| Anti-Flag – You Can Kill The Protester, But You Can't Kill The Protest Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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This song is fucken amazing, and the message it portrays is just as great. Albeit, this song (in relation to the lyrics) is somewhat uncomplicated, it still manages to get the meaning athwart very nicely. Violence is a very powerful force. It’s a surefire way to get attention. It’s all around us: it’s on the television, it’s in our magazine ads, and it’s in the music we listen too. Violent imagery stirs emotion. Most of the time, however, violence is used to oppress people. Violence is used to scare dissenters into submission. Like the bully on the schoolyard, organizations that use violence as a way of maintaining power often do so because of a weakness within the organization. Take for example the factory that uses violence to break strikes. The factory needs the workers more than the workers need the factory, just as the bully on the schoolyard needs the smaller kid to push around. Without someone to push around, a bully is just any other kid. Without a production line full of workers, a factory is just another vacant building. At the right time and the right place violence can be used to motivate. It’s something that can make us think and feel. Authors can use violence to make a comment about society. Take for example the way Chuck Palahniuk comments on the destructive and shallow aspects of our capitalist society, in his book Fight Club. Artists use violent images all the time to make us consider the world around us. Take for example British graphitti artist Banksy. In one image he can combine the violent nature of a protest with a message of peace. Musicians often draw on violent imagery. Sometimes it’s used to show despair and loneliness. Listen to the words of your favorite Alkaline Trio song to see what I mean. Other times, musicians use violent imagery to show the frustration many of us feel inside. "You Can Kill The Protestor, But You Can’t Kill The Protest", is a fine example of this. The point of all of this is to realize that although violence can be powerful in the fact that it stirs emotion, it does very little in the way of change. Change comes through ideas. Change comes through philosophy, through education, through discussion and humyn interaction. Change is not a result of violence. So while the powers that be may use violence to try to force you into changing your mind, as long as you understand that while violence can be very powerful, it is also extremely delicate, their actions will have little result on your ideas. |
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| Anti-Flag – When You Don't Control Your Government, People Want To Kill You Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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"When you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind." No phrase better sums up the result of US foreign policy over the last 50 years. People all over the world resent US military intervention in their countries that has left countless people dead. At least 88,000 civilians were murdered by American-backed death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua during the 1980's, and the BBC reports 3,800 civilians were killed in the five months long US aerial bombing campaign in Afghanistan in 2001. Under President George W. Bush, current US foreign policy is nicely summed up in the policy paper written in the 1990's by The Project For a New American Century (PNAC), whose authors include senior Bush Administration officials including Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney. The strategy outlined by PNAC was a plan to make the US the sole world super power by controlling Middle East oil through invasion of Iraq and Iran, for a start. PNAC also planned to kick North Korea's ass into oblivion (Axis of Evil anyone?) PNAC recognized that implementation would be a difficult sell to the American people, and that a "Pearl Harbor-like event" would be necessary to implement their scheme; then came 9/11. Under the guise of combating terror, and promoting freedom and democracy, their reactionary political agenda is being executed. Countries like North Korea, and organizations such as al-Qaeda, use this outrageous US policy as justification for nuclear proliferation and terror acts such as 9/11. The illegal US invasion and occupation of Iraq has only added fuel to the fire of their arguments. As long as the US government embraces such reckless foreign policy, countries like North Korea and organizations such as al-Qaeda, rightly or wrongly, will use it as justification to threaten and kill American citizens as well as citizens of nations whose governments support and benefit from it. In the end, it us up to us, the citizens of all nations, to pressure our governments to implement and participate in humane foreign policy. If we do not do this, we can only expect terror and suffering abroad and at home. |
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| Anti-Flag – Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Pretty much the song (to me) is about the book and what the book is about ect. The book is amazing, I recommend people read it if they can get their hands on it. Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. Pretty decent lyrics ay. |
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