Solstice Sign--Good or Bad Tactic for Atheists?

Solstice Sign--Good or Bad Tactic for Atheists?

I must confess to mixed feelings over the Freedom from Religion Foundation's sign in the Washington state Capitol Rotunda. Nobody detests the unconstitutional lack of separation between church and state more than I do. I understand the feelings and the passion behind it. Whenever a religion tries to use government property as a means of promoting their religious opinions, I am offended. So, if the state government is going to insist on sponsoring religious messages on government property--something that I vehemently oppose--then it only seems fair that an anti-religion group post their own message. The idea is to give Christians a taste of their own medicine, to show them the cost of using the public commons to shove their views down my throat.

Now, what is so bad about a secular sign that celebrates the Winter Solstice? This one was put up for those of us who do not want the government to be seen as pushing the idea that we ought to believe in any god, let alone the god of Christians. The problem in my mind is that most nativity scenes and other Christmas displays do not carry overt messages that one ought to believe in God. That message is somewhat more subtle. The very fact of a nativity scene on public property is a little bit of a victory dance for some Christian groups, and that is why they push for them. But this FFRF sign had the statement: "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." Ouch. Yeah, I believe that, but I don't want to shove it in people's faces. Especially not in the holiday season. It doesn't make people stop and think "Well, gosh, I never realized how religious messages on public property must be like for nonbelievers!" It makes them stop and think "Well, gosh, I guess those atheists really are nasty, angry people!" Object lessons are designed to make the message giver feel better, not the message receiver.

That said, I have to admit that the FFRF sign has as much right to be in the Capitol Rotunda as religious symbols. I really do, although I would rather that there were no religious messages on public property. And I'm glad that they made an issue of putting something up. I just wish that they had thought of a message that was a little gentler, a little more in tune with the holiday spirit. After all, I want people to respect and tolerate my beliefs. Sometimes that means that I have to make the extra effort not to let my frustration with intolerance make me seem intolerant of their beliefs.

Thread of the Week - 12/2

What makes you a liberal?

Any thinking person usually struggles with the weighty labels American politics traps its citizenry in. There's no avoiding this - all words are labels, and we need words to describe how and what people think. So why do we label ourselves liberals? Or is there something else out there that feels more accurate?

Narrating The Sarah Palin Turkey Slaughter

Do yourself a favor and give yourself six minutes to watch Keith Olbermann narrate the Sarah Palin turkey "pardoning" as he watches it for the first time live on the air. Mystery Science Theater couldn't have done much better.

In Defense of a Word - A Turn Left Thesis Statement

In the '90s, it was the time of the Clintons, and a period of robust love for American centrism. Conservative talk radio blew hot, ideological gas into cars throughout the country, Gingrich and his Republican legions had freshly stomped the old Democratic machine in the House, and everything seemed new yet old. It was a time of change in which. . . nothing really changed.

And during that time, a debate was spawned by the prominent bloviators. The right took aim at the word "liberal" and framed it as a modern-day curse word. The corrosion continued through the Clinton years and worsened under Bush.

Today, very few high-profile political figures dare associate themselves with this word. It takes a rare bird among Demorats - a Wesley Clark, Ted Kennedy, Al Franken or Robert Wexler - to stand up and claim the word and all it represents.

Everyone else hides behind euphemisms. They become "progressives," or they get caught up in partisan games and call themselves "moderate Democrats." And the open liberals - the ideological roots from which progressive movements grow - are left at the fringe of the party, to breathe fire from the sidelines while the supposed moderates do all the work.

The mission of this blog is to declare this condition of our political dialogue unacceptable.

This period of phony moderation and wishy-washy centrism must end, and liberals must no longer shy away from their ideas and values. This means being unashamed of our own open-mindedness. It means being willing to understand that taxes, in the right hands, can be an investment into our own well-being. It means being unafraid to fight for rationality and science in the face of a dogmatic government. It means finding room to welcome the vocabulary of our movement, accepting the fact that we are liberals, and that is something to be proud of.

This blog is made up of individuals, all of whom can be called liberals, many of whom have a long history of arguing for the cause. Most of us are Democrats, but we count among us some who are not. Most of us are not religious, but since our values and spirituality can coexist, we count among us a man of deep personal faith. We work in this troubled economy, unionized and not, public and private, young and old, financially comfortable and feeling the strain of our recession.

So welcome to our place. Sometimes we disagree with each other, but in the end we are all lovers of peace, intelligent government, the betterment of humankind and tolerant policy. We hope that you might join in on the conversation.

--Sinistral--

All I Am Saying, Is Give Him A Chance

Reading the liberal blogosphere lately is like watching a unshaven, manic-depressive cannibal try to eat its own foot.

So first, Obama picks Rahm Emanuel, and people go: "OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD so much for bipartisanship!!! Rahm's gonna eff up EVERYTHING with his fuzzy haircut and big, fat, sharp-elbowed 'tude!!!!!1"

Then Obama steps in to spare Lieberman's chairmanship and people go: "OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD he's isn't being partisan enough!!! He's gonna be such a wuss and sell his soul to Dick Cheney!!!!!1"

Then Obama starts making a case for bailing out the auto industry, and people go: "OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD he's being a big careless spender and trying to Sovietize America and OMF'nG maybe that be-beehived genius Sarah Palin was right about the socialism business and I'm so disappointed in life I can't stand to watch the Wolf Blitzer show any more because my liver hurts from how drunkenly depressed Barack Obama is forcing me to be!!!!!1"

Then people notice that Obama's making a few hires with experience under Clinton and people go: "OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD he's not really going to create change! He's just going to be Clinton No. 2 and he's going to hire Terry McAwfullife to be the Secretary of Selling Out To The Man!!!!!!!1"

And, you know, talking about issues is fine, sure - but, PEOPLE, COME ON, none of this is an indictment on his whole bleepin' presidency! He's not even president yet! He won't be president for two months even!

We just won the election, folks! Liberals nationwide should be reveling in this! Having to decide what to do with our newfound immense power is an excellent problem to have, after all. You know, the kind of problem that's you want to have.

This is part of what drives me nuts about my fellow liberals sometimes. (And I suppose I'm not helping with this post... but ah well!) There's so much nervousness, and panic, and worry, and freaking out over who did what the wrong way before they even began, that you'd think the Republicans were not only still in control, but Bush had just dissolved the constitution and declared himself Grand Poobah/Eternal Warlord of North America, Baskin Robbins and the Moon.

At least give these people a chance to fuck up before you tell them they fucked up, kay?

Post-Election Reflections

First, a shout-out to the pollsters. They got it right. All that fuss about the Bradley (/Wilder/Dinkins) Effect was just gas. Every race went the way it was called, and the tossups really were tossups. It was the same in 2006. Those guys have it figured out. Believe them.

I've read a lot of gloom and doom stories about the Republican Party's future. Many of them are true. Demographics is destiny, and the Reps skew old, white, and religious. Those are all falling stocks. But there is a chance for them: they need the Democrats to screw up, or at least that circumstances conspire against Obama. You've gotta admit that's not entirely implausible.

But mainly, this is the hard part. Already, two weeks after the election, I'm starting to feel disappointed that Obama isn't doing exactly what I'd do. Eight months ago, I was inveighing against Hillary Clinton's candidacy on the grounds that she'd just appoint a bunch of Clinton Administration veterans. Well, that's exactly what Obama is doing so far.

But what the hell, he hasn't been inaugurated yet. All is possible. And George W. Bush is not a hard act to follow.

Don't Bail Out The Car Companies

I'd have liked to see the financial industry slapped with harsher regulations and perhaps even temporarily socialized for their screw ups, although I do think some form of government assistance was necessary to keep our economy afloat during this crisis.

But GM? Chrystler? You kiddin' me? Are we going to bail out Microsoft if things get rough? How about Wal-Mart? Disney? Hess?

This recession is going to have some casualties, and I'm saying that as a liberal. Some of the greedy companies that have been using the American workforce are going to die - and it will be their own damn fault. Giving GM a couple billion won't make their cars better, or their business practices more responsible. It will be a waste.

And then, maybe, some smart Americans can put together a car manufacturer who will actually make energy-efficient vehicles that fit with the times.

Actually, Anti-Immigration Is A Dying Cause

Exhibit A in the decline and increasing irrelevance of the Lou Dobbs, too-scared-to-leave-the-house sliver of the country: the Minutemen, a bunch of armed yahoos I remember very well from back home in Arizona, are basically dead. This New Republic article explains things very clearly. The phenomenon was running on fumes and a fake sense of importance from the beginning, and its demise has been written on the wall for a while now. Zvika Krieger writes:

In this environment, Gilchrist's movement is falling apart, overtaken by new members whom he describes as "troublemakers with personality disorders and criminal propensities." In contrast, he insists that the group's original members were able to give voice to the immigration concerns of ordinary Americans because they demonstrated "a passionate allegiance to the United States of America and its priceless principles." There is no doubt that the Minutemen--aided by sympathizers in the media like Lou Dobbs--drove the national conversation in 2005. But whether the enormous wellspring of American anger over illegal immigration that they claim to have tapped into actually existed is another question.

[...]

The press eagerly latched on to the Minutemen as representative of those hundreds of thousands of supposedly angry Americans as the battle over comprehensive immigration reform heated up on Capitol Hill. "The majority of Americans are fed up with illegal immigration and want something done about it, " declared Bill O'Reilly, who hosted Gilchrist numerous times. "Three cheers for the Minutemen!" Sean Hannity, toting night-vision cameras, went on border patrols multiple times with the Minutemen, trips he then used to scold McCain, one of the bill's primary backers. "It's a devastating problem down there," he told the senator.

Minutemen today fondly reminisce about this brief, golden period of influence. Luca Zanna, co-founder of the Mohave County Minutemen, breathlessly recounts the time he spent on the border with Gilchrist and his fellow activists. "That spontaneity, that independence--it was beautiful," he says. "When you control the show, you decide what will be on the show. We had that for a moment."

Anyone who's followed local politics wherever they are knows how this sounds: a one-issue obsessive with a decent bankroll grabs the headlines with an election-year crusade or referendum and thinks they're on top of the world. Back home we had dueling ballot initiatives year in and year out about how to use, apportion and clean the dwindling drinking water supply in one of the country's driest states, and one year an RV dealer with a dream became famous for backing a winning proposal that put the state in a real bind but sounded good to frightened, thirsty voters on paper. He had his own golden period of influence. But like Bob Beaudry, Jim Gilchrist and the Minutemen have already had their fifteen minutes.

This year, there has been more evidence that, while immigration remains a legitimate issue, the supposed nationwide furor was a product of media hype. With the congressional debate over and the press increasingly ignoring the Minutemen, most Americans are professing moderate views on the issue. As of June, the percentage of Americans who want to reduce immigration levels has fallen within a percentage point of the 20-year low, while 64 percent of those polled say that immigration is a good thing for the country (the second-highest it's been since September 11). Even on Super Tuesday, the height of the presidential primary, exit polls found almost 60 percent of Republican voters favoring immigration policies that Lou Dobbs would deride as "amnesty."

The whole article is worth a read, if only as a window into how a small group that shouts loudly enough can make itself look twenty times as big and a hundred times as popular.

The Elephant In The Room?

A week ago, we watched as the GOP, to be nice, took one on the chin. It was more like a slash to the throat if you ask me, but with losses in the House, Senate and the White House, the GOP is definitely in a rebuilding mode.

And over the last few days, I've heard on NPR and read online about what the GOP is trying to do in an attempt to restructure itself for 2010 and beyond. What I have yet to hear mentioned is that the GOP needs to abandon it's policy of "outgroups." The idea of creating an idea of an "other" that can be blamed for problems and divide people that would otherwise be united.

This notion may date back to the 1940's when Strom Thurmond and his fellow Dixiecrats bolted the Democratic Convention over the inclusion of a Civil Rights plank. Nixon with his Southern Strategy continued this trend of painting the South red. Reagan's "welfare queens" was a further advancement, and perhaps a way to take the idea beyond the South.

It goes well beyond African-Americans too. While the religious right may have many of its roots in the efforts to maintain racial segregation; the Equal Rights Amendment may have been what truly catapulted them into prominence in the 1980's. Gays and lesbians still struggle today for recognition of their equality, as California's Prop 8 shows.

The scapegoat of the hour for the right as of now though seems to be latinos, with folks like Lou Dobbs, Lou Barletta and the "Minutemen" acting as antagonists.

All of this exclusion seemingly serves two purposes. One, it shows how far out of step the GOP is with an America that is becoming more diverse and tolerant, though the oddity of blacks and latinos overwhelmingly supporting 'Prop 8' comes to mind. Two, it creates more potential voters for Democrats. While on a canvass of an apartment complex with a sizable Latino tendancy, I found a large number of Obama voters.

But will the GOP see that discriminatory initiatives and looking to xenophobes as their "rising stars" is a prescription for disaster, and can the GOP risk losing their "base" in the effort?

Prop Hate Will Do Itself In

Did the camel's back just break?

It stuck out like a gangrenous, blistered, sore thumb. On an election day in which progressives struck the political scene with an earth-shaking thunderclap, one vote in normally liberal California remained the sound nails on a chalkboard. And now, with our vision cleared, we the people are finally pissed.

I can't think of any time I've seen so many people so angry and so horrified about the gay marriage issue since Proposition 8 was approved in California. I can't think of any time there has been so much awareness that not allowing gays to marry is the new "separate but equal" - and, as true now as it was at the time that phrase was the norm, the two concepts are irreconcilable.

There's already talk of a rematch if the proposition survives the court system. There's serious talk of boycotting the Mormon Church for sticking its nose where it did not belong. There's talk of forming a pro-gay-marriage political machine, to put together a ground game similar to the one that elected a man to the presidency in a manner that shattered all cynical presupposition.

People are angry. And that's good. Angry people get things done.

How does 1994 compare to this year?

The congressional elections this year are likely to invite comparisons with 1994. How to do the two stack up?

Senate

The Republicans made a large one-election shift in the Senate in 1994, winning eight seats and going from 44 to 52. The final numbers, after some seat swapping: Republican 53, Democratic 47. That year there were six open seats so the Republicans defeated only two incumbents.

This year the Democrats won at least six seats, going from a majority of 51 to at least 57 (with three seats still undecided). The Democratic flip was smaller (so far) but more significant in terms of voting power within the Senate.

House

In the House in 1994 the Republicans also had a big shift with a 54 seat win, moving the power from D 258, R 230 to D 204, R 230 and defeating 34 incumbents.

The balance of power this time will be at least D 257, with a few seats still undecided, meaning that Dems have restored the power they had before 1994. This year they have won at least 20 new seats after gaining 31 in 2006. The Democratic advantage in the House is 82 votes, compared to the 26 vote advantage the Republicans had in 1994.

They did not have a 'revolution' but steadily re-grew their majority over the last few election cycles. Approximately 20 incumbents were defeated in this election cycle with 22 defeated in 2006.

What does this mean in policy terms and the mood of the country?

The 1994 Republican 'revolution' was the result of two factors. One was the historical realignment of Southern voters who rejected the Democratic Party label. The "Democrats" elected in the South for decades were highly conservative with policy positions that fit better with the new Republican brand. With the second factor, Newt Gringrich's "Contract with America" to inspire them, Southern Democratic voters finally changed their party.

The election advantage for the Republicans was similar to that in 1946 when the country, discouraged with Truman's leadership, shifted the House by an eerily similar 54 seats. In fact, the Republicans gained the majority of votes for Congress seats for the first time since 1946.

But the Contract with America did not achieve what it had promised. For instance, a November 13, 2000 article by Edward H. Crane, president of the libertarian Cato Institute, stated, "... the combined budgets of the 95 major programs that the Contract with America promised to eliminate have increased by 13%." (Wikipedia)

The relative failure of the Contract, the downfall of Gingrich, the unpopular impeachment, and the steadily growing extremism of the Republican Party, made the party lose its edge in both the Senate and the House, declining steadily (except for a slight bump when Bush was elected) since that time.

The majorities in both the House and the Senate when the new Congress convenes will be unassailable since the Dixiecrats are almost all gone, with only a few right-leaners like Landrieu still in place. The Republicans will be able to mount almost no defense in the House and will risk using the filibuster only rarely in the Senate since it will easily earn them the 'obstructionist' label and weaken their chances for a resurgence in 2010.

It is likely that the Democrats will make compromises with the Republicans to keep the bipartisan promise Obama made (unlike Bush breaking his promise in 2001) but we are still likely to see major movement on the issues Obama promised to work on in his campaign.

Pure Glee

Last night, I hunkered down for almost two hours straight and browsed YouTube for people celebrating on Election Night. It's not very hard. Just type in "Obama celebration" and any given major city or college campus and you'll find tons of videos of young Obama supporters romping about, immersed in pure glee, singing, dancing, howling, crying, chanting, honking their horns and leaning out car windows.

I can't think of any time in recent history that so many masses of people gathered in streets across the country to party. It was like we'd just won World War II all over again. It was crazier than New Year's Eve. When was the last time a presidential election sparked so much pure exuberance?

It gives me a lot of hope. I'm not talking about campaign-stamped-and-approved-of-hope, so much as hope that we are witnessing the end of one of my greatest pet-peeves. Political apathy.

I was a teenager during the '90s, and fell in love with politics in the middle of high school. I frequently went on political rants and was frustrated by the utter disinterest of many of my peers. That continued afterward, during and after college. But Bush continued stepping on things people cared about, and finally we've seen a fundamental change in how we as a people think.

Thanks largely to the ineptness of Bush, political discussion has transformed from an annoyance to the norm.

People care about and are talking about ideas again. That is the mark of a great period in history. Times of great ideas spark civil rights movements, revolutions and periods of progressive transformation. Renaissances. Those times are where the values that are worth fighting and bleeding for come from in the first place.

So, while we're riding this wave of glee, let me just say: Don't lose out on this chance to be a part of a world-wide conversation. It is here. It is here now. And it won't last forever.