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All these people trying to say the kindness is punk are the equivalent of school teachers running around saying "not doing drugs is cool" or " Cool kids do their homework!"
Yeah you're right, not doing drugs is cool. Being kind is good.
That doesn't change that you're trying to make punk into a mainstream tool of social conformity.
But I guess it makes sense, you're all like 30 or 40 at this point. Punk is dad music now. "Be kind to your neighbor and take the kids to school every day!"
If cruelty is the status quo then social conformity would be perpetuating that cruelty. In such a cultural regime kindness is non-conformist, and therefore punk.
A reminder that the black panther party ran breakfast programs for children in poor neighborhoods, distributed vaccines and medical care, patrolled communities to inform people who were engaged by police of their rights at great personal risk, and started a rehab program where former criminals would escort the elderly on shopping trips to protect them from muggers. They broke several laws doing this and several more were created specifically to target them. They were regularly attacked by police and defamed in the media. That's punk.
Cruelty really isn't the status quo. You could argue like on the government side of things that there are corrupt officials and things like that and they are cruel.
But if you look at the average person and the average neighborhood and judge the way they think and feel and act, you're going to find kindness dominates over cruelty and the human nature is generally positive.
And 50% of the time the "kindness" people expect of you turns out to be tool of repression by keeping you in line with what is the expected norms.
Don't be kind, be you.
Over the past forty years, vulnerable populations have fallen deeper into deprivation due to dismantling of welfare, the commons have been robustly stripped from communities through privatization, and policing, incarceration, imperialism, and surveillance have massively expanded.
I would suggest cruelty is systemically entrenched, and the harm being caused by governments is more comprehensive than simply through a thin sprinkling of corrupt officials.
Pretty Punk of you, telling others what aspect of stereotypical Punk behavior is acceptable and what makes them a poseur. Definetly showed those sellouts how to not conform!
cruelty isn't the status quo
Performative cruelty is everywhere. Sure slow it down and people are nice. But its pretty radical to just be kind from the get-go.
That would be poignant if it were true but it's not.
You want an example of kindness being punk? Israel ending it's genocidal apartheid and breaking the cycle of violence.
Israel ending it’s genocidal apartheid and breaking the cycle of violence.
Ummm... what?
No... white supremacist settler-colonialism isn't punk... and there's nothing kind about it ever.
Try rereading...
Israel ending it’s genocidal apartheid and breaking the cycle of violence.
Israel ending it’s genocidal apartheid and breaking the cycle of violence.
Sorry, I'm confused.... did something historic happen while I wasn't looking? You know... like white supremacist settler-colonialism mysteriously not acting like white supremacist settler-colonialism?
It would be kind for Israel to stop perpetrating genocide.
I am sorry you feel so confused.
Punk is not a music. Sure they have music that is labeled that but it’s a mindset. Being counter to the culture.