Is the American political forum changing?

[DMB]

I was fascinated to read this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/opinion/15rich.html?_r=2

What has happened between 2001 and 2009 to so radically change the cultural climate? Here, at last, is one piece of good news in our global economic meltdown: Americans have less and less patience for the intrusive and divisive moral scolds who thrived in the bubbles of the Clinton and Bush years. Culture wars are a luxury the country — the G.O.P. included — can no longer afford.

Not only was Obama’s stem-cell decree an anticlimactic blip in the news, but so was his earlier reversal of Bush restrictions on the use of federal money by organizations offering abortions overseas. When the administration tardily ends “don’t ask, don’t tell,” you can bet that this action, too, will be greeted by more yawns than howls.

If he is right, what is happening is akin to what happened to the McCarthyites, as concerns about people who had ever been Communist faded into the background.

In our own hard times, the former moral “majority” has been downsized to more of a minority than ever. Polling shows that nearly 60 percent of Americans agree with ending Bush restrictions on stem-cell research (a Washington Post/ABC News survey in January); that 55 percent endorse either gay civil unions or same-sex marriage (Newsweek, December 2008); and that 75 percent believe openly gay Americans should serve in the military (Post/ABC, July 2008). Even the old indecency wars have subsided. When a federal court last year struck down the F.C.C. fine against CBS for Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl, few Americans either noticed or cared about the latest twist in what had once been a national cause célèbre.

[Ray Moscow]

Yeah, I liked that article. And I think things are changing.

Here's one change I'd like to see continuing:

Is the Israeli Lobby Running Scared?
Or Killing a Chicken to Scare the Monkeys
By Robert Dreyfuss (http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175046/robert_dreyfuss_the_freeman_affair)

It pisses me off to see a nutso lobby in thrall to a foreign power corrupt our political process and public discourse to the extent that this one does. But this last incident makes it plain who the main culprits and their puppets are.

Joe Lieberman: traitor to his party, and now his country. Bastard.

[DMB]

Interesting article. I wonder how the USA is going to react to the new Israeli Government.

[Ray Moscow]

Interesting article. I wonder how the USA is going to react to the new Israeli Government.

We'll probably continue kissing their asses continuously to the point of letting them dictate our ME policies and continuing to finance much of theirs as well. The mere possibility that we might not had these people in a panic.

[sohy]

I like Frank Rich and always look forward to reading his editorials, but I think he's either in a New York bubble or too optimistic this time. Either that or I've been living in the Bible Belt for too long. :)

Here is Georgia, there have been several pieces of proposed legislation to counteract Obama's new stem cell policy. One includes something about giving the little frozen embryos human rights. :rolleyes: I have considered that this may be an attempt to appease the religious right without actually passing the legislation. I'm hoping that will be the case but I'm not too optimistic yet. Our state legislature only meets from Jan.-Mar. so if nothing happens in the next two weeks, maybe things are looking up.

On the other hand, even evangelicals seem to be realizing they've been used and manipulated by the Republicans, so Rich might be correct. None of the conservative social values they hold dear have been enacted while the party's leaders keep making promises they can't keep. One optimistic development is that the younger evangelicals are more interested in things like the environment, and social justice, realizing that these are more important that protecting embryos and preventing gay people the civil rights that the rest of us enjoy.