So, today we mock people for being upset?

[thewiseguy]

Let me start by saying I am neither gay or a Jew, and yet I am still angered and disgusted with Obama for picking Rick Warren to do the invocation at his inauguration.

Mockery and simplification will not help that anger and disgust go away. In fact it makes it worse. When you mock someone for their opinion you are effectively suppressing them.

Is this what we are here for? To continue supporting Obama no matter what he does? Is that our mission? It looks to me that some folks are here to do just that regardless of the harm that his actions might bring.

It is just a freaking invocation! Rick Warren is an agent of tolerance! Why are you all whining!

Hey if I could not get married to the love of my life or could not have an abortion because it was illegal, I would be too fucking mad with Obama giving Rick Warren a platform to preach TOLERANCE at his inauguration!

[Captain Hilts]

1. I'm not: gay, Jewish, Catholic, or Quaker or anti-religious and I'm offended by him. nt

[PVnRT]

2. I'm a straight white male with a good job and I'm offended

I guess I'm a "whiner" too.

[progressoid]

16. I'm a straight white male with a bad job and toenail fungus and I'm offended

God I'm pathetic.

[roguevalley]

22. I think you are sweet, progressoid. However some people think having

people who helped delegitimize thousands of children, strip protections from the already precarious lives of people who pay taxes, go to war and die, who helped build this country up only to be kicked in the teeth after Cally's debacle, that these people speaking FOR GOD isn't a bad thing. Its 'inclusive'. Uh, those people over there are not allowed to be included but their oppressor gets the spotlight and a twirl in his tutu. The fucker.

I think this is incoherent, progressoid. :P

[MrCoffee]

3. K&R

[last1standing]

4. "When you mock someone for their opinion you are effectively suppressing them."

K&R just for that!

[nichomachus]

5. And we're not just "whining," we're "hysterical"

The Obama defenders on DU are starting to sound more and more like the Bush 21 percenters.

He can do no wrong -- never criticize.

[Zenlitened]

10. Plus, we're being intolerant bigots by, um, wait... how does that go again?

Speaking out in opposition to intolerance is itself intolerant?

Is that it?

Objecting to bigotry makes us bigots?

:shrug:

[pecwae]

18. The word 'hysterical'

is saying quite a bit about those who use it to describe GLBT posters.

[izquierdista]

6. I think this makes Obama more like FDR

And I admire him for it. Seventy years ago, FDR was pleasant and accommodating to Southern senators, ones whose votes he needed and who blocked any mention of civil rights for colored people (as they were known in polite company at the time). So pleasant in fact, that they thought they had his ear on all matters, not just improving the economy of the region.

Obama has taken a page from FDR and pretends to listen to those who are not worth listening to. When they say something rational, they are complimented for being wise beyond their years; when they spout their usual hate and intolerance, they are given a broad smile and a deaf ear. From what I've seen of Obama over the course of the campaign, I trust his selective deafness. What would make the historic analogy complete would be if Michelle made it a point to stop in and visit at all the gay community centers while on her official travels.

This will blow over soon enough. And after people forget that Rick Warren asked his imaginary sky-friend to smile down on everyone at the inauguration, an openly gay Cabinet member and several openly gay advisers will go to their jobs every day in the Obama Administration. That's more than the number of colored people that FDR was able to have as Cabinet secretaries or advisers.

[nichomachus]

13. Wrong, wrong, wrong

Listening to people is one thing. Endorsing their point of view and giving them a platform to speak -- as a slap in the face to many people in your own base -- is something completely different.

Nobody is saying that Obama shouldn't be pleasant to people on the other side. I would expect him to do that.


This isn't what's going on here.

(Edited to change "should" to "shouldn't")

[izquierdista]

14. A "platform to speak"

Even an atheist can listen to an invocation (although probably not without rolling his eyes or snickering). It's not really a platform to say anything of substance, and in actuality dismissive, as in "you can get up at the beginning and call the ceremonies to order, but we won't really pay any attention to what you have to say".

[nichomachus]

15. Being given a place to speak at the inauguration is extremely significant

They don't just pull names out of a hat. They think long and hard about these things. It is all laden with symbolism that tells us what's in the mind of the person being inaugurated.

This is why the Tuskegee Airmen are being specially invited. Obama is making a statement to the African American community. And, Rick Warren is being invited to make a powerful statement to the radical Christian right.

I don't give a shit what Warren says, since I won't be watching the event anyway. But, the very fact of his invitation speaks volumes. It doesn't matter what he says -- unless he publicly repudiates his hatred of gays, something I don't think is going to happen.

Imagine if they had invited Bishop Gene Robinson to give the invocation. Evangelicals would be rioting in the streets as we speak.

[kenfrequed]

23. No more.

For the love of some diety, please no more analogies to FDR. I want to see an extremely progressive policy BEFORE I will abide by one more of these comparisons.

You cannot just float FDR on the basis of being accomodating to your political opposition. That is not even close to the reason FDR was respected as one of the greatest American Presidents of the twentieth century.

If Obama manages a single payer-universal healthcare program then I will accept such camparisons. If he restarts the WPA and rebuilds our infrastructure I will consider it. If he garauntees a living wage for all Americans then I will think about it. If a lifetime education initiative garaunteeing free education for all when we lose our jobs is created then I think you might have something.

This is the scale of what FDR accomplished and he managed it before and during an actual full scale global conflict in two theaters. And Wallstreet was so afraid of him they plotted a coup detat to do away with him and usher in a corporatist-facist state.

Inviting your political opponents in to hamstring you, contort yoru positions, audduce an oppositional ideology, and lend credibility to bigotry is not a good idea politically, pragmatically, intellectually, or ideally. It has little if nothing to do with the real legacy of FDR and has everything to do with weakening and watering down a progressive agenda.

<edited for clarity>

[IndianaJones]

7. we mock them with hundreds of recs. nt.

[Maven]

8. There are some who do nothing but mock those with legitimate objections

because they're part of the majority and they don't care.

They're not progressives, no matter what party they belong to.

[bvar22]

9. K&R

Did you mean "INTOLERANCE" in the last sentence?
I've never known Warren to preach "tolerance" or acceptance.

I also object to the collective "We".
Not everyone at DU is OK with the open mockery, intolerance, and plain ugliness on display here.

If you examine those posts, you will find that they come from the DU "Centrists".
What can you realistically expect from someone who proudly labels themselves as "1/2 Republican"?


The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[Metric System]

11. It's mock outrage created by Clintonites under orders of HRC. Or so I've heard.

[Howler]

12. I agree!!!!

Just call me another whiner too. I am totally disgusted with Obama's choice of Rick Warren. I am still irritated over the Mc clerkin (spelling) debacle as well. :(

[Marrah_G]

17. I just put anyone doing the mocking on ignore

I don't need to converse with those who think so little of or GBLT members and friends.

[TankLV]

19. Aparently...

SOme things - and the assholes here who believe such bigoted things here - never change...

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. I mock people for being upset every day

:evilgrin:

[thewiseguy]

21. kick because some folks never learn.

[jonnyblitz]

24. i thought i had recommended this post earlier but i guess i didn't

so i did now. :hi:

[davidpdx]

25. Which is worse?

Mocking people or running around calling them bigots when you know very little about the person?

Judgemental aren't we?