Brownback disses rap and shock rock

In November of 1997 Sam Brownback stepped proudly into the shoes of Al Gore. Confusing cause and effect, Sam held a nearly one-sided Senate hearing to examine the kind of music he thinks causes crime and low morals.

He must think changing lives is as easy as changing the station.

As usual, this kind of attention is expected to increase sales of the very recordings the hearing covers.

Sam in a soundbite: "There is a feeling that we as a society have grown coarser, meaner and more alienated."

Now that Sam has reached this level of enlightenment about the culture around him, maybe he can begin to grasp why young people are alienated. Could it be because people like Sam are auctioning off the commonwealth of the future in exchange for rapid political gain? Could young people be put off by the fact that Sam and others like him are cashing in the next generation's birthright of a healthy environment and a supportive social network?

Could the tone of Brownback's campaign ads have contributed to the "coarser, meaner" society we are left with? Yes. It could.

At least Marilyn Manson is deliberately ugly. Sam's contribution to the ugliness of our culture is fronted by a smooth political smile.

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark.
      --Wm. Shakespeare (Hamlet I:v, 106-109)
And in Kansas, and in Washington D.C.


Source: the Kansas City Star, "Discordant note ends Brownback's Senate hearing on lyrics / Violent tone of rap, shock rock decried. Others see meddling," James Kuhnhenn, 11/07/97
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