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| The Ill-Informed Politics Of Punk Rock |
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| Being college students, music is an important part to most of our lives, and in some cases it dictates our whole outlook on things.� I have seen numerous people on campus who eat, sleep, and breathe their favorite music and follow the according lifestyle of that music; whether or not that is a good or bad thing is up for interpretation.� There is one type of music and following, however, that makes me scratch my head and wonder about its constituents and whether or not their ideals are really genuine.� This following is that of punk rock, and I am going to tell you why it is grossly uninformed. |
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| First off, so you know exactly where I am coming from, let me tell you a little about punk rock and myself.� I have been listening to punk rock for years, and despite the fact that I do not agree with much of the political beliefs stated by many of my favorite punk bands, I will continue to listen.� You see, for the most part, I listen to punk because I like the music, not what some idiot singer says about George W. Bush.� My favorite punk band, ironically, is NOFX, whose leader, Fat Mike, is the one responsible for those ridiculous "Not My President" t-shirts we all see so often around school. |
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| Now that you understand where I am coming from on this issue, let me present my major criticism of the punk rock world and its audience, which is mostly composed of kids and young adults.� Punk has always been about going against the norm, finding corruption with authority, and questioning the government, but why do so many people so willingly swallow what their favorite band is telling them?� So often do I see people wearing t-shirts, buttons, and miscellaneous paraphernalia representing their favorite bands, but can these bands even be considered to be a credible source of information?� Hardly. |
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| Just the other day in one of my classes, I noticed a classmate of mine wearing an Anti-Flag t-shirt, one of the most inept yet persuasive bands to the uninformed and easily convincible.� Anti-Flag is one of the biggest political bands on the Fat Wreck Chords record label, but as I saw in an article printed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by the band's front man, Justin Sane (who is, for all intents and purposes, insane), they really have no clue about what they speak of.� The article, "Justin Sane: Be a good American and Question Bush's war plan," can be found at http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/comm/20030305edsanep1.asp. |
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| In one section of Justin's op-ed piece regarding the 9/11 attacks that were orchestrated by bin Laden, he says, "George W. Bush responded in kind, but lacking the ability to effectively target bin Laden, his vision of 'the other' was first the people of Afghanistan."� I would like to know exactly when did we declare war on the people of Afghanistan?� After September 11, 2001, we targeted the Taliban and al-Qaeda, not the innocent people of Afghanistan, but apparently Justin Sane missed the inter-office memo on that one. |
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| In another section of the article regarding the current war with Iraq, Justin says, "It isn't that the world is out of step with our government; it's that our government is out of step with the world."� If this were true, why are we the most powerful, prosperous, and freest nation on Earth?� Why does he have the freedom to so freely speak out against the very government that protects him?� It is clear that Justin is the one who is "out of step" - with reality, that is. |
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| Justin Sane is not the punk world's only ill-informed spokesman, however, as it is a following which openly supports such lunatics and truth-twisters as Michael Moore (just about everything this lummox utters is a lie) and Noam Chomsky (who has publicly denied the Holocaust).� While I am by no means telling you to boycott the punk industry (as I said before, I am a fan of punk rock), I am telling you to question this political rhetoric that so many prominent punk bands spew onto their fans.� By doing this, you will soon see that the punk world prefers ignorance to evidence. |
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Copyright Gerry Wachovsky, 2003, and Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. |
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Letters To The Editor Regarding This Article: |
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Punk Rock Knows Politics |
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(from April 9, 2003) |
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Chomsky Supports Neo-Nazis |
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(from April 28, 2003) |
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Chomsky Did Not Deny Holocaust |
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(from April 22, 2003) |
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