We’re Not Gonna Take It Anymore
Yes! I am a product of the 80’s. Psychedelic colors, big hair, parachute pants, Members Only jacket, MC Hammer – “You can’t touch this,” break dancing (still got some moves), and of course rock ’n’ roll! We were cool, we were hip, we were the bomb. Parents didn’t get us. They were lame, out of touch. Dude! So was all of society, that is, except for us teenagers. That is the way we saw it. Us against them. We wanted, no, we needed separation from the identity of our parents, the system, the Man. I cannot think of another 80’s band that personified the disestablishment attitude with more animus then Twisted Sister. Their song “We’re Not Gonna Take It” epitomized the passion of rebellion that so characterized my generation of the 80’s.
OH WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT
NO, WE AIN’T GONNA TAKE IT
OH WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE
WE’VE GOT THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE AND
THERE AIN’T NO WAY WE’LL LOSE IT
THIS IS OUR LIFE, THIS IS OUR SONG
WE’LL FIGHT THE POWERS THAT BE JUST
DON’T PICK OUR DESTINY ‘CAUSE
YOU DON’T KNOW US, YOU DON’T BELONG
It was a chant that reverberated out against the system, that in our eyes, wanted to enclose us, control us, and put us in our place. And so, we did, what every young person longs to do against such repressive restraints, rebel! Now some twenty-plus years removed from those days I, and the rest of my rebelling cohorts realize that the system which we desired to rebel against was in fact the very system that allowed our counterculture rebellion to have a voice and yet remained the same ready to entertain the next generation of rebels. And so the cycle continues.
Our 80’s psychedelic expressionisms was simply the “psychic liberation of the oppressed”[1] expressed in the codifying desire for entertainment. Heath and Potter pointed out the true issue of the rebellion and most of western counterculture is in fact summed up in the Beastie Boys 1986 release, “You Gotta Fight For Your Right to Party.”[2] Yeah, that about sums up my walk on the countercultural revolutionary side of things. We were not a threat to any system just a minor social deviation[3] that the system, whatever that was or is in our eyes, has the ability to, not only endure, but neutralize through co-optation and thereby profit from the very forms that were identified within the countercultural attempt![4] Back in the eighties I wore the Billy Idol t-shirt and wanted to be significant in my attempt to bring about social change by being genuinely radical, but radical against what? It seems now that I wanted the feeling of making a profound difference without the cost or sacrifice that comes with a true revolution. An so the cycle continues.
The authors make the statement that the “idea of a counterculture is ultimately based on a mistake. At best, countercultural rebellion is a pseudo-rebellion: a set of dramatic gestures that are devoid of any progressive political or economic consequences and that detract from the urgent task of building a more just society.”[5] Consequently, rebellion is nothing more than a form of entertainment for both the rebels and, to some extent, the masses who simply are spectators continuing to go about “business as usual” in the system that the rebels are trying to jam. I so agree with this pseudo-rebellion definition for I, and those involved in most western rebellions, know not the true cost of a real rebellion. I ponder upon the cost of true revolution such as the American founding fathers, and those like Dietric Bonhoffer and William Wilberforce, who, at the potential loss of life and all that they held dear counted it all but rubbish in the unrelenting pursuit of revolution: true change to the social justice in their current society.
The entire subject of this Rebel Sell begs the question, Is there anything that we are willing to enter into, defy the status quo, and engage in true counterculture subversive activity to see a change in the current situation? I have to believe that the true disciple of Christ is a rebel at heart against the very spirit of this age that now works in the children of disobedience. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath. Were it not for the True Rebel who went counter cultural and laid down His life for us, we would still be dead in our trespasses and sins. Let us follow His example and set the captives free from the Matrix of sin and deception. This is now my rallying cry, though the song is the same the audience has changed: Spirit of Lies, Demonic world – We’re not going to take it anymore!
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