"Unfortunately, many liberals and progressives fall into the trap...

[Mairead]

... the conservatives have set--which is to argue more about religious and social issues, which should be individual decisions, than political and economic ones, which should be collective choices."

Sam Smith, of Progressive Review, interviewed by Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/engel11142003.html

[Tinoire]

1. I wish I had time to weigh in because this thought has been haunting me

I'll read the article tonight when I come home. The quote is right on...

Thanks

[QC]

2. The Kulturkampf is the Republicans' chosen playing field

because it allows them to divert people's attention from what they're really doing, kinda like the way street entertainers used to collaborate with pickpockets. While the magician or juggler distracts the crowd, the thieves pick their pockets.

Kulturkampf has another advantage for Republicans: many people who are very open to liberal ideas on economics are conservative on cultural issues.

We need to stop letting the Republicans set the rules of the game.

[Terwilliger]

3. I love Smith...here's more

One of the reasons I have spent my life in the alternative media is because I think it's a good thing to do while waiting for something good to happen. And certainly better than working for the archaic media. The conventional press rarely does anything useful in helping human evolution or social transformation. This is why the Washington Post is still bragging about Watergate, a story that is 30 years old. Nothing much has happened since.

The really important media in this country has been the alternative one, starting with Peter Zenger and Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine and moving on to Frederick Douglass and two thousand different labor newspapers and I.F. Stone and right on down to Indymedia and Counterpunch.

Another good thing to do in bad times is to create communities that subvert what is, scorn those who accept it, and suppose something better. A good model is the beat culture of the 1950s.

The media could be an enormous help in this, but unfortunately believes that all of life is a football game that someone has to win and someone has to lose. The media is also full of silly or damaging religious myths including the notion that criticizing Israel will bring back the Holocaust or that the only Catholics are the Pope and a bunch of pedophiles. But the non-religious are also non-visible. Ted Koppel doesn't do a show on their problems. 'Religious tolerance,' doesn't include tolerance of the skeptic. And there are no national holidays for doubters.

[salinen]

4. advantage repubs

now that the rethugs have everything, why would they give it up? it will become the liberals worst nightmare. this is the beginning of a renaissance for the fuckbrained. we are in for it. in my liberal dream there are no tele-evangelical programs, there are no token fines for polluters, dogs can marry cats, universal health care for us and if we have leftovers, for the palestians. my dream world is hilarious. fuck. "OVERTHROW THESE BASTARD."

[Ardee]

5. Disturbing? Perhaps, perhaps not.

One may paint a rather bleak picture of the current political scene here in America, or one might see that a lack of opposition leaves little wiggle room for the american voter to decide upon issues.Of course one must accept the validity of polls in the first place and, despite the assurances given in that article I see polls as questionable or slanted to give required results.

Perhaps the article is accurate as to the democrats allowing the gop to frame the issues although the absence of clear and persistent opposition has marginalized the democrats, perhaps beyond immediate recovery. There are issues far too important to politicise the necesity to back peddle or stifle debate about them.