Dispatches from the culture wars : how the left lost teen spirit / Danny Goldberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goldberg, Danny, 1950-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Democratic Party (U.S.).

Liberalism--United States.

Liberalism.

Political activists.

Popular culture--United States.

Popular culture.

United States.

Physical Description:

xi, 312 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Miramax, [2003]

Summary:

Music industry insider and progressive activist Danny Goldberg has spent decades tuning in to the rhythms and voices that speak straight to the hearts and desires of America's youth. In that time, one fact has become increasingly clear: our venerable political leaders are tonedeaf. In this startling, provocative book, Goldberg shows how today's professional public servants have managed to achieve nothing less than the indefensible, wholesale alienation of an entire generation. Elvis has left the building -- and he's taken just about everybody under thirty with him. To anyone born after 1960, it's hard to imagine that there was a time in the United States when mass, popular culture actually helped to shape and advance the social agenda. When contemporary music and film were not greeted with arrogant disdain or willful incomprehension. When new forms of self-expression inspired our leaders to take action, not to demand censorship and warning labels. Danny Goldberg takes us into the trenches of the so-called culture wars to find out what caused this radical change in our national psyche.

He shines a spotlight on the conservative pundits and party leaders who are orchestrating dangerous attacks on civil liberties and youth culture. Granted, Goldberg doesn't expect an Ashcroft or Cheney to suddenly confess an appreciation for Nelly's lyrics or Pink's feminist ethos. But what about the people who should be making every effort to bridge this cultural chasm -- liberal democrats? With intelligence and wit, Goldberg blasts the hypocrisy of all those who claim to speak for the very citizens -- mainly young Americans and black Americans -- whose culture they would prefer to sanitize and shrink-wrap. As a baby boomer, Goldberg is particularly disappointed in the failure of his own generation to reach out to younger people.

Goldberg has unique insight into the way business gets done in both Hollywood and Washington, D.C. For over four decades, he has worked closely with a vast number of great performers -- everyone from Led Zeppelin to Bruce Springsteen, from Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne to Kurt Cobain and rap impresario Russell Simmons. As an activist, he's gone head-to-head with countless political figures, including Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis, Ronald Reagan, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader, Joseph Lieberman, and Al and Tipper Gore. From the intersection point of popular and political culture, Danny Goldberg now issues a rousing call to reclaim our democracy, so that we might once again see ourselves -- and our children -- reflected in our leaders' words and deeds.

Contents:

Introduction: Rock, Rap, Reactionaries, and Liberal Snobs 1

Chapter 1 The Sixties: The Cartoon vs. the Realities 25

Chapter 2 The Sixties II: Culture vs. Politics 49

Chapter 3 The Real Seventies Show 61

Chapter 4 The Early Eighties: Ronald Reagan and the New Hollywood Left 83

Chapter 5 1985: The Parents Music Resource Center 103

Chapter 6 The Late Eighties 123

Chapter 7 Who Ruined the Democratic Party?: The Late-Eighties Version 147

Chapter 8 Mend It, Don't End It 175

Chapter 9 Clinton's Second Term 205

Chapter 10 The 2000 Election: Ralph Nader, Joe Lieberman, and Eminem 223

Chapter 11 The Media Marketing Accountability Act 253

Chapter 12 September 11 269

Chapter 13 2002

The Beat Goes On 275

Chapter 14 War Clouds, the Midterm Election, and the Democrats' Downward Spiral 291

Chapter 15 To My Fellow Former Hippies 307.

ISBN:

0786868961 :

OCLC:

52335890