Maybe next time think about including a more diverse set of commentators across several generations and viewpoints? See, e.g., jackandjillpolitics.com

“Maybe next time think about including a more diverse set of commentators across several generations and viewpoints? See, e.g., jackandjillpolitics.com”

I agree! And really, WBUR is right there at the convention where it should be possible to attract that larger and more diverse range of guests suggested above. On other threads here I’ve been critical of WBUR’s decision to even go to the convention, but as long as you’re there why pick three guests joining you remotely from California and North Carolina?

( OTOH, kudo’s for picking two poets in the lineup – we need more poetry and less punditry at these events! )

Well this is the height of absurdity. CNN ran a story with the question: Is Barack Obama ‘the Anti-Christ’?:

‘Apparently a not-insignificant number of Americans, after viewing John McCain’s Web ad The One, with its Messianic overtones — come away thinking that Barack Obama has been sent from Hell to Earth to turn its citizens against God.’
[From The Raw Story]

What? Has this country lost its mind?

To read more on this, here is the link.

“Well this is the height of absurdity.
CNN ran a story with the question Is Barack Obama ‘the Anti-Christ’”

He can’t be the Anti-Christ if he’s a secret Muslim – he has to be the Anti-Muhammed or Anti-Allah or something like that.

“What? Have this country lost it’s mind?”

Look, seriously – the US has a huge portion of deeply religious people for whom biblical themes and iconography are as real and everyday as concepts like object-oriented-programming or Windows Operating System are to me, a software engineer.

One of the hardest things for educated, coastal, public-radio-listening cosmopolitans (”elites”, if I daresay) to “get” is the role of religion and religious themes and iconography in many people’s daily lives. And this is how life was for the vast majority of the world’s population for most of recorded history, across most cultures and continents. So religious behavior must be pretty hardwired in our species.

Viewed from an anthropological perspective, the distinction that “modern” people make between the religious and secular is an anomaly – in traditional societies belief-systems inform every aspect of your daily life, so it’s not as though you are sometimes doing religion and sometimes doing secular stuff.

I’m not religious myself, but I’ve maintained for years that if the elites in the US can’t grasp this basic fact they will continue to be disconnected from a huge portion of the US population.

As a former Hillary supporter, I have turned my attention to Barack Obama. What I have seen and heard from him is something that I realize I wanted all along. He is a person with a smart brain and good heart, and the ability to combine these two traits to consider and respond to issues that arise (Rev Wright) in a dignified, thoughtful, and careful way. This is the type of politician I have been wanting to see, someone who will make decisions that are good for our country and our people, not for other interests or to blindly follow party lines.

The fact that if he is elected, a whole new generation of children will grow up with a president with a different skin tone I consider a monumental event that will help heal racial divides, and will have lasting effects that we cannot yet realize. To bear a child in the era after the civil rights movement I am sure was very dramatic, and it will be dramatic to bear children in an age where a black man has been elected president. Although Obama is who he is because of his multi-cultural roots and background, it is the person he has become and is today that we are electing, and the resulting racial shifts that follow will be a bonus.

Last night, while listening to the US Senate women speak, my optimism was reignited, and my animosity towards Barack Obama dissolved.

While my caution and cynicism, etc. was not invalidated, I realized that there is nothing wrong with feeling good about participatory government. I don’t know Obama, but I do know that I am a Democrat, and I can get on board.

To Peter, who posted “One of the hardest things for educated, coastal, public-radio-listening cosmopolitans (”elites”, if I daresay) to “get” is the role of religion and religious themes and iconography in many people’s daily lives.”
I am a church member and religious, but I share Jeff’s sense about “has this country lost its mind?” Sure, there are a lot of us who are religious – but most of us don’t go around hoping that the Rapture or Armaggedon will materialize any moment. The Anti-Christ hunters are not typical of American religious values, for heaven’s sake.

Sure, there are a lot of us who are religious – but most of us don’t go around hoping that the Rapture or Armaggedon will materialize any moment. The Anti-Christ hunters are not typical of American religious values, for heaven’s sake.

I hate to repeat myself, but what I’m saying is that going to church and believing a few basic tenets of some theology is not what it has meant to be religious for most humans over most of human history. “Being religious” would have been a meaningless concept for most people in the pre-Christian world because your belief system informed everything you did. Secular and sacred blurred together. Today’s world where religions is limited to a few small spheres and everything else is secular is the exception to the historical human experience.

Poll after poll has shown that 10’s of millions of Americans do believe in concepts such as the Rapture and other things that most public radio listeners and most liberal Democrats think is fringe esoterica. More importantly to the topic, those Americans have an iconography and a set of thematicized world views that apparently McCain is attempting to capitalize on with “The One”.

I really don’t see how this is any different than making ads which use specific iconography and thematic references designed to appeal to blue-collar workers, soccer moms, African Americans, or other constituencies. I think the Obama camp is upset because McCain thought of it first and they have no clue how to speak that language.

I enjoyed hearing Gwen Ifill speak with Tom at the top of this piece. I think she sounded better on radio than she does on the NewsHour or Washington week.

I’d like to see / hear an hour with her on a more focussed piece of this topic: her journey to becoming one of the most respected anchors in the business.

You also might consider talking to her colleague, Ray Suarez about his journey through NPR to PBS. It’s no doubt interesting.

I thought Alice Walker was brilliant on this piece as well.

The one thing the founders of this country wanted to avoid was what had happened in Europe and what was happening.

Religious wars and bigotry defined Europe for centuries.
The conflict in Northern Ireland was (is) a religious war.
It is over 500 years old. (look up William of Orange)

This is what Thomas Jefferson was trying to avoid by wanting a secular government that allowed for religious freedoms.

The ads that McCain is using on line with the obvious subtext that reads to the Christian conservatives is not only wrong, it’s shameful, and given to what GW did to him back in 2000 he should know better.

The other issues of course is the race issue which this is also alluding to. CNN should also be ashamed for air this nonesense.

This was a fantastic show – what better way to celebrate our accomplishments as a nation than through our artists?

One correction, though: Maya Angelou was one of three (not two, as reported) poets to read at presidential inaugurations: Robert Frost, herself, and Miller Williams, who read at Clinton’s second inaugural. He’s a wonderful poet, and Lucinda Williams’ father, certainly worthy of being explored.

Just to let you know, your podcast is being posted six or seven times for each of these episodes, and as much as I like Tom Ashbrook, I don’t really want seven copies of the exact same podcast. Thanks in advance for clearing this up.

“I really don’t see how this is any different than making ads which use specific iconography and thematic references designed to appeal to blue-collar workers, soccer moms, African Americans, or other constituencies. I think the Obama camp is upset because McCain thought of it first and they have no clue how to speak that language.”

So your point is that it’s OK to use fear and lies to create a image of the people running for president.
Your statement that the Obama people are upset because they did not think of it first is ridiculous.

Obama is trying to get away from this kind cesspool politics that was brought upon us by Carl Rove.
So far he has done a pretty good job but his organization is starting to move in that direction.
This is to bad and sad for the country.

Would it not be great that for once there could be an election cycle that used issue and substance as means to frame the candidates.

I am sick of the Republican party using fear and lies to take peoples minds of the facts and the issues. It remains to be seen if the American people can rise above this cesspool. They did so in 2006

McCain is the one person who should know better, but he is showing his true nasty colors.

“The ads that McCain is using on line with the obvious subtext that reads to the Christian conservatives is not only wrong, it’s shameful,”

“So your point is that it’s OK to use fear and lies to create a image of the people running for president.”

Both of the above reactions are emotional reactions, but please explain in reasoned, logical terms how using iconography and references to themeatic elements of a particular demographic is “shameful”. Also, the “fear and lies”, above are only implicit in how you interpret the ads – how is it any different than Democrats making ads targeted at elders which imply, without coming out and saying it, that Republicans will take away their Social Security? To a fundamentalist who believes in the concept of the Rapture and false Messiahs the McCain ads might not even constitute lies.

Of course religion was (and in many parts of the world, still is) a divisive topic which can lead to violence. But human beings can divide and resort to violence on many topics – Most of the major wars of the 20th century – WWI, Germany’s conquest of Europe, Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and the war against their own population by Lenin and Stalin were not primarily religious.

Would I prefer a campaign based on a reasoned discussion of the facts and issues? Of course, but the American people are not capable of following or engaging in such a discussion; it would be above their heads. It would be a bit like running a political campaign strictly in Latin in George Washington’s time – all the educated people could follow it because Latin was an essential part of a college education then. But the common people would be left out. Emotion and symbol are the language of the common people in the US and Obama had better learn to speak it if he wants to win.

Who are the Black males in Obama’s inner circle?? In reading the recent Rolling Stones cover article on BO none were present nor even mentioned!!

I have read hundreds of articles and Black males are MIA in the sga of BO.WHY?????

How can this be a progressive state of affairs when those who are in BO’s inner circle do not reflect the color of his own image in the mirror??

For crying out load do you really believe what your saying? Are you going to tell me that lobbyist and large corporate needs are not being made into bills to further corporate greed.

How about the new bankruptcy laws that are written to favor the multi-billion dollar credit card industry.

I don’t remember having any say in that and I wrote to all my representatives. The FCC did hold closed door meetings that in theory were open to the public but just try to attend one and see what happens.

What your talking about, the public records are after the fact. The real action happens behind closed doors in committee meetings which are not open to the public.

Oh yes I’ll call up Joe Bidden and ask him why he, the supposed hero of the working class helped pass the new bankruptcy laws. I’m sure he or his office will give me a good amount of junk mail on his voeting record.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2008/07/whats_the_future_of_the_americ.html#c151269

Mr. Nelson I wish you would stop twisting everything around to make it seem like your right all the time.
Is your ego that huge?

I was not talking about WW2 I was talking about the time frame in which our founding fathers lived in. In their world religion was the cause of a lot of wars. Remember the 100 year war.

Stalin hated all religions and did everything in his power to repress all religions in the former Soviet Union.

Most of the comments don’t mention the substance the participants bring to the discussion. I would like to thank Ishmael Reed for being the only participant to offer serious criticism of the overwhelming conservatism of the Obama campaign and for daring to challenge the idea that we are beyond racism. The moderator seemed to treat his attempt to get beneath the surface of this political spectacle as being amusingly irascible.

And by the way not to put too fine a point on it but Reed is one of the most important novelists of the second half of the twentieth century. Books like Mumbo Jumbo and Flight to Canada extended boundaries of american fiction in ways not since equaled. Introducing him repeatedly as an essayist disrespects his contributions.

Kudos to Ishmael Reed for being the only voice of reason on the panel who actually focused on the content of Obama’s campaign rather than falling under the spell of empty verbal promises like “Change” and “Hope.”

As we move from glory of the past to the drama of the present, let’s not forget the drama of the past: Martin Luther King’s link between war at home and war abroad:
http://www.counterpunch.org/mlk04042007.html

The words ‘faith’ and ‘religious’ are not synonymous with ‘Christianity.’ For some time ego-maniacs who want the entire world to believe in something because its what they believe have hijacked words as if they are the exclusive property of what they believe in.

And this is also true, the word ‘religion’ does not mean Judeo-Christianity or even a nod towards Islam as ‘the Other.’

We are locked in a pathetic death march by two mass-suicide cults whose aims are imperialist and whose histories have shown a willingness to commit genocide against all who don’t believe in what they believe in.
These two cults are ego-maniacal and racist in that on the American Christian side the drive is to have the entire world revere some Anglo-Saxon entity named god while their opponents are pushing for the Arabic entity named allah. I fail to see why Mandarin speaking Chinese, whose history precedes either Christianity or Islam should have to be obliged to worship either an Anglo-Saxon or Arabic idea of the supreme being.

Even if the Australian or American Oborginal did accept Christianity or Islam there would be no shortage of Christian and Muslim monitors to tell them whether or not they are following the ‘proper’ religion. Why a Shia could go to Mosque and be blown up by a Sunni reformer. And lets not forget the centuries of warfare between Catholic and Protestant.

The foundations of our civilization are pagan and this is especially true of the much touted democracy which was developed by Greeks and the republican form of government made famous by Romans long before anything called Christianity existed. Whenever Christianity or Islam has had full authority there was nothign ressembling democracy being practiced.

The reality that a large number of Americans believe the Bible is literal history is a mark of delusions. That we have presidential candidates who believe the Earth is only 6000 years old is a sign of gross ignorance and is a threat to our survival as a species. Such people should never have access to the technologies capable of making their faith in Armaggeddon come true. Such people believe they have the ear of god or allah and may just be a tad impatient with the coming of Armaggeddon and do things that would confirm their faith which is challenged by reality.

Religion does not equal Christianity and faith is not the exclusive property of Christian Americans.

One of the leading reasons for Barak Obama’s victory over Hillary Clinton is the misogyny of many African-Americans. This is not the first time White Women who were involved with eliminating racism or fighting for fairness have been betrayed by Blacks. Hillary now can appreciate how Abolitionists like Susan B. Anthony felt when recently emancipated Black men joined Whites in denying women the vote.

After the Civil War and ratification of the various Civil Rights laws and amendments, White Women who were the leading Abolitionists and who postponed their own activism for voting rights were betrayed by Black Misogynist Christian preachers who were quick to say a ‘woman’s places was in the home.’

Women did not get the right to vote until 1920 and very few Blacks were a significant part of the Suffrage movement.

So history repeats itself as some Black women in places like South Carolina said on public news shows ‘women should not be President.’ And other Christian inspired Misogynist nonsense.

This is for all women having those beliefs as well as those who like Sarah Palin call themselves ‘conservatives.’ If you are ‘conservative’ then why are you voting? For all the references to Martin Luther King perhaps its time for Black people to study up on Susan B. Anthony and appreciate that Hillary has been victimized in the same way.

This is not for those people who believe Obama has good or superior ideas, it is for those who voted because he was Black or because they don’t believe a woman should be president.

And for those ‘African-American’ Christians. Why are there so many who belong to the same denominations as the slave-masters and those who continue to wage anti-Black campaigns? Why are more Blacks members of the Quakers who were always against slavery and operated most of the Underground Railroad network? Why do Blacks reward Baptists? The same reason they stabbed Susan Anthony and Hillary Clinton in the back.

Misogyny is worldwide and goes under many names, but its universality is seen in the way Americans, Africans, Asians and Europeans treat women. At least in Europe there arose a secular liberalism which was the result of the excesses of the Christian church against rational thinking. Our democracy and freedoms arise from that movement not the church. What did happen was that factions of the church changed with the times but was never in the forefront for freedom.

Consider that for all the Americans comfortable with the notion that Islam is Misogynist, the Muslims have several times voted for women to be heads of state in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In the USA Hillary was big news because she was a major candidate for the presidency in the primaries.

Blacks have a poor record of supporting those who stuck their necks out for them, especially those White Women involved in the Abolitionist movement, and the Quakers who were the significant religious body united against the entire institution of slavery. Now Hillary is just the latest victim of this.

Duwayne Jossephson and Peter Nelson,

Thanks for your comments, I share lots of your views, except the part of abolitionist which I know very little of it.

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