24 July 2008

Obama Dismisses Faithless Europe

I began viewing Obama's Berlin speech as it was already in progress so I may have missed an appeal or even passing reference to Europe's substantial faithless population. I did hear quite a few appeals to people of different 'faiths' working together and specifically 'Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Jews'. I know it's political death for an American politician to discuss atheists or atheism, but a part of me was hoping that, while in a different socio-political climate, the Obama who wasn't afraid to discuss secularism (2006) would reappear. Oh, well. It was a nice dream while it lasted.

Looks like it's Lose-Lose again in 2008.

Cuddles,
Kate

3 comments:

Tiana said...

I figured it was lose-lose when he started talking about expanding faith based initiatives. :(

mims h. carter said...

Let's face it. Our leaders aren't going to lead. They are going to follow the opinion polls. As long as we are a reviled minority, no one, no matter their true feelings, is going to acknowledge our world view matters. I see some hints in Obama's policy towards faith-based initiatives that he will reign in the proselytizing aspect of federally-funded programs, but each taxpayer dollar spent supporting their charitable work means one more dollar of their donated money that can go to religious proselytizing. I have worked with faith-based groups here in south Mississippi since the storm. They really get a free pass. I have seen so much arrogance, corruption and stupidity in these groups, it is frustrating to hear all the time 'Where would we be without the faith-based groups?' In my opinion, we would be better off. They have let the federal and state government off the hook. All the donated money and volunteer labor has been a drop in the bucket for what is needed to get us in to recovery. We are shutting down a lot of recovery operations with a lot of people still hurting. Our governor is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars that were supposed to go to help Katrina victims. Instead he is building roads for industries, and proposing to spend over $600 million of recovery money on the port in Gulfport which his own people have estimated could be improved enough with 10% of that amount. Sorry, this comment has turned in to a long rant. After almost three years of this shit, I am pissed.

vjack said...

Long time, no posting. What's going on?