Christian Leftist

A couple of weeks ago, my Dad burst into the room with a triumphant smile. “Look what Mom (my mom, his wife) found!” My glance shifted from the beaming expression on his face to the bright silver object on his fourth finger, and I realized belatedly that Dad was wearing a ring.

His wedding ring, he told me proudly. They knew they had kept both of them, but they didn’t know where either of the two had been for years.

I’d seen the rings on and off over the years, usually during spring cleaning or an emptying of the dreaded 12-drawer dresser that we’ve had since around the time of my birth. The design is extremely unconventional - a series of welded silver circles in a staggered pattern about half an inch wide for the entire band. There are no names or initials, no gold, no diamonds, no filigree. That’s because my parents married during the seventies, and they were dirt poor graduate students at the time.

You won’t find a single wedding picture on display in our house. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have a professional photographer there. I find the occasional collection of faded Polaroids and Kodaks when I sort through old family photographs. There was no honeymoon, as there was no money for one. My dad wore a maroon jacket, and my mom wore a white pants suit. Obviously, they haven’t worn their wedding rings on a regular basis in decades.

What do all of these unusual facts say about my parents’ marriage?

Absolutely nothing.

Let me repeat that: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. In a few days, they’ll celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary.

In order to have some perspective on this: the average American marriage lasts all of - wait for it - 8 YEARS! Wow! Go, heterosexual couples, go! Way to show staying power! That’s, like, almost long enough for a first child to make it to elementary school (if you hurry) before the divorce proceedings end up in court! Totally patriotic of them to deny the same right to those ‘unfaithful’ homosexual couples. After all, deviants can’t be patriotic, right? Right.

Putting aside the sarcasm brigade for a moment, I should note that while their marriage hasn’t been perfect, my parents have not cheated on each other, separated, divorced/remarried, fought over our custody, started family feuds with the in-laws or suffered through a number of the myriad problems that seemed to plague the families of my friends from pre-school to college and beyond. Most people who hear how long they’ve been married are in shock, and it’s only in those moments that I remember how unusual they really are, and just how happy they are with each other most of the time.

The point I am trying to make here is that you don’t need a wedding band to prove you’re in a stable and secure marriage or even a comfortable marriage. Rings are status symbols, and the only people who really are about them are the ring wearers themselves and the few odd bystanders who want to get into their pants.You alone know whether or not you’re married and what that means, and you shouldn’t have to prove it to anyone else by wearing a band around your digit.

That’s why I don’t understand the whole ‘flag pin issue’ with Obama. This one should be obvious, but since it isn’t: wearing a flag pin just to wear a flag pin isn’t patriotic - it’s reflexive jingoism.

Go right ahead and wear one if you want to. People with half a modicum of common sense should be able to tell what you stand for by your actions. That includes wearing one on your suit, by the way - an action that informs me you have a strong desire to assimilate, to belong, to follow the sheep, even if it’s to a small extent. Barack Obama has put his principles, his family, possibly even his life on the line to defend his country, this country, just as the other presidential candidates have. I can’t imagine putting up with the flak he’s taken in the past few years of his public service without caring enough for America to do his job anwyay.

It reminds me of these people down a neighboring street of ours whose flagpole dwarfs their tiny little 1.5-story house. They certainly don’t need to do it. At least ten other houses within 500 yards have American flags outside their homes. I think all of the car dealerships on the strip that is our one main road and the artery of this town have flagpoles over two stories high. If you drive down the main drag in either direction, chances are there’s a giant Stars & Stripes blowing in your face in all of her majestic glory.

And yet.

Despite all of these facts, there remains this itch, this abject compulsion in our neighbors to stick a giant metal pipe in their front yard and use it to display their patriotism like men use sports cars to display their masculinity. Over-compensation, much?

What does it say about America when government buildings, farms, schools, offices and commercial complexes aren’t doing a good enough job of telling visitors that we love and respect our country, when we choose to ignore the federal guidelines for the use of Our Flag and slap it on bumper stickers, hats & t-shirts, when we tattoo it onto our chests and toss it around haphazardly, a year-long holiday ornament on display like the Christmas lights we forget to take down? Why has it become a partisan symbol that screams in our faces, “If you’re not with the Flag, you HATE AMERICA!” and a rallying cry to support our troops when virtually no one doesn’t want to support our troops? Is this the best we can offer ourselves? To act like competiing children and see who can build the bigger and better monument to our hollow patriotism, the kind that doesn’t care who suffers as long as someone who looks like ‘one of us’ says it’s the right thing to make someone else do?

I remember a day when it wasn’t necessary to ask. We were watching the 2002 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies, and people brought in the torn flag on TV, and my mother, who would probably balk at being labelled ‘patriotic’ these days, wept as the national anthem filled the room. It wasn’t out of hate or fear of the people who had the gall to kill for a political message. It was for the hope that the flag symbolizes and the knowledge that we would emerge from crisis, broken and beaten but still standing, that even if she didn’t approve of some of the aspects of our society, she wanted the freedom to choose how to live, that our way of life would continue in spite of all efforts to eradicate it.

I’m writing this because Ronald Martin, a contributor on CNN, wrote a wonderful piece of snark on exactly why the attacks on Obama because of the flag pin issue are false and divisionary tactics that the Right uses because they can’t engage Obama on substantive policy issues. Thanks to Loganatron for “Hypocrisy: The Flag Pin Non-Scandal” for pointing to this article.

ETA: I just found a great montage of McCain Not Wearing a Flag Pin. McCain hasn’t worn a flag pin ONCE since he won the GOP nomination.

The hypocrisy, it burns.

To be fair, I coudn’t not post about the racism Obama canvassers are experiencing without mentioning the rampant sexism going on in the media against the Clinton campaign. Granted, I think the racist behavior rampant in her campaign sapped a lot of the sympathy from those of us who don’t didn’t feel strongly for one candidate or the other in the beginning, but the number of people on the sidelines has dwindled to a scant few, so we or they don’t matter as much anymore, and that doesn’t mean we should just let the treatment of her slip by us because we’re mad about HER behavior.

So, with that being said, the Washington Post has an article out today, entitled “Clinton Puts Up a New Fight.”

Oh, and I was Googling “rust belt voters” and found some good linkage on both the Obama canvassers face racism subject and the topic of misogyny and Hillary:

What I wanted to say about white rust-belt voters but couldn’t

When I went to vote this morning, the second screen for voting on the touchscreen display had the representative delegates already committed to either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. It said, in incredibly small print, that you had to vote for three women and two men. I found three women for my candidate, but I didn’t see the second possible man for my candidate and thus checked one male candidate for the other candidate. The lesson: read the names three times.

Ah, well. I was an Edwards/Kucinish supporter, anyway.

Despite the fact that he served in the Clinton administration as Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich is endorsing Barack Obama. This is according to CNN, where Wolf Blitzer interviewed the ex-editor of the leftist weekly magazine The Nation.

Apparently, the tipping point came last week, when Reich saw the obnoxious ads with people complaining about Obama’s ‘”bitter” comment that have played here in Pennsylvania.

So far, according to CNN, Hillary has lost a net 2 delegates since February 5th, while Barack has gained 77 in the same time period. She still leads him with her 251 to his 228.

Man, I knew those FreedomWatch ads were horrible, creepy little packs of lies, but I didn’t think that GOP members would see a need to script them personally. Can’t the crazies even write their own propaganda anymore?

The Washington Post is reporting that Democratic Party officials are going to file charges with the Federal Election Commission (note: they also intended to do this against McCain for using public money and then turning the rest of it back to avoid spending caps in the fall). See here:
Democrats Accuse GOP Campaign Arm Of Covertly Writing Ad

The issue here is not that Political Action Committees can’t support party causes, be they the Democratic National Campaign Committee, the Republican National Campaign Committee, or whoever else they so choose, or PACs wouldn’t exist. As DCCC Executive Director Brian Wolff puts it, “Freedom’s Watch is coming to the NRCC’s rescue. The problem is that they’re doing it illegally.”

Not very. Still, any scent of defeat for the Republicans, be it a whiff of stale roadkill or the rank, vile stench of rotting flesh ‘morality’ has them back at the drawing board. This time, their plan is downright ugly: usurping electoral votes through a referendum that is likely to pass unless we educate the citizens of California.

Several conservative lawyers and lawmakers in the Sunshine State have introduced the so-called “Presidential Election Reform Act,” which would give electoral votes to whatever candidate wins an individual county. That would rob California’s Democratic power of about 20 electoral votes and probably cost the Democratic candidate the presidential election.

The citizens of California don’t seem to understand the law because the conservatives haven’t bothered to explain it to them, probably because doing so would mean its demise at the polls. (Well, duh!)

I’m all for overhauling the Constitution and throwing out the Electoral College. A national vote is the fairest way to decide the president. But piecemeal manipulation of a system that is only convenient when it works for one party is deplorable.

Please spread the word about this nefarious state proposal.

Another example of how absolute power corrupts absolutely. Chavez is trying to change Venezuela’s constitution to eliminate term limits so that he can run for president again in 2012 (and presumably in every election thereafter until he dies).

Here at Christian Leftist, I try to point out the upsides and downsides to any and all systems of government, although I obviously have access to more news on American democracy than anything else. Chavez is not a true leftist because he is ultra-authoritarian; anyone who curtails civil liberties while espousing economic egalitarianism is not an egalitarian but a despot who seeks to slowly acquire all political power within his sphere of influence.

Anyway, here’s the article from the New York Times.

Yes, you heard me correctly: those crazy Kansans are going to make a comeback – unless you want to do something about it. I don’t mean on their state school board, where voters ousted them from power in 2006 after they redefined the meaning of the word ’science.’ I mean on the National Association of State Boards of Education, where Kenneth R. Willard, a Republican who voted with the Kansas school board’s conservative (read maximalist zealous anti-evolution) majority in 2005 to teach intelligent design in the classroom, is poised to take the helm. The New York Times article politely describes intelligent design as “an ideological cousin of creationism.” Yessir.
This is one of those stories that will fly under the radar of most Americans because it’s a nonprofit group and not a nomination that involves heads of state like Bush or Gonzales. But this is exactly the plan of the extreme right wing maximalists: to slowly win local and state elections that have lasting influence on the education of future voters and to slowly worm their way into the very fabric of rational society that they seek to destroy.
Mr. Willard is an insurance executive from Hutchinson, KS. (Great, I dislike him even more now.) He retained his seat even when voters kicked out many of his peers for subscribing to the same ‘beliefs’ as he did. As president-elect of the NASBE, he will take office in January of 2009.
As stated on the national nonprofit group’s website at www.nasbe.org, the organization’s purpose is to work to “strengthen state leadership in educational policymaking.” Read: instead of being able to control a state’s direction in teaching science, one of the creationists will now be able to influence all school boards on a national level.
Mr Willard’s sole opponent withdrew from the race for personal reasons after the nominating period had ended, which made it impossible for another state board member to win a nomination and compete against Willard. Each state has one vote in the election. Scientists who oppose Willard’s views are urging state school boards to write-in a different candidate in the hope that one or other names will actually receive more votes than the intelligent design advocate. Last November, a retired businessman named Sam Schloemer won a seat on the Ohio school board when scientists organized to defeat creationist candidates there. He is the first nominee mentioned as a possible write-in candidate.
When asked, Willard said he believes that the teaching of evolution and/or opposing theories is best left up to individual states, but he admitted to his opinion that alternatives to evolution like intelligent design should have a place in science classrooms. Of course, the conclusion that one can draw from this is that while evolutionary debates have so far stayed within the confines of state school boards, with Mr. Willard’s appointment to a national school board leadership position, that will change dramatically.
In other words, there is still time to influence the votes of the individual states on this, and I bet plenty state boards are none too happy about the Kansan’s stance on evolution. But they will need to reach a consensus on one alternative to Willard in order to be able to defeat him, and that means we need to act by contacting them NOW.
I’ll quote the New York Times article on the subject in closing, because it says in two sentences what a frightening number of American citizens have yet to accept:
“There is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on Earth. Courts have repeatedly ruled that creationism and intelligent design are religious doctrines, not scientific theories.”
Period.