Political Punks Square Off - Page 3

Restoring Our Environment

Punk voter believes our government has an important role in standing up to the big businesses and special interests that are currently trying to dictate disastrous environmental policy.

Overhauling our Justice Department

We want to send a very clear message to Washington, DC. It is time to modernize our society to match the rest of the free world. We must ban government sponsored executions and stop long-term imprisonment of non-violent criminals. It is time to repeal the Patriot Act and restore our first Amendment rights, repeal the Rave Act and restore our Freedom to Assemble, and rewrite our countries archaic and in- humane drug laws.

Demanding Economic Responsibility

Why is our government making decisions to spend $87 billion on a war in Iraq instead of providing universal healthcare coverage, improving public education, and providing assistance to the 8.9 million unemployed?

ConservativePunk says screw you hippies:

    A Statement of our Mission
    At Conservative punk, our mission is threefold:
    1. To inform today's youth that identify themselves with the punk scene with the facts, rather than rumor and conspiracy theory.
    2. To encourage today's youth to register to vote and become engaged in politics.
    3. To encourage youth voters to draw there own conclusions rather than indoctrinate them into a certain way of thinking.
    Punk music has been, and still is, one of the most heavy-handed genres of music there is. Unfortunately the topics of such heavy-handed songs are almost always seeped in left wing propaganda, bumper sticker rallying calls and oversimplifications of otherwise complex topics. Unfortunately the websites established by such bands to further their political views don't offer much more by way of information and truth than the music does. We at conservative punk mean to be the foil to this trend. We plan on filling in the gaps. We will offer our own views while still urging young punks to search for their own conclusions. Hopefully in doing so we will energize and excite young people enough to become engaged in politics and exercise their power at the ballot box.

    The "Right" Side of Punk
    As of January 31, 2004, ConservativePunk.com officially launches. The site has been created to educate, inform and increase the little known demographic of the Conservative Punk. This is not C-SPAN meets MTV; this site boasts conservatives from well-known artist Michale Graves of Gotham Road and former lead singer of the Misfits, to conservative talk show host and former rock jock Andrew Wilkow, to the average person on the street...

    Continued on the next page Page 1Page 2 — Page 3 — Page 4

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Article Author: Eric Olsen

Career media professional Eric Olsen is honored to be the founder and former publisher of Blogcritics.org, and former publisher of Technorati.com, which both rule. He is now editor, co-founder, and CEO of The Morton Report.

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Article comments

  • 1 - BRICKLAYER

    Feb 25, 2004 at 12:39 pm

    Dang, I thought this was gonna be about the Skins Vs. the Punks!

    Anyway, punks aren't supposed to write manifestos and organize voter drives. Their supposed to form street gangs, incite soccer riots, overdose on drugs, eat their own fecal matter and throw it at their audience, turn over cars and then burn them, wear their hair in liberty spikes, carve words in their own and other's flesh, scare soccer moms and Nascar dads, and...wait...no, NO! They shouldn't be doing any of these things either. I guess they oughta do the voter drive thingy.

    GO KUCINICH.

  • 2 - mike

    Feb 25, 2004 at 1:17 pm

    Hilarious. I love the line about fighting "the liberal punk establishment." Can an appearance on O'Reilly be far behind?

    When I lived in L.A. in 1979-80, most of the punkers I met were apolitical or right wing.

  • 3 - Chris Kent

    Feb 25, 2004 at 1:30 pm

    The punks of the early 80s in Austin, Texas were fiercely liberal, though there was an equally fierce conservative faction, which eventually became the skinheads. Most skinheads were pro-military, bigoted, did not drink, did not smoke and even practiced some forms of celibacy - they were peculiar. A lot of that philosophy was inspired by the Washington DC band Minor Threat.

    I can't remember the lead singer's name - Ian McKellan? He later formed Fugazi? Anyway, Minor Threat was great live, but the conservative factions that followed them were as creepy as the hillbillies in Deliverance.

  • 4 - Particleman

    Feb 25, 2004 at 1:34 pm

    it was Ian MacKaye (sp?) and yup, he did form Fugazi. caught them last year at Emo's and really enjoyed the show. though i can't say much about that whole 'straight edge' thing...makes no sense to me.

    are there still skinheads in austin? in my 4.5 years there i never saw one.

  • 5 - Chris Kent

    Feb 25, 2004 at 1:42 pm

    Particleman,

    I went to college near Austin in the early 80s. Lived there after college. Been in Dallas the last five years. I haven't seen a skinhead down there in years.

  • 6 - David

    Feb 25, 2004 at 3:33 pm

    How punk will the draft be for these kids?

  • 7 - Eric Olsen

    Feb 25, 2004 at 3:40 pm

    While the whole straight edge thing is ascetic as hell, I wasn't under the impression it was rightist. On the other hand, when you take any ideology far enough it circles back around and meets on the other side: both Pat Buchanan and Michael Moore oppose the war on terror and free trade.

  • 8 - mike

    Feb 25, 2004 at 3:53 pm

    Punk is just an excuse for throwing furniture out the window. And I mean that as a compliment. All this political stuff is beside the point.

  • 9 - Abel

    Mar 12, 2004 at 10:33 am

    I've lived in Austin for 12 years and have seen maybe 5 skinheads the whole time. They were probably from out of town to see a show. Anyway, the scene "punks" here now are more interested in fashion than anything else, because that's what it has become, just a fashion trend. The teenage punks that come out to see Lower Class Brats, etc. are not that way, though. As if they have chosen a lifestyle. It's good to see the young kids carrying the torch.

  • 10 - Douglas Mays

    Mar 12, 2004 at 2:11 pm

    HHHMMM... interesting comments on anti-political punks of early times. Here in Seattle in the mid70s to mid 80s it was anything but that. The scene that the young future grungers learned from was anything but anti-political. Go to www.cdbaby.com/x-15, sample 'Mad Again' and 'Vaporized' to start with. You might find that what years later evolved into 'grunge' had alot more validity than you might realize. Try www.seattlemusicweb.com also. The get out and vote attitude is really lame. Throw a brick (an offering on this site)
    Anyway, punk is highly political and active where I'm from.

  • 11 - Eric Olsen

    Mar 12, 2004 at 2:27 pm

    I am ambivalent about the whole "get out the vote" endeavor. Part of what elections measure is the level of interest in the election and these efforts skew that. They are also NEVER neutral in their efforts: any get out the vote effort is going to run in favor of liberals/Democrats because adult white males are most likely to vote and most likely to be Republican.

    Ultimately people need to feel some kind of internal desire to participate in the process, it can't be guilteed upon them from the outside and have any lasting impact.

  • 12 - Eric Olsen

    Mar 12, 2004 at 2:28 pm

    by "adult" I meant older, say, 35+

  • 13 - mike

    Mar 12, 2004 at 2:35 pm

    I'm 96 years old, and I still have my own punk band and go to shows every night. Although yesterday I left my teeth at home. So I resent this ageist attack on my generation.

  • 14 - Eric Olsen

    Mar 12, 2004 at 3:20 pm

    that comment won't seem funny at all in another 40 years

  • 15 - mike

    Mar 12, 2004 at 3:45 pm

    Although political punking will be long gone since we'll be forty years into the U.S. military dictatorship that begins on or before November 2.

  • 16 - Eric Olsen

    Mar 12, 2004 at 4:10 pm

    ah yes, how blindly optimistic of me

  • 17 - mike

    Mar 12, 2004 at 4:33 pm

    Well, no wonder: "I certainly feel bad about the suspension of the Constitution and the dissolving of Congress, but as Sean Hamity--with whom I have some disagreements, to be sure (for example, I think the round up of gays is slightly excessive)--says, these are temporary steps, because Bush is firmly committed to democracy--although let me engage in some further hand wringing about the takeover of the networks by Halliburton Media; it is sort of odd that Mr. Democracy does all of these things, but again our resolve must be strong--and since I just parrot the government's line anyway, it doesn't really affect me. Rock on!"

  • 18 - greenradical

    Sep 11, 2005 at 5:35 am

    conservative punks more like skinheads.greedy idiots trying to make punk mainstream so it fades away from its left roots.there scared of the radical left breeding ground that is punk.but all there going to do is make people more left & radical. a change is coming.P.S THE CONSERVATIVES THINK THEY ARE ROYALTY THEY THINK THEY ARE SUPERIOR THAN YOU.PICK A SIDE

  • 19 - Bob A. Booey

    Sep 11, 2005 at 6:23 am

    Conservative punks (ahem, Dave Nalle) don't realize they're, to quote Green Day, walking contradictions. Either they don't understand the spirit of the music and the origins of its politics and identity as a cultural movement or they're just spoiled rich kids who like snotty music to rebel against their overbearing, coddling parents.

    That is all.

  • 20 - average guy

    Sep 11, 2005 at 9:12 am

    who cares what most of these kids think, especially those into this garbage music? NOFX? Misfits? Who are these freaks? MTV is crap! I am sick and tired of most 23 year olds thinking they are important and thinking that what they say is important. You don't know jack shit until you are at least 40. All I need is the proof supplied in many of these blogs. You know who you are. You write this dumb shit.

  • 21 - Bryan

    Sep 11, 2005 at 10:53 am

    Israel left Egypt because Slavery became intolerable.

    Punks are doing the same thing.

    Now all punks need to untie and come to agreeances about who the enemy is ...

    (Zionazis in the government, Builderbergs, The Black pope, The Black Queen, The Satanic regimes of Government, The Edomite house of Talmudic Judaism, The Synogauge of Satan, The Abomination that causes Desolation)

    If all of the youth pointed their collective guns at the babylonian mystery tower it would topple.

    ALL PEOPLE WANTING SOCIAL CHANGE AND TRUE AND LASTING PEACE AND LIBERTY, THE KIND YOU HAVE TO FIGHT AND DIE FOR, START HERE:-

    WWW.JAHTRUTH.NET

  • 22 - Jonny

    Dec 16, 2006 at 8:57 pm

    I think that punk was never supposed to be just left wing or just right wing at all. Look at Joey and Johnny Ramone. We should all be more openminded and stop creating stupid stereotypes about liberals and conservatives...besides, Libertarian is the way to go ;)

  • 23 - Tommyboi

    Jul 24, 2009 at 9:19 am

    I agree mostly with the last two posts. People need to wake up more and constantly seek the truth about the powers that be. Time moves, people mature (usually) nothing stays the same, learn and grow. Unite!

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