Oops, my bad. I read red_dragon’s post, where he was talking about the title of the book, not the quote, and assumed you were correcting him on the book title. But, since Waterj was talking about the quote, not the book, then red-dragon’s point is moot. And so’s mine, for that matter.
Kind of ironic, having a communication problem while talking about McLuhan, eh?
Just like all the other punks. Maybe those people wearing the Punk clothes you so rail against are rebelling against the common, accepted idea of “What is punk.”
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** To what end? I still don’t understand what you mean by this. Just to do it? Or do you mean because your punk ideas and attitude will scare those who are not free thinkers and thus they lash out in anger?
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I don’t get what’s punk about swing music, but bootlegging was just trying to make a buck off a situation. They were supplying a demand for an outlawed substance. By this definition, drug dealers are also punk. So they’re bucking the system, they’re making a statement against the social dogma of today? No, they’re trying to make a quick dollar.
You can be independent without being a rebel and pissing people off.
And what are you rebelling against anyway? (And the first one to quote Brando’s line “What have you got?” gets slapped!) What’s the point of it? If you’re rebelling, there must be something to rebel against. Something must be pissing you off somewhere - and the mainstreaming of punk can’t be it, cuz the idea was obviously around before it could go mainstream.
Rebellion without a goal is masturbation without climax.
I can understand Red Dragon’s attitude. When I was a “punk” (whatever the hell that means, everyone I knew had their own definition) in the mid-80s, you could seriously get your ass kicked for identifying yourself that way, whether it was with your hair, your jacket, your boots or the holes in your head. The uniform wasn’t about noncomformity, it was a uniform. It’s purpose was to identify fellow travelers. The most all-the-way-down, “real,” “true” punk I knew went to prison, not for stealing gnomes but for stealing appliances from an electronics store. He came back from Attica with a CI Cross tatooed on his forehead, and tried to convince me that the Aryan Nations were the “real punk for the 90s.” I do miss the closeness we all used to have, but then we grew up, Nirvana had a hit and “Blitzkreig Bop” became a Budweiser commercial.
DuJour means punk!
The bolded ideas are mutually exclusive. Whether you’re fighting against The System or conforming to it, you’re still defining yourself by your relationship to it. You’re independent of precisely jack diddly-squat.
Seriously, listen to the music, enjoy it, hang out with like-minded people and read Adbusters. But in the name of heaven don’t waste your time worrying (and I’d give props here, but I forget whose sig I’m stealing this from) about nonconformists who don’t conform to the prevailing standards of nonconformity. That way lies wankerhood.
Hell yeah. The State doesn’t recognize Discordians, and we don’t recognize the State. 
Must be convenient if you’ve got any outstanding warrants.
Not to place words in anyone’s mouth, but perhaps a more accurately stated OP would suggest that there’s something disquieting about the underground constantly being noticed, packaged in a more palatable sanitary fashion, and then regurgitated out into the mainstream. But as has been stated previously in this thread, anywhere that a dangerous, or at least non-mainstream, idea is held, there will be someone who will latch onto it out of a sense of romance with the idea rather than as a true ideological core belief. A poseur.
But consider that no idea will remain pure or new beyond a limited length of time. You can be frustrated that new ideas become homogenized. You can be angry that the ideas you wish to see as something real are born out of someone elses cynical attempt to create a new pop culture phenomenon. You can decry the lack of a vacuum surrounding the social movements you consider sacred.
Or you can just like what you like, keep your own council on the things you consider important, and not worry too much about how someone else holds an idea that you wish to hold dear.
I know which direction I prefer.
You know, I thought of you as I typed it, since I was basically just restating the Tar Baby Principle.
Hail, she what done it all.