| Dead Kennedys – When Ya Get Drafted Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Are you believing the morning papers?..... A good start, and an obvious inference to the way the media is used for propoganda purposes, and to manipulate public opinion. Russians nibbling everywhere.... See above. The public then, and still now, were indoctrinated to believe that Russia and Communism were the enemy, instead of even allowing for the possibility for co-existing peacefully. Both sides used this to maintain and increase control over their population, and to ensure that public funding flowed freely to their war machines, making huge profits for the manufacturers. Fans the fires of racist hatred.... This has always happened. Divide and Conquer is one way governments maintain, or even strengthen their control. For example, as Michael Morre's video highlighted, at a point when actual crime figures were dropping, tv covrage increased by over 600%. The result was a large amount of the population became afraid, particularly of black people, since the increased coverage focused primarily on black people committing crimes. Such examples of fanning the flames of racist hatred are obvious is you realise it's the media who spread it. Another example, in the UK, one of the Royal Princes went to a fancy dress party dressed in a Nazi uniform. Who was offended? No-one at the party, but after a national newspaper published pictures, suddenly millions of people were outraged! No pictures, no offence. But if you look deeper into the chairman/director of the Newspaper concerned, you'll find someone with very close ties to government, as you would indeed with the weapons manufacturers. Just guess who profits when you build em back up... Halliburton. Need I say more? But I will! This was probably the least subtle act by any government ever. Awarding Halliburton the rebuilding contract for Iraq. Even historically this didn't happen. There was always competition to compete for the contract (even if it was fixed already, but at least for show!). This time, Vice-President Dick Cheney's government, awarded a multi-billion dollar contract to the company he was CEO of until 2000, and he is still receiving 'deferred compensation' from Halliburton. And am I allowed to mention World War 2? With the Germans all but defeated, the Allies mounted bombing campaigns, destroying cities and towns throughout German, Dresden being one such example. Defenders of the policy would argue their point, and back it up with arguments that they had to do it to win the war completely. They may have a point. But another point to look at is, who rebuilt Germany? Which companies were awarded the rebuilding contracts? Sharing the spoils with Russia, the country was split in 2, with the West Germany being promarily rebuilt by US and UK based companies, all of whom had close ties to their respective governments. Stocked with kids from slums..... Don't need to explain that do I? Forget your demonstrations, kids today sit on their ass. Just a six-pack and you're happy.... Playing videos games, watching tv, guitar hero, Wii, cd's, ipods, beer, drugs, basically anything that will distract and entertain people whilst our governments do what they want, and lie to us about it. At least in the 60's and 70's there were huge demonstrations against the Vietnam War (Read all of above!). And whilst there have been some large ones against Iraq and Afghanistan (Not forgetting who controls the tv coverage of these demonstrations), generally, most people have just accepted it, or can't be bothered, even though we know about the lies we were told, 45 minute deployment of Weapons, WMDs etc. Things haven't got any better since this song was written. They've got worse, much worse. I just hope that Obama gets in or things will continue, or even escalate (Iran, North Korea?). Vote Obama!! |
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| Dead Kennedys – Holiday in Cambodia Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I went for a Holiday in Cambodia! All because of this song. When I first heard it, back the late 70's, Cambodia was the last place on earth that I would want to go, maybe similar to Iraq, Afghanistan or Darfur now. The song gives me hope that bad things will change. The downside is the timescales. I want it all to change right now. The song reminds me that that doesn't happen. Welcome to the Dead Kennedys, and Jello Biafra. Inspired and informed lyrics, and if some of the PC people could see beyond the odd swear word, they'd realise that they made a lot of sense. Id' say for current world events, have a read of When Ya Get Drafted. |
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| Amanda Palmer – Guitar Hero Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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The song was inspired by the Colombine High School, Virginia Tech, and other similar shootings. Of course Amanda is very good at wrapping metaphors around metaphors, and used the video game analogy, with inferences to how they can get people out of touch with reality, and almost live their lives as if they are playing video games. And, as drlarrymitchell pointed out, Video games are being designed and used as training tools for the armed forces, which is a point not lost on Amanda. I was lucky enough to see her perform this live a couple of days ago, and it was her that said it was inspired by the high school shootings, and the intro to the song was a very moving performance/reading of some of the names of those killed and injured at Columbine (I believe using the exact words from the Wikipedia descreiption of the events that day). I recommend to everyone to go and see Amanda Palmer if they can. The show is amazing, intelligent, strange, funny, and sad (not all at the same time!). |
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