Rolling Stone Responds to My Challenge

It's not often that something I write attracts an immediate response from one of the most famous media entities in the world, but surprisingly enough, just after my recent post calling for our popular culture to propose concrete and distinctive opportunities for progressive activism, Rolling Stone magazine published a 40th anniversary issue that includes interviews suggesting just that. It's amazing how influential the God's Politics blog is becoming, almost as amazing as how quickly RS was able to produce this issue in what was surely a response to my own article. Next month they'll be dedicating their issue to the most humble bloggers they can find.

Just kidding, of course, but until then here are some of the suggestions that the featured stars are making as predictions for "where we're going":

Meryl Streep: "It's in the power of the great universities and colleges to plant ideas and curiosity and not just be mills for turning out hedge fund managers."

Bill Maher: "Nothing will change until the 71 million people who didn't vote in 2004 start to vote."

Chris Rock: "Hopefully the new president will get the troops back. I've got a first cousin who just came home from Iraq .... There's nothing sadder than having [the] party before somebody goes off to war. That's basically what it is: 'Please don't die .... Come back.'"

George Clooney: "'My country right or wrong' is not an option anymore .... [I] don't want to be on the wrong side of history.... I'm always afraid of [saying] 'I was stoning the witches, because it was easier.'"

Bruce Springsteen: "Our moral authority to stand up and say 'We are the Americans' has been deeply damaged."

Jon Stewart: "The reason I don't worry about society is, 19 people knocked down two buildings and killed thousands. Hundreds of people ran into those buildings to save them. I'll take those odds every day."

Granted, these interviews are printed on pages squeezed between the latest "beautiful people are better than you