[Peace-discuss] Alex Cockburn on VPs

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Here's some data (scientists like data, right?) on David's thesis that 
"'culture wars' serve both the faux-right and faux-left establishments, as they 
distract from fundamental economic issues that are class-based."  And also on 
who is most susceptible to this distraction.  Larry M. Bartels, the director of 
the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton and the author of 
“Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age,” wrote the 
following for the NYT 17 April 2008. --CGE]


...Small-town people of modest means and limited education are not fixated on 
cultural issues. Rather, it is affluent, college-educated people living in 
cities and suburbs who are most exercised by guns and religion. In contemporary 
American politics, social issues are the opiate of the elites.

For the sake of concreteness, let’s define the people ... whose family incomes 
are less than $60,000 (an amount that divides the electorate roughly in half), 
who do not have college degrees and who live in small towns or rural areas. For 
the sake of convenience, let’s call these people the small-town working class, 
though that term is inevitably imprecise. In 2004, they were about 18 percent of 
the population and about 16 percent of voters.

For purposes of comparison, consider the people who are their demographic 
opposites: people whose family incomes are $60,000 or more, who are college 
graduates and who live in cities or suburbs. These (again, conveniently labeled) 
cosmopolitan voters were about 11 percent of the population in 2004 and about 13 
percent of voters. While admittedly crude, these definitions provide a 
systematic basis for assessing the accuracy of [a certain] view of contemporary 
class politics...

Do small-town, working-class voters cast ballots on the basis of social issues? 
Yes, but less than other voters do. Among these voters, those who are 
anti-abortion were only 6 percentage points more likely than those who favor 
abortion rights to vote for President Bush in 2004. The corresponding difference 
for the rest of the electorate was 27 points, and for cosmopolitan voters it was 
a remarkable 58 points. Similarly, the votes cast by the cosmopolitan crowd in 
2004 were much more likely to reflect voters’ positions on gun control and gay 
marriage.

Small-town, working-class voters were also less likely to connect religion and 
politics. Support for President Bush was only 5 percentage points higher among 
the 39 percent of small-town voters who said they attended religious services 
every week or almost every week than among those who seldom or never attended 
religious services. The corresponding difference among cosmopolitan voters (34 
percent of whom said they attended religious services regularly) was 29 
percentage points.

It is true that American voters attach significantly more weight to social 
issues than they did 20 years ago. It is also true that church attendance has 
become a stronger predictor of voting behavior. But both of those changes are 
concentrated primarily among people who are affluent and well educated, not 
among the working class...


David Green wrote:
> Mort,
> 
> I don't doubt that much honest and passionate opposition to the cultural 
> correlates of Biblical literalism is consistent with many of the views 
> generally supported by members and supporters of AWARE, who are social 
> Darwinists only in the sense that we all are due to living in this country.
> Insofar as Biblical literalism serves at some ideological level to support
> our wars and "attendant evils", it's certainly fair game.
> 
> I'm not sure, however, that it is fair to argue that Biblical literalism is
> consistently related to reactionary views on the general social welfare. I
> don't think I'm original in suggesting that "culture wars" serve both the
> faux-right and faux-left establishments, as they distract from fundamental
> economic issues that are class-based--the lower classes including many
> fundamentlist Christians. And this becomes even more transparent in Obama's
> recent audience with pastor/minister/reverend Rick Warren. I doubt that
> either evolutionary theorists or members of N.O.W. who support Obama have
> been terribly upset by this. (I would tangentially add that much evolutionary
> psychology/sociology is pretty sexist stuff, while coming wrapped in 
> scientfic jargon, as if there is "evidence" about the motives of human 
> behavior 50,000 year ago.)
> 
> If the issue is really freedom of speech or civil liberties in general (which
> obviously it should be, for starters), I would suggest that the ACLU stick to
> those principles, rather than get into debates about evolution. And when the
> issues are more serious, I would suggest that upstanding and principled
> members of the ACLU like yourself let your fellows know that promoting civil
> liberties and then taking a walk on issues of life and death is not
> admirable.
> 
> At an impressionistic level, I've gotten the sense that some "ACLU scientist
> types" (other than yourself, of course) aren't as upset by killing people
> around the world as they are by their neighbors believing in fairy tales. In
> fact, my comments in relation to this thread may have been provoked by
> someone with this sort  of mentality.
> 
> At a more personal level, I've been recently irked by the newest member of
> the Urbana City Council being described as a member of the ACLU, when he
> could just as easily be described as an apologist for apartheid in Israel and
> Palestine, as well as someone who attempts to suppress free speech (or at
> least rational discourse) about this issue by labeling as anti-Semitic those
> who criticize said policies. Not exactly a feather in the cap of either the
> ACLU or Urbana City Council.
> 
> On a more speculative level, I'm not comfortable with the notion that in a
> democracy, "science" may dictate certain policies without the inconvenience
> of political procedures and debates, even in an example as seemingly clear as
> this one. I don't put "science" in quotes because I dismiss evolution, but
> because I believe that we should be skeptical of a deterministic relationship
> between what we claim we know for certain and its implications for public
> policy. A little humility, a little respect for the complicated psychology
> and social practices of the two-legged creatures, not long ago crawling out
> of the swamp, still subject to superstitions of various kinds.
> 
> I'm open to suggestions, but I don't see any alternative in a democracy but
> for citizens to actually engage in the process of argument and adjudication
> in relation to issues such as freedom of speech and separation of church and
> state. If the system is broken, then we should be talking about how to fix
> it, or how to get a new one, rather than handing it over to scientific
> authority.
> 
> In solidarity,
> 
> David
> 
> 
> 
> 
> */"Morton K. Brussel" <mkbrussel at comcast.net>/* wrote:
> 
> I guess this comment merits a response.
> 
> Many who are much disturbed/angered about the efforts of the Fundamentalist
> Right to impose its beliefs in the civic sphere, e.g., relative to
> creationism and the literal adherence to biblical fairy tales, are neither
> closet social Darwinists nor advocates for the kinds of antidemocratic
> actions exhibited in the recent referendum issues.
> 
> As one of those ACLU scientist types, I resent this kind of broad, presumedly
> intellectual, smear.
> 
> That David seems to have so much faith in the courts these days to resolve
> our problems is surprising.
> 
> --mkb
> 
> 
> On Aug 31, 2008, at 10:25 AM, David Green wrote:
> 
>> The current liberal furor about creationism on the pages of the N-G
>> impresses me as disingenuous. What exactly is at stake here in a highly
>> educated community, other than liberal sensibilities and their claims to
>> moral superiority?
>> 
>> There's some identity politics going on here.  I suspect that those who
>> protest too much do so because they protest so little about what really
>> matters. It reinforces my suspicion about the ACLU/Demoratic Party types
>> who were so threatened by the possibility of democracy breaking out in
>> Urbana. They prefer the slam dunk of free speech in principle to the
>> one-on-one of substantive discussion in practice. If creationists make a
>> fuss about its role in public education, let the courts decide (if they 
>> already haven't), rather than assuming that science (meaning scientists)
>> knows best regarding public policy, whatever the mountain of evidence.
>> 
>> There's more than science involved here, in more ways than one. Social
>> Darwinism has since the late 19th century been much more of a problem than
>> anti-Darwinism, whatever the framing of the Scopes trial, and however
>> disgusting the Roberston phenomenon. If we want to talk about something
>> relevant, let's talk about the relationships among Social Darwinism,
>> science, and liberalism in our so-called meritocracy.
>> 
>> DG