First let me introduce myself. I sing in a band called Julith Krishun and I organize shows since a few years now in the AZ Conni in Dresden. I started both things with the intention to create a political platform and share my thoughts with others. But why did I have to realize that the people who go to concerts and identify with the hardcore/punk/metalcore scene more and more loose their political and social interest? Why does this subculture seem to have become another superficial Lifestyle? The political discussion in the scene seems to be faded out and the recognitions it came to a long time ago hide fearful behind blunt slogans like "Good Night White Pride". For me that is not enough, but I had to recognize I might have choosen the wrong stage to fulfill my initially thought - to create a forum for political issues. May be the circum stances in which I wanted to say something are to blame? Well that might be enough about my background. Let's go on.

There are countless fanzines and magazines for entertainment or professional magazines talking about scientific developements and there are also countless magazines dealing with different political and social issues. There seems to be no thought left which has not allready been told. Sometimes I think everything I could ever tell or write has allready been written down somewhere, or seen in a movie, or heard in the radio. Justifieably you ask yourself why we do another zine, while everything seems to be allready told anyways. Well let's turn this feeling into a thesis:
Everything that can be thought about has allready appeared in some way in the media.
But let's go back to the first question. Why another magazine like this? The answer is very simple but also very complex. At first it is the only thing we can offer. What else should we do? How could we give something else to the world except the things we think to know? Is it really a matter if this knowledge "comes out of ourselfes" or if we just got it from somewhere? Is it not worth the same? However this question has to be answered, if we want to influence a society, to shape it and to create it - and be it only out of the egoistic interest that this society doesn't develope so bad for us - the only thing you can ever do is to transmit, to share your knowledge. We can only express ourselfes usefully if we put out an image of our thoughts into the world with the hope that somebody receives and accepts it. (If you look closely everybody who expresses something in the media is doing the same - to create an image of something.) That leeds to a second thesis:

By media images of the society are being communicated.

We will also leave this thesis behind and look at it more closely in the extra article ... Let's look at another important question. Why do we cooperate with the European Union? We are sure that some of you think very critical about this and we have to admit if we had other possibilities we wouldn't have cooperated with them. The thoughts being expressed in this magazine seem to oppose to a cooperation, but let's look closely at it. What's the content of this magazine? It's about societies free of domination, it critizises globalisation, repression, cultural industries, states and capitalism. I guess we all agree that basic changes are necessairy but is it any secret? You can ask whoever you want there will be nobody who doesn't want something changed, sure the directions people want things to be changed to are very different, but still change is a wish that everbody on this planet is sharing. In this way we are only one of many groups longing for changes but only this doesn't make us different to others.
Whatever theme you deal with there is nearly no author who published something about who's on a black list of censorship. Nearly none of them is prohibitted. It's simply not necessairy anymore if you complain that the capitalist structure seems to have strengthened and devolope so much that it is beyond any reproach because it can call everything that is being articulated it's "child". That's nothing new for anybody. Nobody can escape capitilist structures. Everybody from our generation has been shaped since childhood by capitalism, because it affects the whole world and penetrates every existing corner of this planet. Everything we can think is a product of a capitlistic world and nobody can refuse this realization. Following this understanding Theodor W. Adorno said there could never be a right life in the wrong one. That means everybody is affected by capitalism and everybody's actions (no matter which) will harm somebody. (fpr example you buy shoes, that might have been produced by children in the 3rd world) Everyime you point your finger on somebody accusing him to act worse you have to point on yourself too. This understanding is very important for the hardcore scene too. Capitalism is totally global and everybody on this planet is a part of it if he wants or not. In a situation like this people tend to create niches like the Hardcore/Punk Scene and forget that they are still a part of the system, but also our niche is not imagineable without capitalism and it's directly depending on it. Also our scene is being influenced through and through by the capitalist logic which is getting more clearly when bands like Heaven Shall Burn became so big that they sign on major labels. The big music business has reached us long ago and just because we feel to be part of the scene it doesn't make us any better than anybody else on this planet. The illusion that we are different just because we listen to Hardcore/Punk/Metalcore is as poor as it is superficial! There is no right life in the wrong one!
So there is not even one second in that we stand outside of the society. We are part of it all the time, we shape it and it shapes us. Just because we are more or less critical to the capitalist society we're not outside of it, quiet the contrary, day by day we (are forced) to take part in it's reproduction and strengthen it.
But also that won't be anything new for anybody of you. The point is it's not against any law to critizise capitalism and if I take a look on the Hardcore/Punk/Metalcore scene I come to the conclusion that we better should start with developing an understanding of what capitalism truely is and in which kind of society we live in, because we all are blind on one eye. I mean how can you cause change if you don't really understand what's going on around you? How could you ever know to do something right? Here's an extreme example where missunderstanding of capitalism can lead to: in the nationalsocialist Germany people started to boykott jews, because they thought the jew were to blame for all the evil things capitalism is producing. You know that this thoughts at the end led to the killing of 6 Million jews. That shows how important it is to understand the things you want to change otherwise you might produce just more and more harm and at the end everything becomes even more worse. So here's an aim of this magazine: we hope to restart a political discourse that developes a basic understanding of the modern western society which is the only foundation to start useful acting that provokes positive changes.
We have to disappoint everybody who is searching for something new in this magazine. The important things indeed are allready said somewhere and everbody knows them. We just have to remember them, the rest will follow easily. We can only have a more detailed look at the things around us and that's what we are trying to do. But the critics we have are not only articulated by us. We even don't differ to others with the content of our critics. There are a lot of institutes dealing with analization of capitalism and the modern society, so we are not as underground as you might think. Again, we are part of this society if we want or not!
So what makes the difference of Hardcore/Punk/Metalcore to Hip Hop for example? The thoughts that are transported in our scene are not that different, it can't be that. The style is different, but not that much and tough guy shit exists in both scene's too. The only real difference is the music but the taste of music is a personal thing that doesn't make anyone better it's just a superficial difference. So what I want to point out is: it's stupid to seperate ourselfes just because of the illusion of difference (caused by superficial differences). In fact we don't differ to any other subculture, because we are a subculture as assimilated as all the others. It seems to be the destiny of aa subculture to dock to the mainstream at some time. Cultural industry developed elaborated threads to assimilate every scene and turn it into a stylish lifestyle product. Those technis are known in general too, but there seems to be no other possibilty than playing the game , we can't refuse it. The space for political threads has been forced back to a verbal level, to a fight with ourselfs, because we are the product of the things we are critizising. That implies what this magazin is able to do: the analisation and critic of the things that exist not more or less.
Time for consequences. If this can't do anything else than explaining what's existing it enqueues into the endless chain of informations of the mass media, which is nothing else then an endless sequence of images or reproductions of the society.
Mostly when people articulate fatlistic critics about the modern society they are being asked for some alternatives. In this magazine we describe how the world was flooded by commodities through technical production and distribution. With this flood also an idea has been spreaded, the idea of the commodity, of capitalism. But also in this capitalistic system there is some space for alternativ ways of living, even if it is very rare and becomes more and more limited. With our subculture we have the possibility to play the game of capitalism a bid different. The idea is very easy. We can raise money and buy a machine that produces something people need like food. If you have a machin you have a constant source for money. The money you had to invest pays out very quickly and you don't have to work for it, because the machine is doing it for you. Financially you are safe and it won't take long until you raise money you can spend for whatever you want, because the machin is running on and on. Let's add some idealism to it. With the money you earn you can buy free spaces you can use however you want and step by step you become more and more independet. Once you've got your ground to live on you can use the money you earned to buy another machine for another group of people, which can become independent to. The beginning is very slow, but once the ball started to roll you can't hold it back and it's totally legal. You can buy your freedom to live. Alternative structures can grow with the help of machines. It's like an invasion of alternative life in the real world. It's just about a useful use of technic. Technic is not only destructive it can help to get more independent. I mean why should we centralize production if we have the possibility that small groups produce the stuff they need on their own? Why should we put everybody in addiction to a centralized production? That is the main source of the system's power. Robots for everybody! ;)