Intellectual Crooks

I played by the rules.
I went to lots of schools.
Where I read a lot of books.
And I met a lot of crooks,
But not the kind they got in jail,
These will elude you without fail.
They’re beyond white collar crime.
They’ve got a scam to blow your mind.
They’re intellectual crooks.

Intellectual crooks
They misinterpret books.
And if it’s willful or it’s not,
Hardly matters ’cause they’ve got
So much power to deceive
It’s hard for others to believe.
It’s a classic double bind
That makes Kafka come to mind.
They’re Intellectual crooks.

Cho:
You needn’t go looking in crannies and nooks
They’re brazen, they’re proud intellectual crooks.

Intellectual crooks,
Never worry how it looks
To substitute their point of view
For what old authors thought they knew,
Who, though male, dead, & white
Could still have written what is right.
Our crooks expound without remorse
And condescend to read their source.
They’re intellectual crooks.

Some are slaves to every fad,
And their scholarship’s so bad
It would be funny but it’s sad
It’s enough to drive one mad.
In fact I’m almost ’round the bend
Will the bullshit never end?
Well, maybe when we’re dead
The truth will reign instead
Of  intellectual crooks.

Cho:
You needn’t go looking in crannies and nooks
They’re brazen, they’re proud intellectual crooks.

Whether on the right or left
Some have shown that they are deft
At bringing forth a raft of facts
In tendentious, fustian tracts
And ignoring common sense
These ruminations make me tense
Yes, I know I should calm down,
Become a stoic, or leave town.
To intellectual crooks.

Some are foolish, yet they’re vain
And they think that life’s a game
In which the winners are the ones
Who win praise from Oxford dons.
Meanwhile many people starve
Only wishing they could carve
A little something for their own
So I think I’ll cast a stone
At intellectual crooks.

Cho:
You needn’t go looking in crannies and nooks
They’re brazen, they’re proud intellectual crooks.

Some have got another ploy
And they play it rather coy
And refuse to take a stand
Saying scientific man
Has a job that’s value-free
I guess their money grows on trees
So things go from bad to worse
And we suffer with the curse
Of intellectual crooks.

I played by the rules.
I went to lots of schools.
Where I read a lot of books.
And I met a lot of crooks,
But not the kind they got in jail,
These will elude you without fail.
They’re beyond white collar crime.
They’ve got a scam to blow your mind.
Intellectual crooks.

Cho:
You needn’t go looking in crannies and nooks
They’re brazen, they’re proud intellectual crooks.

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