Open Letter to Obama

Mr. Obama,

I defended you when few others did. I defended you when people were making veiled threats like "Hillary is the only person the WHITE WORKING CLASS VOTER will vote for!" I realized that people who said that were willing to throw a group of people under the bus to achieve a goal, and it was wrong. My conscience demanded I support you.

After the Election, you selected Hillary to be your Secretary of State. Again, there were many making veiled threats, shouting "Hillary needs to be run out of Washington because she is TOO RIGHT WING AND ZIONIST for us!" That was wrong. I thought you were wise in showing that while Democrats disagreed with each other on some things, we did want to work together to undo the mess Bush made. Again, I voted with my conscience.

In both cases, I realized this was not about ego, this was about standing up for principles. We need, as a nation, to stop demonizing each other, and think that just because someone is different from you, that you have some god/goddess/(insert creed here) given right to marginalize them, and treat them as lesser people.

Now, we get to Rick Warren. Yes, Rick is the warmer, fuzzier side of anti-gay bigotry. However, you should know very well that fuzzy bigotry is still bigotry. There were people in the South who thought they were doing their slaves a favor, making them Christian. You know that was wrong, and we are still paying the price. You know that if you let Rick Warren do his speech, he will use that to promote his agenda, which is as bigoted as any other that would marginalize someone. On one level, there is the simple ideological aspect: as Martin Luther King put it "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." It would be a shame to think that, barely a week after we celebrate MLK day, we allow a bigot to mar what should be a major tribute to King's legacy.

Of course, Ideology is not enough for you. I can understand. The reason you and Hillary were the top candidates is because you both realize the old adage about politics being as dirty as sausage grinding. However, let me make a pragmatic appeal. I know part of you may like to think that the evangelicals could be made to see reason, that perhaps they might act more Christ-like if given a place at the table. Sorry, but that is not, nor ever will be the case. It is one thing to have the right to believe in your choice of creed, but the evangelicals do not intend to do onto thers as they would have done onto them. They will take a shred of accpetance, and use it to divide us against each other, until once again, the Right Wing they have never disawed comes in. The right wants us all, it does not care how we fall, as long as we do. They giggle at the fact that Blacks and Gays have been played as pawns against each other in California. Of course, they intend to crush both, but they do not care how the result is done. If you allow Rick Warren to open a crack, they will flood in, and will not stop until we are all at each other's throats once again! If come 2012, this disunity makes for a Republican president, you will find the same evangelicals you reached out to will fall right into line. I defended you when you spoke the truth, that many do cling to religion because they are bitter, but do not forget, the Evangelical Clergy has a vested interest in bitterness, so much so that they will gladly find a way to export it, spread it like a virus. While there are some churchs that emulate Christ, you know very well that many need bitterness, and you can see already how this is spreading.

To sum it up. Please, do not allow a bigot to ruin the inauguration. There are many, including none less than Jesse Jackson himself, who are in line with your goals. Yes, you may want the churches to come in, but sadly, they need to show they can at least do onto others as they wish to have done to them first.

Will I support measures that you do that frankly I would support anyway, yes, but you know you will need more than that. You will not be able to do the task unless you can get people to believe that this country can abandon it's demons. In order to do that, it must abandon all of them, and truly live by the MLK quote I referenced earlier.

Yours Truly
A Humble Citizen that voted for you.

ps - acceptance is misspelled in the last big paragraph, if it matters to you.

I'd add my name to that letter in a heartbeat.

As he is someone that most could get behind.

PS: thanks for the compliments.

But then you have the issue with the balls, and the entire RW hate machine shipping up their racist base again. Jackson comes with at least as much baggage, but it would become fuel for RW hate instead of LW hate.

I think he's trying to keep red meat from the RW hatemongers.

I think he could have at least found someone whose views were at least unknown.

Perhaps Jim Wallis, who wrote the book, God's Politics; Why the Right got it wrong, and the Left doesn't get it.

http://chat.thisislondon.co.uk/london/threadnonInd.jsp?forum=18&thread=225656

It's hard to find anyone in religion that is not seen as some sell out to others. You could put the most liberal, anti Zionist Rabbi, and some will say he favors Israel. You can get the most nice Muslim Mullah, and the opposite happens. You can put NO clergy up there, and you might as well give the GOP a tact Nuke. The only thing that has a shot is to maybe make a whole group of people, like choir of various clergy. Then again, as Warren shows, it will only take one bad apple to spoil the bunch. Removing Warren would help things out a lot (but still give ammo to people who think "he don't even like our fuzzy coffee table guy!" , but sadly, due to the way Religion is at the moment, there is simply no way to do this without offending somebody, especially since the press has a vested interest in making sure people are angry.

even put Lowery at the end, after he makes his own speech - the crowds will be disbursing, the TV camera's back to the talking heads.

In some ways, this is the same failed M$M strategy of giving both sides equal time. And we see how well that's worked out. I'm sure there are thousands of other preachers he could have come up with, I just don't follow religion enough to know who all is out there. Surely someone that actually lives according to the Christian doctrine they claim to follow - not one of the Megachurch Millionaires

I'm more interested in seeing what Obama is going to do rather than speculating at the hidden intentions behind every pick he makes.

Warren is "anti-semitic" and "sexist", as well.

Why does nobody give a damn about these things? To hell with Jewish people and women, I guess....