That was a shocker. I was at a Bible Study today. Women's Bible Study in a mainline Protestant church that is not generally considered a "liberal" church. As we were breaking up (our one Fox News watcher had left). The discussion turned to politics. Obama had just spoken at the "National Prayer Breakfast" and he had taken on the "Birthers" (sort of). And people were saying "Finally". But mostly they are mad, pissed off. At the Republicans/Tea Partyers, sure. But really mad at the Democrats. "No Backbone". "Why won't they stand up?" "They have no principles. They have a majority, why don't they use it?". Then it got serious. One person said she doesn't give money to the Democrats any more (I doubt if she ever heard of the Gay Community's "Don't Ask, Don't Give" campaign). And then shocker..One person talked about that maybe we need a third party that will stand up for the needs of "regular" people.
Sometimes we on the left may fear we are only talking to each other. And we think the people out there that share our views are only a small percentage of the country. We may think the right wing is larger than it is. We think we see fascism raising its head because a small percentage is loud and some have wacky signs. I don't know widespread or indicative this particular group is..but it sounded just like a discussion you would hear from any group of frustrated leftists. But it made me think that we are not that isolated and our compatriots may not be where we would expect to find them. It was encouraging.
I think I will take those "Free The Cuban Five" postcards to the Peace and Justice Committee meeting tonight.
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Maybe what we need is a left-wing Bible Study to invite people to, like Socialists did in the old days. I'm going to read Joan Chittister's Cry Justrice, Cry Hope this Lent. It will probably be a good book to read, but it would probably be better to read it in a group, and especially with women. There are many other such books available through Benetvision; they raise feminist consciousness and talk clearly about justice but they do it in the familiar context of the Bible Study group. Annski hit a fundamental point; I wish that we could make it real for more of us.
Let's talk more about this idea. But I don't think it needs to be Gender specific. We could look at Obery Hendricks
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