Wisconsin protest shows need for conservative pop culture

Tea Party Rockers! ^ | 18 February, 2011 | AJ Anonymous

[wku man]

As I've said before, kids don't surf the Heritage Foundation website, they don't listen to Beck or Hannity, and they don't watch Fox News. They listen to rap and "death metal", watch movies and reality TV, play video games and daydream they're LeBron James. If they get any "news" at all (and I seriously doubt the kid who calls Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker 'that dude' is a news consumer), it comes from Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert.

Pop culture is the way we're going to have to reach them. We've got to deliver our message in an envelope they'll actually open. We've got to reach them on the dance floor, the mosh pit, in their cars, at the movie theaters, and through their X-Boxes. Otherwise, all our words are going to sail over their heads, in one ear and out the other, and will sound like Charlie Brown's teacher.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

I agree with you. Where we are now didn't just ‘happen’. The left, including the subversive communist element have been patient and methodical in their attempts to take over American society. They knew many decades ago that it was important for them to control the information fed to Americans, so they went after entertainment, media, and education, and have been very successful in taking control of each of these. Very successful.

To effectively fight them we have to have a long-term plan, and that plan must include taking away the left’s control of information. There's a good reason why every totalitarian government makes it a priority to control the media, the culture, and the flow of information.

[orinoco]

What’s taking so long? We’ve know that since the protest pop culture back in the 60’s!! Most of the protest music, movies TV etc. were all left leaning.

[vladimir998]

Okay, let’s take your example of Roy Rogers. I have nothing against the man and always thought he was a decent, good-hearted person. But I would say his pop status was part of the problem. What I mean is that him or Snoop Dog: one was a decent man, the other is a louse, but both are pop stars and trade off essentially the same pop star industry. I would want my kids to have REAL heros not matinee idols or rap idols. Roy was a reflection of his people and his time. So is Snoop Dog. I want kids to admire a more eternal and solid culture rather than fly-by-night one or two generation pop stars.

Pop culture is largely vacuous at least in part because it is transitory with no lasting value.

[wku man]

"To effectively fight them we have to have a long-term plan, and that plan must include taking away the left’s control of information. There's a good reason why every totalitarian government makes it a priority to control the media, the culture, and the flow of information."

You're right. One thing I'd like to see happen is for conscientious, patriotic investors to stop sending money to China or other foreign markets, and start pooling their resources to buy controlling interests in cable companies, cable networks, movie studios, record labels and sports teams. That way, they could exert control and enforce responsibility on those media. Could you imagine how well behaved Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan would be if they had to sign an annual behavior agreement? If they had to behave themselves at the risk of losing their movies/shows, they might think twice about having a week-long cocaine and porn star bender.

But that's long term. We have to start somewhere, like (selfishly speaking) helping conservative rock bands and rappers -- if there is such a thing -- raise the funds to get into the studio and go on tour. Like investing in small, independent movie studios that produce films with conservative and patriotic themes. Finding screenwriters to turn out conservative, patriotic scripts, but which are edgy enough to appeal to 24-year old movie fans. We got to start small, finding the talent, and finding the capital to promote that talent. That's what I'm trying to get started with my blog. I'll keep you posted.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[wku man]

"What’s taking so long? We’ve know that since the protest pop culture back in the 60’s!! Most of the protest music, movies TV etc. were all left leaning."

I don't know...I was born in the 60s, so I really can't speak to pop culture before "Happy Days".

Why hasn't someone already done something? Again, I don't know...I just learned on this very thread that a Human Events columnist was writing about this same idea five years ago.

The creativity is out there, and the money is out there. Maybe the reason this idea hasn't taken off yet is that we've never figured out how to put the money together with the conservative, patriotic talent in order to get the ball rolling. We've got to take this from an idea to a movement, and I'm trying to get that process started.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[wku man]

"Pop culture is largely vacuous at least in part because it is transitory with no lasting value."

Movies have no lasting value? The industry has been around for, what...100 years? TV has no lasting value? It's been around for, what...60 years? Rock and roll has no lasting value? It's been around for, what...55-60 years? As distasteful as it is to admit it, rap has no lasting value? I remember when rap got started, about 30 years ago.

Pop culture lasts, whether you like it or not. It's there, and kids are following it, and will always follow it. We can either figure out how to use it to our benefit, or we can raise yet another generation of media-saturated, Leftist indoctrinated skulls full of mush, who have no concept of small government, personal responsibility, and American exceptionalism.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[vladimir998]

you wrote:

“Movies have no lasting value?”

Show me where I said that.

“TV has no lasting value?”

Not much, no.

“Rock and roll has no lasting value?”

There’s no evidence it does. We’ll probably have to wait around half a millenium to find out.

“It’s been around for, what...55-60 years?”

You do realize how idiotic that sounds, right? 55 years is a drop in the bucket.

“As distasteful as it is to admit it, rap has no lasting value?”

Definitely not, no, rap has no lasting value - unless you think “yo’ bitches and niggas” is of lasting value.

“I remember when rap got started, about 30 years ago.”

So what? Rap is transitory. Any style of music which claims Run DMC and the Beastie Boys as early virtuosos is doomed to be passed by soon enough. That’s one of the reasons why rap (and Rock) have already gone through so many stylistic changes in just a few decades.

“Pop culture lasts, whether you like it or not.”

Pop culture doesn’t last. That’s why we aren’t using the same pop culture used just 20 years ago let alone 50 or 70 years ago.

“It’s there, and kids are following it, and will always follow it.”

Kids grow up and often put away a lot of their pop culture crap. They also have kids who embrace a pop culture much different than their own generation’s.

“We can either figure out how to use it to our benefit, or we can raise yet another generation of media-saturated, Leftist indoctrinated skulls full of mush, who have no concept of small government, personal responsibility, and American exceptionalism.”

All of those ideas are inimical to pop culture. Small government can never be pop culture. Pop culture is vacuous, silly, transitory, possessing little of eternal use or value. Pop culture routinely eschews the very idea of personal responsibility. And American exceptionalism is simply too deep an idea to be grasped by idiots who confuse pop culture with culture. We need to embrace culture. Pop culture is simply a byproduct of the modern age’s dehumanization of man. Much of it is little more than a product of the left. The simple fact is that most of pop culture is trash and becomes passe soon enough. Remember disco? Lasting value? Pet rocks? Are tie-dye shirts really of lasting value? Baycity Rollers? Roller disco? Big fins on cars? Wide ties? Skinny ties? Mullets? Dovetails? I think you’re confusing your own nostalgia for crap from days gone by with culture.

[dblup]

It’s all “crap” from days gone by, big boy.

Do you think Shakespeare’s plays were considered high art in his time?

The earliest Italian operas were looked down on because they mixed a comic element in with more serious matters, Mozart’s most famous operas didn’t hold their popularity, Wagner shocked audiences and Strauss drove them to riot.

This is not to say our popular “culture” is the equivalent of the Renaissance Age or the Moderns or Post-Moderns or whatever the hell we want to call any of it—it’s not even to say it’s remotely in the same league of taste or quality or meaning.

But culture has a lot of elements and a lot of layers. If you don’t think the post-War period of American auto design, building design, city design, art, music, literature and so on is a part of culture, then you don’t think anything is.

Sorry but culture doesn’t necessarily mean “cultured,” as you might define it.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“Do you think Shakespeare’s plays were considered high art in his time?”

Compared to Britney Spears in our day, yes.

And pop culture is still trash.

[dblup]

You’re just a real fount of wisdom, old boy.

Been a pleasure chatting with you.

[wku man]

I'll say up front that I don't think you read the article, and being as this is a long response, I doubt you'll read it, either. But someone might, so I'll go ahead and post it.

Look at pop culture in terms of a computer. Pop culture isn't the applications you load into your computer, which have new editions every year or two, it's the RAM on which those applications operate. Looking at it another way, pop culture isn't the "flavor of the month", it's the whole ice cream shop.

Pop culture is permanent, it doesn't go away. It isn't Shia LeBouef or Meagan Fox, it's the entire movie industry. Pop culture isn't the Black Eyed Peas, it's the entire music industry. It's not Two and a Half Men, it's the entire TV entertainment industry as a whole. It's not Kobe Bryant, it's the entire professional sports industry. All those actors, music groups, athletes and TV shows are parts of pop culture, but pop culture will go on long after Charlie Sheen has coke'd and hookered himself to death.

Our mission is to upgrade the software to a faster, more powerful conservative and patriotic version. My mission, and that of anyone else who wants to help, is to change the flavor of the month from Jon Stewart Chunky Barf to I Love America Crunch.

"And American exceptionalism is simply too deep an idea to be grasped by idiots who confuse pop culture with culture. We need to embrace culture."

I really like that line. How, pray tell, are you going to get teens and 20-somethings to listen to you long enough to teach them culture? If you'd read the article, you'd know that I already addressed that quandary. Grover Norquist could talk to a high school assembly like he did at the rally the other day (and if you don't know what I'm referring to, go back and actually read the article), and unless he couched his speech in terms that they a) could understand and b) would keep them entertained, they'd hear nothing but Charlie Brown's teacher. The message has to be wrapped in an envelope that Generation.com will actually open.

You probably already understand this, though. What I read between the lines of your rant is that you just don't think much of young people, and think they're a lost cause, so why bother? I'll tell you why...because they'll be in charge in 20 years. Just as Generation X is now taking over Congress (God help us), Generation.com will one day be in charge. IF we survive my generation's reign, we won't make it through Generation.com. America as we know it will be finished, over and done with, hasta la vista, baby.

We can't just ignore teens and 20-somethings, we've got to correct their course, pronto. Hell, we may still have time to salvage at least some of the 30-somethings in Generation X. But we have to use methods they'll respond to...if we try to use Pat Boone and Mel Torme-style tactics, they'll shrug their shoulders and turn their attention back to their X-Boxes.

That's what I'm trying to do...evidently without your help. That's fine, I'll manage. Feel free not to read anymore of my articles or visit my blog, and have a great rest of the weekend.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“I really like that line. How, pray tell, are you going to get teens and 20-somethings to listen to you long enough to teach them culture?”

You raise them that way. The ones who are not raised that way have to be - for lack of a better word - evangelized. We might have to stoop to using pop culture to get their attention, but if they stay mired in pop culture they will never learn and will never be any use to us.

“Pop culture is permanent, it doesn’t go away.”

That’s a contradiction of terms. Pop means it is popular for the moment, for a short time.

“My mission, and that of anyone else who wants to help, is to change the flavor of the month from Jon Stewart Chunky Barf to I Love America Crunch.”

You’re doomed to fail.

“IF we survive my generation’s reign, we won’t make it through Generation.com. America as we know it will be finished, over and done with, hasta la vista, baby.”

Gee, so you think the generation that has been raised on only pop culture is dangerous to our nation? My, my. How can that be? Isn’t pop culture wonderful?

You’re doomed to fail. Your own lack of understanding will be your undoing.

[wku man]

"You raise them that way. The ones who are not raised that way have to be - for lack of a better word - evangelized."

Best case scenario, yes. But we have two generations now that for the most part were not/are not being raised with traditional (iow, conservative and patriotic) values. They were never exposed, by their parent and/or schools, to the message of American exceptionalism and traditional values. Meanwhile, pop culture was saturating them with Leftist, anti-American, anti-Christian dogma. That's a 40 year gap that has to be plugged. We can't just grumble and grouse for 40 years, waiting for some miracle to happen and our nation to be saved.

"We might have to stoop to using pop culture to get their attention, but if they stay mired in pop culture they will never learn and will never be any use to us."

By Jove, I think he's got it! We've got to do something to get young people to the point where they hear our conservative message. Once they hear it, some will realize it makes a lot of sense. At that point (hopefully), they'll start attending Tea Party events, surfing the Heritage Foundation website, listening to Limbaugh and Hannity, et al. But we have to get them to that "Eureka!" moment first, and we're not going to get their attention with The Andrews Sisters and John Wayne movies.

"Pop means it is popular for the moment, for a short time."

No, you're confusing pop culture with fads. Fads are "for a day" (hence the word), but pop culture has always existed, because "stuff" has always been popular. As an earlier FReeper said, Roy Rogers and Shakespeare were the pop culture of their day. Brittney Spears, disco, mullets, and the Jonas Brothers were fads, that were part of pop culture. They may no longer be popular, but pop culture goes on and on.

"You’re doomed to fail."

I'm reminded of the Teddy Roosevelt quote, "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

'Nuff said.

"Gee, so you think the generation that has been raised on only pop culture is dangerous to our nation? My, my. How can that be? Isn’t pop culture wonderful"

Sorry, Straw Man, that dog won't hunt. It's not the existence of pop culture that's our nation's undoing, it's what kind of message is being delivered through pop culture. The problem isn't that Gen X and Generation.com have been raised with pop culture...after all, the Baby Boom, the WW2 generation, the kids of the Gilded Age, the Renaissance, even the Plains Indians all had their pop culture. It's the message that is our undoing, not the medium. Gen X and Gen.com have been getting the wrong message through pop culture, which I aim to fix.

"You’re doomed to fail. Your own lack of understanding will be your undoing."

And you can watch me fall in the arena, then get back up again, only to fall once more, and get back up, while you're sitting in the stands, with the rest of the "...cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." At least I'm doing something other than grumbling and grousing about how screwed up things are.

Again, feel free to not read any more of my articles or visit my blog. I'm sure you have much more important things to do...like sitting on the couch, watching the country go to hell on TV, complaining to your cat about how trashy pop culture is.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[vladimir998]

You will not fall in the arena. You will never enter it. That’s the point. You’re positing the idea that pop culture is the remedy to pop culture. You’re doomed to fail for you do not even realize you’re contradicting your own premise. Pop culture can never truly be conservative. At best it can point to something conservative - and I’m all for that - but that means little in a world where people have forgotten culture and substituted pop culture for it.

[wku man]

Buh-bye, Mr. Cold and Timid. Have a great week.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“Buh-bye, Mr. Cold and Timid.”

Boy are you way off. Another reason why you’ll fail.

“Have a great week.”

I will. I am not so sure you will.