america — Page 2

My friend over at landonville pointed me to zefrank’s delightful photoproject: from 52 to 48 with love. Its a moving collection of pledges to civic unity after the 2008 presidential election, written from the vantage point of either Obama supporters (the 52 percent) or the McCain supporters (the 48), directed to the other.

Here’s some examples:

While my first impulse was that “I totally agree with this, but its a far cry from what I’ve felt from the victors when I’ve been on the losing end, and they’ve not been that charitable to me,” I think that a better response is to embrace the idea without that cynicism. I mean, isn’t this better than a discussion about what is “real America” and who “loves America”?

Check it out! Its worth a few minutes of your time, and might make you feel better about our nation and your neighbor in the process…

I’d commend E. J. Dionne Jr.’s piece in the Washington Post today. An excerpt:

American politics took an important turn last week at a church in the foothills of Southern California’s Santa Ana Mountains.

When Rick Warren, one of the nation’s most popular evangelical pastors, faced down right-wing pressure and invited Sen. Barack Obama to speak at a gathering at his Saddleback Valley Community Church about the AIDS crisis, he sent a signal: A significant group of theologically conservative Christians no longer wants to be treated as a cog in the Republican political machine.

…

And thus it came to pass that when Warren called a conference at his church last Friday on World AIDS Day, among those he invited were two potential presidential candidates. It was unsurprising that one of them was Sen. Sam Brownback, the Kansas Republican and a loyal social conservative who has taken up the AIDS issue with passion and commitment.

But when the other invitee turned out to be Obama, parts of the old evangelical political apparatus went after Warren as a heretic. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, declared that Obama’s views on abortion — Obama is pro-choice — represented “the antithesis of biblical ethics and morality” and insisted that Warren had no business inviting him to Saddleback.

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