Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Rabbi Lerner responding to Cindy Sheehan's Resignation from a Leadership Role in Anti-War Work

A note from Rabbi Michael Lerner:

I've contacted Cindy Sheehan to ask her to reconsider her decision, but I certainly understand much of what she is talking about in the note below describing her decision to leave activism.

When I invited Cindy Sheehan to speak at my synagogue, I was deluged by people telling me that she was an anti-Semite. When I invited her to speak at our Network of Spiritual Progressives conference in D.C., again I was deluged by communications from people telling me that her motives were impure, that she was just wanting to get publicity, that she was an opportunist, and that I was hurting our own credibility by having her speak.

I didn't give credence to any of that because the same and worse has been said about me, so I always suspect that anyone receiving that amount of personal negativity is either really bad, or, as I found out in personal contact with Sheehan, someone who has so much goodness and decency and idealism pouring out of her, mixed with righteous indignation, that s/he elicits fear, anger, competitiveness and a desire to eliminate her from public life even by people who agree with her.

Peter Gabel and I have analyzed in Tikkun the way that a hopeful movement or leader often unleashes a complex of feelings, partly of hope, but partly of fear. People remember, either consciously or unconsciously, moments earlier in their lives in which they opened themselves to love, kindness, generosity or hope, and then were deeply disappointed when it was not reciprocated in kind, or when they actually felt humiliated for making themselves vulnerable.

Fear that that humiliation or deep disappointment may happen again leads many to defend themselves against such an outcome by doing everything they can to negate the feelings of hope that are being elicited by a hopeful movement or a leader who is hopeful. Sometimes this will manifest in "acting-out" at a meeting,insisting that "the plan" (whatever it is) cannot possibly work, or that there is no evidence that it will, or that everyone who is involved in the project at hand is really missing the point, or that there is the wrong leadership (the people providing it are deficient in their sensitivity to racism, sexism, homophobia, egotism, process, psychological sensitivity, people who are physically challenged and otherly-abled, or some other similar fault in them). Or they will attack the leadership personally ("she is just out for power") or they will attack the underlying ideology even though they knew what it was before joining this particular group. Or they will complain that a fabulous and brilliant teacher or speaker is speaking too long, or that the email are too long to read--even though they often read books with less substance that are longer or listen to dumb television programs or movies for much longer. People are endlessly inventive in ways to protect themselves from feeling the humiliation that they fear might come back if they were to allow themselves to hope or to believe and work for a world of love, and then act lovingly toward fellow members of their movement or the leadership of the movement.

People tell me that they believe most of my generation "sold out" after the 60s because they wanted the material advantages of the society. But in my experience the most talented, caring, sensitive and creative people I met in movement activities, particularly those who were willing to take the extra personal risks involved in becoming leadership and spokespeople for peace and justice, left the Left not because of a desire for material success, but because they felt abused by others on the Left and in the liberal world who, while agreeing with their ideas, nevertheless found ways to be inhumane, insensititve, and put-downish to others in their movement.

Rumors were spread that claimed that the most idealistic of these people were "really" just out for power, fame or ego-gratification of some sort, and that undercut the effectiveness of these leaders because others responded to them not by listening to their ideas, but by treating them as suspect because of "what they had heard."

Few of those who spread these negative stories really bothered to get to know the people about whom they gossiped, and few ever bothered to acknowledge how destructive this behavior was. But for those who were the objects of this kind of abuse, the feeling of being undercut by people who should have been allies caused personal pain and eventual despair that anything really could ever change. A few of us hung in and remain involved, in my case at least sustained by a personal spiritual practice, but for each 60s activist still involved, there are thousands who are not, who could not stand this way of being treated, and who, when they stick their nose into the dynamics of the present movements of the first decade of the 21st century, quickly discover the same kind of dynamics operating in the Left and in the liberal world.

I've written about this in my book Surplus Powerlessness and in The Left Hand of God, so I'll only say that here in the case of Cindy Sheehan, once again, this movement has pushed away a very decent and ethically-motivated fighter for peace and justice. I only wish I could promise her that she would not experience again the pain that I and others personally experience every day in being involved in social change movements that do not show adequate caring for their activists and leaders.

I'm happy to report that this is not the dynamic in the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and that I'll do everything I can to make sure that it never becomes the dominant reality here. Our spiritual framework, our willingness to talk openly about love, and about the need for compassion for all the ways that each of us fails to be an embodiment of our highest values (including, of course, me and other leaders of our movement) helps a lot. Our message pulls for a more gentle way to be with each other.

But, that's no guarantee: I've watched people verbally beat each other up over who is not compassionate enough? i.e. When people have an unconscious fear and need to protect themselves from opening up to a world of love, they can turn the very idea of love or compassion into a weapon to hurt each other. Nothing protects us but our constant awareness and rededication to embody our values as much as we possibly can, and to be gentle with ourselves and others when we fail in this.

There is another element in Cindy's story that isn't really under our control. The Democratic Party has within it some very idealistic people. But it also has many "realists" who have decided that the only way they can accomplish their idealistic goals is to work within the parameters of "realism" set by the eltes of wealth and power who control funding for campaigns and own the media. Such people, often because they want to accomplish something very good and decent like ending the war, feel that they must distance themselves from the most idealistic people who have put their bodies, reputations, future chances for employment or money on the line and taken to the streets to challenge the system. Those who do so are often quoted by the media only when it sounds as if they are saying something unreasonable or extreme. and then the "realists" working inside the Democratic Party or the Congress or the liberal media feel that their own chances of influencing events will be weakened if they are identified with the more seemingly "extreme" statements of those who have been most courageous in challenging irrational and destructive policies.

So the "realists" try to distance themselves from the idealistic activists, often by putting down the very people who were the first to respond to the ethical crises--the shall we call them "prematurely ethical people." So, the "realists" make it harder for the ethically sensitive activists who first recognized the ethical crisis (and were willing to take personal risks to talk about it) to function politically or be taken seriously by anyone who hasn't personally encountered them.

Democrats who actually do agree with ethically motivated activists end up distancing or even attacking us, or making off-handed remarks to the media whose import is "stay away from her or him--they are too irresponsible or extreme or flakey."

The irony is that the people whom the realists dismiss this way are often the very people whose writings and formulations were what broke through the ethical deadness of the "realists" and made them aware of the need to change policies.

But instead of honoring those who are first out there, the realists instead resent these "prematurely ethical" people and diss them whenever possible, insisting that it is only they, the realists, who can make any real changes in the society. Imagine how disappointing it was to millions of activists when MoveOn began to talk the language of the realists and defend the Democrats for trying to work out compromises with Bush and then eventually capitulating to fund the war. We know how disappointed we were when we couldn't get Move On to send out our message about the Global Marshall Plan and our alternative strategy to end the war. "Spiritual" ideas are also "unrealistic" to the realists, and so they ignore or put us down. And yet, the very ideas that we advance today will be those that in a few years these same people will be telling you that "they always agreed and supported these same goals." Meanwhile, people like Cindy Sheehan get batted around till its hard to remain in that kind of vulnerable public position.

Blessings to all who continue to struggle, each in their own ways, as Cindy Sheehan certainly will, for peace, justice, generosity and love to prevail on our planet.

Rabbi Michael Lerner
RabbiLerner@tikkun.org

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Congressional Food Stamp Challenge

http://foodstampchallenge.typepad.com/

U.S. Members of Congress to Live on a Food Stamp Budget from May 15-21 Staff and Advocate Groups to Join Challenge

Take the Food Stamp Challenge ~ Live on a Food Stamp Budget for One Week

U.S. Representatives James McGovern (D-MA), Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Tim Ryan (D-OH) have pledged to live on an average food stamp budget -- just $3 a day -- from May 15-21, 2007 and have invited other Members of Congress to join them in the Food Stamp Challenge. The spouses of Reps. McGovern and Emerson will also be taking the challenge. A number of advocate groups and Congressional staff are also expected to take part.

Members of Congress are living on a food stamp budget for one week in order to raise visibility and understanding around the challenges that millions of low-income American's face in obtaining a healthy diet under current food stamp benefit levels.

The Farm Bill, which includes the Food Stamp Program, is due to be reauthorized in Congress this year.

Throughout the week, Reps. McGovern, Emerson, Schakowsky, and Ryan as well as others taking part in the challenge, will post their experiences on the Congressional Food Stamp Challenge blog.

Read the Dear Colleague sent by Representatives Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)

Read the Food Stamp Challenge Registration and Guidelines

To learn more about the Food Stamp Program, visit the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service site.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Sharon Olds, Poet, declines White House Invitation

In a culture like ours, one sometimes forgets the power of a poet's words.

Here is an open letter from the poet Sharon Olds to Laura Bush declining the invitation to read and speak at the National Book Critics Circle Award in Washington, DC. Sharon Olds is one of most widely read and critically acclaimed poets living in America today. Read to the end of the letter to experience her restrained, chilling eloquence.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/olds

Laura Bush
First Lady, The White House

Dear Mrs. Bush,
I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind invitation to give a presentation atthe National Book Festival on September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the breakfast at the White House. In one way, it's a very appealing invitation. The idea of speaking at a festival attended by 85,000 people is inspiring! The possibility of finding new readers is exciting for a poet in personal terms, and in terms of the desire that poetry serve its constituents--all of us who need the pleasure, and the inner and outer news, it delivers. And the concept of a community of readers and writers has long been dear to my heart. As a professor of creative writing in the graduate school of a major university, I have had the chance to be a part of some magnificent outreach writing workshops in which our students have become teachers. Over the years, they have taught in a variety of settings: a women's prison, several New York City public high schools, an oncology ward for children.

Our initial program, at a 900-bed state hospital for the severely physically challen ged, has been running now for twenty years, creating along the way lasting friendships between young MFA candidates and their students--long-term residents at the hospital who, in their humor, courage and wisdom, become our teachers.When you have witnessed someone nonspeaking and almost nonmoving spell out, with a toe, on a big plastic alphabet chart, letter by letter, his new poem, you have experienced, close up, the passion and essentialness of writing. When you have held up a small cardboard alphabet card for a writer who is completely nonspeaking and nonmoving (except for the eyes), and pointed first to the A, then the B, then C, then D, until you get to the first letter of the first word of the first line of the poem she has been composing in her head all week, and she lifts her eyes when that letter is touched to say yes, you feel with a fresh immediacy the human drive for creation, self-expression, accuracy, honesty and wit--and the importance of writing, which celebrates the value of each person's unique story and song.

So the prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some of the citizens of Washington, DC.

I thought that I could try to find a way, even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling that we should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the wish to invade another culture and another country--with the resultant loss of life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants in their home terrain--did not come out of our democracy but was instead a decision made "at the top"and forced on the people by distorted language, and by untruths.

I hoped to express the fear that we have begun to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism--the opposites of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.

I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear witness--as an American who loves her country and its principles and its writing--against this undeclared and devastating war.

But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you, Mrs. Bush. I knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.
What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us. So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire.

I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I simply could not stomach it.

Sincerely,
SHARON OLDS

Saturday, May 19, 2007

U.S. Bars U.N. Observer from Visit to Immigrant Detention Center

From: ACLU E-Newsletter, Texas Challenge to Religion in Schools, DOJ NSA Revelations and More, May 18th, 2007

This month, United Nations Special Rapporteur Dr. Jorge Bustamante is conducting a three-week fact-finding mission in the United States.

As Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Dr. Bustamante is reviewing the treatment of migrants and immigrants at border facilities and detention centers and meeting with human rights and immigrants’ groups from Arizona to New Jersey.

But midway through Dr. Bustamante’s visit, U.S. officials barred his access to one scheduled stop, the Hutto immigrant detention facility in Taylor, Texas. The ACLU represents 12 children detained at Hutto, in a challenge charging that they are subject to inhumane treatment. The tour of Hutto a converted prison holding about 400 immigrants, including children and asylum seekers was considered a major part of the Special Rapporteur's U.S. visit.

According to the official terms for fact-finding missions, as an independent expert appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur must have “access to all prisons, detention centers and places of interrogation.” The terms also mandate that the Rapporteur be given confidential and unsupervised contact with witnesses and potential victims of human rights violations. A letter has been sent to the U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security seeking answers on why the Hutto facility tour was cancelled. To learn more about the Special Rapporteur and the rights of immigrants, and to follow Dr. Bustamante’s U.S. travel activities on the ACLU’s blog, go to: blog.aclu.org/index.php?/categories/13-Immigrants-Rights

Friday, May 4, 2007

Fact Check --- the first debates

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/democratic_candidates_debate.html

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/republican_candidates_debate.html

I don't know about you... but when I compare the "facts" that were debatable... there is a group of candidates that are clearly the more disingenious...