Excellent Salon article--we are winning the culture "war." Dems must not

be misled by the mainstream media characterization of the election as the triumph of conservative's so-called moral values.

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Scrooge's nightmare
Despite Bush's election, the cranky old conservatives' days are numbered. The future belongs to middle-aged boomers and their kids, who embrace the tolerant values of the '60s.

By Leonard Steinhorn

<snip>
As survey after survey of contemporary social attitudes demonstrates, social conservatives no more represent the mainstream or the future than Prohibitionists did in the 1920s. If anything, it's the baby-boom sensibility spawned in the 1960s that has become mainstream in America today. As conservative columnist George Will lamented a few years back, politics "seems peripheral to, and largely impotent against, cultural forces and institutions permeated with what conservatives consider the sixties sensibility."
<snip>

There's a good reason why young people feel the way they do, and that's because their baby boomer parents overwhelmingly agree with them. So forget any talk of a generation gap between boomers and their children. On a wide range of social and cultural issues, they are united in their attitudes of tolerance and inclusiveness. The only generation gap that remains is the same one that began in the '60s, between pre-boomers and the rest of us. What we have today is a pre-baby boom cohort that's steadfastly conservative, with the vast majority of everyone younger leaning the opposite way.
<snip>

Indeed, the traditionally religious American -- what the press has anointed the faith or moral values voter -- may well be in decline. According to NORC's 2000 General Social Survey, only two in 10 Americans born from 1943 onward attend religious services once a week or more, while six in 10 attend infrequently -- at most a few times a year -- if at all. That's almost the opposite of older Americans, 55 percent of whom attend once a month or more and 36 percent of whom attend once a week or more.

In fact, the fastest-growing group of religious Americans are those who claim no religious identity at all; their number now almost equals the number of people who call themselves Baptists, according to the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey. These numbers track with findings by Independent Sector, a group that studies nonprofit trends, which show that the share of Americans giving their time to religious organizations declined from 28.6 percent in 1989 to 22.8 percent in 1998.
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And why do social conservatives loom so large in our politics today? The best historical parallel for them may be the Luddites who terrorized Britain two centuries ago, the workers who traveled around the country smashing machines for fear that the Industrial Revolution would destroy their jobs and way of life. They were loud, and their tenacity gave the impression that they represented more Britons than they actually did, when in fact they were merely acting out their despair and outrage at a world that was passing them by. Today's social conservatives are our cultural Luddites.
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Why isn't this new mainstream more vocal in our politics today? To borrow a phrase from Richard Nixon, they've become a new "silent majority" -- not the socially conservative silent majority of old, but a silent majority that's fairly content with the new morality and unwilling to believe that America will turn back the clock on their rights and freedoms.
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I am looking forward to bush using his false mandate to push the nation too far to the right. I have two sons here in NYC, 14 and 12, and they are going to have a lot of fun being part of a generation that rebels against all things bush. These cultural Luddites of the right will create an entire generation that will rise up to reject everything they stand for.

great article.

My husband was reacquainted with his son from his previous marriage a few years back. The kid called him up and said he wanted to get to know his old man, but he didn't know what his dad would think of the fact that he hung out with pagans.

"Pagans are good people," my husband responded.

Father and son instantly bonded, and are still close.

because my children will be joining the ranks of those who reject Bush and is RW Zealots, they have given me more material then I could have ever asked for, thank you, happy thanksgiving to you and yours.

that showed about the same number of posters in the parent age group as the 18-25 age group and sharing the same opinions for the most part. I know we do with ours who are all in that group.

>> I have two sons here in NYC, 14 and 12, and they are going to have a lot of fun being part of a generation that rebels against all things bush. <<

I have two sons here on Long Island, 16 and 18, and they are going to live with a lot of angst as long as kids their age are dying for Bush's Oil Lust.

oh, and fyi.. the years between 14 and 18 go by blazingly quickly.

the draft, and here in NY they live with the fear of a terrorist attack. Kids today seem so much more politically aware than those of the past couple of decades.

Perhaps I'm trying too hard to find a silver lining to the very dark clouds of a bush second-term, but I think bush will end up creating a generation of people that are anti-war, socially tolerant and compassionate, deeply concerned about the environment, and open to people of different cultures and nations. Out of the ruins of bush's second term will rise a better society.

When Clinton won in 1992, I was very happy that my children would not spend the early years of their life under a President I despised (like Reagan and bush sr.) I was tired of always opposing our government, and I didn't want my young children to be burdened with my cynical attitude.

But now that my kids are older, there is one good thing to come out of a bush second-term. bush will give this generation a political education he does not mean to give. My children know not to be politically apathetic. They are learning politics is a continual process in which they must be engaged if they want to keep the diverse, tolerant, thoughtful, caring society they have grown up in. They are learning that great, malicious powers stand between them and the world they want to live in, and these powers can only be restrained if people rise up in great numbers to oppose them.

My parents are Boomers and I share their modern, Pro-America, Socially Just values too!!

:)

Pretty please

But how much damage will be done before we prevail at the ballot box? As a child of the sixties, I've often looked at our political discourse and thought that it cannot last for long. Americans are a rebellious people--our heritage is not one of sheepishness. We all have a bit of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine in us--even the first and second Americans: in fact, these Americans more than the complacent old-timers. We will not let this stand. I just hope I can see it in my lifetime.

There is hope.

message and morals. They are not different in any way whatsoever.

Thomas Jefferson believed that the ethical system of Jesus was the finest the world has ever seen. In compiling what has come to be called "The Jefferson Bible," he sought to separate those ethical teachings from the religious dogma and other supernatural elements that are intermixed in the account provided by the four Gospels. He presented these teachings, along with the essential events of the life of Jesus, in one continuous narrative.

This presentation of The Jefferson Bible offers the text as selected and arranged by Jefferson in two separate editions: one edition uses a revised King James Version of the biblical texts, corrected in accordance with the findings of modern scholarship; the second edition uses the original unrevised KJV. The actual verses of the Bible used for both editions are those chosen by Jefferson. Visitors should find the revised KJV text much easier to read and understand. Those seeking the precise English version Mr. Jefferson used when making his compilation can click on "Unrevised KJV text."
http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/

the argument. george bush is the polar opposite of Jesus Christ, yet many people don't see this at all.

I am not a religious person--but I do consider myself a spiritual person. The article points out this distinction, and how people are moving away from organized religion toward a more personal spirituality.

I can understand (well, not really) how the fundamentalists vote Republican. It's the moderates who support the Democratic platform and not the Republican yet who vote Republican who are incomprehensible. They're the ones who are going to live with how they've sold out their own beliefs. For what? They support choice...yet will have to live with how their votes allowed anti-choice judges' appointments. Or how the environment will continue to be destroyed by corporate interests...because they didn't vote their conscience but their fear.
The Bushies have been given enough rope. They either have to finally come through for the evangelicals or face their fury. The bills have come due. And the moderates who still have integrity need to atone for their role in the destruction of America.

...is that the author concludes that the "silent majority" of Americans are "social liberals," which basically means libertarian rather than liberal.

It is quite understandable that people with that point of view might be in favor of allowing gays to marry, unmarried couples living together, interracial relationships, non-traditional gender roles, and other "issues involving personal choice and freedom." But they may also believe even more strongly in "keeping the government off my back" in terms of taxation and regulation, and thus vote for Republicans -- even relatively far-right ones -- as long as their own right to take any mind-altering substances and/or f*ck anyone they want isn't restricted.

I mean, don't all of us know people who are as anarchic and anti-authority as you can get...and who are equally right-wing on most non-"values" political matters? ("Look, all I want it for the f*ckin' government to leave me alone, man!")

In fact, I suspect that this is precisely what happened this past election. If Bush had only won the allegiance of the "moral values" voters, he would have lost by 82% - 18% (he got 80% of the 22% who chose that category in exit polls, which works out to just under 18%). But what Bush really got were the votes of a lot of people who could care less about "moral values," but wanted more tax cuts, or "leadership", or just someone who would "kick some Muslim ass," more than they wanted gay marriage or the protection of reproductive rights. Then, it was the less than one-out-of-five voters who were card-carrying members of the Hate Brigade that put Bush over the top...and made it appear that they were the decisive portion of the electorate.

If Bush and his cohort push too far at instituting the Hate Brigade's agenda, it may well turn off large portions of Salon's "socially liberal" base and allow the Democrats to triumph this time. But I think it's short-sighted to assume that people will stay with the Democrats just because they themselves are socially-liberal...unless they find their own rights under attack.

..when I hear the term, "social liberal," to me it means liberal on social issues.

Libertarians - based on my experience - are more "social anarchists." Or would that be social libertines?

But good analysis by you.

the tax cuts are little more than bribes to those who aren't reaping the real benefits of the cuts. as kerry and clinton kept saying: the people who benefit are people like them...the wealthy. so even those most of those clamoring for more tax cute would be better off with a democrat in the white house. and of course, it's almost a certainty that some who voted for bush WILL find their own rights under attack.

<<as long as their own right to take any mind-altering substances and/or f*ck anyone they want isn't restricted.>>

Then it would seem that a vote for a Republican would be rather contradictory. I am a hardcore civil libertarian, and because of that I would never vote for a Republican.

Beyond that, I really hate arguing with traditional libertarians, and I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about. It's like trying to explain basic economics to a six year old.

-Without regulations, there inevitably will be corruption, collusion and monopolies, which act contrary to the competitive aim of capitalism, and destroy all faith in the market.

-Without a financial safety net for citizens, virtually nobody can be secure, unless perhaps you had the initiative to inherit a department store or an oil company. We stand as helpless victims of fate and the whims of the medical-industrial complex. Entire families, even affluent people, can fall into bankruptcy when their child develops leukemia and needs extensive and costly treatment. There is strong risk of this even now.

-Without labor protection, most of the population is not more free, but rather enslaved. Believe it or not, this country was generally not a great place to live at the turn of the twentieth century.

-Finally, tax cuts will always be temporary, unless spending is dramatically reduced. This seems unlikely, unless Congress kills pork barrel costs, vanity projects, and gratuitous military expenses. You have to pay back what you spend eventually. But, then again maybe they don't care after all, as long as it isn't their generation that has to deal with it.

friend after friend get sucked into the Kool-Aid crowd and/or the ME CEO crowd. Maybe some have kept their 60's idealism, but many have become more RW than their parents ever thought of being.