Is The Left Getting Religion?

A self-identified Marxist recently posted on a socialist forum, uring "Marxists to recognize the reality of human spirituality" as a political force that will underpin the rise of any progressive majority. So says Katrina vanden Heuvel in The Nation.

She also writes of a Conference on Spiritual Activism in Berkeley that drew 1,300 "Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and spiritual but not religious people" interested in re-injecting religion into the regressive, er, progressive, movement.

They call themselves the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and here are a couple of their bright ideas:

• Push for a Constitutional amendment that would require corporations with more than $50 million in annual income to renew their charters every ten years by appearing before a jury of citizens and proving they had behaved in a socially responsible manner. [There are tens of millions of shareholding citizens who's views on what's socially responsible may vary a bit from the views of the panel these guys envision.]
  
  
• Create a G-8 "Marshall Plan" whereby five percent of the richest nations' GDP would be donated to "the most impoverished nations to fight poverty and guard against environmental degradation left over by decades of colonialism." [Can we quickly review just how well all the foreign aid going to former colonial nations has been spent? Would the thriving capitalist economy of India, a former colony, get some of that money?]
  
  
• Re-focus America's educational efforts around values like "caring," rather than "competition." [I fear re-focusing would require actually brining back values like competition; they're winning this battle.]
  

• Oh, and stop fighting to save our nation from that other religions group, Islamofascists, and bring the troops home.

Kudos to these folks; they're recognized that you cannot deny the inate spirituality of the human race. The Dems' poor performance in recent elections can be attributed, in part, to the fact that their fear of the "religious right" has led them to reject both "religious" and "right."

But the editors of the Nation, who hint that they've now got religion ... or at least spirituality ... need to realize that while it is a religion, the liberal religion of the Left is not the religion that's growing in America. Good for them for recognizing their spirit nature; just don't count on it for victory come 2006 and 2008.