Dead Kennedys

Dead Kennedys - Stars And Stripes Of Corruption lyrics

Finally got to Washington in the middle of the night

I couldn't wait

I headed straight for the Capitol Mall

My heart began to pound

Yahoo! It really exists

The American International Pictures logo

I looked up at that Capitol Building

Couldn't help but wonder why

I felt like saying "Hello, old friend"

Walked up the hill to touch it

Then I unzipped my pants

And pissed on it when nobody was looking

Like a great eternal Klansman

With his two flashing red eyes

Turn around he's always watching

The Washington monument pricks the sky

With flags like pubic hair ringed 'round the bottom

The symbols of our heritage

Lit up proudly in the night

Somehow fits to see the homeless people

Passed out on the lawn

So this is where it happens

The power games and bribes

All lobbying for a piece of ass

Of the stars and stripes of corruption

Makes me feel so ashamed

To be an American

When we're too stuck up to learn from our mistakes

Trying to start another Viet Nam

Whilke fiddling while Rome burns at home

The Boss says, "You're laid off. Blame the Japanese"

"America's back," alright

At the game it plays the worst

Strip mining the world like a slave plantation

No wonder others hate us

And the Hitlers we handpick

To bleed their people dry

For our evil empire

The drug we're fed

To make us like it

Is God and country with a band

People we know who should know better

Howl, "America riles. Let's go to war!"

Business scams are what's worth dying for

Are the Soviets our worst enemy?

We're destroying ourselves instead

Who cares about our civil rights

As long as I get paid?

The blind Me-Generation

Doesn't care if life's a lie

so easily used, so proud to enforce

The stars and stripes of corruption

Let's bring it all down!

Tell me who's the real patriots

The Archie Bunker slobs waving flags?

Or the people with the guts to work

For some real change

Rednecks and bombs don't make us strong

We loot the world, yet we can't even feed ourselves

Our real test of strength is caring

Not the toys of war we sell the world

Just carry on, thankful to be farmed like worms

Old glory for a blanket

As you suck on your thumbs

Real freedom scares you

'Cos it means responsibility

So you chicken out and threaten me

Saying, "Love it or leave it"

I'll get beat up if I criticize it

You say you'll fight to the death

To save your worthless flag

If you want a banana republic that bad

Why don't you go move to one

But what can just one of us do?

Against all that money and power

Trying to crush us into roaches?

We don't destroy society in a day

Until we change ourselves first

From the inside out

We can start by not lying so much

And treating other people like dirt

It's easy not to base our lives

On how much we can scam

And you know

It feels good to lift that monkey off our backs

I'm thankful I live in a place

Where I can say the things I do

Without being taken out and shot

So I'm on guard against the goons

Trying to take my rights away

We've got to rise above the need for cops and laws

Let kids learn communication

Instead of schools pushing competition

How about more art and theater instead of sports?

People will always do drugs

Let's legalize them

Crime drops when the mob can't price them

Budget's in the red?

Let's tax religion

No one will do it for us

We'll just have to fix ourselves

Honesty ain't all that hard

Just put Rambo back inside your pants

Causing trouble for the system is much more fun

Thank you for the toilet paper

But your flag is meaningless to me

Look around, we're all people

Who needs countries anyway?

Our land, I love it too

I think I love it more than you

I care enough to fight

The stars and stripes of corruption

Let's bring it all down!

If we don't try

If we just lie

If we can't find

A way to do it better than this

Who will?

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