-
Website
http://www.baratunde.com/ -
Original page
http://www.baratunde.com/blog/archives/2004/11/dear_liberals_y.html -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
-
Top Commenters
-
Popular Threads
- Google launches "real time search," and it SOUNDS like mystical magical ferry dust - Blog - baratunde.com
- My third appearance on This Week In Tech - Blog - baratunde.com
- The NEW Friendster will make you ASIAN! - Blog - baratunde.com
- Baratunde heads to SF Sketchfest with The Just-Us League of America! (Jan 28) - Blog - baratunde.com
- baratunde.com - Blog - H&M would have to pay ME to wear a "Neck Tube" that eats my head like a damn sandworm from Dune
thanks
cj
We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.
Everyone: can we all get going with Democracy for America? Can we all get involved with city/county/state politics and fight this war from the bottom-up? Can we as religous/humanist/atheist progressives reframe our politics in the language of values?
If you need some inspiration I recommend "The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear". Let's do this, people.
Christians have money.
Catholics don't.
Good start. It helped me sorted out some of my own ideas on how the GOP got to take over the concept of "moral."
You need trackbacks in your comments section.
D
I share your sentiments and have been contemplating what we must do. As a Christian, I am particularly sickened by those who have watered it down and dressed it up to be what they want it to be for their own political purposes. I think you're right about God- we need to start there first. And Spanish-yup- we need to be fluent and build coalitions with our Latino brothers and sisters. I'd say more but I have a dissertation to write so for now I'm out but I'm ready to press on!!
Continue speaking truth to power-
KJ
Now Democrats have to find a way of getting middle America to understand that whether or not two gays marry each other will not affect anyone's ability to feed his or her family or get the best possible education for their children. They have to focus on building the base from the ground up - winning the school councils, the city councils etc. They need to focus on issues like getting all prisoners the vote, everywhere. New coalitions must be made and old ones strengthened.
I'm not an American and I don't live in the US but who sits in the White House concerns us all.
Baratunde's got the method down and I'm taking it up.
Peace.
Opposition to GAY Marriage is not opposition to GAYNESS-- 1st and foremost! A person's right to choose their partner is not in question. A man can freely date another man, just as much as an Israeli-American woman can date an Afro-American man (just go to the Village in NYC if you doubt me about either). The difference is that a marriage between two men or 2 women should not warrant the same rights and privileges (& protection) between a man and a woman. Simple, but TRUE. Once we open up PANDORA's BOX on that issue we may never fully get our culture and society to resemble what it is today (Go read your Roman History). Remember when no one stood up when prayer in schools was being removed... now (even after Columbine) we are considering taking "IN GOD WE TRUST" off money. Every cause has an effect. Think of the big picture, my brother (yes, "my brother"; even though you are not a Chrisitian). Do you want your children to go to school and have pictures of Family defined by pictures of men holding hands? Well, that is what you will have. That is what we Evangelicals are in protest of. You as a Black Man should be in the same protest line with me. I deplore Bush & his politics; they are both JOKES. However, the party that is supposed to be my party (OUR PARTY) gave more EAR to the small, disorganized, coalition of gay voters than me (and YOU)! And when you consider that every man that likes men don't necessarily want to be married to a man, it is even more of a disgrace that the Democratic Party chose to push that issue instead of OUR ISSUES. Ah yes, OUR ISSUES! Afro-Americans have issues but did the Democratic Presidential Nominee address those? Did he? So, when you ask if it was worth Four More Years of BUSH based on one issue-- Don't be shortsighted. It was not about 1 issue! The issue is that the Democratic Party thought that it could push some unworthy, half-hearted, double-minded Nominee who fought for other people's rights and ignored the Black Community and still get our VOTE. Those are the issues. So, if you want to make a plea, demand that OUR party (since it is OUR party) presents a man or woman that listens to US and that is willing to fight for our rights and our concerns.
So all you got out of Mr. Baratunde's entire message was that we ought to be supporting gay marriage? No wonder we're in this shit.
People who are not Christians are mad, and I think rightfully so. This was an election of morals and the Christian God, and that's wrong. Ironically, it's about as Un-American as it gets. Our founding fathers made a big goddamn effort to keep church and state separate, and we just pissed on their graves and gave them the finger. But, people are free to believe what they want... I just don't want legislation affected by these beliefs, and honestly, let's all just admit right now that a person's spiritual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with their morality, or their ability to distinguish good from evil, and most importantly, absolutely no bearing on their ability to make good decisions that can better a nation.
That being said, I don't think the reconciliation with Christianity is as simple as no longer equating it with conservative politics. The problem with Christianity is that it is a religion firmly rooted in evangelism, which, say what you will about this practice, is nothing if not vocal. And many of these proclamations of the particulars involved in loving one's neighbor and serving one's God are often met with conflict, the primary one being sense. Maybe people not of the Christian persuasion would be more willing to link arms in rebuilding the rubble of our country's morale if devout Christians weren't so determined to make dumb-ass arguements. Not all Christians, to be sure, but many.
Here are a few examples of the "huh?" factor in Christianity:
Gays can be gay, but only in the privacy of their own brains and should not enjoy the same legal benefits of Christian divorcees. Pandora's Box? What is this box? Why is beastiality the end result? Are my ears really ringing with the denunciation of homosexuality as a gateway sexual orientation? Why, Christians? Why the open bigotry? Perhaps gays should have their own drinking fountains as well...
Abortion is wrong, life is precious, unless it is fully grown and upset that you have invaded it for reasons that are still, as yet, enigmatic, to say the least. Atom bomb, progress, abortion evil. Again, I'm stumped at the thinking process that gets people there.
And finally, despite the clear geological evidence that the earth is millions of years old, the bones and fossils that prove that life on this earth evolves, there is a push for Creationism to be taught in schools as science. And speaking of Creationism, as far as I know, incest is pretty taboo in the Christian faith, and I'm pretty informed, as it is the faith in which I was raised, but doesn't the whole Adam and Eve thing fart in the face of said taboo? Forget taboo, the biological ramifications of close incest are such that, were this our dubious beginning, by now, we'd all be sooo much worse off than the British aristocracy, chinless puddles of braindead goo. The question marks swirl around my head like so many buzzards... But Christians are not people who can be placed under a blanket of nonsense. So many are very intelligent, wonderful, caring people. It's just... Why do so many insist on undermining their credibility by consistently spouting off about things that plainly do not make sense?
And yes, there's the whole glaring historical issue, being that the most bloody acts of atrocity were done in the name of this brother-loving religion , from the Crusades to the Inquisution to slavery, but that's a whole 'nother headache I'll leave for later.
I'm not bashing Christianity, per se, in the sense that I hate it, or Christians, becasue I don't hate most of them, but I just don't get it. I don't understand how people can use the illogical tenets of this religion as the basis in choosing a leader. It's fine and good to love God, it just seems that the other half of the equation, the whole neighbor-loving bit, the part that Jesus himself so ardently stressed, is being thrown by the wayside. So, yeah. I'm, confused. Please, someone elucidate me. I do not understand.
A couple of random thoughts as to why the Democrats lost. One mistake you continue to make is to underestimate your opponent. It shows up in the comments here. Instead of busting on Bush on how dumb he and all the people who voted for him are. An army is in trouble when it begins to think its enemy is imcompetent.
Let's ask a basic question (as in this is a baseball), what is a political party? What is it's purpose? Is it not to win elections. How do you do that? By getting people to vote for you. To when a presidency of a large country like the U.S. you have to give a wide variety of people a reason to vote for you. Some of those reasons might be mutually exclusive.
Both the democratic and republican parties are in reality coalitions of factions, or constituencies. The problem with the democrats has been that lately they've pushing many of their traditional constituencies towards the republicans.
It used to be you could be pro-life and be a democrat, pro-gun, strong on defense. Think back. Would Roosevelt have pushed gun control? I doubt it. He fought WWII. I doubt he would have pushed gay-marriage. It used to be a guy in a hard-hat could vote democrat confident that he voting not only for his economic interests but in the social interests. That's not true accross the board anymore.
You look at the exit polls, and the republicans improved their numbers with just about every constituency. They almost doubled their support among blacks. They increased support in states where they ran no ads whatsoever.
I saw Carvill on t.v. the other day, before the election call anyone who would vote for Bush the dumbest people on earth. I couldn't believe it. That's not how you win elections.
I read something else. That Kerry had a hour long conversation with Clinton before he went in for his operation. Clinton told Kerry that he needed to come out against gay marriage, that was a big issue. Kerry wouldn't do it. That issue had a lot of traditional democratic voters voting Bush. That's how you lose elections.
Another one. Yea I support Bush, yes I support the Iraq thing. Was Bush vulnerable on Iraq? Yes. Bush was vulnerable on how he handled Falluja. In the spring, they had their hands firmly around the throat of the terrorists, and instead of squeezing, they let go. Now we have to do it all over again. That was a political decision that came straight from the top and was certainly fair game for Kerry to attack.
What did Kerry focus on in the last days of the campagn. Missing explosives!?! What because some captain forgot to post a guard? The country is awash in explosive anyway. They've been blowing up the ammo dumps anyway. Kerry was focusing on stuff that was irrelevant.
That brings me to Kerry's big weakness. To get elected he had to piece together a coalition of no-matter-what pacifists (those who nominated him) and those who think Bush isn't doing a good enough job FIGHTING the war on terror. An oil and water mixture if ever I saw one.
Tearlach
A: Your premise is all wrong. You guys had "nutty" Zell Miller at your convention "screaming" all sorts of over the top negativity about John Kerry. You seemed to be satisfied with that. No one has to pretend to like Bush. You all didn't pretend to like Kerry. If you look at both conventions, the Dems' was MUCH more positive that the Repubs.
Pete: How the Democrats can embrace people like that and still say they have morals just amazes me
Me: How the Republicans can cut funding for international family planning and thus ACCERLATE the AIDS epidimic and still say that have morals just amazes ME. I guess we're both amazed.
As for Tearlach, VERY good closing point. Kerry's coalition was weak from the start... kind of like the coalition in Iraq.
peace for now. thanks to everyone for commenting!!
http://www.thestranger.com/2004-11-11/feature.html
personally, i have to agree with the person who wrote this article because when the bombs drop over here, they ain't going to be attacking some potato farm in idaho, they're going to be hitting where in live, Los Angeles, or my parents spot in NYC. the cities have to rise up against these backward midwest counties. there is a war going on, and this country is split. it's an archipelago of cities vs. the rest of the nation. i'll be interested in the feedback from this article.
-akume