Seed, my friend, you may be more right than me. I teach in a juvenile prison, so my guys might be a little farther into the process than yours, but maybe not. A thought that occurs to me is this; Remember the LA riots after that repulsive acquittal of the police officers that brutalized Rodney King? Did you see the live TV coverage? There was nothing political going on there. What I saw was joyful people of all races trying to steal as much beer and liqor as they could, TV cameras notwithstanding. If they were marching on city hall and burning it down, maybe it could have stood as political expression, but under the circumstances no one could say that it was political. Consider, for example, that two weeks after the LA riots the Detroit Pistons won the NBA championship and the people of Detroit expressed their political outrage in exactly the same way. It was not political, it was not a sports fan celebration. It was just taking advantage of an opportunity to steal. The logical soundtrack to these events, which would have to be Gangstsa rap, is very similar in its depth and sincerity to the actual events. Perhaps I am also being protective of my students here. Surely gangsta rap is not the only thing that leads them in such negative directions, but it is certainly one of them. I am not willing to accept some novel defense of freedom of political expression when the penalty for being wrong is the deaths of a generation of young people. If Al Capone had become the pop-culture figure of his time, producing the dominant music, movies, TV, video games, and even clothing, I think even the most liberal and compassionate among us would take a step back from condoning it. Please tell me more about your school. And would somebody give me a Chomsky reference so I can read what you're referring to?

Thanks, Chet W.