Morrison also spoke of the importance of print and culture in terms of conflict. Race, she said, “has exposed the obvious and inevitable conflicts between empire and democracy, between cannibalism and democracy. These have unfolded into culture war.”

Morrison said the culture war was safer than those of previous generations, being fought with rhetoric rather than artillery, but said that if the country continued to use “medieval solutions to 20th-century problems,” the conflict would never be sufficiently addressed.

Wagley mentioned that she was somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of a war.

“Balance is what we strive for,” she said. She said the tenor created by the right, however, which “has actually institutionalized since the ’60s to dominate our media sphere,” meant that battle lines were clearly and inextricably drawn.

The battle that often follows such confrontation was addressed by Franken.

“I didn’t prepare any remarks because I hate writing,” he began.

Amid escalating laughter, Franken told of the lawsuit brought by Fox against his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, on behalf of Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly, who objected to being called a liar.

The suit was eventually dismissed because “satire is a protected form of public speech, even if the object of satire doesn’t get it,” Franken said.

Franken was a favorite for the audience, later blacklisted by “Billionaires for Bush,” a satirical protest group (see story, page 4), and given a collection of songs from the “Bush on Mars” campaign.

When one questioner frustratingly asked, “What am I going to do,” Franken rejoined, “You’re going to vote for Kerry.”

But the standing ovation was reserved for Robert Kennedy Jr., who spoke passionately about what he called the Bush administration’s systematic undermining of environmental legislation.

For example, Kennedy said, because of previously illegal coal burning corporations in the Ohio Valley, asthma has reached an unprecedented level in newborns.

“Without my resources I would be hard pressed to keep my children alive,” Kennedy said.

“It has taken 300 years [for our country] to get the world’s respect, and three and a half years for this president to destroy it,” Kennedy said.

He therefore supports presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., but warns “you will have to make him do the things you want him to do.”

—Staff writer Jayme J. Herschkopf can be reached at herschk@fas.harvard.edu.