you're right. it IS boring. and more than being boring, it's counterproductive. which is why i'm tired of hearing the old "his religion makes me uncomfortable" lines. we need to stay focused.
and unlike kelley, i'm not yet prepared to cut obama loose and say he's nothing but another reactionary. the first rule of organizing i learned is to "meet people where they're at [sic]". maybe we'd like obama to be further left, but he's running for statewide office in illinois.
unless we're going to eschew electoral politics altogether, we need to acknowledge that the problem is an organizing problem, and you can't get too far out from your membership. i find eschewing electoral politics altogether a more coherent solution than year after year running can't-win ego-maniacs like nader (for whom i voted in 2000, btw), and yet i'm not prepared to let go of electoral politics altogether, because the only way to do that and have it make sense (that i can see) is to take the same line capitalism does toward growth in developing countries: yeah, it gets worse (much much worse), first, but then it gets better. honest!
peace
j
On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 09:19:16 -0600, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> >
> > is religion now the litmus test for the secular left? not poverty,
> > class, civil liberties, justice, but religion?
> >
> Oh shit!
>
> We've gone over this time after time on this list and still these
> cliches show up.
>
> Most leftists (and I mean anti-DP as well as DP leftists) get along very
> well with xtians. About every two or three years in my classes I would
> have a xtian student who felt very bad because he/she really liked me
> but thought I was going to hell; and the local depression-support group
> is overwhelmingly xtian & I get along with them will. Most of the red
> leftist I have met around the nation for 35 years also get along very
> well with xtians.
>
> This talking about leftists insulting xtians is boring bullshit which
> preempts more interesting conversation.
>
> The trouble with Barack Obama is that he is one more essentially
> reactionary democrat wrapped in a little liberal rhetoric, not that he's
> a xtian. And he won't be the first University of Chicago professor who
> is at home in the vest pocket of the Kelly-Nash....Daley...Daley
> machine.
>
> Carrol
>
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>