Praise the Lord — the loving liberal one!
This is exactly the sort of thing we need to see more of.
(Reuters) Religious left gears up to face right counterpart
The religious right, which helped re-elect President Bush in 2004 by rallying opposition to abortion and gay marriage, is now facing a pushback from the religious left.
With a faith-based agenda of their own, liberal and progressive clergy from various denominations are lobbying lawmakers, holding rallies and publicizing their positions. They want to end the Iraq war, ease global warming, combat poverty, raise the minimum wage, revamp immigration laws, and prevent “immoral” cuts in federal social programs.
Some, like the Rev. Robin Meyers of the United Church of Christ in Oklahoma, marry gay couples and seek to reduce abortions while rejecting calls by the right to outlaw them.
“I join the ranks of those who are angry because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus but whose actions are anything but Christian,” declared Meyers, who has written a new book, “Why the Christian Right is Wrong.
According to scholars, the religious left has become its most active since the 1960s when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other clergy — black and white — were key figures in the civil-rights and anti-Vietnam war movements.
The key here is perspective: The Religious Left will never be as politically powerful as the Religious Right, no chance. But given how close the last two presidential elections have been they don’t have to be. As Horace said in Episode 37, “Religious progressives don’t have to bury the Christian Right to swing the political equilibrium significantly to the left. They just have to put a dent into it. And that’s something they’re definitely capable of doing.”
ringtone my and me gang
6 SMS sent per day per person across ringtone my and me gang ringtone my and me gang subscriber base.
motorola c139 ringtones
Even with this information, the State of California recently passed motorola c139 ringtones phone law that requires drivers over the age of 18 to use a hands-free device while using the phone in the car.
jazz ringtones
India expects to reach 500 million subscribers by end of 2010.
cell phone ringtone
The availability of cell phone ringtone backup applications is growing with cell phone ringtone amount of cell phone ringtone data being stored on cell phone ringtone s today.
ringtones for phone download my cell
Shut-off ringtones for phone download my cell s do not interfere with aircraft avionics; ringtones for phone download my cell is partially based on the crash of Crossair Flight 498.
transformers ringtone
[13] The availability of prepaid or ‘pay-as-you-go’ services, where the subscriber is not committed to transformers ringtone term contract, has helped fuel this growth in Africa as well as in other continents.
free ringtones wildlife
Later updating of the cellular system to free ringtones wildlife system credits this patent.
for ringtones free samsung download
MORSE extension get converted into morse code songs.
potter harry free ringtone
He applied this patent to “cave radio” telephones and not directly to cellular telephony as potter harry free ringtone is currently understood.
ringtone program
All European, African and many Asian countries have adopted ringtone program system, GSM, which is the only technology available on all continents and in most countries and covers over 74% of all subscribers on mobile networks.
July 25th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
I apologize for this being a bit off topic but it came to mind as I read the AP article about the religious left.
The religious left fights the right Democratic left fights the Democratic right likewise the Republicans and Libertarians left and right. Where in all this bickering, backstabbing flimflam does the interests of us commoners come in? I mean I do have the right constitution don’t I, you know the one that starts out “We the People of…”?
Yeah I guess it is nice that the religious left and right is getting more balanced it just brings tears to my eyes knowing that such pettiness is even required.
July 26th, 2006 at 6:31 am
I don’t know why the religious left can’t take Christianity back, the Inquisitors, though occasionally through mob violence, have never gotten power by general popular support. Even now many Religious Bush loving friends are only so because they have no clue to the real agenda of the Dominionists. Though they have the cult mindset that any info from “unapproved sources” is false, and deny that sush folk could be in their leadership.
I think one of the reasons we are not seeing open Nazi behavior is that many (a majority?) of their own supporters would be at least unhelpful if they ever got a real clue. Real Christians only need to break the Cult mindset.
July 26th, 2006 at 9:28 am
FreeDem
I totally agree. The far right is more like a cult than a movement. If truth were to find it’s way into the national debate, many of the “base” would begin to doubt. Many would follow their faith instead of their fear-mongering leaders. There are some that are lost in the fantasy and are almost like the suicide bombers in their fervent wish for death or rapture and Armageddon.
They want to speed up the timetable , force God’s hand, as it were, in order to get their reward NOW. These people don’t care about global warming or poverty or even terrorism, they welcome these things as the promised destruction of their radical faith. True believers know that all things will happen in God’s time, not ours. But the radicals don’t care because they have given up on life, like the suicide bomber, their lives are all about their deaths.
In their impatience for the avenging, warrior Christ to come out of the clouds and wreak destruction, they have started without him. And worse, they have thrown off His teachings in their haste.
I’m happy to see the religious left remind them of the principles their religion was based on.
July 26th, 2006 at 9:35 am
I wanted to mention a Molly Ivins column.
She writes that the Dems should run Bill Moyers (speaking of loving liberals)
for president if only just to get him in the debates. He would show America what an honest debate and an honorable man look like. I just love Moyers and I would love to see him run.
Molly includes his address in her column, and I intend to write him a letter.
Anyone else?
Bill Moyers
P.O. Box 309
Bernardsville, NJ
07924
I think he’s the perfect loving liberal to get us started in the right direction.
July 26th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
I read Molly’s column about Bill Moyers and totally agree with both Molly and alwayshope, we should run him for President if for no other reason than to get him in the debates. What a refreshing alternative he would make, though I also agree he wouldn’t win. Still, he would let the citizenry see there are still moral, courageous people in this country who can articulate concepts they really believe in, not just talk in platitudes based on the latest polls. With Moyers in the picture, Americans would see just how vapid are the vast majority of politicians. And if we financed his campaign through grassroots donations instead of corporate donations (which may be the only way it would get financed because I doubt any big corps would even want to contribute) we could successfully demonstrate that there IS a better way, and that we don’t have to settle for the status quo which has led us down such a perilous path.
On a side note, I just want to let you all know what I did this week and hope others will follow suit. I’m so disgusted with our Republican-lite Senator Feinstein for her recent votes in the Senate (particularly the one to renew the un-patriot act, that I bought a package of Kool-Aid, placed a label on it so the package labeling read “Neo-con Kool Aid” and sent it to her with a terse message about placing the welfare of her husband’s defense contracting interests (which helped them purchase their new million-dollar-plus Marin County mansion) above those of her constituents and her country. In fact, I even suggested that since she chooses to kowtow to an administration that redefines words to their advantage, that in that spirit, I’m redefining the word TREASON to mean the entire Bush administration and anyone in congress who enables them. The fact that she claims to be a Democrat means she not only has betrayed her country but the people who elected her, just like Joe Lieberman, who will die a slow and desperate political death in CT. I wished her the same fate as Kissin’ Joe.
July 26th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
In church last Sunday, the preacher said “we need to elect godly people to represent us in congress”. I’ll admit, on the surface, that seems like a good idea. I thought “I bet most of the people here are big George Bush supporter.” Most of them are not paying any attention to the actions of the Bush admin. They watch Fox news and listen to right-wing talk radio. As the Christian church teaches, “God is in control. Put your worries upon him. Look out for you own salvation.” In the same sermon, he listed “giving false witness” as a sin that people commit. I challenge you to find any politician who doesn’t not give false witness toward his opponents at some point. This should disqualify them as Godly. I guess as long as they are spouting “church”, “family values”, “pro-life”, etc, they are considered Godly and they will get the Christian voter. (You’ve probably guessed that I’m not a committed Christian yet. My wife is and I like the music and the sermon, most of the time, despite when the preacher mentions how “birds are taking up land that could be developed” or how is was “watching Fox news”. I need to talk to him about these things.) —Dave
July 26th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
Yeah richl! What is all this stuff about religeous left and religious right anyhow? I thought there was supposed to be a separation between church and state. Morals ain’t the same as religion, left or right.
July 27th, 2006 at 4:35 am
Chuck-
There should be a separation of church and state. But there shouldn’t be a separation of church and church, and there shouldn’t be a seperation of state and sanity. Come to think of it there shouldn’t be a seperation of church and sanity either, though personal vioces in the head may differ on that.
Dominionists would use cultist blind faith to do an end run on logic or sanity because a clean view of their agenda is one almost nobody would support. They talk about the Ten Commandments, but most people couldn’t name them, and four are specifically Judaic, theocratic, and devisive, even among the three main branches and all the little subbranches.
Jesus’s Golden Rule is more at the heart of real Christianity, but is the basis of all the religions, Judaic and Pagan alike, where they care a whit about actual people.
It is also the least likely quote you will ever see a Domionist want to carve over a courthouse door. Any more than the E Pluribus Unum that was carved over nearly everything by the founding fathers, till it was vandalized over with “In Priests We Trust” (yes I know that they wrote “in God We Trust” but it is the priest/preachers lips that are moving, not God’s).
In any case the right wing is using hatred and bigotry to bring down democracy and pluralism under the cover of religion forced into the public square. Calling fraud on this obscenity on both democratic and religious grounds is NOT an equal opposing thrust of religion into the public square, but rather the restoration of separation of state and religion.
July 28th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
first of all, about those ten commandments, the first one specifically prohibits worshipping Jesus.
everybody seems to overlook that fact.
second, life means all life. It doesn’t exclude enemies, (Love Thine Enemy).
It doesn’t exclude Iraqis or anyone we don’t currently approve of.
If you’re going to veto stem cell research because it involves destroying human life, then hadn’t you better quit killing people as part of some short-sighted, misguided foreign policy?
Jesus was pretty clear on this. Even though Constantine invented the concept of “Christian Soldiers”, Jesus would never have approved.
Finally, anybody who values rules over living beings has to be nuts or motivated by personal gain.
Whether you’re an orthodox Jew stoning a woman because she isn’t wearing a headscarf, or a muslim stoning a woman because she isn’t wearing a burka. you’re nuts.
If you think the King James Version is the word of God, I got news for you. It’s the word of King James, personally edited and approved by a guy who asserted divine right to lop off folks’ heads, especially poor people.
It was originally written by people who capitulated to Roman authorities about things like women’s subjugation and slavery. Rome was built by slaves, and anybody who wanted to live to enjoy his eligion had better not try to take down slavery or encourage the slaves to fight for freedom. like Spartacus.
And, although the King James Version was composed of translations by dozens of king james’ personal choices as scholars and translators, and the language incorporates words and phrases that were already antique when it was composed, ( nobody said thee and thine by then), in order to lend it the air of authority, it was actually written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and others HUNDREDS OF YEARS after Jesus lived.
Even so, it appears to have got the main theme right. Love One Another.
Do we drop bombs on those we love?
Do we hire them to work for poverty wages?
Do we deny them healthcare?
(Even modern Doctors take an oath not to deny anyone treatment because of poverty.)
Does Jesus advise pursuing worldy goods? Even in the KJV, no.
How ’bout ‘kill thine enemy’? no.
so those of you who value dead books over live people better get your act together, your future is looking dim.
marty weiss
mexico, mo
July 28th, 2006 at 8:26 pm
Martin:
You said that much better than I could, but that is pretty muvh the way I’ve been thinking since I was about 12.