Sunday Morning Politics
Sep. 28th, 2008 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wolven7Just watched Amy Holmes (CNN contributor & former Republican speech writer) and Michelle Cottle (New Republic) laugh off loss of Wiccan votes, in re: Palin and her witch-hunting former preacher.
This really irks me. To, in one breath, defend a candidate's religion, and their right to not have that specifically colour the tenor of their candidacy and to then, in the next, ridicule an entire religious tradition? Preposterous. More than that, offensive and hypocritical.
New Religious Movements, of which Wicca still counts as one, are an increasingly-important voting block, as people seek new paths to understand the world, to express their feelings of connection with the universe and their contextual place, in the world around them. They may not be a large voting block, but they are an increasingly vocal and moneyed voting block. They are a political reality, and the easiest way to piss any political group off and to have them direct that ire, At You, is to make fun of them on live television.
Politics and religion go hand-in-hand. Back to the days of the ancient Greeks, and someone in the Senate being accused of not making his seasonal sacrifices, on time. To ask that they don't is as much to ask that religion no longer exist. And we are not going there, right now. Suffice it to say that religion Will Always Exist, in some way, shape, or form. There will always be something to which people subscribe themselves and their beliefs, on more faith than evidence. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. The Bad Thing happens when the exclusivity clauses kick in, and everyone starts thinking that theirs is the one true technology. I mean infinitely-complex-effective-contructive-and-constructed-thoughtform. I mean God.
And it's precisely that kind of bias which is displayed, even in dismissing a group in terms of number of votes, or for whom they will be voting.
I see if I can find a video.
[11.59am: Found it. Toward the last three minutes of this clip:
Thoughts?
12.05pm: Also, here's a response form, whether you liked it or hated it
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?25]
This really irks me. To, in one breath, defend a candidate's religion, and their right to not have that specifically colour the tenor of their candidacy and to then, in the next, ridicule an entire religious tradition? Preposterous. More than that, offensive and hypocritical.
New Religious Movements, of which Wicca still counts as one, are an increasingly-important voting block, as people seek new paths to understand the world, to express their feelings of connection with the universe and their contextual place, in the world around them. They may not be a large voting block, but they are an increasingly vocal and moneyed voting block. They are a political reality, and the easiest way to piss any political group off and to have them direct that ire, At You, is to make fun of them on live television.
Politics and religion go hand-in-hand. Back to the days of the ancient Greeks, and someone in the Senate being accused of not making his seasonal sacrifices, on time. To ask that they don't is as much to ask that religion no longer exist. And we are not going there, right now. Suffice it to say that religion Will Always Exist, in some way, shape, or form. There will always be something to which people subscribe themselves and their beliefs, on more faith than evidence. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. The Bad Thing happens when the exclusivity clauses kick in, and everyone starts thinking that theirs is the one true technology. I mean infinitely-complex-effective-contructive-and-constructed-thoughtform. I mean God.
And it's precisely that kind of bias which is displayed, even in dismissing a group in terms of number of votes, or for whom they will be voting.
I see if I can find a video.
[11.59am: Found it. Toward the last three minutes of this clip:
Thoughts?
12.05pm: Also, here's a response form, whether you liked it or hated it
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?25]
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-28 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-28 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-28 06:39 pm (UTC)In exactly which election have any of these groups either helped someone lose or win that election?
How many candidates have these groups railroaded off of any election ticket?
How many federal appointtees have they gotten discredited or helped usher into their job?
How many candidates have traveled to one of the rallies or lectures or conventions of these groups in order to curry favor and get a photo opportuniity?
How many members of the US Congress could give a definitive definition of Wicca or any of these other groups?
If you don't have the answers to these questions, just point me in the direction of a website or book that might and I'll search for myself.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-28 08:12 pm (UTC)http://www.ourfreedomcoalition.org/summit/summit/accomplish.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=C3HjVG3n38EC
http://paganinstitute.org/PIR/activist_news.shtml (haven't looked fully at this one, may be useless)
See also Aum Shinrikyo, Black Liberation Theology, and, most vocally most recently, Scientology.
The majority of Grassroots pagan organisations in America are at the state and local levels, residing mostly in colleges/universities. As they work to find a unified identity and community-- at least for the purposes of voting and political changes-- they tend to branch into broader politics. The problem is maintaining that unity into later stages. But that's obviously possible.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-28 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 01:37 am (UTC)What a poor PR move for republican party speakers. It shows a complete lack of empathy towards the public's religious choices and severe boorish ignorance.
As far as Dan Quayle? Of course the media prodded and rousted him as moronic. He misspelled "potato" for heaven's sake! While trying to correct someone else: a child! to make matters worse.
What silly twats.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 06:06 am (UTC)Is that really a GOOD thing, though?
no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 06:13 am (UTC)The good or bad things are the ways in which we deal with it, and I think this was a particularly clear example of a Bad way to deal with it.