The Ritalin Man (what? Bill being serious??)

Pirates of Personality (The Ritalin Man)

You can't hide from the witch doctor
Can't hide
Come trust me, I'm your buddy
Your state appointed buddy
He wants to pull you aside,
to talk to you,
Just for a little bit
Tell me a little about yourself.
Do you feel different from the other kids?
Point to Plick, what does he signify, and
what do you see in this smudge?

You can't hide from the witch doctor
The witch doctor can't hide his soul
Bare-metallic, artificial though he'll swear
On a stack of dirty Bibles that he's there
for your own good.
No, you can't hide from the witch doctor
Who wants to get inside your head
To define you, one or zero, yes or no,
He gets his cheque and pension
either way.

There's a hole in your soul
Something's missing, can you tell?
But this yellow pill
Will make all well.

Be careful what you write
What you say, copied down
in spiral-bound, anylized and
used against you the next day

You can't hide from the witch doctor
Says he's here to help you.
He's here to kill you
To kill who you are and what you stand for,
it's improper--it does not suit him.
To turn you into someone you are not
To touch you
Against the will of reason
Not your friend--
the friend of the state, the drug companies and
His own hourly fee.

It starts with a single glance. Some grade-school headshrinker in a tired suit and gratuitous beard has, from across the room or overly tidy mahogany desk, flagged you as Big Trouble. Are you? Yes, you're the one who questioned abusive authority and school policy one too many times...you're the one who made 300 Bill of Rights fliers when the principal made you take off your "Fuck You" hat...the one who cast a cynical eye to blindly following orders and sitting silently still and completing countless hours of busy work so Teach could step out to chain-smoke a dozen cigarettes. Asked the tough questions kids your age weren't supposed to ask. Smart, too smart for your own damn good.... Big Trouble.

The solution? Control our children and their nonconformist individualities with psychological profiling and powerful psychoactive drugs. Doesn't sound so benign when put that way, does it...

A chewable thought from someone who knows so many who have been there...and has himself been there.