Dispatches From the Culture Wars – May 24, 2022
- Attention Deficit Disorder and Capitalism
- India Walton on the Buffalo Massacre
- The Political Religions That Brought Down Roe
- The Dead End of Corporate Activism
- Does God Respect Abortion Rights?
- Looking at the Primaries
- Roots of the Romance Genre
- Redefining the Working Class
- Trump Shows How Its Done
- Pelosi Cast Out by Predatory Prelate
Attention Deficit Disorder and Capitalism
By Laura Basu
openDemocracy
Our capitalist societies create stressed-out families, carceral schools and toxic workplaces. No wonder our brains are going haywire on an unprecedented scale. ADD is a capitalist condition.
India Walton on the Buffalo Massacre
By Hadas Thier
Jacobin
A Buffalo community leader and last year’s socialist mayoral candidate, Walton spoke to Jacobin about the tragedy and its local roots in segregation and disinvestment.
The Political Religions That Brought Down Roe
By Frederick Clarkson
Ms.
The Catholic Church has been the principal religious opponent to advances in birth control and abortion rights and access. But to achieve its goals, it needed allies in its long-term campaign of resistance. It took some time, but they found them.
The Dead End of Corporate Activism
By Joanna Wuest
Boston Review
As the strength of the trade union movement and mass membership in civic organizations have depleted, political power has been consolidated among wealthy individuals and industrial leaders who now hold the reins of U.S. democracy. For individual firms and business associations like the Chamber of Commerce, championing a range of liberal causes is lucrative.
Does God Respect Abortion Rights?
By Claire Galofaro
Associated Press
Black Protestants have some of the most liberal views on access to abortion: Nearly 70% believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. For faithful women of color, there’s often a very different balancing act of values over the question of whether women should be able to end unwanted pregnancies.
Looking at the Primaries
- Wins and Losses By Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine
- Pennsylvania By Mike Wereschagin, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
- Oregon By Julia Shumway, Oregon Capital Chronicle
Roots of the Romance Genre
By Hilary A. Hallett
Literary Hub
The modern romance lays its taproots in a scandalous new bucket of fiction called the “sex novel” that became fashionable after 1905. These books’ emphasis on sexual psychology and interior sensations, as much as stimulation and particular acts, differed from existing so-called pornographic literature (aimed at men).
Redefining the Working Class
By Shamira Ibrahim
The Baffler
The United States is much closer now than it was in the era of the Reagan Democrats to a transformation, a point at which the working class will no longer be predominantly white. We are about ten years away from the point where people of color will represent a majority of the working class.
Trump Shows How Its Done
By Chauncey DeVega
Salon
Donald Trump's political circus and freak show is continuing its American tour. Mockery and laughter won't save America from the hell that will be fully unleashed when Trump's Republican-fascist movement wins the 2022 midterms, and quite possibly the presidential election two years after that.
Pelosi Cast Out by Predatory Prelate
By Melinda Henneberger
The Sacramento Bee
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone claims that barring Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from receiving communion in her home diocese of San Francisco has nothing to do with politics. Which is a silly thing to say, since no one who would believe him needs to hear it, and no one who wouldn’t will be at all persuaded by it.