The Radical Noise Addiction

Music:

Member Since: 2/20/2006
Band Website: ktuh.org
Band Members:

Just me folks, T.R. , holdin' down the punk rock fort since 2001!

This is an essay that was written back in 1998 by Felix Von Havoc.

As much as I'd like to say I wrote the following, alas, i did not. However, as a fellow punk rock affictionado, i do agree with what Felix has to say. How can we separate the politics from punk music. It has been rooted in the history of this movement, and personally has been a big part of my introduction to radical Anarchism.

If you care any bit for punk music, and want to get more insight, read this shit.

"This time around the block I'd like to talk a bit about how the individual puts his or her politics in action and the conflict between activism and lifestylism. I have used this space before to bemoan the lack of political sentiment in todays hardcore scene. I do truly feel that punk/hardcore can be a force for social awareness and perhaps change, making a concrete difference in the lives of many young people. Music and lyrics can educate and inspire you to think, change, choose and most of all act. In its purest form the punk underground is a counterculture type movement with a program based around self-expression, anti-authoritarianism, autonomy and progressive social change.

Bands like Minor Threat and Crass inspired me to think for myself and question what society told me and expected from me as a ninth grader. Through punk I was exposed to many new ideas. I read every book on anarchist theory and history in the Hyattsville library. I embraced animal rights, took a stand against nuclear war, opposed US intervention in Central America etc. I boycotted many products with connections to industries and policies I opposed. I would like to think this is a typical political development of many thinking, caring, young people who are exposed to punk and radical/progressive political thought.

As I listened to bands like Conflict, I felt that it was time to take more direct action on my political beliefs. I attended and later organized political demonstrations, I started to take a militant stance on a lot of issues. I began to study revolutionary movements, guerrilla warfare, sabotage and terrorism. I was inspired by the militant economic sabotage and actual animal liberations of the ALF. I carried out small scale acts of sabotage and vandalism against local manifestations of the "system". Later I got icreasingly involved with "the movement" and political activist types. I started to spend less time wrecking shit and taking to the streets and a lot of time debating theory and sitting around in meetings. Eventually I got fed up with political acitivists, vanguardists, and poltical organizations in general and decided to concentrate on just working in the punk scene. That is not to say I changed my beliefs or "burned out" on politics. I just got fed up with the inward looking, narrowly focused nature of most activist types.

I would argue that politics without action are about as meaningful as no politics at all. Talk minus action still equals zero. The level of political conviciton I see in todays hardcore scene is very personal and lifestyle oriented. You may feel that by being a vegan, dumpster diving, squatter on the edge of society that you are living very close to your anti-capitialist anti-system ideas. You may feel that boycotting products X, Y, and Z is doing major damage to the corporate system and bringing major corporations to their knees. While you may have a lot of moral fiber and integrity, you are making virtually no difference in the big picture. Lifestylism is a trap, a cop out and a dead end. The lifestylist winds up acting only to make themselves feel better and very little to change the world around them. Nuclear war and intervention in Central America are no longer looming. There is no specific threat to catalyze the youth. However, the social forces at work spell doom for our generation just as certainly as ever. The system acts continually to concentrate power and wealth whilst marginalizing and oppressing any real or percieved threat. We, my friends, are part of that percieved threat. And we, the youth, are very, very effectively pacified by drugs, alcohol, television, NOFX and Rancid. How much of our rebellion is real and how much merely plays right into the hands of the man?

As much as I dislike the hippy culture, we can point to a high level of political concioussness and action among the youth of the late 60's. The Weathermen,AIM, the Black Panthers etc. were not fucking around. They conducted real acts of social revoltuion and direct action against the system. They took and stand and were ruthlessly crushed by the the FBI's COINTELPRO program. They were assasinated, jailed, blackmailed, and many are still in prison today. 60's radicalism was very effectively co-opted, commodified and by now trivialized. How was this done? Drugs and rock music. The Nazi's and the CIA had experimented with LSD and other drugs as a means of mind control. A few years later an entire generation had "tuned out" while the FBI rounded up the most active resistors. Our stereotype of the sixties today is not the raised fist or the Days of Rage it is a stoned zombie rocking out at woodstock. And what image has society generated for our generation-the net surfing, alternative rock loving, lazy, indifferent, self centered slacker. And I would have to say it's working. I havn't seen much of anyone take to the streets for any cause lately. Anti-Racist Action is lucky to get 50 people to turn out against the local nazis. Youth culture is social control. Heavy Metal, Rap and much Punk music are a safety valve. Carefully controlled and commodified false rebellion which channels potentially revolutionary impulses of the youth back into consumption and self destruction. (Even the CIA couldn't have thought up a more com;lete and insidious means of social control than the fucking rave scene)

A few years ago local animal rights commandoes destroyed several vehicles belonging to a major meat distributor in an arson attack. As far as I know tens of thousands of dollars in damage was done and no one was caught. This sort of thing should happen every day, not once in a decade. As Brotherhood once said "get involved." Find or start an organization that will push forward some avenue of social change close to your heart. Take a stand. From lifestylism to protest and from protest to resistance. Identify the manifestations of the system in your area and take action against them. Direct action, sabotage, economic warfare, all out war I don't care. Just do something other that be smug about how your "alternative" lifestyle is going to topple the system.