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Culture War, Literally
Leonard Pitts Jr
I don't know who coined the term "culture war" to describe our political divisions, but I'm reasonably sure he or she intended it only as a figure of speech.
It feels like something else in light of a new report from the
Which raises an obvious fair and balanced question: What about terror from the left? The SPLC's
By contrast,
It's one thing to read these stories in isolation and another to see them collected, and thereby connected, here, one extremist plot after another in the 14 years since
When you call them on that behavior,
That's not dissent. It is the howl of the unhinged and the entitled. The same folks who were complacent as
For many of them, I think -- not all -- that's because they find it hard to accept that the new guy is liberal ... and black.
As Potok sees it, some of us are angry over the dramatic changes underfoot in this nation. "People who want this country to remain a white-dominated country have lost. They have completely and utterly lost the battle and they can never win it. If they were to seal the borders tomorrow, whites would still lose their majority in a matter of years, simply as a result of the difference in fertility rate."
As a result, many people "feel that this is no longer the country that their Christian white forefathers built, that they have been robbed, that this isn't the world they grew up in and that they are very, very frightened" -- a feeling stoked and exploited by political and media demagogues, who will loudly disclaim responsibility when that fear becomes violence.
The president is black, the secretary of state is a woman, the new
Take it as proof. "Culture war" is not a figure of speech.
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- A Simple Plan for Killing al Qaeda
- Obama Faces Reality on Iran, Middle East
- Afghanistan and the Prospects of World Order
- Afghanistan - Situation in Afghanistan is Serious
- Afghanistan - Going Where in Afghanistan?
- Afghanistan - Mission of Ignorance
- Afghanistan - At Afghan Crossroads
- Afghanistan - Going Where in Afghanistan?
- Hard Decisions Ahead on Afghanistan
- Afghanistan Isn't Worth One More American Life
- Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan and Memories of Indochina
- All U.S. Presidents Need a War to Call Their Own & Obama Has His
- Obama Foreign Policy: In Honduras, Etc.: Pas d'Ennemis a Gauche
- Puzzling & Dangerous U.S. Foreign Policy Comes to an End
- Obama Foreign Policy: For the Community Organizer, Peanut Farmer Simpatico
- Obama Foreign Policy: In Honduras, Etc.: Pas d'Ennemis a Gauche
- Russia - History Made to Order
- Obama Foreign Policy: Seems Like Old Times
- Obama Foreign Policy: Afghanistan - Uncertain Trumpet
- Letter From Tokyo: New Regime, New Relationship
Available at Amazon.com:
How You Can Kill Al Qaeda: (In 3 Easy Steps)
One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy
Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror
Culture War, Literally | Leonard Pitts Jr
Copyright 2009 Leonard Pitts Jr.