Taking Sides - Crass

Over half the world’s population is starving

Crucified… by the greed of landowners

Helpless… against the imbalance of priorities

Practiced by the major powers who, if they wanted to, could help

Every minute of the day millions upon million of pounds

Are spent on the machinery of war

If only a half of that was spent on the machinery of peace

There would be no more starvation on this planet

Yet governments pay no heed to the cries of suffering

They perhaps make token gestures to appease their consciences

But no real improvements are made

Because to ensure control the superpowers need to maintain the imbalance

Natives are slaughtered

In their homelands

By governments seeking out

New possessions

Most of the wealth of the so called developed nations

Has been gained at the expense of the Third World

From whom natural resources

Both mineral and human

Have been unscrupulously exploited

Peoples' pride and dignity

Is burnt in Napalm

And hand-held flame-throwers

The poor and underprivileged are raped and tormented

By leaders who use their power not to assist, but to oppress

At the wave of a gloved hand these people can, and do

Send young men to their death, But not before others too

Have fallen from their bayonets and guns!

Such armies are invariably called 'peacekeeping forces'

The hypocrisy is as appalling as it is obvious

The wealthy, educated

Privileged and secure

Make the lives of those less fortunate a complete misery

Million upon millions of people are dying

From malnutrition

Because, to stabilise their economies…

Governments destroy food rather than giving it to the needy!

«Let them eat cake» said Marie Antoinette

As she wiped the calf’s blood from her lips

«Proud to be British» said Margaret Thatcher

As she wiped the Falkland’s blood from her hands

The ruling elite have no concept of what it is to suffer want

Yet it is they who are directly responsible

In a world where there are people who can’t afford a crust of bread

These arrogant scabs drive around in Bentleys and Rolls Royces

Perhaps it amuses them to rub shit into the faces of the poor

But there’ll come a time when such overt displays of wealth

Will not be tolerated by the people in the street

In a sane society wealth and possession would not be an asset

A few years ago a politician was on the radio

Saying that no one in the UK suffered from want

Next day I saw an old man pleading for a handful of coal:

His wife was dying of cold and he was penniless

Maybe in the morning, as the politician sipped breakfast tea

She lay cold and dead before the empty grate

Every year thousand of people die of hypothermia

Too hungry, too cold

Too poor to stay alive

At times of national crisis it’s always the poor who suffer

«Back Britain» we’re told

As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer

At times of international crisis it’s the same story

«Back Britain» we’re told

As the rich get richer and the poor get killed

In the event of a nuclear crisis

The rich will retreat to private bunkers with their wealth and possessions

The injustice of inequality is sanctioned by the church

With its tradition of finance from the gentry

The church has always been obliged

To ensure that its flock remains servile

«Repent ye sinners or be devoured in the flames of hell.»

Those very same flames that devoured their enemies in countless religious wars

So often the church has marched hand in hand with the military

Casting its blessings upon the writhing bodies of the battlefield

Each stab of bayonet is God’s word

Each crash of steel is God’s word

Each torn limb and splash of blood is God’s word

For he so loved the world he gave our only begotten sons

Each sodden grave and sodding death is God’s word

For he so loved the world he gave our only begotten sons

For he so loved the world he gave our only begotten sons

In Christian societies executions are attended by representatives of the church

Goggle-eyed before the gallows, the electric chair and the gas-chamber

They administer their Christ’s blessing

In America poison is injected into the blood-stream

Another Christ dies, jacked up by the state

Another glorious advance for civilization

One small step for man

One giant step for mankind

For he so loved the world

He gave us his only begotten son

And likewise we are expected so to do

For he so loved the world

Violent, vicious hypocrisy

How is anyone supposed to deal with these contradictions

Confusions and lies?

They defy reason!

Oh yes, you can inwardly laugh at the absurdity

Satirise the obscenity, but the hysteria soon wears thin

And the tears wear a colder complexion

Humor can offer diversion

But it dilutes real anger

And nothing gets confronted

We are ruled by dangerous mad-people

What’s funny about that for fucks sake?

The world is daily threatened with annihilation

Is that really something to be trivialized?

The world is under constant threat

Against this background of fear

We struggle to create our own authority

While being bludgeoned into conformity

We struggle to find our inner selves

Of course I feel uncomfortable when I’m laughed at in the streets

But I don’t want to be one of them

I want to be an outsider

At the same time I’d like to come in out of the cold

Urgency overrules personal fears

Against the scenario of total destruction

We demand a sanity that might save the world

That alone excludes us from the mainstream of thought

History offers no solutions

Quotes from Mao or Stalin, Hitler or Marx

Simply confirms the oppression

I’m tired of political experts

Tired of 'if onlys'

They have always been the same people

Grey visionless robots

Who would have us all share their death

History is simply a justification for oppression

Written by those who practice it

It is being constantly changed and rewritten

To conform to the requirements of the ruling elite

A tempest of convenience that blasts across the blistered bodies of the dead

We receive at best only filtered truths

Most of what we see and hear is lies

The Falklands War was rewritten as it happened

It was not a glorious victory for the British spirit

Nor an heroic defeat of a fascist dictator

It was a callous and savage piece of electioneering

Designed to cover up horrific domestic problems

At a time when a peaceful settlement was a possibility

Thatcher personally ordered the sinking of the General Belgrado

Killing over three hundred men

And horribly mutilating many more!

She did this because her political neck required bloodshed

To prove her wisdom in releasing the Task Force

The history books will not document her as a cold-blooded murderer!

I’m tired of the dull rationalization of the politicians

Weighed down with their sums and inadequacies

I feel only anger and bellied hatred for them

How can anyone become so distorted?

How can anyone be so far from real human values?

I feel only disgust for their twisted minds

How can peace be achieved through threats of violence?

What kind of hope is there in that strait-jacket?

The authority of those who oppress us

Is supported, maintained and defended

By those who are themselves the most oppressed;

Those who, because they have no alternative, are in service to the rulers

How can I feel anger towards the squaddy?

Weighed down with his guns and inadequacies

I can feel only pity and bellied compassion

How can anyone be so distorted?

How can anyone be so far from real human values?

I can only feel pity for his twisted mind

How can freedom be achieved if the poor fight to uphold

The privileges of those who directly oppress them?

We look through one eye hoping the other won’t see

That way we only need deal with a half of it

Like bloody ostriches, oblivious

Not because we are, but because we choose to be

Most people see through the lies

But are too afraid to admit it

It’s so much easier to be the passive observer

How much longer can people afford to just sit by like this?

All the indications are there

Massive unemployment, recession, depression

But who’s looking?

Who cares?

Tamely the population is being led down the road to total bondage

Government is daily strengthening its powers

Those who stand against it are ridiculed, discredited or abused and punished

Those in power are totally cynical

Rather than analysing the seriousness of the problem

They simply strengthen the army and police to combat it

They are ready for the inevitable response

It happened in Brixton, Toxteth and Moss Side

It happens daily in Northern Ireland

Under Thatcher’s regime there has been massive increases in police brutality

In London police shot down a man

Only to find it was the wrong person

We regret to inform you

Regret to inform you

Regret to inform you

We regret to inform you…

That today another Christ was shot in the back of the head

We regret to inform you

Regret to inform you

That another Christ, not yet ten years old, was shot today

By agents of Her Majesty’s Government, with a plastic bullet

They say that plastic bullets were designed not to kill

They do

I say that human beings were not designed to kill, not us, not me;

We do

We regret to inform you

1984 is a book about the positive danger of totalitarianism

Under Thatcher’s unfeeling guidance the scenario is one year early

With the cold mechanism of the pinball arcade

We’re flicked around as numbers by the hidden computers

Software in the hardware

Documented and filed

We have no access to the information that they have stored on us

Ticker-tape alter egos, print-out portraits

We are becoming another

As individuals within that mechanical system, we are arbitrary

Wanted only for what can be taken from us

Our future is of no concern to the mega-corporations

Who determine the nature of our economic well-being

Thatcher’s policies require massive unemployment

Which makes her order to 'support our boys' nothing but a fucking insult

When they were eight thousand miles away dying for her arrogance

She fabricated what was a complete mockery of compassion

When they’re at home, jobless on the streets

She doesn’t give a fuck for them

Self determination and self enterprise are her big lines

But just how much of that does she offer to others

In her contemptible use of people?

She was prepared to risk world peace

Saying that it was for the self determination of the Falklanders

Those very same people who over a year ago

She was prepared to abandon without a thought

And now, for all her empty talk

They are forced to live in a fortress waiting for further hostilities

Thatcher has recently sanctioned a loan of one hundred million pounds to

Argentina

Claiming that it was to stabilize world economy

The purchase of further Exocets and the development of nuclear potential

Should do much for world economy, but very little for world security

Just what the fuck was all that bloodshed for?

Thatcher has signed away British self-determination in one single stroke

She has agreed to install deadly cruise missiles on British soil

Over which the Americans have total control

The American military presence is designed solely

To limit nuclear war with Russia to the 'European Theater'

Meanwhile we are sold the wicked lie of protection and deterrence

American war planners have repeatedly stated that they intend

To fight the Third World War on European soil

Cruise missiles greatly increase the danger of that happening

Designed to avoid radar detection by skimming the earth’s surface

Cruise missiles are seen as the ideal 'first strike weapon'

They also guarantee a massive response that would make Britain into a nuclear

desert

Military naivety is astounding.

The experts seriously believe

That they will be able to limit war to the 'theater'

In this particular show the world will be the stage

There’ll be no encore

Thatcher and her cronies talk of 'limited tactical response'

And 'executive action' causing 'collateral damage'

These terms are borrowed from their American counterparts

And are designed to mask the ugly reality that they describe

In everyday language 'collateral damage' simply means civilian deaths

In the event of nuclear attack on Britain

That would amount to thirty-eight million people

Is it any wonder that these crazy psychotics

Invent jargon to assist them in their studied madness?

Every year hundreds of innocent people still die horrific deaths

As a result of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

It is probably that an all out nuclear war

Would destroy all life on planet Earth

We are not talking fantasy

Nor preaching doom

We are talking of an existing reality;

The one that we allow to exist around us

Defence Secretary Heseltine disputes the kind of information that we offer

Claiming that it has 'no basis in fact'

There are no words to describe the utter contempt

That we feel for people of his kind

They sit in their seats of power

Distorting and perverting all human decency

How can they dare be so blatant?

How can they dare be so hypocritical?

Who is this Heseltine with his corrupt lies?

Who is this Thatcher with her arrogant deceit?

These hideous mutants cast their shadows

Across all that is worthwhile and good

Cruise missile will be installed because Thatcher has created some kind of deal

with Reagan

We will probably never know

The details of that arrangement

It will almost certainly involve some kind of economic juggling act

The massive corporations turning political thumbscrews

On U.S. investment in Britain

Russian tanks in Afghanistan are nothing

Compared with the bargaining power of American capital in the UK

Whatever the nature of that deal is

It has made Britain into America’s front line

The fifty-third State, with no rights of citizenship

To many people that might not matter

Fed from birth on American propaganda and Hollywood trash

The resistance levels are low

As long as we passively accept American domination

We can except no real advance

We are being sold down the line!

To many people the missiles and warheads might not matter

To many people nuclear reality is too huge to contemplate

Yet for all people the reality looms constantly in nightmares

In the nuclear state we are expected to accept those nightmares

Is this really all that we can hope for as life?

Is this really all that we can hope for as death?

Maybe our lives don’t matter that much

But why impose our madness on future generations?

Or is it perhaps that you no longer believe that there will be future

generations?

In your passive acceptance of it

You have already allowed the Holocaust to happen

The future is ended!

We are not talking fantasy

Nor preaching doom

We are talking of an existing reality

The one that we allow to exist around us

The nuclear hardware produces in the last three decades

Will pollute the Earth for thousands of years

A nuclear war will destroy it!

Is that why the cherry trees blossom?

You are destroying and corrupting!

In condemning them to the nuclear nightmare

Are you willing to accept the burning of tomorrow’s unborn?

They know nothing of this sorrow!

Suffer little children to come unto me

Suffer little children to come unto me

Suffer little children to come unto me

Suffer little children to come unto me

In your refusal to act against these hideous dangers

You are guilty of being the gutless passive observer

Are you so inhuman that you will let this happen?

Just a helpless bystander waving your flag in mute acceptance?

Take up your eyes and see!

Take up your ears and hear!

Take up your mind and think!

Take up your life and act!

It is up to us all as responsible citizens of Earth

To work towards the downfall of the powerful elite

Their rule has created dreadful suffering!

Their insanity precludes all reason and compassion!

They lie, trick and manipulate!

They are the maggots in the flesh of decency

The vultures that pick at the bones of hope

The carriers of famine, war, pestilence, and death

They must be stopped!

Why should people die for their insanity?

Why should people starve for their insanity?

Why should people suffer the spitefulness of their greed?

We must not be intimidated by the authority that they appear to have

We must be prepared to oppose them on every level

To fight back in the knowledge that if we don’t

We will have failed in our responsibility to life itself

It has happened before that the powerless have risen against the oppressor

Only to be beaten back!

But there have been cases where they have succeeded:

Ours is a just cause

It is up to each one of us, alone, to do our best

We must learn to overcome our fears!

We must realize that the strength that they have

Is the strength that we give them!

It is you, the passive observer who has given them this power!

You are being used and abused

And will be discarded as soon as they’ve bled what they want from you!

You must learn to live with your own conscience

Your own morality

Your own decision

Your own self!

You alone can do it:

There is no authority but yourself

«One squaddy, horrifically burnt in the Falklands War, was approached by Prince

Charles during a presentation

'Get well soon' said the Prince, to which the squaddy replied

'Yes Sir, I Will'."