Left to their own devices, the rats destroy themselves.









Rats in a cage
Burning with rage
Hungry and crazed
Pushed to the edge

Filled with disease
Driven by greed
Addicted to more
Out of control

Crushing people
“Get outta the way!
Development’s way:
Surrender and pay.”

Rats in a cage
Addicted to war
Unequivocally wrong
And out of control!

Rats in a cage
Screaming in pain
No fault of their own
They’re not in control

Garbage Media
Erasing all clues
Inciting real doom
The profit of few

No decision
No good rationale
The shrill and the crass
Corruption to last

Rats in a cage
Addicted to war
Intractable Wrongs
And out of control!

Tell me why
They must die

Rats in the middle:
Filled with disease
Cutting my eye:
And blinded by greed
Rats in the middle:
They’re out of control
They’ll destroy them all

Rats in a cage
Disgusting disgrace
Punish the weak
And do it with glee

Tell me something
Where will it end?
Where will it end?
Where will it end?

Tell me why
They must die

Rats in the middle:
Filled with disease
Cutting my eye:
And blinded by greed
Rats in the middle:
They’re out of control
They’ll destroy them all

Rats in the middle with the
sticky fingers
They are trapped by their own device
Shredding each other in the name of survival
Screaming obvious
They don’t have to die

No good bye

Almost everyone that has had a job, has had at least one that took their soul away.








Cringe on my way to work,
already hear the punch-in
at the ole hey ho hey ho hey ho -

I feel my brain go numb, my body knows it’s time
to do the ole hey ho hey ho hey ho

You know how time stands still? It’s slower when it’s slower!
At the ole hey ho hey ho hey ho -

At least for break, i step out back, and have myself a lil’ smoke…
“You ain’t back yet?”

And so i smoke, stare at the wall, stare at the wall,
I wanna go…
“It ain’t time yet!”

Back at my station, washing dishes and the ramikins and looking for a napkin at the ole hey ho hey ho hey ho…

Bussing tables, stacking plates -- That table’s nasty!
At the ole hey ho hey ho hey ho –

You know how time stands still? It’s slower when it’s slower!
At the ole hey ho hey ho hey ho…

At least for break, i step out back, and have myself a lil’ smoke…
“You ain’t back yet?”

And so i smoke, stare at the wall, stare at the wall,
I wanna go…
“It ain’t time yet!”

“I can train a monkey to do what you do” (1)

At least for break, i step out back, and have myself a lil’ smoke…
“You ain’t back yet?”

And so i smoke, stare at the wall, stare at the wall,
I wanna go…
“It ain’t time yet!”

“Get me outta here!”

(1) Heinz, the owner of the Fish Market restaurant in Charleston, SC said these exact words to Franklin when he was working there as a waiter.

The BLOWBACK of “Greed” is that the entire system is imploding because politicians beholden to moneyed interests appear incapable of addressing any issue, be it global warming, the destruction of the Chesapeake Bay, controlling deep-water drilling, financial reform, universal health care coverage, and to do so they obfuscate and confuse, distract and divide, so that nothing will change, and the result will be more calamity.


Greed runs the clock
Greed runs the clock
Greed runs the clock
So we're running out of time
There's no reason There's no reason

Greed runs the clock
Greed runs the clock
Greed runs the clock
So we're running out of time

We're running out of time
We're running out of time
We're running out of time

Greed runs the clock
Greed runs the clock
Greed runs the clock
So we're running out of time
There's no reason There's no reason

Greed runs the clock
Greed runs the clock
Greed runs the clock
So we're running out of time

We're running out of time
We're running out of time
We're running out of time

Greed runs the clock
Greed runs the clock
Greed runs the clock
So we're running out of time

In a Gadda Dada Vida
The sour pain grows
1600 Pennsylvania
Wall Street Laughs

Every single day people are being murdered by government forces. They are being killed for their political views, for belonging to a particular community, or simply for being poor. Every day, too, people seized by government agents are facing another form of elimination when they vanish into secret custody as if they never existed. They "disappear." Millions of men, women, and children have suffered such fates since the 1960s - the victims not of wars between nations, but of deliberate government policies of repression. Their deaths or "disappearances" were ordered or condoned by state officials, the very people entrusted to protect their lives and liberty.

-- Amnesty International in Getting Away with Murder: Political Killings and "Disappearances" in the 1990s, © 1993, pg. 1.

Woke up at night
And I flicked the switch
The world turned black; my eyes went off
I began to see

I saw his face
Indifferent and mad
Blood freely flowed; spurts out the mouth
Saying now's the time - (to cut your)

Jugular Vein Jugular Vein
Heart Pumps
Jugular Vein Jugular Vein
Blood flows
Jugular Vein Jugular Vein
Screams drown
Jugular Vein Jugular Vein

I was confused
He turned on the news
Anchors blabbing shit; where's Chomsky now?
As the pictures rushed through

Little children screaming
The girls and women raped
All men are dead except of course
For the bloody man's friends (as they were)
Killing Again Killing Again
Cleansing
Killing Again Killing Again
Homeland
Killing Again Killing Again
Nation
Killing Again Killing Again

But no one is listening
Even you that are here
Convinced we can't do anything
We continue to drift

But that is not true
Still they all proceed
Banking on the apathy all around
For their grisly deeds
(while they are)

Killing Again Killing Again
Cutting
Jugular Vein Jugular Vein
Nightmare
Killing Again Killing Again
And they said
Never Again Never Again?

DOWNLOAD MP3

"...Carnivore ... gives the FBI access to the communications of hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent Internet users."

-- David Sobel, General Counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, 21 November 2000 press release.

Liars for Destruction
Preachers for Destruction
Cowards for Destruction
Bullies for Destruction

Bombing sniping shattering betraying
Raping cheating stealing bleeding

Liars for Destruction
Preachers for Destruction
Cowards for Destruction
Bullies for Destruction

Bombing sniping shattering betraying
raping cheating stealing bleeding

What have we here? Nightmare resembling
Fucked up fiction of 1984
Brave New World, Brazil revision
Where do you think we're going with this?

Congress caves in - trying to sell off rights
Dumbass Tom Ridge - he don't understand rights
Goering would be proud - Carnivore smacking lips
Woolsey and Baker - ain't it time to retire?

You
Must
Shut the Fuck UP

"The threat left by Digna Ochoa's killers leaves no doubt that Digna Ochoa was killed because of her human rights work. Her killing is the act of those seeking to evade prosecution by silencing human rights defenders who expose the perpetrators of human rights violations and insist that the authorities ensure they are brought to justice."

-- Amnesty International Human Rights Defenders Network Action, 20 October 2001

Stupid motherfuckers - lying sacks of shit
Killing innocence - pissing on graves
Smile for the cameras - call it suicide
No way to hide your mountain of lies!

Digna Ochoa: Presente!
Eduardo Umaña: Presente!
Padre Alcides: Presente!
Sr. Gonzalez: Presente!

Stupid li'l' insects - cobardes de mierda
Coming with guns - attacking the unarmed
Hiding your face - living a lie
No way to hide your mountain of lies!

Digna Ochoa: Presente!
Eduardo Umaña: Presente!
Padre Alcides: Presente!
Sr. Gonzalez: Presente!

Imbeciles enanos - digan que ganaron?
Creen que mataron pero resuscitaron!
Y se desgastaron - imbeciles mentiras
No way to hide your mountain of lies!

Digna Ochoa: Presente!
Eduardo Umaña: Presente!
Padre Alcides: Presente!
Sr. Gonzalez: Presente!

Whatcha see when you look in her eyes?
Just another woman you wanna fuck?
Whatcha see when you look in their eyes?
Customers and suckers you're ready to con?
Whatcha see when you turn out the light?
Think it's Lord Jesus you're seeing smile?
Are you so sure that your thinking's right?
Maybe just maybe you'll lead a collapse?

She doesn't know you're waiting
To screw her and no more
Pretend to really love her
but all you want is more

Drive your fucking guzzler
You think the sky's the limit
Don't think about the planet
Our city is sinking

You go on bombing countries
And starving all their people
Don't think about the price tag
Your people are screaming!

But you're so fucking wrong
World's catching up to you
Used to running roughshod
You'll pay your dues
You think you're fucking clever
You think you know the score
Got news for you budroe
Game's over - ya gotta go!

Hey asshole:
You're lightweight
Don't screw us
No mandate

"The world will be an emptier, lonelier place. Still, we humans can look forward to sharing the future with a fair number of beetles, tapeworms, fungi, tarweeds, mollusks, and mites. Dandelions and silverfish are also a good bet."

-- David Quammen, The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions, © 1997 Touchstone, NY, NY pp. 528-529.

Globalization, you can see
Rupert Murdoch on all TVs
KFC and Taco Bells
The world's for sale if you can pay

And the boys at the IMF
The World Bank, it's all there!
OPIC, ExIm, and IFI
Corporate welfare done globalize
Done globalize

We're running for shelter
The bulldozers coming
They're smashing our welfare
Our freedoms our forests

They paid for the White House,
The Kremlin, the Reichstag
They speak the same language:
Without money you're nothing

Then assholes in Congress
Equate freedom with money
They're servants of power
Of riches, of cowards
Of riches, of cowards
Of riches, of cowards

With help from the media
And newscasts for fatcats
The chimp in the White House
Sold us into tax cuts

And what about Enron?
What this Haliburton?
It's business as usual!
It's corporate bamboozle

So people are marching
And windows are smashing
They know that this system
is trickle down poison!
trickle down poison!
trickle down poison!

…[O]n April 21, 1994, the [United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda,]UNAMIR commander, Major General Dallaire, declared that with just five thousand well-equipped soldiers and a free hand to fight Hutu power, he could bring the genocide to a rapid halt… Yet, on the same day, the UN Security Council passed a resolution that slashed the UNAMIR force by ninety percent… The desertion of Rwanda by the UN force was Hutu Power's greatest diplomatic victory to date, and it can be credited almost single-handedly to the United States… [T]he Clinton Administration's ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright, opposed leaving even the skeleton crew of two hundred seventy in Rwanda.

-- Philip Gourevitch in We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda. Pg. 150, © 1998. About 800,000 Rwandans, mostly Tutsi, were systematically killed by Hutu genocidaires in 100 days in 1994.

Even though we said we were helping
What we did was no good
Even though we tried to be clever
Tutsis all got screwed
Even though we thought we were careful
We just tightened the noose
Even though I thought we learned something
That is far from the truth

Moral cowards, egos, hypocrites
Hiding behind a mask of outrage

Definitions, word games, and syntax
Brought the world an evil result

Don't you think it's time to account for
All the info we knew
Don't you think it's time to confront what
We all failed to do
Don't you think it's time to stop saying
We don't know what to do
Don't you think it's time to transform what
Human rights groups do

Doesn't help compassion's an industry
Porno-misery Marketing ploys

Direct mail, same kind of gimmicks that
Sells the products on the TV

"Our Dear Leader, Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, How are you? We wish you to be strong in all these problems we are facing. We wish to inform you that we have heard that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. We therefore request you to intervene on our behalf…"

And the Pastor did nothing
And Albright did "nothing"
And the U.S. did "nothing"
So the U.N. did "nothing"

So we all watched
And they all died
For what?
Genocide

"'The American citizen's first importance to his country," declared a Muncie newspaper [in 1928], "is no longer that of a citizen but that of a consumer.'"

-- James Foner in The Story of American Freedom, © 1998, pg. 151.

I live in a dream
That's not my own
And all the silly things
I'd like to own
Some ideals
Come straight out of TV ads
I'm always so caught up
Caught in the latest fads

You want as many possessions
As you can possess
You want so many possessions
You're becoming possessed

Gucci, Glass by Tiffany
The things you buy won't set you free
Calvin Klein, Riunite on Ice
Your lifestyle has more style than life
Robert Palmer on CD
Don't you see the trap you're in
Plenty of things to take to your tomb
You're not a consumer- you're being consumed

Cause I'm trapped in this dream
That's not my own
And all these useless things
I can't help but own
My behavior
Designed by those TV ads
Is all designed
To turn my brain into crap

I want as many possessions
As I can possess
I want so many possessions
I'm becoming possessed