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This is symbolically big. According to the e-mail the progressive radio station KPFA, the events sponsor, sent out explainint its decision:

We had booked this event based entirely on his excellent new book on science, when we didnt know he had offended and hurt in his tweets and other comments on Islam, so many people.

KPFA does not endorse hurtful speech. While KPFA emphatically supports serious free speech, we do not support abusive speech. We apologize for not having had broader knowledge of Dawkins views much earlier.

Ladies and gentlemen, the vanguard of Progressivism.

It is interesting to know that in the eyes of progressives like these, some religions are more worthy of consideration than others. Islam, generally speaking, is vastly more illiberal than Christianity. Somehow, though, Islam falls under the protecting veil of progressivism.

Mind you, I havent seen Dawkinss tweets on Islam, but based on some of his past tweets about Christianity, I would not be surprised if he were bigoted against Islam. But then, Dawkins hates all religion, so at least hes consistent. Anyway, in no way should Dawkins be silenced. Let him speak his mind, and let us meet him with better arguments.

It is interesting that a Berkeley church agreed to host one of the worlds best-known atheist abusers of Christianity. Within another decade or two, that church building will probably be turned into condos.

Is there a place in the US less open to free speech than the San Francisco Bay Area? Serious question. Richard Dawkins could come speak in Baton Rouge, where I live, and get a respectful hearing even here in the heart of Trumpsylvania. But not Berkeley. What does that tell you?

Read more here:
Richard Dawkins Now A Heretic To Progressives - The American Conservative

commentary By Brad R. Fulton | 16 hours ago

Clergy leaders with PICO Action Fund and their local federation, Faith in New York, demonstrate outside the hotel in New York's Times Square, on June 21, 2016, where Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is scheduled to meet evangelical clergy. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (RNS) Religious progressives made their displeasure with the Senate Republicans health care bill clear.

From the Presbyterian Church: Draconian cuts to health care are an unacceptable threat to Gods people. From the Church of Christ: Drastic Medicaid cuts will only create more chaos and pain for those already facing challenges. What would Jesus do? He would champion health care for all.

While such denouncements likely contributed to the bills imminent demise, religious progressives were by no means an organized force rallying in opposition to this bill. Why arent they more effective at engaging social policy discussions, mobilizing their base and influencing public policy?

Before we get to remedies, here are three factors that got religious progressives to this point:

It doesnt have to be that way. Religion is not condemned to being a politically conservative force, and progressive politics are not condemned to thin moral ground without recourse to the deep ethical traditions that flow in American life. We know this from the example of faith-based community organizing (FBCO) organizations. As detailed in our comprehensive National Study of Community Organizing Organizations, the FBCO field is growingsubstantially as it promotes democratic engagement across a diverse base of constituents and as it influences policy decisions at all levels of government.

A central player in the FBCO field is the PICO National Network, formerly known as the Pacific Institute for Community Organizations. Founded in 1972 by a Jesuit priest, PICO is not aligned with any one religion and its leaders come from a range of faith communities. Nor does PICO focus on a single issue; instead, it is organizing faith-based campaigns on immigration, health care, criminal justice and many other topics around this strategy. According to its website: PICOs path to building a more just world involves teaching people of faith how to build and exercise their own power to address the root causes of the problems they face.

The effectiveness and durability of faith-based community organizing underscores what we see as the two key commitments religious progressives must make if they want to be a force for good:

Making these shifts will be not easy. Moral sermonizing wont get much done. Conservative organizations like the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition redefined the way morality figures in U.S. politics in a way that freezes out progressives. Then there is the vast power of those whose wealth and privilege lead them to oppose all progressive socio-economic policy.

But religious progressives can overcome these challenges, whether by following our suggestions or a path of their own making. If they do, a decade from now our political landscape will be less distorted by economic inequality and more vibrant with a broader representation of democratic voices.

(Brad R. Fulton is an assistant professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.The views expressed in this opinion piece do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service)

Continue reading here:
How religious progressives can be more effective - Religion News Service

Heres a good one: Some Democrats are looking to force breakaway state senators from their own party to come back or be cut off financially. The group of Dems, which calls itself the NY Progressive Caucus, wants the state committee to demand that breakaway members return to the fold or lose all support i.e., state-party donations and help from local Democratic clubs. They even got the committee to schedule a vote on the issue Wednesday.

Now, its no surprise that mainline Democrats are irked at the breakaways known as the Independent Democratic Conference and headed by state Sen. Jeff Klein. The IDC generally makes common cause with Republicans and avoids the mainline Dems.

Whats more, the progressives seem to regard the addition of three minority senators Marisol Alcantara, Jesse Hamilton and Jose Peralta to the formerly all-white IDC caucus as a particularly hurtful betrayal.

But the bid to pressure the IDC is laughable. For starters, theres really not much the progressives can do. After all, the IDC doesnt need and usually doesnt get financial support from the committee.

Moreover, Gov. Cuomo, who heads the Democratic Party and who himself often sides with the IDC and Republicans, has yet to express any support for the effort.

Still, the progressives and other Democrats sympathetic to their cause continue to look to make trouble. Recently, the mainline Dems tried to sic Albany DA David Soares and the US attorney on IDC members over legislative stipends.

Thing is, ever since their failed leadership of the Senate a decade ago, most of the mainline Dems have proved themselves unwilling to work with their Republican colleagues (or the IDC) in the broader interests of the state.

If anyone should be cut off, it should be the mainline Democrats not a group like the IDC thats willing to work cooperatively with the other party and put New Yorkers interests first.

Continue reading here:
Progressive NY Dems' nutty attack on their party mates - New York Post

I quite enjoyed James Fergussons exploration of British Islam Al-Britannia, My Country. If it is done intelligently, I approve of someone accentuating the positive, reminding us that the majority of British Muslims have successfully integrated to a large extent, and that optimism is warranted.

But I have a couple of quibbles. He spends much time arguing that it is dangerously wrong to conflate conservative Islam with extremism the alleged sin of the Prevent programme. We should tolerate those who disparage gay rights or feminism, rather than accuse them of extremism, which will drive them underground.

Fair point, but I feel his argument misses a central issue. If conservative Islam disparages pluralism, and the secular nature of our politics, and idealises theocracy, then it surely overlaps with extremism. You could say that an extremist is a conservative who wants to put his ideas into practice.

At one point he discusses an imam called Suliman Gani. Like all imams, he believes in and prays for the global establishment of an Islamic state. But this is an almost abstract ambition for some unspecified time in the future; it is part and parcel of being a Muslim

The question is: is such a belief compatible with affirming liberal values? It is unhelpful for liberals like Fergusson to shout Of course! How dare you doubt it? The question must be carefully explored, which means admitting Islams traditional gravitation to theocracy. And Fergusson doesnt really go there.

My other quibble is hard to express. Fergusson, a vague cultural Christian or post-Christian, finds Islam spiritually enriching, dynamic, authentic whereas church worship often feels dead. In mosques, it was impossible not to notice the youthful energy on display, the vibrant sense of belonging to something bigger than the sum of their selves. And the call to prayer still puts the hairs up on the back of my neck in a way I have seldom experienced in church.

Hmm. Islam has an exotic community vibe that underlines the weakness of our own traditional religion; it feels more mysterious, more holy. This conclusion is very suitable to the agnostic mind. Religion is most compelling in the form which ones liberalism precludes one from, confirming the virtue of ones agnosticism. A more serious inquirer would ask whether religion can be both ideologically defensible and emotionally and aesthetically vital.

Go here to read the rest:
How tolerant should liberals be of Islamic theocracy? - Spectator.co.uk (blog)

Would you go to war against your fellow Americans to show your support for President Donald Trump? For the last several months, thats exactly what broadcaster Alex Jonesa favorite of the presidenthas been calling for.

In his radio show, on YouTube and on his Infowars website, Joneswho never met a conspiracy theory he didnt likeand who has pushed the notion that Sandy Hook was fakedhas been announcing that the United States is on the verge of a bloody second civil war. Like the radio DJs in Rwanda, Jones has been egging on his conservative listeners and viewersan estimated 2.7 million people monthlyto kill more liberal fellow citizens over their political differences.

Jones is hardly alone in promoting this scary, emerging narrative on the right. The theme gained momentum after the shooting at the congressional baseball game last month. The day before the attack, on June 13, right wing broadcaster Michael Savage, host of syndicated show The Savage Nation, warned that theres going to be a civil war because of what this left-wing is becoming in this country. After the baseball field shooting the next day, he said that he know[s] whats coming, and its going to get worse. Savage also said of the shooting that this blood is on [Democrats] hands.

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After the shooting, Newt Gingrich opined on Fox that we are in a clear-cut cultural civil war. Former GOP speechwriter Pat Buchanan wrote that the appointment of a special prosecutor and political street clashes presage a deep state media coup and that the nation is approaching something of a civil war, and its time for Trump to burn down the Bastille.

But few commentators can match the relentless hysteria and reach of Jones. His recent YouTube video titles telegraph the tone: Get Ready For CIVIL WAR! and First Shots Fired in Second US Civil War! What Will You Do? and Will Trump Stop Democrats' Plan for Violent Civil War?

Joness followers have already turned broadcaster words into violent action. Last year, Edgar Maddison Welch drove from North Carolina to Washington, D.C., to fire on a pizza restaurant Jones had been saying was a front for Democratic pedophiles and Satanists. Court records indicate he had been talking to his friends about Joness theories before he went on his mission. In 2014, a right-wing couple, self-described Infowars fans Jerad and Amanda Miller from Indiana, killed two police officers after posting screeds on Infowars. Jones later theorized that the shooting was a false flag intended to discredit the right.

Media Matters for America (MMA), a progressive research organization, has staff assigned to track Jones Infowars shows daily. According to spokesman Nate Evans, right-wing media has been advocating violence more since Trump was elected, but Jones has been particularly crazy about it.

Among the statements MMA has culled from his broadcasts in recent months are the following:

On June 23, he accused the left of starting civil war and offered to personally execute convicted traitors because, he said, Im not going to sit here and just call for stuff without actually being part of it. In the same broadcast he said, I dont need some coming-of-age deal to kill a bunch of liberals, but we have to start getting ready for insurrection and civil war because theyre really pushing it.

On June 15, he warned you kick off Civil War 2, baby, youll think Lexington and Concord was a cakewalk. The day before, he implicated himself and his listeners: Youre trying to start a civil war with people. Youre taking our kindness for weakness. Do you understand the American people will kill all of you? You understand? We are killing machines, you fools. But I can shoot bulls-eye at 400 yards, dumbass. I mean, they have no idea who theyre messing with."

In a May 13 broadcast, he warned that "leftists want a war," so cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.

Jones has also called for extrajudicially arresting former FBI DIrector James Comey and Hillary Clinton and has encouraged Trump to use the military against dissenters. "I'd support the president right now moving against these people physically, he said in a June 13 broadcast. I mean, let's be honest. We're in a war. I would support the president making a military move on them right now."

This is not the first time Jones has attracted attention by advocating violence against federal officials. In April, he let loose with a rant on California Democrat Adam Schiff, the ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee looking into Trumps Russian connections. The profanity laced transcript was also homophobic and included an explicit threat of bodily harm.

Im not against gay people. OK. I love them, theyre great folks. But Schiff looks like the archetypal cocksucker with those little deer-in-the-headlight eyes and all his stuff, Jones said. And theres something about this fairy, hopping around, bossing everybody around, trying to intimidate people like me and you, I want to tell Congressman Schiff and all the rest of them, Hey, listen, asshole, quit saying Roger and Iand Ive never used cussing in 22 years, but the gloves are offlisten, you son of a bitch, what the fucks your problem? You want to sit here and say that Im a goddamn, fucking Russian. You get in my face with that, Ill beat your goddamn ass, you son of a bitch. You piece of shit. You fucking goddamn fucker. Listen, fuckhead, you have fucking crossed a line. Get that through your goddamn fucking head. Stop pushing your shit. Youre the people that have fucked this country over and gangraped the shit out of it and lost an election. So stop shooting your mouth off claiming Im the enemy. You got that you goddamn son of a bitch? Fill your hand. Im sorry, but Im done. You start calling me a foreign agent, those are fucking fighting words. Excuse me.

Tim Johnson, a Media Matters for America Research Fellow, who tracks Jones says that the civil war theme is a new one, and probably related to the fact that Barack Obama is no longer president, offering a clear, single enemy. He needs something new, and so its that criticism of Trump equals civil war, Johnson said.

An attorney with expertise in federal law told Newsweek at the time that Joness threats at Schiff appeared to break a federal law, U.S. Code Title 18, Section 115, which makes it illegal to threaten to assault a U.S. official and provides a penalty of up to six years in prison.

After Newsweek published that legal analysis, Jones publicly pulled back, and posted a video attempting to clarify his remarks as clearly tongue-in-cheek and basically art performance.

Federal officials are not known to have contacted him or looked into the matter.

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Alex Jones and Other Conservatives Call for Civil War Against Liberals - Newsweek