OK, I’m back. I’ve been off leading a Sunday service about “Why Be a Congregation?” and watching my nephew graduate from law school. (Yay, Mike!)
Did I miss anything?
Well, the whole Korea negotiation saga, the fizzling of the US/China trade war, a long string of scoops detailing the corruption of the Trump regime, more aggressive attempts to derail the Mueller investigation, some primaries that set up interesting races for the fall, another school shooting, and maybe a few other things.
I’ll get to those in the weekly summary, which I’m aiming to have come out between noon and 1, EDT. But there are also two featured posts.
Part of what I’ve been doing while traveling is a bunch of background reading about class and inequality. Eventually I suspect that’s going to lead to a long article where I try to reach some deeper insight, but for now I’ll just outline what I’m reading in case you want to read along. That will be “Outlines of a Reading Project on Class”, and it should come out between 9 and 10.
The other news event that happened these last three weeks was an opening ceremony for the new US embassy in Jerusalem. That pageantry happened simultaneously with the lethal Israeli response to protesters trying to cross the Gaza border. To me, the whole tableau symbolized that the assumptions underlying US policy towards Israel are obsolete now. Many were never realistic, but were based on a variety of positive and negative mythic roles that Americans have assigned to Israel and/or the Jews. So whatever your position on Israel, I suggest it’s time to go back to first principles and rethink, as if Israel were just a nation with no more mythic significance than any other nation has. That article is “It’s time to let Israel be a country”, and I aim to get it out before 11.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
Forgive me if this is obvious already, but: the Kakistocracy has a population of Dominionists (Pence, DeVos, I don’t remember who else) shaping policy towards Israel, and that influence should not be overlooked. Thanks for what you do!
I’ve been away, but to see you’re digging into inequality, you might find these two of interest – they tell parts of the story the mainstream media largely skims over – possibly for lack of desire to examine too closely.
Eudaimonia, on Medium –
Why America is the World’s First Poor Rich Country
Or, How American Collapse is Made of a New Kind of Poverty
https://eand.co/why-america-is-the-worlds-first-poor-rich-country-17f5a80e444a
And in The Atlantic – which I like better and better these days.
The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy
The class divide is already toxic, and is fast becoming unbridgeable. You’re probably part of the problem.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/