The hysteria over Obama's selection of Rick Warren as The Inaugural Invocationater is embarrassingly obvious as staged circus, as are most morality plays. Get the gay activist set to steam red in the face in public and Obama wins more evangelical points. The more crazy rhetoric about conservatives as fascists, anti-Semites, and all-purpose haters and Obama's appeasement policy as cowardly and backward, the better. Now we're hearing conservative pastors on TV defending Obama's virtual virtues of inclusivity and "disagreeing without being disagreeable." I heard one on FOX yesterday stating as simple fact that Obama is opposed to gay marriage. A social conservative holding Obama out to be of one mind with him without Obama ever actually committing to it! The One doesn't even need plausible deniability. Amazing. Obama once again triagulates social conservatives against social liberals and risks nothing in the process. All he needs to do is keep his mouth shut and let the two sides eat each other up. Did I say amazing?
Warren furthermore takes yet another step towards assuming the Rev. Billy Graham Chair of President-Stroking Pastoral Theology. More glory for the Kingdom! Or more glorious book sales, profits from which will of course be generously funneled to the poor dark people somewhere out there. Warren gets to chortle on TV about his new wave brand of merely Dobson/Falwell-free Christianity in the face of fuming propagandizing media attack dogs. Oh, the poor martyr, standing up to the brutal violence of imperial camera lights.
Obama gets to cozy up with the nation's First Pastor-dude who paved the way for Purpose-Driven (TM) pragmatic politics.
I can't figure out whether I should marvel at Obama's political manipulativeness or weep for how easy America is making things for him.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Cao, Jindal & Asian-American Catholics
It's officially a banner year for our rarefied demographic. Or, it's just another colorful hiccup in Louisiana politics. Then again, Louisianans seem to love keeping their political hiccups going (see Sheriff Harry Lee of Jefferson Parish).
The GOP is now taking stock of the role of minority ethnic conservatives in rejuvenating the party (Jindal and Cao, as far as I know, are not products of any self-conscious marketing effort to mobilize the Asian-American electorate). Asian America might want to note how religion can sharpen that which makes AA perspectives unique in America, as well how our own captivity to elitist and materialist liberal ideologies cheapens the legacy of our forebears. Liberal Catholics might want to reassess how their "third-world liberation theologies" produce more dictators and terrorists than honest politicians like Jindal and Cao.
The GOP is now taking stock of the role of minority ethnic conservatives in rejuvenating the party (Jindal and Cao, as far as I know, are not products of any self-conscious marketing effort to mobilize the Asian-American electorate). Asian America might want to note how religion can sharpen that which makes AA perspectives unique in America, as well how our own captivity to elitist and materialist liberal ideologies cheapens the legacy of our forebears. Liberal Catholics might want to reassess how their "third-world liberation theologies" produce more dictators and terrorists than honest politicians like Jindal and Cao.
