What happened at Zuccoti Park last night reminded me of two songs from my punk days...

[Javaman]

"Kill The Poor" - The Dead Kennedys

Efficiency and progress is ours once more
Now that we have the Neutron bomb
It's nice and quick and clean and gets things done
Away with excess enemy
But no less value to property
No sense in war but perfect sense at home:

The sun beams down on a brand new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonight

Gonna
Kill kill kill kill Kill the poor:Tonight

Behold the sparkle of champagne
The crime rate's gone
Feel free again
O' life's a dream with you, Miss Lily White
Jane Fonda on the screen today
Convinced the liberals it's okay
So let's get dressed and dance away the night

While they:
Kill kill kill kill Kill the poor:Tonight

Know Your Rights - The Clash

This is a public service announcement
With guitar
Know your rights all three of them

Number 1
You have the right not to be killed
Murder is a CRIME!
Unless it was done by a
Policeman or aristocrat
Know your rights

And Number 2
You have the right to food money
Providing of course you
Don't mind a little
Investigation, humiliation
And if you cross your fingers
Rehabilitation

Know your rights
These are your rights
Wang

Know these rights

Number 3
You have the right to free
Speech as long as you're not
Dumb enough to actually try it.

Know your rights
These are your rights
All three of 'em
It has been suggested
In some quarters that this is not enough!
Well..............................

Get off the streets
Get off the streets
Run
You don't have a home to go to
Smush

Finally then I will read you your rights

You have the right to remain silent
You are warned that anything you say
Can and will be taken down
And used as evidence against you

Listen to this
Run

[blindpig]

1. k&r for clarity.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

2. Soup is Good Food - Dead Kennedys

and ...

The Guns of Brixton - The Clash


When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun
When the law break in
How you gonna go?
Shot down on the pavement
Or waiting in death row
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh, Guns of Brixton
The money feels good
And your life you like it well
But surely your time will come
As in heaven, as in hell
You see, he feels like Ivan
BORN under the Brixton sun
His game is called survivin'
At the end of the harder they come
You know it means no mercy
They caught him with a gun
No need for the Black Maria
Goodbye to the Brixton sun
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh-the guns of Brixton
When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun
You can crush us
You can bruise us
And even shoot us
But oh- the guns of Brixton
Shot down on the pavement
Waiting in death row
His game was survivin'
As in heaven as in hell
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh, the guns of Brixton
Oh, the guns of Brixton
Oh, the guns of Brixton
Oh, the guns of Brixton
Oh, the guns of Brixton


"Soup Is Good Food" Dead Kennedys
We're sorry
But you're no longer needed
Or wanted
Or even cared about here
Machines can do a better job than you
This is what you get for asking questions
The unions agree
'Sacrifices must be made'
Computers never go on strike
To save the working man you've got to put
him out to pasture
Looks like we'll have to let you go
Doesn't it feel fulfilling to know
That you-the human being-are now
obsolete
And there's nothing in hell we'll let you do
about it

Soup is good food-( We don't need you any
more)
You made a good meal-( We don't need you
any more)
Now how do you feel-( We don't need you
any more)
To be shit out our ass
And thrown in the cold like a piece of
trash
We're sorry
You'll just have to leave
Unemployment runs out after just six
weeks
How does it feel to be a budget cut?
You're snipped
You no longer exist
Your number's been purged from our
central computer
So we can rig the facts
And sweep you under the rug
See our chart? Unemployment's going
down
If that ruins your life that's your problem
Soup is Good Food, Etc.
We're sorry
We hate to interrupt
But it's against the law to jump off this
bridge
You'll just have to kill yourself somewhere
else
A tourist might see you
And we wouldn't want that
I'm just doing my job, you know
So say uncle
And we'll take you to the mental health
zoo
Force feed you mind-melting chemicals
Til even the outside world looks great
In hi-tech science research labs
It costs too much to bury all the dead
The mutilated disease-injected
Surplus rats who can't be used anymore
So they're dumped (with no minister
present)
In a spiraling corkscrew dispose-all unit
Ground into sludge and flushed away
Aw geez:.
Soup is good food
You made a good meal, etc:.
We know how much you'd like to die
We joke about it on our coffee breaks
But we're paid to force you to have a nice
day
In the wonderful world we made just for
you
"Poor Rats", we human rodents chuckle
At least we get a dignified cremation
At yet
At 6:00 tomorrow morning
It's time to get up and go to work

[davsand]

6. I was just thinking about The Guns of Brixton!

Like everyone else, I have been watching the footage of the police taking on the protesters, and The Guns of Brixton has been very much in my mind. How funny someone else would be thinking of it too!


:hi:



Laura

[Fantastic Anarchist]

7. First thing that came to mind regarding Oakland.

First thing regarding the movement was Soup is Good Food.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

8. Great Minds!

[Withywindle]

9. Brilliant, powerful stuff.

And this is why it pisses me off when some people say that protest music ended with the 60s, or that the 80s was a musical wasteland. (Well, yes it was - if you got everything you know about music from fuckin' commercial radio!)

[Fantastic Anarchist]

12. Yeah, lot's of old school rap and punk was really socially conscious

Think Bad Brains, Dead Kennedys, and Public Enemy.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

3. And a film from my punk days

They Live, John Carpenter's anthem to paranoia and greed. Aliens have surreptitiously invaded Earth economically and, disguised as the 1% revel in yuppiedom even as jackbooted police are tearing into the urban encampments of the New Poor.

[Gregorian]

4. Here's something I was listening to last night.

Yeah. They knew it, and expressed it just the way I feel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOCcXbyNm90

[redqueen]

5. K&R!

[Missy Vixen]

10. A little more recent

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Green Day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrCDdm2yjXY

[stevedeshazer]

11. I'm 57, and still a punk.

You wouldn't know it by my appearance...but it's always inside there.

I love the DK's, got to see them live and I was in a documentary about Portland punk with Jello Biafra.

Those are both good songs.

I like Stiff Little Fingers' 'Wasted Life', which is about war and still applies today as 1979.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3mqtXQAunw

[Javaman]

13. Love Stiff Little Fingers! Great song!

yeah, the beneith outward appearance of joe average, still rages the pogoing, gobbling, slam dancing, riot inducing, fuck you attitude. :)

Cheers to you!