Category Archives: Politics

Wow! Could This Be the Beginning of a Movement?

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Shepard Smith works for Fox News but sometimes doesn’t sound like it.

It was still quite a surprise to see what he said about Pope Francis and President Obama today:

I don’t know — I think we are in a weird place in the world when the following things are considered political. Five things, I’m going to tick them off. These are the five things that were on his and our president’s agenda. Caring for the marginalized and the poor — that’s now political. Advancing economic opportunity for all. Political? Serving as good stewards of the environment. Protecting religious minorities and promoting religious freedom globally. Welcoming [and] integrating immigrants and refugees globally. And that’s political? I mean, I don’t know what we expect to hear from an organization’s leader like the Pope of the Catholic Church, other than protect those who need help, bring in refuges who have no place because of war and violence and terrorism. These seem like universal truths that we should be good to others who have less than we do, that we should give shelter to those who don’t have it. I think these were the teachings in the Bible of Jesus. They’re the words of the pope, they’re the feelings of the president. And people who find themselves on the other side of that message should consult a mirror, it seems like. Because I think that’s what we’re supposed to do as a people, whatever your religion. I mean, it seems to me and I think to probably, as Bill O’Reilly would put it, most clear-thinking Americans — that that’s how we’re supposed to roll.

Yes, that’s how we’re supposed to roll! 

The remarkable video in which Mr. Smith states the obvious (at around 0:36) is available here.

Evangelical Christians for Sanders, the Left-Winger?

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Two articles about Christianity and American politics caught my eye this week.

The first was a New York Magazine interview with someone named Jim, an alumnus of Liberty University, who now works as a pastor and therapist. Liberty University is the Southern Baptist school in Virginia founded by Jerry Falwell, the well-known televangelist and right-wing troublemaker. Jim posted some anonymous remarks on Reddit in response to Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’s recent speech at Liberty. Here’s the part New York Magazine quoted:

As I heard Bernie Sanders crying out to the religious leaders at Liberty University, in his hoarse voice, with his wild hair — this Jew — and he proclaimed justice over us, he called us to account, for being complicit with those who are wealthy and those who are powerful, and for abandoning the poor, the least of these, who Jesus said he had come to bring good news to.

Jim grew up supporting right-wing politicians, as so many evangelical Christians are taught to do. But he eventually realized that his politics conflicted with the Bible. He says that Bible study convinced him:

that the gospel of Christ is what he says it is in the Book of Luke. He says the messenger comes to bring good news to the poor, to heal the sick, and to set the captives free. If our gospel is not good news to the poor, to the captives, to the indebted and the broken, then it is not the gospel of Jesus Christ…

The Bible talks about God destroying those who destroy the Earth and standing for the weak and the penniless. That same God was being displayed on our flags and in our songs as this warrior king who doesn’t like the Muslims and who doesn’t like the poor and who wants us to have free-market capitalism and no regulations. I thought that was inconsistent. This is the same God who designed … his theocratic government in Israel so that the poor were cared for. This is the same God that designs into the concept of ministry a tithe of 10 percent to care for others…

Jim is remaining semi-anonymous for the time being. He says he doesn’t want his patients or congregants caught up in controversy. Nevertheless, he’s going to continue explaining why it makes sense for an evangelical Christian to support Senator Sanders:

I’m calling my fellow Evangelicals to raise their eyes and to pay attention, to read their Bibles carefully, as I was taught to do in an Evangelical school. So many get their faith points from [right-wing TV personalities] Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity, but if they would get their faith from Jesus, they would be surprised at how he does not fit into any box and flips the tables of the money-changers and stands with the adulterers and prevents the death penalty…

Bernie at Liberty, for me, struck such a nerve because he treated us like grown-ups. He presented the message thoughtfully, politely. He was warmhearted, he was jovial, he didn’t play any political games. He didn’t tell us what we wanted to hear. He was just plain, and it reminded me of John the Baptist.

But why does someone like Jim seem like such an outlier? Aren’t evangelical Christians the natural ally of right-wing politicians and Big Business?

No, not according to One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, a book by Kevin Kruse, Professor of History at Princeton. As explained in a review at the website of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Kruse argues that there was an organized effort in the 1950s to link religion and corporate capitalism. For example, a group called:

Spiritual Mobilization sought to rally clergymen to fight liberalism, arguing that the only political position compatible with Christianity was laissez-faire. They aimed to counter the ideas—summed up as the Social Gospel—that good Christians might have obligations to help the poor, that there was something spiritually problematic about the love of money, and that working to create a better and more egalitarian social order might be necessary to live a righteous life. In his first inaugural address, Roosevelt had celebrated the expulsion of the money changers from the “temple of our civilization,” and called for replacing the “mad chase of evanescent profits” with a return to more noble social values. Spiritual Mobilization begged to differ, insisting instead that profit could be the cornerstone of a moral vision.

Spiritual Mobilization was funded by conservative businessmen and a number of corporations, including General Motors and Gulf Oil. Its leader “embraced his identity as a man who preached to the rich: “I have smiled when critics of mine have called me the Thirteenth Apostle of Big Business or the St. Paul of the Prosperous.”

Kruse says that:

 … long before the 1970s, religious leaders … and the businessmen who backed them sought to politicize the country’s churches, seeing them as a natural and sympathetic base. Their concern was not social or sexual politics, but rather economics—they wanted to advance a libertarian agenda to undermine the economic program that became ascendant during the New Deal. This top-down Christianity in turn provided an image of the United States as an explicitly religious nation, creating a rhetoric that inspired the populist Christian conservatives of a later generation. When the men who built the religious right in the 1970s—such as Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority—issued their jeremiads about the United States as a fallen nation, they made the implicit case that the country had hewed more closely to faith before the 1960s. But in fact, Kruse suggests, the pumped-up image of America as a Christian nation had gained popularity only a decade before.

Before Jerry Falwell, there was the evangelist Billy Graham:  

… one of his major concerns [was] the encroachment of the liberal state… Graham opposed the Marshall Plan and the welfare state, and attacked the Truman Administration for spending too much on each…  [In 1951] Graham warned the audience at a North Carolina crusade that the country was no longer “devoted to the individualism that made America great,” and that it needed to return to the “rugged individualism that Christ brought” to humankind.

America has been a Christian nation for a long time in the sense that most Americans have thought of themselves as Christians and still do. The question is: what role should Christianity play in a our democracy? The Constitution requires separation of church and state, but people have the right to support politicians who share their religious ideals. This makes me wonder what America would be like if there were more Christians like Jim.

One of These Characters Could Become President

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Summer is almost over in this hemisphere, so we have 4 1/2 months until a small number of voters, in a few lightly-populated, semi-rural states, start letting the rest of us know who America’s 2016 Presidential candidates will be. As of now, however, I’m still trying to follow my own advice and ignore political coverage as much as possible.

That’s even though, in retrospect, it wasn’t great advice. The Democratic contest became much more interesting when Senator Bernie Sanders, the democratic (small “d”) socialist from the state of Vermont, received such a warm welcome. One might even grant that the Republican contest became more interesting as it became even weirder than expected.

The Republican struggle to choose a Presidential candidate is like a terrible movie you’re being forced to watch. It’s not funny enough to be comedy and isn’t serious enough to be tragedy. It certainly isn’t a musical. Let’s say it’s a fantasy with both comedic and tragic themes, kind of like a scarier version of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

To me, the funniest part of the Republican race is how observers keep trying to explain why Trump is popular among Republican voters (remember, these are the voters who helped elect George W. Bush not once but twice). The saddest part is that millions of Americans would be pleased if one of these Republicans became President. But maybe it will work out for the best. If the Republicans pick an extraordinarily terrible candidate, the Democrats should do well, even in the Congressional races. That could happen, even in 21st century America.

I wasn’t going to write about any of this (I’m still trying to follow my advice, if only because it’s still 2015), but there was a nice Salon article today. The author, Chauncey Devega, is a black American who loved Rambo, Reagan and Rush Limbaugh when he was too young to know any better. He also read “Soldier of Fortune” magazine and hoped to be our first black President. He doesn’t explain what made him reconsider his right-wing views, either for lack of space or because it’s obvious – he grew up and looked around.

An excerpt from the article:

…what if [a political party’s] “base” consists of people who live in an alternate world where facts, empirical reality, and scientific reason and truth operate according to a different set of rules? What happens to a supposedly mainstream political party’s internal dynamics when the most extreme elements are given control over it? And what if these voters have been socialized into a bizarro reality by a media machine that has created a literal and virtual bubble of information for its viewers and listeners, one where the “news” actually misinforms, thus leaving its public less knowledgeable about current affairs than before?

This alternate reality is the world in which the Republican Party and its candidates for president in 2016 exist. It is utterly impenetrable to outsiders. “Normal” politics do not exist there. This cult-like world is vexing, confusing, headache inducing, disorientating, and enraging for those in the “reality based community” who try to process the 2016 Republican debates. Ultimately, if one is not initiated into the right-wing movement’s rites and rituals, you will not be able to translate its political acts of magic and speaking in tongues that masquerade as serious political discourse.

As a political cult, today’s Republican Party uses faith, a belief in that which cannot be proven by ordinary means, to create a coherent worldview for its public. In this world there are no verifiable truth-claims that can be confirmed or rejected based on empirical evidence. Here, something is “true” because a trusted source, elder, elite, or media personality tells you so. Opinion is transformed into a substitute for facts.

Shorter version: Lies are made into truths for those in the cult and disbelievers are cast out as enemies and heretics.

The only modification I’d make to this is that the word “cult” usually refers to a relatively small group. When a cult gets big enough, it’s no longer a cult. At that point, it’s a movement or, as with the specimen under discussion, a political party that’s gone haywire.

PS – Paul Krugman had some things to say about the most recent Republican “debate”. Basically, he’s terrified.

The County Clerk Who Cried Religion

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That Kentucky county clerk is back on the streets, as long as she promises not to interfere with the clerk’s office issuing marriage licenses to gay people. My reaction to her situation is that anybody who strongly objects to their job requirements for personal reasons should look for another job. Same-sex couples now have the legal right to get married. Nobody has the legal right to stop them. It’s as simple as that, regardless of any objections the county clerk might have, including objections based on her particular interpretation of a book she considers sacred.

In a lighter vein, someone named Jim expressed himself on Facebook (the link is no longer universally available). You might lift your voice in song if you know the tune: 

I am the very model of a modern fundamentalist
I’m not merely judgmental, I’m the absolute judgmentalest!
I always follow scripture and I act on God’s authority
But marital longevity was never my priority.

I married first one husband, then two others, then another one
Because I think one man is pretty much like any other one.
I’ve never been too troubled by the dubious legalities
Of sex outside of marriage or of other trivialities.

But when it comes to icky stuff like homosexuality
I’m always very strident with my Puritan morality.
In short in matters biblical and spiritual and Calvinist,
I am the very model of a modern fundamentalist!

In questions of behavior I fall back on my Old Testament
(Though saying no to shrimp is way too much of an impediment).
I pick and choose the verses that support my little weltanschauung
And pledge never to change my mind from now til götterdämmerung.

I’ll ride this hobby horse until I’m richer than a sybarite,
There’ll always be good money in denouncing godless sodomites.
I’ll put my name as author on some books that I can barely read
And get a show on cable to inform the world what God decreed.

My husbands all agree that I know more about what marriage is
Than five Supreme Court justices whose law my faith disparages.
In short in matters biblical and spiritual and Calvinist,
I am the very model of a modern fundamentalist!

In fact, when I see what is meant by constitutionality
When I can do my job with requisite impartiality,
When I can join in marriage two young men who might be thespians,
Or issue nuptial licenses to enterprising lesbians,

When I can see that love is love no matter what the sexes are
And understand that gays are just like me and my three exes are,
In short, when I have finally got a dose of moral clarity
I’ll find out what is meant by the idea of Christian charity.

Til then I’ll flout the law and draw my wages from the county tax
Which is what God would do if only He was up on all the facts
Til then in matters biblical and spiritual and Calvinist,
I am the very model of a modern fundamentalist!

Bernie, Hillary, Emails, Decisions, Decisions

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New Jersey will hold its Presidential primary election nine months and fifteen days from now. By that time, we will almost certainly know who the Democratic nominee and the next President of the United States will be (she used to be Secretary of State). June of 2016 might sound like a long way off, but we in New Jersey, along with our friends in California and a few other states, always wait for everyone else to hold their primary elections first.

Aside from the fact that we’re naturally considerate (“Please, I insist.” “No, no, after you.”), this means we don’t have to spend much time deciding which Democrat or Republican should be President. Unlike Iowa, Vermont and South Carolina, we have more important things to do.

Anyway, if I had the opportunity to vote sooner than next June, like maybe tomorrow, I’m not sure who I’d choose. From a policy perspective, I’d go with Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist Senator from Vermont. Voting for Sanders would make me feel good. I even think he could beat a Republican in the general election, because most Americans, whether they realize it or not, agree with his positions. (See “How Mainstream Is Bernie Sanders?” and “Why Surprising Numbers of Republicans Have Been Voting for Sanders in Vermont”).

Despite the popular appeal of Sanders’s positions, however, Clinton might do better in a general election. It would be harder for the Republicans to falsely portray her as a wild-eyed radical. And despite some of her hawkish views on foreign policy and military spending, Hillary Clinton might end up being a very progressive President. She seems more aware of our country’s increasing inequality and more likely to do something about it than she used to be. Further, she might be able to get more done than Sanders, since the politicians, bureaucrats and plutocrats she’d have to work with would be more likely to consider her “one of them”. 

(Every time I imagine President Sanders taking office, I’m reminded of A Very British Coup, in which the election of a proud Labor Party socialist as Prime Minister leads to army helicopters descending on Downing Street and Parliament. See also Seven Days in May. All fiction, of course.) 

But since I’m a proud resident of New Jersey, I don’t have to make a decision about this any time soon. Meanwhile, our national nightmare (i.e. our Presidential campaign) will continue.

That brings me to a perceptive article by Heather Digby Parton called “Anatomy of a Hillary Clinton Pseudo-Scandal”. She writes:

… the press can pass judgement about anything once it’s “out there” regardless of whether or not what’s “out there” is true. This allows them to skip doing boring rebuttals of the facts at hand and instead hold forth at length about how it bears on the subject’s “judgement” and the “appearance” of wrongdoing without ever proving that what they did was wrong.

You see, if the person being discussed were “competent,” it wouldn’t be “out there” in the first place, so even if it is based upon entirely specious speculation, it’s his or her own fault for inspiring people to speculate so speciously. It all goes back to their “character”… 

And even if the charges are patently false, they are always far too complicated to rebut in detail; and, anyway, the other side says something different, so who’s really to say what’s true and what isn’t?  [Note: that’s what Paul Krugman calls “Shape of Earth: Views Differ” journalism.]

It’s still the responsibility of the target of those charges because he or she shouldn’t have allowed him or herself to be in a position where someone could make false charges in the first place.

From this perspective, it’s irrelevant whether any of those famous emails were classified at the time (apparently they weren’t, besides which lots of stuff the government classifies shouldn’t be). It’s also irrelevant whether it was forbidden to use a private computer then (apparently it wasn’t). 

I agree about the irrelevance in one sense. It’s irrelevant as to whether Clinton or Sanders or some other Democrat should be our next President.