When Are "Christian" Republicans Going To Pressure Their Party To Deliver Justice For The Least Among Us When Are They Going To Be Called On Their Failure To Do That?

I read the Atlantic interview with Michael Wear "The former director of Barack Obama’s 2012 faith-outreach efforts" after reading Charles Pierce's piece on it.  While I think Charles kind of misses a mark or so, Wear misses more of them.   I wasn't much aware of Michael Wear before reading it so I can't say much about him except that he seems to be rather callow, as might be expected (he was 24 when he got the job and 28 now) and rather shallow.   He seems to follow the most superficial of media lines that identifies "religion" with right-wing Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism, which is assumed to mean somewhat the same thing only different.  It's no surprise that Wear, himself, identifies as a conservative Evangelical.   Why Obama would appoint someone of Wear's superficiality and obvious inexperience and orientation to the post, I can't think, except that he didn't take it all that seriously or he delegated the choice to someone who didn't take it that seriously.  I think the latter is probably the case.   My guess is whoever made the choice was looking to fill a slot with a conservative Evangelical guy and not much caring about the results.   Charles Pierce doesn't say it but he has a quote in his story that quotes Karl Rove whose words betray the  kind of "religious" thought that went into the choice.

  (To his credit, Kuo [ David Kuo, who filled a similar role in Bush II's regime]  related one anecdote that will be hard for Wear—or anyone else—to top. In his book, Kuo says he once heard another aide ordered by Karl Rove, "I don't know. Just get me a fucking faith-based thing. Got it?" This is exactly how St. Francis would have sounded, had he been a capo regime in Assisi.)

Pretty much most of the political use of religion is a cynical pose, a means of roping in suckers who can be counted on to vote for you and then thrown a few bones but otherwise ignored.  Which is probably why someone like Wear was hired.  You might include the Atlantic's religion person, Emma Greene who did the interview.  Her intro has such passages as:

Several years later, he watched battles over abortion funding and contraception requirements in the Affordable Care Act with chagrin: The administration was unnecessarily antagonistic toward religious conservatives in both of those fights, Wear argues, and it eventually lost, anyway. When Louie Giglio, an evangelical pastor, was pressured to withdraw from giving the 2012 inaugural benediction because of his teachings on homosexuality, Wear almost quit.

The definition of religion as wanting abortion made illegal again and to be able to discriminate against LGBT people ignores that a very large percentage of seriously religious people hold the opposite of those positions held by Wear and the so often touted "81% of white Evangelicals" who voted for the most blatantly irreligious candidate in our history and a party which is dedicated to the polar opposite of what Jesus, his disciples and, in fact, the entire line of Hebrew prophets taught. Economic justice, social justice, the distribution of liberal aid to the least among us.

Far from that alleged 81% showing that Democrats have a "religion problem" it shows that that 81% would seem to have a Jesus problem.  A huge, entirely discrediting, Jesus problem.

A large percentage of white "Evangelical" voters would seem to have no problem voting for the most anti-Christian agenda in modern American political history and a candidate who would be better suited as a modern day Nero or Herod.  I have no doubt that the only god Trump really believes in is himself.

I see no move among Evangelical Republicans or Catholic Republicans to pressure their party to abandon the screwing of the poor, the destitute, the foreigner living among us.  I see every indication that they support those positions that are exactly opposite of what Jesus taught.  Why would a nominal Catholic who votes for Republicans allegedly on the basis of their opposition to abortion NOT DEMAND THAT THEIR PARTY ADOPT EVEN THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE POSITIONS OF THOSE TWO POPES SO WILDLY POPULAR WITH THEM, JOHN PAUL II AND BENEDICT XVI?  Where is the respect of the Republican Party for the most basic requirements of the Gospel, the Law and the prophets, to give sufficient aid to the poor that they can live in dignity? 

Green notes a story from Wear that she uses to repeat the facile line of Democratic irreligiosity:

Some of his colleagues also didn’t understand his work, he writes. He once drafted a faith-outreach fact sheet describing Obama’s views on poverty, titling it “Economic Fairness and the Least of These,” a reference to a famous teaching from Jesus in the Bible. Another staffer repeatedly deleted “the least of these,” commenting, “Is this a typo? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Who/what are ‘these’?”

While I can well believe that some ignorant smart young person, or even older person might be so abjectly ignorant of the text of the Gospels, the fact is that Democrats have economic justice for the least among us in their platform and agenda, justice for them touches at no point in current Republican politics.  In every way Republicans actively and intentionally screw the least among us. Paul Ryan's favorite dream is to be the man who throws lots of the poor into destitution and to grind the destitute into the dirt.  And he's not only not alone, he's probably a "moderate" in today's entirely depraved Republican Party.

The hypocrisy of conservative, nominal Christians within the Republican Party is ignored by just about everyone in the media and beyond, it is never mentioned as a basically discrediting condition. The complete violation of the Gospel by the Republican Party that has tried to make Jesus its icon in recent years is never brought up by the media or in the upper realms of official Washington.   Instead it is the line that slams Democrats branding them as anti-religious, anti-Christian etc. that is the common wisdom in the media and among the elite.   That is the line repeated by Green and Wear and one which I'm kind of disappointed that Charles Pierce didn't refute more obviously.

A good question to ask is why liberal Christians are so unwilling to make that critique, why would we value the false tranquility of enabling that kind of hypocrisy instead of making it a basic and continual rallying cry against the results of the media enabling it?   Are we so wedded to our own personal tranquility of the cowardly pose of broad-minded fairness over a demand for the truth of the teachings of Jesus and the prophets?   The reluctance of liberals to get down and fight for that truth is what liberal Christians can be criticized for,  Too many liberals have forsaken the moral responsibility to make that critique through the mere fact that such talk has been deemed unfashionable among liberals.  If it's a matter of not making non-Christians and atheists uncomfortable by engaging in Jesus talk, the price that has been paid for that accommodation is far more than its worth.  If they don't like the talk, the political results are certainly more worthy of their petty annoyance.  The fact is, the majority of Americans are Christians and likely will be for a long time to come.  Leaving that fact out of consideration is not a viable political option for liberals.  Considering that the Gospels and the prophets are far, far more radical than today's articulation of liberalism in many, central aspects, to leave it out to accommodate anyone is stupid and irresponsible.

Even if liberal Christians make that point as forcefully as it was made during the last great success of liberalism, the Civil Rights Movement,  the fact is that today's media will disappear such liberals, turning them into an American version of non-persons.  I think that is what is largely behind all of this talk about Democrats needing to cave on even basic principles to racists and misogynists and gay bashers in the name of "religion".   We need to push it as hard as possible.

Donald Trump and the now, in fact, Republican-fascist party are an embodiment of the anti-Christ as is Trump's owner, Vladimir Putin.  No "Christianity" which enables them deserves to be taken seriously as a manifestation of the Gospel of Jesus.  Such "Christianity" fails the tests Jesus set for such claims of following him,  you judge them by the fruits of their actions and in every way American Republicans fail that test.  It's time liberal Christains got over their reluctance to force that fact.

For me, looking at the scandals of white Evangelical support for Trump and conservative Catholic support for Republican-fascism and such things as the conservative Russian Othodox embrace of Putin discredits the Christian nature of those groups and their theological interpretation of the Gospels.   I do think it's legitimate to judge the legitimacy of their theology, allegedly Christian, on the basis of what they do, the people they support, the institutions they embody.  In every way they discredit their claims to embody authentic Christianity.  In asserting that I invoke no less than the authority of Jesus who instructed his followers to make that judgement in a decisive manner.  It's time that they were called on their violations of the most essential teachings of Jesus.  Having looked at their fruit, I have no faith in their authenticity as Christians.   I see more of that in liberal Christians, though they should really push that case a lot harder than they do.  They should have the courage of their professions of faith.

Schedule Note

I'd post that comment, Simps, but it's Oatmeal Day and there isn't room for it in the schedule. Maybe I'll save it for April Fools.  

Random Roundup of Ideas We Need To Do And Avoid To Restore Democracy

Yesterday's post, in reaction to the ludicrous interview Barack Obama gave to David Axelrod contains nothing I would take back, if anything, slightly cooled down, I'd have put a stronger case with more detail to support my contention that he is if not the last person to do it, he is no one who should be in serious contention to rebuild the Democratic Party.  His choice of the corporate lawyer, revolving door traveler, Eric Holder, to be his agent in that effort should confirm he lacks the sense of reality or judgement to do it.  I think the conventional thinking of both of them, their inability to break out of that was responsible for a lot of the trouble.  It is a rare man in his 50s who is capable of changing their thinking radically enough to make the change necessary to do that, it is certainly not going to be done by someone who is trying to salvage their reputation by not  owning up to their past which is largely the cause of it.   One thing that is essential is that we never again put someone in the presidency who is mostly concerned with his own legend or who has the kind of personal irresponsibility of a Bill Clinton.  Between the two of them. both edges of the double edged sword that charisma is injured the party.

I am uninterested in continuing to catalog the many things that Obama did wrong, though I think if he makes it necessary to convince people that he will only further damage Democrats, that will have to be done by someone. I'm interested in going on to the real post-Obama, post-Bill Clinton Democratic Party.  

Either the 50-State Strategy that Howard Dean promoted or something like it is essential to winning control of the Congress, both House and Senate. Obviously merely holding the presidency isn't enough now that the Republican-fascists have truly decided to rule as fascists, uninhibited by the Constitution or the honor that piece of parchment always depended on.  Rebuilding at the local level is essential, rebuilding the credibility that was lost with the Democratic base is essential.  All of that was in the process of being done in 2008, it withered away in the past eight years.   Having ONE BIG PERSONALITY at the top of the party clearly doesn't do it.  I'd say for Democrats that has been a big part of the problem.

What I said a while back about Democrats having to fix the nomination process is as true. We have to regain control of the presidential nominations through having a modern, large-participation, by-U. S. Mail primary controlled by Democrats and not by state legislatures - participated in only by registered Democrats.  I think that level of innovation is what is needed to save the party.  Ending the stranglehold of Iowa and New Hampshire or any other state that manages to break the calendar for its own gain is essential. They've done a lousy job at it in the past seventy-years and a wider demographic determining the outcome is essential.  Perhaps if the candidate of the Democratic Party was determined by a larger number of people, more representative of the entire population, that candidate and the eventual president they may become would have the support of more people.   There is nothing wrong with the Democratic Party protecting its nominations from the attempt by people outside it to hijack the process.  I don't see anything wrong with requiring someone to have been a registered Democrat if they want to participate in a primary.

As I pointed out, this would also have the advantage of getting rid of the awful, anti-democratic caucus system.  State legislatures that insisted on caucuses could be overridden in the interest of greater voter participation in the process.  Political parties are not state entities, they should not be bound by the stupidity of tradition-bound legislatures, especially when those are frequently in the hands of our opponents.

I have also pointed out that now that we know that foreign dictators and others can and will hack Democrats on behalf of Republican-fascism that e-mail communications have to stop.  The convenience of those have certainly cost us everything this year.  If some form of unhackable encryption can't be had, and I doubt it can be, then other means of communication have to be set up.

The frequent stupidities of casual venting that e-mail gives rise to, venting in a permanent and frequently embarrassing form, is not helpful, either.   Way too many of the people involved in the higher eschalons of the Democratic Party have exposed themselves as being far too much like the 12-year-old jr. high school style gossips of so many an entrenched, eutrophic online chatroom.  If it's too much for these people, frequently, far too frequently the beneficiaries of the most elite educations. TO ACT AND TALK LIKE ADULTS then they have to be pushed aside for those who can.  I strongly suspect that the Ivy-Might-as-well-be-Ivy old-boy and gal network are a source of a lot of the woes of the Democratic Party.   I'm getting to the point where I don't really think anyone with an income of over five figures is likely to have much of a clue as to why the Democratic Party even exists.  There are exceptions but they are far too few.

I think many if not most of the figures involved in the Obama and Clinton campaigns should be moved aside, too.  In both cases their success was due at least as much to Republican failures or weak candidates than they were the result of brilliant strategies and understanding.  Anyone who sent stupid e-mails to John Podesta or others which became such a liability for Democrats should never have anything to do with another Democratic campaign.  Anyone who is likely to leak sensitive information to unreliable people should be avoided like the plague they've been.

Update:  This got posted this morning and we had a power outage which fried my modem  before I could edit it.  The modem is fixed now and I hope this post is somewhat fixed, too.

Yonder Come Day

We Need To Leave The Clinton and Obama Eras Behind And Move On With New Leadership

I liked Barack Obama a lot more before he became president than I do now.  I was never bowled over by him, his campaign persona and the carefully constructed effort to turn him into an icon of HOPE.  Perhaps that's because I'd actually paid attention to his center-right politics as a Senator and going back to read about his time in the Illinois Senate where it seemed to be Republicans who had the nicest things to say about him.

Once he was the nominee of the Democratic Party he had my full if somewhat skeptical support, both times.  The first time it was with skepticism, the second time with no skepticism because at that point I didn't expect his voluntarily weak conduct in office would change.  He was not going to be the great president that we needed him to be, he never intended to put that kind of effort into being president, to make the kinds of risks it would take to do that.

The reason he ran as a strong, powerful, decisive figure who would deliver on the HOPE which was his campaign slogan while, with obvious intention, governing as someone far more interested in placating Susan Collins, Olympia Snow, Joe Lieberman and Kent Conrad than in actually fighting to make the recalcitrant support the aggressive change he implied he intended to deliver is rooted in his personality.   His concern with his cool demeanor is a big part of it.  I can't see him giving even a weak version of LBJ putting pressure on, thumbscrews if necessary to deliver the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts or the Great Society.   I don't think he really cares much about anyone other than himself.  His assertions that he and his equally bad Attorney General, Eric Holder, are going to take command of the Democratic Party and do things like rebuilding it on the state and local level are ridiculous.  He and his chosen appointees are the ones who tossed aside the 50 state strategy that returned the House to Democratic control in 2006 and which gave him the presidency and those majorites in the Congress that he squandered so irresponsibly in his first two years.

His recent interview with his former campaign strategist and Advisor in his first administration, David Axelrod, is so infuriating and his statements about things like the Republican neutering of his power to appoint judges and do other things so absolutely clueless that Barack Obama trying to fix what he so heedlessly broke is a flashing, blaring warning signal to keep him and his people away from it.  If Obama showed some sign that he understood how he wasted the opportunity handed to him and had some idea of how to do it, that might not be as true.  But his last six months in office, as some of the most outrageous of Republican obstruction has been mounted is as weak and as irresponsible as the rest of his time in office. His complement to Mitch McConnell on his strategy of blocking his court nominations, , a man who used every opportunity he had to de-president Obama - largely on the basis of race - something which neither Obama nor Axelrod* seems to understand, is absolutely the final straw.   I am calling this an attempt by a voluntarily weak and largely disappointing president to use the Democratic Party to try to salvage a legacy, one which his eight years in office didn't secure.  

Barack Obama largely betrayed his political base and a decisive percentage of those betrayed turned on him and the Democratic Party.   Barack Obama took Democrats for granted as he hankered after the approval of his enemies, approval anyone with a sense of reality would know he'd never have.   His strongest desire didn't seem to be in delivering what he'd promised to the working class damaged by Republicans or to other groups who voted for him but to get called a bi-partisan leader by the media.  His weakening of the stimulus act to court the non-support of Snowe and Collins, his almost certainly fatal weakening of the health care bill he'd promised, largely caving to the blackmail of Lieberman - not to mention what he gave away on things like drug pricing even before the fight had started.    And the results were that Democrats lost the Congress, they lost state houses in the absolutely crucial election of 2010, what is largely responsible for it being harder than ever to win against them.   I have mentioned before that state and local politicians I know have talked for years about how Obama and his people were entirely uninterested in putting a major effort into that level of the Democratic Party.

Obama had eight years and more to do something to build the Democratic Party, he did the opposite and an election that Democrats should have swept was lost.  If he had not chopped the stimulus bill to get the approval of Snowe and Collins, which didn't work, and get called "bipartisan" I think we would be preparing for the Hillary Clinton presidency.   Under him and as a result of his administration, things are bleaker than ever.   He neither deserves the chance to try or the belief that he has the slightest idea of what needs to be done.  He as well as Bill Clinton should go into retirement and step aside for people who might mean what they say and have some idea of how to build an alternative to Republican-fascism.  Both of them had their day and used their time unwisely.  Both are very smart, it takes more than that to be a great president or a great leader of the Democratic Party.   Both of them played a decisive role in the destruction of the Democratic Party.  Both of them have to be pushed to the side.  Most of all Bill Clinton, with his irresponsibility even damaging Hillary Clinton's chances this year, needs to just go away.  Democrats don't need the baggage either of them brings with them anymore.

*  The interview makes it seem like Obama and Axelrod have no understanding of the past eight years as the Republicans have revived the most dangerous of past American organized racism and even neo-Nazism to benefit from a reaction to Obama's race.   I am left with the unavoidable conclusion that they are two of the most clueless men in the United States.   They might be able to run a successful campaign against a weak opponent, such as McCain or Romney, they are entirely clueless when it comes to the whole picture.

Stefan Wolpe - Yigdal Cantata

Yigdal Elohim chai ve’yishtabach,
nimtza v’ein et el metsiuto.

Echad V’ein yachid keyichudo,
ne’elam v’gam ein sof l’achduto.

Ein lo d’mut haguf v’eino guf, lo na’aroch eilav kedushato.

Kadmon l’chol davar asher nivra,
rishon v’ein reishit l’reishito.

Hino adon olam l’chol notsar,
yoreh g’dulato umalchuto.

Shefa n’vuato netano, el anshei s’gulato v’tif’arto.

Lo kam b’Yisrael k’Moshe od navi umabeet et temunato.

Torat emet natan le'amo el, al yad neveeo ne'eman beito.

Lo yachalif ha'el ve'lo yamir dato, le'olamim, lezulato.

Tsofeh v’yodea setareinu, mabeet l’sof davar B'kadmato.

Gomel l’ish chesed k’mif’alo, notel l’rasha ra kerish’ato.

Yishlach l’ketz yamin meshicheinu,
lifdot m’chakei ketz yeshuato.

Metim y’chayeh El b’rov chasdo,
baruch adei ad shem t’hilato.

[Eleh sh'losh esreh l'ikarim, hem hen y'sod dat El v'emunato. Torat Moshe emet unvuato, baruch adei ad shem t'hilato.]

1. Magnified​ and praised be the living God: he is, and there is no limit in time unto his being.

2. He is One, and there is no unity like unto his unity; inconceiv​able is he, and unending is his unity.

3. He hath neither bodily form nor substance​: we can compare nought unto him in his holiness.​

4. He was before anything that hath been created--​even the first: but his existence​ had no beginning​.

5. Behold he is the Lord of the universe:​ to every creature he teacheth his greatness​ and his sovereign​ty.

6. The rich gift of his prophecy he gave unto the men of his choice, in whom he gloried.

7. There hath never yet arisen in Israel a prophet like unto Moses, one who hath beheld his similitud​e,

8. The Law of truth God gave unto his people by the hand of his prophet who was faithful in his house.

9. God will not alter nor change his Law to everlasti​ng for any other.

10. He watcheth and knoweth our secret thoughts:​ he beholdeth​ the end of a thing before it existeth.​

11. He bestoweth​ lovingkin​​dness upon a man according​​ to his work; he giveth to the wicked evil according​​ to his wickednes​s.

12. He will send our anointed at the end of days, to redeem them that wait for the end—his​ salvation​.

13. In the abundance​ of his lovingkin​​dness God will quicken the dead. Blessed for evermore be his glorious name.

[Thes​e are the thirteen fundament​als (of Jewish faith), they are the foundatio​n of the religion of God and His faithful.​ The Torah of Moses and his prophesy is true, blessed for eternity be His name.]

Trans​lation from The Standard Prayer book by Simeon Singer (1915)

Christfried Biebrach, bass
Wolfgang Zerer, organ
NDR Choir
Johannes Kalitzke, director

The Great Composer Elliot Carter on Stefan Wolpe from Perspectives of New Music

So, you can see what the most prominent American composer at the time and well after said about him. I guess he didn't know what my most persistent troll does. Which was certainly beneath his notice.