Lash wrote:nimh wrote:So much for him being ultra-liberal / socialist / dangerously radical, I suppose...
(See above: nimh's knee-jerk apologism for Obama. His kool-aid cup: empty)
As opposed to your own knee-jerk bait of a response...
And in the second round an Obama kool-aid reference, even.
I guess you havent had the opportunity of following this thread much in the past year... Me and the Obama kool aid, that should give Soz a laugh.
But anyway, if you personally dont believe Obama is the ultra-liberal radical that your fellow conservatives here make him out to be, then sure, kudos to you.
Meanwhile, in seriousness: I cant say I've ever thought about it much, but I dont think the idea of these faith-based programs is a bad thing per se; I think it all depends on what is done under this banner. But then I dont really share the passion most US liberals seem to have about warding off faith-based political action, so I'm probably not representative.
Maybe it's easy for me to talk, because Christian activism is so much more benign where I come from. But I've long argued for more cooperation between liberal activists and church activists. Many of the latter do have an interest in social justice, fighting poverty, protecting the environment, development aid etc, even if they passionately disagree over hot-button issues like abortion and gay marriage.
I admit that this is also out of strategical considerations. Not to get too broad-sweepish, but I dont think there's even a potential socially liberal, economically liberal majority out there in the US. Just not happening. I have the impression that over the last coupla decades (from Dukakis to Kerry with maybe a reprieve under Bill), the Dems, in search of a majority, have increasingly relied on drawing in socially liberal, fiscally conservative middle class voters with libertarian leanings. But they've been hemorraging support among socially conservative working class voters in their traditional constituencies. I fear that this shift benefits liberal cultural policies at the cost of economically left-wing, FDR/LBJ-type politics. And if there's going to be a trade-off, I'd rather have it be the other way round.
Thats just me though; I understand that Internet fora, where upwardly mobile, socially libertarian constituencies are overrepresented, are probably the least receptive place to tentatively argue for a christian/populist-progressive strategical alliance. But all of that to explain why I wouldnt personally reject the notion of faith-based programs out of hand. Just as long as there will also be ways to get help through other ways. Otherwise, the devil's all in the details.
As for Obama being conservative - well, I agree with eBeth of course, that from Europe or Canada, all the main Dem contenders were milquetoast at best. I dont know that "conservative" outright fits, but I think Hillary and Obama would be on the centre-right in Holland, for example. Only Edwards sounded like a proper left-winger, and even with him you couldnt be sure how deep any of it went. As for the Reps, to our standards they're all wild-eyed demagogues of course.
(I disagree with eBeth's implication that Hillary was more liberal than Obama though. I dont see how you can believe that without either purely going on the health insurance issue, or taking her populist campaign turn from Feb 4 onward on face value and practising selective amnesia about her actual, ueber-hawk, corporate-buddy politics over the last 8-16 years.)
But I think the "holding your nose" thing Brand X mentioned is a bit of an overstatement though. Of course I've also complained at length, from the start, about Obama being too bland and too ready to compromise. I'd rather have had someone more combative. But I mean, it's Americans who will be voting. And they'll be going on their frame of reference. And I mean, the Democratic frame of reference is John Kerry, who did not dare say anything that might alienate anyone (and yet always did); Al Gore, making it in as Southern moderate and campaigning as a technocrat; and the Clintons -- Hillary the hawk and Bill the triangulator. Obama sure looks like progress compared to that backdrop.
You cant suddenly expect America to embrace Bernie Sanders... if Obama offers a principled kind of pragmatic centrism that at least moves the field beyond Bill Clinton's 'eight more years of things not getting worse', I'll take it gladly, even knowing that that's all it is....
