I normally spend lots of time researching posts and stuffing them with links.
Today I'm on a different course - I want to reply to a comment I read yesterday, on a Kos diary, that caused a vague, growing sense of annoyance of mine to crystallize and come into focus. My irritation arose not from the content of the diary itself but, rather, from a ( well regarded ) comment in the diary discussion - mostly unrelated to the original topic - that represented an attitude which I have come to reject.
"Reclaim the Frame! (4.00 / 3)
Once again, it's only their insidious opposite-day framing that causes surprise at their lack of concern & action.
Pro-life? Hah! They do not care about life. They care about birth."
What do you call feeding the poor, caring for the sick, and working for peace? Pro-life. What do you call opposing abortion? Pro-birth.
It was late at night when I read that, and I was tired and more than a little sad. I responded to the comment....
"Them vs. Us (4.00 / 2)
My head is spinning. Who are "they", and who is "us" ?
I make judgements about groups, yes, but I'm uncomfortable with such broad brush strokes.
"Them" vs. "Us" talk pains my soul, because I know - regardless of ideology - where it tends to lead. "
I revisited the thread this morning and noticed a response......
"Them, defined (none / 0)
from the diary:
The Republicans care so much about unborn babies. Well, George, there are babies already born in Sudan living in a tent with strangers because their parents are dead. Do the Republicans care? Does George Bush care?
What do you call feeding the poor, caring for the sick, and working for peace? Pro-life. What do you call opposing abortion? Pro-birth."
Again, I replied.....
"I knew what you intended.... (none / 0)
But I think that approach is counterproductive.
Do you really think that the huge, heterogenous group you refer to does not "care about life" ?
I have a brother on the hard religious right. His political sensibilities and mine are very, very different. Nonetheless, I can assure you that he, and many millions of other Republicans you're including there care very much about life.
Their priorities and sensibilities are different from yours and mine. Agreed. But they do care about life - on their own terms and in their self chosen manner.
My approach would be to sharply criticize the politics of the Republican Party - but not those voters who have supported it.
Let me put that another way - you choose the way of vinegar, but I prefer the way of honey. Honey beckons, vinegar repels."
Last night, I also was reading another diary that heralded the publishing of a new book, by Jim Wallis head of Sojourner's ( description at bottom, in blockquotes )
The first comment on the diary was by a poster named Descrates :
"I used to think that the liberal hostility to religion the right used to gab on about was a myth, but I'm not so sure anymore. It mwy not go for everyone here, but there does seem to be a very vocal group within this community anyway which is very hostile to religion. So yes, I do think we should reach out to the religious in America, but that would first require changing our attitude."
Bittergirl - the diary's author - then replied :
"Attitudes around here do seem to run toward the intolerant as far as religion goes. That is, in theory, they accept and even celebrate, diversity of religious/spiritual beliefs, but when it comes right down to it, they are pretty anti-religion, or at least very suspicious/weary of it and anyone of the Christian persuasion.
This, I think, does us a lot of harm among moderate Christians, who might be leftward leaning, but sense the palpable hostility toward them. Religion isn't going away. It is something that we need to deal with. "
One poster assumed that Bittergirl was religious ( or affiliated with some form of organized religion ) and addressed her as "you people". Now, I've been addressed as "you people" before, and I know how enraging that can be. The poster graciously apologized,
and the discussion - short but lively - carried on : Can the left tolerate religion ? Can it afford not too ? What does it mean to say that one "hates" religion when most humans on the face of the earth identify with some form of religious belief ? Is it ever wise - either in political or human terms - to relegate a group which has beliefs or attributes one disagrees with or even detests to the status of a villified "other" ? Doesn't that approach sharpen disagreement and polarization ?
Given that it is a normal part of the human instinctual makeup to love and to care, what does it mean to accuse another human of "not caring" ?
Isn't that equivalent to an accusation of that person not being fully human ?
I made one comment on the thread :
"
"In my opinion, this hostility has amounted to one of the great strategic ( or tactical ? ) errors of the US left over the last two or three decades. "
Publisher's comments on "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It" ( available at Powell's Books )
"Since when did believing in God and having moral values make you pro-war, pro-rich, and pro-Republican? And since when did promoting and pursuing a progressive social agenda with a concern for economic security, health care, and educational opportunity mean you had to put faith in God aside?
While the Right in America has hijacked the language of faith to prop up its political agenda -- an agenda not all people of faith support -- the Left hasn't done much better, largely ignoring faith and continually separating moral discourse and personal ethics from public policy. While the Right argues that God's way is their way, the Left pursues an unrealistic separation of religious values from morally grounded political leadership. The consequence is a false choice between ideological religion and soulless politics.
The effect of this dilemma was made clear in the 2004 presidential election. The Democrats' miscalculations have left them despairing and searching for a way forward. It has become clear that someone must challenge the Republicans' claim that they speak for God, or that they hold a monopoly on moral values in the nation's public life. Wallis argues that America's separation of church and state does not require banishing moral and religious values from the public square. In fact, the very survival of America's social fabric depends on such values and vision to shape our politics -- a dependence the nation's founders recognized.
God's Politics offers a clarion call to make both our religious communities and our government more accountable to key values of the prophetic religious tradition -- that is, make them pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-equality, pro-consistent ethic of life (beyond single issue voting), and pro-family (without making scapegoats of single mothers or gays and lesbians). Our biblical faith and religious traditions simply do not allow us as a nation to continue to ignore the poor and marginalized, deny racial justice, tolerate the ravages of war, or turn away from the human rights of those made in the image of God. These are the values of love and justice, reconciliation, and community that Jesus taught and that are at the core of what many of us believe, Christian or not. In the tradition of prophets such as Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, and Desmond Tutu, Wallis inspires us to hold our political leaders and policies accountable by integrating our deepest moral convictions into our nation's public life.