I’m reading the comments on Greta’s interview with Edwina Rogers. They don’t bode well.
chriskg for instance –
Let’s be frank about this, either she never read the Republican platform on values (which means she is inept) or she knows the platform and she chooses to lie about it. When she said, “…I don’t agree that the Republican Party is pro-life…” she is lying. There is no better explanation for it. She is pandering to her new audience and she must think we are idiots.
Consider the following from the GOP.com website. It states rather clearly that abortion is “barbaric” and that they want laws to protect the unborn with no mention of the life that may be at risk—the mother. This sure sounds like a “pro-life” position to me. Is she this unaware? Is she this naive? Let me quote directly from the GOP:
And then chris quotes, at generous length, and by god there’s certainly no ambiguity about the Republican party’s view of abortion. That doesn’t seem like a good sign for Edwina Rogers.
We’ve been around this mulberry tree before, more than once, when wrangling with all the people who rush to give The Atheist Movement advice on how to be better at manipulating and managing and persuading. We have this thing about truth and honesty and accuracy and not bullshitting. How can “I don’t agree that the Republican Party is pro-life” be anything other than bullshitting? If the Republican party is not anti-abortion rights then I’m a devout daily-mass-attending Catholic.
There’s also our friend John Horstman having a very unpostmodern temper tantrum at Rogers. You go John!
I look forward to the transcript. (Listen? Nah. Too slow.)
According to edwina, it’s only the atheist wing of the secular movement that has this thing about truth, honesty, accuracy and not bullshitting. The non theist (whatever the fuck that is) republican, pro life, pro choice pro gay silent majority, soon to be secular wing don’t really give a fuck.
That is what it looks like. I can’t see it working out well.
it seems to be that she’s so used to having everything she says accepted on general principle that she doesn’t expect this new community she’s dealing with to question her, or so any research of their own.
I had no real opinion of her, but that doesn’t bode well at all for her…
What was the SCA board thinking when they considered Rogers, let alone hired her?
Give me a break. You are all ridiculously naive about politics. Please shut up for a while and give her a chance. Hater liberals gonna hate.
The best thing about this appointment is that it’s exposing the massive lie that passes for “centrism” in modern political discourse. All of the self-proclaimed “centrists” I’ve seen defending the decision are defaulting to the very uncentrist position that holding Rogers to the facts equals saying “we hate Rogers because she’s a Republican”.
What was the SCA board thinking?
Assuming thinking was actually involved, they made the mistake of equating atheism (a belief) with secularism (a philosophy that is one path towards atheism). They made the mistake of thinking that a conservative who is sympathetic towards atheism is sympathetic towards secularism. They failed to recognize that conservatism in the modern American incarnation is a fundamentally nonsecular approach to the world that relies on faith, revealed truth, and blind adherence to authority, regardless of whether or not gods are imagined to be involved.
Rogers is a conservative, in every derogatory sense of the word. She doesn’t understand that people are capable of independent thought and can’t even imagine the idea that people value thought, reason, and truth. She doesn’t get the problem with telling easily debunked lies, or why that’s a particular problem when dealing with a bunch of people who care about secularism.
I understand that some people may be wary of associating secularism with a particular political ideology, but they can’t avoid the reality that a particular political ideology–conservatism–has intimately associated itself with nonsecularism to the point where followers of that ideology simply can’t be secular. You can’t make secular appeals to conservatives by hiring a conservative because conservatism is fundamentally religious, and you can either acknowledge that or stick your head in the sand.
Probably the same things as CNN.
Said people would then be decidedly unskeptical about their own political positions, and should be jettisoned because they will only create noise as far as politics is concerned.
Some might argue that Objectivism is atheist, and thus this is false.
They don’t know how religious Objectivists are.
Yes. As I said over at Greta’s blog, it’s like she is too used to lobbying politicians, and doesn’t realize that not everyone else is that stupid. It’s so inconvenient that some people are satisfied only by rational responses based on facts rather than good looking soundbites that fit with the listeners’ wannabe reality.
I was just able to read the transcript from Greta’s interview with Rogers. I have no sound on my machine so I had to wait for the written copy.
What everyone said here– she does not know how to connect with people in the atheist movement.
Frankly — I don’t think that she understands atheism. I do not think that she understand political movements that have grown out of people being oppressed, rejected, and silenced. She has never had to. That is obvious.
If she thinks that this is the same thing as nice safe hob-nobbing with senators and governors then she is in for a very interesting education. Can she handle it?
I don’t think so.
I suspect that the first thing that she is going to try to do is throw us under the bus and create her own fantasy “secularist” club that has nothing to do with the people who started the whole fucking thing in the first place.
Does she think that we will just walk away quietly after all the way we have come?
Edwina — you got yourself into this. If I were you I would run away before the shit hits the fan.
http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/powerhouse-republican-lobbyist-edwina-rogers-wraps-gifts-in-money/eohVY1bdzB7bTMTaHdejCA
Talk about privilege!
Silly Atheists! Always nattering on about such irrelevancies as “Truth”, “Honor”, “Facts”, “Reality”. Honestly, the Republicans got over that shit YEARS ago. Why can’t you just listen respectfully to your betters and do what you’re told, like those nice Fundamentalists?
JoeB – This is politics and she is a lobbyist. She is also a lawyer. She is also paid to be an advocate.
And that’s exactly why she’s apparently not a good fit. Now…the SCA is a lobbying organization, so it might seem that a lobbyist is just the ticket, but there’s lobbying and then there’s lobbying. Sort it by for-profit and non-profit, perhaps. It’s like the difference between commercial advertising and public interest advertising.
In other words, a lot of lobbying has nothing to do with respect for truth, but some lobbying has something or a lot or everything to do with respect for truth. Secularism is pretty far out on the ‘everything’ side of that spectrum. A lobbyist who says things like “the Republican Party is not anti-abortion” is all but announcing her lack of respect for truth.
The verdict is pretty well out on this one. The next step needs to be a statement and another interview by Greta with the “deciders” at the SCA who hired Rogers. It’s unavoidable, asn the quicker they get to it, the less damage control needed later.
Anyone else wondering how much JohnD is getting paid to troll every.single.FTB. announcing how stupid everyone is for not adoring the SCA’s obviously bad decision?
Considering how she flaunts her wealth, I’d like to know how much she’s getting for the position too.
Greta has posted the transcript.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2012/05/08/transcript-of-interview-with-edwina-rogers/
I’m reading it. Hoo-boy.
It will be a Rogers-heavy day, I’m thinking.
Nah. It’s hard not to read all the blog posts about this hiring and not comment, so I don’t fault him for that. I do think it is funny, though, how he keeps trying to spin this as though she has some credibility to fall back on when a perusal of excerpts of her interviews on Fox News shows fairly conclusively that she has none. Rogers not only hides the truth but she will actively make up her own truth when it suits her.
And then in her interview with Christina, she admits to being a “conservative Republican”. It’s astonishing that a secular group would hire a wealthy conservative Republican for any position let alone the executive directorship! The onus is now on all of SCA’s member organizations (including some near and dear to FTB bloggers) to pull out of the relationship and break off all connection to the SCA.
And this business of “this is politics” – no it isn’t; not exclusively, and certainly not in the sense of “win the next election at any price including lying through your teeth.”
Even if we buy the “this is politics” excuse, there are politics she could have engaged in which would have been a lot more convincing. Robert B. nails it in a comment on a later post:
That’s “politics” too, but it’s politics that I think the freethought community as a whole would be much more willing to swallow.
By the way, Robert B. didn’t say that, he was suggesting something that Rogers could have said if she wanted to make the point she appears to be trying to make, but without the lying and reality-denying. I realize now the way I quoted it makes it sound as if Robert B. was saying that himself, which he wasn’t.
Ummm… okay gang. No need to think there is any kind of conspiracy (though I suspect many of you love to create vast conspiracies in your head). I am just me. I have been poking around here for some time and I usually have nothing to say to you all.
(PS – it is really easy to pop from one FTB to the next… It’s called the internet and there are these thingys called links!)
I will return to an old cliche… “Organizing atheists is like herding cats.”
You guys are so stuck in your Republican hate that you can’t see a good opportunity when it smacks you in the head. We can make the most progress toward changing the entanglement of government and religion if we work with Republicans.
I feel a deep remorse for how you are all trying to destroy this opportunity and I have a rich and seething revulsion for many of you. Just so you know.
Have fun trying to build your utopia on your own, with no compromise, no politics, no subtlety.
Sure sweetie. We’ll try to move the world toward valuing truth by not compromising on valuing, you know, truth.
You enjoy your seething revulsion. ‘bye now.
Sad about the “remorse” malapropism. I feel a rich and seething giggle coming on…
Oh honestly. For the thousandth time, this is not about Rogers being a Republican. This is about her being either a) a terrible liar or b) a delusional idiot. Neither of those is a good trait for a lobbyist.
Rogers said things about the Republican Party that are demonstrably untrue. She said the GOP is not overwhelmingly, as an organization, anti-secularism, anti-gay, and anti-choice. All of these statements can be disproved in under a minute by Googling the 2008 GOP platform. As such, they are bad lies. A good liar does not tell lies that can be that easily disproved. A lobbyist that is going to lie, and it’s often useful, needs to tell good lies.
If Rogers believed the lies she told, then she is being willfully ignorant. Someone who is willfully ignorant about the fact that one of the two main political parties in the US is overwhelmingly opposed to the goals of the organization she represents cannot be an effective lobbyist.
As near as I can tell, there is only one way this plays out.
There is zero chance that a right wing political hack who is used to relying on the latest Roger Ailes talking points is going to convince this movement that she legitimately represents us. It just ain’t going to happen. We are too reliant on critical thinking and honest debate.
The controversy is not going to die down over time. Eventually the SCA board will have to face facts and hire a replacement who is compatible with the movement. The alternative is going to be a slow and miserable death of the SCA as an organization.
I would rather stay at home alone.Let me see.Don’t dream away your time.I forgot to prepare the speech I’m supposed to give today.What shall we do tonight? Great efforts ensure the success of our work.Great efforts ensure the success of our work.It doesn’t make sense.I suppose you dance much.He dreamed of traveling to remote South Sea Islands.