Doug Henwood Talks

On Mar 24, 2007, at 5:44 PM, Lenin’s Tomb wrote:

I don’t think this is Yoshie’s point, but there is another way to go about it, which is to terminate this ressentiment toward religion, and try to engage with the religious rather than writing them off.

Anyone involved in left politics in the U.S. has not choice but to do
that - it’s not even a question. I don’t think non-Americans fully
appreciated how religion-saturated this society is. It made the news
here when one - one! - member of Congress, Pete Stark, announced the
other day that he’s an atheist. Fewer Americans tell pollsters they’d
vote for an atheist for president than a queer. Politicians are
always going on about god. There’s no escaping it - it’s in the air
and the water, though there are signs that its grip is easing some.

But what I don’t get are these exhortations to imitate religion, or
follow its example, or be intimidated by its pervasiveness, or
whatever, it’s not really clear. I don’t see how religion is any kind
of transferrable model - it operates in a different realm from
politics. Eternal salvation vs. a higher minimum wage? Not much of a
contest. Of course, the relgious can, and do, campaign for a higher
minimum wage and no secular person doing so would ever scorn the
alliance. But I don’t get what left politics has to learn from
religion, doctrinally or organizationally.

Doug

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