Opinion: Michael Lerner, other clergy tell Obama: Forget the center. Go left!
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As Barack Obama returns from vacation and catches up on his mail, awaiting him is a letter signed by more than 140 clergy members urging him to reject conventional wisdom -- as well as his own drift to the center of late -- and steer hard to the political left.
Rabbi Michael Lerner initiated the missive. From his home base in Northern California, he heads the Network of Spiritual Progressives and serves as editor of Tikkun (defined on the magazine’s website as a word meaning ‘to heal, repair, and transform the world’).
A bio on Lerner on the same site notes that during the early stages of President Clinton’s administration, the rabbi’s ‘ideas received national attention when Hillary Clinton adopted his notion of ‘the politics of meaning’ and called for the country to respond to these ideas. Lerner was described by the Washington Post as ‘the guru of the White House,’ and he became the subject of intense national debate.’
Ultimately, the bio continues, Lerner ‘found that though the Clintons were using his words, they were actually following policies that were antithetical to his core ideas.’
Not surprisingly, given that background, he was a strong Obama backer during the Democratic primary battle. An e-mail sent out earlier this week describes the Lerner letter as an appeal to Obama ‘to retain the ethical and spiritual vision that won him the [Democratic presidential] nomination in the first place. Rejecting the ‘inside-the-Beltway’ wisdom that a Democrat must ‘move to the center to win the election,’ the clergy disputed the very notion that this is an accurate understanding of American politics.’
Lerner, in the e-mail, offers the following quotes:
‘The central dichotomy in American politics is not Left/Right but fear/hope. When Senator Obama positioned himself as the prophet of a new kind of politics, he energized millions of young people, and even older Republicans and people who had become so cynical about politics that they have not voted in recent years. ‘But that depended on him being the voice of peace against war, social justice against capitulation to the rich and the large corporations, and ecological sanity. ‘If he now moves to what the inside-the-Beltway crowd calls The Center, he ends up in an election campaign in which he will be trying to prove that he is a better general for wartime than [John] McCain, and a better mini-manager of the same old system -- and that will undermine the hopefulness that was the ticket to his political success and the Republicans will become Republicans again, the youth and the cynics will return to their other concerns, and Obama’s political possibilities will be worse, not better. ‘Still, we approach Obama not as his political strategists but as religious, ethical and spiritual leaders to challenge him to put forward a fundamentally new ethical vision, which is actually the oldest vision -- the vision of our various religious and spiritual traditions and of the wise humanistic values that pervade all religions but can be accessed without being religious. ‘We hope that Senator Obama will allow himself to be Obama again, rather than be swallowed up by the ethical visionless-ness of business-as-usual American politics.’
Along with Lerner, the guiding forces behind the correspondence are identified as Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister, the Rev. Tony Campolo, Father John Dear, Rabbi Arthur Waskow,Imam Zaid Shakir andthe Rev. Graylan S. Hagler.
The full text of the lengthy letter is available by clicking on the ‘Read more’ line ...
Dear Senator Obama,
As strong supporters of your campaign to become President of the U.S. in our own personal lives and as leaders in the religious communities in the U.S., we understand well the pressures you must be facing to tone down your message so that you can win the election and then later be more courageous in challenging major assumptions in American public discourse that have been inserted there by a powerful conservative assault for the past thirty years by conservatives and champions of the elites of wealth and power in this country.
Others have articulated elsewhere why ‘toning down’ or ‘moving to appeal to the Center’ is a politically disastrous strategy, not only because it causes disillusionment and passivity among the youth who momentarily thought that something new was happening in American politics and who might otherwise return to apathy when they perceive you as ‘playing the game’ the same old way, but also because it generates despair among all sections of the population that had momentarily allowed themselves to hope that America might become under your presidency a society that unequivocally supported a politics of peace and justice.
People who thought that they would vote for you as their peace candidate who seemed more unequivocal than others about ending the war in Iraq, for example, may become less enthusiastic about a candidacy that now calls for escalation of the war in Afghanistan and talks about giving Iranians ultimatums to be followed by green lights for military attacks.
We are writing you from a different angle, not as your election strategists, but as people of faith whose primary allegiance is to be prophetic witnesses to the ethical vision articulated in the holy texts of our religion and the elaboration of those religious traditions over the course of the past two thousand years.
It is our view that America needs ‘a New Bottom Line’ so that both corporations and non-profit institutions, social practices, legislation, government activities, and even our own personal life activities should be deemed ‘rational, productive, or efficient’ not only to the extent that they maximize money, material security, power or gratification of our sensual desires but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, kindness and generosity ethical and ecological sensitivity, enhance our capacities to see others as embodiments of the sacred and enhance our capacity to respond to the universe with awe, wonder, and radical amazement at the grandeur of Creation.
It is from that perspective that we appeal to you to fulfill the promise and the hopes you raised in the early months of your campaign, and to sharpen the distinctions between you and past politics by articulating new principles that would govern your presidency.
In particular, we call upon you to (unequivocally and persistently in your public appearances and ads) call for:
* Replacing the ‘Strategy of Domination or Power Over Others’ (that has shaped too much of American foreign policy in the past) with a new approach that gives at least equal weight to ‘A Strategy of Generosity and Caring for Others’ (for example as manifested by the Global Marshall Plan suggested by the Network of Spiritual Progressives www.spiritualprogressives.org). You should not allow the public discourse to push you into having to prove who will be the most effective candidate for running the next set of wars, but instead insist strongly and make this central to your campaign that that strategy for achieving Homeland Security is seriously flawed. Effective security strategy must rely on two legs, one the strong military defense of our interests, and second on the strong commitment to ending global (and domestic) poverty, homelessness, hunger, inadequate education, inadequate health care, and repairing the global environment (please see House Res. 1078 introduced by Keith Ellison and endorsed by nineteen other Members of the House for some helpful language in this regard-it endorses our version of The Global Marshall Plan). Those who are ill-equipped to articulate and implement the Strategy of Generosity are ‘weak on national defense.’ * Rejecting the notion of armed struggle with Iran and opposing any military blockade of Iran (universally understood as an act of war) would then give the Iranians a reason to attack, which in turn would provide the pretext for a war, either before or after the U.S. elections. You should publicly call on the Bush Administration to refrain from taking any such provocative actions that might lead to military conflict before the next Administration takes office. * A commitment to sign a Presidential Order that forbids and criminalizes torture and the direct or indirect aiding or abetting of acts of torture on the part of the U.S., directs the U.S. military to abandon Guantanamo prison and end the activities of the School of the Americas related to training people in South and Central America in the techniques of counter-insurgency and torture, and directs the next Attorney General to explore criminal charges against those who have violated US or international law in regard to torture. * A commitment to make saving our global environment a top priority not only through encouraging individual and corporate environmental responsibility, but by alerting the American public to the full scientific evidence about the degree of threat to the survival of the planet that is likely unless we make major changes in the way use the resources of our planet, how we decide what products should be produced and how, and how we decide what items to consume. Tell the American people what the planet faces if the US and other countries including China don’t make a huge global effort to reverse the patterns of destruction that are already endangering our planet. * Affirming the need for an American health care system that is based on the principle that we have an obligation to care for each other, not on the need for the health care profiteers to make a good return on their investments. * Affirming as a guiding principle for American society in the 21st century that we have an obligation to care for each other, and that this obligation requires a rethinking of many aspects of American law, American corporations, government programs, education, and persona life, and that you will use your time in office to encourage this new ethos. * Calling on schools to actively engage in teaching students the skills of caring a.) for each other b.) for those stuck in poverty or homelessness or hunger c.) the disabled d.) our senior citizens e.) for their own health and their bodies g.) for the environment. This should include teaching about ‘non-violent communication’ and positive negotiation skills, but also teach about the various religious and secular traditions that have made ‘caring for others’ central to their teachings, or have made awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation part of their approach to protecting the environment.
We are firmly convinced, Senator Obama, that these are ways of thinking about what is needed in America that are unlikely to succeed unless you build a strong foundation of support for them during your campaign.
By articulating this kind of thinking now, you will not only strengthen the possibility of mobilizing parts of the electorate who have given up on politics altogether, but you will also be serving God in a way that is necessary at this historical moment.
Your advisors may warn you of political dangers. We think the opposite. But as we say, our calling is not to be your political practitioners, but to provide you with the kind of ethical and prophetic voices that you need to hear.
Finally, if you are elected, as we very much hope you will be, and as we ourselves will try to help make happen by building support for you, we urge you to meet with us during your presidency to hear the voices not of religious cheerleaders, but of those who dare to speak truth to power even when that power, as your own, is mostly for the good and mostly in service of the God of the universe.
It is precisely because we believe in you and your strong ethical and religious commitment that we are daring to write this to you, even though we know that its impact might be to make it less likely that your advisors will ever allow us to connect with you directly once you are elected.
With respect and blessings ...
One note of caution struck us -- the letter-writers did not have to use the conditional in the line, ‘Your advisors may warn you of political dangers.’
-- Don Frederick