Manifesto

Last week, while I was mulling over the principles of the 912 Project, I fell into a long and rambling conversation with the two other members of one of the bands in which I play fiddle.  The three of us have somewhat different backgrounds and come down in different places on the political spectrum.  Still, through our conversation, I started to glimpse the possibility of a new political movement.

I later dubbed it "The League of Noisy Moderates."

Lots of people are out there making lots of noise, motivated either by rigid ideology, nameless fear, or some other force that deprives their speech of nuance as it raises the volume.

Meanwhile, thoughtful people, those who might be willing and able to do the actual hard work of democracy, sit back quietly and shake their heads.

Enough of this. The time has come for those of us who are in the broad political middle - from thoughtful conservatives to thoughtful progressives, and everyone in between - to take to the streets in angry protest, demanding . . .

an end to angry street protests?

Oh, never mind.

Weak Tea, part five, addendum

Thomas L. Friedman's column today in the Times is worth a read.  It relates to an idea I was trying to develop in yesterday's post: the people as a unity, not just an aggregation.

Toward the end, he lists a number of factors that have changed American politics, allowing noisy and unthinking fringe groups on all sides to overwhelm the ingenious checks and balances of the system set down in the Constitution and make it difficult, if not impossible, to do anything at all for the common good:

Tea Party!

I've fallen into a heated email exchange with my brother. It began when he sent me a link to a YouTube video in which scenes of the September 12 "Tea Party" rally in DC are strung together with the apparently revolutionary (but secretly reactionary?) song by The Who, "We Won't Get Fooled Again". The images, one after the other, display the shoddy propaganda and misguided hysteria of the crowd.

My brother avowed that he was moved by the actions of "those patriots" at the rally.

Well, I couldn't take this sitting down, so I wrote:

Half a Conversation on Universism

I wrote to the Universists at info@universist.org. The note I sent was a shorter, earlier version of the previous posting to this blog.

To my surprise, I received a reply from none other than Ford Vox himself. Here is my half of the exchange that followed, with brief summaries of Mr. Vox's responses.

Why I Am Not a Universist

I recently read an article in my local paper about a new religion called "Universism", created by a medical student in Massachusetts. I was intrigued.

I am a skeptic in all matters transcendent, with existentialist leanings. At the same time, I miss the sense of community that can be a vital part of religious life, especially as I have encountered it in more progressive Christian congregations. So, I was curious to see what a "faithless" religion would look like.

I checked out the Universist web site (www.universist.org), and read the recent speech by Ford Vox, "Rise of the Faithless."

I have to say that I am more than a little disappointed. In fact, I was alarmed by what I read.