Writings On Disobedience And Democracy Songtext / Lyric

"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 II 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 pay 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 eugenic techonomic 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 a 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 the ball

They got rid of Nixon but they kept the system

His foreign policy still remains in position

Corporate interests still remain 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 its toll

A cultural violence upon the families took its 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 benefits 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?

Know what I mean?

Dig into the real history of this country

And the fact 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