This is not my America anymore.

[Touchdown]

I am feeling like such an outsider anymore. Over the last 2 months I feel like I'm living in some Pentacostal revival tent, and that if I don't start speaking in tongues and roll down the aisles, then I am a heretic in my own country. Jesus this, "Gawd" that, "Culture of life" here, "people of faith" there.

I subscribe to Salon, so what do they give me for my money? Wired, whos first issue to me had Arnie's grizzled, steroid affected face on it. New Republic online, edited by that Auntie Lance, HIV+ barebacker Andrew Sullivan, who blames democrats for not "embracing people of faith", and the holy grail... A 6 month inundation of USless News and World Distort, complete with Michael Barone's increasingly loonie propaganda pieces. Every week, I get some such front covers as... "Why we pray", "Mysteries of Faith", "Virgin Mary, the history", "George W Bush, man of faith", "James Dobson: the interview...the Focus on the Family story", "John Paul II, Pilgrim, Prophet, Pope", "Pope Benedict XVI" and then one day in late January...I get a cover of George Bush, set in a black background, with the presidential seal just behind his head, out of focus, making it look like a halo around him. Coincidence? I couldn't find the cover pic in their archives, but trust me, the real thing is much more vomit inducing that my description.

One week of freaks and pontificates on television swarming over a poor woman who's brain had died, the we get into 3 weeks of POPEAGANDA! Think it would die down? No! We then have this "Justice Sunday" or whatever they're calling it today to spread the good word of Christs love for homosexuals who repent all over the TV airwaves. Of course, lately it doesn't help that my Senator apologizes for calling Dobson and his thugs "Antichrists" and the apologizes, after they, once again, claim victimhood... something he had every right to do, and should do it more often. That one word, for me trumps his vote for Condosleeza...one more I can forgive his Gonzales vote. As a gay man living with the constant televised "debates" over whether or not I will sodomize little Johnny don the street, never being told exactly HOW my relationships are a thread to any straight people's marriges (I guess they got married just because we can't, like a big gay taunt!), that I will molest 40% of the foster children, as long as I'm in Texas, and the solutions of the problems only gay people create, like rickets and osteoporosis, are being debated on the House and Senate floors. To paraphrase someone else I heard on some documentary...I feel like a jew at the Nurenburg Rally.

Are liberal outlets any better for me? Not if I'm gay and the Democrats are trying to figure out who's rights to sacrifice on the altaer of "electability" and see myself come out on top. Mike Malloy, although rightly so, goes on and on about the "flying monkey right" but his show has been nothing but a "christ killer" sermon in the last month.

DU? I drop by, and don't post, on a very personal thread about a gay boy who killed himself because his catholic school's policies, the parent church's doctrines, dogma, and bigotry, and it took less than 20 posts for some catholic to strip this boy's tragedy away from him and claim victimhood for herself, as if NOBODY, but the CHRSTIANS can claim victimhood, and how dare ANYBODY question that! Every thread, example, and fact based question posed here, gets hijacked by thin skinned, tax exempt, majority members, who can't stand the fact that someone other than they as a christian, have been dealt a raw deck of cards. Some gay person gets rejected by his Southern Baptist family, the very "christian" responses grow to "You are bashing Christians!" Not once does any of these people question their own heresy and blasphemy, in equating everything about them with the divine. It's almost like... "How dare you tell me not to buy Parkay Margarine! I am a Christian. You must hate Christians to force us to buy Imperial!" Here's a clue...The fact that you are a christian has NOTHING to do with you being a self absorbed drama queen! You are that way DESPITE your faith!

BTW: I am a christian too. Raised methodist. If you are offended by this post, then YOU ARE AN ANTI-CHRISTIAN BIGOT!:P

...$10 says it'll take 10 posts for someone to claim victimhood for his/her faith.

[Dhalgren]

1. When you slap them too hard with the truth

they just try and ignore you. I loved your rant and agree with in toto..

[hector459]

44. "Let America Be America Again" Langston Hughes

<snip>
"Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!"
<more>

"America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!"

http://search.netscape.com/ns/boomframe.jsp?query=langston+hughes+america&page=1&offset=1&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26requestId%3D9173f573bd5ecc41%26clickedItemRank%3D2%26userQuery%3Dlangston%2Bhughes%2Bamerica%26clickedItemURN%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.poets.org%252Fpoems%252Fpoems.cfm%253FprmID%253D1473%26invocationType%3D-%26fromPage%3DNSCPToolbarNS%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.poets.org%2Fpoems%2Fpoems.cfm%253FprmID%253D1473

[Inland]

2. Well. Sorry.

Don't know exactly what Schwarzenneger, Time magazine Parkay, Jews at Nuremberg, posts at DU and Dobson have to do with each other, except that they all piss you off and somebody at DU is to share the blame.

Sorry, I guess. We all feel a little alienated from society at large. That's why we come here--usually not to be accused of being part and parcel of it--and why emigration to Canada is always a popular topic.

[Touchdown]

8. Yeah, sorry. I'm not good at composition.

I was just stating numerous examples of the seige mentality I'm feeling by being exposed to much by those who claim to be under seige. I guess I got carried away. BTW: It's US NEWS, not TIME, but I get your point...it is a bit haywire.

[Inland]

38. dupe

[Inland]

39. Know the feeling. Here's how I would cope.

When you go off on everything, everybody finds something to like--they even like going off on everything. And why not? What's to like about today so much?

But you have to cope. I think there are ways.

Here's the distinctions I would make: a lot of what's going on is just majority culture stuff, which is alienating but is going to happen. Every year Time is going to have an article on whether Jesus was really born in a manger. Everybody is going to have articles on faith/superstition/healing/crystals. Heterosexuality is going to be the norm. It's either going to be background noise of someone trying to sell something, or more offensive, like when people are going to assume you are like everyone else when you are not.

I don't know what minorities do, but the African Americans, Jews, and Libs in red states could probably teach us a thing or two about coping with a majority that goes about assuming that version covers everybody.

Somethings, however, never have to be tolerated. The Fristians, dominionists, racists and God Hates Fags types. But if you mix up more innocuous expressions of majority culture with those, you are going to feel crazed.

Telling them apart isn't always easy, and we fight here in DU on the difference and who's on what side. But you are going to go apeshit if you see Dobson every time you see an article on JPII's funeral.

Just my opinion.

[BiggJawn]

46. Here's a Lib in a "Red State".

I really dislike that term because "Red" Indiana actually has a lot of mauve and purple parts, but I know what you are saying since I live in one of the more red counties.

How do I cope with Life with the Mouthbreathers? Where my closest AAR station is 200 miles away? The HOME of STEVE BUYER???

Well, imagine that you were in an isolated location where you were the only human. There's lots of wildlife around you, but as long as you don't speak, they ignore you as one of their own. Supplies and food and shelter aren't a problem, but there's nobody for you to socialize with.

IOW, you're a Hermit. You go into town once a week for "supplies", you didn't get to see "Farenheit 911" because it was on locally for 2 days only, and the extent of your interaction with co-workers is limited entirely to only that required to "Gittrdone!", and you don't know anything about their lives outside the workplace. that's OK, because it allows you to stay in the "Liberal Closet".

But that's OK for me, since after my last marriage/divorce I've become quite an anti-social Cynic.

This country could be invaded and over-run tomorrow and I probably wouldn't notice any difference.

[Misunderestimator]

12. Is someone accusing you of being a part of it?

:shrug:

[Inland]

17. I don't know. What's it to you? nt

[Misunderestimator]

22. I don't know... I was just curious why you would assume it from the OP.

It wasn't clear, so I was asking for clarification.

[Inland]

35. No, that's not true.

You know there was nothing in my post "assuming" anything. You weren't asking for clarification.

I think you were hoping that somebody would get all huffy so that you could have the fun of me and him fighting while you pretended that things "weren't clear".

[Misunderestimator]

36. LOL... "That's why we come here--usually not to be accused of being part..

and parcel of it"... is what I was looking for clarification on. Seems I thought you meant that YOU were being accused of being part of a problem.

Why on earth would I make fun of you and anyone else fighting? I don't do that, but you go ahead and believe it. :shrug:

[Inland]

40. Sorry to disappoint you by not taking some sort of personal offense.

I didn't take that any more personally than YOU did as part of DU.

Sorry that you are dissappointed on the lack of hard feelings.

[Misunderestimator]

41. You put emotions on me that don't exist...

and that I am not even implying... I have nothing to be disappointed about. But I am certainly thoroughly confused now.

[Inland]

51. Just curious and confused, huh? Good luck with that. nt

[Duncan Grant]

28. Well. Sorry. You don't "get it".

It makes perfect sense to me. Must be an empathy thing. :shrug:

[Inland]

37. Or something. You know? nt

[Duncan Grant]

43. LMAO.

Nice try.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. I am not gay, but I also know that this is not my America anymore.

I guess my second-class citizenry is based on 1) my age, 2)my sex, and 3) my non belief in God! I'm old enough to remember a very different America. Where JFK could talk about us as a country. Where your religion was personal. I was raised Methodist and attended for many years. I believe Jesus walked the earth and tried to teach us that our humanity was the most important common denominator. He tried, and failed, to teach us to love one another.

[AuntiBush]

32. Same here. This is not my America anymore & a UM Member

You're not alone... raised Methodist, and w/same teachings.

I think we're all here feeling outraged, and alone with our disenfranchised thoughts. It's OK to rant. We all do.

What I think the poster is trying to say is he/she feels one might trust Salon, only to find it's all a bunch of the same rubbish.

[smiley_glad_hands]

4. You have crossed a line,

I'm a Christian and I will have my Parkay. Could honestly care less about your sexuality though.

[BrainRants]

5. Touchdown...you scored a Touchdown.

Your case is well stated and shared by most people around these parts. I'm a Catholic and have truly had it with the barrage of religious crap (yes, crap) that is polluting the airwaves since the election.

There is a silent majority out here, and we're starting to stay away from our churches, which means no $'s. If the church wants to support politicians who support the "Me" and not the "We" philosophy of the Democratic party, then by all means I'm keeping my money for "Me" and not filling the collection plates of those I disagree with.

Thank you for your rant, you're right on! Don't let the bastards get you down.

[watercolors]

13. This country is not the same anymore

I feel completely alienated from it! Religion has taken over in every area, its become more racist and biggot. I grew up in the north, Congrationliat church, quite conservative. Living in the south has turned me away from the church in many ways. I'll take my long walks on the beach and talk to God in my own way ,thank you.
I just want my counyry back, I want to feel good about my government, the division in the coountry is dangerous. I say live and let live, quite the damn conflicts over everything that comes up.

[hector459]

56. It will be a long time before mega churches feel a dent in the offerings

they are well connected and controlled. Publicize tithes and demean folks who don't give. Make lots of money off of tapes, books, etc.

[mmonk]

6. Don't worry, it's not mine either

and maybe one day, enough people will figure out its not theirs either.

[Tux]

7. Recommended for greatest post

I agree. While I'm not gay, I am tired of hearing people bitch and moan how gays will molest children, ruin families, and how they can never have faith and God hates them.

I have a few gay friends and they are the best people I met since I moved to KY. People are afraid to admit that diversity in nature is diverse. From gay flies to gay people to gay penguins, nature has gays. I hate hearing how it is a choice (it's just different balance of nuerotransmitters) or how they are anti-God (if they aren't supposed to exist according to the Bible one of 2 things is wrong, Bible or the Universe. Guess which is always right.) The gays I kow have more faith than some straight, church goers I know even the gay atheist.

This is what we get when people become attached to a book and allow it to dictate their thoughts on everything. I'd like to know how Paul's opinions became God's laws.

Overall, hang in there. Our nation is fighting fundamentalism just like other nations are. The overly religious are having fits over a modern society with modern science. It will end someday and we can go back to our lives. Also, consider the states that banned gay marriag eon morals grounds also allow people to marry their cousins.

[yashuryabetcha]

15. That's putting it in perspective!

"consider the states that banned gay marriag eon morals grounds also allow people to marry their cousins."
But it's still bull droppings

[kerry-is-my-prez]

9. It's not mine either - and I was raised as a Republican.

I bought into the b.s. when I was younger. How ANYONE can buy into the Bush bullshit I just don't understand.

[Misunderestimator]

10. ...deciding "whose rights to sacrifice on the altar of electability"

Hear Hear to that!! Good post! :thumbsup:

[Touchdown]

16. Thanks for editing my typos.

I really need typing lessons. hWat dOEs tHiS buTTON do? :hi:

[Misunderestimator]

23. LOL, thanks... I missed one

:D Just updated it. :hi:

[bloom]

11. As much we would like for this to a progressive refuge...

there are those who either don't get "it" or are trolls in disguise, anyway.

It happens with just about any issue you can think of. And people are going to have their issues that are more important to them. I think the "big tent" mentality is extremely important. I also think there is a lot people can learn from each other when they are open to others point of view.

My main concerns these days are that people need to get serious NOW about energy usage (and if they thought they were before, rethink it again) because of global warming and the polluting of the environment through fossil fuels to the point that the point the world is uninhabitable. There is also Peak Oil - but I don't see that as a threat to the world as much as I see it as reason that countries will be going to war.

[lukasahero]

14. I won't slam you

I feel for you. (Maybe because, as a woman, I often feel the same way these days.)

There was a poll here the other day asking "whose rights would you give up" and I felt my stomach turn when I saw that there wasn't a 0 next to "women's". I scrolled further down and saw that 30% had actually voted "gay". I was sick. Freeped? Maybe, maybe not. But I knew (to some extent) how that might make you feel - sick, literally.

I was thinking last night as I read the latest issue of "Newsweek" that a) is this "Newsweek" or "Christianity Today" we're receiving now (last 4 covers have been christian or pope related - at least) and b) I really wish people would stop talking about me as if I'm some kind of statistic. "Women" are this and "women" are that. As bad as I feel, I can only imagine you feel so much worse. (On the other hand, there's a delightful thread in the Lounge going right now titled "All women are _____________". The OP offers "vain". Nice.)

To be fair, it isn't just the "christians" hijacking the threads - everyone here is so thin skinned that ANY difference of opinion declines into personal attacks. Seems we've forgotten that we're supposed to be on the same side.

I, and others like me, should post more often when we see the gay bashing that goes on here. To be honest, I bowed out of the thread you are referring to because I just couldn't believe what I was reading and couldn't begin to know where to start. For that, I feel, I owe you an apology. I should be bolder, I should say more, speak up more, fight harder. We all should.

Peace.

[ultraist]

19. "Freeped? Maybe, maybe not."

That's what really concerns me. The fact that the regressive cultural trend is seeping into the Left.

I'm not surprised that Bush and his followers are over the edge, but when I see supposed Liberals buy into the propoganda, I become very worried. :scared:

Great OP!

[readmoreoften]

26. There was more than one poll that put it at 30% interestingly enough.

Plus, there was a poll on Ratzinger that said "He's a good choice for pope" or "A bad choice" or "undecided."

23% said 'good choice' and 6% said 'undecided'. When people asked direct questions to those supporting Ratzinger as to why they supported him despite his stance on GLBT people, they mostly refused to respond to us.

I would say we might want to take the blinders off and say that those polls are not necessarily freeped.

[lukasahero]

29. I think many of us have taken off the blinders

I think ultraist was suggesting exactly that. I know I was. And that is what's most frightening about the problem - that it's not just for the RW any more.

Seems maybe we are weak and ready to sell out our ideals just to get elected these days. Funny, in some ways maybe the RW does have a point. (God/dess forgive me for saying that. Of course they just call us extremists when we do stand and fight so whatever... don't mind me.)

I only used the phrase to "pre-emptively" subvert anyone coming back at me saying "oh that was freeped!" Since polls here are annonymous, we'll never know but, personally, I don't think it was. Sorry if it was misleading.

[ultraist]

34. Sad...very sad

I think you're right...

[Misunderestimator]

24. I saw that poll, and felt a bit sick at the results too...

thanks for noticing, and thanks for the post. I even bow out of some of these discussions... it's hard to keep :banghead:

[readmoreoften]

18. Thank you, thank you!

The past two weeks has been an enormous wake-up call to me. It is clear that some liberal christians are perfectly willing to apologize for RW lunatics as long as they happen to be the same religion as themselves.

I too was particularly outraged by the post about the dead teenager that turned into a thread about how progressives are demonizing the Catholic Church. Rove is telling religious people that they are being victimized by gays and even factions in the religious left are gobbling up the idea.

Thanks for venting. I'm 100% behind you. And thanks to the straight folks fighting the good fight along side us. Many of you have supported us without wavering and I, for one, thank you from the bottom of my 'ideologically evil' heart.

[ultraist]

21. And thanks to the Gay community for standing strong on Equal Rights!

Fighting for Equal Rights benefits ALL OF US.

[0007]

20. Beautiful fucking beautiful - You got it nailed down!

[LdyGuique]

25. Good rant from the heart

I, too, feel disenfranchised, but not for exactly your reasons.

I have a lesbian daughter who is 40 and simply celibate and non-dating. My son-in-law's brother went through a partnership ceremony a few years ago and they've adopted a baby up in Minnesota. They were all raised Catholic, but none of the 4 sons are practicing Catholics, a sore spot with their mother and father, although one of the brothers married a Korean woman who is a member in some fundamentalist church and they reject the gay brother. All in all a fairly typical family dynamic for many people in this country.

Why I'm particularly concerned over the stridency coming from the CRW is more due to abortion and birth control issues and the role of women in society. While I'd developed an anti-Christian bias over the years, I remained tolerant until fairly recently. The harder they push to take over me and my families lives, the more anti- I've become and the more outspoken. My long term policy of "live and let live," has been changing to one of "I don't care how you live as long as you don't attempt to run my life."

I'm concerned that the CRW has been a major funder in anti-Science issues, most especially, the environmental, global warming forefront, and/or within schools. I find it outrageous that all of the empirical scientific evidence gathered from around the world on a wide range of issues is being dismissed as non-biblical -- as though this archaic book is fact.

All in all, the world is struggling with change, even those who are luddites and wish to return to yesteryear. The next 20 years should be very interesting as rapture doesn't occur and scientific inquiry wins, global warming causes magnificent storms that continue to destroy, the shorelines retreat as the waters rise, and we all become bicyclists on the major highways as no one will be able to afford gasoline.

[readmoreoften]

27. Thanks, LdyG

I'm also concerned about the CRW's attack on women's reproductive freedom. From what I have read and heard, it seems like if Bush gets 3 SCJs we are pretty screwed and even with 2, we may have major problems. I hope that Stevens can hang on until 89.

I think we need to stay true to progressive values.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. Hey, I know what you mean, and I'm

straight and religious besides.

I feel as if I'm hiding out in my safe little corner of SW Minneapolis, which went 80% for Kerry, and going into the suburbs or turning on network TV gives me culture shock equal to what I suffered going to Japan for the first time.

It's scary to think that so many of my fellow Americans are delusional. They may still be nice people if you stay away from politics, but more and more, they're reminding me of what the school nurse at our high school once told our class about the Afrikaners in South Africa when we were reading Cry the Beloved Country.

She and her husband went to South Africa as short-term medical missionaries in a rural area, and all the local white people were Afrikaans. She said that her first impression of them was highly favorable: they were as hospitable and helpful as could be, and before she and her husband knew it, they had dinner invitations for nearly every night of the week.

But once they actually went to dinner in some of these tidy little farmhouses, they were appalled to see how the farmers treated their black servants and how they talked about black people. This nurse said that it was as if there was one part of their brain that had been taken over by the devil. (She was an evangelical in the days when evangelical and Republican were not synonymous, so those are the terms she used.)

That's how I feel about a lot of my fellow citizens, that a portion of their brain has been reprogrammed by, if not the devil, then by a multipronged media attack.

[readmoreoften]

31. I am friends with a writer who was imprisoned in SA for 9 years.

He is a white man who worked against apartheid and was finally imprisoned for marrying a vietnamese woman in France (race mixing). He says that the he senses a similiar sort of fascist thinking in the RW peoples of the US.

[MadisonProgressive]

33. I'm an agnostic heterosexual

and believe me I feel as persecuted right now than I can or want to imagine. Decency and truth are being persecuted in this country.

[Ysolde]

42. Not mine, either...

I can't claim to understand the persecution you're feeling as I'm a married white woman, but my brother is gay, so I am very concerned about the intolerance and hatred and scapegoating. I live in OK, so most gays are deeply in the closet (self preservation). We do have a few lesbians (it seems only the women can come out safely) that have come out at work, but most of them stay in the closet and a fair number of those wear their religion on their sleeves. It is VERY reprehensible that the Dems can't just come out and say the words, "We do not discriminate. They do." I think we need to call the Repugs bigots. That's what they are. If they had their way, we'd still have slavery and women would be property. What's so hard to speak out against that? And, if the true majority (not just the small number that voted) of Americans want to return to that, then it's not my country, either, no matter how much that hurts. Maybe we could secede and grow Canada?

[leftofthedial]

45. You say "Pentacostal revival tent"

like it's a bad thing

I'm offended. Iroll down aisles all the time and occasionally speak incomprehensibly in a strange dialect

I'm hitting alert now

[CrispyQ]

47. Salazar apologized for that?????

Arghhh!!!! I was going to write him letter that finally commends him for what he said. I raked him over the coals in my last two letters.

We do seem to have become a society where everyone wants to claim they are persecuted more than the next guy. I wonder what has instigated this "I'm more of a victim than you" mentality?

Sorry I have no words of comfort or wisdom.

[Touchdown]

48. Eh'. Taint no thing. I was just venting, and my steam has blown.

I'm back to rolling my eyes at the country again. Your post is comfort enough.:hug:

Anyhow, on Salazar...FOF got all pissy, because in the words of Denver Post, the "ANTICHRIST" is the most vile epithet that can be thrown at an evangelical. They didn't say how vile it is to FOF, because they are whackjob, fundy dominionists more than they are "evangelical", but the presss isn't known for their nuanced explainations. They said that Salazar using it was undignified for a Senator...Anyhow, Salazar "clarified" and said that for them to target his wife and her Dairy Queen (for others, they picketed her ice cream shop after he said he would vote against the nuclear option) instead of taking the issue up with him.
so Salazar changed his words to unchristian-like behavior or some such spineless, marshmallow term.

[Lexingtonian]

49. yep, most of us are part of that club

It's presently a country full of unadulterated special pleading for idiocy. Has been for about five years, really, and has only grown in overtness rather than amount.

Well, there is good news in it. These people who champion all these variously facaded forms of bigotry and stupidity are frantic because the country is slipping away from the way they wanted it to be. Slowly, to be sure, but tectonicly.

And they themselves are, as part of the mass of society, slipping away from that selfconception they never really questioned. That's what really scares them- that they're losing grip of themselves. And so their behavior is descending into that of mildly mentally ill people: looking for verification everywhere that their understanding of things conforms with society, engaging in testing of themselves to extremes that amount to exercises of willpower, unnecessarily asserting their own sanity and superiority when it's not even being questioned but admitting disorientation when people lull them into feeling safe, and getting extremely agitated, hateful, or even violent toward the things that refuse to comply with their model (ideology) of How Things Should Be.

The marketers (also, politicians) have caught on to there being an audience, one willing to pay a lot, to hear and see their version of the world asserted and proposed to be the normal and the True Destiny- group(s) who desperately need enablement to keep up a denial of their impending obsolescence. It's the Willis Carto discovery about '80s Holocaust revisionists and David Duke's about the '90s Louisiana white racists: there's a lot of loose money and votes to be gathered up in championing a Lost Cause in the public eye while offering a safe, private, haven and semblence of respectibility and community to the embattled Believers.

In the '00s it's the Republican Party and fundie Christianity. The phenomenon being so given to sharp, high, peaks is the result of the rapidity of change during the past lifetime, and so many people carrying around latent sympathies, unresolved issues of the kind being raised, and latent conservatisms. The rate of change also means that most Democrats carry latent conservatisms around, and so they are emotionally affected by the arguments involved and take a while to sort themselves out. Just have a look at Southern Democrats relative to Northern ones.

This too shall pass. The way the Right works is that it never quite resolves internal issues while Liberals hold significant power: its resentments just grow in urgency and emotion. (Think of it as constipation.) When the Right holds power the logic of what they do has everything to do with settling the pent-up resentments- reliving the past- and catching up, adaptationwise, to the present condition. Having caught up, they're stymied by dealing with the future and lose power to the Liberals.

We're "reliving" a part of the early Seventies at the moment, which is part of why the present seems so incredibly dismal and gray in the public imagination. The decline of the churches was one of the social crises of the time, and the multitude of the reminders of that period amounts to reawakening of an itch that the present champions of organized religion feel they absolutely have to scratch. We 'did' the reaction and reconsidering of Stonewall last year, in the form of gay marriage- and when we 'get to' revisiting the AIDS crisis of the early Eighties (looks like '07 to me), things seem likely to flip in the opposite direction. The outcome of the sort of rearguings we are doing is sometimes settled in a way consistent with the result of the past (gay marriage/Stonewall)...and sometimes it isn't (Roe v Wade/Schiavo v Schiavo).

I believe this run is the last hurrah of the Religious Right as a political force. Pope John Paul II was a lot of peoples' last major positive connection to organized religion and its politics, and that's why the celebrating of his life was perhaps so deeply nostalgic- in letting him go, many may well be letting go of a lot more...and walking away from giving the Church further goodwill or real benefit of the doubt when it pleads its political political positions. It's like distancing from a branch of your family when the last good person in it (in your opinion) dies- you go to the funeral, and are particularly nice and emotional and forgiving...and then gently walk away from that brood of idiots forever. There was quite a bit of this sense of things here on DU around the time of the funeral, people waxing kindly on the deceased and then quickly turning, en masse, on the new pope for all the objectionable things the former one had quietly implimented but passed the buck for.

Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.

Reinhold Niebuhr
US Protestant theologian (1892 - 1971)

[Zerex71]

50. It's not my America anymore, either.

Not just because I'm reminded of it by the haunting melodies and ambient vibrations of the Pat Metheny Group's "This Is Not America", but because of what you've described, only in another form.

I believe the base symptom to be this -- and it's hard to describe, yet so easy to see -- this idea that it's not only acceptable, but encouraged, to be in-your-face, disrespectful, shoving-your-asshat-ideas-down-everyone's-throats. It's a lack of respect, and it's pandering to the idiot masses. As if the idiot masses themselves don't make up enough of our "culture", the megamedia outlets must produce the kind of pap you are describing in some "Good Housekeeping"/non-threatening/Stepford Wives kind of fashion, as though "folksy" stories about Chimpus Maximus and his Xanax'd wife are "cute", as though they are doing real journalism, real exposes, on these issues. Usually they are fawning puff pieces about "the hot topic of the day" but what causes them to be the hot topic of the day? The overindulgent, stuff-your-face smorgasbord of media overdosing on this inanity or another.

Therefore, it is the fault of this culture for bludgeoning people over the head with things that are inherently disgusting -- but permitted and encouraged -- under the guise of First Amendment freedoms. Also, as witnessed, you probably thought you had a good thing going by subscribing to Wired, only to find out that they do the Gropenator a favor by being the media fluffers that they are; it's like nowadays, no product you consume, no service you receive, is any more than Two Degrees of Separation away from iniquity. I think about where I spend my money these days and the honest vendors are shrinking. ExxonMobil, to whom I'm unfortunately beholden as long as I have a gas-powered car, pays exorbitant sums of money to keep the global warming data squelched (see this month's Mother Jones), and yet if I stop going to them and switch to Hess, aka Amerada Hess, I realize that Kindasleazy Rice is on their board of directors. That kind of thing.

As much as the corporatism and where-can-I-turn-to? corners we've been painted into, I also feel even far more alien to my fellow American than ever before, and it's largely because, while I continue to grow, change, develop, learn, probe, and expand my universal understanding via my rapacious curiosity, my fellow Americans continue to stuff themselves silly with Mickey D's, "Desperate Housewives", NASCAR, and the bile of DeLay, Bu$h, and their sick ilk. Common sense and courtesy and approachability and friendliness -- all out the window, which is why whenever I want a welcome respite from all the sickness and taint of Americans (who disgust me these days, wholly), I think about the wonderful people of Canada, and how I have never had anything but great experiences with them.

Furthermore, my artistic bent is not well-served by being here in the States. The problem with these people here is, they think they can put in a token appearance at an opera or read something on Oprah's book club and decide that makes them cultured or an intellectual. As Cannonball Adderley said when he spoke of the hip, "Hip is not something you can buy...you either have it, or you don't," and in our consumerist culture, with equal access to Wal-Mart's front doors, it doesn't take long for the sheeple to feel that they are just as good as those who stand outside their mindnumbing milieux.

It is our difference, the difference of the thinking man and woman, who base their lives on truth, curiosity, science, nuance, reflection, contemplation, and admission of wrongs based on new evidence, that frightens them.

[readmoreoften]

52. Oh and by the way, you're an elitist.

To paraphrase "Get Your War On"... if elitist means not the dumbest motherfucker in the bunch. Then yes, thank you, I'm an elitist.

[Wizard777]

53. America Exists In The CONSTITUTION

It doesn't exist in any President. It is only symbolized in our flag. It doesn't exist in "Contracts with America" and "Patriot Acts." What makes America, America the Great, is our Constitution. Accept no substitutes and you will never live anywhere other than America. The Republicans are trying to prove they are in touch with their higher power, God. But we have yet to prove that we are in tough with our higher power, The US Constitution that creates the America God has blessed the beginnings of. Everyday Bush remains in office unchallenged by our Constitution. Is another day we prove we are unworthy of The White House. That is where you uphold and defend the Constitution. Not compromise before surrendering.

[hector459]

54. But who is paying attention to the Constitution?

Certainly not the Bush regime.

[Generator]

55. Religion sucks

But you can't say that! Oh no no no. That's why I love Bill Maher. Because that's what I BELIEVE. I believe in many other things too (they may even include GOD..but I keep it to myself unless I'm ASKED..imagine that.) I know that's not exactly your point but I don't watch mainstream news, and I don't subscribe to those magazines anymore either. I about blew a gasket when I had TWO Pope covers in a row on Newsweek after I thought my damn subscribtion was expired.

No, I don't respect anybody's religion. I respect their spirt and would ask they keep their beliefs to themselves. If I'm interested, I'll ask. Otherwise take your beliefs, your dogmas and go away. I'm not interested. Religion is the biggest con game ever.

But I'm have no doubt it will be around for a few thousand more years to kill and ruin as many lives as possible. Just an observation.

[seabeyond]

57. christian here, and i am going to call every hypocrisy, for what it is

i am not going to be quiet nor shy BECAUSE i am a christian. and if i were to embrace the religion and rules more than i embrace christ conscious, well then, i just wouldnt feel like i was doing what i was suppose to or asked to do

i dont feel jesus needs defending. i feel jesus is just fine and doesnt need my help. i feel that a religion the promotes hate of any kind has walked away from christ and any religious leader that preaches hate to his flock does them the greatest disservice, misses with the spirituality

no, i speak out against religious hypocrisy because i am a christian