Culture Wars

The Strange Return of the Sixties Radicals

Johann Hari | Posted 11.17.2008 | Politics

Read More: Global Warming, Bill Ayers, Vietnam War, Culture Wars, 1960's, Henry Kissinger, Politics News

There is still a distortion in our memories of the violence of the '60's. After condemning Obama for vaguely knowing Ayers, McCain boasted about his "close friendship" with Henry Kissinger -- and nobody noticed the dissonance.

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An Open Letter to President-Elect Obama About Abortion: From a Pro-Obama and Pro-Life Leader

Frank Schaeffer | Posted 11.12.2008 | Politics

Read More: Abortion, Obama Religious Right, Culture Wars, Obama Transition, Religious Right, Obama Abortion, Barack Obama, Politics News

Yes, it's all about the economy. But no one should kid themselves: the culture wars have the potential to sap the energy from your best initiatives.

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After the (Grand Old) Party: Don't Go Home Just Yet

Shahid Buttar | Posted 11.11.2008 | Politics

Read More: Supreme Court, Barack Obama Presidential Transition, Obama Election Day, Grassroots, Obama Presidency, Obama's Cabinet, Obama, Obama Transition, Executive Power, Barack Obama, Culture Wars, Pakistan, Christopher Shays, Marriage Equality, Change, Robert Gates, John Kerry, Electoral System, Gop, Community Organizing, Newt Gingrich, Domestic Spying, President Obama, Obama Administration, Obama White House, Obama Priorities, Obama Issues, President Elect Obama, Politics News

If the crowds celebrating Obama's victory go home in 2009, his Administration will achieve disappointing results. The President-Elect will confront a variety of national and global crises.

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Premature Emancipation? A Pragmatist's View of the Gay Marriage Struggle

Gary Cohan | Posted 11.05.2008 | Politics

Read More: Lawrence vs. Texas, Mormon Church, Karl Rove, Culture Wars, Ballot Initiative, Theocracy, U.S. Constitution, 2008 Election, Homosexual Rights, Civil Rights, U.S. Supreme Court, California Gay Marriage, Red States, Gay Rights, Human Rights, Ban on Gay Marriages, American History, California Supreme Court, Women and Politics, Religion and Politics, Premature Ejaculation, Separate but Equal, Separation of Church and State, Poltical Strategy, Gay Issues, Gay Marriage, Albert Einstein, Prop 8, No on Prop 8, Church of the Latter Day Saints, Yes on Prop 8, Mormon Prop 8, Politics News

Civil rights are not won in the war zone of national elections or State referenda but, rather, in a series of small but important evolutionary steps.

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Culture of Lies

Scott Swenson | Posted 10.28.2008 | Politics

Will any brave and clear-sighted Republicans realize that rather than throwing McCain a lifeline in this election, far-right extremism has further isolated McCain, and the party, from mainstream Americans?

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Ideology Takes a Breather, Maybe

Jared Bernstein | Posted 10.19.2008 | Politics

Read More: Culture Wars, Nationalizing Banks, Wall Street Crisis, Economy, Barack Obama, Ideology, Politics News

If we play our cards right, some deeply embedded and highly destructive ideology may collapse just as hard as an overleveraged investment bank.

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John McCain is Channeling Nixon Now

Dave Winer | Posted 10.04.2008 | Politics

Read More: John McCain, Obama, Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, Ayers, Culture Wars, Politics News

What McCain isn't telling you, and many Americans are too young to remember, is that there were two sides to the culture war of the 60s.

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YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, iPods, Enough!

Judy Muller | Posted 09.26.2008 | Home

Read More: Ipod, John McCain, Culture Wars, Twitter, Economy, Media, Facebook, Barack Obama, Wall Street, Sarah Palin, Financial Crisis, Youtube, News Cycle, Election 2008, Home News

Ah, for the good old days, before we were immersed in the free-floating anxiety of the nanosecond news cycle that follow us everywhere, telling us that the sky is falling.

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Why Clay Aiken's Coming Out Matters

Andrew Belonsky | Posted 09.25.2008 | Entertainment

Read More: Melissa Etheridge, Religion, Lance Bass, Gay, George Michael, John McCain, David Crosby, Culture, Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen Degeneres, Politics, Clay Aiken, Sarah Palin, Culture Wars, Christian Right, American Idol, Entertainment News

Aiken's outing is different in two notable, intrinsically entwined ways.

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Abstinence-Only Multimillionaire Funds 527 Attack on Abortion Issue

Scott Swenson | Posted 09.16.2008 | Politics

Read More: Raymond Ruddy, Culture Wars, John McCain, Abstinence Only, Sarah Palin, Comprehensive Sexuality Education, Contraception, Born Alive, Barack Obama, Abstinence Education, Politics News

Social conservatives -- emboldened by the addition of Sarah Palin to the ticket -- are promoting Culture War issues to shift the focus away from the economy, housing, energy, the environment and national security.

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How to Win a Culture War

Susan Neiman | Posted 09.12.2008 | Politics

Read More: Shameless Moral Values, Religion, Culture Wars, Cynicism, Sarah Palin Vp Pick, Barack Obama, Religious Values, Sarah Palin, Moral Clarity, Moral Values Democrats, John McCain, Religion in the Election, Politics News

The culture wars are not distractions from real political business: John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin may be cynical, but conservative enthusiasm for her is not.

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McCain/Palin Flash Rove's Racial Gang Signs

Leonce Gaiter | Posted 09.08.2008 | Home

Read More: Karl Rove, John McCain, Culture Wars, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Home News

McCain is painting a vulgarized vision of the Reagan's America -- an iconographic vision of a long-dead past packaged as change for tomorrow. And he's hoping that working-class whites will fall for it.

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God and Taxes: Culture Wars as Class Conflict

Joan Williams | Posted 09.05.2008 | Politics

Read More: Religion, Republican Convention, John McCain, Culture Wars, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Working Class, Middle Class, Politics News

Once you understand that class is cultural, you can see why the culture wars are a perfect medium for class conflict in a society where open acknowledgment of class is taboo.

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Sarah Palin: It's The Abortion Debate Stupid

Frank Schaeffer | Posted 09.04.2008 | Politics

Read More: Abortion, Culture Wars, Obama, Roe v Wade, Dr. Dobson, Sarah Palin, Democrartic Party, Sarah Palin Speech, Sarah Palin Reaction, Sarah Palin Convention Speech, Politics News

Do Democrats really perpetually want to lose elections to keep a small minority of Americans--the pro-choice fundamentalists--happy by keeping abortion legal up to the moment of birth?

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The Culture War Option For The Palin Convention

Jay Rosen | Posted 09.03.2008 | Home

Read More: Blogosphere, Liberal Media, John McCain, Culture Wars, Press, Daily Kos, Sarah Palin, Home News

McCain's convention gambit is now a culture war strategy. It depends for its execution on conflict with journalists and bloggers and on confusion between and among the press, the blogosphere, and the Democratic party.

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DEMOCRATS TAKE WARNING: McCain just closed the evangelical vote

Steven Denlinger | Posted 08.30.2008 | Home

Read More: Abortion, White House, Karl Rove, John McCain, Ronald Reagan, Culture Wars, Rotary, Dayton, Anti-Christ, George W. Bush, One-World Government, Obama, Hitler, Dukakis, Roe vs. Wade, The Prince, Oh, Sarah Palin, Machiavelli, Muslim, Evangelical Right, Dark Lord, George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle, Twig Palin, James Dobson, Steven Schmidt, Religious Right, Allison Orr, Home News

I was in England the last time a Republican candidate threw red meat this raw and bloody to the Conservative Right. It was the summer of 1988. Georg...

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Bring the Corpses Down from our Lamp Posts!

Richard Arthur | Posted 08.13.2008 | Style

Read More: Decency, Culture Wars, Ric Arthur, Gunther Von Hagens' Body Worlds, Advertising, Corpse, Cult, Richard Arthur, Modern Culture, Los Angeles, Death, Style News

Today, if you drive down any random street in L.A., you are treated to gory photos of corpses ten feet tall hanging from every street lamp.

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Jesse Helms: The Intimidation of Art and the Art of Intimidation

Kriston Capps | Posted 07.15.2008 | Politics

Read More: Mccain Arts, Culture Wars, Jesse Helms, Robert Mapplethorpe, Nea, National Endowment for the Arts, Politics News

Many of those who were furious at the censorship of Robert Mapplethorpe and others in 1989 were to be expected: artists, donors, students, members. One, however, was a shock beyond shock art: Jesse Helms.

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Obama On Pop Culture: I Don't Want Filth On The Air

CBN | Posted 06.20.2008 | Politics

Read More: Obama on Pop Culture, Pop Culture, Don Imus, Barack Obama 2008, Barack Obama, Culture Wars, Lyrics, Sexism, Violence on Tv, Sex on Tv, Politics News

David Brody recently sat down with Sen. Barack Obama in a one-on-one interview. Brody asked Obama what should be done about the negative tone in today...

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America's 40 Years War at an End

Robert S. McElvaine | Posted 06.05.2008 | Politics

RFK and Barack Obama may come to be seen as the bookends of the second American civil war, a war that has divided the nation and been a dominant force in our politics for four decades.

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Which Side Are You On?

Larry Abrams | Posted 01.03.2008 | Politics

Read More: Bill Clinton, Culture Wars, Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, New Deal, Michael Bloomberg, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Clinton Years, Michael Dukakis, War on Drugs, Barack Obama, Structural Adjustment, McCain Iraq, Fdr New Deal, National Endowment for the Humanities, Robert Rubin, Hillary Electability, Rudy Giuliani, Ross Perot, John Edwards, Henry Paulson, Reagan Sandinistas, Hillary Clinton, Commodification, Free Market, Values Voters, Politics News

Getting rid of Bush will be good and great thing, but it doesn't make the case for Hillary Clinton. The problem with Hillary is that she doesn't really fit the political moment.

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