Politics – Page 2 – Feminism and Religion

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Why I am Running In The Greek National Parliamentary Elections On May 6

This post was originally published on April 30th, 2012. Perhaps some of us may be inspired to run for office next!

Carol P. Christ, a founding mother in the study of Women and Religion and Feminist Theo/a/logy, has been active in anti-racist, anti-poverty, anti-war, feminist, pro-gay and lesbian, anti-nuclear, and environmental causes (in that order) for many years. All of these issues have informed her teaching, her scholarship, and her politics.

Greece is in the throes of a terrible economic crisis. National elections were called last week and will be held on Sunday May 6.

I am one of the 5 candidates for the Greek Parliament on the Green Party ticket in electoral region of Lesbos. We are a small country of only about 10 million people. The Lesbos district includes about 100,000 people. It is truly amazing that I as an immigrant have been asked to run. It is also amazing that though most of our politicians are corrupt, our electoral system has not yet been completely bought. No polls are allowed during the last 2 weeks of the election. The final poll indicated that the Green Party will have a voice in parliament for the first time on May 7. No Green candidate from Lesbos is likely to become a member of parliament, but all of the votes we gather will be counted towards the party’s total representation. Unfortunately two right wing fascist parties are also likely to get seats, and no party looks poised to gain a ruling majority. What will happen next is anyone’s guess.

Ecofeminist Petra Kelly was one of the founders of the European Green Party of which we are part. Due in part to her good work, the Green Party’s goals include: sustainability, social justice, nonviolence, and participatory democracy. Not a hard platform to run on! Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Why I am Running In The Greek National Parliamentary Elections On May 6”

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Green Solutions To The Greek Economic Crisis: We Are The 99%!

This post was originally published on May 28th, 2012

A green solution to the economic crisis insists that people and the environment can be saved together. We must dare to envision prosperity in conjunction with sustainability, social justice, nonviolence, and participatory democracy.

A rational analysis would make it clear that the Greek people did not “create” the economic crisis. Yet the poor and middle classes are being asked to “pay” for it. There is massive corruption in the public sector in Greece. But this should not blind us to the fact that the Greek people do not bear the major responsibility for creating the crisis. Those responsible include:

the international money interests (the 1%) who at this very moment are charging 26% interest on the Greek national debt and “hedging” their “bets” (betting for and against a complete collapse of the Greek economy) and hoping to “win” (make money on their bets) in either case;
the international military industrial complex (which US President Eisenhower warned might one day control the world) that is selling more arms to Greece per capita than to any other country in Europe;
the industrial interests in the larger countries in Europe which viewed the eurozone as an open market to sell their products (thus raising the GDP in industrialized countries like Germany);
European leaders who promote the interests of their own players in the international financial, military, and industrial marketplace above the good of the whole;
the Greek governmental elite (the 10%?) who have pocketed bribes and stolen money from public coffers;
and finally the Greek people (the 99% or the 90%) who have participated in or benefited in small ways from a corrupt system. Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Green Solutions To The Greek Economic Crisis: We Are The 99%!”

Now What by Esther Nelson

Eight years ago (2016), Donald Trump became the 45^th president of the USA. I felt much the same way then as I do now—eight years later—when Trump somehow was re-elected to that office.

Back in 2016, one of my colleagues brought a short essay by Alice Walker (b. 1944) into his classroom a few days after the election. Many of those university students were upset–even dazed—by Trump’s victory. How did it happen? Here’s a link to Walker’s work—a piece that’s just as appropriate today as it was eight years ago.

What Happens When Hate Wins? by Sara Wright

Do the sandhill cranes stop singing?
Do the junipers cease to release their scent?
Do the stars fall into the sea?
Does the white moon weep??

I want to keep writing stories…

The wind still ruffles fine sand in the wash.
Cottontails leap, jumping through twilight.
Scaled quail still peep as they scurry over red ground.
The thrasher gobbles his suet without restraint.
A woodpecker taps at my window.

I want to keep writing stories…

The US Election Results and Justice: What Will You Do? A Jewish Feminist Perspective by Ivy Helman

I met with a new friend/colleague of mine this past week. We were discussing the election results, and I was discussing the work I do in the field of religion. Living and teaching in Central Europe, I have quite a lot of experience navigating the study of religion in a place that is quite atheist and/or actually anti-religion. In fact, it has been somewhat of a struggle to have the study program, Gender Studies, in which I teach, recognize its importance. Many of my colleagues, I think, are under the impression that religion is personally not important and/or just not that important in general. Yet, as I have mentioned here, and as my new friend brought up as we sat over coffee, religion underpins so many aspects of our patriarchal society.

The Deep Practice of Being by Xochitl Alvizo

I have arrived.
I am home;
in the here;
and the now.

I am solid.
I am free.

In the ultimate,
I dwell.

– Thich Na Han

When you realize that [love for this tender human life] is always here, then there really is nowhere else to get to, there’s only being in this life, learning to love it, again and again, moment by moment.
– Jeff Warren

I have tried to be more intentional in my practice of this recently—of being at home with myself and of loving this life this moment. I am trying to learn how to let myself be with myself in whatever I am experiencing, especially in the midst of external stresses and internal grief.

How Will Catholics Vote?

Will Catholics be “salt” and “light” in the 2024 election? Cardinal Dolan fails to show the way.

Dawn Morais Webster, the Pope off to his summer palace, Castel Gandolfo. He tells the world he will now become just a “humble pilgrim.”

Donald Trump’s parade of vulgarity, racism, misogyny and grift is always on display. He is proud of it. His outrageous lies are his version of “truth,” or as his running mate JD Vance would say, they come “from the heart.” It’s easy to condemn Donald Trump but the more urgent question is how will our vote stack up against our professed values, and for believers, how does it square with our faith?

I am deeply ashamed that Catholics were enablers of Trump’s rise to power. And that Catholics, by a slim but crucial margin, still support Trump over Kamala Harris in seven battleground states, according to a National Catholic Reporter survey of self-identified Catholics.

Dear Anti-Harris Progressives: Here’s how to help Palestine (and the economy, and everything else) by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

First, understand without doubt: I agree with the anti-genocide protesters (and the progressives who are frustrated about our rigged economy). I couldn’t agree more that we need an arms embargo against Israel. I support the progressives who are protesting at Harris rallies, saying they refuse to vote for any candidate who does not commit to an arms embargo, so that no more US arms will be sent to wage ethnic cleansing against the civilians (mostly women and children) of Palestine. Harris has advocated for a ceasefire, she has met with the protesters, and she has responded politely to their protests against the genocide. But when they continue to chant that they won’t vote for her, she responds, “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”

I do not like the hand we’ve been dealt. Our democracy, always deeply flawed, has become increasingly weak and unstable. In fact, many professors and analysts increasingly define the US as a plutocracy – governed by and for the top 1%, in which the average citizen has little to no voice or impact on policies. Monopolies have consolidated in order to help destroy democracy, driving costs of living up and wages down. The Military Industrial Complex, with its staggering domination of the international markets, has locked the US into endless war, often in support of autocracies over democracies. And the same billionaires who are causing climate change, are investing in high tech solutions to save themselves from the apocalypse while the rest of us go extinct or become their slaves.

An Incantation for 2024, USA by Marie Cartier

-please repeat and/or use in ritual, if needed

There was a time (there was a time)

We were waiting for something (we were waiting for something)

We were wanting something (we were wanting something)

We needed it to be different (we needed it to be different)

We were. We are. We are here: this is it.

We want something. We want something. We need something. We need something.

There was a time when we could make something happen.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Kamala Harris! “I Feel Heard”

This was originally posted on August 17, 2020

Shortly after Kamala Harris was announced as Joe Biden’s choice for his Vice Presidential running mate, a panel of black women were asked, “How do you feel right now?” “I feel heard” was the simple yet profound response of one of them. As is well-known to those who follow the polls, black women voters are the backbone of the Democratic party. In the primary election, black women in South Carolina delivered the Presidential nomination to Joe Biden. Yet all too often black women have felt that their votes were taken for granted.

Instead of focusing on the needs and priorities of black women and their communities, all too often the Democratic Party’s strategy has been to reach out to other groups—for example working class white men or white suburban women. To feel heard at this moment means to be taken seriously as a political actor and as a person. Right now, the fact that a black woman was selected is what matters most. There were other qualified women and out of all of them. a black woman, Kamala Harris was chosen. And because of this, black women feel heard. It’s about time. Period.