Mike Males: how boomers cash in on every over-hyped youth "crisis"

Why do demagogues, con artists and fossils dominate youth-issue discussion today? Because youth policy, like most social policy, has become thoroughly privatized. It's about corporate marketing, not science. Interest groups and agencies, like beer and fashion advertisers, invest heavily in visceral icons designed to stimulate artificial needs: Sexy seventh-graders! Savage girls! Killer tots next door! Pill-popping monsters stealing grandma's meds! Like commercial hucksters, youth-fearing alarmists brandish hot-button anecdotes and slanted "facts" to sell superficial cure-alls: books, programs, grants, ideologies and personal stardom. They avoid the most critical realities afflicting youth: poverty, domestic violence, massive increases in parents' drug abuse and crime. Reality doesn't sell. "Whatever Sells" Youth Today