1. What was your main motivation behind writing "Dispatches from the Culture Wars"?

For several years I'd been ranting at my friends in politics about the cultural myopia of Democrats and leaders on the left, leaders whose policy goals I support, by the way. The 2000 election was the final straw for me. During that campaign I started writing "Dispatches from the Culture Wars," which is a rant in the form of a memoir. I gave it the sub-title "How the Left Lost Teen Spirit," because I am particularly frustrated at the way the left has failed to connect with young people. I also liked the play on the words "teen spirit," because the high point of my career in the music business was managing Nirvana, whose most famous song is "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

I grew up in the 1960s when culture and progressive politics reinforced each other and when the energy of young people was crucial in developing the civil rights movement, feminism, the gay rights movement, environmentalism, the anti-war movement etc. Leaders like Martin Luther King, the Kennedys, Abbie Hoffman, and Gloria Steinem spoke in clear inspirational terms and vividly connected with the cultural language of the times.

In the late 1970s I worked with musical artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt to oppose the growth of nuclear power and over the next few years I tried, as an executive in the music business, to help progressive political causes.

2. How do you distinguish between the left and Democratic party or Democrats?

When I say I "the left" in the book I mean public interest groups and other activists who advocate on behalf of particular issues such as civil liberties, the environment, etc. Even though many leaders of these groups will articulate courageous and visionary positions that establishment Democrats eschew, the cultural disconnect between most leaders on the left is as great or even greater than that of the Democrats, often more academic and more insular. So I think it is important to cite both groups and not just dump them together under the term Democrats-it is bigger than that.

I was stunned when Tipper Gore and other Democrats started attacking rock lyrics in the mid-eighties and when so few political figures from either the left or the Democratic party saw the moral vacuity of these attacks and also the political folly of opposing youth culture.

Based on my experiences in culture and politics over the last couple of decades, I think the left and the Democrats have become estranged from popular culture, have failed to reach out to young people, and communicate their message.

A lot of energy is spent "preaching to the choir". Although academic thought is crucial for the development of ideas, the left seems to focus on the academic arena to the exclusion of populist strategies. With the exception of Michael Moore and a handful of others, very few leaders on the left seem to be familiar with mass media and pop culture. This syndrome contrasts sharply with the successful leaders of the past such as Martin Luther King and even Emma Goldman who famously said she wanted no part of a revolution that she couldn't dance to.

3. What has been the result of this estrangement from today's youth culture?

The 2000 election was an awful combination of many of the worst self-inflicted wounds of the political movements whose goals I support. Gore seemed incapable of communicating to anyone who didn't watch PBS or read the New York Times OP-ED pages. Lieberman brought his sanctimoniousness and his long-time antipathy to popular culture into a national campaign.

Although there has been a lot of criticism of Ralph Nader by Democrats and those on the left, some of which I agree with, there has been shockingly little analysis of how the Democrats became so indistinct and unimpressive that any third-party candidate could so easily peel off millions of votes on the left.

The Gore-Lieberman campaign was a particular flop with young people. Among voters aged 18-24, Bill Clinton won by a margin of twelve points in 1992 and nineteen points in 1996. Gore and Lieberman were only able to break even. If they had the same margin as Clinton they would have added another one to two million votes to their popular vote margin, which easily would have swung several more states and the presidency. And it's not only young people who were turned off by Gore and Lieberman's attacks on pop culture, their refusal to acknowledge the Nader supporters, and their turgid Washington-insider language. Young people influence the attitudes of many older-people particularly in the worlds of fashion and entertainment-and their enthusiasm or lack thereof about politics has a ripple effect in the culture at large.

4. You define the Sixties as a counterculture that brought politics, art, and youth together. Given our political situation now, do you think it is possible to create such a counterculture today?

Sure. A counterculture is being created today. If you look at the phenomenon of MoveOn.org having gathered two million email addresses of people who opposed Bush's policy on Iraq, or the extraordinary success of Michael Moore's most recent book and movie or the emergence of young politically savvy artists such as David Rees or Aaron McGruder, you can see a reflection of an enormous group of Americans who are deeply dissatisfied with mainstream political media and with the public face of both major political parties. I think that the next few years will give birth to a dramatic new version of a progressive counterculture. The challenge for older progressives will be to support it even if we aren't in the forefront of it. We don't want to make the mistakes of the leftists from the nineteen thirties who were unable to connect with the sixties protest movements.

5. You attack "liberal snobs" for changing the soul of the Democratic party, will you briefly explain what a "liberal snob" is and give a few examples on how you believe they have damaged the Democratic party?

"Liberal snobs" can mean politicians like Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton who attack and distain popular culture. Or people in Washington whose communications focus solely on speaking to other people in Washington at the expense of reaching out to ordinary people. I still don't know what Al Gore was talking about when he kept mentioning the "lockbox," in the presidential debates.

Then there are overt liberal snobs like Harvard President Lawrence Summers who attacked Cornel West, not only for releasing a CD on my label Artemis Records, but for writing books that were supposedly too popular--as if a popular touch is mutually exclusive with intellectual and moral seriousness.

6. As a political activist and insider in the music industry, how do you think politicians today could benefit from listening to politically concerned musicians and artists?

Art operates on a different wavelength than politics and I have never thought that politicians should take instructions from musicians (nor for that matter that musicians should be propagandists for political views.)

However people with political goals can learn a lot from popular culture about the emotional and moral framework in which most Americans process information. Much of political behavior motivated by deep seated moral and emotional value systems that often are triggered by the "poetry" of symbols more than the "prose" of policy. Popular culture, for all of its limitations and flaws, often communicates far more powerfully to many people than linear political communiqués.

Thus someone in the organization of any political movement needs to understand popular culture in order to be effective. Norman Lear, perhaps the most brilliant TV writer-producer of the last several decades, told me recently that in all the years he's been approached by Democrats and progressives for financial support he never once has been asked for his advice about communications. Failure to take advantage of the cultural wisdom of someone like that is not only snobbish, it's self-destructive.

7. What is the biggest concern you have for the future of the Democratic party?

I'm worried that it will fade into irrelevance. Bill Clinton was able to win because of his incredible personal charisma. This was a guy who could attack Sister Souljah to create a bond with white workers uncomfortable with black influence, and yet bond with African-American leaders by sending cultural signals to them. But unlike Franklin Roosevelt or sixties liberals, Clinton didn't leave behind any unique set of values or strategies that less charismatic Democrats can use.

Former House Speaker Tip O'Neill was the last national Democratic leader to articulate progressive values in consistent emotionally accessible terms. He would say that Reagan "had ice-water in his veins," or that "he doesn't remember where he came from." Not everyone liked O'Neill but they knew where he stood and he was able to rally the troops against a president who was far more personally popular than George W. Bush.

When I hear Democrats speak about important issues, they often sound as if they are only concerned with what people in Washington think.

Republicans learned this lesson clearly. Ronald Reagan spoke in the American vernacular and cultural touchstones in dozens of his speeches and our current president followed his example. George W. Bush supposedly told his advisers to make his rationale for the Iraq war "so simple that the boys in Lubbock can understand it."

If Joe Lieberman, or someone with his culturally conservative views, is on the Democrat ticket again, millions of potential Democrats, including myself, will either vote for Bush, a third party candidate, or decline to vote altogether.

8. Do you think using pop culture as a hook is the only way to get young Americans involved in politics?

No, of course not. Political leaders, journalists, religious leaders, and public interest group leaders have to be the primary voices on political issues. But if culture is not part of the way in which they reach out to the public, they are unlikely to be successful in moving their agenda. I've met so many political leaders who have never watched The Simpsons or listened to a rap album, or seen an Adam Sandler movie. How can you lead people if you don't understand their cultural language?

But the "hook" isn't only in the language, it's also in the content. Young people, and people of all ages who keep youth alive in their hearts, want a moral context to their politics, not just poll-tested appeals to self-interest. I'm so sick of hearing Democrats and progressives criticize Bush economics solely on the basis of wealthy people getting a tax break. Why can't we ever hear about the positive reasons for collective action that the tax money would be used for?

We all celebrated the courage of firefighters after Sept 11th. We all want to know that food is safe. We all want investment in health services to deal with threats like the SARS epidemic. These are just a few examples of things that only government, as the instrument of our collective interest, can do.

When Tip O'Neill criticized the Reagan era tax cuts he talked about "fairness," a higher moral standard for government. Today, Democrats talk about the "wealthiest one per-cent," which requires supporters either to identify themselves as people who will never become wealthy, or as people who care only about their own self-interest or both. Can't some of our leaders talk about our moral obligations to each other?