This ad, authored by the Network for Spiritual Progressives, gives President Obama supportive feedback about how to increase consistency between his message and his programs.

A large majority of Americans want to see Obama succeed. But too many of his supporters have remained silent while he gets attacked from the Right, on the one hand, and on the other hand capitulates to an inside-the-Beltway, pro-Wall Street, pro-military consensus that has nothing to do with why most Americans voted for him. He is at grave risk of appearing to make his major priority the restoration of the economic system that favored the rich and powerful, encouraged an ethos of selfishness and materialism, and was on a collision course with the environmental needs of the planet. As though Humpty-Dumpty could be put together again. It can't, and it shouldn't.

The problem is that Obama is not presenting a coherent vision or programs that match such a vision. Without that, it's hard to mobilize people to provide him with the support he needs. Of course, anyone who watches Obama with some care realizes that he actually does hold higher values, and that he is an amazingly decent and good person. But because he does not have spiritual or progressive leadership or voices around him, and because he has not fully been presented with our thinking, he may inadvertently recreate the existing system because he thinks he has to, in order to stabilize the economy. And he may simultaneously inadvertently demobilize his base because he hasn't engaged them in a higher-vision driven agenda. If so, the combination of the Right's unrelenting attacks and the drifting-away of the base that has not been sufficiently mobilized will prevent Obama from helping to bring about the world that he himself desires.

We watched something similar happen to the Clinton administration, which promised health care, then came up with a program that was so convoluted by its desire to appeal to the rich and powerful insurance companies, health care profiteers, and inside-the-Beltway commentators and power brokers that it was unable to generate public support, and thus became a sitting duck for the forces of reaction.

The Obama administration is at grave risk of making the same kind of mistake: failing to have a clear vision of the society it wants or to develop programs that cohere with that vision. Without that, he is slowly losing the enthusiasm of the very forces that made it possible for him to win the Democratic Party nomination for president -- including the activists, community organizers, students, and youth who believed that Obama was really interested in ushering in a new age of peace, social justice, and ecological sanity. These are the people who could mobilize a populist movement to support a progressive agenda; but they are being demobilized by the inconsistencies of Obama's vision and programs. Moreover, Obama has largely excluded them from his cabinet and sub-cabinet positions, so that very few of the peace, social justice, ecological, and other activists are even heard by him. Instead, he is surrounded by the same people who advised Clinton in the 1990s, and whose advice helped create the various disasters that now afflict our society.

Part of the problem is that the progressives themselves don't fully understand the psychodynamics of American society, so they are unable to help Obama know how to speak about the need for fundamental change of the economy. Many on the left know how to say what's wrong, but few have tried to develop a positive vision of what could replace the current realities.

That's why it is so important for Obama to hear the voices of our Network of Spiritual Progressives. We have that alternative vision, articulated more fully in our Spiritual Covenant with America, our Global Marshall Plan, and in the writings that appear in Tikkun magazine and in Rabbi Michael Lerner's book The Left Hand of God.
 
In our ad, we are attempting to put some of that thinking in front of Obama and other opinion shapers. The review of Obama that happens around the end of his "first 100 days" provides us with a unique opportunity to get his attention and bring this message to him.

That's why we hope you will sign the ad and donate to make it possible for us to place it in the Washington Post and other major media. And please forward this message to everyone you know who might help us get the support we need!

Read, sign, and/or donate towards the printing of the ad here.

Credit Card: You can donate online at www.spiritualprogressives.org or www.tikkun.org and click ‘Help us with this ad’ (preferred) OR supply your name, email address, billing address, city, state, zip, credit card type and no., expiration date, security code, and phone … Send this info to: “Tikkun, Ad Campaign” c/o TIKKUN, 2342 Shattuck Ave, Suite 1200, Berkeley, CA 94704. OR, if you prefer to give your credit card info on the phone, call us M-F 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PDT, at 510-644-1200.