[Dialogue] Sitzer in perspective

Thu Mar 13 23:00:54 EDT 2008

In a message dated 3/13/2008 9:44:18 PM Central Daylight Time,  
KroegerD at aol.com writes:

____________________________________
 From: Rabbi_Lerner at tikkun.org
Reply-to: RabbiLerner at tikkun.org
To:  KroegerD at aol.com
Sent: 3/11/2008 11:23:09 P.M. Central Daylight  Time
Subj: (no subject)

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Elliot Spitzer and America's Ethical  Perversity
by Rabbi Michael Lerner

The cross-the-political-spectrum attacks on Elliot  Spitzer and the intensity 
of the demands that he resign his  office show just how far the  Right-wing 
sexual moralizing  has been able to trump any other kind of ethical reasoning 
in  American society.

Going to a prostitute is  legal in some states and some countries around the 
world, and is  often the very arrangement that saves families from splitting 
up  whose sexual energies have diminished but whose love is intact.  It's not 
uncommon for men (and now increasingly women as well)  who have achieved great 
power in our society by adopting an  outer show of ruthless pursuit of power 
and influence (even, as  in Spitzer's case, if the power is aimed at pursuing 
laudable  ends) to feel a deep  emptiness and loneliness that is not  addressed 
by friends or spouse, and hence to seek some kind of  outside connection no 
matter how superficial that is not bound  by previous rules and roles. 
Nevertheless, I and many others in  the religious and spiritual world oppose that 
practice when it  involves adultery or prostitution, because it depends on the  
objectification of another human being, so that sex is  disconnected in ways 
that it should not be from a significant  encounter with the spirit of God in the 
other or a deep  recognition that is the only real way to overcome 
existential or  situational alienation. 

Moreover, the trade  in women for sexual purposes has frequently led to rape 
and  abuse and the kidnapping of young women who are sold into sexual  
slavery. All of these outrageous practices are abhorrent and  should be challenged. 
The flaunting of sexuality in the media,  and the implicit message that the 
only real satisfaction comes  from having the most physically attractive people 
as sexual  partners, not only generates huge dissatisfaction even as it  allows 
corporate advertise to become predators manipulating our  personal sense of 
inadequacy to sell their products, but also  generates desires that feed the 
sexual trade in women. Given  this larger social context, until sexual 
satisfaction is so  broadly available in our society that no one has to pay for it  and 
so deeply tied to love that no one is objectified in the  process, this kind 
of exploitation of women and degradation of  sex is likely to continue. All of 
these practices foster the  sexual predators of the contemporary world. 

So Elliot Spitzer deserves to be critiqued and ought  to be doing deep 
atonement for what he did.  His previous  moral arrogance and willingness when he 
had power to do so to  prosecute others for their participation in creating  
prostitution rings makes him an easy target. We, in turn, might  practice the 
forgiveness that our religious and spiritual  traditions preach, particularly 
those of us who have been  willing to honeslty face how flawed we ourselves are, 
and how at  times we ourselves fail to embody in our actual practice with  
others the values that we publicly espouse. Humility and  compassion are also 
part of the path of a spiritual progressive.  

But the intensity of the  critique of the N.Y. governor, tied with the demand 
that he  resign, shows more about American society's ethical perversity  than 
about Spitzer. 

The President of the  U.S. and the Vice President, working in concert with 
several  other high ranking officers of our government, lied and  distorted to 
get us involved in a war that has led to the death  of over a million Iraqis, 
the displacement of 3 million more,  the death of 4,000 Americans and the 
wounding of tens of  thousands more. After token opposition in Congress, our 
elected  representatives have overwhelmingly passed budgets funding this  war, 
rather than refuse to fund any military projects until the  President stopped the 
war and withdrew the troops.

Meanwhile, our government has overtly engaged in  torture, wiretapping of our 
phones, and violation of our human  rights and the rights of people around 
the world. Senator Diane  Feinstein and Senator Charles Schumer votes to confirm 
as  Attonrey General a right-wing judge who refused to repudiate  these 
crimes. 

The U.S. government has  rejected every attempt to implement the Kyoto 
environmental  agreements or to work out new agreements sufficiently strong to  
reverse environmental destruction that is certain to lead to new  levels of 
flooding particularly in several poor countries around  the world. The consequence: 
tens of millions of deaths.  

The Clinton Administration pushed, along  with corporate support, a set of 
trade agreements that have  devastated the farmers of many developing countries, 
forcing  many off their farms and into city slums where their daughters  and 
sons are often sold into sexual slavery.  The global  economic system we have 
fostered has led to increasing gaps  between the rich and the poor, so that 
over one out of every  three people on the planet lives on less than $2 a day, 
1.5  billion live on less than one dollar a day, and over 15,000  children die 
every day from malnutrition-related diseases and  inadequate availability of 
medicine that is hoarded by the rich  countries who can afford the prices made 
to ensure huge profits  to the pharmaceutical industry. 

Health  insurance companies and private medical profiteers are doing all  
they can to ensure that there will be no health care for tens of  millions of 
Americans, unless that is provided in ways that  guarantee corporate 
super-profits and thereby guarantee that the  cost of health care paid through taxes will 
be huge and create  anger at all government social welfare and well-being 
programs,  leading to their likely de-funding. 
People in the US have  faced severe economic crises on a regional and soon on 
a  national level because corporations move their centers of  production to 
countries in Asia where they can exploit workers  with less government or union 
interference and where they can  destroy the environment with less societal 
restraints. Wild to  achieve greater profits, corporations and the rich have 
managed  to support politicians who lower the taxes on the rich, in the  process 
bankrupting the public sector or severely reducing its  ability to provide 
enough funds for quality education, health  care, libraries, public 
transportation, and social welfare.  

That there is no outcry for these  government officials and corporate leaders 
to resign immediately  or be impeached, that there is no moral outrage at the 
entire  system that produces this impact, is America's ethical  perversity. 
Instead, the only crime against humanity that the  media takes seriously and 
the politicians fear is being exposed  for personal sexual immorality. While 
everyone basks in their  own self-righteous demands on Spitzer, we all allow 
media and  elected officials to fundamentally distort our ethical vision  and play 
out our morality on the smallest of possible stages  while ignoring the 
global and personal consequences of our  larger ethical failures.

Rabbi  Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun magazine www.tikkun.org  
<http://www.tikkun.org> , Chair of the Network of  Spiritual Progressives 
www.spiritualprogressives.org  <http://www.spiritualprogressives.org> ,  rabbi of  Beyt 
Tikkun synagogue-without-walls in San Francisco and  Berkeley, and author of The 
Left Hand of God. He  welcomes comments at RabbiLerner at tiikkun.org

If you agree with this perspective, call your local media  and ask that it be 
presented alongside the mainstream views. And  help us continue to provide 
alternative analyses by joining the  Network of Spiritual Progressives  
(www.spiritualprogressives.org) and urging your friends to do so  as well!   

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Excellent!  This should be an Op. Ed. piece in all the major  newspapers!
Carl and Ellie Stock,
St. Louis

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