Rabbi Michael Lerner
I've been plowing thru a very deep and philosophical interview with Rabbi Lerner recently published in The Sun magazine. Some of his words have resonated deeply with me.
The Sun: Do you believe Obama intentionally misled voters with his message of hope, or was he transformed once he got into office?
Michael Lerner: I think many of us weren't listening carefully enough to what he was saying in the first place. We projected on to him a more progressive worldview than he actually held. I don't believe he was lying to us, but I do believe that when people get into certain positions of power, it changes their views. Obama needed money to run his campaign, and a lot of that funding came from Wall Street and the military industrial complex. So immediately after the election many of his closest advisers were drawn from those worlds. They were "Realists" who believed that if you want to change anything, you have to do it in a way that does not offend those with money and power. Capitalism was collapsing and the only way to save it, they said, was to give huge amounts of money to the failing banks and investment companies.
The Sun: So the realists are actually blind to what's happening?
ML: Realism has been defined by the powerful and the media they control to mean any policy that does not significantly challenge the current distribution of wealth and power. So I say, "Don't be realistic" The God that was revealed to the Jewish people is a God that makes it possible to overcome systems of power and domination, starting with the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt. All people, who are created in God's image, can aspire to transcend the constant voices from the outside and from inside out own heads that insist we accommodate ourselves in the existing reality rather than change it.
The Sun: After 9/11 most Americans couldn't understand why anybody would hate us or want to attack us. Is it a persistent part of American character to be blind to how we are perceived by others?
ML: I wouldn't put it on "character". I'd describe it as miseducation. I think most Americans have no idea what pain this country has caused abroad, particularly with its military and economic policies. Trade agreements that were developed during the Clinton administration under the name of "free trade" have made it possible for the U.S. to dump its surplus crops and products all over the world where they sell at cheaper prices than local goods. The Third World agricultural economy has been virtually wiped out by this. Small farmers are going out of business and even starving to death, and when those of them from Central and South America seek to cross our borders and make a living here, they are portrayed not as victims of U.S. economic policies but as marauders coming to destroy our economy. Only a small percentage of Third World citizens have benefited from these otherwise crippling economic policies. The vast majority, who were already poor, have only gotten poorer.
The Sun: So is education a precondition for building a more caring global society?
ML: I think there's no particular action that must be taken first. There never is. Whoever you are -- whether you are a postal worker, an auto worker, lawyer, doctor, high-tech expert -- there are
multiple ways you can advance the cause of love, kindness, and generosity.
