Nation States Lyrics

Lyric discussion by Whitey666 

Cover art for Nation States lyrics by Propagandhi

Gonna break it down here:

"Publicly subsidized! Privately profitable!" the anthem of the upper tier: the puppeteer untouchable. ---- Essentially, this is what Multi-nationals and their CEO's want nation-states (Canada-'merica etc) to do to their institutions (healthcare etc). If the institutions are all funded partially by the public and privately run then shareholders will earn a much higher return meaning the CEO's will earn an even bigger return.

We focus a moment and nod in approval, then bury our heads back in the bottles of these neo-colonials. ---- This is the average response from a normal stiff, "uh sure, that sounds good. Let's let our leaders do that" then we go on with our lives not giving it any further thought.

And our former nemesis: (ahh! the romance!) the nation-state now plays fund-raiser for a new-brand power-concentrate. Try again, but now we're confused - what is class war? Is this class war? Yes (I guess?) this is class war!!! And holy fuck! I'm just a kid! I can't believe I'm gonna worry about this kind of shit!!! What a stupid world. And it's beautiful. No regard for principle. What a stupid World. ------ This bit is bashing the fact that our nations are providing these companies with the ease to become far more powerful then ever before while in the process making the gap between the impoverished and the super rich even bigger then ever before effectively creating a class war. Then he's obviously saying he's sick of the fact that the older generations are doing nothing about this and it's absurd that the children (young punks/politically minded youths etc) have to deal with this shit.

We're (1)born (2)hired (3)disposed. Where that job lands everybody knows. ------ Just what it says we are born, get jobs and then get disposed of when Multi-National companies ship to third world nations for labour at slave wages.

And you can tell by the smiles on the CEOs that environmental restraints are about to go. ---- MN's get third world nations to compete against one another. They get them to give them reduced environmental restraints in exchange for giving that nation the contract for a new sweat shop to be developed there.

And you can bet that laws will be set to ensure the benefit of an unrestricted labor clause kept in place by (displaced gov't) death squads. ----- Same thing as above. Wanna know why third world nations get paid slave wages and mistreated all the time? Like I said, the poor nations leaders will do what it takes in order to get a company producing in their county, that means dropping tons of labour laws, killing minimum wage and killing off all saftey laws.

They own us. They produce us. They consume us. ----- durrr

Can you fucking believe it? What a stupid world. Fuck this bullshit display of class loyalties. The media and "our" leaders wrap it all up in a flag: fucking shit-rag. Hooray! ----- It's a stupid fucking world when our leaders allow Multi Nationals to function like this. It's even worse when they get us to believe in what they're doing by telling us that they're doing it acting in our country's best interest while waving our flag at the same time.

sigh