Tikkun Magazine, March/April 2009 

EDITORIAL

Support Obama to Be the Obama You Voted For

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

The title of this editorial communicates the strategy we've adopted to deal with a complex political reality facing spiritual progressives. In my memo to Obama in the January/February issue of Tikkun, I explained why I had faith in President Obama but also promised that we would act as the prophetic voice of a religious Left, as opposed to those parts of the religious Left that are cuddling up to the president and imagining that they can have the greatest influence by avoiding confrontation with his policies.

Since then, the disappointments with the president's choices have grown in many parts of the liberal world. Instead of being "inclusive" in his cabinet picks and the selection of his top advisers, President Obama has primarily brought in recycled advisors from President Clinton's ill-advised center-right administration. He has given us economic advisors who played a major role in creating the worldview that generated our economic meltdown, and he has totally ignored the social change movements without whose backing he would never have won the Democratic Party primaries: the anti-war movement, the environmental movement, the human rights and civil liberties movements, and the civil rights movement. His decision to double U.S. troops in Afghanistan is a moral and political disaster. He has neither clearly articulated goals nor a plausible exit strategy; he continues the intellectually incoherent and morally perverse "war or terror"; and he guarantees the death of innocents.

During the 2008 election, Obama seemed courageous in rejecting Hillary Clinton's ludicrous charge that "negotiating with Iran" was somehow a gift to Iran's leaders. Yet now he rejects negotiations with Hamas until its leaders recognize Israel's "right to exist"—something that they will never do (nor need they in order for Israel to gain lasting security)—thereby tying the United States to the failed strategies of the right-wing governments of the State of Israel. And his economic bailout lacks vision or plausibility, while his willingness to give hundreds of billions more to the banks and investors who used the first part of this "bailout" giveaway to enrich themselves, and his refusal to insist on our rights as taxpayers to own and control these beneficiaries of our largesse, will be viewed by future generations as stupid at best.

Yet how do we make these criticisms without simultaneously acknowledging our joy at having in the White House an African American intellectual whose basic human decency has already led him to suspend some of the criminal activities of the Bush administration with regard to torture and denial of human rights? Well, for some the answer simply is, "keep quiet, be patient, and in his own time he'll do all the good things liberals want."

But that is not how Obama works. It's obvious from his appointments and his policies that Obama responds more to those making a ruckus outside his camp than to those whose support he takes for granted. To be politically relevant, spiritual progressives have to become visible critics where that criticism is morally required. Yet we must do so in a language that embodies our genuine respect for Obama and our genuine belief that he can be called back to his own highest values.

That's why we need you to come to the Network of Spiritual Progressives' conference in Washington, D.C., April 29-May 2. Your voice needs to be heard, your presence seen, and your willingness to support prophetic critique turned into a public presence.

Source Citation

Lerner, Michael. 2009. Support Obama to Be the Obama You Voted For. Tikkun 24(2): 9.