Afternoon Matinee: Protest - Stars And Stripes Of Corruption

Performed by Dead Kennedys

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

Flags for 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 the 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 Vietnam like 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 bang

People we know who should know better

Howl "America rules, let's go to war!"

Business scams are what's worth dying for

But are the Soviets are 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

Down, down, down, down, 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 war toys 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 don'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

And you know it feels good to lift that monkey off our back

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 theater 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

Thank you for the toilet paper, but 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

Let's bring it all down, 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?

~ from Lyric Wiki ~