Conflict vs Crass

[Pigeon]

Funny you should say that as I knew someone in the 80's who wore this on the back of their denim jacket.

 

[linerider]

Cast yr mind back to early 80s...how many young kids walked around with the words "Tony Benn" on the backs of their jackets?

Tony Benn didn't give away free patches

 

[RubberBuccaneer]

Funny you should say that as I knew someone in the 80's who wore this on the back of their denim jacket.

I bet he got some stick

 

[audiotech]

I bet he got some stick

Particularly from me.

 

[linerider]

As regards the CND argument,i think Rock Against Racism politicised alot of both bands and punters and anti racism lead on CND in many peoples minds

 

[RubberBuccaneer]

Yeah that was good, remember Red Wedge

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Cast yr mind back to early 80s...how many young kids walked around with the words "Tony Benn" on the backs of their jackets?

Who cares?

Or at slightly greater length - it's not the same sort of thing, is it? People don't usually embroider patches celebrating their favourite politician. Nor do people attend political meetings for quite the same reasons that they go to gigs, a point which seems to elude aforesaid anarcho-punk fringe and lead it to overestimate its extent in the aforesaid manner.

 

[gloryhornetgirl]

not sure sorry, think there may have been a steve as well, just knew him as biffa (or guv to his face)
biffa was the tallest iirc, or second to col anyway.

Sounds like him, he is very tall if I remember correctly.

 

[Sir Belchalot]

I don't remember any mates who were into CND despite Crass championing them. Remember being at one of their demos in Hyde Park and most of the speakers were being heckled by the anarchos.
Iirc loads of people got nicked after having a contrived 'riot' in Oxford Street after buggering off from the demo.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

I don't remember any mates who were into CND despite Crass championing them. Remember being at one of their demos in Hyde Park and most of the speakers were being heckled by the anarchos.

Yes, that sounds familiar. Little wankers at the front with black flags exercising their right to fuck up everybody else's meeting.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Yes, that sounds familiar. Little wankers at the front with black flags exercising their right to fuck up everybody else's meeting.

Blimey, you've got out of bed on the wrong side, all week, on this thread aintcha?

And you maintain that Crass weren't very influential, despite many people coming on here and repeatedly saying that they became much more politically aware as a direct result of the whole Crass/anarcho punk movement, and then we could get on to the influences on the squatting scene, or on DIY rave culture, or the travellers scene, or the animal rights movement, etc etc etbleedingcetera. Misguided sometimes, maybe, one-eyed on occasion, aren't we all, dogmatic, thats politics, but not influential, nah mate

You are wrong on this Donna, me old china, hard as it may be to admit, just as Dub was wrong to dismiss Conflict as being just a bunch of shouty punks.

And I got to sing "Do they owe us a living" on stage on my 40th birthday on saturday night just gone, accompanied by my friends band the Camarillos, whose singer Al I met in co-op housing, when we were punky little fuckers in the 80s, part of the whole hackney squatting scene, blah blah blah......

 

[Dubversion]

I don't remember any mates who were into CND despite Crass championing them. Remember being at one of their demos in Hyde Park and most of the speakers were being heckled by the anarchos.
Iirc loads of people got nicked after having a contrived 'riot' in Oxford Street after buggering off from the demo.

that was later, i think - 83/84 when the black block got stronger. I was at that demo.. doesn't mean the point about the relationship between CND, Crass and membership wasn't true earlier in the decade.

 

[Dougal]

that was later, i think - 83/84 when the black block got stronger. I was at that demo.. doesn't mean the point about the relationship between CND, Crass and membership wasn't true earlier in the decade.

I was there too, a good day. I love Crass still and play their records from time to time. Stations of the Crass and also Christ the Album are my favorites.

 

[RubberBuccaneer]

Bottom line is they were influential to a lot of people, maybe not on the scale of a political party but certainly brought anarchism out of the history books for me

 

[linerider]

Bottom line is they were influential to a lot of people, maybe not on the scale of a political party but certainly brought anarchism out of the history books for me

And Conflict kept it there.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Blimey, you've got out of bed on the wrong side, all week, on this thread aintcha?

And you maintain that Crass weren't very influential, despite many people coming on here and repeatedly saying that they became much more politically aware as a direct result of the whole Crass/anarcho punk movement,

I really doubt that a few people on this particular site constitutes either a representative sample or a reliable one.

As I've pointed out several times, it's a part of society which persistently overestimates its own extent and influence and I believe I've given some reasons as to why I think so. People who do this are not, I'm afraid, relaible witnesses on the subject of who was influential generally - only on what influenced them.

 

[laptop]

As I've pointed out several times, it's a part of society which persistently overestimates its own extent and influence and I believe I've given some reasons as to why I think so.

I also think that you have an ideological (and, if I remember rightly, that at the time you had an organisational) commitment to downplaying its influence.

People who do this are not, I'm afraid, relaible witnesses on the subject of who was influential generally - only on what influenced them.

* Cough *

My job at the time included assessing and encouraging the renaissance of anti-nuclear campaigning.

CND were constantly playing catch-up.

There were two massively contrasting currents that booted it back into life.

One was the intersection of anarcho-punks and the Peace Camps.

Another was the intellectuals of European Nuclear Disarmament - see E P Thompson's essays.

When the two currents met, it was vastly entertaining

All over the country - in many dozens of towns and cities - they did meet and set up autonomous peace groups. Some of these affiliated to CND later - often after struggles, because it was largely Party (Labour, Militant and other) apparatchiks trying to get them under control.

I think we can credit E P T, the Greenham women collectively (of course) and the lyrics of Joy de Vivre equally. I did try to introduce E P T to Joy...

 

[Donna Ferentes]

I also think that you have an ideological (and, if I remember rightly, that at the time you had an organisational) commitment to downplaying its influence.

Wrong and wrong but don't let a good opportunity to exercise your ideological preoccupations get in the way, hmmm?

Actually, I'm trying to approach the matter in the way that a social historian would. Let's imagine for instance that I am researching something to the effect of radical social and political movements in the UK, in a period something like 1978-1982, and asking what the causes of their growth were. Obviously I would be interested in the opinions of the people who were active at the time and I would be unwise to discount their own judgements. On the other hand, I would be extremely unwise simply to accept their own estimation of their own importance and I would need to apply some sort of rational analysis asking myself what was and was not really likely, hoiw I might judge the magnitude and extent of any individual's or group's influence etc etc etc. All this is elementary and I'm sure you follow me.

Now the trouble is, I would have to ask myself questions like:

1. if Crass were so influential, how come they were so litle mentioned in the mainstream media? After all, is it not the normal habit of the mainstream press to pick up on such things, if only to produce a distroted and hostile version of them for idelogical purposes?

2. is it really likely that a punk band had more political influence than leading socialist figures whose views were sought, reported and distorted in the mainstream media practically every day of the week?

3. is there not a tendency on the political fringes (for reasons which I have sought to explore above) to overestimnate the important of what the political fringe does and has done?

Now this wouldn't give me any sort of fixed answer, but it would be hard to ask those questions - which I would need to ask - and then accept the claims with which I have taken issue. I could not and nor could any social historian proceeding in an intellectually reputable manner.

Of course estimating influence is a hard thing to do and an impossible thing to do with great accuracy, so it's not a debate which can ever be settled. Nor is it a debate in which I have an interest in downplaying the role of the political fringes - I do so only insofar as intellectual propreity insists that I do. It reminds me that not long after the period under discussion, I read a book which influenced me a great deal: Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down, which rescued from obscurity the radical social movements of the English Revolution. They fascinate me now and they fascinated me then and I have no more interest in downplaying the role of Crass and their circle than I have of writing the Diggers out of history. But Winstanley wasn't a significant figure at the time: we can find evidence that people had heard of the Diggers but not that many people had. His significance was only recognised much later and he was influential later rather than at the time when he worked and wrote. I wonder if something similar can be said of Crass.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Now the trouble is, I would have to ask myself questions like:

1. if Crass were so influential, how come they were so litle mentioned in the mainstream media? After all, is it not the normal habit of the mainstream press to pick up on such things, if only to produce a distroted and hostile version of them for idelogical purposes?

2. is it really likely that a punk band had more political influence than leading socialist figures whose views were sought, reported and distorted in the mainstream media practically every day of the week?

3. is there not a tendency on the political fringes (for reasons which I have sought to explore above) to overestimnate the important of what the political fringe does and has done?

Off the top of my head and without any research of any kind (even a quick google guv):

1) The mainstream music press denigrated and undermined virtually everything that Crass and co did, repreatedly - as is noted above, Bushell in particular did his best to rubbish their ideals, the politics, the records, the labels, etc.

2) depends who you talk to dunnit. There's quite a few here who claim direct and indirect influences arising from Crass and co, in terms of their thinking, their politics, their ideologies, etc. And I bet these people know a load more who were similarly influenced. Crass were subject to debate in Parliament after Mother of a Thousand Dead (or Sheep Farming) single.

I think you're also thinking very narrowly in what you define as political influence. Socialists may want to take credit for mainstream policitical developments through their pressure and influence but the people who were/are influenced by the ideas and ideology of Crass are much more likely to have become involved in alternative political movements and lifestyles, outside of the mainstream, which in turn is where my earlier claims re: influence on resurgence in squatting, animal rights movements, cnd, etc came from.

For eg, RTS arose from a convergence of raving, squatting, single issue politics, DIY spirit, and so on - it wasn't very long before swappies were handing out banners at, for eg, Trafalgar sq 97, and subsequently claiming responsibility for the day, when the reality was that it was very much a coming together of a variety of political strands involved.

3) socialist, anarchist, even the bleeding tories do this - your point is? Everyone like to puff themselves up a bit, innit?

I don't think anyone would claim that without Crass, you would have no alternative political movement but I do think that they were the proper bearers of the flame of anarchist thought and practice compared to the Pistols et al who used the concept as a useful tool to sell more records basically. They have a long and lasting legacy imo but i truly believe that there has been little like them or their ilk, before or since.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

1) The mainstream music press denigrated and undermined virtually everything that Crass and co did, repreatedly - as is noted above, Bushell in particular did his best to rubbish their ideals, the politics, the records, the labels, etc.

Yes, but that's the music press. Who cover music.

2) depends who you talk to dunnit. There's quite a few here who claim direct and indirect influences arising from Crass and co, in terms of their thinking, their politics, their ideologies, etc. And I bet these people know a load more who were similarly influenced. Crass were subject to debate in Parliament after Mother of a Thousand Dead (or Sheep Farming) single.

Yes, in 1982. This is at the very end of the period. It's not evidence of earlier influence.

he people who were/are influenced by the ideas and ideology of Crass are much more likely to have become involved in alternative political movements and lifestyles, outside of the mainstream

Yes, but that's my point: there weren't that many of them, and being outside the mainstream they don't tend to realise how few they were compared to the mainstream.

3) socialist, anarchist, even the bleeding tories do this - your point is? Everyone like to puff themselves up a bit, innit?

And so they do, which is why personal testimonials, while useful in some respects, should not be the basis for making historical judgements.

 

[RubberBuccaneer]

OK how cross sectional do you think a Cardiff City message board will be ?

If you think it would be a fair random section of people I'll ask about Crass there?

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Yes, but that's the music press. Who cover music.

You said "mainstream media" - since when did the music press fall outside this definition?

Can't be bothered tbh, lets all hail the swappies who saved the world and invented political dissent, yah boo sucks to crass, boring hippy gits

 

[rocketman]

Crass where one of the most influential acts from the scene ever to emerge, they set in motion ways of looking at things, and a DIY aesthetic (borrowed from Black Flag), that was widely adopted by their peers. Mainstream press ignored them becuase of the politics of the time (Thatcher and so on).

 

[Dubversion]

Crass where one of the most influential acts from the scene ever to emerge, they set in motion ways of looking at things, and a DIY aesthetic (borrowed from Black Flag), that was widely adopted by their peers. Mainstream press ignored them becuase of the politics of the time (Thatcher and so on).

they didn't borrow it from Black Flag, no way. they predate or exactly coincide with Black Flag and had been living as a cooperative and doing various activist things before Crass anyway

 

[Dougal]

Is Donna a bloke and a swerp?

 

[iROBOT]

My mate djed at one of Conflicts members birthday bash and almost got killed for playing Blondie!!

Decent people...gave me a t-shirt after the party! (I didnt tell em I was into House music )

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

My mate djed at one of Conflicts members birthday bash and almost got killed for playing Blondie!!

That reminds me of my mate who went to a Conflict gig in Penzance wearing a New Model Army t-shirt...he had a most uncomfortable night doh!

 

[Donna Ferentes]

You said "mainstream media" - since when did the music press fall outside this definition?

I'm not sure what your problem is here. The music press cover music: they can therefore be expected to cover even relatively obscure acts in that field. The arts press would do the same thing: therefore they might very well get extremely het up about a controversy which while important in that field, had little influence outside it.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

I'm not sure what your problem is here. The music press cover music: they can therefore be expected to cover even relatively obscure acts in that field. The arts press would do the same thing: therefore they might very well get extremely het up about a controversy which while important in that field, had little influence outside it.

You're wriggling with your own definitions now mate. You asked why were they ignored by mainstream media when they weren't - we could argue all day about whether Smash Hits was more mainstream than the NME, but you can't deny the "mainstream media", in some form, covered them. (oh, and peculiarly enough, typing "crass mother of a thousand dead newspaper coverage" into google brings up a letter to the Guardian 2005 asking why "Mother of a Thousand Dead" didn't appear in a top-10 vitriolic song list from a certain well-known urban poster )

Further, taking the above to a logical extreme, the fact that the Mirror and Scum weren't making them front page headlines every week somehow undermines their (Crass) influence on little spiky-headed punksters making their first tenative steps into the brave world of political thinking beyond the traditional Lab/Tory/Lib scenario. Is that the only way to measure political influence, the number of column inches recieved every week? I rather think not.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

You're wriggling with your own definitions now mate. You asked why were they ignored by mainstream media when they weren't - we could argue all day about whether Smash Hits was more mainstream than the NME, but you can't deny the "mainstream media", in some form, covered them.

No, I can deny that they were covered by other than specialist publications that would necessarily have covered them. I don't think that's hard and your argument is not a good one.

Further, taking the above to a logical extreme, the fact that the Mirror and Scum weren't making them front page headlines every week somehow undermines their (Crass) influence on little spiky-headed punksters making their first tenative steps into the brave world of political thinking beyond the traditional Lab/Tory/Lib scenario. Is that the only way to measure political influence, the number of column inches recieved every week? I rather think not.

If they'd been influencing people then the papers would have perceived them as a threat. The fact that they did not, though not conclusive (one can scarcely be conclusive in these things) is not helpful to the case for their significance.

This, incidentally, relates to my comparison with radical groups in the English Revolution. A lot of academic effort has gone into trying to find out how influential these groups were, and among the questions researchers ask themselves would be whether or not they can find hostile references to these groups and how many - and if they cannot, whether it speaks of a rather limited role on their part.