Progress? Or just “Next time, use the back door, please”
13 June 2009 by NaomiThe Secular Coaliton for America was invited to the White House. Call me a cynic… but, if 
Dobson/Robertson/Warren, et.al., get face-time with President Obama, why didn’t the SCA?
White House Meeting Marks New Milestone for Nontheists (June 1, 2009)
The nontheist movement reached a new milestone when the Secular Coalition for America had its first individual meeting with White House officials last week. Although the Secular Coalition had met with White House officials before, this meeting was significant as it was the first private meeting focused solely on nontheists’ interests.
The discussion, held with White House Associate Director of Public Engagement Paul Monteiro, gave Secular Coalition representatives the opportunity to highlight what policy issues concern nontheists most. Specifics topics addressed were coercive religious proselytizing in the military, the faith-based initiatives, and employment discrimination.
As the broadest and most diverse advocacy group for nontheists, the Secular Coalition has the credibility to provide our nation’s leaders with an understanding of nontheists’ political and cultural interests. More importantly, this meeting is evidence that nontheists are becoming an influential and increasingly organized constituency, and that elected officials want to take our concerns into account.
The goal of the Secular Coalition has always been to increase the visibility of and respect for nontheists in America. This meeting was one small step for the Secular Coalition, but it was a significant leap for nontheists everywhere.
Come on, folks! Is Ron Millar, acting SCA director, completely ga-ga over Obama? Just another “crusher”?
I am not black but I’ve been around long enough to know that pre-Civial Rights battles, good little black folk were advised on advancement: Sit down, shut up and don’t rock the boat — and you’ll get along real well. Doctors, educators — hell, even Jackie Robinson! — and anyone else who aspired to something better and higher than the little niche whites approved for them were convinced by parents and peers to become invisible. Conventional wisdom swore that that was the road to success. That was why they “got” their own colleges and fraternities/sororities: so that whites didn’t have to associate with them or (*gasp*) worry about them wanting to be your “frat-brother”.
Of course, it was harder to be invisible when your skin wasn’t white. And whites were watching the “ladders” just to make sure only white feet were on the rungs.
And don’t you dare marry a white person!
Gays? It’s easier to stay in the closet and get by — no worries about skin tones. Ask any gay who wants to run for office. Only Barney Franks and Tammy Baldwin are openly gay. The Democratic Party is not ashamed of them. The GOP is rumored to have several gays; I’m sure you’ve heard the same names I have. Notwithstanding Michael Steele, the Republican Party is made up of, almost exclusively, Old White Rich Fundamentalist-Christian Men.
So, back to Millar and his meetup: How much progress can we look forward to, based on his gushing press-release? White House Associate Director of Public Engagement Paul Monteiro? In DC-speak, Monteiro is nothing: if you’re not the Director or the Deputy Director, you can assume “associate director” is a jumped-up file clerk.
This, mi compadres, is NOT progress.
13 June 2009, on 9:38 pm
Agreed. Though I don’t expect face time with the president every time there’s a meeting, couldn’t we at least get someone who matters? May as well have met with the janitor.
13 June 2009, on 11:43 pm
Wait, has Obama actually met with Dobson and/or Robertson? I couldn’t imagine them meeting with anyone in the Obama admin. Let alone the Pres. himself.
14 June 2009, on 1:25 am
Brian, you’re correct. I don’t know that he has met Dob-ertson*TM*. Officially.
I just assume the worst, because he invited Prick Warren to give the invocation at his swearing-in. Although Warren delivered a “moderate” speech, I hung on his every word just to monitor the content. (I got a little kick out of the older, black preacher at the end. Rousing ol’time-y preacher with a motivational punch. But I may be giving him a pass…just because.)
Inari, I never really knew about titles, until I became friends with the Deputy Attorney General of my state, through DrinkingLiberally. If you can’t get to at least the “deputy ***” (or his/her appointment secretary), you’re a nobody.
14 June 2009, on 2:53 am
Granted, this is not progress. But it is something. A step? A baby step,maybe? A
foottoe in the door? It is not nothing.14 June 2009, on 6:44 am
gruntled atheist, I respectfully disagree, to this point: it feels like next to nothing. The official, a rank underling, is from a WH office/agency/department called, “Public Engagement”. :frown:
At Alternet, Steve Benen made this observation:
Handing Millar off to the underling, Monteiro, feels like lip-service. Now, if there had been other big well-established atheist groups (e.g., American Atheists) as part of a larger contingent, I would feel that my/our interests were being respected by the WH.
I don’t feel it yet.
14 June 2009, on 10:54 am
This was a lip-service, nothing event, designed to keep us in thrall. No Chief of Staff? Not even a cabinet secretary?
Oh, and we’re organized? News to me! I’ve been a political and union organizer, and I would call that claim a notch above laughable. If we’re organized, then I’m a talking ham sandwich! We can’t orgaize ourselves out of a paper bag! Organized. Hah.
It’s not like the administration will end faith based or prostelyzing in the military any time soon. I mean, look at the inaction concerning Iran’s election. Obviously a rigged vote to keep the corrupt and brutal Mullahs’ golden boy as the face of Iran, yet Biden on “Meet the Press” said they are “staying the course” with negotiations.
Again, the shadow political power of organized religion trumps real democracy and social justice.
14 June 2009, on 11:13 am
In one important way, it is a sign of real progress: public relations. W would never have been willing to do something like this because he was unwilling to stand up to the Christian extremists. By allowing such a meeting to take place, even if it did not involve high-level representatives from the administration, at least Obama is signaling that he will not bow to the Christian extremist contingent on everything. This seems like progress to me, even if it is mostly symbolic.
14 June 2009, on 12:40 pm
I don’t feel it yet.
Me too. But I must be optimistic. We are unorganized. We have no purpose that everyone of us supports. We have no organization that speaks for all of us. And there is an underwhelming minority of atheists that are even interested in the issues that we are interested in.
And yet we make a little progress here, a little progress there. And I celebrate each time as if it were a major victory, knowing (ok, believing) that in the long run there are too many of us to ignore. We will take our country back.
In the meantime, what vjack said.
14 June 2009, on 1:44 pm
vjack, maybe I went a little overboard with my cynicism. Gruntled, I don’t know about about an underwhelming disinterest, either. If there was any positive result of the Bush era, it was a bit of coming together insofar as ideas and a need to survive. However, the demographics do not bear in our favor except in the most cosmopolitan of areas.
So, I’m going to ask: what ideas and purpose would or could we all support? Personally, I think the challenge to the political power of organized religion, the associated violence and represssion that comes with it.
No matter how subtle of muted. It happens everywhere.
Anyone care to weigh in?
14 June 2009, on 1:49 pm
So, just checked and my point is proved:
In a recent diary, someone made the statement that von Brunn was an atheist as evidence that “dogmatic atheism” is just as dangerous as dogmatic christianity, or something along those lines.
The comments were loaded with people talking about the von Brunn and atheism, but the comments were flooded with incorrect assumptions about atheism and atheists.
Luckily, someone is is putting up a fight!
14 June 2009, on 1:50 pm
Sorry, my xhtml skills are rusty. That’s a diary over at Daily Kos..
14 June 2009, on 3:26 pm
DBR, those issues are excellent central points of agreement. It’s what the bloggers do during the Blogswarm Aagainst Theocracy. I was unable to participate for the last two years and need to ask BlueGal if it has grown.
But, still, aren’t we just saying these important things to each other? How do we get “outside the circle”? At present, we are little more than a “battered-wives’ support group”, trading horror stories and/or laughing at them.
Relying on a grateful, sycophantic SCA may retard our progress.
What we need is good PR. Some product placement would help: instead of giving the protagonist the de riguer “gay best friend”, why not make him/her an atheist. Some of my most respected authors seem to make a point early in their stories that the main character isn’t “really big on religion”.
14 June 2009, on 3:29 pm
So, I’m going to ask: what ideas and purpose would or could we all support?
Tough question, Rat. We cannot even agree on a symbol that means nothing more than ‘Atheist’. vjack, PZ, and many more have made valiant efforts that disintegrated into chaos.
Personally, I think the challenge to the political power of organized religion, the associated violence and represssion that comes with it.
This would be a good starting point and I could support any wording that contained that central idea. I get frustrated but not discouraged. It seems to me that we are in a process similar to a blacksmith pounding on metal and that with enough pounding something strong and focused will take shape.
My own thinking goes to the point that we are all Americans, that we are only standing up for the rights we already have but are being deprived of exercising, both legally and socially. It makes a mockery of freedom of speech that so many of us cannot even tell our own damn families that we are atheists and faith-based initiatives just galls my ass. I do not see how this statement is inconsistent with yours.
In the meantime we just keep pounding and thanks, Naomi, for this nice little article.
14 June 2009, on 3:59 pm
GA, you’re welcome.
When I read the piece on Alternet, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. And not in a good way, although not necessarily in a bad way, either. There was just a feeling in my gut that Millar is not our friend. Maybe it was the Pollyana-ish optimism (spin). That’s what press releases are for, after all.
But, mostly, it was the junior-junior underling he met with. Remember that 17% unbelief/too-lazy-to-bother equals roughly 51,000,000 people. In the United States alone! Europe is unbelievably secular. Our issues deserve respect. A minor player in Obama’s administration hardly qualifies.
Either we’ll muddle along for the next few decades OR the tipping point will come suddenly. I’d like to be around for it, either way.
14 June 2009, on 5:30 pm
I’d like to be around for it, either way.
Me too! But my time gets shorter as I type. It is for my grandchildren that I do what I can. Are you the truck driver?
14 June 2009, on 6:47 pm
I think Polyannish is a good description. “Oh, here’s a bone that Barack’s dog chewed on I like to give you. If you’re real nice, I may let him shit on your shoes”.
Oh, thanks!!!
BTW, I saw that report where they get the 17%. It really didn’t have any specific breakdown as to where the highest concentrations were. Has anyone found any kind of data like that?
Also, I do like the bus billboard campaign. I’d love to see it here in St. Louis, just to see how the dipshit catholics and the archdiocese would react.
14 June 2009, on 7:07 pm
I’ve been out of commision for too long and my curiousity got the best of me. What did vjack and PZ try?
14 June 2009, on 7:40 pm
DRB, here are Pew Forum’s latest stats:
Unaffiliated: 16.1
Atheist: 1.6
Agnostic: 2.4
Nothing in particular: 12.1
[Secular unaffiliated = 6;3; Religious unaffiliated = 5.8]
Don’t Know/Refused: 0.8
There is an omnibus poll conducted every ten years by a NY university. It is comprehensive and illuminating. I’ll find it and post it.
14 June 2009, on 7:42 pm
gruntled, yes, I am the truck driver. I haven’t hijacked GifS; I’m just covering for Stardust who has family in this week. I’ve had a DOT physical and seen a chiropractor for some numbness in two fingers on my right hand. Didja know that you use your right pinky finger A LOT? I sure didn’t…
14 June 2009, on 7:57 pm
DRB, check out the ARIS report. The .pdf is here (grab a pot of coffee) but wiki’s thumbnail is more manageable…
ARIS is American Religious Identification Study.
14 June 2009, on 7:58 pm
Thank you Naomi. Not to add to your affliction, but does it have a state by state breakdown? That’s what I was looking for.
14 June 2009, on 8:03 pm
Yes, it does. And by age, gender and — jeez, you name it!
14 June 2009, on 8:06 pm
I googled it. You rock, though.
14 June 2009, on 8:26 pm
From page 19 (by pdf count, not by table of contents), the ARIS report notes a startling trend:
14 June 2009, on 8:54 pm
I know! Amazing numbers in places I would never expect, like Wyoming. Vermont is the big winner with 34%, a 20 point gain in from 1990.
BTW, I’ve been monitoring Kos all day (mostly because of the Iranian election coverage they’ve been doing, since the mainstream media is blowing it) and there seems to be a phenomenon from that event; a plethora of pro atheist diaries. Ahmadinejad seems to have brought out the discussion, or so I surmise.
either that, or there’s been a lot of ignorance and discrimination going on, which not surprise me.
14 June 2009, on 8:55 pm
I can just imagine Obama saying; “Let him meet with a janitor or someone at that level, then stroke his ego and send him home.”.
14 June 2009, on 9:28 pm
Ron, I was just imagining Millar reading this post and saying, “Why the fuck can’t atheists be impressed with this? What is wrong with these people?”
If he does/is, he doesn’t know atheists very well. We don’t respect “teh cat-herders”…
And every time I think I’d like to see us all get together in person, I remember all the contortions and dust-ups when the RavingAtheistForum tried it (that was just when the RA himself was turning all “squishy” while dating a fundie, or so the rumor went). It was:
After the first coupla email threads, I dropped out. I could feel disaster looming.
14 June 2009, on 9:32 pm
Ron, I checked out your blog. great stuff!
As far as your analogy about the meeting, I can see it happening exactly like that. I’ve seen it before. It’s really not that unusual. Maybe not a janitor, but an empty suit at the most.
Ever watch “The Wire”? It just went off the air unfortuately, but there was one episode where they depicted such a meeting.
I mean, I would hope something comes from the SCA meeting, and time will tell. However, I’ve been in the room when decisions to use groups like this have occured.
Hence a partial reason for my cynicism.
14 June 2009, on 9:52 pm
DRB, just a little factoid on Wyoming, where I lived for ten years: Wyoming is 50th in population but 9th in geographical size. Any stat you find there means that fewer people are needed to move the needle. A jump from 63,000 to 126,000 (14% to 28%!) is a stupendous increase! But in a more populous state, 63K would be wonderful but not make such an impressive statistic.
For comparison, you might be interested in this: Australian tourists loved it — it looked just like home. Europeans hated it — unless they loved cowboys and fans of Western films.
15 June 2009, on 12:41 am
^^ DRB…to poke my nose in…
You nailed an item, above, which has been on my mind watching all the yapping about the Iranian election:
“Again, the SHADOW political power of organized religion trumps real democracy and social justice.” [Yeah, my cap. emphasis.]
Little, if anything, in my, albeit, limited observation, has been commented on in the News regarding the fact that fucking boneheaded clerics still rule the roost in ALL the Islamic countries.
One American/Iranian on CNN, today, came close to stating that fact, but most commentators are reticent (totally chicken shit) to really poke much at religion…ANY religion.
In Iraq it’s the Shiite “Shadow” assholes vs. the Sunni, etc.
[The "return of the fucking Imams" delusion. Or..more fucking Armageddon-ish bullshit?]
“In Reality” (What? Huh?), it matters little who ends up winning a so-called “Democratic”, but essentially “non-secular”, election exercise. Even amongst the more secular leaning citizens, belief in Islam rules.
In Israel it’s the ever-present “Shadow” power of the Torah/Zionist (Bible) faction; and in this country, the fact that respect is STILL paid to the Pope and fucktards like Warren, Dobson, etc. reveals the obvious not-so-Shadow influence of the Bible idiots.
Regarding any more hopeful signs of any real significant shift toward more secularism with Obama…
As I’ve said elsewhere…just ONCE…I’d love it if Obama completely omitted the Gob ending crap in one of his speeches. THAT might be a sign that “our” message has seeped through, just an eetsy-weeny, ’sneaky’ smidgen’s worth.
Oh…the public outrage, of course, if that happened!
One more…
It’s interesting to me, that when Obama’s background is ever mentioned; the fact that his dad was originally a Muslim who became…horror of horrors…an atheist (and evidently was an ‘alcoholic’) and died in a car accident, is hardly referred to. [
[Of course...that would certainly bring up that his dad was "burning in Hell; even as we speak"?]
And, of course, his mother was at LEAST agnostic, possibly even atheist; but the media plays up the white grandparents’ (heroic) military past, and of course, Xtian background.
Obviously, Obama seems to like it that way (D’uh!)…in other words…
“SHHH! ESPECIALLY don’t bring up that terribly rational, even un-citizen-like, heathen atheist influence!”
“And the beat goes on!”
15 June 2009, on 7:41 am
Bingo! There you go Chuck A! I couldn’t have put it better myself!
And what does the press say about it all? Not a damn thing.
I have to go to work and print the tee shirts (probably for a fucking CHURCH) but I’ll leave everyone with a thought:
What do we DO about the MSM? We can’t really do anything about Iran, or even our own goobermint (heh) at this time, but we could about the media.
Just a thought.
Also, what happened with all these organizing efforts that went to shit? I really would like to know.
The old organizer traaining is kicking in…
15 June 2009, on 11:33 pm
DRB, there may be some hope, although it will take some doing. Both AP and HuffPo have announced that that AP will be hosting investigative report, separate from newpapers’ bureaus. Four different groups that are all doing it now will be feeding AP who will feed the newswires. At least that issue will be invigorated. (I weep to remember Woodward and Bernstein’s dogged pursuit of Nixon’s peccadilloes and that it paid off with his resignation in disgrace.)
But I think you mean: How can we kill FNC and the virus that has corrupted the MSM? David Axelrod and others have guest-lectured at journalism schools, where, strangely enough, the graduates have been taught the same skills that our MSM learned. So the disconnect seems to be the publishers and editors, as well as the teevee news hierarchy.
Shorter: we should just fire the current reporters and editors and hijack the college papers, editors and reporters, all.
Or turn news into a non-profit under a government-protected trust.
Like that’ll ever happen…
16 June 2009, on 5:12 pm
As an atheist who has gotten his feet wet in political activism, I can tell you that the best way to be effective is to increase the membership in atheist or nontheist organizations rather than running them down. You want to get real attention for a cause? Hold up a sheet that says you have a couple of hundred thousand members. You’ll get a politician’s attention when he or she thinks they can send a fund raising letter to your list and get a half million dollars or more out of it. You think those religious organizations are getting all this attention because the pols are religious? Some of them are, but most of them worship money, and if you can bring them enough bucks, they’ll renounce religion, call all gods bunk, and spit on the ten commandments.
16 June 2009, on 8:27 pm
DBK,
Of course, you’re right. What the hubbub about the SCA’s meeting was the perception that they were being used, at least in my opinion. To score a meeting and crow about it right at the same time the Obama administration is going to bat for the defense of Marriage Act (a religiously motivated piece of legislation in many people’s opinion, mine included) doesn’t pass the smell test.
Coalition building is a goos thing. I would love nothing more than to be a successful cat herder. However, the climate is not ready wet.
BTW, sometimes the money can be good; other times not so much. Liddy Dole thought she could make hay against Pat hagin in the NC senate race last year when she attended an atheist meeting and took money. It would have worked for Dole had she not falsely accused Hagin of being an atheist.
Once people found out she taught sunday school, Dole was done. Dole took it too far.
Which is the problem; if it were true, Hagin would have been done. Especially in North Carolina.
Naomi,
You and i are thinking the same thing. Faux noise is the A#1 problem with the MSM. #2 is the for profit staus of the MSM. (Note: it was only in the early nineties that the network news agencies were required to turn a profit for their respective networks. Before that, all of them were considered public service; none were required to bring in ad dollars. And they wonder why the public doesn’t trust what they say.)
It is ad dollars that have eroded the news and politics.
I’d love to fix those problems. However, I don’t think we could do that in time to affect what’s happening in Iran.
I was thinking this; we pick a network (not Fux; they’d never listen) and complain to them that they are not covering the tehocracy angle enough. We spread the word around to other atheist blogs, get a little momentum.
Someone somewhat friendly; Maher or Olbermann come to mind.
And if it works we could then find out if people would be willing to do the email thing when an American fundie acts a fool…
You like?
16 June 2009, on 9:33 pm
Oops. Senator Kay Hagin.
17 June 2009, on 10:45 am
DRB, yes, I do like! Both Olbermann and Maddow, at MSNBA, have the “balls” and the public’s respect. At least the thinking public.
Speaking of “thinking public”: Don’t you think that part of the problem with Fux-the-News is that they draw most of their audience from xians who are conditioned to sit still, listen and never question? Remind you of anything?
The church!
18 June 2009, on 7:48 pm
Bingo, Naomi. Hammer meets head of nail.
BTW, I did write Olbermann, although I was dead ass tired last night and didn’t stay awake long enough to watch.