Learning from Religion, Youth for Obama, and Bernie Sanders

It’s election day in the U.S. and with Democratic candidates facing tough races in several states, we take a look at what the left can learn from religious organizations, who manage to keep people coming back week after week. Does religion have a place in social justice movements, and does the right have a lock on religious motivation to act?

Joining us to debate the proper place of religion and spirituality on the Left are Michael De Dora of the Center for Inquiry, Reverend Osagyefo Sekou, Senior Minister of Lemuel Haynes Congregational Church, Kim Gandy, Fellow, Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School and former president, National Organization for Women, and Rabbi Michael Feinberg, Executive Director of the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition.

One year ago today Americanswere gearing up for the presidential election, and many of the volunteers and organizers that put Barack Obama in the White House were young and working on a political campaign for the first time.  A year later, we round up a few of them and ask whether they’re still involved. Lana Wilson, founder of Obamaerobics, Mike Jones, NYU sophomore and Obama 2008 campaign volunteer, and Ebonie Johnson Cooper, campaign organizer in Ohio and Pennsylvania join Elizabeth Mendez Berry, who wrote about the Obama  youth organizers and what they’re up to now for an upcoming issue of The Nation, to talk about what they’ve done and how Obama changed their generation.

Senator Bernie Sanders is always willing to share his opinion, and this week’s Sanders Unfiltered clip finds him talking about green jobs, and how environmental policy and economic policy do indeed mix. Thanks to Brave New Films for the video.

We also have a profile of a young environmental activist, recently honored by the Earth Island Institute’s annual Brower Youth Awards, from Rikshaw Films, and from RH Reality Check, a look at the way abstinence education and the lack of public health funding have led to HIV/AIDS infections on the rise in South Carolina.