70s English Youth Culture and the Labour Party and the Unions

[Doug Henwood]

Alex LoCascio wrote:

>On Sat, 31 Jul 1999 21:58:49 +0100 Jim heartfield
><jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk> writes:
> >(Cultural critics: that's what punk rock was all about. Listen to the
> >first Jam LP and ask yourself who Paul Weller voted for in 1979 -
> >Margaret Thatcher - or listen to Chelsea's great song The Right to Work,
> >and remind yourself that the lead singer wrote it as a protest *against*
> >trade unions. The Clash were something of a throwback, because their
> >manager Bernie Taupin, thinking that they should sing about politics
> >gave them some SWP pamphlets and told them to put them to music.)
>
>This is an oversimplification.  How then, do you explain the Gang of
>Four, whose politics seem to me like a weird hybrid of Situationism and
>the Frankfurt School?  And howzabout the fact, recently pointed out in
>the latest issue of The Baffler by Mike O'Flaherty, that the folks behind
>the post-punk label Rough Trade were actively involved in the SWP?
>
>Just because The Jam were (to use Jon Savage's phrase) "little Tories,"
>that's no reason to tar the whole movement as a reactionary one.
>
>I'd argue that punk was largely an apolitical movement; there's no
>politics behind, say, The Damned or Siouxie.  But the few groups that
>made political statements did so from the Left.

Yeah, though mainly from the anarchist left. What about the Mekons 
and the Au Pairs? And the Slits, whom I quoted in Wall Street, a fact 
that James noted in his LM review ("I need something new/something 
trivial will do/I need to satisfy this empty feeling").

I agree that there was a lot of revulsion against the welfare state 
in early punk - Boredom and Nowhere were the destinations on two 
busses on the cover of a Sex Pistols single. And a lot of early 
American hardcore was hyperindividualistic, strength-worshipping, 
racist - i.e., heavily tinged with an American pop fascism. But there 
was a lot of revulsion against the authoritarianism, moralism, 
violence, and greed of Maggie & Ronnie. I just got a copy of the 3-CD 
set Agitprop: The Politics of Punk, an anthology of stuff from the 
late 70s/early 80s. Its politics are not out of Geoffrey Howe and 
Alan Walters, for sure. And then there was that great song by a 
Swedish hardcore band whose name I can't remember, with the inspiring 
refrain, "Ronald Reagan is a wanker."

Doug