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Oh Say, Can You See?: 9/11 Flag Displays and the Flag’s Symbolic Power

By Spencer Dew

…g to the struggles of the present and the undimmed dream of an American yet-to-be-realized. As Justice John Paul Stevens has said, the flag uniquely symbolizes the ideas of liberty, equality, and tolerance — ideas that Americans have passionately defended and debated throughout our history. The flag embodies the spirit of our national commitment to those ideals…. To the world, the flag is our promise that we will continue to strive for these ideal…

Report from Paris During COP21: Let Us Not Commit Global Suicide

By Donna Schaper

…with a man high up on a light pole, waving a home made banner of the earth-as-womb, a fetus resting inside. He was in front of the Grand Palais, an enormous glass roofed building constructed for the 1900 Paris Universal Exhibition, where we were trying to see opening day—mistake! You’d think New Yorkers would know this!—of an exhibit called Solutions COP21. His ruggedness and raggedness–the flag had seen more than one demonstration—paled next to…

‘America First’ and the Origin of the Modern Jewish Conspiracy

By Eric C. Miller

…destroy Europe—the sort of belief that continues to underwrite much present-day anti-Semitism. RD’s Eric C. Miller spoke with Hanebrink about the project. Much of your work traces the history of anti-Semitism, and you’re doing that work at a time when anti-Semitism seems to be resurgent once again. How do you situate this political moment within that larger history? That’s an interesting question. Conspiracy theories flourish in times of political…

Praise the Lard This Holiday Season

By Becky Garrison

…This billboard’s slogan reads “Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah from the 13,000 Atheists and Skeptics at the United Church of Bacon,” replete with the tagline, “Bacon is our God because bacon is real.” Since its inception during a meeting at Penn Jillette’s house in 2010, the church proclaims to welcome all who love the smell of bacon (which can be turkey or vegetarian bacon for those of kosher sensibilities). Also, UCB members like donuts beca…

Prexit and the Planet: Our Resistance Must Know No Borders

By Donna Schaper

…ornia. And speaking of the unlikeliest allies, perhaps even someone like ex-Exxon Rex Tillerson can help the President move into a more global story. During his confirmation hearing for Secretary of State, Tillerson made comments about international climate treaties that reflect a larger story. “I think it’s important that the United States maintain its seat at the table in the conversation on how to address threats of climate change. They do requ…

The Forgotten History Behind Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Terrorism

By Edward E. Curtis IV

…n Muslim men and women who literally helped to build the United States from 1776 to 1865, when legal slavery was formally ended. The 20th century is so full of Muslim contributions to Western literature, music, art, sports, politics, business—every realm of life in the West—that some household names should suffice to illustrate the point. In jazz, Ahmad Jamal, Art Blakey, Dakota Staton. In sports, Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Zinedine Zidane…

Is “Weak Leadership” to Blame for Catholic Trump Support?

By Patricia Miller

…in policy debates will outlast any particular set of issues or set of partisan commitments. When bishops forget this long-term consideration and explicitly link their own statements of priority to those of a given political party at a given moment in time, that inevitably leads to the bishops’ agenda being artificially trimmed to accommodate the competition between the two major parties that the country happens to feature at that particular (fleet…

A High Wall, A Sacred Canopy, A Conversation

By Linell Cady

…al option. Kennedy successfully tapped into this public vision. Romney: God-America-Freedom Invoking a high wall of separation has long been a strategy embraced by minority religions throughout our nation’s history as a way to protect themselves from Protestantism’s cultural and political dominance. That Romney did not choose to pursue this strategy to defend his candidacy underscores how much the religion-political landscape has shifted in the pa…

Global LGBT Recap: Culture War Claims More Victims

By Peter Montgomery

…health At the end of last week, police arrested the vice president of anti-AIDS pro-LGBT rights group Alternatives-Cameroon after he was accused of being homosexual. The man, a doctor, was unable to work on Saturday where he was supposed to oversee health screening for men who have sex with men. He was reportedly released after a few days. The organization released a statement complaining of police harassment and lack of response to ongoing scams…

The End of Michele Bachmann?

By Sarah Posner

…im organizations fall into lock-step with it, stems solely from a single 20-year-old document written by a single Brotherhood member in 1991. In the controversial terrorism financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation, which first resulted in a mistrial in 2007, and convictions in a 2008 re-trial, federal prosecutors introduced a document, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.” Gaffney and others h…