The glow eventually will dissipate, but until it does, the opportunity to cherish pieces like this is utterly priceless. Thanks to Tom Moench for pointing me to this latest example of why I, too, love Michael Moore.
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Tuesday, November 14th, 2006
A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives
To My Conservative Brothers and Sisters,
I know you are dismayed and disheartened at the results of last week's election. You're worried that the country is heading toward a very bad place you don't want it to go. Your 12-year Republican Revolution has ended with so much yet to do, so many promises left unfulfilled. You are in a funk, and I understand.
Well, cheer up, my friends! Do not despair. I have good news for you. I, and the millions of others who are now in charge with our Democratic Congress, have a pledge we would like to make to you, a list of promises that we offer you because we value you as our fellow Americans. You deserve to know what we plan to do with our newfound power -- and, to be specific, what we will do to you and for you.
Thus, here is our Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives:
Dear Conservatives and Republicans,
I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:
1. We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.
2. We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider your behavior to be "different" or "immoral." Who you marry is none of our business. Love and be in love -- it's a wonderful gift.
3. We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to enrich our friends. It's your checkbook, too, and we will balance it for you.
4. When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring your sons and daughters home, too. They deserve to live. We promise never to send your kids off to war based on either a mistake or a lie.
5. When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise that you, too, will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay. And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that affect you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to you and your family, too.
6. Even though you have opposed environmental regulation, when we clean up our air and water, we, the Democratic majority, will let you, too, breathe the cleaner air and drink the purer water.
7. Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.
8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.
9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children just as we would protect ours.
10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees -- that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage, too.
11. We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those beliefs into practice. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."). We will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism -- starting with the fanaticism here at home, thus setting a good example for the rest of the world.
12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.
I promise all of the above to you because this is your country, too. You are every bit as American as we are. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as one. Thank you for your years of service to this country and for giving us the opportunity to see if we can make things a bit better for our 300 million fellow Americans -- and for the rest of the world.
Signed,
Michael Moore
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19 comments:
This reinforces why I am a conservative.
There is too many viewpoints in the statements that I believe are detrimental to our country remaining safe and secure.
Double talk and double standards reign throughout this diatribe.
Where are these people to speak up against San Francisco banning the JROTC program in schools. They make the kids spend two weeks taking on a muslim name and identity and have them wear a burka, but won't allow them to wear a US military uniform.
How about the democratic scandals the media withheld until after the election where favors and contracts were awarded to democratic congressman.
There is not enough time nor space to rebut this article.
I'll stick to the conservative views.
There's neither time nor space to document the double standards shared by conservatives and Republicans, so instead, let's consider the convenient whipping boy of San Francisco.
HB wrote:
Where are these people to speak up against San Francisco banning the JROTC program in schools. They make the kids spend two weeks taking on a muslim name and identity and have them wear a burka, but won't allow them to wear a US military uniform.
I spent more time than I should have googling these assertions. I found several interesting articles from around the country that describe the efforts of school systems to establish a schedule of holiday observances that takes the needs of non-Christian students into account. I can find nothing referring to the wearing of burkas in the SF school system, although I saw one reference to elementary school children in Virginia being indoctrinated in Islam (as though 300 years of mandated indoctrination in Christianity weren’t enough brainwashing for one country’s time line).
And, not surprisingly, it helps to know that the SF school decision about JROTC has to do with objections to the military discriminating against gays and lesbians, although to those among us bedazzled by the symbolism of uniforms, it probably takes on a hue beyond the intended support of civil and human rights.
I continue to be amused, and sometimes sickened, by the suggestion that the best response to Muslim extremism is Christian extremism. Perhaps this wasn’t the best time for me to be reading a narrative history of Europe’s 30 Years War between – yes – different sects of Christianity.
At any rate, and as usual, there’s far more back story to simplistic assertions than those making them tend to want known.
HB,
Like there is no double talk and double standards on the conservative side of things?
My first thought on reading Mr. Moore's letter was, it is pretty good as an ideal but can we live up to it? Can and will the Democrats follow through?
Perhaps you ought to step back, just a bit, and follow some of your own advice. You often say just because some people do not live up to conservative and/or religious principles, it does not necessarily invalidate the principles in question. I happen to agree with that premise. Is it not just as fair to grant the same to the other side?
I think that I will stick with the liberal and progressive views that have led to the end of slavery, the end of women as chattel, the right to practice birth control, and that have led to the right of women to vote. We take these for granted today but they were progressive and liberal ideas at the time.
This is much more agreeable from my conservative viewpoint.
*_PAUL HARVEY'S ON AIR PRAYER _*
"Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem. We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free. Amen!"
I believe you should post Paul Harvey's prayer at your blog, along with an explanation of how it squares with the scientific techniques used to treat illness.
Medical science would be a laughingstock it it relied upon 2,000-year-old insights. Religion is supposed to be believable because it does.
Meanwhile ... there was some mention of "time-honored values of our forefathers."
Iam Hoosier just referred to several of these "values": Human slavery, women as chattel, segments of the population denied the vote in a so-called democracy. He might have added institutionalized torture, environmental pillage, and sewage treatment as a ditch in the street.
There's some good old-fashioned country values.
And to think: Torture's back in fashion as a civilized Western value, supported by milions of churchgoers as a "necessary" evil.
I believe Mr. Harvey also left out that we have polluted Your earth and called it getting the government off business's back.
Isn't this what is so great about the USA. We can have these disagreements.
We do so because so many have fought and died for these freedoms.
Mistakes have been made in the past just as we are making some now. We will look back in 20 years and wonder how we could have done some of the dumb things we are now doing. This will include many of the liberal beliefs as well as some of the conservatives.
HB,
Good thoughts.
I would like to do a minor editing job.(smile)
"This will include SOME of the liberal beliefs as well as MANY of the conservatives."
I am not really an idealogue and, to be quite honest, I have a difficult time with hardcore idealogues. I tend to think that a more pragmatic approach to solving things works better than an idealogical one. But that's just me.
My own observation is this. Most of the issues we really wrestle with us a society are complex and multi-layered. Throwing words like 'liberal' and 'conservative,' to me, is a statement of saying I'm going not going to do the hard work to understand all sides of an issue and all the complexities of an issue. At the core of this is the myth that there are two sides to every story. Two sides? When did life become that simple that everything has two sides? Has society become so moronic that we have to boil complex issues down to two sides so that we can grapple with it?
The Republicans lost this election on, frankly, ethical grounds. This happened on a wide variety of fronts.
First, there was a complete lack of respect (respect is an ethical issue) for people who disagreed with them. Within a democracy or republic there needs to be a 'loyal opposition.' When charges begin to fly out that the opposition is not loyal, it breaks the rules of respectful discourse. The Republicans were guilty of this. From a Christian vantage point, Jesus had two topics he spoke on more than any other topic. The first was how we treated each other. His use of the word love, the Greek 'agape' is translated as a respectful, charitable approach towards others. When this charitiable, respectful approach is broken, it is a breach of Christian ethics.
Secondly, a great deal of morality is economic. We have a major economic disconnect in this country.
Some are doing better and better----but the poverty line is growing rapidly. I said it before, our Soup Kitchen has doubled in the last 6 months and projections are that it will double again within the next year. Some of the folks are homeless, but most are working poor.
We have fought a war with TAX BREAKS during it. Collectively, as a nation, we are fighting a war and everyone is being told that we will not have to sacrifice, financially, at this juncture for it. I am not fan of high taxation, but what we have in place right now is insane. Currently we are borrowing money from China (which has a rapidly growing economy) to help pay for a war and to help pay for oil that we are purchasing from nations which have strong sympathy for the people who consistently attack us. If this is ethical I'm skinny. And if anyone knows me, I'm not skinny.
As I read Michael Moore's words there are things I agree with. I also find that there are things I agree with that Paul Harvey had to say.
12 years ago the Republicans won and they made ethical arguments against the Democratic majority which were accurate, which stuck, and which forced the Democrats out of power. now the Democrats made ethical arguments against the Republican majority which were accurate, which stuck, and which forced the Republicans out of power. Neither party has a lock on ethics and morality. Often, I think, to be a reasonably righteous person is to not invest too heavily in either party and pray to God that we can, as a nation, learn to deal with complex issues in a civil, mature fashion.
It's my hope, John, that one day the Christian Right will realize that the economic regime they so often support has done much more to undermine the stability of what they consider to be the traditional family than gays or abortions ever could.
JM,
Beautiful, just beautiful. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Dr. Robert Grant and others should be so proud of the way they helped to divide this country by using religion as power and influence.
I do not agree 100% of what Mr. Moore has to say, but what I do like is the hope of mending fences and finally tearing down barriers that are getting higher everyday.
Today we set a milestone in this young nation, by the appointments in the Congress. Maybe we are seeing a swing of the kinder way of looking at our governments leaders instead of white bread good old boy American politics.
We need change in our government if we are to survive and grow as a nation.
Echoing IamHoosier's thought, John's is a powerful statement.
John, seeing as I agree that what you said is extremely important, it occurs to me that my response to your comment wasn't well explained and sounded more trite than I meant it to be. I screwed it up.
I'm honestly just intrigued by the political and cultural relationship between protestant Christian ideology and "free market" capitalism. From very casual reading, it seems that Martin Luther had little good to say about capitalism in general but that Calvinists were more inclined to buy into Max Weber's idea of the protestant work ethic.
It's a fascinating historical question that I admittedly know little about. If you've dealt with it at all in your theological studies, I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts about how it plays out in the modern world.
Bluegill,
Christianity and economics is, to be quite honest, all over the lot.
The Gospels portray Jesus as having nothing and telling a rich young man to give away all he had before the rich young man could be one of his disciples. Often Jesus had harsh words to those who were wealthy---but most especially those who were wealthy and didn't care for the poor.
Historically, when you go into the Middle Ages, Roman Catholicism had a love/hate relationship with money. The Pope, obviously, lived in splendor. Benedictine monasteries dotted across Europe and many of them were beautiful and elaborate and the monks lived quite well. The Trappists departed because they felt their founding group, the Benedictines, had lost their way.
Francis of Assisi and Dominic de Guzman were not happy with the Church's accumlation of wealth and founded their respective orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans to counter this.
Martin Luther started out as an Augustinan monk, a group that took their vows of poverty quite seriously. His roots were naturally adverserial to capitalism and wealth.
John Calvin came from an affluent family, went to law school, etc., and lived quite well. I am not a huge fan of Calvin's theology and find it to be a bizarre mixture of blessing worldly success and religious austerity. He had a theologically platonic view of the world which, I think, is naive.
In modern day Protestantism it's all over the lot.
We have preachers like Joel Osteen essentially saying that if you have faith you'll get rich. He will use random scripture quotes, often out of context, to justify his beliefs. From a theological perspective, I think this is using the Bible as a series of fortunes from fortune cookies rather than seeing the big picture.
Within mainline Protestantism there is a genuine struggle with money and faith. Many of the mainline churches and denominations no longer have the investments and the capital they once had. Within the realm of thelogical popularity, we are generally moving in the opposite direction of most. As a result, denominations and churches are poorer than they used to be. But we also have to work harder and that's a good thing.
What delights me about my church at this juncture is that we have the same struggles as most mainline churches, but as a downtown church we've been serious about feeding and clothing those in need. We had a large number of people who willing and enthusiastically work in our soup kitchen and clothes closet. As many clothes as we give away, we get. Many recognize that they have been richly blessed and truly do desire to share.
In talking about the Christian right, or the folks from a more Evangelical perspective, people like Brian McLaren are often counter-cultural within their own realm. They sound like mainline Protestants on many occasions, but are very much Evangelicals.
What concerns me about many in the Christian right is that they have adapted supply side economics as a Christian doctrine. Years ago I actually knew Jude Wanniski, who is often credited with being the 'father of supply side economics' and he was an interesting person. He was a devout Roman Catholic but greatly admired Ayn Rand. I found that the sermons he listened to every Sunday had no connection to his economic theories. He had a very dispassionate view of theology and economics and it was more of a survival of the most successful kind of mentality.
This concerns me greatly. Economic prosperty and Christianity are awkward bedfellows at best. Many do understand this. Actually, the last election was interesting. In 2004 the Roman Catholic bishops were very vocal speaking against John Kerry. They supported George Bush because they agreed with him on abortion. They have encountered, however, economic policies from the Bush administration that they feel fly very contrary to Roman Catholic ethical teachings. They remained very silent in these last elections and in many places the swing votes were RC votes which went to the Democrats.
But I digress. At its very best, Christianity's perspective of economics always has to be cautious and complex. This modern day gospel of success theory that is so popular is NOT the gospel. At least no Gospel I've ever read or preached.
It's probably not the best answer in the world, but this is an honest wrestling match.
Actually, John, it was an excellent answer. To me, if religion is to serve a valuable purpose in anyone's life, regardless of tradition, it has to be a process of honestly exploring ethical ideals within the context of humanity, rather than a set of rote decrees sloppily justified to fit a given situation influenced by many other factors.
Acknowledging questions as legitimate and admitting an imperfect answer is a necessary step in the development of what could be called real faith. Realistically, that probably has more to do with belief in the process than in any notion of a pre-ordained answer. Unfortunately, that process has seemed to wane in popularity and the results have not been good.
Thanks for making it better. I'll keep reading.
As always I appreciate reading John's comments - good stuff to think about first thing in the morning. One thing that's been eating at me since returning to the *Bible Belt* is seeing my own *faith* tested. My *faith* is simply a belief that people will mostly want to do the RIGHT THING. Call it *Do onto others...* or whatever you want to call it. But I see sooo much power grabbing wrapped up in regilious agendas hereabouts it's making me leery of organized God/religion in general. I worry much of the fundamentalist passion serves the historical subjugation of women and not much more.
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