1. We were associates of Tom Forcade, who was a target of the government--if you read Sean Howe's book, you'll understand the situation a lot better.
2. The government had their hands full with the whole hippie/yippie/anti-war movement thing, so they would have wanted to stamp out a new youth culture ASAP.
3. The Allman Brothers and other rock musicians who contributed to his campaign probably wanted those "Yankee MFers" wiped off the map.
But that theory falls apart when you see evidence that politicians such as Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Carter calling for punk to be shut down. These were hardly low-level operatives. These are the top people in government.
Add to that the problem Carter was having with his Drug Czar getting involved in the cocaine scandal and everything else...
What I am attempting to do here is explain the "spiral of doom" that enveloped both PUNK and High Times from 1978-79. The amount of opposition to the magazine's mere existence is kind of unprecedented, I think. It's similar to the censorship of comic books in the 1950s and the suppression of underground newspapers in the 1960s and early 1970s.
My favorite underground newspaper in the '60's was The East Village Other. But hasn't it been revealed that the paper was penetrated by intel, and maybe even created by them? And wasn't this also the case with most "underground" publications back in the day?
Almost all of the underground newspapers were "penetrated" (i.e. "fucked over") by the so-called intelligence agencies back then, along with all of the political factions (Black Panthers, White Panthers, Weathermen, SDS, etc.).Just do an internet search for COINTELPRO and you can see some of the damage the FBI program officially did. (There's surely much more they haven't revealed.) The CIA "Operation Mockingbrid" program infiltrated the media with CIA throughout its existence to the point we have those CIA scumbags contributing to "news networks" like CNN and MSNBC. Nowadays? The CIA is like business partners with Google, Facebook etc.
And don't forget all the highfalutin literary mags in the 40's and 50's, like The Paris Review, Encounter, Granta, and all the rest of them: all funded and promoted by CIA!
I still don't quite understand why the government would want to shut down Punk Magazine? Or was Punk just a victim of collateral damage stemming from the attack on High Times?
I think it doesn’t have to be a case of the government at the highest levels pointing to Punk Magazine and saying, “This little quasi-fanzine MUST BE SHUT DOWN.” All it took was for people who were at high levels to express animus against punk rock in general (which they did), and then for that attitude to filter down to operatives at lower levels looking for ways to fulfill this vague mandate as they understood it. All it really took was for one apparatchik to hit on the idea of countering the great scourge of punk rock in our society by putting the screws to Punk Mag for it to hit us where it hurt. We were barely hanging on by our fingernails — any random nudge against those nails that would barely affect most publications was enough to send us into a death spiral.
I think it was a combination of things:
1. We were associates of Tom Forcade, who was a target of the government--if you read Sean Howe's book, you'll understand the situation a lot better.
2. The government had their hands full with the whole hippie/yippie/anti-war movement thing, so they would have wanted to stamp out a new youth culture ASAP.
3. The Allman Brothers and other rock musicians who contributed to his campaign probably wanted those "Yankee MFers" wiped off the map.
But that theory falls apart when you see evidence that politicians such as Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Carter calling for punk to be shut down. These were hardly low-level operatives. These are the top people in government.
Add to that the problem Carter was having with his Drug Czar getting involved in the cocaine scandal and everything else...
What I am attempting to do here is explain the "spiral of doom" that enveloped both PUNK and High Times from 1978-79. The amount of opposition to the magazine's mere existence is kind of unprecedented, I think. It's similar to the censorship of comic books in the 1950s and the suppression of underground newspapers in the 1960s and early 1970s.
'Twas ever thus.
My favorite underground newspaper in the '60's was The East Village Other. But hasn't it been revealed that the paper was penetrated by intel, and maybe even created by them? And wasn't this also the case with most "underground" publications back in the day?
Incredible word we live in, right?
you can say that again!
Almost all of the underground newspapers were "penetrated" (i.e. "fucked over") by the so-called intelligence agencies back then, along with all of the political factions (Black Panthers, White Panthers, Weathermen, SDS, etc.).Just do an internet search for COINTELPRO and you can see some of the damage the FBI program officially did. (There's surely much more they haven't revealed.) The CIA "Operation Mockingbrid" program infiltrated the media with CIA throughout its existence to the point we have those CIA scumbags contributing to "news networks" like CNN and MSNBC. Nowadays? The CIA is like business partners with Google, Facebook etc.
And don't forget all the highfalutin literary mags in the 40's and 50's, like The Paris Review, Encounter, Granta, and all the rest of them: all funded and promoted by CIA!
I still don't quite understand why the government would want to shut down Punk Magazine? Or was Punk just a victim of collateral damage stemming from the attack on High Times?
I think it doesn’t have to be a case of the government at the highest levels pointing to Punk Magazine and saying, “This little quasi-fanzine MUST BE SHUT DOWN.” All it took was for people who were at high levels to express animus against punk rock in general (which they did), and then for that attitude to filter down to operatives at lower levels looking for ways to fulfill this vague mandate as they understood it. All it really took was for one apparatchik to hit on the idea of countering the great scourge of punk rock in our society by putting the screws to Punk Mag for it to hit us where it hurt. We were barely hanging on by our fingernails — any random nudge against those nails that would barely affect most publications was enough to send us into a death spiral.