Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/page/203/)
Posts about politics and social change, from a spiritual progressive perspective
Ms Pearl lives directly below me in our apartment building in Orange, New Jersey. We exchange pleasantries at the mailbox or in the parking lot as we go about our day. She is a beautiful elder woman. I hope I look that good when I am her age, and it is hard to know just how old she is. She is perhaps in her late sixties or early seventies.
Perhaps the most generous teaching of the God or Spiritual Reality of the Universe comes in the second paragraph of the Shma prayer (in Deuteronomy), where it tells us that if we do not create a world based on love, kindness, generosity, ethical and ecological sensitivity, social justice, and peace then the world itself will not work, and there will be an environmental catastrophe and humans and all other animals are in danger of perishing.
I’m a little concerned at the particular way in which we’ve all been watching the news, trolling every weather site for new photos and videos of sensational storm coverage. Though initially it comes from a place of concern and awareness, it can also border on selfish– as if we’re using serious damage and danger for entertainment. I know it’s “exciting” to be in the middle of things—I felt the same way, with the whole country’s attention on New York (to which I’ve recently relocated)… Receiving text messages and emails of concern every five minutes from friends and family around the world is actually quite touching, and shows genuine care in a way that we don’t often grant one another.
If Obama wins, there will be a collective sigh of relief that Romney has been defeated but probably not much excitement over a meandering and uninspiring campaign’s victory. But if Obama loses there will be a great debate among Democrats as to what went wrong. Some will say that Obama went too far to the left, others to the right. But inevitably, the Left will be blamed for not being sufficiently supportive– not recognizing his achievements, saving us from another Great Depression, achieving health care and banking reform, supporting women’s rights, etc., etc.
Seriously, Mr. Mourdock, when a woman gets pregnant from rape, “God intended that to happen”? What exactly did God intend to happen, the rape, the pregnancy? Let’s remember that without the rape there would be no pregnancy.
A first step in challenging all of this craziness is to retake our democracy, and I like the NSP’s approach–a constitutional amendment, the ESRA, which requires public funding of all elections and bans all private donations from individuals or corporations, thus eliminating money as a factor in the outcome.
What I’m looking for is a spiritual response that can coexist with very different political views; providing, of course, that the different political views don’t depend on outright group hatred, violent aggression, or brute selfishness. Given that condition, I believe it is possible for people of spiritual good will to disagree about (for example) tax policy, responses to conflicts in the Middle East, energy policy, and even abortion rights. (And I say this as someone with highly defined politics, views so far to the left I fall off the planet occasionally.) Such spirituality is compatible with organized religion, with no religion, with reverence for God, goddesses, spirits, nature, or simply life.
There’s hardly a better, more cynical analysis of political power relationships than The Who lyric, Won’t Get Fooled Again, which closes with the words: “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Earlier this month, Prime Minister Netanyahu called new elections to be held on January 22, 2013. Ostensibly, the reason was that none of his coalition partners could agree on a budget. The current government is composed of so many factions, each with its own set of patronage and budgetary fiefs, that they simply could not agree how much each would get. Besides the budget, Netanyahu always has his reasons for doing things that aren’t apparent to the naked eye.
When I read Mitt Romney’s remarks at Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a statement of his foreign policy, I am stunned by his idea that the United States of America has the power to work its will in the world. He says: “it is our responsibility and the responsibility of the President to use America’s great power to shape history, not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events.” He says at the end of his remarks: “The 21st century can and must be an American century. It began with terror and war and economic calamity. It’s our duty to steer it onto the path of freedom and peace and prosperity.”
Texan oil and gas magnates David and Charles Koch, and a few other billionaires and multi-millionaires, such as Los Vegas casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, are each pouring hundreds of million dollars into the elections, mainly to try to elect Mitt Romney as President and to ensure a Republican Congress. The unprecedented tsunami of big money into political campaigns – expected to total between $6 and $7 billion in the first Presidential electoral season since the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court case removed any limits on contributions – marks a qualitative shift from Constitutional Democracy toward what might be called “Kochamamie Democracy.”