7/30/05 Newsweek's Interview with Bernie Goldberg:
QUESTION:
Are liberals really more responsible[for the decline of civility in America] than conservatives? Isn't there plenty of blame to go around?
[Goldberg]
"Even when I agree with my liberal friends on this issue or that issue, I no longer like being associated with them. It isn't because of their politics. It's because of their elitism. They look down their snobby noses at ordinary Americans who eat at Red Lobster or because they like to bowl or they go to church on a regular basis or because they fly the flag on the Fourth of July...."
(See below)
This ridiculous man and his silly little book bring up a very important and rarely discussed point.
Incidentally, as many of you probably know, Michael Moore is the honorary #1 in Goldberg's list. There is no need to dissect this book or trash good ol' Bernie because, if nothing else, John Stewart did a fine job of that on his show a couple of weeks back...
If it weren't so angering, it would border on comical that Goldberg laments the generalizing and sterotyping of conservatives in the very same sentence that he generalizes and stereotypes liberals as "elitists"..Quite honestly, although a best seller, I firmly believe that this type of liberal trashing is ebbing and Bernie is simply ringing the last drops of life out of this topic that he can; Basically he took what consists of a poorly thought-out list he scribbled down on the back-cover of his latest issue of The National Review while taking a shit and susequently submitted it to his publisher.
Apparently, while living in New York City/ Washington D.C. in the millionaire lifestyle, embracing a certain level of celebrity, attending elite theater, going to the finest restaurants, conducting celebrity interviews, wearing the finest clothes, not wanting for anything, Bernie Goldberg must occasionally give pause (unlike liberals) to remember the good old fashioned salt of the earth American conservatives who know their place in the Great American food chain. And Bernie does not begrudge them their religion or Red Lobster as those elitist liberals do. Yes: Argh...But, to be fair and honest with myself, I would like to do what he did not have the courage to do: Some self-exploration of the basis of this particular liberal label.
I would like to address my own dismay at times that on this site, there are those who do reveal traits that DO fit into this mold of elitist liberal. I DO NOT WISH TO STAND ON ANY PEDESTAL OF RIGHTEOUSNESS BECAUSE I AM JUST AS CULPABLE, but there is most certainly a strain of left-winger that is understandably extremely proud of their educatioal, professional endeavors that I find a bit worrisome. Please know that I find NEARLY ALL of posters on this site to be open and thoughtful, even the ones I just mentioned. And nearly everyone on this site has more education, more depth of knowledge and more experience in this forum than I. But there are those who sometimes amaze me, and I feel that by refusing to even attempt to delve into certain topics, they hurt us as a party and perpetuate the negative stereotype; specifically, that we dismiss "the believers".
To truly subscribe to the current brand of conservatism, one must really be myopic in one's convictions. For conservative arguments to withstand any scrutiny, they must be taken out of context. This way, all of their ideas and positions become infallible. But, even on the left, there are those who truly take a position that I have found to be decidedly a conservative, close-minded stance. I call this the "I Don't Need To Think About That" mentality which I used to only apply ot conservatives.
I found that when, in a previous post, when offered a way to engage religious Americans through the work of a religious scholar who has managed to find scriptural context to rebut many of the arguments of the right wing christian conservative movement, the post received some great replies, but it also received some very, dare I say, elitist replies.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/28/122522/027
There were those who, like I have in the past, written off those who subscribe to religious beliefs as irrational, lost causes whom you cannot reason with because their beliefs are based on irrational, biased, interpreted myth. (Granted this mostly applies to CONSERVATIVE religious believers). I am an athiest myself, but I saw that some posters replies declared within minutes of reading a very lengthy and detailed post that any attempt to engage christianity was "a waste of time"; that those who are biblical "literalists" are beyond hope of seeing anything but their narrow vision of scripture. Maybe this is true. Perhaps I am completely wrong, but does that make it not worth ANY effort to engage? Essentially some reduce the christianity debate to a simple equasion: religious=irrational=unreachable=forget them. Some posters even used their own religious roots as their self-declared expertise (I, myself, was raised Roman Catholic, but I would not dare to speak so absolutely). I think that this DOES constitute a certain form of liberal elitism and does a disservice to our party. Like it or not, a full 90% of this nation believes in some form of God, most believe in a Christian God. And by not engaging in this argument with conviction, fervor and respectfully offering an alternative interpretation, we hurt the future of our party and make the Right...well....right. I think this is partly because the bible is the one book many of the heady intellectuals on the left have NOT read (I know that I am no biblical scholar)out of disdain or frustration for its lack of empirical, factual data and the fact that it is a faith-based endeavor for the most part.
For the fact-checking liberal, it must be extremely frustrating that even if you knew the bible inside-out, interpretation is the law and even complete memorization of the text cannot ensure a clean, logical and winnable debate, and therefore must truly seem pointless. I also think that it is fair to say that many of us on the left have mostly "tolerated" or forgiven our own Democratic leaders talk of religion as necessary to engage the larger audience, but deep down not believing that they themselves, (our Democratic leaders) believe their "God Talk" all that much.
I know that there are many lefties who do believe in God and I do not mean to insult them or their beliefs, but I also believe that many of us don't believe in "God". And now, with the usurping of our government by the christian right, who have been allowed to define "God" through OUR dismissal or lack of interest in the topic, many of us understandably have little tolerance, let alone use for anything "christian" these days when it comes to political discourse. But like it or not, the conservative religious are controlling the national dialogue and (whether we believe it should or should not have been) leveled the debate of religion's place in American culture and government. It is the reality.
Bernie Goldberg is a douchebag, but I think that to be a more complete, fully realized party of ideas, unlike the Republicans, we MUST engage this debate. We must use the resources given to us, the biblical scholars that do agree with us, and truly try to win SOME hearts and minds. Does this mean letting reliiguos debate enter the political debate of policy? No. Does this mean giving one single inch in church and state separation? NO WAY. This is simply about waking up and seeing that by refusing to have the argument, we concede the issue, the demographic, the stereotype and allow ourselves to be defined by our enemies.