mrbuck12000

Stars And Stripes Of Corruption
by Dead Kennedy's

Album : Frankenchrist circa 1985

Finally got to Washington in the middle of the night
I couldn't wait
I headed straight for the Capitol Mall
My heart began to pound
Yahoo! It really exists
The American International Pictures logo

I looked up at that Capitol Building
Couldn't help but wonder why
I felt like saying "Hello, old friend"

Walked up the hill to touch it
Then I unzipped my pants
And pissed on it when nobody was looking

Like a great eternal Klansman
With his two flashing red eyes
Turn around he's always watching
The Washington Monument pricks the sky
With flags like pubic hair ringed 'round the bottom

The symbols of our heritage
Lit up proudly in the night
Somehow fits to see the homeless people
Passed out on the lawn

So this is where it happens
The power games and bribes
All lobbying for a piece of ass

Of the stars and stripes of corruption

Makes me feel so ashamed
To be an American
When we're too stuck up to learn from our mistakes
Trying to start another Viet Nam
While fiddling while Rome burns at home
The Boss says, "You're laid off, blame the Japanese"
"America's back," alright
At the game it plays the worst
Strip mining the world like a slave plantation

No wonder others hate us
And the Hitlers we handpick
To bleed their people dry
For our evil empire

The drug we're fed
To make us like it
Is God and country with a band?

People we know who should know better
Howl, "America rules. Let's go to war!"
Business scams are what's worth dying for

Are the Soviets our worst enemy?
We're destroying ourselves instead
Who cares about our civil rights
As long as I get paid?

The blind Me-Generation
Doesn't care if life's a lie

So easily used, so proud to enforce
The stars and stripes of corruption

Let's bring it all down!
Let's bring it all down!
Let's bring it all down!

Tell me who's the real patriots
The Archie Bunker slobs waving flags?
Or the people with the guts to work
For some real change

Rednecks and bombs don't make us strong
We loot the world
Yet we can't even feed ourselves
Our real test of strength is caring
Not the toys of war we sell the world
Just carry on, thankful to be farmed like worms
Old glory for a blanket
As you suck on your thumbs

Real freedom scares you
'Cause it means responsibility

So you chicken out and threaten me

Saying, "Love it or leave it"
I'll get beat up if I criticize it
You say you'll fight to the death
To save your useless flag

If you want a banana republic that bad
Why don't you go move to one

But what can just one of us do?
Against all that money and power
Trying to crush us into roaches?

We won't destroy society in a day
Until we change ourselves first
From the inside out

We can start by not lying so much
And treating other people like dirt
It's easy not to base our lives
On how much we can scam

You know it feels good to lift that monkey off our backs

I'm thankful I live in a place
Where I can say the things I do
Without being taken out and shot
So I'm on guard against the goons
Trying to take my rights away
We've got to rise above the need for cops and laws

Let kids learn communication
Instead of schools pushing competition
How about more art and theaters instead of sports?

People will always do drugs
Let's legalize them
Crime drops when the mob can't price them
Budget's in the red?
Let's tax religion

No one will do it for us
We'll just have to fix ourselves
Honesty ain't all that hard
Just put Rambo back inside your pants
Causing trouble for the system is much more fun

Thanks for the toilet paper
Your flag is meaningless to me
Look around, we're all people
Who needs countries anyway?

Our land, I love it too
I think I love it more than you
I care enough to fight

The stars and stripes of corruption

Let's bring it all down!
If we don't try
If we just lie
If we can't find
A way to do it better than this
Who will?

Mr. b

Phaenx

Bring it.

I didn't like this song, go figure. Maybe it was because they mixed the "Legalize pot!" mantra with "Fight the machine! Nuke America!"

I have a rare and special disease that prevents me from taking pot-head college students seriously.

__________________
"I went shopping last night at like 1am. The place was empty and this old woman just making polite conversation said to me, 'where is everyone??' I replied, 'In bed, same place you and I should be!' Took me ten minutes to figure out why she gave me a dirty look." --Some guy

HunterDevourer

Guess my opinion isn't worth too much then, since I'm one of the 'pot-head college students', though I don't smoke pot, and refer to it as University in Australia.

But for what it's worth, I can see some parallels between what Jello rants about in his lyrics, and what John Stuart Mill speaks of in the quote you have in your signature. "Nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." Keeping yourself free is not always a matter of fighting in a war overseas, to stop those who desire to destroy your way of life from achieving their objectives. Freedom can also be taken away within a country, and in my opinion that quote can be taken to mean opposing movements within ones country that would seek to limit freedoms of the person. Whether that is businesses lobbying politicians to allow them to monitor peoples internet activities to create consumer images of them, to restricting peoples ability to carry out acts without being monitored by the government...

What I'm trying to say is that perhaps Jello didn't say what he did in 'Stars and Stripes of Corruption' because he dislikes America, or wants to Nuke America, but rather because he seems to indicate a respect towards the ideals of America, which built such a great country, and he sees as being threatened by the interests of greed and lack of foresight. Maybe in his view, fighting for freedom isn't going to die in the jungles of vietnam, but is rather trying to point out to people how America is being transformed away from its original image of a free country, where honesty and hard work pay off, to a country which is moving towards changing itself (or where politicians with business interests are changing it) so as to allow amendments to the founding principles be made, to the detriment of the common US citizen, but to better allow those high up in business to profit.

I don't know if that's right or not, or if you care. But I suppose what Jello tries to say is that when you have something as great as America, you can't get lax with it or people will try and undermine what makes it great. Fighting to keep America free maybe can be done by what Jello did (does?).

Anyway, that's just some thoughts...maybe you'll find something interesting...

__________________
Viva La Muerte

Phaenx

I didn't catch the association between my quote and his intentions. Perhaps it's because I draw a line between picking up arms against tyranny or aggression to protect the freedoms of total strangers, and writing a pissy song that outlines a minorities vision of what America should be, regardless of what the founding fathers and/or the rest of America thinks. I know what his deal is, he's upset our President is living up to be the person we elected, and I'll tell you what, saying "lets bring (america) down" isn't the appropriate response a person who loves their country would take. Damn straight you'll get beat up for that.

He isn't in any danger saying these things as well (We have the right to free speech? Those Orwellian bastards..), I'd like to see this pussy pick up a rifle and protect his country when we go over to North Korea sometime in the near future. He won't of course, you actually have to do something during a war, rather then bitch about Bush and then claim to be the real patriot. Bullshit.

I'm sure it's a snazzy song, but all the eloquence in the world doesn't mean crap if you're wrong when you cut through all the horse shit. That's a reoccuring theme throughout this piece as well, the economy jabs and what not gave me a chuckle.

Taking it at face value; Protestors are not more patriotic than soldiers. Your freedoms are not being taken away from you. America is not invading countries on a whim and looting them. Pissing on the Capital is a bad way of showing how patriotic you are. We're not communists. Wiping your ass on the American Flag, again, is a bad way of showing you like America more then people who endure the horrors of war to protect it. The American Flag is more then a Flag.

And finally

Mr. Jello does not like America. He swears otherwise but he's full of shit.

__________________
"I went shopping last night at like 1am. The place was empty and this old woman just making polite conversation said to me, 'where is everyone??' I replied, 'In bed, same place you and I should be!' Took me ten minutes to figure out why she gave me a dirty look." --Some guy

smooth

you noticed this song was written nearly 20 years ago, right?

Phaenx, before you get your panties all bunched up, reexamine what he wrote in context.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Endymon32

Also remember that this was the same man that was sued by his bandmates for tens of thousands of dollars for not paying them their royalites.

Lets bring him down! Lets bring him down, for corruption!

HunterDevourer

In what is regarded as a very flimsy precedent endymon...And his band mates are just as bad by doing reunion tours which deceive audiences into believing Biafra will be there (use of his name in promos I believe, as well as photos of band circa biafra).

__________________
Viva La Muerte

Ustwo

Was his name really Jello?

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Lebell

Soooo...they're all apart of the corrupt system???

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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onetime2

Good thing he didn't piss on the Alamo, they take that stuff serious in TX.

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Phaenx

For the record no, but looking over my post I think what I said still holds true though. I understand what he said, it's the same song and dance only in song form. The panties are thoroughly bunched sir.

__________________
"I went shopping last night at like 1am. The place was empty and this old woman just making polite conversation said to me, 'where is everyone??' I replied, 'In bed, same place you and I should be!' Took me ten minutes to figure out why she gave me a dirty look." --Some guy

Phaenx

Hey, I was going to point out this guys inconsistencies as well, but my brain almost exploded from what I wrote (I prefer being short and to the point. Elaborating is hard, few people care and takes too long!) above, plus it was like 4:30 and what not.

__________________
"I went shopping last night at like 1am. The place was empty and this old woman just making polite conversation said to me, 'where is everyone??' I replied, 'In bed, same place you and I should be!' Took me ten minutes to figure out why she gave me a dirty look." --Some guy

Seaver

Yes, lets all fight for our liberties while taking a socialist stance... that's like trading in your car for a tank because you're complaining about the gas milage.

No, you're pissing on the monuments of better people than you, you're whiping your ass with the symbol of our nation, and you're NOT fighting. Sorry, the best way to be effective in America is vote, not being a dumbass.

smooth

LOL, no prob

Endymon32

My favorite two songs by him are Chicken Farm and Holiday in Cambodia. Both about the horrors of living in a socialist state.

KWSN

He's gotten it right more than once:

IN-SIGHT

Who's that kid in the back of the room
Who's that kid in the back of the room
He's setting all his papers on fire
He's setting all his papers on fire

Where did he get that crazy smile
Where did he get that crazy smile
We all think he's really weird
We all think he's really weird

[Chorus]
We never talk to him
He never looks quite right
He laughs at us
We just beat him up
What he sees escapes our sight

We never see him with the girls
We never see him with the girls
He's talking to himself again
He's talking to himself again

Why doesn't he want tons of friends
Why doesn't he want tons of friends
Says he's bored when we hang around
Says he's bored when we hang around

[Chorus]

We're all planning our careers
We're all planning our careers
We're all planning our careers
He says we're growing old


Sound a bit like a certain occurrence in Colorado, in 1998? Predates it by more than 10 years.

__________________
Your arms are broken!

HunterDevourer

Hey, they got mad cash for what they did in the 80s, and it ain't a corrupt system, its just the way it is and they played their cards right and got rewarded.

__________________
Viva La Muerte

almostaugust

I think that its an ok song which touches on some important issues. Its important and responsible to be able to critically look at the state of affairs in your own backyard every now and then. Especially in the the current political climate, where everyone seems so aggressivly (and blindly) patriotic about things.
The small whinge that he has about the our values in education is pretty fair in my view. Just the bit about 'communication' over 'competition'. I think we have a long way to go with the whole education system.
And also, as an aside, i think the dude is full aware that he is very lucky to be able to say these things- because in some countries such as communist china, he would be imprisoned and tortured.

__________________
'And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass'

Endymon32

Flimsey precedent? Getting paid for your work is a flimsey precedent? Jello owns the record label that produce the Dead Kennedies. He didnt pay the memebers of his band the royalties they deserve. Are you now supporting CEO's screwing their employees?
As far as the band mates touring, why is Jello in the right for suing for them using his name ( which he is correct) but his band is using a flimsey precedent for him using their work?

HunterDevourer

I thought he paid them the royalties, but they were suing him for mismanagement of the reocrds and not promoting/rereleasing the albums...
Anyway...I might be incorrect in that, but if the band hadn't given Jello the contract for the records through his company, the whole shitfight might not have started. Similarly, if Jello had kept in contact with the rest of the band and considered their stances he might've avoided confrontations like this.

__________________
Viva La Muerte

Lebell

Ah, I breath deep the sweet smell of the irony

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Conclamo Ludus

Is that a song or a collage of sentences written on bathroom stalls at college campus coffeehouses? Jello's song just reads like a list of every kneejerk college liberal's complaints. I don't mean every college liberal, but I mean the kneejerk ones. The ones that were "awakened" by an education and have directed their "education" to be anti-"everything my parents were". Is Jello right? Sure. Its as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago and will be a hundred years from now. There is always a way to villainize something you are not a part of. It sounds like the same crap I used to write in college, then I got a job instead.

Its fun to be anti, its also very easy.

"Your revolution is over Mr. Lebowski! The bums lost!"

-The Big Lebowski

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Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
I wouldn't mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold.
-Son House, Death Letter Blues

Sparhawk

"Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man."

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