From the Vaults: Punk Protests at 1984 Democratic Convention in SF
Digging through some old MRRs recently turned up a whole bunch of coverage of the protests that happened around around the 1984 Democratic National Convention. That year the convention took place in San Francisco, where punk was at that time reaching a high level of political activity. It was the peak of the Reagan/Thatcher era and nuclear war was being discussed as a viable option in the Cold War. I mean, all of the good God-fearing Americans would get to go to Heaven if the whole world blew up, so what’s the big deal?
It’s inspirational to see and read about what the punks got up to in these pages of the magazine. The descriptions of the actions that took place are on one hand strangely similar to today’s Occupy protests, but on the other hand have a sense of high-spirited rage and adventure that is often missing from our tactical vocabulary nowadays. It also goes to show you that there have been many punks who fought the good fight over the years, and it is our job to continue that legacy, lest we just be a bunch of fuckin’ posers.
This is only a sample of what was found in the issues I looked through, but each new dig into the archives turns up more articles and letters about political actions during this time, so we may post more. Until then, read, learn, enjoy, and fuck shit up!…
