Column by Leonidas.
Exclusive to STR
So, I was listening to the Monkees theme last week, and it suddenly struck me that behind that chirpy upbeat bubblegum rock facade were some seriously disturbing lyrics full of threats and antisocial attitudes. See if you agree:
Here we come, walkin'
Down the street.
An assertive group identity proclaiming an aggressive takeover of a public venue.
We get the funniest looks from
Ev'ry one we meet.
Weak self-image and a self-conscious inference tied to an unstable group dynamic full of young males. This is usually a catalyst for self-indulgent anti-social behaviors and violence in order to assert dominance.
Hey, hey, we're the Monkees
And people say we monkey around.
But we're too busy singing
To put anybody down.
To "put down" is a euphemism for euthanasia. Hey look at us! We should be the focus of everyone's attention! But we won't kill you so long as we're happy . . . .
We go wherever we want to,
do what we like to do.
A definite statement of capacity for violence coupled with a complete disregard for legal authority and the rights of others.
We don't have time to get restless,
There's always something new.
Young males are often mercurial and easily distracted. This along with poor impulse control can, and has, led to tragedy in many ways.
We're just tryin' to be friendly,
Come and watch us sing and play,
We're the young generation,
And we've got something to say.
And if you don't listen? Violent gangs often approach their victims with smiles and a friendly demeanor, then things swiftly change and victims are created.
Any time, or anywhere,
Just look over your shoulder
Guess who'll be standing there.
If you don't think that line is creepy, you need to think again. Try it out on a stranger. Heck, try it out on your Mom. Try saying it in a flat tone while staring into a mirror with a blank face and you’ll creep yourself out.
Hey, hey, we're the Monkees,
You never know where we'll be found.
so you'd better get ready,
We may be comin' to your town.
They will be taking their predatory violence on the road. Beware.
Let’s face it, these aren’t the happy-go-lucky mokes they want you to think they are, this is a smiley-faced version of Alex and his droogs from “A Clockwork Orange.” Alex and his boys embraced the exact same ethos as the Monkees:
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, and we sat in the Korova milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening.
Four young men, bored, members of a group that is heavily invested in a group identity. Good things will not result. It is rare in the extreme that a group of bored young males has ever spontaneously started doing community service. They get restless, so then there’s something new:
It was around by the derelict casino that we came across Billyboy and his four droogs. They were getting ready to perform a little of the old in-out, in-out on a weepy young devotchka they had there.
I think you get the point. You can go through “A Clockwork Orange” and find far more similarities between Alex, Dim, Georgie, Pete, and the boys from the Monkees than dissimilarities, provided you look past the surface and peer into the subtext.
I could go on for pages and pages pointing out one striking similarity after another, and supporting each claim with cites from psychiatry and psychology publications, but I won’t.
Why not?
It’s all crap.
The Monkees were a bunch of lovable playful, non-threatening pretty boy doofs meant to appeal to teenage girls. The boys in “A Clockwork Orange” are vicious, evil sociopaths incapable of anything approaching humanity or humaneness. The two groups couldn’t be more different.
So, finally, I’ll get to the point. That point is: just because some jackass makes a claim, then supports it with various reasonable sounding cites to back up his contention, it doesn’t render it a valid claim. Potential specious folderol should always be approached with a stringent critical eye.
Remember to do that the next time the apparatchik news is wailing about some government claim that there are terrorists all around, and we need to surrender more freedoms because of it.
Every time any government agent makes a claim, no matter how innocuous, your default belief should be that the claim is a bald-faced lie until proven otherwise. Every single terror plot since 2001 in the US has been either completely or in major part a creation of Federal agents. Every. Single. One. Then they proudly crow about having halted yet another threat to our freedoms, which they then use as an excuse to strip us of more freedoms.
When the Feds said that four cranky, swollen, prostated old men sitting in a north Georgia Waffle House were the second coming of the Abu Nidal Organization, that should have been a wakeup call for everyone with regards to their credibility.
Don’t give into the lie. Don’t give into fear. Don’t submit to imbeciles in uniforms like TSA agents who now think they can harass passersby in the street at a whim. They are growing in day-to-day streetside influence just like the Black Shirts under Mussolini and the Red Guards under Mao, because we let them.
Tell them to go to hell while you still can. Start resisting them in any way you can. Make their lives difficult. Be a pain in the ass. Make them want to quit. Make every corrupt government agent you come into contact with want to quit. Because if you don’t, well, then:
Any time, Or anywhere,
Just look over your shoulder
Guess who'll be standing there.
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