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<div>I like the religion discussion happening. Many interesting and useful things being said. Many empty generalizations and baldly wrong things as well. For instance, Doug cited a study claiming the declining relevance of religion in US political life. Doug, I can offer you a very convincing bit of proof to the contrary: US political history for the past 10 years. Its true some evangelicals are excersised about statistics that point to their choir shrinking in decades to come, but there are many other indicators that suggest the opposite, besides all of which, religion in the US has never been very predictable; sudden booms and busts come with little warning. In the early 20s protestant fundamentalist religion was one of the dominant political forces in the country, but a few years later it was in a deep coma. Who could have predicted the upsurge in positive engagement in global aids treatment issues by the furthest right segments of the right wing political leadership? Santorum happened to be Health GAP's single biggest congressional ally, much to those old anarchist queers' great consternation. Evangelical religion in the US highly volatile and unpredictable.
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<div>Doug also says white evangelicals are politically hopeless (I agree with most of what doug had to say besides these two points). But that's like saying the white working class is hopeless, or writing off workers who've voted Republican--- I know what you're saying and where you're coming from, but dispensing with extremely large segments of workers in the US is a meaningless exercise, of no use in organizing or politics. I think it would be helpful for us to remember about white evangelicals, that 30% voted against the far-right party, and white evans are concentrated in places and social economies where the left has had little to no mass institutional presence (suburbs, exurbs, edge cities, the south and 'greater sunbelt', rural areas, and a range of non-union occupations and industries). Its useless to write people off whose allegiances are not even being contended for by a totally regional and dying left and center-left. Every single day I work with evangelicals in union stuff, and to hear some of them talk about their workplace you'd think them bolsheviks. Gradually, you see some of these folks get peeled out of the far-right politics that dominates christianity today. But it happens one by one, at the pace of nuts and bolts organizing. If more leftists worked on it, it'd go faster. Kudos to Yoshie for saying something that I think leads in that direction. Honestly I think sectarian leftists in the US are more hopeless politically than evangelicals. Both believe some kooky things, but one group comprises the 'salt of the earth' that must be moved out of the right for us to move towards mass struggle here.
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<div>Yoshie calls for a materialist understanding of the major religions, and that sounds great, but I agree that this is less than an innovative left proposal. And saying 'there's no mass institutions of non-believers in the US' approaches tautology; most people in the US are believers, ergo mass organizations are going to have religious people in them. Besides which, is materialism adequate to understanding belief? Particularly with born-again christians in the US, faith comes much more from the heart than the belly. If 'materialist' could include the emotional grappling with the infinite that religion really is (didn't marx call religion not only opium but also the 'heart of a heartless world'?), okay.
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<div>Also, I have never experienced the divide Yoshie sees, between secular and religious leftists. In Philadelphia, Richmond VA, Ohio and Nevada, all the places I've been involved in left politics of one kind of another, there were always both present. The divide I see is between leftists (be they trots, punks, missle-hammering nuns or professors) and the rest of society. The missile-hammering nuns and unitarians are just as far estranged from the surrounding community as the ISO and countercultural anarchists are, which is to say, not completely, but almost.
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<div>Yoshie also expressed a desire for us to draw a line in religion that would associate us with the majority. The trouble is, the line already exists, and the center-left is way in the minority and shrinking rapidly. Christianity today is less and less denominational, and more and more governed by an ideological and cultural split. This divide exists within and between denominations, congregations and (I'd argue) individuals. On the one side are the evangelicals, baptists, charismatics, pentecostals, 'independents' and megachurches, mormons, jehova's witnesses, etc, and a large chunk of the old mainline denominations and catholicism. On the other side is the other chunk of the mainline denominations and catholics, and a few very small exclusively liberal-left denominations. One of these two is extremely large, and while cross-class is mostly made up of working people, and oriented right (with some interesting but still minor deviations breaking out on AIDS, global warming, economics and poverty). The other is small, shrinking, mostly urban middle class, and liberal-left.
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<div><br>>I'm not saying what I'm saying to lure the religious away from the<br>>Republicans and get more votes for the Democrats. In general, we need<br>>a longer-term approach to this question, </div>
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<div>Strangely, in another recent post you identified the dem party as one of the mass institutions of the left. </div>
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<div>I disagree. An ongoing battle is taking place between the center and the far-right in our politics. Because the left washes its hands of the whole thing, the right continues to make mass gains, while we fret and putter and have teach-ins in college towns and countercultural gatherings of our choir, not even to preach to each other, but to argue to no meaningful end.
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<div>The unfortunate reality is that people are more receptive to moving in a progressive, left and radical direction when they are voting against the far right party (which almost always means voting for the center party, the dems). Moving people one at a time out of the far-right column is not only an immediate short-term necessity, but lays the groundwork for any real 'long term approach'. I am definitely NOT saying the only meaningful work to be done is turnout for the DP. I AM also saying that the DP elites are of course also our enemies, today's pig is tomorrow's bacon and all that. When the revolution comes... [insert bloodthirsty heavy breathing about the eventual fate of Dem elites]. But there is an ongoing political struggle in this country, between the far right and center, that has consequences. We can make it a struggle between the center and the left by intervening and moving people by the millions from one position to another.
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<div>But while things like elections go on and normal people are making decisions about what to support from the menu of existing viable mainstream choices, are we to withdraw from that real world, and instead have among our few selves a dialogue on a 'longer term strategy', which on the left usually equates to Bierce's description of philosphy as 'a journey of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing'? It would be one thing if any mass institutions or substantial organizations were part of this debate, but if it instead remained the few usual suspects issuing manifestos and strategies for movements which do not in fact exist, what's the point?
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<div>>Even just looking at organized labor, which means looking at<br>>intra-class stratification rather than inter-class relations, the rule<br>>still applies, perhaps increasingly so in the USA. Which sectors of
<br>>workers are more unionized? Teachers, industrial workers,<br>>transportation workers, retail workers, agricultural laborers?<br> </div>
<div>I'm not sure why Yoshie asked this question, since its easily answerable and not exactly in the way she alludes, and I assumed she'd know that. The workers who are union in the US are disproportionately northern (or west coast-ern), urban, and public sector. Those are the dividing categories, not education levels or income. Low-wage workers in health care or building services in NYC are mostly union, as are high-wage workers in health care and teaching in NYC. Low and high- wage and education workers in south carolina are not. Workers in older forms of heavy industry in the north are largely unionized tho declining fast; workers in newer enterprises, and ones in industry in the greater sunbelt, are mostly not.
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<div>Leaving aside all this quibbling of mine I gotta mention how pleased and intrigued I am that there's a near-consensus on this list in favor of respect and some form of engagement with religious people generally by the left. Not from Chuck, of course, but anyone who's ever been an anarchist knows from experience to avoid wherever he's headed.
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