Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

mbs writes: >Frank
also says Clintonesque center-hugging on
economics -- free trade, labor rights,
privatization, etc. -- causes the culturally-
conservative worker's decision to hinge solely
on God, guns, and gays.<

both the GOPsters and the Dems these days are pushing different versions of neoliberalism, involving privatization, etc. This undermines the traditions that the Kulturkampfers are supposedly defending, but it creates a larger popular base for the culture war itself. Similar, cutbacks of education and the like in the Middle East have encouraged the existence of a large base for extremist Islamists, who provide a lot of the services (such as madrassas) that the neoliberal state has dropped or is dropping. 
jd