from Rabbi Michael Lerner

Rabbi Michael Lerner, founder of Tikkun and author some years ago of a provocative book, The Politics of Meaning, offers equally provocative reflections on the Democratic National Convention. He expresses concern about the stifling of dissent, and especially about the lack of "a coherent vision that can speak to people in a way that makes them believe that something can really be different."    [7-28-04]

Note from the Democratic National Convention

July 27, 2004

Greetings from Boston!

The overwhelming desire to beat Bush has been the club used to silence dissent within the Democratic National Convention, but the many delegates who came to the Tikkun event on Monday at the Hotel Marlowe, and the people we continue to meet in the hallways of this convention, have grave doubts about the wisdom of Kerry's strategy and feel betrayed by the blandness of the vision being projected by their party's platform and speakers.

Delegates have been disciplined on the floor and in the caucuses, but privately many fear that the party being forged in Boston lacks the vision necessary to excite the many Americans whose choice is not between Bush and Kerry but between voting and not bothering. The managers of the Kerry strategy, delegates complain, seem more concerned to not alienate Republicans and mainstream pundits than to help Americans see what exactly would be different in a Kerry presidency.

Nowhere is the discontent more striking than around the issue of the war in Iraq. Though the delegates overwhelming oppose the war, speakers have been warned to stay away from critiquing it, and so far only Senator Edward Kennedy, kept from prime time by the Kerry people, was willing to make a sharp statement of opposition. The Platform talks of people being divided, and insists that now that we are there the U.S. must stay and stabilize the situation. The rhetorical thrust of the convention has been overwhelmingly militaristic, insisting that Kerry will be strong by sending MORE troops, giving better support to the army and to those returning from service, but failing to give any serious respect to the majority of Democrats who have served their country by NOT FIGHTING, by rejecting and demonstrating against the war. The war-makers in both parties should rejoice, but the peace forces are being isolated. All in the name of "winning."

Howard Dean's uninspired talk on Tuesday evening made none of the arguments against the war, leaving many of his delegates (and millions of his supporters around the U.S.) feeling perplexed and disturbed. The point of raising all that money for Dean was to have a spokesperson who would articulate the aspirations of the American people for an alternative to militarism, not someone who would trade getting a place for himself on prime time in exchange for silence about the war.

Similar complaints pervaded the Kucinich caucus. When people asked "Why does Dennis keep on running in May and June of 2004 when it is clear that Kerry has won the nomination?" they were told, "So that the viewpoint of those who put peace and justice first will be represented." But at the last moment Kucinich deserted his troops, telling them they could vote their own conscience rather than presenting himself as someone who would voice their position and insist upon it. When it came down to it, Kucinich lacked the political courage that was supposed to be what distinguished him from Dean and the others.

Though democratic values were highly praised, there was no new thinking about how to make that real. For years the liberals in the Democratic Party have spoken about the distorting impact of money in politics. Was it simply embarrassment about the wealth of the Kerry/Heinz family that produced the absence of voices calling for deepening electoral reform? And if the politicians sought to avoid questioning whether Florida would once again be the scene for another vote-counting fiasco for fear that would offend swing voters, why didn't they at least raise the issue of reforming the electoral college to make them proportional to the popular vote for each candidate rather than the skewed "winner take all" system?

"Winning is everything--we've got to beat Bush." Yet to beat Bush there needs to be a coherent vision that can speak to people in a way that makes them believe that something can really be different.

This is what worries many of the delegates when you talk to them away from the pandemonium of the convention hall. They want a winner, and for that reason are willing to go with the Kerry strategy. But they know that that strategy has led to a convention historical for its blandness, its milquetoast speeches, its enforced conformity--and that doesn't manage to excite them very much. Their great fear, expressed constantly in small conversations, is that this big gamble may not excite many of the increasing numbers of Americans who don't bother to vote at all. Looking responsible and balanced to the editorial writers and pundits may get the Democrats praise, but it may not produce the necessary votes to replace the Bushites who are unlikely to be similarly polite or restrained once the campaign heats up in the Fall--and who are not afraid to stand for what they stand for. For Democrats whose actual political convictions seem so much stronger than what they are being allowed to say in Boston, the contrast with a Republican Party that will unequivocally commit to its own worldview evokes at once upset at those right-wing beliefs and a certain wistfulness about the times when liberals and progressives felt safe to say what they really believe instead of what they've been told will "sell."

Some of the delegates even talk about something more deeply missing--a spiritual center or grounding. The great advances in cosnciousness of the past forty years have created a group of "cultural creatives"--some 40-60 million Americans who no longer think in terms of material success, domination over others, or the need to make America "number one." Sure, they are glad that the Kerry people think that making America "number one" should be achieved "not only" through military dominance, but also through the character of our leadership. But the cultural creatives believe in a very different vision--in a world of mutual interdependency and interconnectedness in which the egotistical nationalisms are transcended for a more ecological, more holistic vision of the world.

The irony is that the democratic process this past Winter and Spring demonstrated that there are millions of Americans who resonate to this broader vision. They are yearning for something very different--a turn toward peace, social justice, and a whole new discourse of caring. Many of these Americans realize that the rhetoric of American superiority, exceptionalism, and our-needs-above-the-needs-of-everyone-else on the planet--a rhetoric which seems to pop up even in the talks of those thought to be most liberal or progressive in the Democratic party--is precisely what undermines our capacity as a people to envision a world of mutual interdependency. The spiritual vision of The Unity of All Being is side-lined to tin-horn patriotism that ignores all that we've learned in the past forty years.

Yet however powerful that yearning for a different world may be, it has at least temporarily been silenced by the fear of Bush. The ultimate irony may be that it is precisely allowing that vision of a different world--not just the refining of the old liberal politics that have been so uninspiring for the past thirty years--that might have been the most effective way to actually beat Bush. It may yet turn out that this Democratic Convention andthe "Bush lite" strategy behind the Kerry campaign may not really be so "realistic" after all.

Warm regards from Boston where we are listening carefully to what you don't hear in the mainstream media,

Rabbi Michael Lerner

Tikkun