You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train

(álbum: God Of The Serengeti - 2012)

[Howard Zinn:]
Governments lie all the time
Well, not just the American government, it's just in the nature of governments
Well, they have to lie. And since they don't represent the people,
and so since they act against the interest of the people
The only way they can hold power is if they lie to the people

(You don't know what I know, you can't see the spreading state
Of deception, I am cruel to myself, things will never be the same)

If they told people the truth they wouldn't last very long

(I will hold my silence like a weapon in my hand
If I used it I would murder myself
You could never understand)

Columbus came ashore greeted with nothing but niceness
Sailing west in attempt to find gold and spices
Dominated by the popes in frenzy for ices
The Catholic church expelled Jews and claimed it was righteous
The first man to see land would get a reward
And get a yearly pension for life clearly from God
A young sailor saw land said, "We isn't far"
Columbus lied, said he saw it the evening before
They touched ground, they were greeted by the Arawak
Columbus had them locked up as prisoners in an hour flat
He wanted to find their source of gold and that was that
And when they thought that wasn't fair then he stabbed their back
When there was no more gold he took slaves instead
And left a quarter million Indians in Haiti dead
The men died in mines, the women died at work
The children died from lack of milk and they died in the dirt
They were just taking advantage of a passive people
They were just being the savages of massive evil
That's the church work, that's the path of massive ego
That's the blood of Abraham being stabbed by the steeple

In 1619 they were patiently waiting
For a ship that carried slaves that was changing the nation
The white man was a cannibal praying to Satan
Hatred contempt a pity of patronization
That's the corner stone everything racism based in
The African had a more advanced civilization
Black was slave, master was white, rationalization
50 million dead, that's Western civilization
At first they appeared in the North
And they were helpless in the face of superior force
And all of them were chained together, they really was lost
Racism isn't natural it's merely divorce
Before the slave trade black was considered distasteful
By the Oxford dictionary, I find it disgraceful
It's not a natural tendency to be bitter and hateful
It's the natural enemy of the critical staple
Slavery grew as the plantation system grew
The reason for that's kinda easily traceable
Society of helpless dependence was capable
Of saying, "Fuck a slave master, you're in slavery too"

Seven slaves were put to death for murdering master
Fear of slave revolt had them developing faster
You a cataline killer, ineloquent bastard
I would burn the white man while smelling the ashes
From time to time white man was part of the resistance
White indentured servants wanted no part of the system
King Philip's War showed that if people would listen
That they can maybe break the complex chain of oppression
Tyranny is tyranny, but that's a concession
But the women they was treated like that of possessions
Black women had it worse cause they was abused
That's the white justification of Aryan blues
The next move was to dominate the Mexicans
James Polk dominated them like they was next of kin
He sent Colonel Cross to lie to them and let them in
11 days later, his skull was crushed, so message sent
"We take nothing by conquest," that was the mantra
The military wasn't human, they was just monsters
Henry David Thoreau refused to pay his taxes
Denounced the Mexican War and got locked in shackles

The twentieth century opened, anger reemerged
Reality of ordinary life was being heard
Anarchists and feminists came from factory work
Communism, socialism seemed to be re-birthed
“War is the health of the state” is what Bourne said
And if you was born around that time you was born dead
The Espionage Act had people confused
Cause it was double talk and they didn't know how it'd be used
Supposedly it was an act against spying
Dubois knew that that was bullshit and they was lying
Charles Schenck was arrested in Philadelphia
For printing and distributing leaflets cause they was helping ya
He was indicted, tried and then found guilty
And spent six months in jail, don't that sound silly?
Had his freedom taken away by his own nation
But there's a lesson, do not submit to intimidation
The act still exists today and this shit is real
Supposedly Kennedy tried to have that shit appealed
Eugene Debs did ten years for no purpose
He obstructed the recruiting and enlistment service

The post office started taking mail privileges
Of magazines who printed anti-war sentiments
A Socialist named Fairchild had it right
He said that “they can shoot me, but they can't make me fight"
They sentenced him to a year in jail and that was reckless
65,000 men, conscientious objectors
They were sent to army bases to work there
They were treated sadistically and were hurt there
They were strangled with the hemp rope til they collapsed
And officers punched they stomach and they lower back
A garden hose was placed on they face with a nozzle
About six inches from them so they couldn't swallow
The war ended in nineteen hundred and eighteen (1918)
The government was just trying to wipe the slate clean
Hemingway wrote Farewell to Arms
Dalton Trumbo wrote Johnny Got His Gun
The war was over but they didn't learn they lesson
Twin tactics of control, reform and repression
The patriotic fervor of war had been invoked
That's why the country that you live in is a FUCKING JOKE!

You cannot be neutral on a moving train
This is a story about the lies that your teacher told you
This is real actual factual
No lies in the whole record
If you don't believe me look it up
I'm trying to share the shit that I learned with y'all
Do the knowledge
Your government does not care about you
The people in power do not care about you
Understand that
Power to the people