The Culture War is Back - and We Are The Casualities

Watching the GOP in the storm they've created, I've come to a sad conclusion - the culture war is back, even angrier and more brutal than ever.  Listening to Rudy  spew sarcasm and disdain last night, talking about cosmopolitan values about a man raised by a single mom in Kansas, following the air war & ground war that has stirred up in this last week, it is clear that the words of Mark Twain are so true here:

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

Listening to Gov. Palin, I could not help but think of Ron Luce & his Battle Cry ministry - angry, divise, oppression, all cast in the name of Jesus Christ and Taking America Back.

The culture war is back - and we are the casualties. 

After decades of being subjected to the piety and condescension of angry bigots posing as social conservatives, people like me are saying we've had enough.  I am thankful that there are true social conservatives in the world - we are at not at war, we agree on much and are anxious to help people improve the world we live in.  But these people who puff their chest, who pose according to polls and focus groups - well, I say

Enough !

Don't talk to me about family values when you screwed around on your wife, been caught with a hooker or your teenager is knocked up pregnant. Don't talk to me about the harms of feminism and affirmative action when yearn for the "good old days" when women knew their place and colored folks served you like they ought to.   Don't talk to me about how your life is somehow more authentic  because you go to a church that spews hatred and exclusion.  Don't talk to me about the "culture of life" when you are launching pre-preemptive wars, cheering death penalties and cutting the safety nets down to the size of a hanky. Don't tell me you care about women when you are willing to send a 13 year old incest victim to prison because she doesn't want to carry her rapists' child.   Don't tell me that gay people or community organizers or anti-war protesters are the enemy, that sacrifice means shopping, that being an American means being righteous and powerful and God's favorite people.

These people posing as "social conservatives" aren't the only people are angry. I am angry that we are going to have culture war instead of focusing on the real war. I am angry at people who are East Coast venture capitalists raging against the elites, people with ten houses talking about the elitism of people who have worked hard their whole lives. I am angry at being told that my concerns are less important because I can't kill a moose or because I do not wear a flag on my lapel or because my church doesn't believe gay people are a danger to my marriage.

The GOP has been in power for 8 years, yet they still rail against the elites.  They talk about putting America first, yet they thrive on the tactics of division & setting people against each each.  They proudly deliver tax cuts for the ultra-rich, while the gap between the poor & those in power grows to a level unseen since the Depression.  They chant "drill, drill, drill" in a convention hall, ignoring what they have done to the creation that the Creator they love so much created.  They use "big government" as a punching bag, despite the fact that they have governed over the largest expansion of it in recent history.  The pitchfork rebellion that Pat Buchanan predicted is coming to fruition, supported by predominately white, straight men who will do anything to retain their hold on power.  A national tragedy - 9/11 - is used over & over again as carte blanche to re-engineer our country, a ready made bogeyman to scare us into submission.

I am sad today, scared today, angry today, struck numb at the way an Empire and a market uses Christianity to keep people in their place.  The war is back - it probably never went away.   This war - rancid...curdled...toxic...all consuming for so many people who claim to follow Jesus - the war is back and it is turbo-charged.  The enemy is not Murphy Brown, as Dan Quayle contended, or immigration, as Lou Dobbs contends - it is the America that is emerging, with all its diversity and all its challenge to the status quo.  As Jared Diamond points out in Guns, Germs & Steel - empires do not die quietly, they flail and thrash and go down violently.

The culture war is back - and we are the casualties. 

Listening to rattling of weapons in this war, I think back to something Martin Luther King, Jr. said over 45 years ago in Birmingham, at a time of battle and brutality:

The reason I can' t follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind. Somebody must have sense and somebody must have religion. I remember some years ago, my brother and I were driving from  Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tennessee. And for some reason the drivers that night were very discourteous or they were forgetting to dim their lights...And finally A.D. looked over at me and he said, 'I'm tired of this now, and the next car that comes by here and refuses to dim the lights, I'm going to refuse to dim mine.' I said, 'Wait a minute, don't do that . Somebody has to have some sense on this highway.' And I'm saying the same thing for us here in Birmingham. We are moving up a mighty highway toward the city of Freedom. There will be meandering points. There will be curves and difficult    moments, and we will be tempted to retaliate with the same kind of force that the opposition will use. But I'm going to say to you, 'Wait a minute,  Birmingham. Somebody's got to have some sense in Birmingham.'

I am praying for that sense right now, saying Hello Birmingham (as Ani said it), hoping to hold on in these curves and difficult moments, taking Martin's word that there is a city of Freedom in this Empire of America.

Comments

[dlw]

I believe that both the Republicans and Democrats are trying to turn back the clock. The Democrats back to when they were actually committed to following the ideals of the 60s. The Republicans back to the days when the Reagan coalition subverted the permanent majority of the Democrats.

There will be a storm, but it will pass and I think the religious right will have some new better leaders in its wake.

dlw

[journeyingrick]

well said my brother bob. wellllll said. it's not that palin is evil, although that's what flared up for me last night watching her, and what message she was bringing and embodying for her audience. it's that to appeal to, and play on, and descend to, the politics of fear and the fortress and the bunker and the us vs. them ... is wrong. it's low. it's a retreat into hatred. it's heartbreaking. i thought mccain would do better.
i don't believe that that's what obama wants. perhaps he's prevailed upon the voices in his party that encouraged him to play dirty, that that's not how to make true change and health and wholeness for this nation and the world happen.
everybody was wondering last week when the strong message would come. biden? nope. it was obama himself, who spoke with clarity and forceful support of what he believes is best - and yet also spoke with respect, and openness, and never belittled john mccain or the republicans or anyone else.
i didn't see that last night. i am sad about that. and i want to fight against smallness of mind - not by fighting back, but by standing and saying No.

[Bryan Hooper]

Amen!

I think you did a great job of capturing my sentiments last night. Veiled under Palin's impressive rhetoric was more of the same old culture war buzz that I had hoped we were emerging out of. This is John McCain's campaign after all - I thought he hated that culture war crap.

Turns out he'll use it if he thinks it'll help him win.

With so much fear and anger in our nation today, it is so sad to think that our politics might revert back to this tired line. If the Culture Wars really do continue, I am mostly sad for the trivialization of our nation's once great values.

[Brian Miller]

"And come to think about it, I felt pretty slapped down by the whole Hillary thing, too (I voted for her in the primaries)." (Posted by Neal)

I still don't understand this. What's the issue? At the end of the vote count, did she not have fewer votes than another candidate? I'm not knocking Hillary Clinton. I supported Barack Obama in the primaries, but I like Hillary Clinton as well and think she would have made a fine president.

Regardless....good post.

[Neal Locke]

"Don't talk to me about family values when you screwed around on your wife, been caught with a hooker or your teenager is knocked up. Don't talk to me about the harms of feminism and affirmative action when yearn for the "good old days" when women knew their place and colored folks served you like they ought to."

Dude. Those sound like pretty harsh words and assumptions. Are you joining the culture war by striking back?

I know that this was sparked by watching the RNC tonight, but honestly I felt like the DNC slapped down and took cheap shots at some things that are pretty important to me. And especially since I've been a Democrat all my life, I feel pretty slapped down by my democratic friends now that I'm considering voting for a Republican ticket for the first time in my life. And come to think about it, I felt pretty slapped down by the whole Hillary thing, too (I voted for her in the primaries).

I think if there's sense in Birmingham, it's not going to come from politicians. Not Palin, McCain, Clinton, Biden, or even Obama, who talks about being "above the fray" but gets down and dirty just as fast as the others (especially in his commercials).

No, I still think we need to look to Bethlehem for a messiah, not Washington DC. We should still vote, but maybe we all need to put our elections into the proper perspective, and still agree to love and support each other, even when on opposite sides of the aisle. But maybe that's what you were trying to say all along...

[david w]

praying with you. thanks for saying what needs to be said.