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[7-2-1-1] "Since 1516, minds attacked and overseen"
1516, the year that the Spaniards took hold in Central America and began their systematic destruction of the indigenous culture and religion. They did not leave until several hundred years later.
[7-2-1-2] "Blood drenched, get offensive like Tet"
Tet is the Vietnamese New Year. During the Vietnam War, US military officials decided to give the troops a rest, figuring that the North Vietnamese would be celebrating the holiday. They were wrong, and the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong took that opportunity to attack 22 major U.S installations. This is what is now known as the Tet offensive. The U.S. beat back all of the attacks, but a physical victory was never the goal of the VC and NVA. Their goal, which was met, was to turn US public opinion against the war. This was due in a large part to the fact that US journalists got caught in some close quarters fighting and had plenty to say about the ordeal. The film "Full Metal Jacket" by Stanley Kubrick has an excellent account of this series of battles (though it is not the focus of the movie).
[7-2-1-3] "When the fifth sun sets, get back, reclaim"
The Aztecs believed that 4 worlds existed before the present universe (worlds = suns). Each one was ruled by a different god of a different element, and we are currently in the fifth sun.
[7-2-1-4] "Spirit of Cuahtemoc, alive and untamed"
Cuahtemoc was the leader of the Aztec empire during the Spanish siege of Technochtitlan, in 1521. After the city's fall, he was captured, deceived, tortured, and killed by the Spaniards. This lyric does NOT refer to the mayor of Mexico City, Cuahtemoc Cardenas. This man was simply named after the Aztec leader.
[7-2-1-5] "I'm the Marlboro man"
Marlboro brand cigarettes, whose primary advertising technique is a handsome cowboy on the range smoking a cigarette. He is known as the Marlboro Man. The original Marlboro Man recently died of lung cancer.
[7-2-1-6] "City of Angels does tha ethnic cleanse"
Nickname for Los Angeles, California. California's Proposition 187's goal was to eliminate and deny all federal assistance to anyone not able to prove residency, primarily immigrant Latinos.
[7-2-2] "Bulls on Parade"
[7-2-2-2] "Either drop the hits like De la O..."
De la O was a dynamite/explosives expert who was a great asset to Emiliano Zapata in the Mexican war for Independence. Some notable actions were blowing up trains and making a particularly critical arms cache accessible to the rebels at one point in the conflict.
[7-2-2-2] "...or get tha fuck off tha commode"
A "commode" is a euphemism for a toilet in the United States.
[7-2-2-3] "That five sided fist-a-gon"
A twisting of the name Pentagon. The Pentagon is in Washington, D.C., and is the headquarters of the Department of Defense of the United States. The "fist" indicates the force often exercised by the military.
[7-2-3] "Vietnow"
[7-2-3-1] Introduction (Rather subjective. By the author.)
This song is one huge reference to the extremely popular, and extremely right-wing, radio shows hosted by such people as Rush Limbaugh, Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy, and son of Ronald Reagan, Michael Reagan. They all put forth similar reactionary agendas over the US airwaves.
[7-2-3-2] "Crosses and kerosene"
See section [7-1-2-1].
[7-2-3-3] "The same one that ran around Managua wit a sword"
During the Iran-Contra affair in the mid 1980's, Oliver North (see [7-2-3-4]) and company funded the counterrevolutionaries in Nicaragua, based in Managua.
[7-2-3-4] "Check out tha new style that Ollie found"
Oliver North, whose conviction in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980's was overturned on a technicality, now hosts an extremely right-wing radio talk show and has run for Senate.
[7-2-3-5] "Comin' down like bats from Stacy Coon"
Former Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Stacey Coon was one of the four LAPD policemen videotaped beating black motorist Rodney King in the early 90's. He was the only one to be convicted. The 1992 LA riots followed the trial (and acquittals).
[7-2-4] "Tire Me"
[7-2-4-1] "Colorful words for the Laos frontiersmen"
The "Laos Frontiersmen" are the Hmong tribe from Laos, which the CIA used and then set about to destroy once their objectives were achieved. The CIA used the Hmong region as a big airstrip in which to drop supplies for the Hmong rebels. When the helicopters and aircraft left Laos to return from whence they came, they carried poppies and refined heroin to other regions where they were able to sell it, thus funding their covert operations.
[7-2-4-2] "I wanna be Jackie Onassis"
Jackie Onassis was the wife of assassinated US President John F. Kennedy and, later, Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. She was the symbol of glamour and "good" for many people of her generation. Zack gets this lyric from the Boston band Human Sexual Response, who had a song called "Jackie Onassis."
[7-2-5] "Down Rodeo"
[7-2-5-1] "Funk tha track my verbs fly like tha family stone"
Sly and the Family Stone, a funk band from the 1960's and '70's. They were critically important influences toward the development of rap as a musical style, as well as the establishment of funk itself.
[7-2-5-2] "Rollin' down Rodeo with a shotgun"
Rodeo Drive, in Beverly Hills, California is one of the most expensive streets in the world, where retailers sell such things as three thousand dollar purses. The stereotype of Rodeo Drive's patronage is that it is predominately white and wealthy.
[7-2-5-3] "Plead the Fifth 'cause you can't plead the first"
In the US Constitution, the 5th Amendment gives trial witnesses the right to refuse to testify on the grounds that what they say might incriminate themselves. The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees the right to free speech, assembly, and press.
[7-2-5-4] "My man Fred Hampton"
A member of the militant Black Panthers, Hampton was a 20-year-old Illinois state leader. He was gunned down in his bed with fellow Panther Mark Clarke in an early morning raid of the group's Chicago headquarters on Dec. 4, 1969. The attack, aided by the help of an informant/spy, was masterminded by the city's police force and the FBI's powerful counterintelligence program (COINTEL-PRO).
[7-2-5-5] "Fuck tha G ride"
A "G-ride" is a euphemism for a fashionable car, especially in hip-hop culture.
[7-2-5-6] "We hungry but them belly full"
This line is a quote, from Bob Marley's "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)."
[7-2-6] "Without a Face"
[7-2-6-1] "Jack for Similac, fuck a Cadillac"
To "jack" is to get something through whatever means necessary. Similac is a popular brand of baby formula, sold in powdered form (just add water). A Cadillac is a luxury car, made by Chevrolet, and only affordable to the wealthy.
[7-2-6-2] "'Por Vida'"
"For Life," literally, in Spanish, "Por Vida" is a phrase used most often in a cultural manner, as in "La Raza Por Vida," which means, roughly, "the Latino race and culture for life."
[7-2-6-3] "Mais [maize], was all we needed to sustain"
Maize is the strain of corn grown in most of South America. "Mais" is also the Spanish word for corn in general.
[7-2-6-4] "Ya down with DDT"
DDT is a banned pesticide, widely used prior to the "discovery" that it is a class-A carcinogen (cancer-causing agent). The wipeout of hundreds of species can be attributed to its use, which still occurs in less developed regions such as Central and South America. It was recently internationally banned, but use continues where options are not viable. The phrase as a whole is a play on the hit song "O.P.P.", by Naughty by Nature. The chorus was "Ya down with O.P.P., yeah you know me."
[7-2-6-5] "Path is Luminoso"
"Sendero Luminoso" means "Shining Path" in Spanish and is the name of one of the leftist revolutionary guerilla groups in Peru. It was close to capturing the country at one time, but was put down by the new US-backed Peruvian government under Alberto Fujimori. It is treated as a terrorist organization instead of a political party by the governments of most countries.
[7-2-6-6] "Headin' north like my name was Kid Cisco"
The Cisco Kid is a fictional Latino who, with his sidekick Poncho, was a cowboy in a series of old American western movies.
[7-2-6-7] "Wilson's hand around my throat"
Pete Wilson, Republican ex-governor of California, campaigned almost entirely on an anti-immigration platform and was a leading proponent of such measures as Proposition 187, which aimed to cut all benefits to illegal immigrants. Prop 187 was eventually struck down by California courts as unconstitutional.
[7-2-6-8] "Another SS curtain call"
The Schutzstaffel, known as the SS, was the secret police for the Nazi political party and Hitler's personal guard when he came to power in the 30's through to Germany's defeat in World War II.
[7-2-7] "Wind Below"
[7-2-7-1] The "Wind Below"
The "Wind Below" refers to a book called _Chiapas: The Southeast in Two Winds a Storm and a Prophecy_, by Subcommandante Marcos. Marcos is the unofficial spokesperson of the EZLN in Mexico and the second section of the book is entitled "The Second Wind: The Wind From Below." The line "We in wit tha wind below," is a reference to the whole of the Zapatista movement itself.
[7-2-7-2] "NAFTA comin' with tha new disaster"
The North American Free Trade Agreement, which was hotly contested in the United States political scene, allows for free trade between Canada, the US, and Mexico. Opponents of the proposal said US businesses would ship all their manufacturing to Mexico because of the virtual slave labor available there, and it is one of the primary programs known as "Neo-liberalism" and regarded as a new form of US imperialism.
[7-2-7-3] "Tha Plan de Ayala's kin"
The Plan de Ayala was a plan made by Emiliano Zapata prior to the Chiapas rebellion. Its main idea was to give land to the landworkers. The slogan of the plan is "Tierra y Libertad" (Land and Freedom).
[7-2-7-3] "IMF shifts and poison lips"
The IMF is the Internation Monetary Fund, which is associated with the World Bank and the United Nations and controls much capital around the world. It is reported that the IMF has sent military equipment, weapons and the like to the Chiapas area to assist the Mexican army in fighting the Zapatistas (see Section [6-1]).
[7-2-7-3] "Tha fincas overseers"
In the jungles of Mexico, a finca is a form of ranch house or a plantation-style farm, where the workers are essentially slaves to the owners of the land. The meaning of this word has shifted quite a bit, and now can also be considered just a big house as well as the more traditional plantation meaning.
[7-2-7-4] "She is Chol, Tzotzil, Tojolobal, Tzeltal"
Indigenous Central American Mayan tribes, nearly wiped out during the Spanish invasion 500 years ago, and relegated to second-class status in Mexican society ever since.
[7-2-7-5] "Ejidos and Ovaries"
An "ejido" is a communal farm formed when the "campesinos" in Mexico, especially in the Chiapas region, take over a farm to form a collective. Basically, it is a Mexican communal farm owned by no one and worked by everyone.
[7-2-7-5] "GE... NBC... Disney... ABC..."
Major multinational American corporations and broadcasting conglomerates. GE owns NBC (among many, many other things), and Disney owns ABC (also among many, many other things). The Disney merger likely happened after the lyrics were written, and is therefore an interesting coincidence. GE has owned NBC for years. See Section [1-5] for information regarding the censorship of Rage Against the Machine by NBC on their program "Saturday Night Live."
[7-2-8] "Roll Right"
[7-2-8-1] "Shock ya like Ellison"
Ralph Ellison wrote "Invisible Man," in 1952. A fictional account of a black man in a white world, it is now regarded as a classic and widely read in the US school system. In its time it caused a great disruption because of the harsh truthfulness and the power of Ellison's prose.
[7-2-8-2] "Gaza to Tiananmen"
The Gaza Strip is a narrow band of desertlike land along the western Mediterranean coast. It has been fought over by Israelites and Palestinians for many years and is a continuing territorial dispute. Tiananmen Square, in Beijing, China, was the site of a massacre of demonstrating pro-democracy students in June of 1989.
[7-2-8-3] "Sickest stilo"
"Sick" is a word used to mean "cool" or "good" in the hip-hop culture. "Stilo" is Spanish for "style."
[7-2-8-4] "Take 'em to, the 7th level"
The 7th level (sphere) of hell, as according to Dante's Inferno. It was reserved for the warmakers and usurers.
[7-2-9] "Year of tha Boomerang"
[7-2-9-1] The "Year of the Boomerang"
See Section [7-2-9-3].
[7-2-9-2] "Dark now in Dachau"
Dachau was a Nazi-run concentration camp in World War II. It was the primary site for the grotesque medical experiments performed on prisoner Jews, twins, Gypsies, and so on.
[7-2-9-3] "Grip tha cannon like Fanon"
Frantz Fanon wrote such works as Wretched of the Earth, wherein he denounced the third-world colonization practiced by prosperous nations. One of Fanon's most famous speeches was called the "Year of the Boomerang." In the speech he talked about the oppressor's force boomeranging back to destroy him in the form of colonial revolutions. He was referring to the Algerian War, specifically.
[7-2-9-4] "Goin' out heavy sorta like Mount Tai"
Mount Tai, or Tai Shan, is part of the Tien Shan mountain range. It is the section that lies in China near the village where the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius was born. It is 5000 ft. (1,500 m.) high. In the "Little Red Book" of quotations of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, Mao utilizes an ancient Chinese proverb to say that to die for the people is "as heavy as Mount Tai" and to die for the imperialists is "as light as a feather." This is in the section of the book titled "Serving The People."
A la Une 
Significations des paroles
Ecrit par: Peter () le 09-05-2008