[escrutador]

Kate Adams wrote:

> In the meantime, a little quiz for you Escrutador: (no helpers please)
> 
> In "The Power and The Passion" the Oils sing "Its better to die on your 
> feet than to live on your knees".  This was not an original quote.  To 
> whom may the original quote be attributed?


Hi Kate!

You're an intelligent woman and also a fighter for justice. I know you 
have a big monster to deal with. My last comment was hateful but 
sometimes discussion levels here about september 11th are terrible.


OK, you've done a quiz.


a) Cowntdown is an album with six songs with a strong political content 
and power and the passion is one of them. The context is Cold War, 
Ronald Reagan in the White House and Margaret Tatcher as Prime Minister 
of England.


b) Power and the passion is a song about ideologies:

"People, wasting away in paradise
Going backward, once in a while
Moving ahead, falling behind
What do you believe
What do you believe
What do you believe is true
Nothing they say makes a difference this way
'Cos nothing they say will do

Take all the trouble that you can afford
At least you won't have time to be bored

Oh the power and the passion
Oh the temper of the time
Oh the power and the passion
Sometimes you've got to take the hardest line"


It seems to me, I'm hearing the voice of someone who doesn't believe in 
the system, in the politics; someone who makes the question: "what do 
you believe is true" and have no answer yet and someone who is taking 
the hardest line to destroy the system.


The second part of the song is little more complicated, because I don't 
know who is Gough. Nevertheless, I'm hearing the voice of someone who is 
in the beach "enjoying?" the sunshine and the sky, someone who's 
laughing at the truth and have taken the hardest line to call John and 
Uncle Sam.


The third part is Australia and the oils, the "take waht you get and get 
what you please" is a clear sarcasm about consumerism "in the paradise". 
and the "it's better to die on your feet than to live in your knees" is 
the voice of resistance against consumerism system.



c) It has been discused in the past that quote on this list. Someone 
said it was from a Greek Philosopher (i don't remember who philosopher). 
I found the quote on a mexican anarchist publication from beggining of 
twenty century, the Flores Magon brothers have published a lot of 
articules in their own newspaper "Regeneracion" attackin the porfirio 
Diaz Dictatorship. One of that articles is "Puntos rojos" (red points) 
by Praxedis Guerrero, where they call mexican people to stand in arms 
against dicatorship, and one of the points said:

"it's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees"

So, maybe the original quote was from a Greek Philosopher, the Flores 
Magon brothers used it as a revolutionary idea and the pils have taken 
it to question people of Australia.


I guess there are a lot of lyrics ideas around this and I'd like to read 
them.


See you!


escrutador