Middle-Aged Punks for the Right
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Was this what it was all about? Anarchy in the UK for UKIP?
Middle aged? John Lyndon? Funny how middle age gets older the longer you live. Never been much more than a gobshite.John Lydon + Donald Trump, the great rock and roll swindle meets the great political swindle.
Speaking on Brexit vote, Rotten said (see Alan's link) "the working class have spoke and I’m one of them and I’m with them.” Well I wouldn’t exactly call him working class though no doubt he began life in the working class. According to this site his net worth is $15 million, paltry for a celebrity of his fame but it just enables him to clamber onto the lowest rungs of the capitalist class, I guess (http://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/celeb/singer/john-lydon-net-worth/) But his comments on the relationship between working class and the Brexit vote are interesting and significant. Of course, Rotten is not using the term working class on the Marxian sense but in the mainstream sociological sense referring to income and occupational categories. This is the big problem with identity politics (and Rotten's apparent identification of working class with low income, blue collar workers is an expression of identity politics) is that it covers over and conceals the really basic class fault lines in capitalist society which hinge on one's relationship to the means of wealth production. It’s not that categorising people according to income or occupation is wrong – it is perfectly legitimate to categorise people in this way. The real issue is what is the purpose for using one particular criterion for categorising people into classes as opposed to another I would say the purpose behind the mainstream system of classification is quite complex and is primarily bound up with capitalism system of status differentiation though there are subsidiary aspects to this – such as that it enables businesses to hone their marketing strategy by pitching their sales drives to particular segments of the population. But status differentiation is an absolutely essential ideological prop to class rule and I think as socialists we don’t pay enough attention to the sociology of class struggle and how ideology is used as a weapon in that struggle. The claim that we live in a meritocracy and that the wealthy are somehow deserving of their wealth is clear example of the way in which status differentiation is used to reinforce the status quo. What we are seeing in the case of Rotten’s use of the term working class where “working class” had come to be seen as a badge of honour is analogous to the way the racist word “nigger” has had its meaning inverted by some sections of the black community. Gangsta Rappers in the music industry, for example, quite often make use of the N word – or “nigga” –in a way which arms them against the conventional stigma associated with that word by turning its meaning into something quite positive. In other words it disarms the racist of the power to belittle blacks by calling them niggers So it is with the word “working class” in the sense of blue collar low income workers. It is in one sense a positive response against the conventional system of status differentiation that ties high status with large wealth but in another way it is deeply reactionary on the sense that it misidentifies the source of wealth inequality in capitalist society by shifting the focus away from the all-important criterion of how one relates to the means of wealth production and focusses instead on aspects such as occupation I think to quite a large extent the rise of populism we have witnessed in the past few years – Brexit, Trump, the spread of xenophobic anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe – can be understood in these terms of a reinvigorated “working class” reacting to the contempt shown towards it by the political establishment. It is a case of jostling for higher status within a conventional system of status differentiation that does not significantly threaten that system of status differentiation let alone capitalism itself
Not a punk fan, prefer classic rock/blues but Lydon was banned from TV and radio for a while in the 70s for revealing Savil and claimed 'they were all at it'. 'I'd kill Savil myself' he said.
There's never a Mark Chapman around when you need one.
Just to be clear, this forum does not endorse murder and suggesting such an act, in my view, deserves a permanent ban from the forum.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Just to be clear, this forum does not endorse murder and suggesting such an act, in my view, deserves a permanent ban from the forum.agreed
alanjjohnstone wrote:Just to be clear, this forum does not endorse murder and suggesting such an act, in my view, deserves a permanent ban from the forum.I wasn't aware that anyone on this forum was endorsing or suggesting such an act but merely reporting a comment allegedly made by Lydon.
The post now appears to have disappeared but from memory in regards to Lydon thread, Bob Andrews commented "There's never a Mark Chapman around when you need one". (29 Mar at 3:44 PM)..Mark Chapman killed John Lennon…i took that to be an inference that he would approve of John Lydon being murdered for expressing political ideas. I don't think i imagined the post and can only surmise that the Moderator was on the ball and deleted it. And perhaps i should not have raised the topic and let it be.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I don't think i imagined the post and can only surmise that the Moderator was on the ball and deleted it.You were not imagining it, Alan. The post was from the troll 'bob andrews' with his usual bad tast. I don't think we should make fun of Lennon's death and Bob Andrews is one of about three trolls that should be removed from the forum
alanjjohnstone wrote:The post now appears to have disappeared but from memory in regards to Lydon thread, Bob Andrews commented "There's never a Mark Chapman around when you need one". (29 Mar at 3:44 PM)..Mark Chapman killed John Lennon…i took that to be an inference that he would approve of John Lydon being murdered for expressing political ideas. I don't think i imagined the post and can only surmise that the Moderator was on the ball and deleted it. And perhaps i should not have raised the topic and let it be.I agree with you but the mod has been a help, in this matter. But perhaps we should get back to the issues raised originally and concentrate on the things we said today, rather than rake helter skelter over past posts.
Tim Kilgallon wrote:alanjjohnstone wrote:The post now appears to have disappeared but from memory in regards to Lydon thread, Bob Andrews commented "There's never a Mark Chapman around when you need one". (29 Mar at 3:44 PM)..Mark Chapman killed John Lennon…i took that to be an inference that he would approve of John Lydon being murdered for expressing political ideas. I don't think i imagined the post and can only surmise that the Moderator was on the ball and deleted it. And perhaps i should not have raised the topic and let it be.I agree with you but the mod has been a help, in this matter. But perhaps we should get back to the issues raised originally and concentrate on the things we said today, rather than rake helter skelter over past posts.
I had to chose between deleting, removing or upublishing. If I deleted it would have been outside of the guidelines and rules for moderation for no rule was actually breached. On the other hand by removing the post to the Off-topic section it would have remained visible and offensive. Hence the pragmatic decision to unpublish so the post is not visible to users.If Bob Andrews continues with his antics he can expect the same result if posters take offence and raise valid objections and rebut the intended inference. Until these concerns are raised, in such instances I prefer to stay on the democratic fence has stipulated by the guidelines and rules.
moderator1 wrote:Tim Kilgallon wrote:alanjjohnstone wrote:The post now appears to have disappeared but from memory in regards to Lydon thread, Bob Andrews commented "There's never a Mark Chapman around when you need one". (29 Mar at 3:44 PM)..Mark Chapman killed John Lennon…i took that to be an inference that he would approve of John Lydon being murdered for expressing political ideas. I don't think i imagined the post and can only surmise that the Moderator was on the ball and deleted it. And perhaps i should not have raised the topic and let it be.I agree with you but the mod has been a help, in this matter. But perhaps we should get back to the issues raised originally and concentrate on the things we said today, rather than rake helter skelter over past posts.
I had to chose between deleting, removing or upublishing. If I deleted it would have been outside of the guidelines and rules for moderation for no rule was actually breached. On the other hand by removing the post to the Off-topic section it would have remained visible and offensive. Hence the pragmatic decision to unpublish so the post is not visible to users.If Bob Andrews continues with his antics he can expect the same result if posters take offence and raise valid objections and rebut the intended inference. Until these concerns are raised, in such instances I prefer to stay on the democratic fence has stipulated by the guidelines and rules.
We are getting too many trolls and spammers in this forum
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