From the Sidelines
I’m watching from the sidelines as this Downing Street saga plays out. I have mixed feelings about this issue. First, I have little confidence that our administration will be held accountable for its criminal actions in Iraq. I say criminal, because the Iraqis had almost nothing to do with the attacks on America on September 11, 2001. Saddam was a bad guy, yes, but he was no worse than many still in power in the world. The urgency in invading Iraq is just GWB’s personal vendetta.
Also, I fear the Democratic Party cannot hope to overcome the big money support of the Republicans. Not only do they need a strong candidate (yet to be seen), and a unified platform (non-existent), they need the funds to deliver. Since most Democrats are not among the extremely rich, and since the Democratic philosophy has so far maintained most of its ethical standards (they’re not yet being bought wholesale), the money problem is going to be tough.
This means that although we are starting to cut the break lines on the Republican machine, I despair at our ability to fully capitalize on the Downing Street Memos.
We’ve had some good luck this year, as the over-reaching arrogance of the Christian right, stumbled in its own greed, America can see glimpses of just what the United States of God would be like. It seems the worst we can do to the Republican Machine is being done from within.
There are so many dedicated bloggers out there pushing the Big Brass Alliance into national prominence, many of whom have many more readers/clout than my humble offerings. I hesitate to compete with all the excellent noise they’re making. Night Light urges us to reframe DSM into a crime story, which it is, to gather more eyeballs and titillate readerships. Working For Change is covering DSM with help from Molly Ivins, how can I top that?
As a newbie, I don’t want to just echo great coverage of others. I’ll report something if I think I have a new angle, or if I really get worked up. Until then, I’ll resume my post as an Internet wallflower.
June 23rd, 2005 at 6:28 pm
You know what, T? Every time I see you saying something about the Christian Fundamentalists, and how they are conspiring to turn this country into a theocracy, all I can hear is echoes of the old Jew-baiting statements a half a century ago and more…
In your next thought experiment, where you substitute words to make comparisons on tolerance, try popping in “Jew” where you say “Christian”, and see if it doesn’t make you and your family just a little bit uncomfortable. It certainly does that to me.
June 24th, 2005 at 6:51 pm
Your right, I would be chilled. I’m chilled by the anti-gay rhetoric now. If you feel insutled by my choice of words, I made my point: It’s a habit with a long historical precedent to oppress an unprotected minority. Mid last century the Jews were vicitms, today the Gays (among others) are being attacked. Who’s to say that one day the Christians will not come under fire? Can you?
Intolerance itself is a bad thing. How more simply can I state this? If you find me intolerant because I bash Christians, perhaps your right, but your visceral reaction tells me you at least thought about my words, and that’s what I’m after.
Knowing I’m unenlightened goes a long way toward becoming so. Most Christians, and almost all whom are media targets today, feel they have a stranglehold on “Truth,” and that offends me. If you don’t see this, you’re not looking.
As for I intolerance, I promise to improve if you will. Will you?
June 25th, 2005 at 9:14 pm
T, like most people, I have limits to my tolerance. My biggest limit comes when people say or do things which will put those I love at greater risk. Not too different from you, am I?
You should know me well enough by now to know I would never endorse anybody whose agenda is hatred… which is why I don’t support Howie Dean or the elite left. They’re selling their opposition as demons, when, in fact, the elected and constituent Republicans are simply a group with a different view of how to keep America great.
If you can’t see that, I’m even more disappointed in you than ever.
Sparring for fun is one thing, spending energy deflecting a rant against the administration and conservatives in general because many of them are staunch Christians… well, that’s hard work, & even if I were a saint, I’d find my patience tested. To begin with, most of the people who voted Democratic in this last election were staunch Christians, as well. Most blacks, most Hispanics, and many gays are staunch Christians.
As to the “anti-gay” stuff… Look again and tell me where Bush, Cheney, or anybody else in that crowd has said that gays are evil, gays should be eliminated, that they “hate gays and everything they represent”. You need to recognize that it is not just Christians who are a little concerned by the press to change the face of the family. The mother/father/child unit called the traditional nuclear family is seen even by many non-Christians as a structure which has helped to maintain a strong and healthy society, where it is protected. Mess with family, they’ve said, and you endanger the future. To equate one group with another is not necessarily rational, to them.
Even when faith is a factor, most Christians do not hate gays. They simply believe that extramarital sex is not endorsed by their faith, by their lawgiver, and that their souls are at risk when they act on that animal impulse instead of learning to control their drives. I understand that rising above animal impulses is something Buddhists are supposed to aim for, as well, isn’t it?
The people who scream that anti-gay rhetoric are not the majority of the Christian community, BTW. In fact, the real, faithful Christians I have encountered in person and online find those people as scummy and ignorant as the people who behead innocent noncombatants overseas.
And, you need to recognize that the “Christian community” — even the conservative portion of it — is not a single, one-unit entity thinking and operating in lock-step. Try taking out your phone book and seeing how many different Christian churches there are within, say, a 40 mile radius. How many are Catholic? How many Presbyterian? How many evangelical, how many apostolic, how many Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Unitarian, Quaker, Shaker, etc. do you see? Do you think they will all sit down and agree to a single method of running this proposed theocracy your pals on the left keep telling you will happen? Or, do you, just maybe, think that the schisms that have happened in the past might just have some impact on their cooperating enough to make this thing happen?
Paranoia toward a single, very diverse group has left you a blind spot in your struggle for tolerance.
June 26th, 2005 at 10:03 am
Yes, again. I do have a blindspot in my tolerance. I do deominize our administration, because I see them as self-serving bastions of hate and greed. I could go on, but I’d be repeating myself…
Thanks you for pointing out my error in not refining my point against only the Fundies. Mainstream, bread-and-butter Christians have the sense to keep their thoughts to themselves. The issue I have is with the type of thinking that induces proselytization. I abhore anyone who forces beliefs upon others.
In many small ways, that is what our administration is doing. You might agree with many of their choices, so you would naturally not be as bothered as I.
As for the multi-complexity of Christianity - I have my own doubts about theism itself, so this of course comes out in my writing. “God is a concept by which we measure our pain,” and all that. I use Christians as targets only because the vocal mintority makes pot-shots too easy. The fact that this minority holds the reigns of government chills me deeply.
Yes, I am paranoid. So should you be.
June 27th, 2005 at 10:30 am
Now, let me ask you , which specific Fundie group is purportedly running the Administration? Let’s see… Rove was raised among Mormons. Bush is a Methodist. Ken Lehman, the party Chairman, is Jewish. Rumsfeld… I can’t find any professed tight religious affiliations, there. Umm…Cheney… Uh, he’s so Fundie he supports his gay daughter Mary?
Yeah, I can see the cabal clearly, now… uh huh.
As to the Senate & House — Which party leaders publicly attend services of some faith?
It seems to me, there is one group of party leaders which brings up religion when it is convenient, either to say they, themselves, are “fine souls among the faithful”, or to tell everybody the other guys are trying to force religion down everybody’s throats. One party’s leaders talk politics regularly from pulpits. One party’s leadership plays the supremely divisive religion card almost daily. And I ain’t seein that from the Republican party.
In case you hadn’t noticed, Robertson and Falwell and their ilk are not exactly feted daily in or near D.C., except when they agree with the far left about Israel.
Oh…. and the majority of America is strongly Christian. Not the minority. In a 2002 telephone survey by Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research, five of every six Americans questioned said they were Christian, of one sort or another. Of those, 88% said ” Religious worship and other religious activities play an important role in [their] lives.”