This is a people as pirates, a people as pirates, a people as pirates... What's the matter with the brains of the big boys with the big money Are they bruised are they battered, are they swollen are they bloody With the wounds and the scars of the people they've mistreated With the scabs and the heals of the movements they've defeated Are they bloody, are they bloody, are they bloody, are they bloody? See, i was taught to believe in a scale of justice But the people with the power in their pockets, they outweigh us And now the executive cla** buys executive branch status By purchasing supreme court time And white collar crime in this country becomes a comedy While the drug war drama gets a bigger, better review And now it's all lit up in big lights and coming to a town near you Meanwhile, enron gives millions to the taliban To build a pipeline through afghanistan And the corporate scam of evil is buried deep beneath the sand Transporting the blood of children in palestine, iraq, and iran And somehow the rage flows through the pipelines to the pipebombs Of little white boys in wisconsin Somehow the rage flows to the suicides in jerusalem cafes The rage flows to the terror in the new york city subways The rage flows to the stones flung in algiers It flows with nuclear waste down the path of yucca mountain's years The rage flows, the rage flows, the rage flows And the t.v. newscasters say, "repeat after me, rage flows for no reason Now stick these antennaes on your forehead, freedom of thought may channel treason Freedom of thought may channel treason" Well, give me one reason, one reason to defy my global people Cause we got ninety years, if we're lucky, on this planet And i refuse to eat mine sandwiched between commercials for fake bu*ter and cheese
Caffeine and saccharine food us up and the hypodermic media shoots us up Until our brains are entombed, petrified, lying side by side next to our 401 k's and our suv's Encased in caskets, plastered with compliance Chainstored in the chamber of a walmart mummy freeze And outside this sarcophagus of american flags and god bless's Our collective conscience is brought right down to its knees Brought right down to its knees Praying forgiveness for this nation exporting numbness For treasure-looting the oil, the ozone, the airwaves, and the grain These are our true colors running And they are running away with everything Cause the big boys have smelled our protests as potent as their poison in our water That's why they've squashed down our squawking like the chickens in their trucks I guess we just taste better all cagey and blindfolded All freaked out and huddled up So yeah, i say, no atlas is scary And yes, i confess, resistance is chilling But the roadblocks are k**ing us And the deadends keep building This is a battle of burdens, it's a collision of moral proofs This is a people as pirates and we are stealing back the truth We are stealing back the truth From the brains of the big boys with the big money Are they bruised, are they swollen, are they battered, are they bloody Are they bloody, are they bloody, are they bloody? You gotta steal back the truth, you gotta steal back the truth You gotta steal back the truth from abc and cbs and cnn You gotta steal back the truth from disney and hbo You gotta steal back the truth from npr even, these days This is a people as pirates, a people as pirates This is a people