First Door on the Left

Christian right’s compassion deficit

12.30.04 - It took President Bush three days to ready himself to go before the television cameras and make a public statement about Sunday’s devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck southern Asia. Even though he was late, and much more money will be needed, the president pledged at least $35 million in aid to the victims of the disaster. But, as of December 30, some of the president’s major family-values constituents have yet to be heard from: It’s business as usual at the web sites of the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family [corrected], Concerned Women for America, and the Coral Ridge Ministries.

These powerful and well-funded political Christian fundamentalist organizations appear to be suffering from a compassion deficit. Organizations which are amazingly quick to organize to fight against same-sex marriage, a woman’s right to choose, and embryonic stem cell research are missing in action when it comes to responding to the disaster in southern Asia. None of their web sites are actively soliciting aid for the victims of the earthquake/tsunami.

In fact, there is no mention of the giant earthquake and tsunami that devastated southern Asia. There are no headlines about the dead, injured or the tremendous damage; there are no urgent appeals for donations; there are no phone numbers to call; there are no links to organizations collecting money and providing aid for the victims.

Also M.I.A.: Jerry Falwell Ministries, the Republican National Committee and townhall.com.

There is a link in the right column where you will find links to several organizations worthy of your donations. Please help if you can.

Bush Faces Challenges with New Republican Congress

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The 109th Congress convenes on Tuesday with Republicans flexing more political muscle. Yet it is unclear how far they can, or in some cases want to, push President Bush’s ambitious second-term agenda.

The record federal deficit, the rising cost of the Iraq war, plus competing positions of rival Democrats and even within the Republican Party, all pose risks to such White House goals as overhaul of the federal tax code and the Social Security retirement program.

Still, Bush has high hopes. He sees his re-election, coupled with bigger Republican majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, as a mandate for his stewardship.

You know, if I were to venture a guess, it would be that Bush isn’t really all that gung-ho about a lot of his agenda.

Think about the Federal Marriage Amendment for a moment. It sprang up before the 2004 election and has since kind of faded away. It was nothing more than a ploy to get the evangelical right-wingers to the polls. Bush and everybody who worked for him knew how ridiculous it was and that even if it somehow miraculously passed it would never stand up to a court challenge. Just watch, though — they’ll start pushing it again before the 2006 elections.

This talk of Social Security reform and rewriting the tax laws — they know how dumb all of that is, too. But they’ll keep talking about it to keep their rich supporters happy. If nothing else, Bush and his cronies in Congress will be able to say “Hey, look, we tried.”

One of my favorite rabid right-wing bloggers wrote this last evening:

Our democracy is too precious and fragile a thing to allow someone to hold office on the strength of bogus votes - and if Gregoire had any sort of knowledge of fraud, she should go to jail along with everyone else involved.

I could not agree more, especially if you replaced Gregoire with Bush and she with he. Like this:

Our democracy is too precious and fragile a thing to allow someone to hold office on the strength of bogus votes - and if Bush had any sort of knowledge of fraud, he should go to jail along with everyone else involved.

The pendulum swings in both directions.

(My thanks to Basement Cross for the image.)

Over the course of the past couple of years I have read some hateful things. Face it, the election we just went through was not the most pleasant of experiences. A lot of mighty hateful things were said and done on all sides. (Although, from my admittedly partisan viewpoint, most of it came from the right.)

I do believe, however, that I just read the winner.

My eyes are still burning. How full of hate does somebody have to be to write something like that?