December 30, 2004

This is exactly what I expected

The Family Values crowd is shockingly silent on over 100,000 deaths. What kind of God do they worship?

WorkingForChange-Christian right's compassion deficit: "These powerful and well-funded political Christian fundamentalist organizations appear to be suffering from a compassion deficit. Organizations which are amazingly quick to organize to fight against same-sex marriage, a woman's right to choose, and embryonic stem cell research are missing in action when it comes to responding to the disaster in southern Asia. None of their web sites are actively soliciting aid for the victims of the earthquake/tsunami."

Update The more I think about this the more I resent it. How can anyone call themselves Christian and not be stunned by this? How can political agendas not fade to the background? Maybe they aren't about faith at all. Maybe they are about power.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hate to say it but I am incredibly unsurprised by this. I think you are right, there agenda is about power and soliciting aid for devastated people doesn't exactly aid in that endeavor. None of my right wing aquaintances have even mentioned being saddened by this and if they did mention the Tsunami it was about how wonderful the U.S. was for sending over their 35 mill.

Adam

Anonymous said...

I gotta hand it to the Bush Administration. They are incredibly politically savvy. I knew this, but they've taken it to another "flag waving" level.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=2&u=/nm/20050101/pl_nm/quake_bush_dc.

I'm assuming that the outrage of the initial token pledge finally got the Bush political wonks to wake up. So America will now fly our flags at half staff. I'm grateful for the additional $350 million dollar pledge, but I'm banking that this and the flag waving is for the right wing Christians (American nationals) who behind closed doors are feeling a bit sqeamish that their president looks scrooge-like during Christmas. They need to "do something" nationalistic that soothes their chagrin that their president didn't express absolute grief and sorrow at the tremendous loss of life sooner with an immediate follow-up $350 million pledge on the FIRST day.

Btw...did you notice also that conveniently the administration also communicated that the initial pledge has been fulfilled. (Shouldn't that be a given?). They need to shore up any accusation that we pledge, but don't pay. (Remember the $5 billion AIDs relief pledge).

I know I'm cynical, but I just don't trust this administration. They are TOO GOOD at spin. Maybe instead of being cynical, i should recognize that our loud blogging voices are actually making a difference. This makes me smile.

sg