'Raise Your Fist and Yell'

(Alice Cooper, 1987)

by Retta Fontana 

Exclusive to STR

September 21, 2007

"If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem." — George W. Bush, Jan. 2001  

When I was young, I loved Alice Cooper. I still do. He railed against convention, mediocrity, tyranny and everything that was wrong in life but that adults were too wussed out to address. Usually it’s only young people, or the young at heart, who recognize cow dung for what it is, until, overcome with fear, futility or the seduction of consumerism, they give it up and get in line.  

“Terrible twos” are not what they are cracked up to be. They are not the worst in a child coming out. I’m convinced that they are the appropriate response of a free soul meeting the horror of conformity for the sake of conformity itself, at the very hands that are entrusted to act in their highest good. What free soul wants to be controlled senselessly? Likewise, teenagers, by their actions, object long and loud to torture, conformity and the initiation of force, and I’m ever so grateful that they do.  

“Teenage Lament” ~ Alice Cooper

I ran into my room
And I fell down on my knees
Well, I thought that fifteen
Was gonna be a breeze
I picked up my guitar
To blast away the clouds
But somebody in the next room yelled
"You gotta turn that damn thing down!"  

It sickens me that teenagers are rounded up like so many head of cattle and prodded into government re-education camps called “schools.” Most people think teenagers are troublemakers. Wouldn’t you be if you were treated like a part-time prisoner of war? They should be turning it up and blasting away the clouds.  

Instead, in schools children are taught to move about at the sound of bell. Their health is sold to the highest bidder in lunch programs. Government employees are paid to brainwash them into thinking that our country was founded on “Core Democratic Values” rather than the Bill of Rights, which is seldom mentioned. All the screaming about funding “for the children” serves only to pad the benefit and retirement packages of teachers and administrators all the way up the food chain, with our children being eaten alive at the bottom. Oh yes, it’s for the children. Dig a little deeper, taxpayer, or you’ll get the “teacher’s dirty looks” Alice sang about, and watch out--they are backed by the guns of government.  

$90K a year for a first grade teacher in New Jersey sounds like a welfare program to me. How can they be worth three times the salary of the average American? The simple answer is this: work done by teachers in government schools reaps lifetime benefits of brainwashing – it creates good voters, citizens and taxpayers. They should be paid really well--they are really bringing home the bacon for the powers that be, while putting their own children in private schools, just like politicians.  

“I'm a boy and I'm a man” ~ A.C.

“I got a baby's brain and an old man's heart
Took eighteen years to get this far
Don't always know what I'm talkin' about
Feels like I'm livin’ in the middle of doubt
Cause I'm

Eighteen, I get confused every day
Eighteen, I just don't know what to say
Eighteen, I gotta get away”  

You have to love teenagers. Who else, aside from Country Western lyricists, would admit to doubt and sing about what is in their heart and what it is they feel? A real man, then, becomes someone who does not feel? Or just someone who does not admit what is in their heart? No wonder we’re in this political and economic mess.  

No matter how hard they try, teenage energy could never compare to the destruction inflicted upon humanity by a Category 5 President bearing down on one “Axis of Evil” nation or other. The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale spells it out. George W. Bush, the Empire-Builder-In-Chief, who warned us against “nation-building missions,” is a windbag capable of greater than 155 mph lies, storm (troop) surges far greater than above normal (if there is a “normal” in war). “Complete roof failures, small utility buildings blow over or away. All shrubs, trees, and signs blown down. Complete destruction of mobile homes. Severe and extensive window and door damage. Low-lying escape routes are cut. Major damage to lower floors of all structures . . . . Massive evacuation of residential areas.” Sound familiar? Is it a hurricane or is it a President? The war in Iraq costs 2 billion dollars per week and yet this does not begin to address the loss of human life or future destruction caused by new enemies we create every day.  

Like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I doubt that the scarred landscape of Iraq will ever truly be healed no matter how many billions more dollars of taxpayer money is forked over to military contractors. Also like Katrina, the utter disaster in Iraq could have been prevented if it weren’t for government in all its drag queen pretense as savior. (Recall that the failed levees in New Orleans were built and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers.) No matter how powerful it may be, a natural hurricane is preferential to a government storm every time: Even though the property damage is eerily similar, there is a complete absence of malice on mother nature’s part, and her death toll is always much lower.  

A few weeks ago I learned that a 19-year-old fellow I knew took his own life. He was a friend of my son’s since age 5. I hadn’t spoken to this boy in a couple years. I would say that I barely knew him anymore except to say hello, but I still felt deeply pained by this news. People who did not even know him were moved to tears when the subject arose. The family’s lives are shattered and the senseless death of one human being goes out in waves of pain in a community. Imagine the effect of the senseless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. It is far from over. In fact, the Decider won’t even discuss the end of it.  

Unlike in nature, the hurricane of government war is like a bad dream from which there is no waking, certainly not when victory is declared nor even if or when a cease-fire agreement is signed. Now the political radar shows us clearly that “Hurricane George” is picking up steam again and bearing down hard on his next target, Iran . Cast your bread upon the water, George. After many days it will find you again. God help you when it does. The “compassionate” war machine of democracy and propaganda plays on.  

“School’s Out” ~ A.C.

“Well we got no choice
all the girls and boys
Makin' all that noise

cause they found new toys.
Oh we can't salute ya
can't find a flag
If that don't suit ya
that's a drag.
School's out for summer
school's out forever
School 's been blown to pieces.”

School’s been blown to pieces? That is what I’m talking about. Today old Alice would find himself in a cement and steel cage for such an idea. The cult of public schooling has become the sanctioned state religion with our children as living sacrifices on its altar.  

No one could argue the fact that we have a lot more government than we’ve ever had before in this country. It was continually sold to us “for our own good.” Are we now better off, or worse? Are we more free or less? Will yet more government increase our freedom? Who believes these lies anyway? One definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different outcome. Stop the insanity! Voting only encourages them!  

“Freedom” ~ A.C.

“We the people of the United States
In order to form a more perfect union
Stop pretending that you've never been bad
You're never wrong and you've never been dirty
You're such a saint, that ain't the way we see you
You want to rule us with an iron hand
You change the lyrics and become Big Brother
This ain't Russia, you ain't my Dad or Mother
(They never knew anyway)
'Cuz I never walk away from what I know is right
But I'm gonna turn my back on you

You're playing God from your ivory tower
Back off preacher, I don't care if it's Sunday
I ain't no angel, but I never felt better
We're a make-up metal generation
We're not as stupid as you want to make us
You better leave us man
'Cuz you sure can't take us
Nobody better tell you how to live your life
You gotta do it on your own

Freedom, we're gonna ring the bell
Freedom to rock, freedom to talk
Freedom -

Raise your fist and yell!”

Tell it, Alice ! If more people would raise their fist and yell, this world would be a better place. Don’t wait until you figure out what to yell or what to rail against, or how to object “properly.” Make some goddamn waves already! Use a barter system for things you need and help starve to death the war machine. Question authority – take your children back from the state – they’ll thank you. Stage an old-fashioned sit-in, decry the bitter truth in a blog, or hang a sign on an overpass. Whatever way you do it, stop licking the hand that feeds you! Get your miserable ass out into the street and snap yourself and your neighbors out of the collective trance this nation is under. If you do nothing, that’s what you’ll get. Take a whack at the root of tyranny. Raise your fist and yell, damn it! It’s not insanity!  

Burying your head in the sand hoping your life won’t be confiscated for the greater good is insane- it’s already on the chopping block with taxation at over 40%.  Announcements over public address systems to be on “orange alert,” whatever that is, is insanity. Perpetual war in hopes of finding peace is insanity. Bloated government is insanity. Bleating like sheep at the ballot box in hopes of changing things is insanity.  

If you can’t think of what to yell – experiment. Are you a man or a mouse? Squeak up! For starters, take yourself out into the middle of the street, take a deep breath and scream, “NOOOO!” Would I tell you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself, dear reader? NO, I WOULDN’T. Take a page from Network and try screaming out your window, we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take this anymore! See if it makes you feel crazier or more sane than ever. Do you want to live or do you want to keep dying, slowly, one bitch-ass, bullshit law at a time?!  

What’s that, you say? Your neighbors will think you’re crazy? Sorry, they are not thinking about you that much. To keep taking it up the tailpipe like they do is what’s crazy. To keep voting for more of the goddamn same is what’s crazy. Maybe they’re just waiting for someone else to rage at the machine first. Revolution was an outrageous notion too. Aren’t you glad it happened? Let that teenage energy buried inside you out of prison. Someone has to be first. Get up off of that thing! Don’t expect someone else to do this. You have to show the world that it is not crazy to object to tyranny. Putting human beings in cages or killing them en masse, now that is crazy!  

Don’t make me come over there and get all up in your face, damn it! You’ll be sorry. Do you really want a visit from the Motor City madwoman?! Well, do you? There is one angry teenager inside me who’s mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!