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ARTICLE ONE 1/28/03

PUNK ETHICS

I recently had the opportunity to view a local “PUNK ROCK” website that supposedly represents the area I live in that had a few prerequisites for logging on and posting one’s opinions. Your views must fall into the administrator’s margins of “PUNK ETHICS”. What, say you, are punk ethics? According to the aforementioned administrator, they include: “no homophobia, xenophobia, scholophobia or leftist bashing will be tolerated in any word, shape, form or 8x10 glossy photos.” This would be out of bounds and penalties will be imposed on anyone with such points of view. (i.e. you cannot log on unless you share the stance that the administrator has on such issues.) I would have no problem with this agenda, but the administrator defines this as “Punk Ethics”. Not “MY PUNK ETHICS” but rather “THE ALMIGHTY PUNK ETHICS ENGRAVED IN STONE”. It seems to me that the first and foremost general practices of the punk movement were/are anti-authoritarianism, anti-censorship, fighting for freedom of individualism and self-expression. (“I just want to do my own thing and not be fucked with by the MAN man, you fucking hippie”) By being shoved into a frame of self-proclaimed “Punk Ethics”, is not one’s own opinions and perspectives hindered by politically correct blockades? Seems a little like something Stalin, Hitler, or Tipper Gore would implement to me. What’s the point of hosting a forum where anyone’s opinion that differs from the host’s will be curtailed and stricken? So instead of hiding your own little control issues behind a mask labeled “Punk Ethics” why not be honest about it and say something to the effect of: “If I don’t like what you have to say you cannot post on my board because I am a politically correct fascist operating under the guise of a punk anarchist and it is after all, MY BOARD and I don’t want to share it with you, so there.” Or the disclaimer might read: “You can say what you want but we will come to your house in the middle of the night and shoot you.” Or we could even go as far as: “You will not be given a chance to speak your mind on my site because I disagree with any other opinions other than my own and I am obviously way more punk than you, so you don’t deserve the opportunity to contribute to my punkiness.” Who the fuck wrote the BOOK OF PUNK anyways? I am constantly getting barraged with this shit, idiots defining a coined and manufactured term to fit their current political agenda by compounding it with a phenomenal youth movement that was either way before their time, or misinterpreted and marketed by the mass media. Punk rock was and is, and cutting out the parts you don’t like so that it fits into your own little limited self image is completely missing the entire fucking point. What is the point you say? To put it in layman’s terms, FUCK YOU. So in closing, I would like to say something really “punk rock” following my own personal individual guidelines of “Punk Ethics”. FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING SNIVELLING LITTLE LEATHERMAN TOOL CARRYING FASHION CONCIOUS FASCIST HIPPIE YOU SHOULD BE KICKED IN THE FUCKING HEAD REPEATEDLY FOR MIRRORING THE PEOPLE YOU CLAIM TO OPPOSE.

-Da Burn