[p2p-research] Fwd: Lerner on Huffington Post front page today: 10 Commandments to Revive Progressives After the November Defeat

Thu Nov 4 21:22:44 CET 2010

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tikkun Magazine <info at spiritualprogressives.org>
Date: Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 11:08 PM
Subject: Lerner on Huffington Post front page today: 10 Commandments to
Revive Progressives After the November Defeat
To: Michelsub2004 at gmail.com

<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Zb07ZbOxTBixhrCOkayF3GERlsZVNCHE>

You can read this on-line at Huffinton Post's front page:

www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-michael-lerner/10-commandments-to-revive_b_777961.html<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=p7EcwBARYRLNL2hAyijIA2ERlsZVNCHE>

Please forward this to everyone on your email lists to help them understand
what the media obscures and the Dems don't understand about this election
and what should happen next! Reading this will undermine despair and
misdirected anger.

  [image: Rabbi Michael
Lerner]<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Fb%2F%2FpzGjRn9wUqYVW5oum2ERlsZVNCHE>
 Rabbi Michael Lerner<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2F0E25hXGfHS%2FTrsIDSUgxmERlsZVNCHE>

Editor, Tikkun Magazine
*1. Don't let the media frame this as a defeat of progressives**.* Had Obama
embraced and fought for a progressive agenda, even if he had passed none of
it, he would have entered the 2010 elections as the champion of the huge
idealism of the American people that was elicited in 2008 and which would
have led the Democrats to an electoral sweep in 2010. Being seen as fighting
for the needs of ordinary people -- never letting anyone forget for a moment
that he had inherited the mess that Republican and pro-corporate Democrats
had created, positioning himself as the champion of those who resented the
Wall Street and corporate interests -- his popularity would have grown; he
could have won a much bigger victory for the Democrats in 2010, and that
would have allowed him to actually legislate the policies of a progressive
vision.

Had Obama refused to give more money to the banks and Wall Street unless
equal or greater amounts were allocated for a visionary New Deal-style
program for jobs and a freeze on mortgage foreclosures; had the Democrats
refused to fund the escalation of war in Afghanistan; had they advocated for
"Medicare for Everyone" instead of passing a plan that forced 30 million
people to buy health care, but puts no serious restraints on the costs that
insurance companies or pharmaceutical can charge; had Obama fought
courageously for a carbon tax and ended the bargain taxes for the wealthy;
had the Democrats insisted on stopping the harassment of immigrants; had the
Obama Administration called for a national effort to overturn *Citizens
United*, such as the
ESRA<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2B7GbJVZRVqRPxIvv5HBXJp4w8G7aYbT3>--
Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution--this election result would have been 100% different.

Had Obama set up public forums at which his supporters could give him public
feedback and used the web creatively to allow his supporters to weigh in,
and had Obama consistently spoken honestly to Americans about the
constraints he was facing and who was putting pressure on him to do what --
there would have been no electoral defeat. It wasn't the progressive agenda
that got defeated, it was the corporate-military accommodation of the
Democrats and Obama who couldn't address popular outrage, not only at the
economic problem, but at the way we had been manipulated in 2008; and the
humiliation many felt at having allowed themselves to hope that someone in
politics would fight for what they said they would fight for.

*2. Challenge the elitism in the Left.* Whenever you hear someone saying
that it is the stupidity or reactionary nature of Americans that led to this
defeat, remind them of why, absent any other voice that they would encounter
expressing their outrage, it was rational for Americans to be attracted to
the right-wing voices that were expressing that outrage (albeit with
programs that will actually make things worse). When Americans thought they
had a chance at progressive change, they voted for it in 2008 -- so they are
neither stupid nor reactionary.

*3. Challenge the religo-phobia in the Left.* As long as the progressive
world seems to be aligned with those who think that anyone who believes in
God must be either stupid or at a lower stage of psychological development,
we will get nowhere with an American public sincerely committed to a
spiritual worldview. Allow yourself to explore the various spiritual
progressive communities and movements that currently exist.

*4. Do not demean those who disagree with us.** *Act as though every person,
no matter what their politics, is created in the image of God or deserves
fundamental respect, and only challenge their ideas and policies, but
without attributing bad motives to them. And do not demean your own leaders
-- stop the back-biting and competition that so often drives the most
creative thinkers and activists out of the movement! Make the progressive
world focus more on taking care of each other in its meetings and public
events.

*5. Take time every day to rejoice in the grandeur and awesome mystery of
the univers**e* -- and remember that the world is filled with loving people
who would be there with us if they knew that we took love as seriously as we
take critique. And try the ancient idea of a Sabbath--one day each week
totally dedicated to celebrating the universe rather than acting upon it to
change it (in my Jewish practice of the Sabbath--in Hebrew: Shabbat--  this
includes: no work or thinking about work; no computer, no use of phones or
cell phones or other technology; no shopping; no catching up on errands or
housework or anything else you "have to do"--just 100% dedicated to fun,
pleasure, thanksgiving, celebration of nature, and joy, nothiing else let
in. Who has the time? Well, I do, and I also use the other six days to run a
magazine, be a rabbi of a synagogue, chair the Network of Spiritual
Progressives, and write books. Try Shabbat--it will give you a different
perspective on reality, and make a progressive movement that can begin to
speak to what is good in the religious world that the Right understands and
the Left pooh-poohs to its detriment.

*6. Build a unified political movement that calls for A New Bottom Line in
American society* so that instead of judging institutions, legislation or
policies rational or productive only to the extent that they maximize money
and power, they are judged by how much they maximize love and caring,
kindness and generosity, ethical and ecological behavior and awareness, and
the extent to which they tend to encourage us to be more caring toward each
other and the earth and more able to respond to the universe with awe,
wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur of being and consciousness and
to experience true gratitude at being alive.

*7. Build within the Democratic Party an opposition to the
corporate-oriented leaders of that party, from Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi
to Diane Feinstein and Charles Schumner*. *Create a spiritual progressive
caucus in every city. Run candidates in the primaries against that
leadership -- follow the example of the Tea Party in their effort to move
the Republican party to the Right. *

8*. Build outside the Democratic Party a separate political party that talks
about love, kindness, generosity, and The Caring Society -- Caring for Each
Other and Caring for the Earth. *Let that party be based on the notion of A
New Bottom Line as expressed in Commandment Six. Let this party talk
explicitly about building a world that supports love and generosity! Stop
speaking the language of the bureaucrats and the technical manipulators --
start speaking the language of the heart. End the time in which Democrats
believe that progressives have "no place to go" and hence will support their
corporate-oriented candidates no matter how far they are from progressive
ideals.

If the Greens are able to transform themselves to a party that puts love and
caring and the language of the heart at the forefront of its public
identification, rather than a primarily technocratic, issues-debating,
hard-nosed "realistic" from the left, policy-but-not-love-generating social
force, then it could be this. But at the moment it is not, and it may be
easier to create something new than to reform the inner workings and
political culture of the Greens,

*9. Create a United Progressive Fund *so that all the different progressive
organizations stop competing with each other for funding and instead
allocate according to how many people belong to any given progressive
organization.

*10. Don't be realistic! *The powers that be in the media, politics and
economics define "realism." The most important changes in our country have
come about because people were willing to fight for what everyone supposedly
knew to be "unrealistic" (e.g. ending segregation, ending ten thousand years
of unchallenged male supremacy and sexism, legitimating gay and lesbian
lives, building an environmental movement, and the list goes on).

Realism is idolatry -- believing in God is believing that there is some
Force in the Universe (some of us call it God) that makes possible the
transformation from "that which is" to "that which could and should be."
Support a Global Marshall Plan to once and for all end global poverty,
hunger, homelessness, insufficient education or health care -- and pay for
it through a Tobin tax on all international financial transactions of over
$1 million. End the domination of money in politics and challenge the
irresponsible environmental policies of corporations -- through the ESRA --
the Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=GTzPJCFble6XKRSl79HPymERlsZVNCHE>.

Follow these ten commandments and the progressive forces will finally be
able to reshape this country before it is too late. If you wish to help us
do this, please join and help create a local chapter of the Network of
Spiritual Progressives
here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=JGOxakQLKL8irweF99%2FTr2ERlsZVNCHE>.
But if you like these ideas but don't want to work inside our organization,
then bring these
ideas<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=GZo1nA2r6Cf4hbDiC78FLWERlsZVNCHE>into
whatever organization you are already part of and insist that they
debate these ideas, align with us in our campaign for the ESRA and for our
proposed Global Marshall
Plan<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=dzzqJov6bHtCLvs3huVzB2ERlsZVNCHE>,
and insist that they develop the kind of broad strategy we are presenting
here.

Please forward this to everyone on your email lists, paste it onto your
Facebook page, put it up on any webpage or Yahoo group in which you are a
part. It will help undermine despair!! Thanks.

*Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of **Tikkun
magazine<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=rl3AxreHWPuHg6LYW7Fm6p4w8G7aYbT3>,
a Jewish and Interfaith Critique of Politics, Culture and Society; chair of
the Network of Spiritual
Progressives<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=oqFcgueOlpRsloH56ZCipOLkc%2BewL0iD>,
and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun
Synagogue<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=3gLBhM3xLUeN0AN8wxPkLWERlsZVNCHE>
**.*
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