Dogma

Many many moons ago I was a fan of the band KMFDM, especially in their earlier electronic days. My interest has waned over the years though as the sound became more thrashy & guitar-driven. I digress...
On their 1996 album "XTORT", there was a spoken-word track (well, mostly spoken word) called "Dogma", which had started out as a poem called "Indictment" by Nicole Blackman. In fact, she's the one doing the speaking on the song.

I was listening to the song today, and it struck me interesting how appropriate some of the sentiment is today. What started off as probably an anti-Conservative rant fits really well in today's anti-Liberal climate and with today's completely messed-up economy and social climate. I also find it a funny coincidence that it was released in 1996 at the height of the Clinton presidency and holds true in the Obama reign.....

The track is probably not going to be your cup of tea, but I thought ya'll might find it interesting too.

All we want is a headrush
All we want is to get out of our skin for a while
We have nothing to lose because we don't have anything...
Anything we want anyway...
We used to hate people;
now we just make fun of them.
It's more effective that way.
We don't live.
We just scratch on, day to day,
with nothing but matchbooks and sarcasm in our pockets.
And all we are waiting for is for something worth waiting for.
Let's admit it; America gets the celebrities we deserve.
Let's stop saying "Don't quote me" because if no one quotes you,
you probably haven't said a thing worth saying.
We need something to kill the pain of all that nothing inside.
We all just want to die a little bit.

We fear that pop-culture is the only culture we're ever going to have.
We want to stop reading magazines,
stop watching T.V.,stop caring about Hollywood,
but we're addicted to the things we hate.

We don't run Washington and no one really does.
Ask not what you can do for your country,
Ask what your country did to you.

The only reason you're still alive is because someone
has decided to let you live.

We owe so much money we're not broke' we're broken.
We're so poor we can't even pay attention.

So what do you want?
You want to be famous and rich and happy,
but you're terrified you have nothing to offer this world.
Nothing to say and no way to say it,
but you can say it in three languages.

You are more than the sum of what you consume.Desire is not an occupation.
You are alternately thrilled and desperate,
Sky-high and fucked.

Let's stop praying for someone to save us and start saving ourselves.
Let's stop this and start over.
Let's go out - let's keep going.

This is your life - this is your fucking life.We need something to kill the pain of all that nothing inside.
Quit whining that you haven't done anything wrong because, frankly,
you haven't done much of anything.

Someone's writing down your mistakes.
Someone's documenting your downfall.



Nicole Blackman at a speaking engagement.