Ross laments the loss of community, a common conservative lament. Yet it is conservatives who lampoon community (or hasn't he noticed the fun folks like Sarah Palin have with the phrase "community organizer"). And how can you expect people to coalesce into a community if your central principal is to praise the entrepreneur and to dismiss those who are weak as lazy moochers.
Maybe Ross does not personally celebrate the mean spirited individualism of the conservative movement but until folks like him call these folks out, they cannot expect the rest of us to take them seriously.
My son started as fairly conservative in his views, but despite being off to a good career start in business, he despises Republicans. And as far as I can tell, so do his peers.
"And one of the things that’s very clear when you move back and forth between different spheres and different perspectives on Catholicism is that this multiplicity makes it possible for just about every group within the church’s fold to feel beleaguered, ill-used and dispossessed."
This is the typical Rossism that makes me wonder, exactly when did he assume human form? Is he related to Al Gore, who would be president and the world a better place if Gore passed for human for at least a few minutes in the third debate? For Ross makes a point covered by the introductory clause, "As humans, ...." And since the church is catholic, universal, uh, duh?
But, nice of Ross to patronize "progressives" after an insight into others' feelings almost as advanced as the average pre K girl. Of course the "progressives" might just self identify as Catholics who take Jesus seriously, in contrast to those who worship their religion.
What is most striking to me is the fact that Ross is in a tizzy about who has the "One True Faith". There are literally thousands if Christian sects, each with their own OTF. They clearly cannot all be correct, since there are many areas of contradiction. The Old Testament is null and void. Or not. Gays are sinners. Or not. Communion is literally the blood and flesh. Or not. Handling snakes is safe. Or not.The Earth is 6000 years old...get the picture?
Ross, you can believe whatever you want and for you, that will be the reality, even if it doesn't match anyone else's. You prattle on as if your God who is omniscient and omnipotent needs help from mere humans to set things to rights. There IS another explanation out there - the Church is a human creation and even if there is a God, he/she/it certainly seems disinterested in how the RCC functions.
In pretending to diss identity politics, Ross perpetuates them. This dog-whistle of a screed immediately signals its intent with the specious claim that "racial cleavages are still less dramatic" than in days of yore. What a shame that the reality had to impinge upon his lollipops-and-roses world. So he has to do a quick propaganda reset, in which liberals still have the chutzpah to talk about a fair economy! And the GOP, for some reason unfathomable to Ross, just can't get its family values message to resonate with "those people" even as its plutocrat-friendly policies absolutely guarantee their continued misery and oppression.
The real horror show is in the statistics that Ross chooses to ignore:
The median white household net worth in 2007 was $151,000, while it was $9,700 for Blacks and $9,600 for Latinos. By 2013, the median white family income was down by a third, at $97,000, with the figures for blacks and Latinos standing at $4,900 and $1,300 – respective declines of 50 and 80 percent.
How's that for "dramatic cleavage," Ross?
He also glosses over the recent and refreshing mass mobilization of regular people. Young and old, of all races and ethnic groups, have joined together in Solidarity (!) -- not cleavage -- for the racial and economic justice that MLK also fought for. Aware that representational democracy in an oxymoron, people are reclaiming their own power.
It's enough to give the Powers That Be an identity crisis. And it's about time.
I wish I could recommend this more times. It has been a matter of true shock to me that, first, a bunch of pedophiles are not in prison, regardless of their religious alliance; and second, that that same bunch of pedophiles and their enablers/defenders have the gall to set themselves up as moral arbiters for the rest of us, not to mention having downright unconstitutional influence in our public policy.
If Ross' idea of a pure church, i.e. a conservative, pre-Vatican II one, is the model, most of us will cheerfully welcome the rejects, including gays, remarried couples, and even--heavens!--women who consider themselves human beings, rather than livestock.
BTW, Ross, child rape is not really well described as "scandal": it's a crime. Got it?
It's not enough, Ross.
My, my! The claws sure are all the way out today, Ross!
Where to begin? The title will do. Betrayal you say? Did Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush' combined 682 executive orders betray our political system at any point during their eight year presidencies or is it just our twice-elected Kenyan Muslim president's that you find offensive? Did any of their policies compromise our constitutionally-held democratic principles?
Is there any point at which you will acknowledge the man's legitimacy as our country 'a chief executive, Ross?
There is no higher democratic virtue than giving people their civil rights. I applaud the president for doing it.
ROSS IS god
Ross, thank you for this.
