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Propagandhi
Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes
"This is the few song that belong to these people and I hope that one day I'm gonna sing this song to my country. This song, never allowed, never allowed to sing in my own country and thousand of people have been killed because of singing this song. And I'm proud tonight that I'm singing to all of you."
Dickheads shit-talk
Huddled and single-file.
First-world frat-boys and prairie skinheads
Who will never walk a mile
Or mourn a murdered friend
In this tiny woman's shoes.
Drink up and mumble your abuse. I'm still humbled by it all:
And around the same time
I was riding with no hands,
Busting windows and getting busy behind the Sportsplex
(With Labonte's older
Sister decked out in
Her Speedos), Bella was flinching from the sting
Of a Depo Proveran "family planning",
Her own Pearl Harbour
And a holocaust spanning 25 years to life.
A prison my country underwrote in paradise.
And in the shadows of Santa Cruz,
She crossed her fingers behind her back.
And built Suharto a Trojan horse
And lay still till the motherfucker sent her north
Where as night fell she emerged
With a box under her arm
That held her pledge of allegiance and her uniform.
And she laid it at the gates
Of the General's embassy
And her whisper echoed into dawn
As she disappeared:
The truth will set my people free.
(In 1994, Bella Galhos risked her life to escape the brutal, 19 year-long military-occupation of her homeland of East Timor by Western-backed Indonesian forces. We met her in 1997 at a benefit for the East Timor Alert Network, where the beginning and end of this song were recorded. Learn more about her inspiring story of resistance on our website.)
Friend of mine dropped me a line
"Man, gotta run to the USA.
Got no money, got no job."
Skipped out of Mexico to stay alive.
You've got a problem with her living here,
What d'you do to help her
Before she fucking came?
What did the country do?
What did the country do?
What did the people do?
What did the country do?
What did the people do?
I stand not by my country,
By people of the whole fucking world.
No fences, no borders.
Free movement for all.
Fuck the border.
Fuck the border.
Fuck the border.
Fuck the border.
It's about fucking time to treat people with respect.
It's our culture, consumption that makes her life unbearable.
Fuck this country; its angry eyes, its knee-jerk hordes.
Legal or illegal,
Watch her fucking go.
She'll take what's hers.
Watch her fucking go. Yeah!
Fuck the border.
Fuck the border.
Fuck the border.
Fuck the border.
Fuck the border.
Fuck the border.
Fuck the border.
Fuck the border.
Alot of what I know is from recent immigrants to Canada. Some people have to stay and fight for survival in the country they live in while others have to leave to survive. Corporations cross international borders all the time in search of people to exploit for profit and no one stops them. They call it globalization. On the other hand, the victims of corporate domination are told that they can't cross borders in search of better lives, and are forced to stay and deal with the social, economic and environmental messes the companies leave behind when they inevitably move their operations to places with even more "favourable business climates” (re: lower wages, lax environmental laws, tax breaks). Looks like capitalism and human-rights don't mix.
- Todd
Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes
Tangled webs they weave
Span from Pine to Ruby Ridge,
Back from Shay's defeat
On up to Gustafsen
(Now cue the ass parade of ditto-heads and commissars and pricks
Drown out this faintest threat of commie faggot heretics).
(Conclusion:)
The nail that sticks up -- gets hammered down
The master's finest -- is finest tools are found
Slack-jawed, placid -- amidst the cacophony
Of screaming billboards -- and Disney-fied history.
Sometimes the ties that bind are strange:
No justice shines upon the cemetery plots marked
Hampton, Weaver or Anna-Mae
Where Federal Bureaus -- and Fraternal Orders
Have cast their -- shadows;
Permanent features built into these borders.
But undercover of the
The customary gap we find between
History and Truth, Founding Fathers
Bask in the rocket's blinding red glare.
The bombs bursting in air.
One nation. Indivisible?
The truth is when the back-country learned of ratification
The People had a coffin painted black
And solemnly borne in funeral procession,
They buried it deep in the earth as
An emblem of the -- dissolution
Internment of their -- Publick Liberty.
And someday, somewhere, today's empires,
Tomorrow's ashes.
I like to party fucking hard.
I like my rock & roll the same.
Don't give a fuck if I burn out.
Don't give a fuck if I fade away.
Back to the Motor-League with me
Before I'm forced to face the wrath of a well-heeled buying public
Who live vicariously through
Tortured-artist college-rock and floor-punching macho pabulum.
Back to the Motor League I go.
Once thought I drew a lucky hand.
Turned out to be a live grenade -- Oh my god! real shit
Play-acting "anarchists" and Mommy's-little-skinheads,
Death-threats and sycophants and wieners drunk on straight-edge.
Fuck off. Who cares?
I'd rather hi-lite Trip-Tiks than listen to your bullshit.
Fuck off. Who cares?
About your stupid scenes, your shitty zines, the straw-men you build up to burn.
Never ceases to amaze
And as I'm suffering your perfection it reminds me of my own race
To redress my own sad history of
Mouthed feet. Eaten hats. Teated bulls.
Amish phone-books. Drunken brawls.
But what have we here?
15 years later it still reeks of ‘Swill and Chickenshit Conformists
Fists in the air;
Like-father, like-son "rebels" bloated on korn, eminems and bizkits.
Lord, hear our prayer:
Take back your Amy Grant mosh-crews and your fair-weather politics.
Blow-dry my hair
And stick me on a ten-speed.
Back to the Motor League.
Back to the Motor League.
Back to the Motor League.
I guess life is just a popularity contest. Success, the ability to perform within a framework of obedience. Just ask the candy-coated Joy-Cam rock-bands selling shoes for venture-capitalists, silencing competing messages, rounding off the jagged edges.
(Today is good day to die.)
"- Stock personnel front checkout. Front checkout stock personnel.
- Fuck"
In which god's name
Will we be killed?
Who's most righteous?
Who's most terrified?
When your parents left the house
We would creep up to their room,
To the drawer
Beside the bed.
We would pull out the shining dildo.
One side dink, the other side Jesus.
Not hedonists.
Not atheists.
Churchgoers.
Blockparents.
I wonder what lurks
In neighbors' drawers?
The most pristine
Are hiding everything.
Is this our "decaying society"?
And these are the married ones.
What about the others?
Don't condemn your life
Riddled with shame.
Everyone's hands
Cause natural disasters.
With Friend Like These Who The Fuck Needs COINTELPRO?
With friends like these,
Who the fuck needs COINTELPRO?
I'm punch-drunk on
The sickening cadence of
Iron-fists
In velvet gloves.
The Cheshire grins.
The crippling Judas kiss
To christen thee
A sinking ship
The purpose of this new counter-intelligence endeavor
Is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or other-
Wise neutralize...
Any parades that you can't jump in front of.
Any long years of hard work that ain't yours.
Sometimes I wonder if you just can't help yourself?
Overhead bloodthirsty vultures circle patiently.
Offer condolences and whisper bitter eulogies.
Yes, "comrades" come as thick as thieves.
But you got another thing coming.
You got another thing coming.
You got another thing coming.
You got another thing.
With friends like these,
Who the fuck needs COINTELPRO?
With friends like these,
Who the fuck needs COINTELPRO?
Wadia's best friend's youngest sister was denied a decent burial
For two days couldn't douse the flames allied planes had showered on her tiny body.
And all the paper trails that lead to all the roads that lead
To all these Basras seem like we're all just "collateral damage" waiting to be happened
In some unforeseen
Fucking Pentagon budget-drill.
Today's Ba'ath regime
Just the Red Scare of yesteryear.
And I drink myself
To sleep cos I'm losing faith
That we can amount to anything more
Than reluctant human subsidies,
The moving parts in a death-machine,
Protesting their complicity,
But waiting for somebody else to throw
Their body on the churning gears.
I drink myself to sleep because
I'm losing faith that we,
We here in the Cradle
Of Affluence can cease
A sickening drive for individual strength through
State-powers' swinging fists
That we'll ever look back and laugh
At the irony that is:
Atomic murderer's enshrined
In Independence, USA
While 8000 miles from here,
(In the Cradle of Democracy)
It's another banner year
For a cottage industry
- A ritual at the corner of George and Constantine -
As foundries scramble to recast
His decapitated monument.
Ordinary People Do Fucked-Up Things When Fucked-Up Things Become Ordinary
Words can't do justice to pain.
Seems like they can't feel a thing.
Ordinary people do fucked-up things
When fucked-up things become ordinary.
I can't promise utopia or a better world.
I have no clever lures.
No harsh punishment if you don't bite the hook.
World of shit or bust.
No escape from disappointment.
When you commit heart and soul
To earning your -- place,
Someone else will have to cheer you on.
And what are you capable of?
You can be the one to string them up and beat them to death.
When you cut the bodies down,
You'll see the face of your failure and shame.
This is a world of professional liars:
A bleating chorus of tempered truths,
Pealing church-bells echo its' virtues sung over and over and over
again.
Rotting at the bottom is better than living as a fool.
And I can't find a meaning
In the great achievement.
When you commit heart and soul
To earning your -- place,
Opportunity kills common sense.
Drains her fifth, spits out a greek translation*. She slurs: "How much more bullshit you got left?
Cos you been feeding me this crap about 'free speech' and 'thought-police', like I'm supposed to sit and swoon".
Takes three more rounds til the subject changes and in that time she lays it down,
She said: "Fuck Larry Flynt and any campaign to silence women standing up and fighting back.
"And I fuck to cum,
Don't lay your 'repressed' shit on me.
I fuck to cum.
Fuck your blessed Trinity.
I fuck to cum.
"So sick of needle-dicks and (selective) first-amendments. I can...
Out-think,
Out-drink,
Out-fuck-you-all
And fuck your bullshit 'femi-nazi' crap, no needle-dick's gonna silence me.
"And I fuck to cum,
Don't lay your 'repressed' shit on me.
I fuck to cum.
Fuck your blessed Trinity.
I fuck to cum.
Cum."
* graphos = graphic depiction, pornos = female sexual slave
"All our christian soldiers marching hands to war.
With the cross of Jesus, marching as before."
"Live like an angel, die like a devil."
Don't let it worry you, we're down here together.
We're all here:
Heathens, heretics, kids with blue socks.
I asked some questions, wasn't satisfied with the answers.
Seems that's the biggest crime since not fitting in.
We're all here:
King Diamond, todd's mom, fallen angels,
The decimated cultures,
The kid in the corner in sweat pants.
We'll find our own way.
We'll find our own way.
We'll find our own way.
We'll find our own way.
Suburbs tremble again,
Fearing the have-nots at the window, collecting their fair share.
Guns and alarms aren't enough.
They demand "justice",
And every criminal locked away,
As well as any kid who might do something wrong.
There's a jail out of town
With fences so high
We won't think 'bout who's inside.
Neighbours are disappearing behind the bars.
Kids are doing time for petty crimes.
And it don't matter who they are.
It don't matter that they're alive.
A warehouse...
For victims of circumstance.
Cops are rounding up slaves;
Workers that don't complain or come late.
A workforce behind bars.
They'll make gadgets, circuit boards or fix cars.
It don't matter who they are.
It don't matter that they're alive.
Crime pays, ask the bankers floating bonds
To build cages for the city's "idle-hands”, instead of schools.
Factories with fences meet the prisons without walls.
"And we shall have your skulls."
They'll kick you to the ground.
You'll find yourself employed again.
On the inside.
Every fucking day
Our cities tell us what they think of justice.
Lock the courageous away
As the cowards plaster the cracks spreading through the monolith.
But if this man isn't freed, this city burns.
This city burns.
This city burns.
This city burns.
This city burns.
"And on this Day of Remembrance
Let us not kneel and pray for the dead.
But Let us stand and activate for the living,
To rescue those about to die"
(At the hands of)
Bullshit politicians;
Bloated pin-dick motherfuckers
Bullshit politicians;
Bow and curtsy to the seats of power.
We'll never learn and nothing will ever change
As we stay this course of followers and slaves.
I can't believe we're still content
Reshuffling the same old decks
Of kings and queens and faux-democracies.
I say we hand it back (to the)
Bullshit politicians.
Bullshit politicians.
Brick by brick,
Wall by wall...
We stood our ground waiting for the fight to begin.
My eyes squinted at the sun, wondering if they'd swing or run.
I tell no lie: jackknives in socks, they're all gonna die.
The tensions rise. Pre-pubes swarm the hill like flies.
Get the caskets ready,
We're going to tear right through this city.
That's if the anger don't,
That's if the boredom don't,
The drinking don't
Intercept this north-end horde.
But who am I?
Fighting a war that I can't win.
Swelling with things we try to hide.
You never leave anyone behind.
A harsh return that slaps you in the face.
For one last chance, we leave this place.
We're all packing up and moving on.
I've got a war in the head.
Fear our lives won't pass as great events.
A better prospect -- hides up ahead.
Do you feel it in the air?
We've been crushed beyond oblivion.
Farce and death -- walk hand in hand.
Graves and memorial walls hold my family name.
Pills and bottles do the same.
I hope that freedom's comes your way.
The fight never happened.
The crowd petered out. We all dribbled home.
Mission accomplished.
"Here farm-workers are attempting to remove a lame ???. They know she can't walk, and her legs are caught in the bars of the surrounding pens. They beat her, dance and spits on her, and kick her in the face for nearly an hour."
Sleeping masters roused
To burning homes from beds.
Steeping toddlers plucked from their watery deaths:
Ribbons, plaques and soft-soap
The ephemeral rewards
Paid to the slaves whose selfless acts accord:
A higher value
To their masters,
These parting gifts and bolt pistols,
Console the rest and wake the remainder.
And too bad the tributes paid
To lives that relegate these thrones
To lives spent valuing the runners-up, are known
As if too fleeting nor desirable.
Nothing surprises me these days.
I just sit and watch the box-cars
Roll-by and wait.
Patient.
Unattended.
So patient.
So unattended
A package under
A terminal bench.
A short fuse to scatter
Steady hands if I forget to remember
That better lives have
Been lived in
The margins and
Locked in the prisons
And lost on the gallows
Than have ever been enshrined in palaces.
"It's not your fault.
There's nothing you can do
It's just the way it is.
There nothing we can do."
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
- GEORGE ORWELL -
The citizen's job is to be rude -- to pierce the comfort of professional intercourse by boorish expressions doubt.
- JOH RALSTON SAUL -
* * * * *
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.
- ADOLF HITLER -
Ideas are far more dangerous than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?
- JOSEPH STALINE -
* * * * *
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. ARM YOURSELF.
I believe there is still something inherent in the fibre of america worth saving, and that the fortunes of the entire
world may well ride on the ability of young americans to face the responsabilities of an old america gone mad.
- PHIL OCHS -
Conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empires... But what
history really shows is that Today's Empire Is Tomorrow's Ashes, that nothing lasts foreever, and that to not resist is to
acquisce in your own oppression. The greatest form of sanity that anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is
trying to repress, opress, and fight down the human spirit.
- MUMIA ABU-JAMAL -
KILLING HOPE: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Intervantions since World War 2, William Blum (Black Rose Books)
AGENTS OF REPRESSION: The F.B.I.'s Secret War Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall (South End Press)
THE COINTELPRO PAPERS: Documents from th F.B.I.'s secret Wars Against Dissent in the U.S., Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall (South End Press)
DERAILING DEMOCRACY: The America the Media Don't Want You to See, David McGowan (Common Courage Press)
TOWARDS AN AMERICAN REVOLUTION: Exposing the Constitution and other Illusions, Jerry Fresia (South End Press)
NECESSARY ILLUSIONS: Thought Control in Democratic Societies, Noam Chomsky (South End Press)
PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES: 1492 to the Present, Howard Zinn (Harper Perennial)
ATHEISM: The Case Against God, George H. Smith (Prometheus Books)
ROGUE STATE: A Guide to the Wolrd's Only Superpower, William Blum (Common Courage Press)
WE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT TOMORROW WE WILL BE KILLED WITH OUR FAMILIES: Stories From Rwanda, Philip Gourevitch (Picador)
HIDDEN AGENDAS: John Pilger (New Press)
WWW.ZMAG.ORG - ZNet intends to community of mutually supportive actors in the struggle to make the world a better place for human beings and other living things. It focuses largely, though not exclusively, on issues of class, race, gender, political power, ecology, and international relations as they affect people throughout the world and mainly in the U.S. ZNet presents analyses, but also vision. It provides diagnosis but also prescription.
WWW.MICHAELMOORE.COM - One of the only reprieves from corporate ass-kissing amidst the obediant drone of mainstream media. Investigative journalism, political satire, and guerille theatre. Awesome.
WWW.PARECON.ORG - The Participatory Economics (parecon) Project is a campaign to promote critical thought on economic issues and vision.
WWW.COVERTACTION.ORG - The online version of Covert Action Quarterly, the magazine that has tracked U.S. intelligence operations and foreign policy since 1978. Writers include ex-C.I.A. agent Philip Agee, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Mumia Abu-Jamal.
WWW.NOCOMPROMISE.ORG - The militant, direct-action magazine of grassroots animal liberationists and their supporters.
WWW.PROJECTCENSORED.ORG - The primary objective of Project Censored is to explore and publicize the extent of censorship in our society by locating stories about significant issues of which the public should be aware, but is not, for one reason or another.
BURN.UCSD.EDU/~abcf - The online presence of the Anarchist Black Cross, a federation organizing aid for political prisoners and prisoners of war.
WWW.ETAN.CA - The East timor Alert Network (ETAN) is an non-partisan national organization which has been working to raise awareness about situation in East Timor, and to end Canadian economic, military and diplomatic support for the Indonesian military occupation of East Timor.
Propagandhi.
Shit "Chris" Face -- axe & voice.
Ass "Jord" Hole -- drums & church organ.
Fuck "Todd" Nose -- bass & voice.
Recorded deep inside enemy territory at the Motor Studios safe-house, San-Francisco, CA., between so-called "Memorial"
Day and so-called "Independence" Day, 2000. Additional recording performed back in our complicit, pathetic, client-state
at Mid-Can Studios, Winnipeg, MB., August 2000.
Cover painting by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.