Politics & Society

Thoughts on Rabbi Lerner's Idea of Challenging President Obama from the Left

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I had mixed feelings when I first heard about Rabbi Lerner’s proposal to save Obama’s presidency by running a primary challenge against him by a candidate who is a strong advocate of progressive policies. I definitely agree that if President Obama signs an extension to the Bush’s tax cuts for billionaires, many people would be emotionally tempted to view that as the “last straw” and end their support for Obama. Why can’t the Democrats simply and repeatedly call it like it is on this issue – borrowing $700 billion from our children and grandchildren to give to rich people over the next few years? According to a recent poll, only 26% of Americans (and only 46% of Republicans) actually support this tax cut for billionaires. But I digress, so let’s get back to running a primary challenge against Obama from the left.

Christianity

The Spiritual Messages of Chanukah and Christmas — and Their Downsides

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Christmas and Chanukah share a spiritual message: that it is possible to bring light and hope in a world of darkness, oppression and despair. But whereas Christmas focuses on the birth of a single individual whose life and mission was itself supposed to bring liberation, Chanukah is about a national liberation struggle involving an entire people who seek to remake the world through struggle with an oppressive political and social order: the Greek conquerors (who ruled Judea from the time of Alexander in 325 B.C.E.) and the Hellenistic culture that they sought to impose. The holiday celebrated by lighting candles for eight nights (the first night is tonight) recalls the victory of the guerrilla struggle led by the Maccabees against the Syrian branch of the Greek empire, and the subsequent rededication (Chanukah in Hebrew) of the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C.E. However, there was a more difficult struggle that took place (and in some dimensions still rages) within the Jewish people between those who hoped for a triumph of a spiritual vision of the world embedded (as it turned out, quite imperfectly) in the Maccabees and a cynical realism that had become the common sense of the merchants and priests who dominated the more cosmopolitan arena of Jerusalem. The cynical realists in Judea, among them many of the priests charged with preserving the Temple, argued that Greek power was overwhelming and that it made far greater sense to accommodate it than to resist. The Greek globalizers promised advances in science and technology that could benefit international trade and enrich the local merchants who sided with them, even though the taxes that accompanied their rule impoverished the Jewish peasants who worked the land and eked out a subsistence living.

Environment

Earth Day 2010 in Wisconsin

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We had much to celebrate at “Earth Day at 40.” But, of course, we had much to concern us as well. The good news is that whenever we touched on “global weirding,” water rights, or any number of other environmental issues, someone at the conference offered ideas or solutions. These ranged from the most massive — a new electric grid across the United States — to the smallest and most local — digging up your lawn and planting raised beds with vegetables. And there was even better news — we all left the conference fired up to make a difference!

Politics & Society

Haiti

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It’s not an act of God. It’s a natural disaster that we know how to mitigate: in a rich country with good building codes few die. But this is a rich world, so why are there poor countries where tens or hundreds of thousands die? Our hearts go out to our brothers and sisters in Haiti. But how much will we be family again once the crisis is off our front pages?

Health

Building on the Hopeful Aspects of Obama’s Health Care Speech and Helping Him Get Beyond His Internal Contradictions

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Media analyses of President Obama’s health care speech were divided on whether he had indicated serious support for a public option or had, instead, cleverly tossed a bone of “recognition” to the progressives while simultaneously demanding that they drop their insistence that the health care reform undercut insurance company profits. The confusion, for once, is not with the media but with the incoherence of a centrist politics. Obama wishes to relieve the suffering of Americans, but he does not wish to challenge the profit-uber-alles old “Bottom Line” of the competitive marketplace. Unfortunately for him and for most Americans, he can’t have it both ways. FDR recognized that — and so was willing to stand up to the vested interests of the class from which he emerged, not only rhetorically, as Obama is willing to do at some rare moments like his Health Care speech, but in the actual policies he promoted.

Culture

Individualism Won't Get Us There

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Dave Belden’s last post “So What’s a Spiritual Progressive to Do?” stuck with me all last night. Dave’s voice rings with urgency, an urgency to which all of us spiritual progressives respond. Who doesn’t know that we have to make change now? At least as quickly as humanly possible?