Danger Voice

I’m not sure what to say about this one, but said a lot anyway.

A consumerist society only survives through the destruction of education, with the express purpose of preventing people from learning how to be critical consumers of information. That’s the only way to ensure that the pyramid maintains a broad enough (commodified) labor base to support the vastly smaller number of selfish, narcissistic plutocrats at the tippy top. Outright slavery used to take care of that, and still does in some places.

People have been conned into voting for plutocrat promises of vouchers that they could use to get private education for their special needs children… only they’re not being told that private schools aren’t obligated to provide those services in the way that public schools are. Some charter schools are sponsored by districts, and are allowed to function only so long as they support IDEA in the same way as their sponsor… so they require that parents drop services from the IEP as the price of enrollment. The specific abuses that are allowed do vary somewhat by state.

This continues to happen because the xenophobes keep getting away with it. They count on other-centered people to be reasonable and non-violent; similarly, they count on them to care about the feelings of others, and so not wanting to hurt them.

And yes, you can generally count on that, but only to a point (with rare exception). But now they’ve gone beyond that point. They’ve gone too far. I’m not feeling so reasonable and non-violent anymore. I’m not interested in protecting the abusers from harm.

So I decided that a protest anthem was needed. I have a colleague in special education who is an avowed punk metal head banger, so I thought that he might enjoy a song in that mode. I don’t know much about that style of music, so I listened to a bunch of famous bands and songs… and then just gave it a shot.

I didn’t anguish over the rhyming because it seemed like a trivial priority compared to the clear expression of the problem. Same with keeping the verses’ syntactic structures perfectly consistent. This is the first time the that I’ve built up the lines of a chorus in each of its successive occurrences, where I wanted those steps to convey the notion of increasing anger.

This is the song that led me to put all of the truly intense and explicit works on the Exprimi Diem album.

Lyrics

(explicit)

You make fun of kids who can’t walk

You laugh at people who can’t talk

You bully Autistics you smug pricks

You turn palsy into your TV joke

What if it’s your kid?

What if it’s you? YOU!

When we were nice, you laughed in our face

NOW BACK THE FUCK OFF!

You throw away kids with special needs

Getting rich while little kids bleed

Wipe your ass on Autistic kids’ lives

Your murder machine grinds them to dust

Killing our children to turn a fat profit

Different kids are fuel for your greed

When we were nice, you laughed in our face

When we were civil, you pushed us away

NOW BACK THE FUCK OFF!

You tell us to mind our manners

You tell us to wait our turn

You tell us to use our inside voice

While you shred our kids in your bloody machine

Your fake manners are just another lie

Your promises are just another weapon

We're done playing by your rules

When we were nice, you laughed in our face

When we were civil, you pushed us away

When we pushed back, you called the cops

NOW BACK THE FUCK OFF!

You sit there acting all proper

While you feed kids into your machine

The different ones go in first

But we’re done letting you kill them

We stand our ground

Now we’re pushing back

Your machine is gonna die

When we were nice, you laughed in our face

When we were civil, you pushed us away

When we pushed back, you called the cops

When we got dangerous, you lost your shit

Keep punching my face, and I’ll stand here.

You can’t hurt me, but hold my beer.

Cuz if you come for my kid...

then in the name of all that I hold dear, like equity and honesty, I’ll pinch your head right off of your fat fuckin’ neck and shit all the way down your throat.

SO BACK THE FUCK OFF!

You can starve our schools of light

Think you’ve won your selfish fight

But wisdom grows in darkest ground

Burn us to ash, grow more enemies all around

Your witless fear builds your cage

While we learn despite your rage

Could’ve shared this world so wide

Now feel your power slip aside

Your fear of change dulls your mind

We just grow stronger, all combined

Could’ve been so different here

If you’d chosen love, not fear