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Underground > Radio & Music >

Can it be? "Conservative-core" Punk bands

All Acting Regiment

12:05 / 03.04.04

Now I've always been sceptical of this narrowing down punk into different "cores", but that is another argument altogether. It seems that Johnny Ramone and someone from Down By Law are trying to create a conservative punk movement, and there's already a whole bunch of bands tied up in it.
Can you work thjat out? I can't. I can kind of understand that all the politics in punk are liberal, and maybe these guys want to create a sub-subculture.
But this really pisses me off. I mean, look, you cant be punk and say that george bush is ace. You cant be free thinking and say that gay people arent allowed to get married.
This is like...like jelly made out of ice cream. Piss made out of shit.
What do you lot think? Is there any justification? or are these guys jus twats?

16:41 / 03.04.04

Conservative punks?

%%Whatever next?%%

I can kind of understand that all the politics in punk are liberal...

...what?

Punk has always had a strong libertarian/self-reliant streak--i.e. its politics have generally been The Politics Of Leave Me The Fuck Alone.

Punk has always defined itself in terms of negativity, exclusion, and hate.

As a movement largely created by alienated urban whites, punk has from the very beginning attracted racists and anti-semites.

How do you justify a sweeping statement like "all the politics in punk are liberal"?

16:53 / 03.04.04

Reminds me of "Oi", the British post-punk skinhead stuff - I odn't know a lof about it but from what I understand, valorised what it perceived as working class attitudes, defined itself against the left, the exact politics varying from band to band, the openly racist ie skrewdriver to those with a focus on workinglass culture (the very little I've heard of Cocksparrer).

"Punks for Bush" really sucks in a gargantuan way, but then anyone for Bush sucksin a gargantuan way.

01:51 / 04.04.04

jack-

how do you justify a sweeping statement like, "Punk has always defined itself in terms of negativity, exclusion, and hate."?

this certainly isn't the punk that i grew up with. while there have always been fascist factions in the punk "movement", the above statement seems a little overbroad.

11:23 / 04.04.04

Kitten: I simply meant that punk is all about negativity, exclusion and hate within the pop culture landscape.

Exclusion: wouldn't you say there's a mindset that divides the world into punk and non-punk? And even worse than non-punk is fake-punk, or wannabe-punk.

Hate: punk is predicated on rejection of "mainstream" values, prefab pop music, fashion-consciousness, traditional societal roles, etc. Now, these are, arguably, all things that it's right and proper to hate, but it's still hate for all that.

Negativity: it's been my experience that punk is less about standing for something than against something--phoniness, social programming, authority, mommy and daddy, etc. Bands (and fans) with a coherent positive proactive agenda have been the exception, rather than the rule. (That's true of any protest music, really, not just punk--music is good at pointing out problems, not so good at offering solutions.)

So I stand by my original characterization, with those qualifications. And with the understanding that those feelings of alienation and negation from a pop culture scene can, in some circumstances, be turned/distorted into a broader societal rejection.

All Acting Regiment

13:02 / 04.04.04

Yes...I agree with the statement "Punk is more libertarian than liberal". We need to look at the political compass here, you know? Punk isn't anything to do with left or right, it's do to with anarchy as opposed to authority. Thats what i'm getting at. Saying you agree with bush is agreeing with the authority, and even worse, its agreeing with a bad authority.

Yes, punk does define itself through alienation, negativity and hate...but look at, say Bad Brains(who are a black punk band) If they hate the mainstream music its because the mainstream music is racist. Am i making sense?

The hatred and alienation is like a cleansing fire to allow libertaraianism. Sort of.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:01 / 04.04.04

Jack: yes, punk does involve all those things. But it's a little more complicated than that, as I suspect you well know..

Out of those hates/rejections have often come immensely supportive/united groupings/working....eg the freedom that alot of women found in punk to work in a way that didn't relate their performance to typical femininity...

Also Crass. Ian Dury.

But Chris, I agree with Jack that neo-conservatism in punk is hardly suprising. See the fact that women in punk still often found it a boys' club.

15:10 / 04.04.04

the hatred and alienation is like cleansing fire...

Oh, sure--in an ideal world.

Funny thing about hate, though: it has a way of becoming an end in itself. You get caught up in the process and forget about the goal.

Anyway: I would argue that libertarianism, strictly speaking, skews more towards the conservative end of the spectrum than the liberal. A small, unintrusive government, emphasis on individual rights and personal responsibility, less policing of personal behavior--these are core conservative values.

Liberalism is, by its nature, authoritarian in the sense that it believes the government can be a force for good and should be an active participant in the life of every citizen (providing free education, health care, and old-age benefits, for instance). For better or worse, liberalism places a tremendous amount of power (and tax money) in the hands of the government.

There's more to being "liberal" than being anti-Bush, and more to being "conservative" than being pro-Bush. Indeed, many hardline conservative voices have come out against Bush lately, precisely because he has been so fiscally irresponsible, increased the size and scope of government, and imperiled civil liberties.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:16 / 04.04.04

yes, I know that it's alot more complicated. Hence my use of the phrase.

I just still think your characterising of punk is oversimplistic. As is Chris', obviously.

Sometimes you *don't* get caught up in the fun/dynamism of hatred. Sometimes it just gives you energy enough to stand up to things that are doing violence to you.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:18 / 04.04.04

oh, and I do agree broadly on yr characterisations of liberalism and libertarianism. I'd certainly agree that libertarianism makes some vast assumptions about how liberty/freedom work. Which tend to favour the status quo.

one of the constructive things that punk did was re-enunciate a criticism of liberalism that's regaining in influence/relevance today...

purestimperfect

03:47 / 05.04.04

Its all well and good for you guys to be making these broad generalisations about what you think being "punk" is all about but do any of you consider yourselves "punk " whatsoever? really who cares.you base opinions around political concepts etc but trust me, punks don't sit around and consider what kind of statement they wish to make or what kind "i don't give a crap" attiitude they want to present. you guys are obviuosly smarter than me but you're analysing way too deep....

05:29 / 05.04.04

"you base opinions around political concepts etc but trust me, punks don't sit around and consider what kind of statement they wish to make or what kind "i don't give a crap" attiitude they want to present." -purestimperfect

i have to take exception to this. i lived in olympia, washington for the past six years and got a good look at what a small punk community does to sustain itself. be they anarchist, environmentalist, pure rock'n'roll, or whatever, i've found those that self-identify as "dedicatedly punk" put a lot of thought into their ideology and the intended and real results of their actions in relation to ideology. perhaps this is not the norm for pissed off suburban teenagers that discover that the sex pistols give them a hard-on, but this might be a reason to draw a line between the "punk community" and alienated angry youth, at least for the sake of this discussion.

09:28 / 05.04.04

OK, so I lived on Newport, Isle of Wight, but even there the pissed off suburban teenagers put an awful lot of thought in to how to be pissed off, and how to look pissed off enough that we all knew they were pissed off.

Which, weirdly, involved only putting their arm through one sleeve of a coat, incase we didn't notice how NOT FAKE they were compared to the TOTAL FAKENESS of our wearing our coats like the middle-class pussies we are.

09:56 / 05.04.04

Me and some friends toyed with this. The idea was to have a really right wing type punk rock band. Execution good, love the cops, death to drug users, that kinda thing. The idea was how do you piss off a punk rock crowd while playing punk rock music. It would be a joke but we'd have to play it straight for the people to truly hate us. We never got it off the gorund though, mostly because of laziness and the thought that most of the people in the local scene wouldn't buy it from us.

m

16:45 / 05.04.04

I want to know more about the particular conservative punk movement mentioned at the beginning of the thread. Where can I find out more?

13:27 / 06.04.04

that would suck.. but what i hate more is ppl bickering abt the definition of punk or what the different types of punk are and who fits into what category. who cares, is upto you or anyone do define it? just forget abt it, forget abt the ppl that u think suck. if some guys want to go be conservative or whatever then screw it, i see it as its just my (or your) personal opinion that counts and screw the general consensus. hehee, sorry i just had to rant.

19:44 / 06.04.04

Hate and War.

Might be important to note that from its inception, punk culture was created as a critique of hippie culture, which wrapped itself in the sweet, fluffy banner of Peace and Love.

Going neo-con would sure be one more way to piss the hippies off....

19:50 / 06.04.04

More here and here on the new conservative punk movement.

m

01:33 / 07.04.04

Geez grant, that second link is pretty scary stuff.