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.