What do you call an organization that teaches children an exclusive, religious/ethnic nationalism and promotes war and other forms of violence to get its way?
Most people would say an extremist group or a right wing cult. Many would think of groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Too many Americans are saving little to nothing for retirement. According to one study, 45 percent of working-age households “do not have any retirement account assets.” Congress could sharply improve those numbers by adopting dynamic scoring of retiree distributions. The move could lead to millions of new accounts, and a fairer sharing of America’s retirement promise.
Bombarded with one negative news story after another, many people feel a pervasive pessimism close at hand. Fear and mistrust, uncertainty, are some of the results. Debilitating conditions, which sap the joy out of life, and strengthen materialistic demands of escape: alcohol, drugs and endless consumerism, which in turn feeds climate change and ecological destruction.
It’s no wonder Canadians are confused about their country’s place in the world when a leading advocate of the Palestinian cause praises the official most responsible for dispossessing Palestinians.
I had recently been asked to give a talk about “being an American Muslim in the United States.” Although wary of the uses and abuses of the term, I obliged.
Islam is a religion propelled by values, not race nor, theoretically, by blind tribal allegiances, I explained.
The ‘American Muslim’ identity which has been under constant investigation in US media, politics and society is completely different from what American Muslims associate themselves with.
Pollyanna was an underrated and underappreciated, although fictional, genius. All too often I see my empty glass as unfillable, and envision a brutal death from thirst on the near horizon. We should all play The Glad Game more often. Case in point: Our new U.S.
Most likely you have already heard that tune, ten times, or maybe one hundred, depending where you live and the circle of friends you have. But let me remind you how it goes: “I’ll never set foot in Singapore, because it is all business there.” Or: “Let others go to Gulf countries, I’d never do something like that. They have no culture and it is all showing off and glitz there, purchased with oil money… not to mention all those terrible conflicts they are fueling in the region.” Then, there is that big ugly “I” name: “Me going there? Over my dead body!
Imperialist demagogues, as well as religious fanatics, are known to live in their grotesque realities. They erect huge sand castles, invent mascots, and bombard the public relentlessly with self-promoting messages.
Those who refuse to listen and believe, those who dare to doubt and resist, are sidelined, starved to death, humiliated or simply liquidated.
London — Populism has a much needed place in political arrangements, the necessary, disruptive gust that keeps the complacent from losing touch. For one, it often threatens to destroy those arrangements altogether, or at the very least provide a blustery challenge.
Our species is capable of great compassion, kindness and tolerance; it is also capable of cruelty, selfishness and hate. Which of these characteristics dominate depends on another characteristic, namely empathy, defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another”. This sharing of feeling could so easily be switched off if the “other” happens to have a different colour, religion or culture.
