"Franco Un American" by NOFX, album: The War on Errorism (2003)

I never thought about the universe, it made me feel small
Never thought about the problems of this planet at all
Global warming, radio-active sites
Imperialistic wrongs and animal rights! no!
Why think of all the bad things when life is so good?
Why help with an am when there’s always a could?
Let the whales worry about the poisons in the sea
Outside of California, its foreign policy
I don’t want changes, I have no reactions
Your dilemmas are my distractions
That’s no way to go, franco un-american
No way to go, franco un-american (x4)

I never looked around, never second-guessed
Then I read some howard zinn now I’m always depressed
And now I can’t sleep from years of apathy
All because I read a little Noam Chomsky
I’m eating vegetation, cause of fast food nation
I’m wearing a couple of shoes cause of globalization
I’m watching Michael Moore expose the awful truth
I’m listening to public enemy and Reagan youth
I see no world peace cause of zealous armed forces
I eat no breath-mints cause their from de-hoofed horses
Now I cant believe; what an absolute failure
The presidents laughing cause we voted for nader
That’s no way to go, franco un-american (x4)

Where can we go, franco un-american
I want to move north and be a canadian
Or hang down low with the nice australians
I don’t want to be another I-don’t-care- I can
What are we gonna do franco, franco un-american

A song that satirizes the apathy, ignorance and superficiality of the mean american citizen about politics, society, environment, global issues, etc and his manipulation by celebrities. NOFX commenting on their album they say:

You don't have to be a political analyst to see that America is suffering from a general lack OF knowledge. In fact, americans seem to have a very limited knowledge of knowledge. Lots of opinions floating around, but very little actual knowledge. For being one of the wealthiestand supposedly greatest nations on the planet, one would think that the people of this great country would reflect that greatness. THEY DON'T. Compared to other wester countries, americans rank among the lowest when it comes to education and general knowledge of world affairs.

The first question one would ask is why? Why are americans so ignorant? Could it be that the american government wants them that way? If they didn't, they might spend more money on education. The best way to keep the status quo is to keep the majority of people happy. The best way to keep the people happy is to keep them ignorant. Ignorance is bliss and the blissful don't revolt.

How do you keep 300 million people from knowing or carig what's going on in the world? Well that seems pretty easy. First, you make sure that people spend most of their time concerned with their own security. You make sure local news shows cover all the local shootings, kidnappings, and armed roberies. Then threw in the sports, weather, and the ever changing price of gasoline. it seems that ALL major news sources provide the same one sided stories. When all you get to see is one side, it's hard to understand the complexities of an issue or have empathy for the other side. Someone such as Bill Maher from the canceled T.V. show Politically Incorrect was ostracized for giving an honest, yet unpopular viewpoint on the subject of terrorism, and his show was subsequently canceled. Somehow one of the most inherently american pastimes of criticizing the government is now considered to be completly un-american. It's our responsability as americans to exercise our right to civil disobedience and dissent, There are the principles on which our country was founded.

You can hear this song in youtube

"Dethrone Tyranny" by Gamma Ray. Album: No World Order (2001)

Someone is out there he's watching what I do
From far in the distance, his eyes everywhere
I look around me, there's noone that I see
But still I feel someone's controlling my mind

Save your breath and run
You can't escape the one

Time has come, the world lies dying
Our faith has gone, our souls are crying
Resurrecting paradise, cry for freedom
Killing pain, a million lies,
Dethrone tyranny

Forces of evil, they never surrender
Sooner or later the dark era comes

Crying man on the run
He's searching for freedom but there will be none

Time has come, the world lies dying
Our faith has gone, our souls are crying
Resurrecting paradise, cry for freedom
Killing pain, a million lies,
Dethrone tyranny

And as the world is dying slowly in our hands
We'll ask for reasons until the bitter end

Who brings us all the sadness
Who brings us all the fear
Who spreads disease and misery
And steals our destiny

A poisoned heart of anger
Sowing the seeds of pain
All see the darkened skyline
And feel the deadly reign

Time has come, the world lies dying
Our faith has gone, our souls are crying
Resurrecting paradise, cry for freedom
Killing pain, a million lies,
To hell with tyranny

This is a song addressing similar issues as “Tyranny” by Firewind. However, it appears to be more critical, asking for the reasons of sadness and fear, disease and misery, dealing with subtler ways of oppression like mind control and referring to a planet-wide form of tyranny which makes the world to lie dying.

You can hear Dethrone Tyranny

You can visit group’s site

"Tyranny" by Firewind , Album: Forged By Fire (2005)

We were sent to this world
Now we see all the action
The man in hate's lair, commanding us
His statement to share

Nation free!
We're fighting for
Democracy
Salvation, all we deserve
We don't need tyranny
Let's walk through our land of eden

We were tortured and enslaved
For their cruel
Satisfaction
A bird flyin' in the air
Killing us,
Our children not spare

Nation free!
We're fighting for democracy
Salvation / all we deserve
We don't need tyranny
Let's walk through our land of eden

This is a song by a group of compatriot Greeks of USA whose name is Firewind. Despite the positive notions of freedom and democracy, the lyrics are very general and they could be taken as supportive even of cruel distortions of these values like the aggressive deadly campaign of G.W. Bush in Iraq. However, they can also provide space for positive, ecological, radical democratic interpretations and non-violent struggles.

You can hear:
Tyranny
The very good instrumental The Fire And The Fury

You can visit the group’s site

Album: "Infrawarrior" by Monica Richards (2006)

GAIA

There seems to be no escape from our difficulties until the industrial system breaks down for some reason or another, and Nature reasserts herself with grass and trees among the ruins. But the longer her hour is postponed, and therefore the more exhausted by man's irreligious improvidence the natural resources of the soil and sea become, the less merciful will she be. - Robert Graves, 1948

If we turn from Life, we have only Death.
From the minute we humans started building fires to cook our food, we have been aware
that we must revere the source of our lives and all life on this planet.
And we have named that source "Mother of Life".
She is kind, sometimes cruel, always indifferent to sacrifice except for those who came in their time -
fertility rites, the celebration of birth, of the new year, thanks for the harvest.
But she is capricious and aloof.
Her manifestations: Serene, Ferocious, Willful, Cruel, Wise, Lustful, Mysterious,
Wanton, Loyal, Scheming, Jealous, Cool, Greedy, Dreaming.
She responds to arrogance by withholding her favors and sometimes by destruction.
Her weapons are overwhelming, myriad, awesome: Winds, Water, Lightning, Fire, Ice, Heat, Earthquake and Tidalwave.
If we worship and revere male gods, we ignore Gaia's ultimate power over us.
Turn from the Goddess of Life, and there is only Death.
Turn form the Mother of Life, and there is only Death.


Fell To Regret

And when the Hunter saw what he had done to Her,
He feel to his knees in Regret.
Is this a new Dark Age?
Are these the blackest days?
All fell to regret.

Do you have nothing to say?
While they ignore the Modern Slave?
All fell to regret.
Horror at the hands of elders breeds a new crop of monsters
The soulless profit-makers.
In the name of their Savior.

The Patriarch Conspiracy sold me off for pennies
All world religions united to keep the women obliging
Wandering the brothelways we scream through nights and sleep the daze
They cage us like tigers to use for their desires.
Sell and trade us like a drug that can be used again and again.

Predator trained as prey.
Socialized to be meek and obedient.
The anger in woman is dangerous.
Traditional Values, the modern passive Witch Hunt.
A fifties fabrication that never existed
Repressed Fundamentalist seeks a sicker decadence
Am I the mother of Harlots - the younger the better

Now self-esteemless Glamour tarts flaunt their sexuality
In the name of Girl Power,
They'll lose the fight forever.
Selling and trading themselves to the game again and again.
Is this a new Dark Age?
Are these the blackest days?
All fell to regret.
Is this a new Dark Age?
While they strip your freedoms away?


Like Animals

From the original Dr. Doolittle movie.

Why do we treat animals like animals?
Animals treat us so very well
The devoted way they serve us and protect us
When we're nervous they really don't deserve us
All we give them is Hell

Why do we treat animals like animals?
How can people be so inhumane?
What do we do we neglect them we do nothing
To protect them we reject them
Don't expect them to complain

When will we stop treating them like animals?
How can human beings cause so much pain?
We ignore them or we beat them
When we're hungry then we eat them,
It's appalling how we treat them - it's insane

I do not understand the human race
That has so little love for creatures with a different face
We humiliate and murder and confine them
We create their wretched status
Then we use it to malign them
When you dress in suede or leather
Or some fancy fur or feather

Do you stop and wonder whether for a Fad
You have killed some beast or other
That you're wearing someone's Brother
Or perhaps it's someone's Mother in which you're clad
We've made the whole world a zoo,
For Man is an animal too.

Thanks to our friend MpinelikoMistress, we present today a very interesting album by the multitalented artist Monica Richards, a pagan follower, a believer in an ancient Matrist culture that has been displaced by male patrism and Mother Gaia and animal rights supporter. All of these ideas are developed in her personal album “Infrawarrior": Exploitative Treatment of Mother Earth and attitude towards animals is parallelized with the prevalence of patrism, sexism, violence and slavery in human history
We read in Amazon.com some interesting reviews about thiw album:

About song Gaia: The opening "Gaia" is, ironically, written and spoken by Monica's *father* (and Renaissance man) Lloyd Richards. It's a fitting start, the premise that the earth itself is a Mother entity. The CD isn't an anti-male screed, but it clearly states the brutality women and animals have suffered for millennia at the hands of men. While sexual slavery is more aptly applied to women, the term *slaughter* is sadly interchangeable between women and animals.

About song Like animals: At least 1/3 of those who listen to this will cry. Solemn, gorgeous vocals with no music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse. Ten bucks says PETA and The Animal Liberation Front will feature this in some manner.

……..

The album speaks of unity, of empowerment, of animal rights, of the earth and our impact. Insofar as genres, the record is overwhelmingly tribal. Again, the best way to describe this album is "Pagan." The deep drum beats secure its Pagan identity, and elements of darkwave, Gothic, ambient, rock, and chant secure it as quite Neopagan. InfraWarrior has few musical limits; it covers a broad spectrum of musical expression and, unlike many who attempt this, blends genres with a successfully brilliant transition from one sound to the next. Additionally, a number of vocal distortions grace the album; I feel this echoes the many faces of the divine, particularly the Great Mother, of which Monica Richards is a conduit. Initiatory status and the like notwithstanding, Monica Richards is a high priestess of our age--a statement I personally would never speak nonchalantly.

This album is raw Pagan spirituality. It is powerful, inspiring, brutally honest, and makes the heart of any listener beat faster as Monica's magick weaves awakening into conscious thought. Indeed this album is a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious, and has a profound effect on the awareness of any person who hears it. InfraWarrior shatters our often-comforting illusion of the state of the world, and reminds us that it can remain a beautiful place. It reminds us that our influence on this earthly plane is grand, and not something to take lightly. It reminds us that our time here is too short not to do good and reclaim our spiritual inherencies.

You can hear some songs from this album in her myspace

You can visit her personal site for more information about her multitalented work (music, artwork, poetry, studies, etc). The photos above were picked from her site and consist a small sample from her pagan/naturalistic artworks.

Two great anti-militaristic/anti-war songs by early Metallica

”Disposable Heroes”, album: Master of Puppets (1986)

Bodies fill the fields I see, hungry heroes end
No one to play soldier now, no one to pretend
Running blind through killing fields, bred to kill them all
Victim of what said should be
A servant `til I fall

Soldier boy, made of clay
Now an empty shell
Twenty one, only son
But he served us well
Bred to kill, not to care
Just do as we say
Finished here, Greeting Death
He's yours to take away

Back to the front
You will do what I say, when I say
Back to the front
You will die when I say, you must die
Back to the front
You coward
You servant
You blindman

Barking of machinegun fire, does nothing to me now
Sounding of the clock that ticks, get used to it somehow
More a man, more stripes you wear, glory seeker trends
Bodies fill the fields I see
The slaughter never ends

Soldier boy, made of clay
Now an empty shell
Twenty one, only son
But he served us well
Bred to kill, not to care
Just do as we say
Finished here, Greeting Death
He's yours to take away

Back to the front
You will do what I say, when I say
Back to the front
You will die when I say, you must die
Back to the front
You coward
You servant
You blindman

Why, Am I dying?
Kill, have no fear
Lie, live off lying
Hell, Hell is here

I was born for dying

Life planned out before my birth, nothing could I say
Had no chance to see myself, molded day by day
Looking back I realize, nothing have I done
Left to die with only friend
Alone I clench my gun

Soldier boy, made of clay
Now an empty shell
Twenty one, only son
But he served us well
Bred to kill, not to care
Just do as we say
Finished here, Greeting Death
He's yours to take away

Back to the front
You will do what I say, when I say
Back to the front
You will die when I say, you must die
Back to the front
You coward
You servant
You blindman

Back to the front.

The psychology of a young boy trained to blind discipline and obedience, becoming a human killing machine.


“For Whom The Bell Tolls” album: Ride the Lightning (1984)

Make his fight on the hill in the early day
Constant chill deep inside
Sounding gun, on they run through the endless grey
On the fight, for they are right, yes, by who's to say?

For a hill men would kill, why? They do not know
Suffered wounds test there their pride
Men of five, still alive through the raging glow
Gone insane from the pain that they surely know

For whom the bell tolls
Time marches on
For whom the bell tolls

Take a look to the sky just before you die
It is the last time you will
Blackened roar massive roar fills the crumbling sky
Shattered goal fills his soul with a ruthless cry

Stranger now, are his eyes, to this mystery
He hears the silence so loud
Crack of dawn, all is gone except the will to be
Now they will see what will be, blinded eyes to see

For whom the bell tolls
Time marches on
For whom the bell tolls

Very strong pictures of soldiers’ agony in the battlefield.

You can hear these songs in youtube
Disposable Heroes
For Whom the Bell Tolls

”We Are All Prostitutes” by The Pop Group (1979)

We are all prostitutes
Everyone has their price
And you too will learn to live the lie

Aggression
Competition
Ambition
Consumer fascism

Capitalism is the most barbaric of all religions
Department stores are our new cathedrals
Our cars are martyrs to the cause

We are all prostitutes

Our children shall rise up against us
Because we are the ones to blame
We are the ones to blame
They will give us a new name
We shall be hypocrites

Old school funk/punk with so timeless issues to deal with: The prevalence of capitalism as a new barbaric religion, the worshiping of profits and money and reduction of our lives and relations to exchangeable items like prostitution.

You can hear this song in youtube

"People Have the Power" by Patti Smith, album: Dream of life (1988)

I was dreaming in my dreaming
of an aspect bright and fair
and my sleeping it was broken
but my dream it lingered near
in the form of shining valleys
where the pure air recognized
and my senses newly opened
I awakened to the cry
that the people / have the power
to redeem / the work of fools
upon the meek / the graces shower
it's decreed / the people rule

The people have the power
The people have the power

Vengeful aspects became suspect
and bending low as if to hear
and the armies ceased advancing
because the people had their ear
and the shepherds and the soldiers
lay beneath the stars
exchanging visions
and laying arms
to waste / in the dust
in the form of / shining valleys
where the pure air / recognized
and my senses / newly opened
I awakened / to the cry

Where there were deserts
I saw fountains
like cream the waters rise
and we strolled there together
with none to laugh or criticize
and the leopard
and the lamb
lay together truly bound
I was hoping in my hoping
to recall what I had found
I was dreaming in my dreaming
god knows / a purer view
as I surrender to my sleeping
I commit my dream to you

The power to dream / to rule
to wrestle the world from fools
it's decreed the people rule
it's decreed the people rule
LISTEN
I believe everything we dream
can come to pass through our union
we can turn the world around
we can turn the earth's revolution
we have the power
People have the power ...

We have the power to view a better world and change our fates, we can reject all those who rule us at the expense of our lives and our future.We read about Patti Smith's social & ecological activism in wikipedia:

Smith has been a supporter of the Green Party (United States) and was a backer of Ralph Nader in the 2000 United States presidential election. She led the crowd singing "Over the Rainbow" and "People Have the Power" at the campaign's rallies, and also performed at several of Nader's subsequent "Democracy Rising" events. Smith was a speaker and singer at the first protests against the Iraq War organized by Louis Posner of Voter March on September 12, 2002, as U.S. President George W. Bush spoke to the United Nations General Assembly. Smith, however, supported Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 election. Bruce Springsteen continued performing her "People Have the Power" at Vote for Change campaign events. In the winter of 2004/2005, Smith toured again with Nader in a series of rallies against the Iraq War and call for the impeachment of George W. Bush.

Smith premiered two new protest songs in London in September 2006. Louise Jury, writing in The Independent, characterized them as "an emotional indictment of American and Israeli foreign policy". Song "Qana" was about the Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese village of Qana. "Without Chains" is about Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen who was born and raised in Germany, held at Guantanamo Bay detainment camp for four years. Jury's article quotes Smith as saying:
“ I wrote both these songs directly in response to events that I felt outraged about. These are injustices against children and the young men and women who are being incarcerated. I'm an American, I pay taxes in my name and they are giving millions and millions of dollars to a country such as Israel and cluster bombs and defense technology and those bombs were dropped on common citizens in Qana. It's terrible. It's a human rights violation. ”

In an interview, Smith stated that Kurnaz's family has contacted her and that she wrote a short preface for the book that he was writing. Kurnaz's book, "Five Years of My Life," was published in English by Palgrave Macmillan in March 2008, with Patti's introduction.

On March 26, 2003, ten days after Rachel Corrie's tragic death, Patti Smith appeared in Austin, Texas, and performed anti-war concert. Patti prefaced her song "Wild Leaves" with the following comments and subsequently wrote a new song "Peaceable Kingdom" which was inspired by and is dedicated to Rachel Corrie. She supported Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

You can hear this classic in youtube