WHEN BARACK PROMISED CHANGE, DID THAT MEAN HE CHANGED?
Progressives are in a vociferous snit. Barack Obama has not even uttered the word “progressive” and is now advocating (gulp) . . . wait, you’d better sit down first . . . federally funding religious-based initiatives and charities to encourage more involvement in government programs. Oh, my. These groups, Barry swears, won’t proselytize, mind you, but will just help out making the community the epicenter of his efforts to fortify this great land. Right. Evangelicals not proselytizing. Riiiggghhht.
It gets worse, my progressive brethren. Bam recently lamented the Supreme Court’s prohibition against the death penalty in child rape cases and heralded everybody’s favorite SCOTUS originalist Scalia in his majority opinion creating (hardly an originalist notion), that’s right, creating a right to possess firearms. This is the same Obama who apparently is either flip-flopping or (my preferred nuance) evolving on granting telecom immunity in new FISA legislation so as to permit retroactive review of past transgressions. (Don’t ask me what that means.) And let’s not forget throwing Reverend Wright, his spiritual guru and avuncular pal, under the bus and then backing up repeatedly over his twisted and contorted proverbial corpse. And, oh yes, his retreat from accepting public financing. Bam, we hardly knew ye.
And, while we’re on the subject of repudiation, don’t think for a moment that Wes Clark’s off the hook with his McCain comments about his dearth of commander-in-chiefness merely because he was shot down in Vietnam, captured and tortured daily for over five years. Remember, Wright was ditched when perceived wrong. Clark’s a (pardon the bad military pun) loose cannon. You won’t be hearing anything from General Wesley from now on. Trust me. He’ll be gone (or silenced, at least) faster than you can say “Samantha Power.”
This is the campaign of “isn’t.” McCain isn’t a conservative (so the conservatives claim) and he isn’t a progressive or a liberal or consistent for that matter. And Barry isn’t your cookie-cutter, prototypical progressive (or anti-regressive as I prefer). He isn’t a liberal or a radical or a Muslim or . . . whatever you think he promised not to be.
But here’s the kicker: What did Barack promise exactly? He only mentioned change initially. But I warned also initially that a vague, open-ended promise of change was not enough. I wanted specifics.
I wanted not change, but improvement. And it’ll, I submit, happen. Si se puede.
Obama in ’08.
- FILED UNDER: Host Posts
- July 2, 2008
Re Somebody has forgotten something here
Who says Faith has to be connected to some specific belief. Are Fee-Thinkers aka so-called Atheists "not religious". So you believe in some kind of Karma, that what "goes round, comes round", though you may not support some kind of Deity. What is Liberation Theology, other than a sense that local communities have a right, and duty to take care of their own business, and should be allowed to define their own needs. That community may have some kind of "religious" ethos, so that the personal lives of those that live there might include values that Free-Thinkers oppose. What happened to freedom of conscience
The Faith based community services may be affiliated with some kind of reilgious organization, but in practice they are non-sectarian. I know that in the Metro Detroit area, there is a Vocational Workshop run by the Jewish Welfare Federation that receives funds from a Communiity Chest and serves people who are "not Jewish", too. Its a voluntary organization, that often gets funds from the local government on the grounds that it saves the tax payer by using some other infrastructure than the state aparatus. People often tax themselves in addition to what they pay to "the government".
The bottom line is that there are two approaches to providing social services. One is based on Organizations that join together "as a community", sharing the obligation by voluntary payroll deductions. The other approach is when the government subsidizes the same services out of mandatory payroll deductions, employer contributions, and other sources to cover the cost. You choose which format, and live with it.
- parent
By d2343@012.net.ilJuly 3, 2008 - 2:30am