Anarchy

[Intro]

I learned in Korea that I would never again, in my life, abdicate to somebody else my right and my ability to decide who the enemy is

[Verse]

Got back from Korea

I was so mad at what I'd seen and done

I wasn't sure I could ever live in the country again

I got on the freight trains up in Everett, north of Seattle

And kind of cruised the country for two years

Making up songs, but I was drunk most of the time so I forgot most of those

I'd heard that there was a house in Salt Lake City by the Roper Yards of the Denver and Rio Grande Western

There was a clothing barrel and free food

So I got off the train there

I was headed for Salt Lake anyway

And I found that house

Right where they said it was

But most of all I found this wiry old man

Sixty-nine years old

Tougher than nails, heart of gold

Fellow by the name of Ammon Hennacy

Anybody know that name?

Ammon Hennacy?

One of Dorothy Day's people, the Catholic Workers

During the thirties they started Houses of Hospitality all over the country

There are about eighty of them now

Ammon Hennacy was one of those

He'd come west to start this house I'd found

Called the Joe Hill House of Hospitality

Ammon Hennacy was a Catholic anarchist pacifist draft-dodger in two world wars tax refuser vegetarian one man revolution in America

I think that about covers it

It was pure hell

First thing he did was he said

After he got to know me, he said

"You know you love the country

You love it. You come in and out on these trains

Singing songs about different places and beautiful people

You know you love the country

You just can't stand the government

Get it straight."

He quoted Mark Twain to me

"Loyalty to the country always

Loyalty to the government when it deserves it"

(Get it straight)

(Get it straight)

It was an essential distinction I had been neglecting

And then he had to reach out and grapple with the violence

But he did that with all the people around him

These Second World War vets, you know

On medical disabilities and all drunked up

The house was filled with violence, which Ammon, as a pacifist, dealt with

Every moment and every day of his life

He said, "You've got to be a pacifist."

I said, "Why?"

He said, "It'll save your life."

And my behavior was very violent then

I said, "What is it?"

He said, "Well I can't give you a book by Gandhi

You wouldn't understand it

I can't give you a list of rules that if you sign it, you're a pacifist."

He said, "You look at it like booze

You know, alcoholism will kill somebody

Until they finally get the courage to sit in a circle of people like that

And put their hand up in the air and say

'Hi, my name's Utah and I'm an alcoholic'

And then you can begin to deal with the behavior, you see

And have the people define it for you whose lives you've destroyed."

He said, "It's the same with violence

You know, an alcoholic, they can be dry for twenty years

They're never gonna sit in that circle and put their hand up and say

'Well, I'm not an alcoholic anymore,'

No, they're still gonna put their hand up an say

'Hi, my name's Utah and I'm an alcoholic'

It's the same with violence

You've gotta be able to put your hand in the air and acknowledge your capacity for violence

And then deal with the behavior

And have the people whose lives you've messed with define that behavior for you, you see

And it's not gonna go away

You're going to be dealing with it in every moment and every situation for the rest of your life."

I said, "Well OK, I'll try that."

And Ammon said, "It's not enough!"

I said, "Oh."

(I said, "Oh.")

(I said, "Oh.")

He said, "You were born a white man in mid-twentieth century industrial America

You came into the world armed to the teeth with an arsenal of weapons

The weapons of privilege

Racial privilege, sexual privilege, economic privilege

You wanna be a pacifist, it's not just giving up guns and knives and clubs and fists and angry words

But giving up the weapons of privilege

And going into the world completely disarmed

Try that."

That old man's been gone now twenty years and I'm still at it

But I figure if there's a worthwhile struggle in my own life

That's probably the one

Think about it

I always wanted to write a song about that old man

He never wanted one about him, he was that way

But something mulched up from his thought

His anarchist thought

Anarchist in the best sense of the word

So many times he stood up in front of Federal District Judge Ritter, that old fart

And he'd be picked up for picketing illegally

And he never pled innocent or guilty

He pled anarchy

And Ritter'd say, "What's an anarchist, Hennacy?"

And Ammon'd say, "An anarchist is anybody who doesn't need a cop to tell him what to do."

Kind of a fundamentalist anarchist, huh?

And Rittre'd say, "But Ammon, you broke the law, what about that?"

And Ammon'd say, "Aw, judge, your damn laws

The good people don't need 'em and the bad people don't obey 'em

So what use are they?"

(Anarchy)

(Anarchy)

Well I lived there for eight years and I watched him

I mainly watched him

And I discovered, watching him, that anarchy is not a noun but an adjective

It describes the tension between moral autonomy and political authority

Especially in the area of combinations

Whether they're gonna be voluntary or coercive

The most destructive coercive combinations are arrived at by force

Like Ammon said

"Force is the weapon of the weak."

(Anarchy)

(Think about it)

(Anarchy)

(Think about it)

(Force is the weapon of the weak?)

(Anybody know that name?

Ammon Hennacy?")