Looking For a Message; German Gangsta Rap

It's official, the Democrats currently don't have a plan or a message. Well, that's not entirely true, they do have a plan, but the plan is to have a message, which they don't have. Make sense? Howard Dean says he wants the Democratic Party to be a party "of change," yet how can a party of change promote protectionism and isolationism? Isn't that a conflict of interest? Believe me, I want the Democrats to re-assert themselves as a "party of change," and challenge the Republicans. As a moderate, a strong Democratic Party keeps the Republicans honest, and provides a valuable voting alternative. The Republicans have become the party of big-spending and big-government. But to succeed, the Democrats must fundamentally alter the values that they represented in the 1960s and embrace a politics of small-government, efficient spending, economic environmentalism, civil liberties, and free trade. That's a party of change, a party that will reflect the diversity of 2050 and save a waning political institution.

In other news, the New York Times has run a story on German gangsta rap. Sound like an oxymoron? Strangely, it's not. In fact, the article suggests that gangsta rap is booming, even in a language as unsuitable for rhymes as guttural, polysyllabic German. What's most fascinating though, is not that gangsta rap is thriving in Germany, but the racial tension that all of this evokes. Indeed, Europe is now facing a major crisis of racial tension that has not been seen since World War II. In Germany, there is a conflict between immigrant Turks and native Germans resentful of these immigrants that take their jobs at lower wages (sound familiar?), making Turkish entry into the European Union a political hot potato that new party wants to touch. In France, conflict exists between the French and Algerian and Moroccan Muslims, many of whom live in isolated ghettos. In the Netherlands, indigenous Dutch struggle with the fanaticism of a small percentage of its Muslim minority. And the recent London bombings is a more than self-explanatory explanation of the United Kingdom's problems. These are the growing pains of a society that is just now adapting itself to a quickly changing world. Open borders and globalization have made human movement as possible as ever. Rather than see this racial tension as a bad sign, we should be heralding it as a sign of a more diverse and open society. Hopefully gangsta rap can serve as a positive, creative bridge between German Turks and native Germans.