Vinnie Paz - Writings on Disobedience and Democracy lyrics
[Vinnie Paz - Writings on Disobedience and Democracy lyrics]
"We have to stop thinking that
We must have military solutions
To the problems we face in the world" yeah
"The solutions that we need are"
Picking up where we left off
"dealing of sickness, disease, and hunger
Now that’s fundamental
If you want to end terrorism
You have to stop being terrorists
Which is what war is"
They told you World War I
I was a people’s war
Logic should have told them
It was Imperialist war
18 million served in the armed forces
10 million more overseas – that’s enormous
25 million workers paid for war bonds
All of the while people question
Why the war’s on
There was an undercurrent of reluctance
There were under-publicized signs
Of resistance
Hitler’s Germany was unspeakable evil
But let’s discuss real quick what
We did to people
We opposed the Haitian revolution
We turned Guam, Puerto Rico
And Hawaii into institutions
Pretended to help Cuba win freedom from Spain
This country’s built on the blood
Of other people’s pain
Blacks is looking at anti-Semitism in Germany
And saw the situation here
Was mirroring it perfectly
We appeased Hitler all throughout the '30s
Only years later we pretended we was worried
Roosevelt was hesitant to be gritty
And caused a resolution to
Be buried in committee
The main interest was never to stop fascism
But advancing Imperialist interests
Of that prism
Roosevelt ain’t care about oppression
Of the Jews the power was the priority
I’m telling you the truth
Hitler not the reason that
We entered the land
Roosevelt was mad that we got hit by Japan
Historians will tell you he
Provoked that shit
He told lies in attempts to
Sugar coat that shit
In ‘45 troops were jammed onto the Queen Mary
The blacks were stowed down in the
Depths of the same ferry
See there’s a parallel you have to understand
That they wanted them to fight but
Wouldn’t treat them like a man
Industrial mobilization had a few divided
The economic royalists denounced and derided
The irony of victory was heavily a price
The war ended, 3 million men was in strike
There’s no peace in a world of capitalism
Nazi eugenics economic rationalism
The lesson was that war
Solved problems of control
Regardless if it causes any
Problems for the soul
The black revolt in the '50s
Came as a surprise
It shouldn’t have after we took
So many of their lives
You can’t erase the memory
Of an oppressed people
Reparation doesn’t make it any less evil
Some black folks joined the Communist party
Richard Wright spoke of disillusionment
With the body the party was accused of
Exploiting black people
Angelo Herndon felt everything was equal
He was arrested they
Convicted for insurrection
How the fuck it’s insurrection
I call it dissension
Gave him 5 years when all
He wanted was protection
There was other black men that
Made the same connection
Benjamin Davis defended Herndon as a savior
Then Paul Robeson he only
Magnified the danger
Harry Truman had to deal
With the militant mood
But how the fuck that gonna work
When he a racist too?
In ’54 they said they ended segregation
10 years later no changes
Revolt was always minutes away about to bust
Rosa Parks refused the black
Section of the bus
The freedom riders were spreading
Across the nation they went to jail for
Marching and fighting discrimination
FBI stood by, Justice Department stood by
While civil rights workers were beaten
They just stood by
3 civil rights workers, 2 black and 1 white
Arrested in Philadelphia
Mississippi one night they were released
Beaten with chains and shot to death
There were arrests made but
It was not confessed
The national government remained silent
The president wouldn’t defend
Blacks against violence
Civil rights laws were passed
But they were fraud
Equality was enforced poorly or was ignored
Martin Luther King’s speech floored
Whoever heard it
5 years later he was targeted and murdered
In ’65 the Watts Riots
Burned into the streets
The black man would no longer
Turn the other cheek
The Black Panther Party scared Nixon
But that did nothing to change his position
A new black consciousness was
Born and still alive
And that came from the will to survive
This is the part where I
Would talk about Vietnam
But me and Rugged Man we already made a song
By the '70s distrust had
Spread across the nation
Basic discontent political alienation
55, 000 died in the war of moral shame
And then Watergate was added to
The hall of pain
The Watergate burglaries was
Rather complicated
But in the end mostly all of them exonerated
Nixon had CIA and G gordon Liddy
Lie about the Democratic National Committee
But eventually they all flipped on him
And told the Senate that they had
A lot of shit on him
After that it was a swift and a sudden fall
Nixon resigned before they could
Impeach them all they got rid of Nixon but
They kept the system
His foreign policy still remains in position
Corporate interests still remained
In position
His closest advisors remain in position
Vietnam recession and unrest
All adds up to a motherfucking mess
After Watergate and Vietnam
There was a deep economic insecurity
In this world of ours
Environmental deterioration took it's toll
A cultural violence upon the
Families took it's toll
Problems couldn’t be solved
Without bold changes but no major party
Candidates proposed changes
American political tradition held fast
Urban communities turning into hell fast
Black folks are bitterly
Disappointed with Carter
Opposed federal aid the poor
People didn’t bother
Reagan got elected and he built a military up
A trillion dollars later
And this motherfucker dummy up
He cut benefit's for the poor
To get the money up
Social security, disability went belly up
Unemployment grew in the Reagan years
30 million people unemployed in
The Reagan years
Welfare became an object of attack
Especially if you was latino or you was black
I’m just scratching the surface
Of what was wrong
We’ll pick the conversation up
In the next song
To be continued
You can’t be neutral on a moving train
I told y’all before
You can’t believe everything that
Your teacher tell you who is your teacher?
Your teacher just learned what
They was taught how do you know what they
Was taught was correct? Y'kna mean?
Dig into the real history of this country
And the fact that it was built on blood
We gonna go around for a third time
But for now I’m just blessing
Y’all with this one
A continuation of the first
You can’t be neutral on a moving train
Pazienza
Howard Zinn thank you for teaching the people
Rest in Peace it’s Pazienza baby
We must have military solutions
To the problems we face in the world" yeah
"The solutions that we need are"
Picking up where we left off
"dealing of sickness, disease, and hunger
Now that’s fundamental
If you want to end terrorism
You have to stop being terrorists
Which is what war is"
They told you World War I
I was a people’s war
Logic should have told them
It was Imperialist war
18 million served in the armed forces
10 million more overseas – that’s enormous
25 million workers paid for war bonds
All of the while people question
Why the war’s on
There was an undercurrent of reluctance
There were under-publicized signs
Of resistance
Hitler’s Germany was unspeakable evil
But let’s discuss real quick what
We did to people
We opposed the Haitian revolution
We turned Guam, Puerto Rico
And Hawaii into institutions
Pretended to help Cuba win freedom from Spain
This country’s built on the blood
Of other people’s pain
Blacks is looking at anti-Semitism in Germany
And saw the situation here
Was mirroring it perfectly
We appeased Hitler all throughout the '30s
Only years later we pretended we was worried
Roosevelt was hesitant to be gritty
And caused a resolution to
Be buried in committee
The main interest was never to stop fascism
But advancing Imperialist interests
Of that prism
Roosevelt ain’t care about oppression
Of the Jews the power was the priority
I’m telling you the truth
Hitler not the reason that
We entered the land
Roosevelt was mad that we got hit by Japan
Historians will tell you he
Provoked that shit
He told lies in attempts to
Sugar coat that shit
In ‘45 troops were jammed onto the Queen Mary
The blacks were stowed down in the
Depths of the same ferry
See there’s a parallel you have to understand
That they wanted them to fight but
Wouldn’t treat them like a man
Industrial mobilization had a few divided
The economic royalists denounced and derided
The irony of victory was heavily a price
The war ended, 3 million men was in strike
There’s no peace in a world of capitalism
Nazi eugenics economic rationalism
The lesson was that war
Solved problems of control
Regardless if it causes any
Problems for the soul
The black revolt in the '50s
Came as a surprise
It shouldn’t have after we took
So many of their lives
You can’t erase the memory
Of an oppressed people
Reparation doesn’t make it any less evil
Some black folks joined the Communist party
Richard Wright spoke of disillusionment
With the body the party was accused of
Exploiting black people
Angelo Herndon felt everything was equal
He was arrested they
Convicted for insurrection
How the fuck it’s insurrection
I call it dissension
Gave him 5 years when all
He wanted was protection
There was other black men that
Made the same connection
Benjamin Davis defended Herndon as a savior
Then Paul Robeson he only
Magnified the danger
Harry Truman had to deal
With the militant mood
But how the fuck that gonna work
When he a racist too?
In ’54 they said they ended segregation
10 years later no changes
Revolt was always minutes away about to bust
Rosa Parks refused the black
Section of the bus
The freedom riders were spreading
Across the nation they went to jail for
Marching and fighting discrimination
FBI stood by, Justice Department stood by
While civil rights workers were beaten
They just stood by
3 civil rights workers, 2 black and 1 white
Arrested in Philadelphia
Mississippi one night they were released
Beaten with chains and shot to death
There were arrests made but
It was not confessed
The national government remained silent
The president wouldn’t defend
Blacks against violence
Civil rights laws were passed
But they were fraud
Equality was enforced poorly or was ignored
Martin Luther King’s speech floored
Whoever heard it
5 years later he was targeted and murdered
In ’65 the Watts Riots
Burned into the streets
The black man would no longer
Turn the other cheek
The Black Panther Party scared Nixon
But that did nothing to change his position
A new black consciousness was
Born and still alive
And that came from the will to survive
This is the part where I
Would talk about Vietnam
But me and Rugged Man we already made a song
By the '70s distrust had
Spread across the nation
Basic discontent political alienation
55, 000 died in the war of moral shame
And then Watergate was added to
The hall of pain
The Watergate burglaries was
Rather complicated
But in the end mostly all of them exonerated
Nixon had CIA and G gordon Liddy
Lie about the Democratic National Committee
But eventually they all flipped on him
And told the Senate that they had
A lot of shit on him
After that it was a swift and a sudden fall
Nixon resigned before they could
Impeach them all they got rid of Nixon but
They kept the system
His foreign policy still remains in position
Corporate interests still remained
In position
His closest advisors remain in position
Vietnam recession and unrest
All adds up to a motherfucking mess
After Watergate and Vietnam
There was a deep economic insecurity
In this world of ours
Environmental deterioration took it's toll
A cultural violence upon the
Families took it's toll
Problems couldn’t be solved
Without bold changes but no major party
Candidates proposed changes
American political tradition held fast
Urban communities turning into hell fast
Black folks are bitterly
Disappointed with Carter
Opposed federal aid the poor
People didn’t bother
Reagan got elected and he built a military up
A trillion dollars later
And this motherfucker dummy up
He cut benefit's for the poor
To get the money up
Social security, disability went belly up
Unemployment grew in the Reagan years
30 million people unemployed in
The Reagan years
Welfare became an object of attack
Especially if you was latino or you was black
I’m just scratching the surface
Of what was wrong
We’ll pick the conversation up
In the next song
To be continued
You can’t be neutral on a moving train
I told y’all before
You can’t believe everything that
Your teacher tell you who is your teacher?
Your teacher just learned what
They was taught how do you know what they
Was taught was correct? Y'kna mean?
Dig into the real history of this country
And the fact that it was built on blood
We gonna go around for a third time
But for now I’m just blessing
Y’all with this one
A continuation of the first
You can’t be neutral on a moving train
Pazienza
Howard Zinn thank you for teaching the people
Rest in Peace it’s Pazienza baby
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