ML: We invite liberals and progressives of every possible stripe to come together and strategize about how these kinds of values can reshape public life in the US. We ask you, the reader of this, to help us get leaders, activists, and members of progressive movements for social and economic justice, peace, environmental sanity, civil rights, feminism, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, unions, liberal and progressive political parties and elected officials to meet and strategize together.
We need physicians, lawyers, therapists, Silicon Valley techies, working people in offices and factories and skilled trades, small business owners, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and every other minority community, philanthropists, financial and investment experts, scientists, engineers, high school and college students, teachers and academics, researchers, seniors, millennials, boomers, and everyone in between who can fully commit to nonviolence and empathy as strict guidelines for how to approach those with whom we disagree. So, we are urging people: "Please invite your friends because afterwards, when they hear how exciting it was for you, they'll be disappointed that you didn't try to convince them to come!"
One central point: There are lots of people doing valuable work in a wide variety of social change movements. But when looked at from a national perspective, we've been losing ground, and the Right is now in position to dismantle much of what liberals and progressives have accomplished in the past 80 years since the New Deal. We can't just focus on our own local accomplishments--we need a national strategy. We cannot afford to stay in our separate silos working on single-issue politics, or immerse ourselves in cynicism and despair about the possibility of making significant change. At the very least, we need to articulate a shared vision of the world we want-- not just the world we are against-- so that even as each of us continues in our focused activities to address specific ways that the world and its people are hurting, we simultaneously articulate a positive vision that we all share. We need a new unity and a new psychological and spiritual sophistication to heal and repair our very broken society.
JB: That sounds lovely.
ML: So I'm hoping that this conversation in OpEdNews will attract some readers to come to this gathering. They are all welcome to register now at www.spiritualprogressives.org/reclaimamerica or even just to show up at the door of the McLaren Conference Center at the University of San Francisco (come at 12:30 p.m. Sunday December 14, the sessions start at 1 p.m. and last till 6:30 or 7 p.m.--and bring a lunch and mid-afternoon snack as the university does not allow the organizers to do a potluckl). Better, though, to sign up online at www.spiritualprogressives.org, because then you get our letter describing the event in more detail, and other important issues of logistics plus the content we will be discussing.
JB: Okay readers, if you're on the West Coast or have friends who are, spread the word. Let's assure a great turnout for this important strategy session. Thanks for talking with me about this, Michael. I can't wait to hear how it went. This has been a pleasure!
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NSP website
Register for Reclaim America
my prior interviews with Rabbi Lerner:Rabbi Michael Lerner on the Recent Network of Spiritual Progressives Conference 7/1/2010
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