HOLIDAY IN CAMBODIA - Dead Kennedys

April 17, 1975 I was teaching at South Boston High School. Poor black students were bussed to the worst white school in the city. A federal judge from the suburbs mandated the order to desegregate the school system. His children attended private schools. Riots were a regular occurrence. The most violent outburst were reserved for the TV cameras. Everyone wanted fame even in infamy. I can't recall exactly what happened on April 17, 1975. I woke up to a call from the School Board. I was a substitute. They sent me to South Boston. The day ended without any trouble according to google. At least in Southie.

Cambodia was another story.

The Fall of Phnom Penh.

No one really cared in America.

After all it was a sideshow, but five years later the Dead Kennedys recorded "Holiday in Cambodia" to attack extreme political savagery, US imperialism, and blase Western morality. HOLIDAY IN CAMBODIA So you been to school
For a year or two
And you know you've seen it all
In daddy's car
Thinkin' you'll go far
Back east your type don't crawl

Play ethnicky jazz
To parade your snazz
On your five grand stereo
Braggin' that you know
How the niggers feel cold
And the slums got so much soul

It's time to taste what you most fear
Right Guard will not help you here
Brace yourself, my dear:

It's a holiday in Cambodia
It's tough, kid, but it's life
It's a holiday in Cambodia
Don't forget to pack a wife

You're a star-belly sneech
You suck like a leach
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch
So you can get rich
But your boss gets richer off you

Well you'll work harder
With a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers
Till you starve
Then your head is skewered on a stake

Now you can go where people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need, my son:.

Is a holiday in Cambodia
Where people dress in black
A holiday in Cambodia
Where you'll kiss ass or crack

Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, [etc]

And it's a holiday in Cambodia
Where you'll do what you're told
A holiday in Cambodia
Where the slums got so much soul

True then. Truer today.

To hear holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedys go to this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KTsXHXMkJA

And then a moment's silence for the dead.

They were many.