Crass -There Is No Authority But Yourself -dir.Alexander Oey (2006)

When I was proudly parading my anarchism in 81-85 (after that it was in my head rather than on my chest) people were forever telling me that Crass were, in fact, a bunch of 'old hippies'. This observation was made both by old school counterculturalists (themselves often derided as hippies) and punks of other stripes and colours.
There was a Class War (not just the paper) in the 80's. We lost it and our lives remain blighted by this defeat. Global Capitalism has been kicking the prostrate body of the working class ever since, and governments have grown ever more sinister and cynical. 
I suspect that, like myself, many of Crass' youthful audience at the time were largely unaware of The Situationists, The Angry Brigade and the like.
Penny Rimbaud makes an observation in this film along the lines of  there being no distinction between hippies, beatniks, punks etc. Here here. As my old headmaster used to say, are you with me boys? well, no sir, we are against you, and we come in many shapes and forms.
He also comes across as the ultimate 'old hippy', and I mean this as an unparalleled compliment.
I've never met him, but he remains one of the most influential people in my life.

Here's an earlier snippet of Rimbaud, comes right at the end of some nauseating antics from the 'Fab' Four.

There Is No Authority But Yourself...

Anarchy is a personal choice, an act of commitment, a decision in your own head to pursue a life that is ENTIRELY your own, free of restriction, free of fear, free of intimidation. OK, so you won’t change the world tomorrow by becoming an anarchist today, but it’s a start.
Everything has to start somewhere, where better than in yourself?
Crass, It’s Your Life, Live It (flyer) c.1980


‘There Is No Authority But Yourself ’:The Individual and the Collective in British Anarcho-Punk
Rich Cross
Music & Politics 4, Number 2 (Summer 2010)

Jeffrey Lewis - 12 Crass Songs (2007)

Exactly what it says on the cover, 12 Crass songs covered by Jeffrey Lewis.

You can have a listen by downloading it from the cosmozebra blog.

Crass- The Feeding of the 5000 The Second Sitting (1981)

A nice clean vinyl rip of a record that sounds surprisingly fresh. This was a repressing of the 1978 debut that included the previously surpressed Asylum.

So, with our entire stage set on record... the music press were able to commence on the barrage of attack that has followed us throughout the years. They hated it and us and their loathing positively overflowed. It is not grandiose to claim that we have been one of the most influential bands in the history of British rock, true we have not greatly influenced music itself, but our effect on broader social issues has been enormous. From the start the media has attempted to ignore us and only when its hand has been forced by circumstances has it grudgingly given us credence. It's all fairly simple, if you don't play their game, that is commercial exploitation, they won't play yours.

Penny Rimbaud

http://d01.megashares.com/dl/4mgMLYg/Crass- The Feeding of the 500 The Second Sitting.rar

Bullshit Detector (1980)

On a day when comrades are gathering to sack parliament and kettle the cops I thought we could sample a bit of anarchist culture from my youth.
A word about quality- or lack thereof:
This was the ethos of DIY punk carried towards its logical conclusion, a compilation of recordings that were submitted to Crass- some of them bedroom recordings- transferred to vinyl in their original form- 25 tracks for £1.35…
As Andy T says on the prescient opening track- you don’t have to be able to play you don’t have to have something to say just do it.
The record stuck about 6 times that I noticed- so I just tapped the deck with a drumstick after a second or so- hope this doesn’t spoil your enjoyment of this document of the golden age of anarchopunk.
There are some storming numbers here.
Tracklisting in file.

Crass- Nagasaki Nightmare / Big A Little A 7” (1980)

History is written by the victors.
Winston Churchill

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.
United States Strategic Bombing Survey; Summary Report. United States Government Printing Office. 1946. pg. 26.


In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.
Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1963). The White House Years; Mandate For Change: 1953-1956. Doubleday & Company. pp. pp. 312–313.

The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion , and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.
Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman
Leahy, William D. (1950). I was there. New York. pp. 441

The US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was meant to kick-start the Cold War rather than end the Second World War, according to two nuclear historians who say they have new evidence backing the controversial theory…New studies of the US, Japanese and Soviet diplomatic archives suggest that Truman's main motive was to limit Soviet expansion in Asia, Kuznick claims. Japan surrendered because the Soviet Union began an invasion a few days after the Hiroshima bombing, not because of the atomic bombs themselves, he says.
According to an account by Walter Brown, assistant to then-US secretary of state James Byrnes, Truman agreed at a meeting three days before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima that Japan was "looking for peace". Truman was told by his army generals, Douglas Macarthur and Dwight Eisenhower, and his naval chief of staff, William Leahy, that there was no military need to use the bomb.
"Impressing Russia was more important than ending the war in Japan," says Selden. Truman was also worried that he would be accused of wasting money on the Manhattan Project to build the first nuclear bombs, if the bomb was not used, he adds.
Rob Edwards, New Scientist, (July 2005 http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7706)

Nagasaki Nightmare deals with the USA’s bombing of Japan in August 1945.
Big A Little A is a Picaresque romp through Thatcher’s Britain. Maybe a sort of anarchist punk’s guidebook. This is what we believe -These are our targets. Know your enemy.

The link is now dead but thanks to Dave Sez for pointing us in the direction of a collection of Crass singles here: http://enemy-of-the-music-business.blogspot.com/2009/07/crass-x-5-eps.html

Crass / Poison Girls - Bloody Revolutions / Persons Unknown 7" –(1980)

Remember Crass records/ where all the text was printed/ like this?/ and the sleeves opened out and / out until they nearly filled the room/ and the stencil writing and/ slogans and/ photomontages/ DO YOU?
Crass stir memories of impotent rage. I was at their last gig, Aberdare, miners’ benefit, July 7th 1984. One of my college teachers was a sixties counter culture/ situationist survivor, and he gently led me to realise that this anarchy stuff was nothing new, and that these were actually old school hippie communards.
I wonder, if I had listened to different records back then, if I would still be a pacifist, atheist vegetarian?