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Can politics be equal to the deepest of who we are? Can humanity evolve beyond war?

Such questions — I know, I know — are never officially asked during a presidential campaign. That’s not the point of the election: to plunge philosophically and spiritually into who we are. And thus, as the Trump-Harris race proceeds, not too many people (besides me) will be bringing up Pierre Teilhard de Chardin — Jesuit priest, theologian, scientist, best known as the author of The Phenomenon of Man — who died seventy years ago.

But I can’t tolerate the clichés of state! So let me sneak a dozen or so of Teilhard’s words into the present moment: “Love is the only force that can make things one without destroying them.”

Departing Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan clearly had an unpleasant experience at the world’s largest international institution. 

 In an interview published in the Israeli newspaper Maariv on August 20, the disgruntled envoy said that “the UN building should be closed and wiped off from the face of the earth.”

 Whether Erdan has made this realization or not, his aggressive statement indicates that his four-year career as Israel’s top UN diplomat was a failure. 

Hours after Kamala Harris gave her acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, the president of the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” organization J Street took a victory lap in an effusive e-mail to supporters. “Wow,” Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote. “What a week! As J Streeters leave the Democratic National Convention fired up and ready to go, it’s clear we’re having a greater impact than ever.” He added that “the vice president’s remarks on Israel-Palestine were perhaps the clearest articulation of J Street’s values from a presidential nominee.”

But what are those “values” and how do they apply to what’s happening in Gaza?

The reason I find myself fighting with both Harris supporters and Trump supporters is because they see the other party as the problem while I see the US empire itself as the problem. They seek to make things better by ensuring that the empire is under the correct management, while I seek the end of the empire.

People say things like “Oh but Kamala Harris speaks so compassionately about the suffering of the Palestinians!”

These dupes had eight years of Obama speaking eloquent, compassionate-sounding words while continuing and expanding all of Bush’s ugliest policies, and they still haven’t learned the lesson here.

This is painful. This is horrible and feels a bit like a betrayal. But I have no choice. Bobby Kennedy Jr. was my friend and co-author. We wrote stories together for Rolling Stone. Bobby introduced my New York Times bestseller and wrote a chapter for Billionaires and Ballot Bandits. And, with Jesse Jackson, we co-authored the Number 1 selling adult single issue comic book of all time, Steal Back Your Vote.

The Terrorist Watch List is managed by the FBI Terrorist Screening Center. The FBI does not publicly confirm or deny any individuals on the Terrorist Watch List. However, "No Fly List" is a subset of the Terrorist Watch List and is overseen by The Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The no-fly list contains names of individuals prohibited from "boarding an aircraft when flying within, to, from, and over the United States." These individuals are part of the federal terrorist watchlist administered by the FBI Terrorist Screening Center.

The Terrorist Watch List and the No-Fly List were created by George W. Bush's administration in 2001 and have continued to be used until this day. There are two types of No-Fly Lists. The second No-Fly List is maintained by individual airlines for unruly passengers. The No-Fly List is different from the Terrorist Watch List, which is a much longer list of people said to be suspected of some involvement with terrorism. Based on Wikipedia, as of June 2014, the Terrorist Watch List is estimated to contain over 2.5 million people whereas the No-Fly list has about 1.8 million.