{"id":633,"date":"2010-01-20T14:02:49","date_gmt":"2010-01-20T14:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2010\/01\/we-tried-to-warn-obamabut-he-w.html"},"modified":"2010-01-20T14:02:49","modified_gmt":"2010-01-20T14:02:49","slug":"we-tried-to-warn-obamabut-he-w","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2010\/01\/we-tried-to-warn-obamabut-he-w.html","title":{"rendered":"We Tried to Warn Obama…But He Wouldn’t Listen"},"content":{"rendered":"

The defeat of the Democrats choice to succeed Ted Kennedy in the U.S.
\nSenate is being treated as though there is a decided shift of mass
\nopinion to the Right in the U.S.  But it is the Obama Administration,
\nnot the people who supported him in 2008, which moved to the Right–in
\nthe name of being  pragmatists or realists– in the process emptying
\ntheir own agenda in regard to health care, environment, human rights,
\nsocial and economic justice, and global peace of the critical elements
\nthat made those programs sound hopeful, and leaving many of their
\nsupporters feeling confused, disillusioned, and unable to rally around
\nthe politics that seemed so very far from “the change you can believe
\nin” that we had been promised.<\/span><\/p>\n

            Thousands of us saw this coming, and tried to warn Obama, but he wouldn’t listen.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>On
\nApril 29, 2009, Tikkun and our education arm the Network of Spiritual
\nProgressives bought the entire back page of a special supplement
\npublished in the Washington Post on the occasion of the 100th<\/sup>
\nday of Obama’s presidency. We warned him that his presidency was in
\ngrave danger. Our point was simple and direct: “Your success depends on
\nhelping people believe that they can count on each other, that they are
\nnot alone in a ruthless world in which people are out for themselves,
\nand there is a possibility of building a society based on kindness,
\ngenerosity, and caring for each other. Unless your programs actually
\nallow people to feel in their own lives that they are part of build a
\nnew society based on love and generosity of spirit, they will soon fall
\nback into the older paranoid view-that we are all competing with each
\nother and have to look our first for number one. And that will likely
\nthem right back into the hands of the most conservative forces in this
\nsociety. It’s that simple, President Obama: if your policies do not
\ngive people a personal experience of caring and generosity, people will
\nquickly succumb to the fearmongers who compete in the media over who
\ncan make people most afraid, most cynical, and most angry. “<\/span><\/p>\n

            Our
\nadd went on to tell President Obama that his supporters were beginning
\nto feel mobilized because they cannot explain to themselves and others:<\/span><\/p>\n

            *Why
\nyou are bailing out the bankers and the Wall Street crowd rather than
\nprioritizing the needs of people who have lost their jobs and homes<\/span><\/p>\n

            *Why
\nyou are not backing single payer (Medicare for Everyone) health reform
\nbut are instead preserving the interests of the health care profiteers
\nand insurance companies that make our health care system so costly<\/span><\/p>\n

            *Why
\nyou are escalating the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, when you must
\nknow that these are no win situations, and when you have even agreed
\nwith Rabbi Michael Lerner that the best way to achieve “homeland
\nsecurity” is not by attempting to dominate others around the world in
\nan insane “war on terrorism,” but instead by a Strategy of Generosity
\nmanifested in the Network of Spiritual Progressives’ proposal for a
\nGlobal Marshal Plan introduced into the Congress by Congressman Keith
\nEllison
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

            *Why
\nyou have failed to bring into your Administration more leaders of the
\npeace, social justice, labor and environmental movements that gave you
\nthe critical support you needed to win the Democratic nomination for
\nPresident.<\/span><\/p>\n

            Our
\nconclusion: “If the people who made your presidency possible stop
\nfeeling excited about your present direction, the populist energies
\nthat oculd be mobilized for fundamental change will instead by
\nmobilized by the Right for reactionary goals, and you may find yourself
\nwithout the base of support you need even for your scaled down goals.”
\nAnd now our worst fears and prophetic predictions are coming true. [<\/span>If
\nyou were one of the many members of the Network of Spiritual
\nProgressives or subscribers to Tikkun who donated to make the ad we
\npublished possible, I want to thank you for your ability to see what
\nwas ahead–and your willingness to back your wisdom with the money we
\nneeded to publish that ad!]
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

            But
\nwhat could he have really done, many ask, given the way corporate
\ninterests seemed to have bought their way into power not only in the
\nRepublican party, but among Blue Dog Democrats in the House and Senate?<\/span><\/p>\n

            It’s
\ntrue that if Obama had fought for the kind of change he led his
\nfollowers to believe would be possible, he might have lost. But winning
\nlegislative battles is not the highest goal, as FDR and Reagan, the two
\nmost influential 20th<\/sup> century presidents, learned. The most
\nimportant thing a president can do is develop a worldview and convince
\nthe American public of that. Obama could have spoken the truth, told
\nwhat he saw happening in Washington rather than trying to be a clever
\ninside manipulator-a game that he was destined to lose. Any legislative
\nvictory won by compromising away the heart of what you are fighting for
\nisn’t worth much, and in any event, even good legislation can quickly
\nbe dismantled by the next president if you haven’t won over the minds
\nand hearts of the American people–and to do that you need to speak the
\ntruth and tell people what we are up against in  the system of global
\ncapital and its ethos of materialism, selfisness, and
\nlooking-out-for-number-one,  and what it would take to dismantle it and
\nreplace that system with a more humane and caring, environmentally sane
\nand ethically and spiritually coherent society. And Obama could have
\nconstantly reminded his supporters that the 2008 election had shown
\nthat their yearning for a world of peace and justice, of love and
\ncaring and community and real solidarity and democracy, were not the
\nprivate dreams of an isolated minority but the real needs of the
\nAmerican majority. By making us visible to each other, he would have
\nempowered people to fight for programs that manifested their highest
\nvalues (if and only if his programs did in fact manifest those values,
\nwhich unfortunately they often did not).
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

            Now
\nit’s up to us,  the tens of millions of Americans who really showed in
\n2008 the powerful commitment we have to building a world of love,
\nkindness, generosity, environmental sanity and caring for others. We
\nhave to reconstitute that movement without Obama’s help, before the
\ndisillusionment with Obama’s compromises leads to the resurgence of the
\nRight’s policies, the surge of a know-nothing Tea Party movement, and
\nthe retreat into despair and self-imposed powerlessness by all those
\nwho are questioning whether there’s any real possibility of replacing
\ncorporate power, materialism and selfishness with a more ethically and
\nspiritually grounded community of caring.<\/span><\/p>\n

           Please
\ndon’t let your disappointment at Obama lead you or your friends into
\npolitical passivity…because the alternative if you do that is Sarah
\nPalin and The Tea Party extremists and the haters and fundamentalists,
\nall of whom are now momentarily dressing themselves in the language of
\npopulism, but all of whom will actually only give even more power to
\nthe elites of wealth and power.<\/span><\/p>\n

           That’s
\nwhy it is so important for you to become part of our efforts to
\nreconstitute the movement of hope–and we can do that with your help.<\/u>
\nWe need your ideas and involvement–and so we’ve created two
\nconferences, a one day event on the Monday of President’s Day weekend,
\nFebruary 15, at the McLaren Hall on the campus of the University of San
\nFrancisco on Fulton St. near Clayton; and a longer event June 11-14 at
\nthe Church of the Reformation on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. The
\nconferences are co-sponsored by The Nation Magazine, Yes Magazine,
\nDemocracy Now, Op-ed News, Peace Action, 350.org<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/div>\n

,
\nthe Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and speakers will include Chris Hedges,
\nBill McKibben, David Korten, Congressman Keith Ellison, Riane Eisler,
\nRev. Brian McLaren, Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister, Peter Gabel,
\nRev. James Winkler, Rev. Conrad Braaten, Robert Thurman, Rabbi Arthur
\nWaskow, Rev. Gralan Hagler, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Jonathan Granoff,
\nMarianne Williamson, Paul Wapner, John Dear SJ, John Nichols, Svi
\nShapiro, Bob McChesney, Rabbi Michael Lerner,  and many more. <\/span><\/p>\n

 Please register for one of these conferences now at <\/span>www.spiritualprogressives.org\/article.php?story=2010conferences<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/div>\n

(To plan effectively, we need to know very soon if you’ll be coming!) <\/span>If
\nyou cannot come, please donate to make it possible for us to afford to
\ncreate these events (the amount we are charging will not even come
\nclose to covering our expenses: donate on-line at www.tikkun.org<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/div>\n

or by sending a check to Tikkun, 2342 Shattuck Ave,#1200, Berkeley, Ca. 94704).
\nPlease help us
\nspread the word–and let us know if you and your friends, colleagues,
\ncommunity members, would like to help us organize a “Support Obama to
\nBE the Obama Americans Thought they were Voting For” conference in your
\narea of the country! Please read the information at our website–this
\nis not<\/u> about trashing Obama, but about reconstituting the
\nmovement that made his presidency happen, and then moving together to
\nbring about the changes that tens of millions of Americans and billions
\nof people around the world desperately need to have happen. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The defeat of the Democrats choice to succeed Ted Kennedy in the U.S. Senate is being treated as though there is a decided shift of mass opinion to the Right in the U.S.  But it is the Obama Administration, not the people who supported him in 2008, which moved to the Right–in the name of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,431,413,15],"tags":[453,436,5,331,101,382],"class_list":["post-633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defining-progressive","category-elections-off-year","category-health-care","category-jews","tag-governement","tag-left","tag-obama","tag-obama-administration","tag-politics","tag-progressive"],"yoast_head":"\nWe Tried to Warn Obama...But He Wouldn't Listen - 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\/2010\/01\/we-tried-to-warn-obamabut-he-w.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"We Tried to Warn Obama...But He Wouldn't Listen - 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He earned a ph.d in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley and a second ph.d in clinical psychology at the Wright Institute. 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\/633","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=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}