“No future, no future, no future for you!”
- Sex Pistols, "God Save the Queen”

Young people today are up against a wall. As the crumbling US
empire continues to lash out against the poor and oppressed around the
globe, from the bombs dropped on the heads of Palestinian children, to
migrant families ripped apart by ICE, to the pig police continuing to kill
with impunity across the US, capitalism-created climate change
intensifies and threatens the existence of humanity. Young people face a
bleak future, and society offers no hope, passing down all of these
problems with no solutions. Many try to to escape these realities with
drugs, alcohol, self-harm, and even suicide. Others get into alternative
culture that taps into people’s pent up rage against the system and lets
people be themselves,

For many youth, the hardcore scene is where they feel most at
home, a place where you can act out your rage and express how you
really feel. Hardcore is filled with militant lyrics and aesthetics. Bands
often adopt tough-sounding names, write songs about fighting fascists,
police, ICE, and the authorities more broadly, and use art displaying guns
and butchered pigs. Kids at the shows will rock camo pants and army
boots and throw punches and kicks in the pit. But when the show is over
and everyone goes home, the militancy often goes home with it.

It is right to rebel against the capitalists, their cops, and the
entire fucked up system, but it's important to do it in a way that gets shit
done. Unfortunately, coordinated mass movements with the power to
shake the foundation of the system are almost entirely nonexistent
today. Tame NGOs, opportunists, and Leftists ~who never go to the
masses to bring ordinary people into the fight — assert themselves as de
facto leaders of every struggle that breaks out into open rebellion. While
NGO grifters and opportunists use these rebelions to advance their
careers, Leftists inevitably lead the masses absolutely nowhere and
accomplish nothing.
Dare to Struggle is trying to build a militant, mass movement
against the system that can bring in thousands of people from different
walks of life and put an end to the American nightmare once and for all
Like aspiring revolutionaries before, we see the potential of the youth
today. We saw this potential in those who broke out in open rebellion in
2020, taking to the streets and facing down rubber bullets and cops in
riot gear. We saw it again in those who took the Pro-Palestine movement
to the next level during the encampments, taking over buildings on their
college campuses and fighting off police. Most recently we've seen it in
those who have faced off with the National Guard in the streets of LA,
fighting back against ICE agents and the mass deportation machine.
This is the kind of defiant spirit required in any movement serious about
shaking shit up.

The hardcore scene has a lot to contribute to the struggle to
topple the American nightmare. We've seen first hand the high energy,
political consciousness, and bold spirit embodied by hardcore kids. But
let's be real: You can' be a rebel on Saturday and a conformist on
Monday. You can't just look and talk edgy while obeying the orders of the
system. You canit claim to be against racism, fascism and sexism without
going out into the streets to fight it. There's a word for people who act
that way: posers! The hardcore scene of the past knew exactly how to
handle posers (just read American Hardcore!). The scene of today seems
to have forgotten.

Dare to Struggle wants to tap into the revolutionary potential of
the pit. Its one thing to take part in a scene with vaguely anti-
establishment leanings, quite another to build and organize a movement
with real politics and power. The hardcore scene has taken on the
politics of revolution in the past, and it's high time the scene as a whole
embraces them once again
Punk &
flj]ulitits

“Dance and sing, plead, praying for peace. But they won't hear
you, no, not in the least. You're enraged and you've got to show.
‘Cause silence is defeat. Yes, silence is defeat.”

-7 Year Bitch, "No Fucking War"

Punk has always been an anti-establishment cultural scene. The
mere combination of quick tempo beats, heavy riffs, and aggressive
Iyrics set punk apart from the mainstream culture and music in the
1960s. In an act of protest against norms and conformity, punk was
quickly embraced by society’s outcast youth (proletarian and oppressed,
queer, and immigrant kids). Its origins naturally led to an embrace of
progressive political causes, with bands becoming more outspoken on
social issues like racism, police brutality, and imperialism as time went
on. Bands like The Clash, Dead Kennedys, and Bad Brains are a few of the
notable examples of bands embracing these kinds of causes. As punk
scenes grew, fans began to embrace these politics as well. In the past
few decades, punk scenes have increasingly leaned anarchist, with
anarchist crews forming at shows and from bands.

However, as some bands and scenes began to embrace
progressive political causes and even Revolutionary politics, many
others tried to remain ‘apolitical’, seeing the adoption of specific
ideological positions as "authoritarian® and antithetical to punk culture.
Content with their niche subculture, many bands have denounced efforts
1o try to "politicize" the scene, claiming that getting punks to take hard
line stances is counterintuitive. Today, there are plenty of these
“apolitical” bands who refuse to use their platforms and the scenes they
come from to embrace politics. The problem with this thinking is that
it neglects the reality that everything is branded with politics. Whether
you like it or not, politics is always leading people in some direction. If its
not forward, it's backwards. Bands and scenes who seek to remain
“apolitical” only serve the status quo by never challenging it themselves,
at least in any real capacity outside of edgy lyrics and graphic t-shirts.
Even worse, by trying to keep politics away (especially the politics of
Revolution). they open themselves up to reactionary ideas and allow the
scene to be pulled in another direction.
The European punk scene in the 70s and 80s is just one example
of the scene getting pulled in a more insidious direction. During this
time, neo-Nazi organizations in Europe began to recognize that the punk
sub culture was ripe for new recruits. Made up of mostly white working
class youth, neo-Nazis made explicit attempts to recruit within the punk
scene, going so far as to form neo-Nazi bands directly related to and
funded by Nazi parties. Neo-Nazi Skinheads (aka Boneheads) began to
expand across European and US punk scenes, defining the vague anti-
establishment politics of the scene as racist, anti-migrant, and
homophobic. This infiltration of the punk scene allowed for the
proliferation and popularization of Nazism, in some instances leading to
violent, racist, and deadly attacks outside shows. The scene's refusal to
take a stand early on opened it up to this infiltration, which eventually
forced many of the former “apolitical” punks to really take a stand.

ANTI-RACIST ACTION

SMASH HOMOPHOBIA

SMASH RACISM

With the rise of Boneheads in the scene came the rise of anti-
fascist punks and skinheads who wanted to reclaim it. Anti-racist

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skinhead crews like SHARP (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice) and
RASH (Red and Anarchist Skinheads) formed to defend venues and shows
from Nazi attacks. But one crew would go even beyond the scene itself;
uniting with people in the streets and going to the masses with their
politics, setting a modelfor today’s would be revolutionaries i the scene
totakeittothenextlevel. Anti-Racist Action was born in the
Minneapolis hardcore punk scene in the late 1980s out of a group of anti-
racist skinheads called the ‘Baldies’. The Baldies started out as another
anti-fascist crew to protect the scene, but would eventually take the leap
beyond just protecting their fellow punks.

In 1995, the ARA adopted their first point of unity: "We go where
they go. Whenever fascists are organizing or active in public, we're there.
We donit believe in ignoring them or staying away from them. Never let
the Nazis have the streets!". These punks understood that if they didnt
actively fight back against Nazis (often literally getting into fistfights
with bonehead crews) and mobilize their neighborhoods to fight
alongside them, they would lose the only places where they could be
themselves. They also understood that in order to deal real blows to Nazi
organizers, they had to get out of their own scene and disrupt Nazi
rallies, shut down racist skinhead shows, and organize things like
defense perimeters around abortion clinics that were target by Neo-nazi
groups.

Within their own spaces, they set hard-line rules to keep Nazis
out. In the Bay Area, for instance, well-known punk venue 924 Gilman
Street had rules painted on their wall that included "NO RACISM, NO
SEXISM, NO HOMOPHOBIA, NO TRANSPHOBIA'. It was up to venue
members themselves to enforce those rules.

Anti-Racist Action mobilized hundreds of chapters and
thousands of activists, reaching a peak, according to Columbus ARA
member Gerry Bello, of 179 chapters in 1999. ARAs example shows us
that isolated acts of militancy arent enough to defeat our enemies and
fight oppression. We need to build a movement that connects people in
the scene with a mass movement outside of it, tapping into the
revolutionary potential of all people who want to strike real blows against
the system.

Punks Go to the Masses to

FREE MUMIA

Another example of punks stepping out of the scene and into the
streets was during the movement to Free Mumia. In 1982, Mumia Abu
Jamal, a former Black Panther, was working s a revolutionary journalist
when the Philadelphia police framed and arrested him for killing a cop.
The ruling class and their loyal pigs had been gunning for Mumia for years
due to his political activism, and promptly sentenced him to death.
Despite the state's tampering with evidence, Mumia and his defense
proved not only that he was innocent, but also that he was a victim of
COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) — a coordinated campaign
by the FBI to "neutralize" radicals in the US through smear campaigns,
imprisonment, and outright assassinations. There are many political
prisoners in the land of the free", but at the time, Mumia was the only
one sent to death row. The system came at Mumia hard, and by the mid-
1990s it was making serious moves to execute him.

Outrage at the state's brazen, bloodthirsty plans brought people
together in a mass movement to Free Mumia. Groups like Refuse &
Resist (R&R) went door-to-door in Black proletarian neighborhoods in
Philadelphia to talk to people about the campaign and distribute Mumia's
1995 book Live From Death Row. Discussions about the campaign toured
universities across the US to educate students and challenge them to
getinvolved. Free Mumia activists coordinated a media campaign to get
the word out on late night television and in the news. At the same time,
activists organized protests and marches to shut shit down (not to be
confused with the hi-viz vest loser protests today that coordinate with
the cops). The Philadelphia Freedom Summer (organized by R&R)
brought buses of people to Philly to go to the masses and hand out flyers,
agitate about Mumias case, and organize protests to demand his
freedom. Millions for Mumia marches took place in Canada, Spain,
Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Austria, and Australia. The campaign was
truly a mass movement, and it ultimately succeeded in forcing the
bourgeois state to back down from killing him,

Activists brought forward many proletarians, radicals, university
students, rastas, and religious people to stop the execution of Mumia,
but relied especially on involvement from the punk scene. Across the

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US., festivals, benefit shows, and bands themselves encouraged the
crowds to join the struggle. If you ask an old-head who was in the scene
during the mid to late 90's, chances are they'l remember seeing Free
Mumia tables at shows. Bands like Rage Against The Machine and Bad
Religion played sold-out shows in support of Mumia, rocked Free Mumia
tees, and went on live TV to talk about the movement to stop his killing
The band His Hero Is Gone played a show at the Millions for Mumia march,
bringing out hundreds of youth to the city to participate in the protests
and throw down with the cops in the street. These young punks, who got
into the scene due to its high energy and defiant stance against the
status quo, went into the streets and played an important role in the
battle to Free Mumia and against the system at large. Some of these
youths went on to be revolutionaries and life long activists after their
experiences in the movement for Mumia.

The Free Mumia movement was truly amass movement that
reached nearly every corner of society, bringing thousands of people
from different walks of life together and fulfill unique roles in the
struggle, and in direct confrontation with the system in order to save
Mumiass life. While Mumia still remains behind bars today, the state was
forced to back off from killing him outright. Punks played a piviotal roles
in bringing forward youth to not just care about Mumia’s lfe, but to get in
the streets, to thrown down with the pigs, to try and save Mumia's life.
This is exactly the kind of motivation and energey needed today.

MINIONS
NGVEIA

A\l \l

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Contlusion

“Let's have a war! Give guns to the queers! Let's have a war!
The enemy's within! It already started in the city! Suburbia will
bejust as easy!"

- Fear, "Let's Have a War"

We need to build an organized, bold, and audacious movement
against the American nightmare: one that lives and expands in the
streets, one based among the oppressed, one that resists and fights for
abetter world

We'e calling on the youth tojoin this struggle. Hardcore punk kids
can bring the energy of the mosh pits into the streets. Hip hop kids can
spit bars to unite the people, expose the system and agitate for
revolution. Graffit artists can paint the town with revolutionary slogans
and calls to action. Car dudes can take over intersections while skaters
teach the crowd how to escape from the pigs when shit gets hot. Biker
crews can stop traffic while protesters march from block to block, scout
ahead to look for police, fuck shit up and bounce. And everybody who has
some shit to say about this fucked up system can get up on the
megaphone and make the enemy shake in their boots. If we want to
strike real blows against the system it's going to take young people from
every scene to get together, train up as leaders, and bring militant
resistance to the masses!

Hardcore kids need to get real about what we're facing and
commit themselves to standing with those facing the worst of it. From
victims of police brutality and families and inmates facing mass
incarceration, to immigrant families facing the constant threat of
deportation, to women and LGBTO people facing patriarchal violence,
there are millions of people under attack by the system, people who can
be mobilized to fight back against it. Are you gonna stand with them, or
are you gonna leave them to face their oppression alone? Were
challenging hardcore kids and young people from every scene to take the
pit into the streets, go to the masses, and throw down against the
system. It's do or die. Youin?

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Further Reading

The Politics of Punk by David Ensminger

We Go Where They Go: The Story of Anti-Racist Action by Shannon
Clay, Lady, Kristin Schwartz, and Michael Staudenmaier

American Hardcore: A Tribal History by Steven Blush

Contact us to get involved!

Instagram: @daretostrugglechicago
Website: daretostruggle.org

Donate: at account.venmo.com/u/dtschi

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