THE SHOCK AND AWE SONG

 

It's over now -

the cops sent us home

with our banners and our rooftop PA

our bodies in the back,

they sent home

our four car peace convoy

not with glorious arrests

but traffic infringements

and a yellow sticker

 

We're wrecked by media slogans

and the apathy of cretins

who hate those troublemakers,

those hippies who'll pull out

the ground beneath our very feet

given half a chance

 

In Jesus' name the patriots're saluting the flag

and fucking Howard's undoing

anything good that ever happened to our country

since nineteen-fifty

 

Beneath their homely faces the bullshit conservatives

are full of fear

fear of blacks and poors

fear of rebels and revolters;

it's crippling, contagious and

they want us to catch it

 

Their state where might is right

and the phallus on a tank

helps you sleep at night

 

In my head I'm time travelling

and I've got another chance

and I say to the cop,

 

'Are there causes worth dying for?

'Are there any worth disobeying for?

'Coz you seem to think there's some

'worth killing for.

 

'Are there laws unjust?

'Are there times when

'corpses of kids

'are worth more than

'public order?

 

'In short, I say Mr Officer

'do you mean you'd

'never break the law

'and by this moral authority

'which you possess

 

'I never should either?'

 

 

This time

there is no stopping me

such is the force of my oration:

they all stand back

tongues hanging out

shocked and awed

 

 

'I'm sorry Mr Officer

'you gotta understand

'the dissent's in my bones

'burnt in and branded

'and red like blood

'and though I hate to make a fuss

'and though I'm scared when you get angry

'I've been firmed like metal jelly

'and I'm a mad bastard of a rebel

'oh I tried, I tried to fit in

'and I tried so hard but all I found

'is that your ways are bad

'and your means are dumb

 

'The steam's shooting out my viscerals

'I wanna put a dent in the world

'I wanna smash and crash

'in the name of peace

'I wanna level your city

'and start again with some integrity

'"Against hegemony" they call me

'my God is a rebel,

'and he don't like the way things go

'oh he's a voice in the wilderness

'a dissenter on the cross,

'you see, if truth be told,

'Jesus's been puking his guts out

'at what's been done

'by devils bearing his name

 

'And what I'm saying is,

'oh what I'm saying is THIS:

'if the Iraqis arrive tomorrow

'with their flags and tanks

'and with true democracy

'jamming out your radio

'in captured English

'as part of  Operation Persuasion

'would you be ready to see the light?

'If they came here to Perth

'with planes of death

'and bright bright bombs

'seeking out the oil and

'the mass destroying weapons

'that only they

'in their Allah given wisdom

'are allowed to own,

'if they came and missed

'and fucked up your suburb,

'if they blew Willeton into a crater,

'would you recognise justice

'when it hit you in the face?

 

'What I'm saying, oh what I'm screaming at you,

'shoving down your channel sevenish throat is THIS:

'are you ready,

'are you ready to be liberated?

'Right here right now on the terrace

'with all your flashing lights your twenty cops

'on us seven lefties!

'Do you remember what the teacher told you

'in year two?

'"Bullies are bad," she said,

'"no two ways about it!"

'And have you ever seen a movie

'where the goodies are the ones

'with batons and guns

'uniforms and flashing lights

'outnumbering seven pathetic

'baddies in beat up cars?

 

'Oh, don't you know what Hollywood says?

'"THE UNDERDOG IS ALWAYS RIGHT!"

'But Hollywood is horsely shit

'I'm with you there at least

 

'And all I'm really saying now

'all I really want

'is for you to have a heart

'just don't fine me or jail me

'coz I'm tired

'and I ain't got money,

'or none to speak of.'

 

And maybe then

he'll be convinced and let us go

this second time around,

let us finish off our crusade

and it's then, just then when

he thinks he's got me beat

that this corrupted oath

I swear to myself

 

 

'Don't think I'm giving up

'coz when I'm gone from this place

'oh when you've sent me on my way

'I'm going to rage and flail

'for I'm given to hate

'yeah, I'm red as it gets,

'hate in the name,

'oh the sullied name,

'of love.'

 

 

 

- Nathan Hobby, 24 March 2003