Monday 21 December 2009

Christmas No. 1 (Rage against the Machine)




A song against authority, against brutality, and against the banality that corporations feed the public with... has beaten off the drivel from X factor and made it to number one on the Christmas charts in the UK! I think that's encouraging. :^) To be honest, it's not the kind of song I would put on my CD player, but it's the statement that matters.

They use force to make you do what the deciders have decided you must do.
Killing in the name of!
Some of those that were forces are the same that burn crosses.
And now you do what they told ya.
Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites.
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control.
F*** you, I won't do what you tell me.

7 comments:

  1. and what do we make of this?
    the best I could gather is,
    there's a new level of awareness
    amongst people -
    bucking the system,
    people are asking questions,
    demanding answers and
    standing up for what they
    believe to be their rights,
    refusing to be forced into
    doing something they
    don't care about...

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  2. Yeah, I agree.

    There are the forces that want people to conform, to be machines, to maximize economic efficiency, to create profits for the big corporations, and there are then the forces of the individual to express our uniqueness, creativity, culture and free ourselves from dogma and illusion, that peace and harmony should come from within and not be imposed from above.

    I think anything that supports the forces of the individual is a good thing. It is a weakening of the collective ego that wants control. There must of course be balance because this raises issues of selfishness and individual greed, so we must also work at the individual level at the ego within that seeks control and break free of its shackles also. But at least there, it is a personal battle, so we have a power and a choice over it.

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  3. So hilarious... they were on Radio 5 Live earlier this week playing the song live on air, and the producer asked them to leave out the expletive of the repeated last line of the song, but after a couple of repeats of "I won't do what you tell me", they reverted to the original lyrics "F*** you, I won't do what you tell me" and were cut off after saying it four times... very fitting indeed that they had refused to do what they'd been told. LOL!

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  4. The song...
    Its like a great big shot
    of national-strength amphetamine. Lol.
    I agree with everything you've said.
    You've just put my thoughts into
    a much more complete and eloquent post.
    So thank you.

    This takes more than a little moral courage.
    It really didn’t sound like a minority force -
    the great many who would enforce
    their right to self-expression,
    as you have already pointed out,
    it's that ego within that needed
    liberation, but one that
    speaks of awareness
    alongside responsibility.
    Everything is for the best
    in this best of all possible worlds -
    that is until the constants
    of corruption, politics,
    censorship (which is
    really just a matter of respecting
    the unstated feelings
    of the silent majority) begin....


    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8423340.stm

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  5. Powerful song!

    I have been listening to this on the radio for quite awhile now... I like this type of music

    The energy from it is amazing.

    The youth is the impetus od change.. song is a good sign

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  6. hmmmmm...
    Different ways to get the message across...

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  7. I've had second thoughts about this being a good sign actually. For sure it's a sign though and it must be directed wisely. It's a call against the "machine", but it's also an angry call, a "rage", and the problem with anger is that it can be misdirected with evil consequences... creating another potentially worse "machine" (think Germany in the 1930s). It could also be misinterpreted... the "they" who are the controllers (which also reminds me of the song by Jem below), I don't believe they are actually people strange as that might sound, but the system itself. People are not intrinsically evil, but the power of the system corrupts. The system is bigger than any person, even all of the leaders put together, and like a vacuum it sucks up power and immobilizes. I'm not an anarchist though. I just think we should we wary of "hungry ghost" power structures and do what we can to "safeguard the individual".

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