Abstracts from this essay by Rabbi Michael Lerner:- ... dont be surprised if people around the world, while condemning the despicable acts of the murderers in Paris and grieving for their families and friends, remain a bit cynical about the media-circus surrounding this particular outrage while the Western media quickly forgets the equally despicable acts of systematic murder and torture that Western countries have been involved in. Yet there is a deeper level in which the discourse seems so misguided [..] there is no recognition in the media of the dehumanizing way that so much of the media deals with whoever is the perceived threatening other of the day. To even raise this kind of question is to open oneself up to charges of not caring about the murdered or making excuses for the murderers. But neither charge is accurate. I fear those fundamentalist extremists just as much as I fear the Jewish extremists who have threatened my life and the Christian extremists who are now exercising power over the U.S. Congress ... The spiritual consequences are all around us: people despairing of ever being understood by others, growing distrustful of others, and feeling that no one really can be trusted. A collective and global emotional depression makes so many people withdraw into themselves, sometimes in relatively harmless ways, but often in ways that undermine the possibility of any human community emerging that would be capable of dealing with the social and environmental problems that face the human race, thereby giving freedom for the global corporations and their hired guns in the media and politics to continue to run the world for their own narrow interests and without regard to the wellbeing of other people or the environment. But they ridicule everyones religion, not just the Muslims, so isnt that fair? we are reassured. But the reassurance isnt reassuring. That they ridicule everyone is exactly the problem -- the general cheapening and demeaning of others is destructive to everyone. filmsforaction.org/articles/mourning-the-parisian-journalists-yet-noticing-the-hypocrisy/
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 23:04:27 +0000
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