As some of you may know, the Hardline movement was a pretty big part of the early to mid 90s with lots of kids following the ideas but quickly dropping out. Perhaps they changed their opinions or maybe they lost interest. Well David "Count" Agranoff was one who followed the movement for many years and has since become one of our regular readers, on-occasion contributor and friend. Since this interview, David has changed some of his views and when I told him I wanted to post this interview he did, he asked if he could write a sort of epilogue on how he feels about it now. I gladly accepted so please read on. David has a lot to say and its worth your time. He is still vegan straight edge and is currently writing another book as well as a book on the history of Earth Crisis. I scanned this interview from a European zine (Value of Strength) that my friend Ivan sent me. Please understand that the interview is almost 13 years old (when conducted, not published) so things have seriously changed. Read David's explanation before you read the interview.
"Hey Chip allowed me to say something before printing this interview from 13 years ago. During the last half of the 90's I was like a hardline robot totally dedicated like a machine to the ideology proposed in Vanguard#1 which was very much like a bible to me at the time. In 99 the hardline movement split, a minority who viewed hardline to based on muslam ideals copyrighted the name declared many of us ideologically impure. While I still believe they were reading vanguard incorrectly and at the time it was devastating to me. I had devoted everything to hardline for years.
I am not sure I would ever have left if I had been forced out. This kind of ideological headbanging has happened in revolutionary groups forever so I shouldn't be surprised. I still agree with many of statements from this interview. I am still 100% drug free and militantly vegan. But my stepping away from the ideology gave me the freedom to question some of the views I once held.
I don't feel the same way about homosexuality, and support the rights of all to express themselves sexually any way they see fit. I did then too, but now I don't care weather it is natural or not. As far as Abortion goes, that is more complex. I think both sides of the debate are lost. Lives are not for others to choose, and the pro-life movement is anything but. In the end most humans grow up only to be an endless source of death and destruction, so I see no need in defending the life of a fetus that will ultimately spend a lifetime eating animals, consuming wasteful and destructive products. At this point we need less humans, I see that now.
My views have changed but I feel the hardcore kids of today can learn from Hardline. It was movement that grew from hardcore that was truly revolutionary. We were not just kids advocating change we had a total praxis that was rooted in a belief in a deeper meaning to human life. We trained, we fought, and we took ourselves much more seriously than we had any right too. But compared to the lack of activism in the current scene we have a lot to be proud of. There was nothing like hardline ever before."
"Hey Chip allowed me to say something before printing this interview from 13 years ago. During the last half of the 90's I was like a hardline robot totally dedicated like a machine to the ideology proposed in Vanguard#1 which was very much like a bible to me at the time. In 99 the hardline movement split, a minority who viewed hardline to based on muslam ideals copyrighted the name declared many of us ideologically impure. While I still believe they were reading vanguard incorrectly and at the time it was devastating to me. I had devoted everything to hardline for years.
I am not sure I would ever have left if I had been forced out. This kind of ideological headbanging has happened in revolutionary groups forever so I shouldn't be surprised. I still agree with many of statements from this interview. I am still 100% drug free and militantly vegan. But my stepping away from the ideology gave me the freedom to question some of the views I once held.
I don't feel the same way about homosexuality, and support the rights of all to express themselves sexually any way they see fit. I did then too, but now I don't care weather it is natural or not. As far as Abortion goes, that is more complex. I think both sides of the debate are lost. Lives are not for others to choose, and the pro-life movement is anything but. In the end most humans grow up only to be an endless source of death and destruction, so I see no need in defending the life of a fetus that will ultimately spend a lifetime eating animals, consuming wasteful and destructive products. At this point we need less humans, I see that now.
My views have changed but I feel the hardcore kids of today can learn from Hardline. It was movement that grew from hardcore that was truly revolutionary. We were not just kids advocating change we had a total praxis that was rooted in a belief in a deeper meaning to human life. We trained, we fought, and we took ourselves much more seriously than we had any right too. But compared to the lack of activism in the current scene we have a lot to be proud of. There was nothing like hardline ever before."
![Mayday - Victim [demo 1993]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNu1BD8eki-O6k8I4pN5KD6E73RK9aq7z4l4BQs8qSGNa6AB4OhbO-u9ACy-gWD_cwSmLJUqY_l8FtIzl0dYgpxhNH_55rrU5fDoHK9ggKrl4rw_j0Xk4-wMmszw-wokfmB9b1xnOqcB74A_9P2gmv1isDkT0J4jPFGnCnPnVMrVW2MpjPRsPWnMkgORk/s72-c/cover.jpg)
14 comments:
I appreciate this being reprinted. Dave words take me back to a time and place in my life that served as an incredibly formative period. My involvement with Hardline shaped my diet, my politics, my spirituality and the very direction of my life. Though today I disagree with the dogmatic ideology, obvious Abrahamic religious overtones and ridiculous notion that a handful of 20 something vegans we're going to overthrow the global order, there remain core threads from Hardline that continue to guide and shape my worldview even today, in my mid-30's.
"...In the end most humans grow up only to be an endless source of death and destruction, so I see no need in defending the life of a fetus that will ultimately spend a lifetime eating animals, consuming wasteful and destructive products. At this point we need less humans, I see that now.
"
Amen.
Even though I have been involved in the German straight edge hardcore community since the late 80s, and have been friends w/ a couple hardline kids back in the early 90s, I have never actually read Vanguard until after the post of this interview.
(By the way, I found Vanguard #1 here: http://www.mediafire.com/?jyjyqemnizy).
And damn, Vanguard is even more idiotic than I've imagined in my wildest dreams. It is pure Nazi rethoric and their "arguments" are beyond stupid.
Vanguard is way worse than the Vegan Reich EP lyric sheet (which, as the veg sXe dude that I am, kinda liked, haha).
I am glad Hardline never got much of an impact on the straight edge scene. Hopefully all those new Hardline chapters in Russia and other places will die out soon.
Hardline kids make Hitler look like a Liberal!
I fully agree with what "Hardlineupyourarse" said..
Sure...'cause nothing compares to the murder of six million Jews like two dozen skinny hardcore kids distributing zines.
thanks for the link to vanguard been looking for that.
-xLx
Hey German dude saying hardline Makes Hitler look liberal, makes you look like a dumbass. That is called hyperbole, it doesn't make your point well.
And PA hardline...drop me a line I have wanted to get back in touch for years...
I understand wanting to read this shit for either a laugh or for "historical purposes" but not everyone is intelligent enough to differentiate the reasons for these being uploaded every other day on blogs and whatever else. We can thank the "documentation" (aka glamorization) for the new CHAPTERS in Russia or wherever.
Let this shit die.
Frankly, "Count," I think your comments about abortion and "needing less humans" and you literally suggesting that fetuses who will likely be raised eating meat deserve to die undermines any credibility you may or may not have.
No wonder you were kicked out of HL.
Well Dave,
Getting kicked out hardline was one the best things that every happened to me. I'm not offended.
I don't really care if you think I credible or not. I don't think those unborn children deserve to die, you are twisting my words. and ceratinly it has more to do with more beahviors than Eating meat.
I think they should never be born, as Karl from Earth Crisis has said..."it's about teaching people to be responsible when they have sex." Energy should not be put on saving the fetus but stopping them from being created.
Dave my point is That an entire human life involves an entire liftime of food production, clothing, shoes, Plastic bags, cars, gas, energy for their homes, all those these are more destructive to the natural order than an abortion. Like it or not.
I don't like abortion but making it illegal wont solve the problem. Killing abortion doctors wont solve the problem. I see that now, and i think the vast majority will assume that give me more not less credibility on the subject because that is logical.
For every unit of food we consume, using the conventional agricultural methods employed in the U.S., six times that amount of topsoil is lost. Since, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the average person eats a ton of food each year, that works out to 12,000 pounds (5,443 kilograms) of topsoil. John Jeavons estimates that using current farming practices we have 40 to 80 years of arable soil left.
Good Ole Dave Agranoff. Still rustling feathers.
As a former "hardliner" who was summarily kicked out of the "movement" because I stopped believing that there was only one truth, and that a hardcore kid had figured it out, I can say that Dave is even more full of it now than he was then.
Great intentions in the "movement". A little violent and heavy on the hyperbole, but at the end of the day, most of them were well intentioned.
Its sad that Dave has changed his views on abortion. I remember all of our conversations about abortion... granted it was 15 years ago, but I'd like to think that the lives of unborn children can't be qualified in any way.
It doesn't matter now. If the 90's proved one thing to me, it was that well intentioned hardcore kids can and will achieve nothing if they put their minds to it. To much high school drama, to many ego's, and far to much tough talk.
Dave Agranoff is a snitch: http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/dave-agranoff-informant-elf-bloomington/5723/
too bad he turned snitch.
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/dave-agranoff-informant-elf-bloomington/5723/
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