Research

Politicized Science

How Anti-Abortion Myths Feed the Christian Right Agenda

Three women at a prochoice rally holding signs that say "Safe, legal abortion on demand. No apologies!" and "Abortion is a right. No Going Back."

The anti-abortion movement uses B.A.D science and agenda-driven journals to back up false claims about abortions, in an effort to make abortions illegal.

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Commentary Dover is over, for now. Beginning in 2004, an elected school board attempted to change the Dover, PA, science curriculum so that it cast significant doubt on the evolutionary hypothesis. The board tried to substitute a textbook,…

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When Adversaries Become Allies

The Fight Against the Patriot Act and the Surveillance State

T. Allen (Terry) Hoover, a gun rights advocate and former deputy sheriff, once had a pink submachine gun made as a gift for his wife. He is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association. And in Idaho, he was a member of a right/left coalition…

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The Battle for Mainline Churches

“Make no mistake,” wrote Avery Post, the national president of the United Church of Christ in 1982, “the objectives of the Institute on Religion and Democracy are the exact opposite of what its name appears to stand for. The purpose of its leaders…

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The Globalization of an Agenda

The Right Targets the UN with its Anti-Choice Politics

A banner at a protest that says "Pro Choice, Pro Child, Pro Family"

This article is derived from the PRA report UNdoing Reproductive Freedom: Christian Right NGOs Target the United Nations. In June 2004…

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The Rise of Dominionism

Remaking America as a Christian Nation

When Roy Moore, the Chief Justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court, installed a two-and-one-half-ton granite monument to the Ten Commandments in the Alabama state courthouse in Montgomery in June of 2001, he knew it was a deeply symbolic act. He…

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George Wallace and the Rightward Turn in Today's Politics

A Black person in a yellow T-shirt holding a sign that says "voter suppression is violence"

In the spring of 2005, Georgia’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a law requiring all voters to appear at their proper polling place carrying either a Georgia driver’s license or an official photo ID issued by the Georgia Department of Motor…

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Thinking about Elephants

Toward a Dialogue with George Lakoff

A man with grey hair and grey beard wearing spectacles

Since last November’s election, George Lakoff’s book, Don’t Think of an Elephant!,¹ has deservedly captured the imagination of mainstream Democrats and of many progressives as well. He offers us the promise that we can achieve…

Book Review

The Montana Human Rights Network

Fighting the Far Right with Research

In April 2005, Kevin McGuire, an engineering student at the local state university, ran for the Bozeman, Mon. elementary school board. He was a newcomer in town, hailing from Santa Rosa, Calif., and part of the white flight flowing into the state.…

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Conservative Campus Organizing

Growing Pains or Arrested Development?

Two students holding a banner that says "Shut down Coulter. Wed 7 PM Wheeler Hall."

“A few years ago,” the Washington Times reported in a story last year, “Jeff O’Holleran said he began to realize that he was different from the other boys he knew…. Yesterday, he said, it was time to come out of the closet. In the middle…

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The Extreme Right in Europe: Fascist or Mainstream?

A woman with a scarf holding a sign that says "open the borders"

Parties of the extreme Right now have a role in the governments and/or the parliaments of several European countries, including Flanders (northern Belgium…

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Progressive and Conservative Campus Activism

Excerpt from Deliberate Differences: Progressive and Conservative Campus Activism in the United States, a Political Research Associates report by Pam Chamberlain (2005). Our findings are summarized as follows: 1. Energetic College Students…

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Mussolini on the Corporate State

A Google(tm) search on January 12, 2005 turned up some 5,000 hits on the following quote: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” — Benito Mussolini It is generally…

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Crime and Political Ideology

A sign on cardboard says "Fuck 12, Defund CPD, Abolish ICE, Free them All, Defund the Carceral System, Free them all"

Introduction “An eye for an eye” captures the conservative model of punishment in contemporary western societies. That is, when a wrong is done to an innocent person, the wrongdoer must be severely punished in order to “even the books” and stand as…

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Calvinism, Capitalism, Conversion, and Incarceration

Why are increased sentences and the severe punishment of those convicted of crimes so popular and prevalent in U.S. culture? Since the late 1970s our society has accepted increasingly rigid and vengeful ways of punishing those convicted of crimes.…

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"Free Traders" On the Run

After years of growing citizen opposition to corporate globalization, the free traders are on the run. In September of 2003, a World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in Cancún, Mexico came to a screeching halt after the world’s poor countries…

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Deliberate Differences

Progressive and Conservative Campus Activism

U.S. colleges and universities have a long tradition of political activism. They are centers of intellectual activity; concentrations of young people live in close proximity; and students can experience new ideas and constructs about the world at…

The Roots of Corporate Globalization in IMF/World Bank "Structural Adjustment" Policies

This year marks the 60^th anniversary of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Although they have always been located in Washington, DC, people in the United States very often do not know much about what they do.…

Article

“If You Love Children, Say So”

The African American Anti-Abortion Movement

Introduction For those on either side of the abortion debate there are great stakes involved with the outcomes of the upcoming 2004 elections. There could be the possibility of three open vacancies on the Supreme Court within the next few years,…

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Drifting Right and Going Wrong

An Overview of the U.S. Political Right

Our country is in the midst of the longest period of right-wing reaction against movements seeking equality, social justice, and economic fairness since the period of Reconstruction in the south. We picture hooded Ku Klux Klan nightriders carrying…

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