Venezuela? Really? Know Your Enemy!
Venezuela? Really? Know Your Enemy!
By Mateo Pimentel, Axis of Logic
Tuesday, Mar 10, 2015
Rage Against the Machine!
Why does the American government continue to ignore the popular plight at home, to decimate the country’s marginalized, to etch away at liberties and withhold them, to amplify its fascism abroad, to hemorrhage public funds for the sake of corporate welfare, and to lay waste to one geopolitically “strategic” land after another?
In 1991, a band of musicians by the name of Rage Against the Machine (RATM) put out their self-titled album. Track six of the album, entitled “Know Your Enemy”, featured a strong message for listeners. Almost twenty-five years ago, in fact, this song lyricized the hypocritical nature of the American government, which fancies itself a defender of freedom despite the elitist corporatocracy puppeteers it and the wars it starts abroad.
The song asks, “What? The land of the free? Whoever told you that is your enemy!” A punctuation at song’s end, the last few lyrics delineate the problems that conscientious Americans faced in the early 1990s. “Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality,” it hums with acerbic irony, “—all of which are the American dream!”
Perhaps the 1991 RATM hit echoed the sentiments of those Americans who questioned the legitimacy of the First Gulf War and the legacy of American foreign interventionism that preceded it. What is certain, however, is that the band’s initial daemonic inspiration for its critical tune truly resounds today. Incredibly, and sadly, the group could not have divined with its lyrics all the havoc that American wars and political predation would wreak today, especially not some twenty-five years and hundreds of thousands of deaths later.
More:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_69627.shtml
