God what self important tripe. Good luck correcting the actions of the world. Maybe one day I can be like you. However, for now I am stuck here in reality.

You, "my friend", need a lesson in civility.
Snarkiness does not become you.

Good luck correcting the actions of the world.

Anon, you miss the point entirely.  Annie is talking about each of us taking one step at a time and each one of us doing our admittedly small part to change things for the better.

I am often tempted to give in to despair, but we need to keep going, to keep putting one foot in front of another and try to do a little good along the way.

If it's her Christianity that you dislike, then if you are a Democrat, you will have to get used to the idea that to win elections, you will need the votes of Christian progressives.  Tarring us with the same brush as the radical religious right is just not fair.  I think I can speak for Annie when I say that we do not want to impose our beliefs on you, that we are not trying to convert you, and that we do not want to make our personal beliefs the law of the land.  I value highly the separation of church and state.

You may think we are deluded, that our beliefs are foolishness, and you are entitled to have that opinion, but we will need to find a way to have respectful conversations between people of faith and those with no religious faith.  In the long haul, Christian progressives want the same things as other progressives.

It's worth remembering that Matt Groening cartoon, and McNamara's quote (before he saw the light in his later years).

I have had this quote from Gandhi--"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall---think of it, always"--stuck up on my fridge since 2002. 

I'm starting to believe it.

Janeboatler,

I appreciate your thoughtful reply. I also see that others read this and enjoyed it. To each his/her own. After seeing your comment and others I thought I may have had a wrong frst impression. But after a second attempt, still feel the same way. OK for a 13 year olds journal entry, this is fine. But to have a chance to write something in public and come up with this drivil is an utter waste. It's not the Christianity and I agree with your points in the regard. I just see this as a self obsessive rant.

The short version is "I am so smart and so right that I have come to the realization that not everyone is as smart and as right as I am so I take solace in the fact that when everything goes to hell, I can say I told you so."

I think that, perphaps it is time to question Bush's religiosity.

We know that the Neocon's philosophical godfather, Leon Strauss was an athiest. He said that if the masses get educated, and start studying philosophy, they may soon discover that there is no god.  Strauss was Neoplatonic. He believed that philospher's should be kings, the ruling class. But only the exceptional could handle philosophy. Strauss believed that if the mass of humanity studied philosophy, they would soon discover there was no God, abandon morality and then they would soon start killing one another.  Religion, any religion, was medicinal opium for the people that allowed civilization to flourish.

The Neocon's liked what they heard in Strauss. They liked the idea of a narrow ruling class lording it over an impoverished masses, who were controled and kept in line by religion.  Note that in the Neocon Republican constellation fundementalist of all judeo-christian faiths get along very well: Orthodox Jews, Reactionary Protestant Christian Fundementalist and Falangist Catholics all voted for Bush.  Second of all, all these Neocon Religious espouse a religios view point that is very controling in nature. I submit to you that Christianity did not spread in the first century because it put velvet schackles on people, but because it was both libertating, empowering and very hopeful.  

It is necessary therefore, in leadership positions, for there to be a Neocon Elite who spouts the Religious dialogue, even if he doesn't believe it. That leader is the nexus of the two constituencies - he must be both, a cloaked elite and a ostensible religious. In steps Bush.

Now know one knows what Bush truly believes, but two things reveal that he might be what I suggest above. First of all, know christian would lie the nation into an unnecessary war where thousands of well meaning patriotic Americans in the prime of their youth would be killed out of naive altruism and idealism. In many ways the most virtuous of us all. Second know well meaning Christain could in good conscience campaign relentlessly against the poor, working class and middle class... and Bush has done just that taking food from poor childrens mouth to give billionares and millionares a few dollars more, undermining the bargaining power of working people where he can, ignoring the crisis of escalating health care cost while constricting bankruptcy laws on its victims, allowing, unflinctingly the abortion rate to go up to the tune of 50,000 more than had the rate at the end of Clinton's term had remained, attacking social security. These policies simply belie Christian, dare I say any major religious belief system, except those of the Neocon constituency. 

Finally there are those words he gave to Bob Woodward, that Bob quoted on 60 minutes "... in the end, we are all just dead."  That , my friends is code, or a dog wistle, for athiest. Nihilistic, Straussian, Neocon athiest.

Yeah, his words say the right thing. But his actions shout out loud and clear "I am not a Christian".  At least not a christian who follows the beattitudes.  Right now, the only reason Bush is a christian, is not because of Jesus' message or teachings, it simply because Jesus helped him dry out. And I don't think that that is good enough.  When I was young, sometime at nearly every service they sang the song ..."... and they will know we are Christians, by our love, by our love, yes they will know we are Christians by our love..."  I am sorry, but I don't know what Bush is. 

I have to say, I'm closer to "Anon" than to Miss Lamott on this, my admiration for her prodigious talents, and appreciation of her often uplifting commentary, notwithstanding.  

For one thing, although it's a tiny minority at this site, let's do try to remember that for most of the country, Bush is, y'know, bad but not so bad.  I mean, I've got lots and lots of problems with this administration, and I can name many many many people I'd rather were running the country --- not all of them Democrats --- and I find our leadership grossly disappointing.  But, y'know, we've done a lot worse and will again.  It creeps me out that someone actually needs reminding that the Republic has faced darker days. 

Look, there're an awful lot of progressives (like myself) who generally, let's say, supported the Iraq war, and think Bush deserves (ample) credit for many of the good things occuring in the region as well as the bad.  Most of the country thinks Bush isn't doing a good job --- but I daresay most of us don't exactly think he's evil incarnate either.  You're free to think otherwise, but banging that drum puts you in a small group, so, be prepared for the results.  If the prospect of Bush being a popular politician has you "like caribou contaminated with swerving sickness" --- umm, consider therapy.  Me, I was kinda bummed, but, I wish Bush well, and, I gotta keep going to work and taking care of my kid, life's pretty good most of the time thanks to my family.  Progressivism will move ahead (as the name suggests...) just fine.  The apocalpyptic sense seems misguided to me.  No, not misguided: "get a life" weird.  I've heard Ms. Lamott do it a couple times and it freaks me out.

A couple of posters have alluded indirectly to the religiosity, and, well, that makes me squirm too.  I'm not a "devout follower of Jesus."  Know many, love and respect (and am married to one of) them, often find myself in church Sunday mornings, but the fact is, the guy leaves me cold.  Ain't my faith, am personally pretty sure a lot of its core ideas, as I grasp them, are wrong, wish the people there well and appreciate their kindness but, I no more share all the beliefs of my Christian friends than I share those of my Republican ones (or my wonderful, beautiful, brilliant and Republican-leaning wife).  If I really were convinced something specific to being a follower of Jesus would make me happy when Bush stumbles, I'd register Republican.  I don't buy it, as it happens, and I'm grateful that Christian progressives are generally excited for the same policies I am, so, I think I can manage not to p--- them off.  Linking Bush's missteps explicitly to what a Christian "should" want, on the other hand, p----- _me_ off, or, more aptly, puts me on my guard. 

I like TPM Cafe and visit daily, but frankly if it were all I read, I'd be W.'s biggest fan.

First, the neocons and Strauss:  you need to be careful the way you use the word, Neoplatonic..  They may have a particular atheistic take on Plato, but Plato himself was theistic.  In fact, a lot of the early Church fathers were Neoplatonists because Plato was the Greek philosopher whose views were most easily reconciled with those of Christianity.  I'm not a philosophy myself and have never read Strauss, though I've read Plato, but it seems to me the Straussian reading is likely pretty, uh, eccentric.

 As to Dubya's religiosity, I'm not sure how much a neocon perspective has to do with it.  We all know that he's very good at talking the talk when he needs to.  That's been a great source of his strength.  But rank hypocrisy in religion, especially among the powerful is hardly anything new.  Remember Otto von Bismarck considered himself a devout Christian.  And Louis XIV was the defender of God and the Catholic Church, at least in his own eyes.  Certainly the list goes on and on.  I have no quarrel with the idea that Bush's actions don't seem to have the least bit to do with Christianity, especially with love and forgiveness and all that.   I guess I just don't see that it gets us very far.

My idea of Bush's relationship with religion is that religion for him is primarily an anger management tool. Many people with emotional difficulties use religion in this way, just as many might use drugs or booze or greed or whatever else to help stabilize the emotional rollercoaster they're on.

I don't doubt for a moment that Bush believes himself to be a spiritual person, a devout Christian, even though he violates every single precept of Christian teaching constantly. It's easy to see though, that as an underachiever in a pseudo-aristocratic family, his petulance and impatience, (born no doubt from the kind of frustration and bewilderment only a cognitively challenged child can display), are barely beneath the surface of his public personna.

I would actually feel more sorry for him than I do were it not for the danger represented by the unhappy combination of his incredible ignorance and the power of the office he holds.

>Look, there're an awful lot of progressives (like myself) who generally, let's say, supported the Iraq war, and think Bush deserves (ample) credit for many of the good things occuring in the region as well as the bad. 

Actually the evidence is most progressives opposed the war (correctly imo) and I'm not aware of the "good things" you are talking about. A list perhaps? (Yes, Saddam in out of power-but his removal was accomplished in a manner that did immense harm, both to Iraq and to the United States.) 

> Most of the country thinks Bush isn't doing a good job --- but I daresay most of us don't exactly think he's evil incarnate either.  You're free to think otherwise, but banging that drum puts you in a small group,

A minority certainly, but not a small minority no. About 40% of this country seems to love Bush, about 40% loathes him. You seem to fall into the other 20% (the group that bounces back and forth in the polls) which would actually make you part of the smallest group.

> I wish Bush well,
 
I would think true Progressives wish Bush out of office.

>and, I gotta keep going to work and taking care of my kid, life's pretty good most of the time thanks to my family. 

Well that's nice, but then I suppose you don't have a kid in Iraq.

> Progressivism will move ahead (as the name suggests...) just fine. 

No, things move ahead-or back-only if people make them do so.

>The apocalpyptic sense seems misguided to me.  No, not misguided: "get a life" weird.  I've heard Ms. Lamott do it a couple times and it freaks me out.

I can see where it would. That doesn't mean it is incorrect. To borrow from playwright Robert Bolt: We must not assume these are not catastrophic times merely because it is we who are living in them. Someone must live in catastrophic times.

But I will say, though Bush is, imo, undoubtedly the worst President in our history, that doesn't mean we are in the greatest danger in our history. It does mean that whatever the level of danger we face, Bush can be counted on to make it worse.

It just seems to me that there are no meaningful human values that actually require a religious context within which to be seen as legitimate. 

She didn't say that a religious context was required to make them legitimate.  She just referenced particular religious context(s). 

In fact, it seems to me that the truly profound meaningful human values all transcend the traditional restrictions of religious doctrine, and if we keep this in mind we'll be less apt than we are now to inflict disastrous (if sometimes unintended) consequences around the world in the name of God.

 Yes, religious traditions at their deepest transcend the boundaries of their own doctrines.   As does non-religious humanitarian secularism, as does... etc., etc.  (I think this transcendence was actually one of the points of her post.)  Does that mean no one is supposed to mention the particular cultural context in which their ideas occur?  What a boring world that would be.

 And yes, lots of bad things have been done in the name of religion.  Lots of bad things have been done in the name of extreme and rigid versions of all kinds of ideologies -- consider the Stalinist Soviet Union, where religious people were persecuted in the name of government sanctioned atheism.  Does that mean that no one should contextualize their thoughts in their own atheism in a public forum?

I've seen so many comments on so many blogs from people who seem to think that there's something wrong (or unsophisticated, or rude, or even un-Constitutional!) with people referring to religious beliefs, especially if they're Christian.  It's just silly.  Would similar comments be made to someone who contextualized their transcendently human experience in their ethnic background?  It's one thing to be offended by religious bullies(more like thieves in the temple, IMO) like those on the radical religious right, but this writer is not one of them. 

Beautiful essay by Annie, beautiful quote. I'm starting to think that I am seeing this very slight glow way, way ahead in the distance.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

"About 40% of this country seems to love Bush, about 40% loathes him."

I think 40% generaly support Republican policies and 40% generaly support Democratic policies.  The 40% who support Democratic policies do not all loath Bush.  I think those who truely think Bush intends to damage the country for his own personal benefit, of started the Iraq war to benefit Halliburton,  ect are in the 5-10% range.  About what the Green party would get.

Yes! The debacle that was the Vietnam War, even though he inherited the conflict out of Kennedy's fore-shortened presidency, was a dark time indeed exacerbated by the LBJ regime.

Without intending to let LBJ off the hook, or to be too clever in supporting my own contention, I do want to point out that LBJ did realize by the end of his term that the whole thing was an out of control mess, a disaster by almost anyone's standard. Sadly he didn't come out of his state of denial soon enough to actually stop the war, but at least he realized at some level it was going to hell.

In the Bush regime, I don't think there are any such realizations. I believe BushCo wants to perpetuate the conflict in the MidEast and as a result of this the main policy players who've hijacked US foreign policy are quite pleased to see the conflagration in Iraq continue. To my mind this represents a far more destructive potential than Vietnam did by several orders of magnitude.

While it is true that good always comes around again, good, too, only prevails for awhile before evil once again gains the upper hand. That is why they call it the 'eternal stuggle'.
In good times, we always forget that 'all that is required for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing'. We must do something to move evil out of power. It will not relinquish its hold without active opposition.
When evil becomes complacent - as Bush did, when he saw his re-election as a 'mandate' - that is when good has its chance. We must take that chance and use it to our advantage if we are to regain the country.

Robert Brown:

I am flabbergasted that you think that 1. only 5-10% loathe Bush and 2. those that do necessarily believe that his motives are the ones you suggest.

I don't spend a lot of time guessing at Bush's motives, I just think he is doing great damage because he's careless, reckless, shallow, incurious, etc.  and I loathe loathe loathe (or loath, if you like) him. 

You need to get out and talk to more loathers.

You have to impune motives to reach this conclusion.  I am perfectly willing to believe that LBJ though that the war in Vietnam was necessary, but was unable to win it.  Likewise I am willing to believe that Bush truely wants to see a representative government in Iraq and the fighting stop, not perpetuate and endless war for (insert conspiracy theory here).

>"I'd be interested in whose presidency you feel created more catastrophe than Bush's has"

>How about LBJ's escalation and gross mismanagement of the Vietnam war?

How about it? Ultimately we lost in Vietnam and it had zero effect on our national security. Apart from the loss of life, the most catastrophic effect of the Vietnam war is that it helped split progressives and brought the Right to power.

Iraq on the other hand promises to truly damage our national security, increasing the chances of another 9/11 and destabilizing a region that we depend on.

And, of course, unlike W. LBJ has some marks on the positive side of the ledger, particularly in the area of civil rights.

If you read through the comments on this thread and elsewhere on this site, I think you will find much support for my straw man.

Of course the commentors here are fringe loathers.  I suspect your definition of loathing includes strong disagreement with policies even though you don't consider those policies to be intentionally evil.  O.K. maybe that approaches 40%

First of all, anybody--from Bush to Friedman to you--who thinks pre-emptive ulilateral war against a country that posed no threat is a good idea, well I just loathe you. 

You stopped going to Kerry rallies because of comments you overheard from some Berkeley students?  What they said was dumb, but thats even dumber.

Have you heard of the PIPA study before the election that showed a majority of Bush supporters believed things that just weren't true--like that the WMDs had been found, or that Iraq was involved in 9/11?  If not, maybe you should be paying attention. 

I get the feeling you think I'm saying that religion should not be mentioned in political discourse. Please note that I did not say;

"... that all mentions of religion in political contexts lead to death and disenfranchisement..."

 I'm saying that when religion is used to legitimize political action the results are often catastrophic, not that talking about religion in a political context is necessarily destructive in and of itself.

I agree with you when you say;

The distinction is not whether individuals talk about a religious context for their beliefs -- it's whether they bully people with their so-called righteousness. 

I don't seek to impose my religious beliefs on others, yet I can, and do, talk about religion and politics quite a bit. Creatures like Dobson, Falwell, et. al. talk about their faith all the time, but they continually seek to lay claim to the right to impose their beliefs on others.  I don't think Dobson & Co have a single spiritual bone in their entire collective body. Just as rape is about power, not about sex, so too is Dobson's brand of evangelical fascism about personal power, not about spirituality, and certainly not about Christian teachings, despite his absurd claims to the contrary.

But this stuff with Dobson illustrates the point I'm trying to make. In a secular democracy, authority derives from the participatory, shared power of the electorate. In a religious hierarchy, authority is always arbitrary, and leaders are basically self-appointed. but when attempts are made to combine religious authority with secular democratic authority, it's like oil and water, because religious authority, by it's nature, must trump secular authority, and, conversely, democratic authority, by it's nature must not allow self-appointed religious leaders to dictate their own religioius laws to supercede the secular laws.

I don't have any problems discussing my religious philosophies, or those of anyone else, as long as neither I myself or whoever I'm talking with aren't trying to use their religious belief to validate their actions. And I just don't think that in a secular democracy, it's relevant to the political discourse whether someone follows Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Islamic, or any other set of beliefs, because the things truly important to us as human beings transcend these denominational divisions.

Thank you for the interesting discussion, sbj.  So anyway, to continue it, you wrote: 

I'm saying that when religion is used to legitimize political action the results are often catastrophic, not that talking about religion in a political context is necessarily destructive in and of itself.

And I am wondering, what does "legitimize political action" mean to you?  Like what in particular is problematic for you about this essay?

You say that you don't think talking about religion in a political context is necessarily destructive, but then later in your comment you say that you don't think an individual's religious beliefs are relevant to political discourse.  What kind of commentary relating religion and politics is okay with you?  And what do you think about Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi's regular references to their beliefs?

When I talk about religion being used to legitimize political action, and the dangers assoociated with such, I'm talking about things that result when religious affiliation is used to validate action and behavior, not specific religiously inspired beliefs.

Ah, I see. 

Bleh, this whole religion and politics thing is so difficult.  Like for me personally, I'd rather not mention my particular religious inclinations in connection with politics, and never really have in the past -- but then you have all these lunatics (not the most charitable description, I know, but...) promoting just plain hatefulness in the name of Christianity, and screaming about how there's a "war against Christianity" in this country -- so then you decide that perhaps you should make it clear that you're a Christian too, that being Christian does not equal support for the policies they are promoting, and that they don't get to define Christianity.  But then that can be problematic because, etc., etc.

Anyway, it's something I've been wrestling with, and your thoughts helped me to clarify some things, which I really appreciate.  Now maybe I'll actually get some work done...

This is my first time on this site and I want to thank you all for  posting so many thoughtful comments. After wading through the hate and venom on other (mostly political) sites, its refreshing to find intelligent discussion and respect for others. I look forward to coming back and even throwing in my two cents.