Activism Across America

Last night at the Democratic National Convention, Senator Claire McCaskill delivered a purposeful and nasty insult to her nonreligious constituents, declaring that the people of Missouri are “God-loving” and asserting that the United States of America is a nation “under God”

It wasn’t an accident that these words came out. They were scripted in a purposeful rhetorical move to appeal to right wing Christian voters, and to try to push secular Americans out of the Democratic Party.

Let’s get this straight, Senator McCaskill. Facts are facts. There are a large number of people in Missouri who don’t believe in God at all. See as an example the Community of Reason - based in Missouri.

The USA is by no means a nation “under God”. There is no mention of God in the Constitution, the defining document of our nation. The Constitution does state, however, that there shall be no religious test for public office, and that there shall be no government establishment of religion.

All Americans, religious or not, should pay attention to Claire McCaskill’s theocratic agenda, because it’s tied to a larger right wing agenda. Oh, sure, at the Democratic National Convention, Senator McCaskill can give a good speech, but it’s only talk. In the Senate, McCaskill has earned a right wing legislative score that is nearly double her progressive legislative score.

Senator McCaskill and her ilk are dragging the Democratic Party backwards into the past, using the appeal of religious discrimination against secular Americans to whip up popular support. That’s an ugly, discriminatory vision of the Democratic Party that I want no part of.

Barack Obama exposed - what is that like? Well, in Wilmington, North Carolina, it looks like humility. The text below is what Barack Obama had to say to a crowd of people there, and it wasn’t about what a great guy he is. Barack Obama talked about his failings, and the temptation to negativity he sometimes feels, and about how the important thing isn’t himself, but all the voters in America, and what they want.

When we started this campaign, I told my campaign team, “We can’t run the same old Washington textbook campaign. We can’t be just poll driven. We can’t be just worried about what the other candidates are saying. We’ve got to try to run a different kind of campaign that gets the American people involved,” and I am proud of the fact that we have succeeded.

But, I won’t lie to you. There are times when we sometimes get sucked into this whole negative thing. People throw an elbow at you, and you start feeling like oh, I’ve got to throw an elbow back. I’ve noticed over the last several weeks, I told this to my team, “We are starting to sound like other folks, starting to run the same negative stuff.”

It shows that none of us are immune from this kind of politics, but the problem is that it doesn’t help you. Having politicians bickering back and forth doesn’t help you. Having them worry about superdelegates doesn’t help you.

This selection is not about me. It’s not about Senator Clinton. It’s not about John McCain. It’s about you. It’s about your struggles, your hopes, your dreams.

Here’s a video of the speech:

Well, okay. So, Barack Obama says that the campaign is about the hopes and dreams and struggles of the people of North Carolina. But what are those struggles?

Well, there was the struggle of the anti-war protesters outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina. That was a mighty big struggle. More recently, however, there was a struggle that was conspicuously silent.

I’m talking about the silent struggle of a huge number of high school students in North Carolina who participated in the national Day of Silence protest. At one high school alone, 275 students joined in the protest. The numbers were record-breaking.

The Day of Silence was held to show solidarity against students and administrators who bully non-heterosexual students. It’s a shame that some school administrators, in coordinators with some church leaders, responded to the anti-bullying protest with new attempts at bullying of their own.

With the strength of the Day of Silence protests across North Carolina, in spite of massive efforts at intimidation, the Barack Obama campaign ought to take note, and remember that part of the hopes and dreams and struggles of many North Carolinians is just to live as equals, without having their safety endangered by people who cannot tolerate other people having the freedom to choose who they want to have sex with.