It all seemed so idiotic all the accusations of unpatriotic   The fall we'll always remember, capitulating silence   election November before the winter   of the long hot summer   Somewhere in the desert   we raised the oil pressure   and waited for the weather   to get much better   for the new wind to blow in the storm   We tried to remember the history in the region   the French foreign legion, Imperialism,   Peter O'Toole and hate the Ayatollah   were all we learned in school   Not that we gave Hussein five billion   Not of our new bed partner the Syrian   and of course no mention of the Palestine situation   It was amazing how they steamrolled   They said eighty percent approval   but there was no one that I knew polled   No one had a reason for being in the Gulf   We waited for congress to speak up illegal build up   But no one would wake up   Our representatives were Milli Vanilli's   for corporate Dallas Cowboy Beverly Hillbillies   With perfect timing   the politicians rhyming their sentiments   so nicely oil gold and sand   my sediments precisely....   We regretfully support the lunacy   I'm afraid there is no time for more scrutiny   National unity preserve our community   Teflon© election opportunities   were in profundant abundance      On January second the Bush administration   announced a recession had stricken   the Nation the highest quarterly   earnings in ten years were posted   by Chevron©   Meanwhile a budget was placed in our hands   as the deadline in the sand came to an end   so much for the peace dividend   one billion a day is what we spent   and our grandchildren will pay for it 'til the end   When schools are unfunded   and kids don't get their diplomas   they get used for gun boat diplomacy   disproportionately   black or brown we see   bullet catchers for the slave master      Then the conservatives called up reservists   to active service left families nervous   but more importantly broke nine hundred a month   but the check came late, army red tape you see,   this golden opportunity   We watched the tube and read the newspaper   The propaganda of the gas masked raper   was the proper slander to whip up the hatred      The stage was lit and the lights were all faded   The pilots in night vision goggles Kuwaited and   generals masturbated   'til the fifteenth two days later they invaded   Not a single t.v. station expressed dissension or   hardly made mention to the censorship of information   from our kinder and gentler nation   blinder and mentaler retardation   DISORIENTATION   The pilots said their bombs lit Baghdad   like a Christmas tree   It was the Christian thing to do you see   they didn't mention any casualties   no distinction between the real   and the proxy   only football analogies      We saw the bomb hole   We watched the Super Bowl   We saw the scud missile   We watched Bud© commercials   We saw the yellow ribbons   Saw pilots in prison   We never saw films of the dead...at eleven   Angela Davis addressed the spectators   and shouting above a rumbling generator said   if they insist on bringing us down   then let's shut the whole country down   Marching through the downtown   A hundred thousand became participants   and we heard the drums of millions off in the distance   rushing through the cities   some of them did things that weren't so pretty   most were there for primal scream therapy   news men concentrated   on the negative liked the jingoists more   peaceful protesters ended up   on the cutting room floor   Nintendo© casualties of the ratings war   More bombs dropped than in World War II   on in both Asian invasions, new world order persuasion,   Business as usual   for our nation   Could you imagine a hundred fifty thousand dead,   the city of Stockton   coffins locked in when we clocked in...not to mention   civilians   The loss of life on both sides   pushed the limits of resilience   The scent of blood in our nostrils   fuel of the fossil land of apostle   The blackness that covered the sky was not the only thing   that brought a tear to the eye or   the taste of anger to the tongues   of those too young to remember Vietnam      Is heroin better in a veteran's mind   than the memory of the dying laying in a line   Is it the smell or the shadows heaving and weeping   that keeps the soldier from sleeping   as he sings the orphan's lullaby   When the soldiers put down their bayonets   the strings are chained to the marionettes   Emir of Kuwait gets back in his jet   we replace the dead with new cadets   will we hate those who did the shelling   or will we hate those who weren't willing to do the killing   when the leaders of the bald eagles come home to roost   will we sing a song of praise and indebtedness   for our deliverance from evil   or will we sing a song of sadness   for the dreaded debt this mess delivered us PEOPLE.