Posted on 06/07/2003 10:19:50 PM PDT by LdSentinal
When liberals wear ties and jackets, it's not news. But for some reason, when conservatives put on baggy jeans, it's a huge story.
That seems to be the upshot of a recent cover story of The New York Times magazine titled "The Young Hipublicans," which explores the world of campus conservatives. The article's teaser says it all: "No taxes, no gun control -- but these days blue blazers and gay bashing are not required. College conservatives have learned that by acting like everybody else, they can sway their peers and become the most influential political act on campus."
The article, by John Colapinto, is full of observations like this one: "Today, most campus conservatives who hope to be effective won't dress like George Bush or Dick Cheney. The idea is to dress like a young person."
In other words, campus conservatives are traveling in mufti -- putting on the costumes of liberals and common folk -- in order to be taken seriously by the left. As the author says, "The idea is to dress like a young person." The fact that these campus conservatives are, in fact, young people is inconsequential. We know that, if these young conservatives could have their way, they'd be wearing topsiders and khakis, slapping around the nearest gay guy they could find.
According to Colapinto, the "idea" to wear ostensibly "hip" clothes comes as much -- if not more so -- from a web of off-campus right-wing organizations. In fact, these groups provide more than fashion tips. Outfits such as the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the Young America's Foundation provide kids with talking points, which include not only useful sound bites on guns and taxes but advice about how to loosen up and use humor in their arguments.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
We come in all sizes, shapes and stripes, but why let them know that? Let 'em keep thinking that all conservatives are just stodgy old "Dick Cheny" types who wear nothing but golf pants or business suits.
It's to their own detriment to ignore what's happening on our side, but so be it.
Footnote: The music in the '60s and '70s that went along with the look was actually better and more melodious than this atonal whining droning dreck some kids listen to now.
I'm 23 years old, and 'The Beatles' are my favorite band. I think Yoko Ono is the anti-Christ.
Correction. I know Yoko Ono is the anti-Christ.
What stereotype to I fit in to?
*waits
The advertizing campaign of grunge slacker aesthetics in the '90s was probably to expand Ritalin use. Speaking as a conservative and one who has been studying the decline of Western civilization, I don't get the baggy pants. What's that all about?
Footnote: Some of the conservative student journalists I wrote with in the '70s and '80s smoked pot and [horrors!] listened to Rock music. Fortunately, we elected Reagan. TWICE!. In '84 it was done to the tune of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" as I recall. Memories are a little fuzzy. Too many beermares ago.
Bowling shoes and a plunger. You sound like a bagman. I'd say you fit the "homeless" stereotype. We should all feel sorry for you, tax the crap out of those evil rich people, and hand over the dividends to you so that you can go out and buy more binary watches, cheap wine, and crack. You might even be one of those horrid "independents." Maybe even one of the ones who sympathized with or possibly voted for Ross Perot.
As for the baggy pants during the 90s, I went to a nerd high school in NYC, and I could never figure why they were in fashion. They just were.
Bruce Springsteen made a big deal about Reagan invoking "Born in the U.S.A." in 1984. Springsteen, is a Democrat, and was pretty upset. You see Springsteen is a "regular Joe," that's why he lives in a mansion in New Jersey.
LOL! I recall the Springsteen flap. Reagan was "cooler" than Springsteen though. "Go ahead, make my day." Reagan was a spaghetti Western anti-hero.
As a teenager, I did have long hair for a period. And I saw a Ted Nugent concert once. There were actually quite a few different fashion scenes going on between '75 and the early '80s. The long hair and jeans scene that went along with pot, Rock music, and lots of sex. There was the exotic but vapid Disco thing based out of Manhattan. The various avant-garde punk and New Wave stuff with a heavy influence from the UK. Really weird hair. At the same, in the private schools of the then Late Modern Atlantic civilization, there were guys with short hair who dressed very conservatively and preppy, voted Republican , read National Review, Burke, and Evelyn Waugh novels, but also smoked pot and listened to Rock Music. The Republican Party reptiles. National Lampoon's Animal House (although set in the early Camelot '60s) was fairly close to what this was all about. Lots of beer, glib humor, and staid conservative clothing. Some of us are in charge of part of the country now. Scary?
Well, we won the Cold War. Still don't get the baggy pants though.
Listen to "Norwegian Wood" and think about how that should be described stylistically.
The irony is that this sort of coverage reveals that the liberal establishment is as out of touch as it was in the 1960s. But now the rebels are the conservatives -- which even The New York Times recognizes, finally.
now the rebels are the conservatives
Modeled after institutional wear (ie. prison togs).
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