THE RIGHT TO REPLY The house looks for an answer to end all the violence The ungovernable finally break silence There's endless white papers and new institutions That still won’t stop us, it’s no solution The right and the left wing continue to bore With pre dated policies all heard before This is mankind now see how mankind kills Now we are hitting back hard and you see how it feels They preach and teach examinational tests So, the political privileged can order the rest Of the young parasites who live in a world without hope To get back in line, and stay there, then assure us they will cope In the new violent Britain, they pledge to invest In skills and communities with renewed interest To build schools of education, not colleges of crime A manifesto so perfectly timed Providing help for the helpless, their new commissions strive For a stable reeducated society by 1995 Meanwhile, we fight on in desperation still trying to break through Their barriers of insanity and even now they know it’s true That to eradicate violence effectively, injustice has to unfold But, instead they choose to compensate, to lie and then collaborate No interest in any true debate, their courts set up the offender’s fate The new secure units for the old custodial sentence Well we have listened to you for long enough, taken all your threats and you ain't so tough You intimidate then punish the persistent hard core offender You condemn more and understand less; so you will get no apologies ever In an atmosphere of moral panic, you blame us for fighting back But it’s us that has been dragged through your streets backwards, battered shell shocked and attacked The pressure’s building on law and order, but we ain't even started They may think that they have been tested, but no way, for we still stand divided More and more, we’re turning against our own, how come? How have we forgot? That this is the one thing they want us to do, to compensate for the freedom we ain't got Some mug old folk and these are scum It’s the one main thing that just isn’t done We can deal perfectly with our own problems By taking the law into our hands We can protect our own, young, the weak and elderly And therefore smash their callous plans I shall not work to build my death, nor have decisions made by fools for my or your behalf As though I can’t see or hear that which surrounds me As though I'm quite content with all that, disgusts me I will not build for another's gain, although it always ends up the same It’s as though I can’t see or hear, as though I'm content, with everything that disgusts me How can they talk about low life, whilst they’re destroying the earth? How can they take away someone’s freedom, when they don’t know what it’s worth? To the people with feelings, to those not totally succeeding Those, shattered, torn, ripped right in half, and whose broken hearts are bleeding Yet still they bash and batter, to them, mad onslaught does not matter They create society’s whitewashed picture that everything is alright Then when people voice opinion and object, they show disgust, confusion and then demonstrate their might Don’t you dare think for a moment, that it’s only in a riot that we show we are discontent? It is with every so-called criminal act that we demonstrate our contempt You shove your outstanding promises, your respect; I only have respect for life That you destroy time and time again, then dismiss in your stride I'm still hoping for the hopeless and making excuses for the lawless
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