An Important Question I've Never Seen Asked, And Would Like the Answer To

Update: Answered? See end of post.

I am convinced that nearly the entirety of the modern environmentalist movement is an attempt to obtain absolution for modern First World life.

Why one would think they need absolution for that is beyond me.

-- Alexthechick

I read this wrong the first time and did not see the words "modern environmentalism movement." The way I read it -- and frankly, I like my misreading better -- is that leftist politics generally is an attempt to obtain absolution for modern First World life.

Have more money than some urchins in Kinshasha? Vote Democrat; it's your redemption.

I would also say, in line with my observation that Dumb is Easy and Easy is Holy, partisan politics and placard-waving is the easiest possible way to assuage one's guilt over having it better than someone else.

Are great numbers of Obama Voters enlisting to do the harder work of achieving that desired absolution? Are they working in soup kitchens, signing up for the Peace Corps (a sort of secular missionary effort)?

Are they doing anything real about the troubles they claim to be so deeply concerned by, or are they just tuning into to Rachel Maddow's nightly revival-tent sermon to hear some more of that Old Time Religion?

Remember this video?

There have been a lot of claims that Obama supporters would pledge to give more selflessly of themselves on behalf of others.

Michele Obama famously claimed that Obama won't permit you to be complacent about all the evils in the world.

So here's my question:

Has there in fact been any measurable increase in charitable donations (of time or money) by the Obama coalition or the left generally?

The left is notably stingy and selfish with their money and time -- every survey and study demonstrates the right (especially the religious right, of course) gives more.

Obama repeatedly called upon his voters to do good in the service of mankind.

For example, per that article I just linked, the day before his first inauguration, Obama exhorted his supporters thusly:

Whether or not the Obama campaign realized it, that demand for faith was an updated echo of innumerable passages in the Gospels: "Everything is possible for him who believes"; "Whoever lives and believes in me will never die"; and so on. If the first component of the Obama creed was faith, though, the second was surely hope--the audacious hope whose name famously adorns one of the president's two autobiographies. We need only add charity to have what Catholics call the three Theological Virtues, which Paul mentions in First Corinthians. Perhaps we should not have been surprised, then, when a day before his inauguration, Obama breathtakingly upended the meaning of Martin Luther King Day, transforming a holiday devoted to the memory of a civil rights leader--and perhaps also to such ideas as equality, tolerance, and the evils of racism--into a day of public service. "It's not a day just to pause and reflect--it's a day to act," Obama announced. “Today, ordinary citizens will gather together all across the country to participate in the more than 11,000 service projects they’ve created using USAservice.org. And I ask the American people to turn today’s efforts into an ongoing commitment to enriching the lives of others in their communities, their cities, and their country.”

So: Have they?

Here is my guess: No, they have not, because if they had, the increased social giving of Obama's minions would be a frequently-noted phenomenon in the media, frequently cited as one of the things Obama did to benefit us all.

And frankly, Obama needs some Wins like that.

So if he had this Win, I assume the media would have told us about it.

Given that the media has not told us about it, I assume the opposite: that it has not in fact happened.

So I have two further questions:

1. Why does the media not report upon this? Whether Obama called the left into service and the left responded, or whether he called them into service and they did not respond-- it's a story either way.

What excuse does the media have, except for sheltering itself and its political coreligionists from criticism, for not reporting the less-flattering possible version of the story?

2. Hey, look, the media is not going to report this, obviously -- so why doesn't the right-leaning press look into the question and report the answer itself?

I just don't think that the hopelessly corrupt and self-dealing corporate media is going to blow the whistle on itself, or on President Boyfriend's inability to even inspire his own zealots into any tangible change in behavior, anytime soon.

We are now in the seventh or eighth year of the Obama Phenomenon, depending on what year you date it from.

Maybe it's about time the press tried to examine it dispassionately as a curious political phenomenon in need of explanation, contextualization, and actual evaluation (to wit: did it actually achieve its grandiose promises or not?), sometime this decade.

Of course, that would require the press examining Obama's voters -- that is, themselves -- as if they were exotic animals and irrational actors prone to sudden passions.

And of course we know the press reserves that sort of examination for the Right.

Grammar Note: On "borne" vs. "born."

I have to admit, I wasn't consciously aware (does this make me stupid?) that "borne" was the past tense and past participle of bear. Though maybe if you put a gun to my head and said "Tell me the past tense of 'to bear,'" I might have blurted it out as an educated guess.

Frankly, I had no idea that "born" was also the past participle and past tense of "bear," too-- but in the context of giving birth.

Jeeze, now that I look at the words -- well, it makes sense.

Answer?

posted by Ace at 05:41 PM

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