Culture Wars Continuing?

See full video here and comments:

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/28/5940666-coming-to-a-state-near-you-the-culture-wars

As I’m from Iowa, I noticed that several other commenters to Maddow’s blog had already added a bunch of links to issues here in Iowa:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011101230306

http://washingtonindependent.com/97563/federal-grant-agency-for-faith-based-organizations-lacks-oversight-transparency

http://iowaindependent.com/50094/vander-plaats-plans-99-county-tour-targeting-remaining-judges

http://www.bleedingheartland.com/diary/4537/new-abortion-restrictions-could-stall-in-the-iowa-house

http://iowaindependent.com/51490/iowa-gop-says-focus-is-economy-despite-push-for-gay-marriage-ban

http://iowaindependent.com/46519/anti-retention-leaders-iowa-just-the-start-of-gay-marriage-battle

Iowa is a good place to look at in trying to grasp where the culture wars are heading. Iowa is an ideological middleground and plays an important role as a testing ground for candidates.

Right now, the gay issue is big here in Iowa. There was an interesting speech given by Zach Wahls about his gay parents and it has received some attention from the national media:

https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/lawrence-odonnell-fighting-for-gay-marriage/

There is also the issue about the judges being ousted over the gay marriage issue. It was an important event considering the influence that big money had from out of state, but I don’t know how much longterm impact it will have:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/03/iowa-judges-gay-marriage_n_778100.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/us/politics/04judges.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2010/11/03/131032419/iowa-judges-ousted

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2010-11-03-gay-marriage-iowa-election_N.htm

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20101103/NEWS09/11030390/Iowans-dismiss-three-justices

http://iowaindependent.com/46917/iowans-vote-to-oust-all-three-supreme-court-justices

I think there is some danger with liberals/progressives focusing on the culture wars. It’s a waste of energy and a dissolution of focus because it can’t be won. The culture wars will die out on their own. Public opinion shows most Americans are closer to supporting liberal/progressive views:

https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/us-demographics-increasing-progressivism/

The culture wars gained momentum with the Boomer generation. And the only thing keeping it going is the Boomer generation. The Boomers were the largest generation until the Millennials were born. Yes, Boomers have been reluctant to give up power, but they are getting old. It’s inevitable that Boomers will increasingly be retiring and dying off. The younger generations replacing them are the most socially liberal generation this country has ever seen.

https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/a-portrait-of-generation-next/

The culture wars have left the national stage and turned to fight on the states for a simple reason. Public opinion is turning away from the culture wars. The moral minority of the religious right realizes they can only win fights by spending tons of money and energy on key issues in key states. They are effective in using this strategy. They may win many battles, but they are losing the war. Most Americans, especially the youth, are becoming less religious and becoming tired of the politicization of religious moral issues:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124793/This-Christmas-78-Americans-Identify-Christian.aspx

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/examiner-opinion-zone/2010/10/americans-seem-interested-trading-politically-active-church-figu

In a recent study, the majority of Americans wanted to see an increase in religious views among government officials and less of the church speaking out against the government. The polls are not necessarily conflicting though, said Jay Richards, senior fellow of Discovery Institute and author of “Money, Greed, and God.”

“Most Americans think religion is losing influence in public life and most view this as a bad thing. Most think that members of Congress should have a strong religious faith, but a slim majority also think the churches should steer clear of politics,” said Richards.

Two-thirds (67 percent) of Americans believe religion is losing influence on the American way of life. Approximately 62 percent specifically noted its decline on government leaders, according to the research released by Pew Research Center on Thursday.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130264527

One of the biggest changes over the past 20 years has been that more and more Americans, when polled, cite no religious affiliation at all. That group, which Putnam and Campbell call the “the nones,” “has been skyrocketing actually in the last 15, 20 years,” Putnam says.

“So it’s now, roughly speaking, 35 percent [to] 40 percent of younger Americans … who say that they have no religious affiliation.”

That’s a big change. For many years, the researchers say, only about 5 to 7 percent of Americans felt they belonged to no religion. The shift, Putnam says, is “a quite novel and interesting, significant development.”

As for the Americans who do belong to religious groups, tolerance is flourishing among them, too.

http://blog.thehumanist.com/?p=1335

[…] increasing lack of affiliation with any religion amongst younger generations in the United States, saying that the percentage of Americans in their 20s that declare no affiliation is now between 30 and 40 percent.

This comes on the heels of the recent news from the Pew Forum’s US Religious Landscape Survey that over 15 percent of Americans now report themselves to be unaffiliated with any religion. But looking at Putnam’s recent work, it is clear that there is a generational divide: young people are more secular than ever.

Why? Writing about Putnam’s speech, former George W. Bush speechwriter and Washington Post op-ed columnist Michael Gerson characterizes the trend this way:

The politicization of religion by the religious right, argues Putnam, caused many young people in the 1990s to turn against religion itself, adopting the attitude: “If this is religion, I’m not interested.”

And as ABC news reported on Putnam’s speech:

This movement away from organized religion, says Putnam, may have enormous consequences for American culture and politics for years to come.

“That is the future of America,” he says. “Their views and their habits religiously are going to persist and have a huge effect on the future.”

For just one example of this, look at the generational divide on support for marriage equality (found via Daily Kos)

Fifty-four percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday say marriages between gay or lesbian couples should not be recognized as valid, with 44 percent suggesting they should be considered legal.

But among those 18 to 34 years old, 58 percent said same-sex marriages should be legal. That number drops to 42 percent among respondents aged 35 to 49, and to 41 percent for those aged 50 to 64. Only 24 percent of Americans 65 and older support recognizing same-sex marriages, according to the poll. (emphasis added)

With full marriage equality in five states now and New Hampshire poised tosoon be the sixth, it is clear that the political landscape for marriage equality is shifting. The current generation of young voters are less likely to support future efforts to limit or repeal marriage equality. Hopefully Proposition 8 in California will be one of the last of its kind – while two-thirds of voters over the age of 65 supported it, the measure failed to gain a majority in any other age group.

While some of the political implications of this increase in lack of religious affiliation among young Americans are clear, another major question is, will it stick? Are young Americans going to be secular for good? As reported by Gerson::

Putnam regards the growth of the “nones” as a spike, not a permanent trend. The young, in general, are not committed secularists. “They are not in church, but they might be if a church weren’t like the religious right. . . . There are almost certain to be religious entrepreneurs to fill that niche with a moderate evangelical religion, without political overtones.”

Putnam’s book on this research is yet to be published, but I’ll be interested to read it when it comes out, because his discussion with the Pew Forum seemed to mainly focus on politics and the negative impact of the Religious Right on religious affiliation amongst younger Americans. But political and social views are only part of the picture. What else influences younger people’s lack of religious affiliation? In their report Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S., the Pew Forum provided additional research on this very subject, examining the reasons why Americans in general change affiliations or leave their former religious affiliations without adopting a new one.

Incompetence, graft in Brewer’s AZ private prisons, links to Abu Ghraib

I’ve many times complained about the sorry state of journalism. What often goes for journalism these days is whatever Fox News does with its fake scandals: Take highly edited videos and keep playing them until the rest of the media jumps on the bandwagon.

I’m glad to be proved wrong in my suspicion that real investigative journalism died long ago. Along with Wikileaks, the Rachel Maddow show puts out reporting that actually informs the public. It’s quite amazing because the following story is about Arizona which has been in the news more than almost anything else and yet no one else in the media had connected the dots.

(As a note, I think it’s important to point out that Rachel Maddow, like Wikileaks, is part of the New Media. Even though she is now on MSNBC, she began her career on Air America. It’s similar to MSNBC having hired Cenk Uygur who is one of the big names in New Media. It seems MSNBC is trying to bring New Media into the mainstream.)

Bill Maher: Cynical Truth

Rightwing Lies, Deceit, Fake Outrage

Watch this video. It’s the most truth I’ve recently seen in a single news report.

To summarize: Rightwingers are trying to destroy democracy as we know it.

Maddow on Women’s Healthcare

This analysis makes a lot of sense when compared to other data. In the poorest states (which of course includes the Southern states such as South Carolina), the rich vote Republican and the poor vote Democrat. Rich people in poor states don’t care about the poor. The politicians in these states do whatever they can to disenfranchise the poor and to fear-monger towards the electorate because otherwise they’d never get elected.

Maddow Reports on Rightwing Incitement of Violence

I’ve seen many news reports about the recent fear-mongering, hate speech and violence coming from the rightwing. Partly, it’s just a response to the health bill being passed, but of course it’s much larger as it’s been going on for a while now. On a smaller scale, this trend of militant rhetoric was seen the last time a Democrat was president. The 1990s was a hotbed of rightwing militia groups.

I’ve been closely following this trend in recent years. It certainly was amped up after Obama was elected and it hasn’t slowed down. It just gets worse and worse. If this trend continues, a major attack or assasination attempt is inevitable.

The above video stood out to me in pointing out why this matters. Maddow is a good reporter in general, but she hit the nail on the head here. The part where Pelosi speaks really touched me because I could sense the genuine fear that she was feeling. Maddow asks a very direct question:

“Do you think there is a cavalier attitude about the risks of political violence today? It feels like there are two ways to think about this. Either it doesn’t seem like a real threat to people and so it’s okay to flirt with it or it is a real threat and people are still stoking this ‘use of violence’ rhetoric knowing that that real possibility is there. Which do you think it is?”

Her guest was Cleve Jones who, like Nancy Pelosi, still has fresh memories of the assasination of Harvey Milk. Here is his answer to Maddow’s question:

“I think it is a very frightening, cynical, deliberate attempt to manipulate the fears of many people in our country. And I’m certain that Representative Boehner is old enough to remember, as I remember, how it felt to be an American following the assasination of President Kennedy, how it felt to be an American following the assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King. I remember as a child when the cities burned and I remember tanks going down the street in front of my school. Is that the kind of America these people want to lead us into? It is, I think, becoming inevitable that we’re going to see political violence. And that is a terrible thing for everyone in this country regardless of your position on these issues.”