English to Russian Art/Literary Poetry & Literature contextual expression

Both sides will make sure America’s culture wars continue

The culture wars that so enlivened the 1980s and 1990s in America are said to be over. The savage fights that raged full-scale as recently as two years ago over gay rights, gun control, environmental protection and general permissiveness, and that culminated in the Antietam of culture battles, Bill Clinton’s impeachment and trial, seem to have just petered out.
Pundits say the combatants, exhausted from all the verbal shelling, have accepted compromise rather than press on for total victory, and this has led to a new spirit of accommodation. One observer writes that the “crackle of cultural gunfire is now increasingly distant.”
It makes you wonder what country they’re living in.
If Americans don’t hear the crackle, it might be because the bombs detonating overhead drown it out. If Americans look around they will see that abortion, gun control, environmental protection, gay rights and, lately, campaign finance reform are still hot-button issues, and neither side seems especially willing to lay down arms. If anything, they seem emboldened after an election that showed the citizenry to be evenly divided. No one wants to give ground for fear that the tide of battle will turn. But while the political war over social issues rages on, what these observers might have really sensed is an increasing tolerance in the popular culture for things once considered unacceptably outside the mainstream . Just a decade ago, there were no gays in television situation comedies. Now NBC’s “Will Grace”, one of the most popular sitcoms, celebrates gay characters, and no one seems particularly lathered about it.
A decade ago, television commercials barely hinted at sex, lest they offend potential consumers. Now they hurl sexual innuendo, and no one bats an eye.