Progress Illinois

Before federal authorities launched a military-style raid last spring on the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, IA —rounding up and trying hundreds of undocumented immigrants for simply going to work—the Chicago-based Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA) knew that trouble was brewing.

Reports had surfaced that the management at Agriprocessors, the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking company, was condoning exploitative labor practices as their largely Guatemalan-born workforce struggled to subsist on poverty pay and garnished wages. JCUA and its allies from the Jewish community and beyond knew they had to take a stand.

“Then the raid happened,” JCUA’s executive director Jane Ramsey tells us. “And a light was shed on Agriprocessors and the depth of the abuse was beyond our comprehension.”

I sat down with Ramsey to learn about her experiences in helping the people of Postville put their lives back together.

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Since the government began working with faith-based organizations, there have been safeguards in place to protect the constitutionality of such partnerships. For instance, tax dollars could only support secular programs and religious discrimination with public funds was not permitted.

That was until George Bush came into office and created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. David Kuo wrote a tell-all book about his experiences in the agency two years ago, documenting how it was used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and voters of color, who traditionally vote Democratic. When it actually contracted out service programs, Bush subverted the separation protections. Here's Steve Benen, who worked at Americans United for Separation of Church and State at the time:

George W. Bush decided he wanted to re-write the rules. His White House identified those safeguards and renamed them “barriers.” To protect the First Amendment and the interests of taxpayers, the president said, was to stand in the way of churches helping families in need. The safeguards, Bush insisted, had to be eliminated.

As a result, many progressives were alarmed this morning when a report came over the AP wire that Barack Obama was not only expanding Bush’s program, but supporting the office's ability "to hire and fire based on faith." Thankfully, AP had it entirely wrong. TPM Election Central excerpts the speech and finds that Obama has promised to strengthen the constitutional safeguards, not abandon them:

"Now, make no mistake, as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don't believe this partnership will endanger that idea - so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them - or against the people you hire - on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we'll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work."

This is great to hear from Obama. While Bush has perverted the idea of contracting with faith-based organizations, they can be effective means to lessen the strain of those living in concentrated poverty or without health insurance. That's not to say that all resources should be funneled into congregations nationwide. But it's a tool that Democrats should access under the right conditions.

Last week, Chicago's Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies shut down its exhibit "Imaginary Coordinates" after museum donors complained that the show portrayed an "anti-Israel" bias. The exhibit had featured maps that conflict with the current national boundaries of Israel. While the curators didn't reveal what specifically had sparked the complaints, they said the decision was based on a desire not to offend members of the Jewish community, its "core constituency." However, many of those criticizing the closure of the exhibit come from the very Jewish community that Spertus claims it did not want to offend.

Blogging at Jewschool, Rabbi Brant Rosen argues that "intelligent exploration and provocative debate is precisely what belongs at a Jewish institution." And at the Sun-Times, columnist Neil Steinberg had this to say:

If the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock teaches us anything, it is the limited benefit of bulldozing forward without regard to conflicting viewpoints. We condemn the Palestinians for feeding their children a narrow view of the world. And then we take a page from them and spike an exhibit because some aspect makes the check-writers uneasy. Shonda fur di goyim. From a Jewish museum, we expect better.

In last week's Time Out Chicago, Lauren Weinberg noted that "Imaginary Coordinates" had been lauded by critics.  She went on to draw a contrast with other museums' handling of similar controversies:

When controversy hit New York’s Jewish Museum in 2002 and the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1999, those institutions acknowledged viewers’ sensitivities but kept their exhibitions—and a meaningful dialogue—open.

Interestingly enough, the Spertus website still proudly displays the glowing reviews received by "Imaginary Coordinates."

In a move unimaginable four years ago, Barack Obama has decided to use campaign resources to defend against the scourge that is the right-wing smear e-mail. The Guardian reports: 

Barack Obama is recruiting senior staff to a new unit which will combat virulent rumour campaigns on the internet that threaten to cost him votes in the presidential election against John McCain.

The unit is part of a huge expansion of Obama's campaign team as he shifts from the Democratic nomination race to the campaign for November's election.

Unfortunately, the article offers no further details on how the unit plans to counter the viral emails.

Whatever their approach, these staffers have their work cut out for them. Despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, an AP-Yahoo poll conducted April 2-14 found that 15 percent of voters think Obama is Muslim. While this rumor shouldn't be treated as a de-facto source of shame, it's certainly problematic from a political standpoint.

While it had been rumored that Clinton supporters had been using Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeramiah Wright in their attempts to woo superdelegates, senior Clinton adviser Harold Ickes more or less confirmed it in an interview with TPM Media's Greg Sargent today. Ickes acknowledged that the Wright controversy is a common topic in the conversations between the Clinton camp and various superdelegates:

In a reference to Wright's controversial views, Ickes continued: "Nobody thinks that Barack Obama harbors those thoughts. But that's not the issue. The issue is what Republicans [will do with them]...I think they're going to give him a very tough time."

Asked whether he was specifically bringing up Wright to super-delegates, Ickes said: "I've said what I've said...I tell people that they need to look at what they think Republicans may use against him. Wright comes up in the conversations."

Classy stuff.

Also of note during the interview: Ickes made it clear that, despite Clinton's near constant emphasis on the need to make every vote count in the remaining primaries, the campaign plans to continue wooing superdelegates even if she ultimately ends up trailing Obama in the popular vote.

From Neil Steinberg's column in today's Sun-Times:

Rev. Billy Graham pooh-poohed the emerging civil rights movement, mocked peace protesters and sang amen to Richard Nixon's anti-Semitic slurs. Yet he is our nation's revered elder reverend. Rev. Jerry Falwell blamed the 9/11 attacks on American feminists and gays. Yet John McCain gave the commencement address at his Liberty University in 2006.

Most any clergyman will, over a career, utter comments ranging from ill-advised to idiotic. Which is why I have resisted -- until now -- the urgings of readers to weigh in on the controversy over Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. My initial reaction was, "Who cares?" But the issue continues to echo, so people must care.

Who? People already looking for something to bash Obama with, I'd say. If guilt by association with Wright is the best they can do, they're in trouble. Were Obama the standard hack, he'd have already dumped Wright. But he isn't, and he hasn't. Obama had the rare -- in my mind, courageous -- response of acting not like a politician, but likea real person. Who challenges their religious leader over dumb utterances? I've heard a lot of rabbis utter a lot of nonsense over the years and never once went up afterward to say, "What a load of b.s., rabbi." Only in political fairyland do you automatically denounce clergy for expressing an extreme opinion. In life, you squirm and move on.

Appearing on MSNBC yesterday, the Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet falsely suggested that Barack Obama hasn't addressed Rev. Jeramiah Wright's controversial comments about Israel. At issue are remarks about Israel in the "pastor pages" of Trinity United Church of Christ's newsletter and particularly their republication of an LA Times op-ed by Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzook.

Here's the exchange with host Andrea Mitchell:

MITCHELL: In one bulletin, the remarks of a Hamas leader were reprinted and circulated to the parish -- to the congregation, rather -- quoting the Hamas leader, "Why should any Palestinian recognize the monstrous crime carried out by Israel's founders and continued by its deformed modern apartheid state?" [U.S. News & World Report editor-in-chief] Mort Zuckerman and Lynn Sweet rejoin me again.

Lynn, how difficult is this going to be for Obama? Does he have to do more explaining? Does he have to meet perhaps once again with Jewish leaders to try to reassure them that these are not his views as well?

SWEET: Andrea, yes, yes, yes, and yes on everything you're saying. Senator Obama's been trying to spend much of the last year in shoring up his support in the Jewish communities. He had a meeting a few weeks ago in Cleveland with 100 Jewish leaders there and activists. If you want to cut him slack and cut him a break on what he knew or didn't know about Jeremiah Wright's sermons, when you have your church bulletin print some of this stuff and you attend it over years, how could he not address it?

But contrary to Sweet's suggestion that Obama hasn't "address[ed]" the issue, Obama already "condemned" Wright's "views on Israel" in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), as Media Matters pointed out.

From the March 20 JTA article:

A pro-Hamas op-ed printed in his church's bulletin is "outrageously wrong," Barack Obama said. [...]

"I have already condemned my former pastor's views on Israel in the strongest possible terms, and I certainly wasn’t in church when that outrageously wrong Los Angeles Times piece was re-printed in the bulletin," Obama said in a statement emailed to JTA late Thursday, and referring to critics who noted that Obama had been in church when Wright had made controversial statements. "Hamas is a terrorist organization, responsible for the deaths of many innocents, and dedicated to Israel's destruction, as evidenced by their bombarding of Sderot in recent months. I support requiring Hamas to meet the international community's conditions of recognizing Israel, renouncing violence, and abiding by past agreements before they are treated as a legitimate actor."

Earlier today, I theorized that a "silver lining" around the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy is that it corrected the misimpression among many voters -- fueled by right-wing email smears -- that Barack Obama is a Muslim. My thought process was fairly simple: if these folks hear the word "reverend" enough, not to mention the "Christ" in Trinity United Church of Christ, they have to put two and two together at some point.

I guess I overestimated the attention being paid to such details: a Pew poll released today and conducted March 19-22 found that plenty of voters, including one in 10 Democrats, still think Obama is Muslim.

From the AP:

Fourteen percent of Republicans, 10 percent of Democrats and 8 percent of independents mistakenly think he is Muslim, according to a survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. Just over half of each group correctly identified him as Christian, while about a third said they don't know his religion.

The false rumor that the Democratic presidential candidate and Illinois senator is Muslim has been fanned on the Internet and conservative talk radio.

It has persisted despite the recent controversy over divisive remarks by his longtime pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Those saying they have heard a lot about Wright's comments are about as likely as others to say they think Obama is Muslim, the poll showed.

Perusing the Chicago Tribune headlines this morning, I let out a reflexive groan at the sight of the following:

Until recently, such a headline would surely have sat atop an article about the disconcerting number of Americans -- many of them Democrats -- who think that Obama is Muslim or irreligious. These damaging misconceptions are largely due to a rash of smear emails that have circulated widely during the past year. Back in January, a press pool report by Time's Mark Halperin showed how common it was for Obama to face questions about his faith (or purported lack thereof) from voters on the campaign trail:

He reached over the counter and shook hands with workers at the Subway sandwich shop.

Zanata Moore-El asked Obama if he was an atheist.

“I’m a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ,” Obama replied. “Don’t read e-mails.”

Similarly, a report by CBS' 60 Minutes prior to the March 4 primaries came across voters in Ohio who had "been told" that Obama was Muslim. Here's what one had to say:

"There are a couple issues with him I'm not too clear on. ... I'm hearing he doesn't even know the Pledge of Allegiance. He wouldn't use the Holy Bible. He's got his own beliefs -- with the Muslim beliefs. A couple issues that bother me at heart ... This is what I've been told."

But if there's one good thing about the Rev. Wright controversy, it's this: there are now a lot fewer Americans who think Obama is a Muslim.

For instance, that Tribune headline that illicited my groan? Turns out it accompanied an article that focused entirely on Obama's Christian church and made no mention of the Muslim rumors.

Well, thank God for that.

... and the next thing you know it's on the chalkboard:

A Delaware state human relations commission is investigating allegations that a fifth-grade teacher told her class she wouldn't vote for Barack Obama because he is "scary" and a Muslim.

The mother of a 10-year-old student complained, saying her daughter's teacher made the comments during a mock primary on Super Tuesday last month at a southeastern Delaware elementary school. The student is a Muslim.

The Democratic presidential candidate is a Christian, but he's had to fight against false Internet rumors suggesting he's really a Muslim intent on destroying the United States.

For more about these damaging online whisper campaigns, check out our post from a couple days ago.