Protesting the Clinton book-signing at Politics and Prose
Posted on 07/09/2004 7:46:09 PM PDT by AmericanMade1776
The most anti-establishment of music genres is being used in support of the US Republican party. Dorian Lynskey reports
Wednesday July 7, 2004 The Guardian
Gotham Road's Michale Graves: 'the cool thing now is to hate the government'
One would have thought punk's capacity to shock was exhausted when, in the 1980s, GG Allin defecated on stage and either ate the result or flung it at the audience. Today, punk has come to mean safe, multiplatinum groups such as Blink-182 and Green Day, and Ashton Kutcher playing pranks on celebrities on MTV. There is one tattooed, mohawked New Yorker who knows how to outrage the punk scene: Nick Rizzuto - and he votes Republican.
"Conservative punk is not generally what people think of when they hear of a punk," says Rizzuto. A smart, articulate 22-year-old, he founded the Conservative Punk website six months ago, and has since received hate mail from disgusted punks, excited phone calls from the Republican party and intrigued coverage from the US media. To his critics he's a crank bringing punk's good name into disrepute - but to his supporters he's the fearless voice of a formerly silent minority.
Raised on the Clash and the Dead Kennedys, the vast majority of today's punk bands lean towards the left, and Bush and Iraq have radicalised the scene once again. Horrified by the closeness of the 2000 election result, "Fat Mike" Burkett of the Californian band NOFX founded Punkvoter, the leftwing voter registration organisation, and convinced 200 bands to lend their endorsement. "The last time I saw anything like this was during the Vietnam era with Nixon," says Al Jourgensen of Punkvoter supporters Ministry, whose latest album boils with anti-Bush sentiment.
Yet, the politics of punk have never been clear-cut. In late-1970s Britain, as the Clash were fronting Rock Against Racism, Oi! bands such as Skrewdriver were backing the National Front. In America, early punks spat in the face of liberalism, establishing a precedent for extreme views. Today, the militantly abstinent, purity obsessed hardcore punks known as straight-edgers oppose drug use with a zeal that would make an evangelical Christian applaud The fact is, the meaning of the word punk is no longer clear. Andy Greenwald, author of Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo, argues that while punk once meant something specific, that's no longer the case. "People now feel like you can be a punk anything," he says. "If everyone else is saying don't make money, it's pretty punk to say, well, I'm going to make money. If everyone on the punk scene is liberal why not be a punk Republican?"
It's this frustration with the punk scene's liberal orthodoxy that fires the conservative punks. "You could say we're anti-anti-establishment," says Michale Graves, Conservative Punk columnist and frontman of Gotham Road. "I think in American mainstream culture the cool thing to do now is to hate the government and speak out against the war."
It's certainly easy to see how a Republican musician might feel like a scorned minority. Johnny Ramone, punk's sole big-name Republican, became the right-wing's answer to Michael Moore or the Dixie Chicks when the Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years ago, and he announced from the podium: "God bless President Bush, and God bless America." The right-wing website Free Republic recently attempted to out "conservative" celebrities; its brief list of confirmed Republican musicians outside the country-music scene comprises Ramone, anti-drugs/pro-NRA rock veteran Ted Nugent, and actor/songwriter Vincent Gallo.
Rizzuto insists there are many more who are reluctant to make their opinions public. "I'm very wary of mentioning these guys on the record, especially in a European newspaper. They have to worry about being blacklisted from playing certain clubs and from playing Europe altogether." This may sound paranoid but Graves says his European tour was cancelled after the promoter read a New York Times article about his politics.
Rizzuto has always felt like an outsider. He turned conservative after 9/11, while he was studying at the famously liberal State University of New York in New Paltz.
From a certain angle, punk's individualistic creed and me-against-the-world rhetoric overlap with conservative values. "On some level punk is inherently libertarian," says Greenwald. "You don't tell me what to do, I won't tell you what to do, I'm just going to worry about myself." Follow that logic and Bush's bullish approach to foreign policy - basically, screw what anyone else says, I'll do what I like - seems quintessentially punk.
Such thinking is anathema to most punks. While Punkvoter's Rock Against Bush CD can boast the likes of Offspring and Sum 41, Rizzuto concedes that the few bands that support Conservative Punk, including Drawback, Style Over Substance and Nation of Suspects, aren't exactly household names. But this demographic, however small, is promising territory for Republicans. Right-wing commentators have coined phrases such as "gonzo conservative" and "South Park Republican" to describe young voters who like tattoos, swearing and Donald Rumsfeld. Conservative Punk has already inspired sympathetic sites such as GOPunk and Anti-Anti-Flag, and Rizzuto hopes to compile a benefit CD in aid of Students for a Free Iran.
Conservative Punk and Punkvoter regard each other with what might be described as polite hostility. "We're all for people expressing their opinions but it just sits a little weird to see anybody in the punk world be pro a guy who's done a job on tearing away civil liberties," says Punkvoter's political director, Scott Goodstein. "It's not a new thing for punk to be reacting against what folks don't like in the government, but punks in favour of the government is weird."
Rizzuto counters that by saying he opposes Bush on abortion and has turned down work with Republican activists. "We don't even go as far as to say vote for Bush. Our independence is what sets us apart. We have posted pieces that are critical of Bush. My preference in this election just happens to be Bush over Kerry."
His response to critics: "As punks we should be most accepting of different beliefs. We should be a diverse crowd." If you didn't know better, you'd call that liberal.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
The right-wing website Free Republic recently attempted to out "conservative" celebrities; its brief list of confirmed Republican musicians outside the country-music scene comprises Ramone, anti-drugs/pro-NRA rock veteran Ted Nugent, and actor/songwriter Vincent Gallo.
http://www.thehill.com/under_dome/070804.aspx
At a Clinton Book Signing. An assortment of anti-Clinton protesters was also on hand, sequestered half a block down the sidewalk. Kathy Wood of the conservative organization Free Republic said D.C. police immediately informed members of her group that if they denied “egress” to any passers-by, they would be removed from the area.
A big "I think you know why" PING... ;>)
Protesting the Clinton book-signing at Politics and Prose
KEWL
musicians outside the country-music scene
They got something against C&W music?
More here: http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b140fd711ae.htm
LOOKY.
They had to toss out all the C&W conservatives to equal the playing field.
YEAH! MY TRIBE!
Let's do a RePunkLican party! I say "The Lounge" in NYC on 1st and 1st would be a fine venue.
I know...I goofed on the spelling...ouch
They know who we are in England....jolly O!
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... This site has been created to counteract the multiple liberal punk sites on the web, which are run by only a small number of punk artists who are choosing to make up the minds of thousands of voters.
ConservativePunk.com will finally allow conservatives who have decided to keep their punk ideals alive a place to air their thoughts on government, liberal counterparts and music. It is being released this year to help inform America's youth about the upcoming election and let them make up their own minds, rather than push liberal sentiment down their throats. Nick Rizzuto, the founder of ConservativePunk.com hopes that this site will energize and excite young people to come to their own conclusions and hopefully register to vote this year. He hopes to inform young people of more conservative ideals and hopes that they will be unafraid to say that they are a "conservative punk".
Since 1992, multiple outlets for America's youth have tried to get them more involved in politics and in voting; the only similarity between all of these channels is that they support left wing ideals. ConservativePunk.com is hoping not to change this trend, but to give today's young people a way to view politics from a different perspective.
http://www.conservativepunk.com/cpabout.htm
Is that Johnny Ramone? Funny that one of the biggest names in punk would be a Republican. I hear Johnny is struggling with cancer. Hope he's doing ok. It would be great to see George W. Bush have Johnny Ramone at a campaign stop or something.
With his mohawk, ratty fatigues, assorted chains and his menagerie of tattoos - swallows on each shoulder, a nautical star on his back and the logo of the Bouncing Souls, a New York City punk band, on his right leg - 22-year-old Nick Rizzuto is the very picture of counterculture alienation. But it's when he talks politics that Mr. Rizzuto sounds like a real radical, for a punk anyway. Mr. Rizzuto is adamantly in favor of lowering taxes and for school vouchers, and against campaign finance laws; his favorite Supreme Court justice is Clarence Thomas; he plans to vote for President Bush in November; and he's hard-core into capitalism."
At least that is what I learned from watching the movie MEET JOHN DOE....the quote from the movie....
"LIttle Punks do count, because in the Character of America, it is the sum total of it's "LITTLE PUNKS" that counts."
Mr Rizzuto, Sounds like he has his mohawked head on straight.
I can't hear you.
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