At 10:52 AM 1/15/01 -0800, Timework Web wrote:
>Rob Schaap wrote,
>
> >Hope Olasky eventually gets to that bit of bible-based free market
> >economics where his idol tips over the merchants' trading tables, or even
> >that bit where he alludes to camels and eyes of needles ...
>
>Don't hold yer breath, Rob, that part is not in the abridged corporate
>public relations pancake prayer breakfast edition.
which is all fine. but, the fact is, at least too progressive social
movements were made possible by strong religious-based institutions: the
civil rights struggle and the abolition movement and parts of the labor
movement, especially in the south, where testifying in church--against the
company that ran a town--wasn't unheard of.
i can't stand the idea that Shrub wants to appoint a Secretary of
Faith-Based Programs in order to dole out monies for 'charity' work. and
yet, i see no reason why the left ought not use this against the kind of
nonsense pumped out by compassionate conservativism.
take the money and run with it and --voila!--with the right progressive
religious organizations you have a space where you can bring people
together on a regular basis, a place where people can be educated as to the
conditions of the world around them, a place where they can build community
with others and marshal the organizational resources that can be used to
advance still other causes.
i dream, i know. and i'm well aware of how such alliances can and have
backfired. and yet, what else do we have, really?
i kind of view like this: when we protested the Gulf War, some of the
older antiwar movement activists insisted we take a lot of US flags with
us. None of had any, of course, so we had to quickly raid the hardware
store in hopes that they still stocked them. At any rate, i think the
political point is clear: don't let them define the terms of discourse.
if they want to pass out anti-abortion literature, why can't we work with
churches that will pass out anti-capitalist literature.
kelley
