Both as a standalone and as part of the DSOTS album, you can take this lyric as read. As a matter of public record, Jourgensen's drug intake was legendary even in the 1980s. By the late 90s, in his own words, he was grappling with massive addiction issues and had lost almost everything: friends, spouse, money and had nearly died more than once. "Dark Side of the Spoon" is a both funny & sad title for an album made by a musical genius who was losing the plot; and this song is a message to his fans & friends saying he knows it. It's painful to listen to so I'm glad the "Keith Richards of industrial metals" wised up and cleaned up. Well done sir.
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 and …the purpose of this new counter-intelligence endeavor is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise 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. They offer condolences (and whisper bitter eulogies). Yes, "comrades" come as thick as thieves. But you got another thing coming. With friends like these, who the fuck needs cointelpro?
Lyrics submitted by PLANES
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It seems to me that he's talking about his own friends, who betray him ("the crippling Judas kiss to christen thee a sinking ship"), or agree with him but then back the ideas with inaction ("the sickening cadence of iron-fists in velvet gloves"). The FBI doesn't need a program to stop his dissent because his friends are doing a fine job of sabatoge by themselves.
awh, i love it.
CoIntelPro was a program the CIA used to kill or silence key people in the political movements of the 70's, such as John Lennon, MLK, etc, I believe. I could very well be wrong.
you are somewhat correct, cointelpro was used to stop the movement of the black panthers and other political movements of the 70's by well exposing, disrupting, misdirecting the public and discrediting them
cointelpro is an acronym for the FBI's domestic "counterintelligence programs" to neutralize political dissidents. Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COINTELPRO's of 1956-1971 were broadly targeted against radical political organizations.
could the "with friends like these" comment be in relation to mcarthy's communist witch-hunt in which the us government offered caught communists the chance to get off or reduce their sentances by naming other memebers of the communist party in order to silence radical views. after all, who needs secret counterintelligence programs to find political radicals and silence them when their friends are giving their names to the government?
I think it's about how society conditions us to think of rebellion as "just a phase" that everyone goes through and eventually grows out of. This makes it so anyone with ideas that differ from the norm are villified and ridiculed if they hang onto those ideals past the age of 30 or so. And sadly, the majority of punks and other radicals totally buy into it, and buy into the system just like they're told they should. So basically what it amounts to is, we don't need a big counter-intelligence program to weaken the underground movement. Time and weak minds do the job for them.