Letters to the Editor
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Obama is such a slick liar
Trying to convince people he wasn't dissing religion in his "bitter" comments, but just saying that, in economic hard times, folks turn to the spiritual bulwarks in their lives for support. In other words, he claims he was *praising* their religious feelings. So I guess "antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment" are also positive spiritual bulwarks they can turn to in hard times, because he listed those too in his now infamous little chat to some SanFran fat cats. He has been caught saying what he truly thinks, when he thought the public wouldn't hear, and now he is doomed, doomed, doomed.
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"I don't believe in fairy tails...
...and belief in fairy tails won't solve the problems tis country face. thank you for having me here."
I wish a candidate would have the balls to say that to them.
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Saintzak
I don't believe fairies have tails.
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Saintzak, that's more or less what Obama DID say
but he said it to a bunch of West Coast liberal elitists, and now he's desperately trying to spin his way out of it. I wish he had the courage to say now, yeah, I said religion was a crutch for people in hard times, and I meant it. It would be the end of him, thank goodness.
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Professed Piety vs actions
Talk about religion proves absolutely nothing. The Republicans have made their professed piety a large part of their image while acting in ways totally contrary to what any decent person would do.
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The Real Elitists
The real elitists are those of us who believe we have "evolved beyond faith." Anybody who believes that understands neither evolution nor faith.
You can squeal now.
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When I was in Catholic grammar school in the late 60's
Sister Anne told us in the seventh grade the resurrection didn't really happen. Its just a symbolic story. we're not supposed to believe in magic tricks. Sister Anne was a wise woman. We need more Sister Annes.
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I watched as much as I could...
I shouldn't have eaten before watching Hillary's disgusting panderfest, including a statement that the holy ghost is present in her life, etc. It was a performance, nothing more. Moronic questions like, "Do you believe god made the earth in six days." Unbelievable! Obama did a little better than Clinton, trying to keep things reasonably rational, not looking so wholesale-phony. But even he had to say some pretty outrageous things to get through it.
This is the stuff that makes foreigners roll on the floor with laughter, watching us make magic and fairy tales a centerpiece of our culture and, ever increasingly, a factor in the selection of our leaders.
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Thank goodness for cythera45
Nothing illustrates an argument's inherent lack of substance better than a letter from cythera45 in support of that argument. Keep up the good work cythera45, you continue to be a reliable signpost leading away from your byline and toward the truth.
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mjwycha
I grew up in York, PA, and my father worked at the Mechanicsburg Naval Depot, so I know exactly what you are saying.
This is a region that has its good points, but also a lot of people who are very conservative. To the point where they will gladly get screwed over by big corporations, etc. and then aim their blame at immigrants, etc. Sorry, but Mexican immigrants weren't the ones who closed the Caterpillar tractor plant, for example.
There are also a fair amount of people who not only do not like anything that is different and from the outside, but also think it is trying to screw with them.
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I watched it and it was good
This forum is a huge step forward. Like Obama said in his closing, there should be no religious tests imposed on candidates.
Seeing a candidate freely speak about the faith which motivates them isn't an abridgement of that freedom, it's religious freedom in practice.
These two candidates mirror many Americans in their faith which rejects both the totemic caricature offered by Dawkins and the angry fundamentalism which has sought a monopoly on God talk in this nation.
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What's that resonating I hear?
http://www.bittervoters.org/
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Obama was channeling "What's the Matter with Kansas?"
As far as his initial comments went about people being "bitter," maybe I'm offbase here, but I recognized it immediately as being more or less a 30-second encapsulation of this entire book by Tom Frank, which came out shortly after the 2004 election, just as people on the Left Coasts were beginning to wonder aloud how those in flyover country had become so disenchanted with the Democratic party. I don't know if Obama has read the book or if he came independently to the same conclusions, but it's a book that's well worth a read or re-read now in light of the recent dust-up. It's also a book that, incidentally, places much of the blame for this disenchantment on the Clinton years.
The book posits the theory is that the Clinton/DLC approach of turning the Democratic party into Republican Lite was what gradually led the working classes and the poor to the conclusion that *neither* party was really looking out for their economic interests. As a general sense of disillusionment and pessimism set in, struggling folks in places like Kansas (which is where Frank is from) gradually turned inward towards more cultural issues, like faith and family. They began to operate under the assumption that bringing economic prosperity back into their lives through a realignment of the nation's wealth was simply not something that any national politician could be counted on to deliver. Instead, they started to depend on politicans, primarily from the GOP, whom they believed would fight the "culture wars" on their behalf.
The GOP, for its part, has been more than happy to put forward politicians who promise to fight such "culture wars," knowing all too well that no one ever actually wins such "wars" and that they have no intention of even fighting them with any kind of real conviction once in office. For example, the general coarsening of culture, the garbage and smut on TV, the sexual promiscuity of teenagers--GOP politicians will garner votes by ranting and raving about these things as genuine problems, but what do they actually do about these things once they're in office (aside from the old standby, bashing gay people)? You'd have a lot less smut on TV, for example, if you opposed media consolidation and supported more public broadcasting, but we *know* the GOP isn't going to do that.
So that's what I thought Obama was getting at. Admittedly, it was a bit ambitious on his part to think he could do in a 30-second comment to donors what Mr. Frank took an entire book to explain.