Rahm Reaction + Red Sex/Blue Sex + California Careening

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Lieberman redux SOURCE

Barack's Brain Trust SOURCE

Georgia's cluster bomb still pose a threat. We are not all Georgians. SOURCE

Rahm Emmanuel and's "Base" SOURCE

What is most galling about an Alternet piece by Stephen Zunes, sourced above, is its confrontational title:

Is Obama Screwing His Base with Rahm Emanuel Selection?

Obama's base is presumably not progressives alone, but skinheads, drunks, blabbermouths, the obese, the disabled, the gay, the across-the-board challenged, the conservative, the aesthetes and those who simply want to be left alone.

Even if one argues that base means the ones who voted for you, I strongly doubt it was made up of progressives alone.

The 90-plus percent of African-Americans who voted for Barack, the massive increase in Latinos who voted for him, even those of us who sweat and strained for months are hardly all true-blue progressives, whatever that might mean.

My understanding is that Rahm and Barack are friends. That counts for something. Zunes argues that Emmanuel will be virtually coequal with Barack in the power and decision department. When is the last time people blamed manifold Bush errors on Andy Card?

My assumption is also that Barack knows full well what he is doing and he is happy to include people he respects who have talents he needs. And confident in his own ability to hold to his principles as he seeks pragmatic solutions to thorny problems.

Of those in his intimate circle, I would also think the most powerful would be the one Barack calls Ax. And bothers at all hours

Besides:

What Obama may be best at is taking what is progressive and making it something that is understandable to all, or most, Americans. This is a process we should get used to and respect.

Zunes concludes his piece with a caveat, which conveys its somewhat proprietary attitude.

However, this does not necessarily mean that Obama as president will pursue nothing better than a Clintonesque center-right agenda. Someone with Obama's intelligence, knowledge and leadership qualities need not be unduly restricted by the influence of his chief of staff as less able presidents have. At the same time, this shocking appointment of Emanuel is illustrative of the need for the progressive base that brought him to power to not celebrate too long and to refocus our energies into pushing hard to ensure that the change Obama promised is something we really can believe in.

Red Sex, Blue Sex and California Careening

Red Sex, Blue Sex SOURCE

In a long and interesting New Yorker article, ht to C&L, Margaret Talbot examines the proclivity of evangelical teens to outstrip their more liberal counterparts when it comes to having early sex. I will not seek to characterize the piece but recommend you read Red Sex, Blue Sex whole.

Why would I bracket consideration of this article with the entire trauma that is rocking California, threatening even the validity of marriages among gays that have already taken place?

For a simple reason which will get to the heart of my odd but, I believe, salient take on religion generally, a take derived in part from the fact that I do have reasonably extensive acquaintance with religion, Protestantism, theology and Biblical issues. The heart of my take is that religion is exactly what Jesus came to abolish and that the religion of churches is a cruel descent into disfunctionality.

My understanding is articulated in Beyond Creed which is available as a book, a Kindle Book and may be approached free in an introduction and podcasts here.

The idea that marriage, which is a somewhat subjective religious custom with a complex history, should be linked to human laws is silly. Neither gay nor heterosexual unions should be more than civil agreements.

Marriages, if we have them at all, should be the province of religious institutions. They should refuse to confuse marriage with the civil contract. They should stop being shills for the state.

Freeing marriage from the conversation about civil unions would clear up confusion and advance cause of reason. But do not fear. Reason never prevails when religion, a bastion of dogma, creed and unprovable metaphysical subjectivity, is at work.

When someone says marriage should be between a man and a woman, that is a religious, not a legal statement. It is as true as saying that you should be circumcised. Or that you should attend church on Sundays. It should have no relationship to law or the state.

Another aspect of this is the way that children are short-changed.

This brings me to the sex-at-a-young-age issue.

I am in favor of reversable vasectomies for males pending their interest in becoming fathers, at which point I would institute a kid license, a vastly more important thing than a marriage license.

I know this is a stupid idea because no one would ever seriously consider it, but it underlines the moral imperative to give first place to children and their welfare, the reason we have such things as UNICEF and a timeless Declaration of the Rights of the Child.

We are happily moving toward a secularism that can begin to place religion where it belongs and make the state more than a war machine and keeper of prisons.

The folk who harp on religion in the public square have rarely taken seriously the institutions they were educated to serve. I believe Barack's faith initiatives will issue in a new vitality for religious structures by clarifying the fact that the best stance of religion in the public square is one of modesty and anonymity. Letting deeds speak louder than words and tamping down the desire to tie law and religion in a mutually strangling knot.

I am sure this raises more questions than it answers. I will revisit these issues from time to time.

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