Logic - Obediently Yours lyrics

This is Logic
I've spoken these words before but
Not on the radio
To be born free is to be born in debt
To live in freedom without fighting slavery
To profiteer i have met Southerners who
Expect and fear a Negro insurrection
I see no purpose in withholding this
From general discussion
There may be those within that
Outcast ten percent of the
American people who someday will strike
Back at their oppressors
But to put down that mob, a mob would rise
I'd like to ask
Please: who will put down that mob?
I'm an overpaid producer with
Pleasant reasons to rejoice, and I do
In the wholesome practicability of
The profit system but surely
My right to having more


Than enough is cancelled
If I don't use that more to
Help those who have less
I owe the very profit I make to
The people I make it from
If this is radicalism
It comes automatically to most of
Us in show business
It being generally agreed that any public man
Owes his position to the public
That's what I mean when I
Say I'm your obedient servant
We must, each day, earn what we own
A healthy man owes to the sick all
That he can do for them
An educated man owes to the ignorant all
That he can do for them
A free man owes to the world's slaves
All that he can do for them
And what is to be done is more, much more
Than good works
Christmas baskets, bonuses and tips
And bread and circuses
There is only one thing to
Be done with slaves free them
If we can't die in behalf of progress
We can live for it
Progress, we Americans take to mean
A fuller realization of democracy
The measure of progress, as we understand it
Is the measure of equality enjoyed by all men
We can do something about that
The way our fighting brothers and
Sisters looked at it
Some of them dead as I speak these words
The way they looked at it, we're lucky
And they're right, we're lucky to be alive
But only if our lives make
Life it'self worth dying for
We must be worthy of our
Luck or we are damned our lives were spared
But this is merely the silliest of accidents
Unless we put the gift of life
To the hard employments of justice
If we waste that gift
We won't have anywhere to hide
From the indignation of history
I want to say this
The morality of the auction block
Is out of date there is no room in the
American century for Jim Crow
Tomorrow's democracy discriminates
Against discrimination
Its charter won't include the
Freedom to end freedom
Race hate isn't human nature
Race hate is the abandonment of human nature
But this is true
There are alibis for the phenomenal excuses
Economic and social
But the brutal fact is simply this
Where the racist lies acceptable
There is corruption
The race haters must be stopped
The lynchings must be stopped
The murders must be avenged
I come in that boy's name and in the name
Of all, who, in this land of ours
Have no voice of their own
I come with a call for action
This is the time for it
I call for action against the cause of riot
It won't surprise me if I'm accused in
Some quarters of inciting to riot
Well, I'm very interested in riots
I'm very interested in avoiding them
So I call for action against
The cause of riots
Law is the best action, the most decisive
It's in the people's power to see to it that
What makes lynchings and starts
Wars is dealt with
Not by well-wishers, but by policemen
And I mean good policemen
Over several generations
Maybe there'll be men who
Can't be weaned away
From the fascist vices of race hate
But we should deny such men
Responsibility in public affairs
Exactly as we deny responsibility to the
Wretched victims of the drug habit
There are laws against peddling dope
There can be laws against peddling race hate
But every man has the right to his
Own opinion as an American boasts
But race hate is not an opinion
It's a phobia
It isn't a viewpoint, race hate is a disease
In a people's world
The incurable racist has no rights
He must be deprived of influence
In a people's government
He must be segregated
As he himself would segregate the
Colored and semitic peoples
Anything very big is very simple
If there's a big race question
There's a big answer to it
And a big answer is simple
Like the word "no"
America can write her name
Across this century, and so she will
If we, the people, brown and black and red
Rise now to the great
Occasion of our brotherhood
It will take courage
It calls for the doing of great deeds
Which means the dreaming of great dreams
Giving the world back to
It's inhabitants is too
Big a job for the merely practical
No one of us will live
To see a blameless peace
We strive and pray and die for what
Will be here when we're gone
Our children's children are the ancestors
Of a free people
To the generations: the fight is worth it
And that just about means that my time is up
When my time's up, I remain as always
Obediently yours arjun Ivatury