the only easy day was yesterday

Sunday, March 2, 2008

The Lost Puppy Song

Through the best of times,
Through the worst of times,
Through Nixon and through Bush,
Do you remember '36?
We went our seperate ways.
You fought for Stalin.
I fought for freedom.
You believe in authority.
I believe in myself.
I'm a molotov cocktail.
You're Dom Perignon.
Baby, what's that confused look in your eyes?
What I'm trying to say is that
I burn down buildings
While you sit on a shelf inside of them.
You call the cops
On the looters and piethrowers.
They call it class war,
I call it co-conspirators.

'Cause baby, I'm an anarchist,
You're a spineless liberal.
We marched together for the eight-hour day
And held hands in the streets of Seattle,
But when it came time to throw bricks
Through that Starbucks window,
You left me all alone.

You watched in awe at the red,
White, and blue on the fourth of july.
While those fireworks were exploding,
I was burning that fucker
And stringing my black flag high,
Eating the peanuts
That the parties have tossed you
In the back seat of your father's new Ford.
You believe in the ballot,
Believe in reform.
You have faith in the elephant and jackass,
And to you, solidarity's a four-letter word.
We're all hypocrites,
But you're a patriot.
You thought I was only joking
When I screamed "Kill Whitey!"
At the top of my lungs
At the cops in their cars
And the men in their suits.
No, I won't take your hand
And marry the State.

'Cause baby, I'm an anarchist,
You're a spineless liberal.
We marched together for the eight-hour day
And held hands in the streets of Seattle,
But when it came time to throw bricks
Through that Starbucks window,
You left me all alone.

p.s. does anarchy even exist?

6 comments:

The W said...

in the minds of lost puppies

Jasper Yate said...

anarchism is such a stupid fad. the people who worship it only have the time and luxury to do so because of the government that supports them. furthermore, the song never would have been written had it not been for government. anarchism, as something to be worshiped, only exists in the minds of the priveleged. those who experience anything close would wish for stability if only they had the time before being raped, murdered, or enslaved (or all of the above). id like the believe theres more to lost puppies than meets the minds eye; they're mystique and enigmatic aura are intruiging, but underneath it seems to be that they are just angry boys. they have some brains, and too much hormones, and not enough guidance by which to learn how to balance the two. the lost puppy mantra song only serves to trivialize their place in america. better to keep them under their neat veil for fear of finding out what youre really dealing with...

The W said...

i mostly agree, but point of note:
anarchism was very popular among the working class in the 1880-1920s. and god knows they werent as privieledged as our lost puppies. It was anarchists that were falsely accused of throwing a bomb at police in the Haymarket (their martyrdom being part of the reason that May Day is recognized as a labour day in the modern era). Also, Kropotkin (a prince, so touche) wrote in Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal:
Those who are persuaded that Anarchy is a collection of visions relating to the future, and an unconscious striving toward the destruction of all present civilization, are still very numerous; and to clear the ground of such prejudices of our education as maintain this view we should have, perhaps, to enter into many details which it would be difficult to embody in a single lecture. Did not the Parisian press, only two or three years ago, maintain that the whole philosophy of Anarchy consisted in destruction, and that its only argument was violence?

Nevertheless Anarchists have been spoken of so much lately, that part of the public has at last taken to reading and discussing our doctrines. Sometimes men have even given themselves trouble to reflect, and at the present moment we have at least gained a point: it is willingly admitted that Anarchists have an ideal. Their ideal is even found too beautiful, too lofty for a society not composed of superior beings.

But is it not pretentious on my part to speak of a philosophy, when, according to our critics, our ideas are but dim visions of a distant future? Can Anarchy pretend to possess a philosophy, when it is denied that Socialism has one?

This is what I am about to answer with all possible precision and clearness, only asking you to excuse me beforehand if I repeat an example or two which I have already given at a London lecture, and which seem to be best fitted to explain what is meant by the philosophy of Anarchism.



In addition he defines it for The Encyclopaedia Britannica here http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/kropotkin-peter/1910/britannica.htm its not as simple as rape and murder. but for the most part i agree with what you said.

Jasper Yate said...

i was never trying to campare it to rape or murder or anyting like that. rather i was saying that in a state of anarchy the airheads who have the time to complain about this and that would never have the time because if they sat around long enough to think of anything theyd be murdered and raped, quite possibly eaten, it being the case that no stable agricultural or food system could be in place without any government.

the 'superior beings' thing bugs me. i love to lead a slightly insane life where i can see myself as a beautiful and intelligent creature of a different nature than others, but its not really a sane way to live life; by this i mean, have delusions of grandure all you please, mr kropotkin, but dont try to persuade anyone else from their sane lives.

having time to lecture contradicts what the man wants. he never would have had time. i dont have time myself to read the definition, but i imagine that an anarchist isnt simply longing for the abolishment of government, but also thinnks that humankind is in essence good enough to sustain itself without these oppressive restraints. but whats worth taking advantage of in an anarchistic world that is so much better than the comfort we enjoy now? no industry, no comfort could sustain without government and the safety of military and police. we would degrade back to tribal society, to where humanity was before the language to express this babble even started to form. even tribes have government. i dont undertsand anarchism. the superiority of the anarchists being is only the ignorance of his own psychosis as far as im concerned.

the puppies are priveleged, often well-off; but thats not the kind of priveleged i had ment. what i meant was that they are privledged to have been born in america and have this opportunity to have these thoughts without mortal fear for survival of their loved ones and themselves.in the 40 year span you mentioned i dont dobt that people were into it, but they were still priveleged in that they were american (i assume that youre talking about in the US) - they had the benefits of police,etc. you can live a full and long life in america and never work. i cant imagine you can just sit on a street (one of the few) in the middle of africa all day and night and live to a ripe old age and fantasize about no government.

i keep finding that famous cliches have much more meaning than we're lead to believe - first they're wise, then you keep hearing them and they become background noise, we either assume we know them or right them off:

you dont know what you got til it's gone

we should do some malibus most wanted shit. send all the puppies to some war zone where theres no government and let them discover how "good" the fiber of human creativity and belief really are...

The W said...

youre views are pretty skewed.
if police harrass and kill people for no reason, or for legal reasons that reject freedom, then they arent protecting anyone.

also "we would degrade back to tribal society, to where humanity was before the language to express this babble even started to form" from the anarchist perspective this might be the only way to live sustainable on this planet. we are not any better than so called tribes, they have just been afforded a different set of cicumstances than is. it would only be a degradation if you feel that we are superior to them, which given the sheer numbers of "tribal" or formally tribal societies, woudl be rediculous.

somewhere like somalia is not the kind of anarchy that anarchists were down with...

Jasper Yate said...

i may be misundertsanding something here.

you are fore certain: i didnt mean police are hurting anyone, i mean without police theres nothing to stop murderers from running wild. i think the inevitable consequence of anarchy is this. there was chaos in prehistoric times, and obviously hundreds of generations of human beings have decided that governed civilization is better. its not for the few puppies to decide what the other 6 billion people want.

anyway my biggest problem with it is the bite the hand that feed you mentality. an anarchist would never have thought about how great no government would be without government: theyd be to busy trying to survive whatever way they can (and not being so autonomous as they are diluding themselves to think, and as they are now). they seem to think they're original and genius for thinking of this, but its happened before. theres been chaos and government has arisen out of not government. it makes no sense its baffling.