But the biggest loser, as always, has been the working class -- the people whose only real power lies in their sweat and their numbers. Their faith in the promise of democratic self-government has been shattered through years of union-busting, farm foreclosures, factory exports, college grant cuts, subprime mortgage scams, and all manner of betrayal, treachery, neglect, and abuse. Over in the comments threads at Orcinus, we hear from these furious folks almost every day. The way they see it, representative democracy has repeatedly failed to deliver on anything it might have once promised them. At this point, the disgust runs so deep that anybody who's got other ideas -- theocracy, corporatocracy, anarchy, whaddaya got? -- has a fair shot at getting their attention.
[...]
With a few notable exceptions (Tom Paine, Robert Ingersoll), American progressivism has always drawn its most compelling moral voices from the ranks of Catholics, Jews, Quakers, Unitarians and Universalists, and a wide collection of social gospel Evangelicals. And even now, the vast majority of Americans -- on both ends of the spectrum -- still draw their political ethics straight out of their personal religious beliefs. As Bowers points out: we need those voices if we're going to succeed.
[...]ETA: Part I. Part II. I believe that all three parts will be up both at Orcinus and Ourfuture.org.
Fascism is so dangerous precisely because it speaks to its believers in the language of emotion, populism, purity, redemption, and enduring values. Nobody on the progressive side knows how to speak that language -- and match that moral force and energy -- better than our own native faith groups. Secular progressives may wish it weren't true, but it is: there's simply no way we can rebuild a strong democratic system without holding up our end of a broad new culture-wide discussion about morality, meaning, priorities, passion, and values. And those conversations begin most naturally in our houses of worship.
Thanks to The Sideshow.
2 comments:
Great excerpts--gonna go read some of the comments. The hard core atheists (on that list I told you I was compiling, with PETA and everybody...) won't like what she is saying, though. It will be them you need to convince.
Certain progressive atheist bloggers will link other atheists who lean to the right, before they will link a believer that shares their perspective. And that's when I knew we were in trouble; the right wing shows no such intramural prejudices.
Yeah. I don't get that either. (Although collectively the left has a tendency toward "purism" that would probably horrify even purists.)
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