What else have we got other than some people saying it? Some people say the Sex Pistols are punk, there isn't really an objective measure we can measure this against.
What do you mean, "some people"? Is there anyone saying that the Sex Pistols WEREN'T punk?? I can't truck with any taxonomy of punk rock that excludes the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, or the Clash. There were later waves of punk rock (bands like the Dead Kennedys, Minutemen, Circle Jerks) and there were not-strictly-punk spinoffs especially in the NYC art scene (Talking Heads, Television, Patti Smith)... but come on, anything written up in "Punk" was clearly at ground zero of the scene.
I mean I can disprove the flat earth theory by walking around the world, orbiting around the earth in space, or use something that relies on that, like say GPS. Whether Green Day is punk or not is a matter of peoples opinions. We can discuss what punk meant in the 70s, what it means today, whether its still relevant, how Green Day fits into that, it's pretty much someone's opinion whether they classify them as Punk.
Apparently The Monkees were also written up in Punk, are we calling them punk now?
Whether Green Day is punk is debatable... probably mostly centering around whether you think punk is a musical style or a philosophy.. but I'm really just saying that it's not really debatable that the Sex Pistols were punk, since the term "punk rock" was pretty much coined to describe what they were doing.
I don't think Green Day counts as punk rock, because actual punk rock was about a lot more than the music... so Survival Research Labs, f'rinstance, was definitely punk in my book... and so were Nazi skinheads, although they sucked. But as you say, opinions vary.
If you've read the Monkees writeup in "Punk", it's a snide hit piece the thrust of which is "these guys represent everything we're not". Punks hated hippies, and fake Madison-Avenue canned hippies were considered about the lowest of the low.
Personally I'd rate the Monkees a bit better than that, once they started dropping acid... anybody who gave me Head surely can't be all bad!
I think it's a problem of specificity. Green Day's music do or did sound like punk, but do they (still) live the punk lifestyle/ideology? Did they ever?
I remember that question being hotly debated even before Dookie came out. Hard to believe this is still something people quibble over. Let’s get back to tabs vs spaces ;)