"Where is the Religious Left?": Another point of view


..................In my Opinion...................

The cause of the rise of the religious right is two fold
When G.W. Bush came into office (power) his first and foremost agenda item was the religious right:. to bring religion back into the government and to do it by paying real money for social services to religious groups to be funneled to their members.(Pres. Obama has continued this agenda)

Additionally, the fuel that keeps this fire burning comes from the economy. To not link up the real issue of a looming permanent and ever worsening economy which cries out for "someone" to blame is to take the sails out of a movement that has the fanatical strength of desperate people unable to recognize when their cause is being addressed because they are so caught up in pain they need to be soothed(by an all loving/caring God) and told that once the enemy is removed they will be able to recapture their lost past ie the glories of the Tea Party Movement

But this return to the simple, less government, more God position will never happen and that is the source of the appeal to the emotionally driven religious right that focuses on the here after over what happens in our life times.

And against this strength, any group or people who do not cater to the fanatical will pale in comparison. They can't rise to the occasion because they are impeded by sanity and reality. But that can change. Poverty can do serious damage to the status quo.

The question is, which movement takes over first, the religious right or the revolutionary left,,,,,,,,,both recognize the same enemy. The Capitalist driven Government.

In my opinion Isolating the problem in terms of Black versus non Black is self defeating. We need Identity politics within the mass movement. Right now there is no discernible movement. But the buds are there.

Linda Zises


Linda
I've written a book chapter addressing G.W.Bush's role in the emergence of the Religious Right via his faith-based initiative agenda, etc., but I am also interested in the complicity in and involvement of black religious "leaders" in that agenda.

Historically there has been this misperception that Afr-Am religious leaders are progressive/civil rights aligned, when many of their positions on so-called values issues are actually closer to the fundamentalist Religious Right (RR) (as evidenced by the same-sex marriage debate, equating abortion with/genocide, the status of black women in the church, separation of church/state, school prayer, etc.

Hence, the overriding issue is the absence of a visible national progressive moral "vanguard" that could counter the moralistic propaganda and activism of the RR on the high octane "values" issues which they've used to hijack public discourse.

Sikivu Hutchinson