The nice thing about living in Washington is that on your way to the mall you can see ads promoting Lockheed-Martin’s Super Hercules airplane—“a totally new, advanced, fully integrated digital weapons system.” A study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania recently found that lobbyists spent $105 million during the 107th Congress on such advertising—designed for… return to article
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Reader Comments (6)Page 1 of 1 pagesViolence on TV and Video Games has always seemed to me as the bread and butter of Christian Fundamentalists and their ilk...in other words: an argument rightly accepted by the same people who think abortions, gay people and euthanasia are bricks paving a road to hell.
And for a reason: There is something i’m damn sure the Right has always found unsettling about some angry teen blowing some steam out with a simulated murder or...god have mercy...a Marilyn Manson CD!!!!!
After all, if that teen ever does grow up to be enlightned about what Corporate America and the Republican Party has done to his country, he’ll already have years of simulated training and psychological conditionning on what to do if he ever corners Exxon’s CEO in a dark alley....
Or maybe, just maybe...the modern american parent expects that TV and Video Games should rightfully be the best baby-sitter out there. Because voting with your money is totally out of the question. I mean seriously, i’d be expected to actually pay close attention to what my kids are buying and what shows they are watching...godamn it! What do you think I am? Responsible of raising him or something?
That’s where it all comes in to place: Most of these activists are in the upper-crust of the american life: Profesionnals at the height of their careers, both parents work, and between the average 45 minute comute, 8.5 hours of work and 5 hours of watching the boob tube, they have very little time left for their spouse, let alone their kids. It definitely is easier to raise hell in the public forum than to raise good children.
Freedom of expression goes a long way, and there really is nothing better than the first amendment to help measure the worth of any given society. Graphic display of violence is allowed, and furthermore attracts a great deal of people.
I recon that Game Manufacturers shouldn’t go the way of Joe Camel when it comes to getting some clients, but there is a rating system that can guide parents in making the right purchase.
Something i’m sure more than a few moms and dads didn’t give a rat’s ass about when they got little Timmy’s Xmas wish list…
Posted by Alex on Jul 28, 2003 at 2:32 PM Here in scandinavia we are awashed by your storys and movies and games and ways to look upon life.Why is there so amazing many films and stuff that contain killing.its a shooting without end. dont you have anything else to tell tales about now that you are totaly in command of that market?its depressing.and its spilling into our culture.younsters belive they have to arm them self to get"respect" A total misconception of the term.they wander the Stockholm nights beating the shit out of everybody they think is"dissing" them.
we are no children and not without wrongs but do we need your worst expresions?America: the cradle of the best-And the worst as Cohen puts it.Rarely there are some REALY good stuff coming thru the Commercial tvs needlehole of mainstream but and that tells me there are GOOD artist still In US but all this killing? why?Death certenly is lifes big finale and drama in it self but its careless to do entertainment of it.bang hes dead ha ha hagoes the laughtrack.
Thank you for the black music-a world without blues is not thinkable.I think Eminem and Marilyn Manson is the two most important performers you have now.Putting them self in the middle and gamble them self .marks of truestery in my book.How you Democrates should turn visavi freedom og speach is a nut to crack. but the state of US and the world calls for something other than nice company-music for the kids to listen to when they walk the eternal mall where they are dumped to try to become living beings.’
i think our culture being build to much upon competing.a certen kind of psykes turn out at the top.the ones that dont have any empathy and those who dont give a shit what repercussions there doings have.if we tryed cooperation instead we will find that its much more productive.we starts to compete as early as when we want mommy to watch us and nobody else standing on the hands.then its the same old story-the fight for love and glory.how to work this dangerous way of lifeout of our system?t to hard i guess.impossible you might say but humanity have left a lot behind at its journey.the hope is to women as i see it. when they turn to sisters instead of compete whos vagina is the tightest and creates another kind of power.the slow power of persistance.mabye im an idiot but feel free to mail me and tell me so if yo? want.
Posted by jim bjorklund on Jul 29, 2003 at 7:29 PM Violence begets violence. It always has and it always will. Jim Carroll constantly daydreamed about killing because of the cold war. Tom Wolfe would target practice on people walking down the street. There is such a link between humans and violence. We are drawn to it. So what suprises me is that anyone in a capitlatist society would try to cap someones ability to sell violence. If it truly is a free market you our alowed to sell it, no matter how unethical. And that is the answer itself. Be ethical, raise your children the same way. If everyone was ethical then business(including music, games, and movies) would have to become ethical too.
Posted by Frank Morrison on Jul 31, 2003 at 7:02 PM My 12 year old son plays some of those violent games. He’s a pacifist. He abhores violence in real life and believes grownups that kill are “evil morons.”
It’s all in how the kid is raised, in what values are taught in the home and how they’re taught to the kids. My son agrees with my anti-corporate and progressive views. He hears more than one side to the arguments surrounding a vast number of issues. Why? Because I don’t treat him like he’s stupid and too young to learn what’s happening in the real world. I want him to see, to listen and to think, which he does.
I’ve taught him bits of the history between Progressives and Federalists, of the second American Revolution that has never been finished. So, he’s a future voter that will enter adulthood with a well-fed mind still feeding. I’m not the only parent encouraging that generation to cut through the crap and learn what’s overlooked by authors of text books and the mainstream media. Add that to the children of the younger activists of today to get an idea of what challenges these kids will present to politicians.They’ll be more skeptical, especially ones raised by parents like me that point out the rhetoric and other tactics intended to dupe the American people. They’ll want to know more beyond election campaign promises and claims, because they’re better exposed to those of us that prefer to dig into a politician’s record, and his/her history in business and other dealings, including anything personal which may be a deciding factor.
In the age of the Internet, times have changed. We are able to access and broadcast a lot more information. Those of us that pass information relative to politics, including other matters that are affected by politicians, also have the ability to give our kids a better start than we had when we were younger. We’re setting an example for them that out weigh their choice in games and other entertainment. This is especially true for those of us that pass our knowledge to our kids.
It’s all in how we’re raising the kids.
Posted by Treva on Aug 1, 2003 at 9:34 PM Goldberg well understands that controversy drives music sales. For example, when Ice-T released his “Cop Killer” album, sales were thin, and exploded only after people like Charleton Heston and Tipper Gore rained opprobrium on the record.
In other words, if Goldberg was ONLY concerned about profits, he’d cheer on the proposed legislation.
More to the point: While I wasn’t too impressed with Goldberg’s self-serving book (he yammered on and on about all his celebrity friends), his central question is a very important one. Given that voting participation amongst the young has dropped precipitously over the last few decades, what can we do to reverse this trend?
By all means, disagree with his positions and fulminations about censorship and proposed solutions, but it’s wrong to doubt the sincerity of his question.
Finally, you needn’t worry that record executives will hijack the government. The government has hijacked the record industry: thanks to Tom DeLay’s “K Street Project,” the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry’s official lobbying arm, now has a Republican CEO, a former chief of staff to Sen. Frist. Read the Washington Monthly article for more info—http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0307.confessore.html
Posted by Sakitume! on Aug 18, 2003 at 6:35 PM Can the exact cause of America’s cultural decline be any other than the completely cynical peddling of corporate junk-art-food-music by the generation who once stood up against the “forces of old and evil”? What could be more old and evil than preying vampire-like upon your own children, buying up their eyeballs and ears with entertainments that stunt the mind, buying up their stomachs with sugary fried McGrease, ruining the next generation simply because you found that a nagging child is the quickest, surest way into your neighbor’s pocketbook?
It’s guys like Goldberg who’ll focus-group the youth to within an inch of our lives and come up with a way of selling us anything. Once you know the formula for selling to kids (i.e. make it seem like the product understands you better than your parents do, and that your parents are stupid, because they don’t understand this product), there’s no particular reason to sell a product of any quality, be it a diet soda or a politician. So the boomers’ greed has inexorably led us to a revolution of heightened imagery, and lower expectations.
My own beliefs are liberal and I grew up regarding the Republicans as a party of evil selfish misers who would tell the religious right and the corporate overlords whatever they wanted to hear to get the votes and line their own pockets.
But I can’t say that I’m any less disgusted with the Dems right now. It’s just so sickening how well the Boomer generation has learned to talk as if they still care about social issues, when all they’ve ever been is a set of spoiled, greedy children who inherited all their parents’ power and none of their parents’ selflessness, decency or sense of propriety. Everyone under 30 knows that the hippie revolution and all that sweet talk was just an easy way to get laid and unload responsibility on everyone else. And by the time they had kids, boomers had were way too self-absorbed to teach their children well.
So why should it surprise anyone that the Dems are seeking more and more to pander to our culture’s lowest common denominator? Our liberal “leaders” are pharisees, how much more obvious could it be? In their backroom realpolitik they’re surely just as cold and cynical as any other political group that’s ever learned: left and right are just a sideshow. There’s MONEY to be made!And after us, the flood.
Posted by Josh Strike on Oct 7, 2003 at 5:27 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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