The description of evil through art

East Coast intellectual Simon Grigg has written a great piece on the subject of MegaUpload:

Given that, really, [MegaUpload's] offences seem to be little different in scope to the rogue YouTube, as documented in that Viacom indictment, one wonders why the 'man' is so keen to stomp so visibly and brutally on the founder and face of the site.

Because people are killing music. But remember the days when music was killing America? In 1995 Bob Dole wanted to be the Republican nominee for President and his campaign was searching for ways to distinguish him. Writes Bob Woodward in The Choice (1996):

The plan, as [advisor William] Lacy had proposed in April, was to attack Hollywood directly on the grounds of sex and violence in movies and popular music. [Speechwriter] Mari Will... had spent some time drafting the anti-Hollywood speech... Dole needed to step up in a forceful and direct way if he was going to get and retain attention, particularly with conservative voters.

Dole was to give the speech in Los Angeles. Will had "injected some high voltage rhetoric into the speech" which Dole approved. Later he began to express reservations. Revisions were made and the language softened, but the Senator's doubts persisted. "Maybe it was generational, Dole figured, but he was very uncomfortable with the Hollywood value speech... He considered not giving it."

On the night of the speech Lacy went over it with the candidate word by word, "a diversionary tactic so that Dole wouldn't toss out the entire speech." Dole even wavered once he got up on the podium, improvising an introduction. But eventually he reverted to the words on the teleprompter:

A line has been crossed — not just of taste, but of human dignity and decency. It is crossed every time sexual violence is given a catchy tune. When teen suicide is set to an appealing beat. When Hollywood's dream factories turn out nightmares of depravity.

You know what I mean. I mean "Natural Born Killers." "True Romance." Films that revel in mindless violence and loveless sex. I'm talking about groups like Cannibal Corpse, Geto Boys and 2 Live Crew. About a culture business that makes money from "music" extolling the pleasures of raping, torturing and mutilating women; from "songs" about killing policemen and rejecting law...

Today Time Warner owns a company called Interscope Records which columnist John Leo called the "cultural equivalent of owning half the world's mustard gas factories." Ice-T of "Cop Killer" fame is one of Time Warner's "stars." I cannot bring myself to repeat the lyrics of some of the "music" Time Warner promotes. But our children do. There is a difference between the description of evil through art, and the marketing of evil through commerce.

The speech was a big hit -- "giant news. The impact was way beyond anything in Dole's entire political history."

Dole hadn't seen the movies he was talking about. Not sure if he'd heard the rap tracks either but "teen suicide set to an appealing beat" has the air of authenticity.