Fallout for the Fixers?

Like most freedom-loving people who like to see the "world's greatest deliberative body" actually doing some deliberating, I was relieved to learn yesterday evening of the compromise deal reached by a bipartisan group of 7 Democrats and 7 Republicans to end the embarrassing impasse in the Senate. For weeks now, the headlines have been dominated by the showdown in the Senate where Democrats have been threatening to use the filibuster to block controversial judicial appointments by President Bush. The Republicans responded with a threat to use the "nuclear option" whereby the minority party would be stripped of its power to filibuster.

The back-and-forth struggle had been going on with no end in sight, until the aforementioned group of moderates from either party decided to split with the entrenched leadership. The primary individuals responsible: on the Democrats' side, Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Robert Byrd (D-WV); on the Republicans' side, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and John Warner (R-VA). Their honorable actions have received much praise for bringing some resolution, at least temporarily, to the deadlock.

One group that is decidedly not pleased with the outcome, however, is the hardline conservatives. The headline from the Washington Times read "7 Republicans abandon GOP on filibuster", an indicator of the widespread dissatisfaction on the right. Across the blogosphere and on talk-radio, I was very disappointed to see conservative commentators lambasting the Republicans who helped engineer the compromise deal. The PowerLine bloggers denounced the "hideous deal" in which "Senators like McCain...sold out their party." Rush Limbaugh today declared that McCain, Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and the other Republicans involved can "forget about '08."

That last item, an unfortunately common sentiment among the embittered right, is a terrible blow to all of us who hope to see a moderate Republican emerge as the party's candidate for president in 2008. I know I'm not the only one who has been nursing a not-so-secret hope that John McCain, the most respected man in Washington, will take the mantel of leadership in his party. Hopefully, recent events have not endangered this possibility. In any case, it is sad to see that Republican ideologues, who like to talk about their "big tent" party, are in practice completely intolerant of deviance from their extremist positions.

Quelling the Hip-Hop Hullabaloo

Last month, rapper 50 Cent became the first artist since The Beatles to have four singles concurrently in the Top Ten of the music charts. The very explicit music video for one of his songs, "Disco Inferno", features scenes with scantily clad women groping each other and another scene where 50 is pouring bottles of alcohol down a woman's...derriere. 50 himself has described his new album, The Massacre, by saying "I attempted to be as sexual as possible." Not that we noticed.

50's crude, violent, and derogatory lyrics enjoy such remarkable popularity that the New York Times' Brent Staples has stirred up a whole hip-hop hullabaloo. His May 12 editorial ("How Hip-Hop Music Lost Its Way and Betrayed Its Fans") carries a serious charge. As a teenager who has grown up in an era where rap has dominated popular music, I was interested to find out why Dr. Staples has such a forcefully negative opinion of the genre. Yet after reading his arguments I remain unconvinced. As much as he would like to hold up the almost-comical excesses of 50 Cent as proof of the deterioration of the hip-hop culture, his argument just doesn't hold water for numerous reasons.

In characterizing rap as a "medium for worshiping misogyny, materialism, and murder," Dr. Staples worries about the effect that the hip-hop culture has on African-American youth. He contrasts the supposed characteristics of hip-hop with those of the stereotypical "white", "middle-class". Dr. Staples himself probably realizes that idea to be meritless since it is whites who buy the most rap music, which in and of itself does not cause anyone to "[embrace] violence, illiteracy, and drug dealing." The focus on sex, money, and even drugs is not a phenomenon unique to rap music; rather, it has been an inherent part of popular music for at least the past half-century.

Furthermore, the violent agenda of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G.'s era has faded since their shooting deaths in the mid-90s. Since then, the legacy of popular rap music has shifted from authentic "gangsta" rap to a more simplistic, hedonistic agenda. Witness the obsession with the "crunked" party-minded rappers who dominate the airwaves today: Lil Jon, Ludacris, Nelly, Outkast, etc. The only "beefs" going on are, as they say, "on the wax"--exchanges of lyrical disses between sparring rappers in song lyrics. Dr. Staples turns the isolated incident of a dust-up between 50 Cent and protégé The Game into evidence that today's rap stars still have their guns blazing. For the record, the aforementioned squabble was settled in a week, the only effect having been some excellent publicity for both of their new records. Coincidence? You tell me.

In his article Dr. Staples also refers to current rap icon Eminem. Eminem didn’t become a living legend from talking body counts and bulletproof vests. He did so by speaking--at times with comic absurdity, other times painfully candid--about the hardships of life in the dead-end towns of America. Rap music has always been a vehicle for insightful social commentary, ever since Grandmaster Flash's 1982 classic "The Message" up through Public Enemy's rap-rock in the early 90s and the tradition continues today with songs like "Mosh", Eminem's scathing anti-war diatribe.

The claim that hip-hop has "lost its way" is disingenuous. It may not be the music of the Woodstock generation, but rap can be serious when it wants to, as demonstrated by the examples above. Perhaps rap's critics are just disappointed that the current trend in popular rap music does not tend towards social consciousness. The truth of the matter, whether you approve or not, is that the current generation of rappers simply has different interests than their predecessors. The situation of the current generation is completely incomparable to the gangsta rap generation, in much the same way that no one would compare N.W.A.'s "F*** Tha Police" (1988) to Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" (1980).

Brent Staples thinks that hip-hop is reaching a "tipping point" where its vices will finally become too great to tolerate. I doubt it. Sure, rap today celebrates material excess, but that's not a betrayal. It's an evolution of a genre in much the same way rock has feted different themes, many of them not "wholesome", over the decades. Based on the way rap's flying off the shelves now, it hardly seems that people have had enough. They can't seem to get enough of this stuff!

Friedman at the Brody Forum

Left to right: Doug Besharov (UMCP), Thomas Friedman (NY Times), Shibley Telhami (UMCP)

This Sunday I brought my parents to the Brody Public Policy Forum featuring renowned author and columnist Thomas Friedman. The event, sponsored by Florence Brody and Jehan Sadat (wife of Anwar Sadat), consisted of a discussion of a number of foreign policy issues with an emphasis on the Middle East. Friedman also spoke at length about topics raised in his new bestseller, which I've mentioned before on this site, called The World is Flat.

In this book, Friedman talks about how the pace of globalization has exploded in the past decade or so, to the point where booming countries like India and China are now serious competition for a diminished and complacent U.S. His contention is that today's ubiquitous information technology solutions, combined with the right political movements after the fall of the Berlin Wall, have fostered an environment where commerce can flourish throughout the world. As Friedman puts it, those homegrown geniuses in other countries "no longer need to immigrate in order to innovate."

Is he right? There's no doubt that our competition--chiefly Friedman's favorite examples: India and China--are making rapid strides. Talented individuals in those countries are taking advantage of the best that technology has to offer and are creating a transformation that is occurring in real-time. My parents' generation had to come to the U.S. in order to have the opportunities appropriate for their talents. That's not necessarily the case anymore. A few decades ago it likely was better to be an average student in the U.S. than a genius in China or India, but Friedman says the opposite is true now.

But in his remarks on Sunday, Friedman never acknowledged that it is only certain isolated segments in China or India that are making these rapid advances. A number of people have pointed out that while in Bangalore (Friedman's Indian Silicon Valley) a whole array of successful high-tech companies has sprouted up, they are situated amidst poverty and squalor. In a discussion of The World is Flat a few weeks ago, I remember someone noting with irony that the short drive to work a Bangalore programmer experiences will take two hours over roughshod roads.

So while India and China really are catching up to the U.S., I believe their pace is a bit slower than Friedman would expect. Those countries do not yet have a fully developed infrastructure--both physical as well as political--to take their game to the next level. Of course, acquiring this is only a matter of time--and when they do, look out!

The most important concern raised by Friedman, in my opinion, concerns the preparedness of the United States to deal with coming challenges. He says it's quite possible that we could experience a decline in our standard of living, unless we make changes now, chiefly to our education system. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to ask Friedman for his thoughts on Bill Gates' recent comments that the American public school system is "obsolete" and that he is "terrified for our work force of tomorrow." Ouch! Coming from the icon of ingenuity himself, there undoubtedly exists a big problem, one with no easy answers forthcoming in this post.

Doug Besharov, who moderated the discussion, commented that Friedman's words had a "sobering" effect. They do indeed. To me, this flat world creates more questions than it does provide answers.