by Tracey Paleo, Gia On The Move
Hailstorms and Tornados
Why, when the United States is mired in its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, would birth control, abortion, and the rights of gays and women top the agenda of the Republican Party?
How could this obsession with sex and family matters be squared with the pledge by Tea Party Republicans that they would put Americans back to work and be true to the principles of limited government, personal liberty, and the constitution of the founding fathers?
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this …
Welcome to the sexual counterrevolution, the great untold story behind America’s plunge into political delirium. **
Tuesday evening, topped out at the West Hollywood Library with a book signing, reading, and Q&A with Nancy L. Cohen, historian, outspoken Angeleno and author of the hot off the press and just in time to meet all the presidential campaign forums, book, Delirium.
Delirium investigates a shadow movement by a very small minority, that has hijacked and polarized our country — an ideologically powered, strategically organized and well-financed political movement aimed at sex, women’s rights, women’s roles, gay civil rights, and family. A movement that is also bipartisan (and yes, I mean the Democrats) – not just a Republican affair. Surprised? Don’t be.
American politics have gone insane. It was supposed to be about the economy. Instead, it’s about women and sex. But then, this obsession has been going on since the ’60s and ’70s. And if you had actually known the history of the sexual revolution, you wouldn’t be shocked at all.
Listening to Nancy was a powerful eye-opener. Smart, clear and un-intimidated, she read the introduction to her book with unparalleled celebrity, and without a sliver of emotional indulgence. Standing in line waiting to have my [complimentary] copy signed, I quickly devoured the opening text in amazement.
Other interesting facts, excerpts, and notes:
- If the pill had never been invented, American politics would be very different today.
- We’ve grown so accustomed to a Republican Party so consumed with gays and abortion that many Americans likely do not know it was ever any other way. In fact, in an earlier time, the highest-ranking woman in the GOP was a pro-choice feminist.
- Barry Goldwater the 1964 Republican nominee, was an ultraconservative who supported women’s right to abortion and thought Americans “had a constitutional right to be gay.”
- President George W. Bush’s grandfather, investment banker, and Republican Senator Prescott Bush was an active member of Planned Parenthood.
And it gets better than this merely skimming the content. In a word ‘provocative’.
Based on this book alone, let’s hope Americans wake up and engage more with themselves, each other, their liberties and begin dialoguing for a reconciliation.
Buy this book today and form your own opinion on the matter – don’t take my word for it: http://www.nancylcohen.com/delirium/
**Excerpt from the new novel, Delirium, How the Sexual Counterrevolution is Polarizing America by Nancy L. Cohen. A groundbreaking investigation into the Shadow Movement that Fuels our Political Wars.
One response to “Welcome to the Sexual Counterrevolution: Nancy Cohen’s ‘Delirium’”
Thanks for sharing this!
I noticed that one of your contributors has been to 50 countries and lived and worked overseas. I grew up and came of age sexually in Canada, leaving at the age of 30 for NY…The United States is about 50 years behind other Western democracies (France, Canada and all of Scandinavia to name a few) in how women are treated and our bodies legislated and debated by middle-aged white men and the billionaires who fun their misogynist toxicity. Imagine a Supreme Court where the Chief Justice is a woman…look north! Yup, it’s possible. Gay marriage, nationally, no problem? Look north. Easily available abortion and contraception? Ditto.
But in a country also premised on American exceptionalism, jingoism and a willful ignorance and denial of the value of other ways of living and behaving — very few Americans even own a passport — what else can you expect? Other ways of looking at sexuality (without the filter of the religious right) do exist but there is such tremendous political pressure to pretend they do not.