It was only four years ago that some marketing genius created the most used useless political slogan evar. “Vote Or Die!” was plastered onto billboards, streetlamp signs and busty chanteuse’s t-shirts in an effort to sell more t-shirts I presume. It’s not just the fact that the slogan “Vote or Die!” has no common sense attached to it, but isn’t the act of killing yourself counterintuitive to the political process? Maybe I don’t know the full backstory and maybe someone had already copywritten “Vote To Live!”, but what I do know is that propaganda is that last way to attract young people into the arena of political thought.
Four years ago when Hip-Hop music was a stronger cultural force across mainstream America it was believed that the generation that used the artistic movement of Hip-Hop to frame their lives would be a proactive (damn you DIDDY) and progressive force. It turns out that the Hip-Hop generation for all of it’s early bluster about partying for the right to fight are only interested in partying primarily. And fighting secondarily. Rights? Not so much. This may be the most politically impotent generation evar although the money and capital that they transfer is enormous.
Why haven’t BARACK OBAAMA or HILARY CLINTON made overtures to target this demographic? Because they know that when the time comes for people to come to the polling stations all the people under thirty-five will be doing something else. Probably working at their jobs in the service industry without union representation or retirement options. Meanwhile, these same Senators vying for the presidency have been tacitly dismantling the country’s social security system. This is all going down while we snap our fingers and ‘walk it out’ to rap music’s care free choruses. It’s no longer a matter of who will ring the alarm. The real question is who will even care?
I see the election season in 2007 as a training ground for the 2008 campaigns. There are surely councilpersons and state assembly seats up for grabs this year. All of our responsibilities are simple and clear. Uncover the candidates early in the process before they place their placards on lampposts. The first thing we need is to find out who believes in education over prison, the environment over oil, and peace over war. In this way we can send a message to the larger public that we have not forsaken our obligations as citizens, nor have we comprimised our humanity. If we can’t even muster this effort we might as well go back to the “Vote Or Die!” proposition and just kill ourselves.
FIRE!
That picture of Al is a straight classic.
Awesome post, I just wanted to add this to the discussion:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=aXc7_7DAoIk
I think it’s funny, your mileage may vary.
But they dont hear you though!!!
It seems to me they are splitting the vote into demographic sections amongst the democrats,leaving the door open for the same old good old boy sponsored & rammed down your throat by the special interest clicks.
damnn…nice post dallas! “The first thing we need is to find out who believes in education over prison, the environment over oil, and peace over war.” well said!….the skulls and bones are running things so we dont matter.
I don’t think the under 35 set will be absent from the polls just cause they’ve got better things to do. Those I know – especially freshly minted 18 year old voters – simply don’t believe there’s any point. I know it’s all been said before (and more eloquently than by me), but your average NYC teen sees all the various government systems as either targeting them or neglecting them. Those who ARE in power on the local level are seen as useless puppets that are manipulated by higher, stronger, and completely disinterested forces. Those who the youth look up to as real leaders get no recognition from the larger formal systems. In short, they’re pretty fucking jaded. Like all teens, I suppose, but teens are also tremendously righteous and have a strong sense of justice – who’s tapping into THAT?
Well said… most youngins like to talk about the political system and how their government representation doesn’t care about them. The problem is that most people doing the complaining don’t seem to care enough about their representation to take a 1/2 an hour once every 2 or so years to actually do something constructive about it and cast (or even register) to vote.