No Cause for Concern? Issue #8 | October 1983 | Page 9 | Can you figure?

Can You Figure This One Out?

I have noticed (as have some of my friends) that over the past few months the Ottawa "punk" scene has become stale and dated. Ask yourself where are all the kids that were a the Black Flag show a year ago. Are all the rest of the West Coast and English bands so horrible that we can't afford or don't want to support them? Or is it because some of them aren't POLITICAL enough for some of you? Someone is taking the fun out of punk.

What it boils down to is this: I don't want someone dictating to me (through peer pressure or whatever) what I can and cannot eat, wear, listen to or support. That is not the precious ANARCHY some of you think so highly of!!!

Case in point #1: someone (who shall remain nameless) tells me not to eat at McDonald's because a) I shouldn't eat meat and b) I shouldn't support "Death Corporations". Well, FUCK YOU!!! I'll eat meat if I want to and who the hell are you to be telling me not to be supporting "MacDeath Corporations" when you yourself buy icecream sundaes there. You are a hypocrite.

And how about case in point #2: fanzines that preach anarchy yet tell you not to eat meat or wear leather and insult you if you do. Is that anarchy? I doesn't sound like it. I thought anarchy had something to do with the absence of government, laws and rules. Those sound like rules to me.

Am I nitpicking? Well, probably, but I mean who the fuck is anyone to tell you or me that we're not "punks" because we're not anit-this or anti-that? When someone starts telling you what to wear or what to listen to or what (and where) to eat, then they have reached the point where it is fascism, not anarchy.

I leave it for you to decide if you are going to let these people preach to you or dictate your lifestyle. I'm not!!!

- D.C.