society. Indeed, many of us have grappled with how to arrive at a theologically informed and fair-minded reading of the Bible that takes its moral principles seriously without simplistically applying to our time the cultural norms of previous eras. The chief defect of Obama's speech was that he didn't provide more insight into how to navigate these theological waters.

The passage of the speech that prompted Dobson's "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution" and "lowest common denominator of morality" comments was this: "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. What do I mean by this? It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all."

Dobson paraphrased this as "unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe in." But that's not what Obama was saying at all. Rather, he was arguing that in a pluralistic nation like ours, politics depends on people of faith being able to persuade others based on common and accessible ground and appeals to reason -- which sounds entirely reasonable. Christians who oppose abortion can make an effective case by talking about sonograms, fetal development and the moral imperative to protect the most vulnerable. That doesn't mean one's faith shouldn't inform the question of abortion -- or, for that matter, war, poverty and other issues. After all, President Lincoln's argument against slavery was partly grounded in faith. But appeals to the Bible or church teaching aren't sufficient in a pluralistic nation. That's why Lincoln talked primarily about the Declaration of Independence.

There are certainly reasons for evangelicals to have concerns about Obama -- based on his extreme views on abortion, judicial nominees, Iraq (his plans for a precipitous withdrawal would probably trigger mass death and perhaps even genocide) and other issues. But critics of Obama have an obligation to provide a fair and honest critique, and the attacks leveled by Dobson fall terribly short of that standard.

If Christian conservatives want to be taken seriously, they need to make serious arguments and speak with intellectual integrity. In this instance, Dobson didn't. He has set back his cause and made some of us who are evangelicals and conservatives wince.

======================================================
Peter Wehner is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a former deputy assistant to President Bush.

The Myth of the Moral Majority

Books: Here's the church. Here's the steeple. Open the doors and—hey, where did all the evangelicals go?



By Debra Dickerson

Listen to the interview with Debra Dickerson
http://www.motherjones.com/arts/feature/2008/05/the-myth-of-t...

This February, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released the most comprehensive of its surveys of the "religious landscape" of the United States. Front and center was the finding that 26 percent of American adults—around 54 million—are evangelical Protestants. The idea that 1 in every 4 of us thumps a Bible only confirmed what many had assumed to be gospel since 2000, when evangelical voters were credited with winning the White House for George W. Bush and the media began its grand genuflections toward a resurgent fundamentalism, casting evangelicals (and more broadly, "values voters") as a politicized wedge that politicians ignored at their peril.

And who