In a recent article I suggested that Senator Obama was almost certain to be the Democratic candidate for the Presidency. Now that seems even more likely to be the case, since The Washington Post just declared that Senator Obama has clinched the nomination. Senator Clinton is about to concede that, although she would be the better candidate, he has the necessary delegates for the nomination. She is willing to accept the VP nomination, if that would help the Democratic party. Beloved former President Carter has said that he will support Senator Obama's candidacy. Gracias a Dios. Unless a video surfaces showing Senator Obama in jihadist garb personally beheading a U.S. soldier, which is highly unlikely, he will be the Democratic candidate.
If there were a blogcritics category "rant," this might well be one of those. There isn't, but here goes anyway.
In my previous article, I suggested that Senator Obama's attraction to Black liberation theology is fair game in the general election campaign. There are other perhaps more important things to be addressed as well, but they probably won't be, because I doubt that Senator McCain is up to dealing with them either. Democratic and Republican corn flakes are not very different.
In 1939, W.H. Auden wrote a poem, In Memory of W.B. Yeats, in commemoration of the Irish poet, the final lines of which are,
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
That was written, of course, when World War II was about to begin. In commenting on the poem, the Norton Anthology says
When Auden wrote "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" in February 1939, Europe was on the verge of World War II. War did not actually break out until Germany invaded Poland in September, but the sense of impending catastrophe is present throughout the poem. The failure of Britain and France to resist Hitler's claims on Czechoslovakia in 1938 seemed to define the mood of Europe as Auden wrote. In spite of the sense of expectant foreboding, all the nations seemed paralyzed, incapable of action.
I rather think we are in a similar situation now.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dr Dreadful
"In my previous article, I suggested that Senator Obama's attraction to Black liberation theology is fair game in the general election campaign."
Whether fair game or not, it will be central on the battleground. I think his religious beliefs, whatever they may be, are really a sideshow to what should be the main issue of whether Obama is qualified to be President. When I first heard he'd decided to run, I thought, "Noooo, not now! Wait four years!" With desperately little national experience under his belt, I felt he'd quickly get mown down by the Hillary Express.
He's surprised me by not tanking early on and becoming just another footnote in the history of African-American presidential candidacies. He can certainly talk a good game, but so far that's mostly all he's needed to do. Hopefully now that the world's longest job interview is over, he can get down to the nitty-gritty of convincing the American public that he can perform the office better than Macca.
2 - Ruvy
DD,
Mr. Miller has picked up on the truth of the matter - your country faces a huge moral crisis, a crisis that you appear willing to close you eyes to just as do most of the
foolspolitical commentators out there. Black Liberation theology is a nice distraction from the cold reality of real moral choices, and from facing up to them - which Americans are refusing to do, from what I can see.And Mr. Miller has picked up on the seriousness of that moral crisis. The four thousand American soldiers lost in Iraq, even though most were lost in vain, for a war that has little meaning or gain except for plutocrats in the States, is just the opening salvo of something far far worse.
We in Israel are having these choices shoved down our throats. But that's our problem.
Given that this is primarily an American site - and you Americans don't really care about the world, for all of your pretense to the contrary - it is appropriate that an ex-pat bring you the bad news.
It is appropriate also that his message seems restrained. But do examine that poem at the beginning of this article, and for whom it was written - and then examine the poem that has made Yeats immortal "The Second Coming".
3 - Dave Nalle
Here's the question. Is Black Liberation Theology really all that much different from radical Islam?
Dave
4 - STM
Dave: in a word, yes.
I'd reckon it's so different, the comparison is a nonsense.
5 - troll
...as they both are based on the worship of Sophia's mad offspring I'd say that they are pretty similar
6 - bliffle
Maybe all this brouhaha over religion in the 2008 election will finally bring an end to religion in politics. Most politicians just suck up to a religion because it was a safe way to appeal to churchgoers. That worked pretty good when almost everyone was some kind of mild-mannered protestant, like methodist, or whatever. But now religion is not so simple and homogeneous, so by stating a religion one takes a chance of outraging some religionists.
It's no longer safe for a politician to decalim on his superstitious beliefs, which may be just a ruse anyhow as most politicians really seem to be secular; there ethics are formed by power and money.
When it's no longer safe to embrace a religion then the notion of religion itself becomes suspect.
7 - Dan Miller
Ruvy,
I find Yeats difficult, but as I understand The Second Coming he was talking an event not unlike that envisioned by Mr. Ahmadinejad. Yeats seemed to be unhappy about it, while Mr. Ahmadinejad seems to think it will be great and glorious.
And so, while "all the dogs of Europe bark and intellectual disgrace stares from every human face," we sit around fussing about how Senator Clinton screwed her party or how she got screwed by it and how high gasoline prices may go.
Oh well. Is it too early for a beer?
"Mr. Miller"
8 - Dan Miller
I just noticed in re-reading the first sentence of my comment #6 that I am suffering from Preposition Deficiency Anemia. It is not my fault; I am a victim.
Dan
9 - Clavos
...as are we all...
10 - Andy Marsh
Politicians won't stop professing their faith, they'll just tell their constituents that they're not attending services because it's to expensive to load the family in the SUV and drive to church...
11 - Ruvy
Dan,
Maybe you remember me telling you I had an article in the hopper. Well, it finally was released in the culture section, Changing Focus from the World of Lies to the World of Truth.
As I said this deals with moral questions, but there is plenty here for you to argue with.
12 - Baronius
Dave - Black liberation theology is a lot like the Nation of Islam. Both are offshoots of their original religions (Christianity and Islam) which combined with black nationalism.
I wrote something recently about C.S. Lewis, so forgive me if I'm repeating myself. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis wrote about how Christianity can be devalued if it becomes "Christianity and". When Christianity becomes the means to an end, or one objective on a list, it becomes weakened. It's a tough thing, being a church with a soup kitchen and not a soup kitchen with a church.
There are traces of "religion and" in Christianity and Islam. (Digression is bound to happen in any human endeavor, even message boards.) But liberation theology and the Nation of Islam actually fuse their religious message and their racial agenda. Black liberation theology isn't Christianity and Race, it's racial Christianity. Christ's message is about race (as is Mohammed's according to the Nation of Islam).
I'm a Catholic, and I've heard plenty of sermons about the evils of racism. We support many a soup kitchen. But every week we say the Nicene Creed which is an articulation of the basic tenets of our faith. You look at Trinity UCC's website, and you see a set of political/religious beliefs. There's the difference.
13 - Irene Wagner
Baronius -- If he were alive, where would Dr. Martin Luther King be worshipping this Sunday? I'm thinking he might choose an inter-racial non-denominational church like Paul Sheppard's where an attempt is made to ease tension between the races. Maybe he'd even stoop to help y'all heretical Catholics at the soup kitchen once a month. ;)
Dan Miller, help me please as my sarcasm-meter is a little off lately. Was this Churchill found his discussions with Stalin quite helpful in getting a sense of the man's character and what he was about. meant to be sarcastic? It didn’t appear so in context, but didn’t Stalin show his true character when he forced starvation in Ukraine in 1932? Duranty and the “owned” media, more than lack of “talks,” was probably what kept the US in the dark about that particular aspect of “Uncle Joe’s” personality. Didn’t Stalin show his true character within about ten minutes of Yalta with the onset of the Cold War?
I’m not meaning to discount the value of talks, not even with the leaders of the countries who seem to pose the biggest threat to us. The problem with these talks is not the talks themselves, but the fact that they always seem to result in the US getting involved in “foreign entaglements” militarily with people who can’t be trusted. Not since before world war II (if you consider at Eastern bloc countries) have these entanglements ever seemed to provide even short-term benefits for the US or those foreign nations we tried to help.
What if the pre-WWII talks had resulted in revoking the burden on Germany to make unreasonable reparations for WWI? Would England or Poland have been threatened? Economic crisis does funny things to a person’s sense of right and wrong. Hitler wouldn’t have had nearly the following he did had the WWI victors been conscious of the need to avert economic disaster in Germany.
I submit that the only kind of talks that will make real head-way in bringing peace to the world are two-sided talks"where BOTH sides are truly willing to compromise and admit guilt. Come on now, you know how horrified we in the US are at the thought of being forced to wear burquas, or of forcing to submit to other aspects of Sharia law. Run with that. Now imagine you belong to a very moralistic culture and the West starts getting the local population hooked on porn films, supplies alternate models virtue like Britney Spears to your teenagers, Western-based health organizations come in and start aggressively promoting abortion? Wouldn’t that feel like an invasion? Wouldn’t you be angry and threatened? What if the rocks and insults throwing contests between your local teens and Israeli soldiers were escalated by the provision (to BOTH sides) of automatic weapons and training? What if your country had been subjected to economic sanctions such as the one imposed on Iraq and you’d watched your nation’s children die as a result? What business did the US have doing those things?
My foreign policy views are regarded as dreadfully simple-minded around here, and believe me they are, but maybe my ignorance of trees allows me to see the forest. The owner of a Rube Goldberg type of device to carve apples might boast of his team of highly skilled apple-device maintenance analysts. Someone with a regular old paring knife doesn't even need a whetstone.
14 - bliffle
What church did Churchill belong to? Did he go around prating about god blessing everything?
In a few years religion in USA politics will be as unimportant as it is in European politics.
Nobody will care.
15 - Jordan Richardson
That's incredibly optimistic, bliffle, but I hope you're right.
16 - Irene Wagner
What church did Stalin belong to? I hope in a few years two of the adherents of Stalin's religion will have attention spans exceeding the length of time it takes to read past the first paragraph. :P
17 - Dan Miller
Biffle,
Churchill more than likely belonged to the Church of England. I don't think he was all that religious, and I haven't seen any indication in his writings that he was. I'm reasonably sure, however, that the words "God bless. . ." whatever did on occasion escape his lips. Hell, many people say it when someone sneezes; not because they believe that the soul departs the body during a sneeze and that the expression keeps the devil from entering, but just because it is the customary thing to say. I suspect it is more cultural than anything else. Even I occasionally say to a Panamanian (typically Roman Catholic), "Via con dios." It has a literal meaning, "go with God," and a cultural meaning, something along the lines of "have a safe journey." Occasionally, when there has been too much rain, and it stops, I will roll my eyes at the sky and say, "gracias a dios."
As to whether religion will disappear eventually from U.S. politics, it may well, and that will probably, on balance, be a good thing. What should not disappear, however, is inquiry into the secular opinions of candidates, regardless of whether those opinions are cloaked in a religious costume. I would find it rather sad if we were to vote for a candidate who held to the view that infidels should be murdered or that raped women should be stoned. Whether one deems these religious or secular views doesn't much matter to me. I find them perverse, and would not vote for any candidate who held them. Nor, I suspect, would you.
Dan
18 - Baronius
I don't see any signs that America is losing its religiosity.
19 - Dan Miller
Irene,
No, I wasn't being sarcastic. I really do think that Churchill's (and Roosevelt's) contacts with Stalin, via both multiple telegrams and a few personal meetings, did give Churchill (and Roosevelt) a better understanding of Stalin than either would otherwise have had. Keep in mind that the U.S.S.R. was viewed by many in the U.S., England and elsewhere as a noble effort to ameliorate the perceived evils of capitalism. This view persisted even after the war. Had it not been for Stalin's efforts on the eastern front, which kept a whole lot of German troops occupied and thus away from the western front, Hitler's Germany would almost certainly have won the war, with disastrous consequences for the rest of us. Sometimes, it is unfortunately necessary to rise above principle and deal with bad people.
Through their contacts with Stalin, both Churchill and Roosevelt learned quite about him as a person -- a highly intelligent, stubborn, and ruthless jerk. They knew what was going on. The despicable depredations of the U.S.S.R. in the prison camps of the Katyn Forest, where more than twenty thousand Polish prisoners of war were murdered in 1940, including a large number of very young cadets, were very well known to them. Even the International Red Cross refused to investigate. There were many other very, very bad things. The Allies simply needed the U.S.S.R. and could not do anything about them. We continued to make valiant efforts and sacrificed many lives and ships to continue to supply the U.S.S.R. with the materials of war needed to keep the Germans occupied and away from the eastern front.
Had Churchill not become intimately familiar with Stalin and his methods, would he have delivered his Fulton, Missouri "Iron Curtain" speech? I don't know, but my guess is that he might not have deemed it necessary or even fitting.
I agree, and I suspect that most people in retrospect do as well, that the Treaty of Versailles was a bad thing. The reparations imposed on Germany were staggering, and certainly catalyzed World War II. One can possibly blame the whole thing on the French, but that wouldn't be entirely fair. Neither Churchill nor Roosevelt wanted anything to do with a similar approach following World War II, and a very different tack was taken.
I also agree that efforts to impose our cultural mores on other cultures are often a bad thing. Hell, I find many of them totally disgusting myself. However, I'm not sure that we make much of a concerted effort to impose them, and suspect that they, like peanuts, are simply irresistible. I recall being in an internet cafe in Panama City one day, and seeing half a dozen young men in Moslem garb gathered around a computer watching pornographic videos. Nobody forced them to do so; they just wanted to. Our television shows, our pop tarts, many of our glossy magazines and the like provide what I hope is a very distorted view of life in the U.S.
I also agree that sanctions often don't do much good. Rather than impose sanctions on Cuba, we should have "hugged them to death." Sanctions frequently provide dictators more power, rather than less, because they give them an excuse for their own poor performance. Read Bremmer's J Curve if you haven't already done so. Sanctions tend to retard the societies on which they are imposed from becoming open to ideas other than their own. To the extent that there is dissent in Iran, it is due more to an almost irresistible invasion of foreign notions, some good, some bad, than to anything else. The internet is a great tool for encouraging openness, and it is extraordinarily difficult to quench it. Sanctions also cause quite a lot of suffering among those whose main concern is to avoid starvation, and hardly any suffering at all among the bad guys. I do think that when the sanctions against North Korea finally reduced the availability of luxury goods to Great Leader Kim Jong Pil and his buddies, it did quite a bit of good.
Having said all of this, I don't think we can assume that all cultures are OK, and that we can all get along by showing good will and tolerance. The Islamic world, to the extent that it threatens us, remains rooted in a very violent time long past; many of the impulses which drove the Crusades about a millennium ago are still very active and very dangerous. They now have modern technology, and are quickly learning how to use it. If we could simply throw a force field around the region and wish them the best of luck in killing each other, that would be nice. We can't do that.
The thrust of the article was that we can't ignore the problem and assume that they are just like us. They aren't, and the sooner our leaders recognize this, via whatever personal contacts and whatever other means are possible, the better.
I think I have rambled on quite long enough.
Dan
20 - Dan Miller
Irene,
As I recall, Stalin attended a Russian Orthodox seminary and trained as a priest in that religion. All in all, it would probably have been a good thing had he continued in that pursuit. But then, without Stalin, the Allies might have been defeated by Hitler's Germany, not a good thing.
Dan
21 - RJ Elliott
Europe, in the long run, is finished.
With fertility rates in Europe at about 1.4 overall (the zero-growth replacement rate is 2.1), they will soon be unable to afford their generous socialist welfare state. More young workers will be needed to pay the requisite taxes. These young workers are not "being made" by the indigenous population, so governments will be forced to rely upon ever-increasing levels of immigration.
Europe receives most of its immigration from North Africa, the Middle East (Turkey in particular) and South Asia (Pakistan in particular). These countries are predominately (almost exclusively) Muslim.
Muslims in Europe have a much higher fertility rate than indigenous Europeans (roughly triple the rate, around 4.0). And Muslims already comprise between 5-10 percent of the populations of several European countries.
Oh, and they don't seem to be assimilating into the secular culture of Europe very well.
So. Indigenous (non-Muslim) Europeans are shrinking in aggregate numbers every year. Muslim Europeans are growing in numbers every year. Massive immigration from Muslim nations continues. Assimilation into the "dominant" culture is not occurring. Add all that together, and you have a future Europe (50-100 years from now) in which Islam is the majority religion, sharia law is in effect in a great number of jurisdictions, much of the "social progress" (legalized abortion, gay marriage, etc.) of Europe has been reversed, and most of the hallmarks of Western civilization are scrapped.
Good secular humanist atheist socialist Europeans may not realize it, but they are sterilizing/aborting themselves into a self-imposed genocide. The Dark Ages will be making a comeback in our grandchildrens' lifetimes, I'm afraid.
Hopefully I'm being unnecessarily pessimistic. But if you crunch the demographic numbers, it's hard to come to a different conclusion.
22 - RJ Elliott
"I don't see any signs that America is losing its religiosity."
Agreed. Especially since the USA continues to receive hundreds of thousands of immigrants (mostly illegal) from devoutly-religious (and Catholic) Mexico every year. These folks are unlikely to become atheists anytime soon. (Especially since higher education is pretty strongly correlated with secular attitudes, and only a tiny percentage of Mexican immigrants attend school past 12th grade.)
Also, the fertility rate for the Mexican immigrants is significantly higher than that of the more secular gringos. If anything, the United States might be in for another Great Awakening, although this time of the Roman Catholic variety.
And I, as an agnostic gringo, don't have a problem with that. I just wish they'd come here legally and learn the English language.
23 - Clavos
RJ,
If you haven't already done so, read America Alone, by Mark Steyn.
24 - Ruvy
You guys are approaching the big problem. As I said a lot earlier, Dan was restrained.
To give you an idea - it's not just the Moslems who watch the porno in the internet café. What about kids who pick it up on the computer, or about the folks who watch it at work or at home when they think nobody can see?
The stuff does have an influence on people - a strong one.
What about the cheating going on in classrooms. It appears normal to chat on tests these days, not abnormal. This has consequences later with plagiarizing and stealing intellectual property.
Your society does not have the guts to deal with the threat of Wahhabi terror, much less name it for what it is; it hasn't the guts to say that certain things are right and certain things are wrong; it doesn't have the guts to insist on a certain moral code that applies to all of its participants; it exports this moral cowardice world wide.
Yesterday, Barack Obama made one hell of a stump speech before AIPAC, a speech where he said all of the right things. He had the Jewish audience applauding all the way. They'll vote for him because they believe him. I'll vote for him because I don't believe a word he said.
At bottom, his candidacy will be not about change but about affirming America's moral cowardice while attempting to deal with racism.
25 - Irene Wagner
No you didn't ramble on for too long, Dan. I appreciate hearing your views on my views on your views.
I had also heard Stalin had tried his hand at poetry. What a different world we might have had now, if Stalin had remained permanently with his head in the clouds, a poetry-writing Orthodox priest.
Maybe some of today's violent Islamic revolutionists will have turn-abouts like that, too, only in the opposite direction. Relief may come from unexpected quarters.