No More Mr. Nice Guy!

Obama, where art thou?

I'm well aware that atheists are the most despised group in the US, but it saddens me that the Dem candidates feel they have to vie with each other to pander to the religious right. We expect this kind of political calculus and triangulation from Hillary, but Obama seems to be lurching further right every day in a way that leaves many progressives banging their heads in frustration.

Once again the clueless Dems are falling for the rethugs' frame, playing their game, falling into their trap. The "frame" is that the GOP is the party of good, gawd-fearing Christians - pardon me, Judeo-Christians - and the Dems are the party of godless, atheist, jeezus-hatin' heathens. Which is total BS. The Democratic Party has always been just as dominated by Christians and fundies as the Republan Party - it's just that they are more likely to treat their religion as a private affair, as it should be, rather than trumpeting it from the rooftops for petty partisan gain. In fact it seems to me they are more genuine Christians.

I don't recall Jesus ever preaching, thou shalt invade and destroy other countries (though there's plenty of that in the Old Testament), thou shalt cut taxes on the rich and raise them on the poor, thou shalt hate gays, thou shalt hate Mexicans, thou shalt hate anybody. The only time he was recorded as getting angry was when he chased the capitalists out of the temple. Jesus would not recognize any of today's craw-thumping rethugs as his followers; he would say, "Get thee behind me, Satan, thou whited sepulchers."

Since the rethugs are so spectacularly wrong on every issue, why do the Dems keep having to capitulate to them? Why aren't they putting out the message 24-7, saying that hate is not Christian, greed is not Christian, violence is not Christian?