Obama’s Nakba: Pulling the Coals Out of the Fire

Dr. Robert D. Crane

Posted Jan 20, 2010      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
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Obama’s Nakba: Pulling the Coals Out of the Fire

by Dr. Robert D. Crane

  The stunning defeat of the Democratic Party in Massachusetts on January 19th, 2010, suggests that President Obama’s failure to lead a moral crusade for justice, despite the fact that he is the first president in living memory to use justice as a stated framework for his policies, has perhaps irretrievably cost him his right to leadership, especially among his own followers.

  There are other leaders, such as Rabbi Michael Lerner and Norman Kurland, both Jews who throughout their lives have risen above the strictures of religious tribalism and have offered a Just Third Way.  Rabbi Lerner’s strategy focuses on the ultimately decisive level of spiritual awareness and transcendent commitment.  Dr. Kurland focuses on the next step, which is paradigmatic revolution designed to bring about the institutional and structural change needed to empower effective solidarity in the pursuit of peace, prosperity, and freedom through faith-based, compassionate justice.

  For the two complementary strategies to complete the American Revolution, rather than merely start another one, see the Rabbi’s action arms, Tikkun Magazine, http://www.tikkun.org, and The Network of Spiritual Progressives, http://www.spiritualprogressives.org, and Kurland’s action arms, http://www.americanrevolutionaryparty.us/partyplatform.htm and www.cesj.org.  Both of these are designed not to rearrange the chairs on the deck of the ship, but to change course.

  Rabbi Lerner’s post-election assessment,  entitled “We Tried to Warn Obama ... But He Wouldn’t Listen,” provides the basic marching orders for a course correction.

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