21st Century Progressivism

Blog

  • Defeating Zionism

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    I recently wrote about Morris Jastrow‘s 1919 book about Zionism. In the last century, events have transpired with no relation to the understanding he tried to convey. The result is that in spite of his efforts, Zionism has prospered. But, as I read his words, I am certain that his voice still matters. Jastrow’s book is an important source for defeating Zionism.

    Relgious belief or geopolitical maneuvering?

    Readers may think Jastrow’s approach is too simple, that it merely deals with mistaken notions which led Jews to accept Zionism.… Read the rest

  • Laudato Si’ and Progressivism

    Reading Time: 3 minutes
    Laudato Si' and Progressivism
    Our Season of Creation

    Our environmental problems are the result of 200 years of industrialization. The philosophical and technological developments that enabled the Industrial Revolution were made possible by the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was not only independent of the Catholic Church, it opposed the authority of the Church.  Therefore, the Church is in a unique position to  publish a document like Laudato Si’. Environmental areas of concern form a natural connection between Laudato Si’ and Progressivism.  We should build on this connection.… Read the rest

  • Agricultural Policy and Food Security

    Reading Time: 11 minutes

    I supported Bernie Sanders for president largely because of his support of family farms against the abuses of agribusiness.  I believe agricultural policy and food security should be at the center of our plan for the future. It should be an urgent priority because we have a large global population and dwindling resources. However, agricultural policy in the United States is not concerned with a quality life for farmers, promoting food security, or encouraging the responsible use of resources. … Read the rest

  • Plato’s Influence on Our World

    Reading Time: 4 minutes
    Plato's Influence on Our World
    Rethinking Plato’s Influence on the Modern World

    Plato has ruled the world for 2500 years through his lasting influence on philosophy, politics, and religion. It’s time we paid attention to Plato’s influence on our world. He is considered an authority on politics, even though in his lifetime, his writings were not compatible with the politics of his home country, Athens. Some of the worst attitudes of the modern world can be traced to him. He proposed a so-called link between societal ‘decay’ and race.… Read the rest

  • Popular Culture Manipulates the Public

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    A neoconservative attempt at self-perpetuation can be seen in two of the Star Trek series. According to David Greven, the Enterprise series is the first Trek series to openly break with Trek’s core liberal values. Regardless of whether this was intended to manipulate, this is just one influence driving American culture to the right. It’s likely that popular culture manipulates the public.

    “Enterprise appears to be a Trek series for those who felt Trek had undergone an appallingly ‘sensitive’ makeover in its incarnations of the late-80s and 1990s… “

    Restore America and Star Trek

    This break had a purpose.… Read the rest

  • The Poetry of Democracy

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Harold Kaplan said ‘humanist aspirations’ are the dominant American intellectual tradition. 1 But an abstract notion of democratic humanism is only part of the story. Kaplan explains democratic humanism in the context of writers of the American classics: Emerson, Thoreau, Cooper, Poe, D. H. Lawrence, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Twain, and Henry James. They composed the American classics and the poetry of democracy, and in their works we see hints of the strange continent that confronted them. Kaplan deciphers their experience through the historical context, their own letters and the works of European sympathizers.… Read the rest

  • Was the Enlightenment Democratic?

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Was the Enlightenment democratic? According to Harold Kaplan, Americans do not question the effects on the United States of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. He wrote:

    “We do not question that the twin roots of American national history were the religious revolution, which broke the Catholic hegemony, and the secular Enlightenment, which finally broke the traditional political structures, monarchical and hierarchical, of Europe…” (p. 14)

    ((Harold Kaplan, Democratic Humanism and American Literature, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1972, p.
    … Read the rest

  • Erdogan Defends Gaza

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    When Recep Tayyip Erdogan defends Gaza, he is one of the few leaders in the Middle East to openly criticize Benjamin Netanyahu for his callous bombing campaign. In addition to providing hope for Gaza in her ongoing trial, Erdogan also reminds us that the Levant has seen better times. Palestine was under Turkish rule for four hundred years prior to the days of the British Mandate of Palestine. Apparently, Erdogan has not forgotten this long-lost child of the Ottoman Empire.… Read the rest

  • Gaza’s Natural Gas Field

    Reading Time: 5 minutes
    Gaza's Natural Gas Field

    Control of gas and oil supplies is the main weapon of Israel’s U.S. ‘protectors’. It appears this is the motivation for the bombing of Gaza. The story of Gaza’s natural gas field and the U.S. military are missing in reporting of the bombing of Gaza. A natural gas field was discovered off the Coast of Gaza in 1999 by BG Group, a multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Reading, United Kingdom. And this gas field is not the only one on Israel’s radar.… Read the rest

  • Christian Zionism Explains Everything

    Reading Time: 4 minutes
    Christian Zionism Explains Everything
    The Dictatorship of Christian Zionism

    If you’ve wondered during the last twenty years at the overheated rhetoric of both Israel and the Western powers, Dr. Stephan Sizer will connect the dots in a video entitled The Historical Roots of Christian Zionism, It’s Theological Basis and Political Agenda. According to Sizer, Christian Zionism is the culprit behind the militant turn. Christian Zionism explains everything.

    What do I mean by everything? From the policies of the George W.… Read the rest