Punk Views On Class

       Class discrimination and Punk music have always been joined at the hip. Punk was born from an extreme teen angst in New York and London in the late seventies. These teenagers were mostly children of working class men and women who struggled to put food on the table. These kids took to the streets and found a way to to express their frustration through clothes, hair and really angry music. This music has always had it's roots in politics. Particularly politics involving class. This is the very discrimination that was causing their angst.
       Bands like The Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat and Bad Religion changed punk from a fairly sloppy, drunken rage and turned it into what could only be called a political movement in the eighties. These bands gave a voice to the thousands of kids who felt voiceless. No one in America cared about poor white kids. They now had a voice and they wanted everyone to know who we were. If you turned away from a punk they would get in front of you to give you the middle finger. These kids who were ignored for so long were now going to force reality on your eyeballs and eardrums whether you liked it or not.
        What ends up happening is these kids get together and sweat and bleed together, then talk about politics and how fucked up shit was. This leads to reading about politics in books by Noam Chomsky and philosophy by Nietzsche. The political views of punks were turning from "drink more beer, anarchy!" into a clear direction of socialism, or social anarchy as some preferred to call it. The thought process of the average Punk was evolving. Changing in to a thoughtful , articulate, and well read monster. These kids were no longer just scary to look at, but were scary to debate as well.
        Drawing from the experiences of growing up poor and often neglected punk kids were developing radical ideologies. The idea of socialist government was enticing when you believe and witness that rich capitalists want to "kill the poor". As the kids grow up and realize they cannot change the world with just a middle finger; they turned to the voting booth. Well, some of them did. In the early to mid two-thousands these kids were now adults. A campaign was started called Punkvoter. The idea was to get punk rock icons like Al Jourgensen, Jello Biafra and Fat Mike to get more of the former anarchists in to the booths to effect change the old fashioned way.
       Convincing a group of people who have railed against the system their entire lives to now be a part of it was not a simple feat. One thing that helped was something all punks could agree on. George W. Bush sucked. Voters came out from under every little rock in this country. Change was in the air. Whether that change was positive is a little less clear. One thing that was clear was that the average punk kid from the poor neighborhoods all around the country had come around full circle. From the circle pit to the voting booth. Conformists? That debate is for another blog.

Works cited

Jones, Kristin V. "WHO LET THE PUNKS OUT? (Cover Story)." Nation 278.22 (2004): 11-16.                 Academic Search Complete. Web.2015.

Women Underpaid in the U.S.

Since women have gained the right to to vote in the 1920, the women suffrage movement persisted on continuous alteration in society as it brought new awarenesses, the the women of america are capable of conducting rational thinking for themselves and what is also best for their country. As World War II was declared, America was sending more and more soldiers into battle, in so this created a huge shortage in man power in the homeland. War is said to be a cataclysm for shifting time faster for a nation, it brings new technology advances, new medical discoveries, and new rights brought to those who are "one nation under god." In the process of this speedy shift, women have gained the right to work in those places that men originally were doing before the war occurred. The famousWW II propaganda poster of Rosie the riveter was the icon to this answer. "We Can Do It" this slogan had increased women in the workforce by a nice margin from 27% to 37%. Because of this, women were now excelling at those jobs and becoming more efficient at being apart of the american dream, gaining that extra money for themselves to bring home, while supporting a cause that brought the country together as a workforce. However the pay was not the same, by the year 1959 women were only making 77 cents to the dollar of what males would make. For a nation who brought a workforce together in hopes of fair wages or more opportunity for women to find jobs, there isn't true equality. As of 2013 the pay just increased by a humiliation of one penny. Now at 78 cents to the dollar of what men make. For over 50 years it took the pay rate to go to one penny. Considering what has evolved through the events that women are now cable of doing due to World War II, they have come a long way to deserve the same amount a man should make. "It will take 144 years before Wyoming women working full time and year-round make the same as their male counterparts on average" ("heres how long it will take to close the gender gap in each state".Huff Post.HuffingtonPost.com, Jillian Berman. 31 Mar. 2015. Web. 2 April 2015.) If the rate of the value of cents to dollar consist, the year 2159 will expose true equality for every state in the United States Of America. Let that sink in for a moment.  Though it is a incredible to see a overwhelming gap for women to know that the pay equity would take more than 100 years, most states are working effectively to resolve this. The highest paying state from the cent to the dollar is Washington D.C. At a rate of 91cents this state is most profitable for women to move to work to see a better equity.  Louisiana on the other side is the lowest paying state. This state pays 66 cents to the dollar.  No matter what occupation women have, from doctors to engineers, scientist, and teachers this trend will persist to every women, which could cause a bigger migration for those to head over to a new state just to earn enough to make ends meet equally. So how can women close the gap on this inequality of pay. Sad to say theres not many options but for time to play its toll on the economic field. One major option that CEO's amongst many companies encourage is for women to negotiate a higher salary during interview or annual pay raise. Doing this and showing how the competition is changing and how important a women is to the company can help stimulate this. Another is simply to bring the original Women Suffrage Movement back to the door of congress, since the paycheck fairness act has not been updated since 1963, it seems it is time for women to re negotiate to the nation and get what they deserve in the 21st century, because it should not take 144 years to have equality or even worse another World War to change the time once again.