Song About Closing
School Of Asininity.
FATHER ROY'S PROTEST MOVEMENT
AKA THE WAFFLE HOUSE MASSACRE
Lyric Update
JOHN HECKENLIVELY, VOCALS
MARC FRUCHT (MARCO CAPELLI),
GUITAR/BACKGROUND VOCALS
Click Here For Photographs
WAFFLE HOUSE MASSACREE
We call this song "Father Roy's Protest Movement." It's about Father Roy,
and the protest movement. But "Father Roy's protest movement" is not the
name of the movement, that's just the name of the song, which is why we call
the song "Father Roy's Protest Movement."
CHORUS
Well you can get anything you want, at the Waffle House
You can get anything you want, at the Waffle House
Just look for the signs, they're yellow and black
You can get a hearty meal, or a light snack
You can get anything you want, at the Waffle House
This song starts at the Waffle House. People from up north don't know about
the Waffle House, but about the only thing the south has more of is Kudzu.
It was about two Thanksgivings ago, that's two years ago around
Thanksgiving, when I was sitting at the Waffle House... you're probably
wondering, what's a yankee doing down south in a Waffle House... well, I
had come down to protest the School of the Americas, that's the U.S. Army's
School of the Americas at Fort Benning...
So I'm sitting in the Waffle House on my way to protest the SOA when....
Now you're probably wondering, why is he protesting the School of the
Americas?
Well, this is a long story, so you might just want to sit down for a spell. Now
the protesting part starts around 10 years ago, but the school, well, the school
goes back to 1946. Now, at the time, it seemed like a good idea.
Because back in 1946 we were fighting the communists. And the communists
were the biggest, baddest people on the whole planet. So if you had to kill a
few people in Latin America to preserve freedom and democracy, it didn't
seem like a very high price to pay.
So the school went on for about 40 years, teaching murdering and torturing
and all sorts of mean, nasty, horrible, ugly stuff. And nobody really
complained, except for a few liberals, and nobody listens to them. Be-sides,
the school was in Panama, and who pays attention to what goes on in
Panama?
But then - a terrible thing happened... The Panamanians decided that they
didn't like all the murdering and torturing and other mean, nasty, horrible stuff
being taught in their country - and they kicked the school out.
So the army moved the school to Fort Benning - you remember Fort Benning?
And that seemed to work out fine, because people pay almost as little
attention to what happens in Georgia as they do to Panama.
But then, a second terrible thing happened - the Cold War ended - and we had
won.
All of a sudden, all of the big bad terrible Communists we had fought for 40
years weren't there anymore. It was a dramatic thing. People were tearing
down the Berlin Wall with hammers and shovels and implements of
destruction, and selling chunks to anyone dumb enough to buy a piece.
Unfortunately, the word about Communism didn't spread very fast - at least
not to folks in Central America. It was right around Thanksgiving, 11 years
ago -- that's 11 Thanksgivings ago -- about a week before Thanksgiving, that
a group of soldiers in El Salvador got in a lot of trouble.
These soldiers, who were sort of like the Green Berets, except with a nastier
attitude, killed some university professors and their housekeeper. Now I know
university pro-fessors do tend to be on the liberal, communist-type side.
Of course, these professors happened to be Jesuit priests. Now, being a priest
and being a communist might seem mutually contradictory, given the atheism
and all. But you have to understand Central America.
These priests thought it was a good idea if rich people had a little less money
and poor people had a little more money. And in El Salvador, that is called
Communism. So the gung-ho soldiers, under the impression they were killing
big, bad communists, murdered some priests and two women.
Not it probably won't surprise you, but most of these bad apples were
graduates of the School of the Americas.
And it's right about here that the protesting part of the story begins. Because
a priest from Louisiana named Roy Bourgeois heard about this, and he got
pissed off. I mean mad, with MAD in capital letters. And he decided that he
would shut the place down - no matter how long it took.
Now, at the time, Father Roy (remember Father Roy, that song's about Father
Roy) was taking on the biggest military machine in the history of the world,
a machine run by guys Bush and Cheney. And he might have underestimated
how determined they would be. Then again, the Pentagon underestimated
Father Roy.
Now some people are just born troublemakers, like Gandhi or Martin Luther
King. And you have to count Roy in that number. When he was in Bolivia, he
got arrested for starting up a human rights group.
Well, Hugo Banzer, the dictator down there, knew that if you gave people
human rights, the next thing they'd want is democracy - and well, that's just
bad for business. So he nipped those human rights trouble-makers in the bud.
Father Roy got kicked out of the country, as "persona non grata," which is a
fancy Latin word for "troublemaker."
So Father Roy came back to America. And in 1983, he found out that there
were soldiers from El Salvador at Fort Benning. So he went there, dressed up
as a soldier, and climbed up in the trees with a big old loud speaker. And in
the middle of the night, he played a sermon by this Archbishop named Oscar
Romero. He was another person killed by graduates of the School of the
Americas.
And it was a wild time. People running around, looking in the trees,
screaming, terrified. And they got Father Roy out of the tree and sent him to
face -- the judge.
And not just any judge, but Robert "Maximum Bob" Elliott. Now Judge
Elliott knew something about massacres, because he helped Lt. Calley, the
one who killed all those people at My Lai, in Vietnam, well, the judge helped
him get away with it. But Judge Elliott's proudest moment was sentencing
Martin Luther King to jail. The odds were not in Father Roy's favor, and he
wound up in prison. But he knew he would be back.
And he was. You probably won't believe this, but back in 1989, they actually
allowed Father Roy to visit the School, and he did, just to find out what was
going on. And there was an in-structor there, and he was saying: "I wanna kill.
I wanna kill. I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat
dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, kill, KILL, KILL" And that was in the Human
Rights training course. Of course, he was saying this all in Spanish, so it was
doubly frightening.
So Father Roy, I'll just called him Father Roy, because Bourgeois is awfully
hard to spell, set up shop right outside Fort Benning. Can you imagine that,
setting up shop right outside Fort Benning? That's what he did, and said he
wasn't leaving until the School of the Americas did too.
And Father Roy started out fasting, but fasting works kind of slow. So he and
two other people marched over to the School of the Americas, to their Hall
of Fame - can you imagine, right into the Hall of Fame? And they threw blood
on the walls. Which got him before the judge again.
And you guessed it, it was Judge Elliott. And Father Roy told him "The truth
cannot be silenced," but the judge apparently felt it could be, and he sent
Father Roy to jail again. Yes, justice is truly deaf and dumb when Judge
Eliott's on the bench.
Now this protest movement started out kind of slow. There were about 70
people or so, and they would come and protest, and it didn't get a whole lot
of attention. Remember, this is Georgia, and people don't pay a whole lot
attention to what's going on in Georgia.
Except for Congress. Some fine congressmen from Massachusetts decided
Father Roy was right, and they tried to stop funding for the school. Well, they
failed the first time out.
But in 1994, 5 people got arrested. And then, in 1995, 10 people got arrested.
Well, that attracted some attention. Because in 1996, 400 people showed up -
and 60 people got arrested.
And those members of Congress kept busy trying to shut the school. And they
gained votes, but they still failed the second time, and the third time.
But that attracted even more attention. Because in 1997, 2000 showed up at
Fort Benning - 2000. And 601 people - 10 times more - got themselves
arrested. And after that, things kept growing.
The next Thanksgiving, in 1998, an amazing thing happened. 7000 people,
can you imagine, 7000 people showed up, and there was a might fine rally.
But right in the middle of the rally, a military po-liceman came out with a
paper in his hand and he read: "Whoever-within-the-jurisdiction-of-the-
United-States-goes-upon-any-military-naval-or-Coast-Guard-reservation-
post-fort-arsenal-yard-station-or-installation-for-any-purpose-prohibited-by-
law-or-lawful-regulation-or-whoever-reenters-or-is-found-within-any-such-
reservation-post-fort-arsenal-yard-station-or-installation...." and he went on
for about five minutes, and nobody understood a word he said.
But everybody had a good time singing folk songs and getting their pictures
taken with Martin Sheen and such, and they just waited there ready to march
over the line. And over 2300 people did.
Now the police were ready, or at least they thought they were. They had 27
blue and white buses, blue birds painted on the side, with a driver inside each
one ready to transport the transgressors.
And at first this worked out fine. The cops had a fine old time putting the
protestors in the buses, until... well, they got to the last bus, and there were
more people. I mean a lot more. I mean a whole lot more. And the cops
looked at buses, and they looked at the crowd. And they looked at the buses,
and they looked at the crowd. And right then and there, I think I saw one of
them cry.
Well, they knew they were beat, so they just took everyone to Rigdon park
and dropped them off. And everyone had a fine old time marching through
Co-lumbus back to the vigil.
And that bill we'd been trying to get through Congress? Well, we finally got
it through -- well, on the House side anyway, but the Senate killed it.
So we came back again, that next Thanksgiving, and this time, this time, well,
there were 12,000 people - yes 12,000 people. And 4400 of 'em crossed line.
And you know, not only did they have the same 27 buses with the drivers in
each one, they even had porta-potties. Every now and then, there's something
to be said for military planning.
Well, after that, Congress got sneaky and changed the name of the School. It's
now the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation. Kinda
makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it, with all those fine words
like Se-curity and Co-operation?
\0CExcept the only thing they changed was the name. They're gonna keep on
teaching the same old thing. Which means that Father Roy and the protest
movement will have to keep on -- doing the same old thing. Which finally gets
me to the point of this song.
Imagine if one person, just one person, marches up to Ridgway Hall and sings
"You can get anything you want at the Waffle House." They'll probably think
they're crazy, and since they don't want crazy people in their jail, they'll
probably just give them a ban and bar order and kick them off the base.
And if two people, if two people sing it, in harmony, they'll think they're gay,
and they certainly don't want to put them together in a cell. And if three
people, can you imagine, three people singing "Waffle House", they'll think it's
an organization. And can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a
day, singing "Waffle House" and getting banned and barred. And friends they
may think it's a movement.
And that's what it is, the Waffle House Close the SOA Anti-Massacre
movement, and all you have to do to join is to sing it the next time it comes
around on the guitar.
With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come on the guitar, here, and sing it when
it does. Here it comes.
CHORUS:
Well you can get anything you want, at the Waffle House
You can get anything you want, at the Waffle House
Just look for the signs, they're yellow and black
You can get a hearty meal, or a light snack
You can get anything you want, at the Waffle House
Now that was horrible. If you want to Close the SOA and stuff you got to
sing loud. I've been talking for 20 minutes now, and I could go on for another
20 minutes. I'm not proud ... or tired.
So we'll just wait for it to come around again, and this time with four part
harmony and feeling.
We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing.
All right now.
CHORUS
Well you can get anything you want, at the Waffle House
Including waffles
You can get anything you want, at the Waffle House
Just look for the signs, they're yellow and black
You can get a hearty meal, or a light snack
You can get anything you want, at the Waffle House
Da da da da da dum
At the Waffle House
NOTORIOUS SOA GRADUATES AND
HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES LINKED WITH SOA GRADUATES
ARGENTINA: Numerous officers linked with the "Dirty War" of 1976-83,
including military dictators General Leopoldo Galtieri and General Roberto Viola.
BOLIVIA: Military dictator Hugo Banzer, author of the "Banzer Plan" of
repression widely used throughout Latin America
BRAZIL: Joao Paulo Moreira Burnier, linked with torture and murder of Stuart
Edgard Angel Jones. (Tortura Nunca Mais). At least six other SOA grads linked
with torture.
CHILE: numerous high-ranking officers in DINA, Chilean intelligence under
Pinochet; First Lt. Armando Fernandez Larios -- car-bombing assassination of
Orlando Letelier in Washington DC, 1976; "Caravan of Death", which resulted
in dozens of summary executions, 1973.
COLOMBIA: The Trujillo Trujillo chain saw massacres (1988-91), in which at
least 107 were brutally murdered, most after being tortured; "Muerte a
Secuestradores" (MAS), a paramilitary death squad responsible for numerous
assassinations and disappearances.
Captain Gilberto lbarra, who forced 3 peasant children to walk in front of his
patrol to detonate mines and spring ambushes in February, 1992. Two were killed;
one was seriously wounded.
EL SALVADOR: Death Squad leader Roberto D'Aubisson; Assassination of
Archbishop Romero, 1980; Murder of four U.S. Churchwomen, 1980; murder of
six Jesuit priests, 1989; El Mozote massacre, over 900 killed by infamous
batallion
GUATEMALA: Colonel Julio Roberto Alp¡rez (1989), guilty of the torture and
murder of Efrain B maca Vel squez, husband of Jennifer Harbury; Assassination
of Bishop Gerardi, only days after his human right report was released
HAITI: Colonel Franck Romain; deputies linked with St. Jean Bosco church
massacre
HONDURAS: Military dictator General Juan Melgar Castro; Battalion 3-16
death squads
MEXICO: Many commanders in Chiapas linked with SOA; Jose Ruben Rivas
Pena (1980) wrote the army's "Campaign Plan Chiapas 94" which calls for the
"training and support for self-defense forces or other paramilitary organizations."
PANAMA: General Manuel Noriega, de-facto ruler of Panama, indicted for drug
trafficking
PARAGUAY: Alejandro Fretes D valos -- Operation Condor, which coordinated
the efforts of Southern Cone military regimes to arrest, imprison, torture, and
"repatriate" the opponents of the different regimes.
PERU: "La Cantuta" murders (1992), 9 students and university professor
disappeared and murdered; Accomarca Massacre (1985), 69 killed, including 6
children
No HTML code was harmed in the creation of this website.This site was composed using Notepad, the way a page was meant to be. All text was entered using a Tandy Model 100 laptop, a nullmodemconnector, a 19.2 connection, and a ton of TLC. This page in its entirety copyleft 2000 by marco.
muzIK!
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
