How the left lost teen spirit (Rats need Hollywood to win youth vote)

Salon ^ | June 17, 2003 | By Andrew O'Hehir

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How the left lost teen spirit

Bill Clinton won the youth vote. Al Gore split it with George Bush. Will Democrats realize they must embrace pop culture, not demonize it, to win back the White House?

- - - - - - - - - - - - By Andrew O'Hehir

June 17, 2003 | Danny Goldberg might be the demon who haunts Bill O'Reilly and Rupert Murdoch's nightmares, even after the visage of Hillary Rodham Clinton has faded. In his new book, "Dispatches From the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit," the veteran music executive proudly confesses to being a quintessential Hollywood liberal (even if he moved back to New York, his birthplace, several years ago).

He did drugs in the '60s (and most definitely inhaled). He counts Barbra Streisand, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton among his personal friends. He opposed the war on drugs, the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's tax cuts. He is not merely a "card-carrying member" of the American Civil Liberties Union, but for many years played a key role in its activist, publicity-savvy Southern California chapter. Goldberg has met and consulted with every significant Democratic presidential candidate of the last two decades -- and, at least at times, has helped leverage significant amounts of Hollywood money, probably the most important source of left-wing campaign dollars. In what must be one of the odder couplings in cultural history, he introduced Ralph Nader to Patti Smith, thus helping make possible the packed Madison Square Garden rally that was probably the high-water mark of Nader's controversial 2000 presidential campaign.

Goldberg's book is a fascinating memoir of the nexus where pop culture and left-wing politics collided throughout the '70s, '80s and '90s, and a cautionary tale directed at his own generation, the middle-class liberals of the baby boom who he fears are in danger of becoming their own intolerant parents. Perhaps in an effort to cleanse themselves of the cultural taint of the '60s, Goldberg speculates, Democratic middle-roaders like the Gores and, more recently and forcefully, Al's 2000 running mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, have gone to considerable trouble to alienate themselves from contemporary youth and popular culture, sometimes by endorsing patently ludicrous attacks on constitutionally protected speech. These center-left moralists, themselves products of the tremendous cultural upheavals of the '60s and '70s, seem to believe, as Goldberg puts it, that pop culture was brought here by evil aliens and isn't actually, well, popular.

As Goldberg points out -- and no other political pundit, to my knowledge, has noticed this -- in 1996, Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole by 19 points among voters under 24. In 2000, George W. Bush and Gore were dead even in that age group, a total of about 9 million votes. Restore even half of Clinton's '96 edge with youth, and the result of the election is clearly different, with or without the much-debated Nader factor.

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Obligatory Salon Stock Death Watch:

I haven't read the rest of the article since it requires a subscription (no sense in saving Salon's stock). I did think that it was interesting to see the left embracing trivial issues to win the youth vote (what celebrity endorsements can they get this time). Also good to see someone on the left admit that the ACLU is a leftist organization.

[OldFriend]

Maybe we should encourage the nine dummies running for President to put their boxers or briefs on outside their normal slacks.......that ought to really attract the young vote.

[Maceman]

The leftists came to power in the '60s by co-opting the Hippie movement (which was at its core about personal freedom and self-expression) and turning it into an assault on the political and intellectual establishment. It captured the natural rebelliousness of youth and indoctrinated it into Marxist thought. Anyone who went to college in the late '60s will remember growing cadres of student intellectuals and radical professors carrying and quoting the little red book "Quotations of Chairman Mao.

"Up the Establishment" became the rallying cry thirty-five years ago.

Well guess what? The aging leftist baby boomers are now the Establishment themselves, and are facing growing rebellion from a new generation of young people who see very little of value in the flaky, creaky and discredited Marxist mythology.

What goes around comes around. The wheel has turned and it is time -- it is time for them to go. Ain't it grand?

[jriemer]

Smells like...

[headsonpikes]

"The wheel has turned..."

The wheel never stops turning - that's what drives the obsessive-compulsive control freaks nuts!

"Ain't it grand?" Yup. ;^)

[weegee]

That's passe now. The 9 little Rats need to perform some Jackass stunts to capture the youth vote today. Show them that they are "X-treme Candidates".

Michael Moron promised to endorse any Republican candidate who would enter his "mosh pit". Alan Keyes did this in 2000 and then got a backhanded slap from Mickey as he used anti-Keyes talking points in his endorsement.

[OldFriend]

Trouble is they are in our classrooms......grade school thru university. They have far more influence than you think because BOTH parents work and aren't paying attention to the daily indoctrination.

We have lost two generations, but yes, things are changing.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Interesting article!

[Sparta]

I fail to see how a bunch of actors and actresses can influence anyone, including teens, how to vote. This is just some wishful thinking on Salon's part.

[Long Cut]

Yes, it is. Many people on the Dim side seem to have forgotten just whose pilled-up multichinned wife raised the first ruckus, back in the '80s, against heavy metal rock, and what future vice-perpetrator chaired the taxpayer-money-wasting hearings she persuaded him to call on the subject.

And the loudest voice heard recently decrying "violent" movies and video games (ROFLMAO!), and therefore the First Amendment, was...Joe Lieberman.

I teach young Sailors each day...kids about 18-24 years old, on average. THEY, believe it or not, didn't forget.

[Cathryn Crawford]

I hope so.

[Dan from Michigan]

Here's what's interesting. My state rep is 28(and won his first election at 18). The other state rep in my county is 22(who beat a 26 year old dem). Both are Republicans.

[Dan from Michigan]

A lot of video and computer game fans know all about Joe Lieberman and hate his guts.

[Long Cut]

I laughed more at his attack on current motion picture violence. Anyone who didn't miss the late '70s and early '80s knows that current movies can't hold a candle to those of that era for gratuitous violence and sex.

PG today was a G then, and I don't recall EVER being asked to show any I.D. before being allowed into an R-rated movie.

Besides, you could rent anything you wanted in those pre-Blockbuster days, even at age 13. Me and my buddies liked the "non-rated" flicks...Evil Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, you get the idea.

[Dan from Michigan]

late '70s and early '80s

SLAP SHOT!!!

[Long Cut]

Actually, my other big hobby is movies. I spend quite a bit of time onlne "geeking out" at movie websites and all on them seem to agree - and these are some SERIOUS movie buffs - that the period from about 1968 (end of the Hays Code) until about 1985 (PG-13 rating introduced) was and is unparalleled in violence and sex.

The consensus is that the top 5 most violent films ever were made from 1975-1985.

[Dan from Michigan]

Watching Scarface right now. It's on TNN.

[Long Cut]

Yeah, that one got its "R" for language ALONE, and had to be cut to avoid an "X". It's pretty brutal.

Funny thing is, no major Hollywood star TODAY would star in so brutal a movie. Back then, it was commonplace.

THIS MOVIE, although never officially released in the States, is considered the most violent EVER. It features, among other things, a spearing, shooting, castration, and disemboweling...and that's on only ONE character! Also included are no less than three rape scenes, much nudity, and various and sundry other violence too brutal to describe. Horror fans consider it a test. Making it all the way through is the mark of a true horror freak.

The director actually served prison time for obscenity...in ITALY. It was made in 1979, and you'll NEVER see it on TNN. It does, however, still play on the midnight movie circuit and a DVD release is imminent.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Imus is obsessed with this book, which tells liberals how to win elections; he praises it everyday, and even had the liberal author on. If this book gets to the best-seller list, it's because Imus has been relentlessly hawking it. When Imus spoke to Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman, Tim Russert, etc, he recommended they read the book. I won't be reading it.

[weegee]

While the top 5 most violent movies may have played America, I doubt that they were made here. As extreme as American exploitation cinema got in the 1970s, Europe was even more extreme (what with mondo documentaries, Emanuelle In America, They Call Her One Eye, et al)