{"id":164,"date":"2008-09-26T18:00:29","date_gmt":"2008-09-26T18:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/just-say-no-to-any-immediate-b.html"},"modified":"2008-09-26T18:00:29","modified_gmt":"2008-09-26T18:00:29","slug":"just-say-no-to-any-immediate-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/just-say-no-to-any-immediate-b.html","title":{"rendered":"Just Say “No” to Any Immediate Bailout-Don’t try band-aids to keep the Tower of Babel Standing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

<\/span>Rabbis of antiquity interpreted the attempt by humanity to build a
\nTower of Babel that would allow people to storm heaven as a symbol of
\nhuman hubris and technological power gone crazy. It was globalization
\nfor the sake of power, not for the sake of kindness or goodness, so, 
\naccording to the Bible, God ensured that the whole thing would
\ncollapse. Scrambling languages and created a multi-cultural reality
\nprovided a way for humans to develop their own less imperialistic
\ngoals, diffusing power and challenging the notion that the path to
\nsalvation lies with material conquests and technological prowess. <\/p>\n

Our contemporary capitalist system and its globalization of selfishness
\nhas evolved into a similarly grotesque distortion as people are
\nincreasingly socialized into the goals of the system: accumulate as
\nmuch money and power as possible, and refuse to allow any other ethical
\ngoals into the public sphere (we are allowed to pursue them in our own
\n“private lives” but not together in social space). The human suffering
\nthat results is not only for the poor. As people internalize the ethos
\nof the marketplace and its “looking out for number one” and its seeing
\nothers primarily in instrumental terms (“what can you do for me to
\nfurther my goals or satisfy my needs?”), families feel increasingly
\nunstable, education becomes training to “make it in a global
\ncompetition,” and politics increasingly focuses on how to best assist
\nthe most powerful in their aims to secure or increase their wealth, or
\nto protect American corporate interests as they increasingly seek to
\ndominate world markets.<\/p>\n

The pursuit of money and power is a huge ethical distortion for human
\nlife and destructive for a society. Whether manifested in the failed
\nwars in Vietnam or the continuing bloody conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan
\nand soon Pakistan and Iran, or in the collapse of our banking,
\ninsurance, and stock market systems, the ethos of selfishness and
\nmaterialism are not sustainable in the 21st century. <\/p>\n

So the careful and skillful manipulating us into a mass hysteria that
\nthis all be worked out immediately and before Congress goes on recess
\nto run for reelection, with dire predictions that nobody knows to be
\ntrue, to rush to use our monies (currently proposing a trillion
\ndollars, but there will be trillions more to come, because we will be
\nnurturing a “culture of dependence” by the rich and their corporate
\nholdings) to bolster this way of life. Democrats have bought in. Yet it
\nis a huge error-it’s like trying to put bandages on the Tower of Babel.
\nOf course, the wealthy all think that this is an immediate
\nemergency-they suspect that a Democratic President and Congress might
\nbe more willing to demand a better deal for ordinary citizens in return
\nfor using their tax dollars this way. And they think that our tax
\nmonies (of which they contribute very little, should be used to
\n“provide confidence to the markets”-meaning themselves). Many of them
\ndon’t care that the resulting inflation is likely to make most working
\npeople’s savings, retirement accounts, and social security considerably
\nless valuable in real purchasing power terms. But they are wrong to
\nfear the Obama election-the Democrats, including Obama, are as much
\ncommitted to propping up the current system as the rich, in order to
\nprove (to the pundits and inside-the-Beltway crowd and their wealthy
\nfunders who together constitute their primary reference group) that
\nthey are “responsible.” So their demands for “accountability,”
\nre-regulation, and “limits on executive incomes” throws the merest
\nlittle restraint while the hundreds of billions that will be spent will
\nresuscitate the system of selfishness, keep the majority of corporate
\nexecutives benefiting from the excesses they current enjoy,  and not
\neven touch on reshaping the fundamentals. <\/p>\n

This is an extraordinary moment, a crisis like this is a precious thing
\nand should not be wasted. If we had any ethically or spiritually
\nvisionary leadership, they would reject any immediate bailout, and
\ninstead, talk of ethical and spiritual reconstruction of the society in
\naccord with a New Bottom Line: that every institution should be judged
\nefficient, rational and productive not only to the extent that they
\nmaximize money and power, but also to the extent that they maximize
\nlove and caring for others, generosity and kindness, ethical and
\necological sensitivity, and awe and wonder at the grandeur of the
\nuniverse.<\/p>\n

To start that process, we should demand that any corporation receiving
\nhelp from our government give a corresponding level of ownership and
\ncontrol of their venture to the people of this country. Moreover, any
\nsuch corporation should be required to meet the terms of the Network of
\nSpiritual Progressives’ proposed Social Responsibility Amendment to the
\nConstitution: that any corporation with an income of more than $50
\nmillion a year must get a new corporate charter once every ten years,
\nto be granted only if it can prove a satisfactory history of social
\nresponsibility as measured by an Ethical Impact Report and as decided
\nby a jury of ordinary people whose task is to represent the interests
\nof the common good. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the rest of us should be protected as the Tower of Babel
\ncollapses. So the hundreds of billions of dollars being thrown
\nrecklessly by our Congress into the hands of the very people and
\ncorporations that fostered the current meltdown, should instead be used
\nto create a national bank that would provide mortgage assistance at
\naffordable rates, buy up and restart in the hands of the people who
\nwork within them any at-risk corporations providing socially useful
\nfunctions at a price not dictated by the need to ensure that the
\nwealthy prosper, recreate ( for those who’ve lost them)  and sustain
\n(for those who still have them) pension funds  for families with
\nincomes under $300,000\/yr., create a single-payer universal health care
\nsystem of the sort now being used by Members of Congress, and provide
\nstrong incentives for alternative energy-oriented investment and a
\nminimum wage that rises with inflation to ensure adequate compensation
\nfor working people. <\/p>\n

Yet these are only baby-steps, and the moment is now to insist that the
\nelections themselves be dedicated to exploring more visionary
\napproaches to reconstructing our economy on the basis of caring for
\neach other and rejecting the materialism and selfishness that has
\nperverted our media and threatens to continue to destroy our economy in
\nthe years to come. Just say “no” to the demands for an immediate
\n“bailout” of the wealthy with your tax monies-and take the time to use
\nthis amazing historical moment to put ethical and spiritual values back
\ninto our economic life!<\/span><\/p>\n

Rabbi Michael Lerner<\/span> is editor of Tikkun Magazine (www.tikkun.org<\/a>), chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives (www.spiritualprogressives.org<\/a>)
\n,  rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in San Francisco, and author of
\neleven books, most recently: The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our
\nCountry from the Religious Right (HarperCollins, 2006).<\/p>\n

If you agree with this perspective, please please please JOIN the Network of Spiritual Progressives at www.spiritualprogressives.org<\/a>
\nto help us support the work necessary to develop and publicize this
\napproach to contemporary issues (and with membership you get a year’s
\nfree subscription to TIKKUN magazine). You can also respond to Rabbi Lerner<\/span>: RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rabbis of antiquity interpreted the attempt by humanity to build a Tower of Babel that would allow people to storm heaven as a symbol of human hubris and technological power gone crazy. It was globalization for the sake of power, not for the sake of kindness or goodness, so,  according to the Bible, God ensured…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1,18,19,9],"tags":[166,165,167],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-election-08","category-international-relations","category-poverty","category-religion-in-the-public-square","tag-michael-lerner","tag-new-bottom-line","tag-social-responsibility-amendment"],"yoast_head":"\nJust Say "No" to Any Immediate Bailout-Don't try band-aids to keep the Tower of Babel Standing - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/just-say-no-to-any-immediate-b.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Just Say "No" to Any Immediate Bailout-Don't try band-aids to keep the Tower of Babel Standing - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rabbis of antiquity interpreted the attempt by humanity to build a Tower of Babel that would allow people to storm heaven as a symbol of human hubris and technological power gone crazy. 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He subsequently formed the Institute for Labor and Mental Health where he did research on the psychodynamics of American politics, and discovered the immense hunger for \"meaning and transcendent purpose for life and work\" that became the hallmark of what he calls \"a poltiics of meaning.\" Lerner founded and is Editor of Tikkun Magazine and Chair of The Network of Spriitual Progressives.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/mlerner"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}