:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Thursday, November 20, 2003 ::

Had to pass it on

I really liked this weeks punk rock editorial on the epitaph newsletter and I talked to the author and he said I could post it up here for all 7 of my consistently returning readers.
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THE PUNK ROCK EDITORIAL
(Send submissions to webmonkey@epitaph.com)

Here is another PRE from our resident social-political-cultural pundit, Josh. He’s got a lot to say and I can’t wait to see all of your responses to this one!

“When writers, painters, musicians, filmmakers suspend there judgment and blindly yoke there art to the service of the nation its time for us to sit up and worry.” - Arundhati Roy

I was struck recently by the direction that our pop culture is going. Punk rock used to be dangerous and subversive. It was even underground. Hip-hop used to have some of the same qualities. Hip-hop was swallowed by the mega corporations long ago and now is simply an advertising vehicle for corporations. Most mainstream rappers spend more time touting the various products that they have (cars, jewelry, etc…) than saying anything significant. Don’t let MTV fool you (more on that later) most hip-hop is meaningless.

Punk rock has certainly followed the same pattern. You have bands like Good Charlotte hosting shows on MTV all the while forgetting how mind numbing the network has always been. Long ago bands like the Dead Kennedy’s sang songs like “MTV Get Off The Air” and mainstream culture was generally shunned by the punk rock world.

Now punk is mainstream. It is safe. Hot Topic has managed to package the punk style and sell it at malls. Blatant pop performers like Pink have fashioned themselves and “foul mouthed” and “rebellious.” Rebellious to what? Are any of these mainstream performers saying anything dangerous or rebellious?

The Weavers were more rebellious than any artist around today. Artists like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, and many others risked getting blacklisted (and did) for their beliefs. They actually took risks and said things that actually were subversive. They used art to stand up to power. Wearing goofy makeup and accepting MTV awards while intoxicated is not he least bit risky. Nor is it challenging authority. Nothing on MTV or commercial radio has a hint of substance or genuine, thoughtful dissent.

As Robert McChesney (www.robertmcchesney.com) pointed out, everything on MTV is a commercial. The network seems to want viewers to lust for the unattainable. We are never going to live the unbounded material existence of the Rich Girls. We are never going to relive our adolescents like the crew in Jackass. We are never going to have houses like the nouveau riche that host Cribs. Our lives will never be as dramatic and adventurous as the kids on the Real World. In the real - real world, most of the population will work some boring job till the day
they die and all along will struggle to own property and make ends meet.

MTV and the performers that are its agents promote the myth of the American Dream (if you work really hard you can ascend to the wealthy class). What nonsense they spew! Wealth in America is still controlled by the top 1% to 5% of the population and has since its inception (mostly by the same families). As Howard Zinn said, “the United States has developed perhaps the largest middle class. The United States has had enough wealth so it could bribe enough people in the population to create a middle class, which became a useful buffer between the very rich and that part of the population, which could not even rise
into the middle class. So the middle class in the United States has always been enticed by the establishment into thinking it could rise into the upper class and not told it could also descend.” I recently heard Tom Hayden talk about how delusional the masses of Americans really have become. He alluded to the percentage of the population (I can remember the exact number but it was quite large) that actually thinks that they are wealthy or will soon ascend into the top 5% of the income bracket. Wealth envy is reaching epidemic levels in our culture
while class-consciousness is a forgotten idea.

American athletes and performers should be ashamed of propagating this ruse. They flaunt there newly obtained wealth to make the masses drool while filling them with a hidden and pervasive hopelessness. The masses will fantasize about fame and wealth while ignoring the ordinary pleasures of ordinary people. Humility is an absent virtue from these people.

Jello Biafra once asked, “Who is more dangerous to public order a crack addict or a wealth addict?” The recent financial scandals have proven that corporate crime is just as pervasive and as or more harmful than street crime (see “Corporate Crime Acts Like a Thief In The Night” by Lee Drutman on www.citizenworks.org). Thank pop culture and MTV for helping feed this epidemic of wealth envy and addiction.

We are asleep at the wheel, drunk on pop culture. Ignoring the unjust war and occupation in Iraq. Ignoring the fact that we are all in debt up to our necks! The only thing I can advocate at this point is cultural nihilism. We need to start from scratch and let some real voices take the reigns.

Josh Legere
josh_legere@yahoo.com

:: Jim Nichols 11/20/2003 09:25:00 PM [+] ::
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