Produced by HuffPost's Local Citizen Reporting Team
According to Andy Borowitz and others, conservatives are all about appropriating punk tactics to promote politics. Can liberals do it too?
This past Saturday at Bluestockings Bookstore, icons from the Washington D.C. hardcore scene, Alison Wolfe and Mark Andersen, discussed all sorts of political possibilities during an evening entitled "Punk Politics Presently".
Both Andersen and Wolfe have identified with punk politics for decades. Andersen wrote two books about punk politics, and Wolfe is a co-founder of the riot grrrl band, Bratmobile, as well as a face of Third Wave Feminism. Andersen claims a 30-year commitment to punk rock activism. What does that mean exactly?
"Punk isn't an outfit. It's a way of life," Andersen clarified. For both of them, this means struggling against the mainstream to make more space for the marginalized.And while there are aesthetics that come along with punk -- namely Do It Yourself (DIY) publishing and grassroots organizing -- at the core, they state that it is about "making economic human rights real." Andersen works on behalf of low-income senior citizens in Washington, D.C., while Wolfe is a teacher in New York.
Andersen gives credit to the conservative Tea Party Movement for successful grassroots organizing efforts to stage large anti-government protests. However, he also urgently called for human rights activists to counter them by becoming mainstream.
"Whoever controls the narrative wins the hearts and minds of the public. I won't give the narrative to the Tea Party movement. I won't give the narrative to Glenn Beck," Andersen said.
Alison Wolfe was less forceful about wanting punk to become mainstream. Instead, she was nostalgic for the riot days, when grrrl bands were more openly political than they appear to be now.
As Andersen is planning for the future, Wolfe is living in the present. She asked the audience: what are the types of daily resistance that you engage in?
Members of the audience volunteered their experiences. One girl said she became a librarian to help people access information. Another guy worked at a nonprofit. All of which were enthusiastically applauded.
And naturally, there was lively debate: an angry kid with a beard and a notebook on his lap expressed frustration with Andersen's interest in the mainstream. After a long-winded monologue culminating with the conclusion that we must destroy oppressive powers, a voice from the crowd shot him down with a sprinkle of profanities.
A woman hiding in the back argued that activists have a responsibility to convince people, rather than scream at them about revolution. In response, Andersen agreed and said, "You could have written my book."