Every revolutionary class must wage war on the cultural front.

- Lewis Corey, The Decline of American Capitalism (1934)

We've been hearing about "culture wars" for some time, conflicts initiated by the American right with the goal of undermining basic freedoms (e.g., reproductive rights, privacy, right to marry). They envision a massive totalitarian state - likely a fundamentalist Christian theocracy - that imposes their form of morality on the masses and maintains power through perpetual war.

But there is another sort of culture war possible, one we are only now just beginning to ponder. Might the Republican overreach in Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere finally wake up the vast majority of Americans who work for a living? And if so, what might such a movement look like?

Following an economic collapse, brought about at least in part by conservative economic policy, we have seen our government bail out Wall Street while ignoring Main Street. We worked to elect someone we thought would be at least somewhat progressive and have been gravely disappointed by what we got (e.g., continued tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans). We have seen the rich get richer while the middle class disappears and more Americans sink into poverty. And now, we see our progressive allies in labor being attacked by Republicans. What are we going to do?

It seems that we are at an important crossroads. Our most likely path - the one Republicans are betting on - is continued apathy. We'll simply tire of hearing about Madison and change the channel back to American Idol. We'll complain about gas prices, lose ourselves in "March Madness," and go about our lives. We may continue to vote for Democrats, but it is more likely that we won't vote at all. After all, we do apathy extremely well.

But there is another path. We could finally wake up and get angry. We could look at the energy coming out of Wisconsin and other states where the unions are under attack, and we could say "enough." We could turn off our TVs and join the rallies. We could look each other in the eye and say that having 25% of American children living in poverty is unacceptable, and we could mean it. We could let this be our tipping point.

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