Capital for Guns

Some days I wish
You could see me
In my southern life.
I know you think you’re educated;
And sure you know what’s right.
I’ve seen every pretty cruelty
Of wealth and of right.
And southern nations
Share what it’s like

When the northern military comes
With capital for guns and debt.
The hemispheric lines are drawn
And the rich are coming for revenge.
And loans like shiny things
Draw us in, but they come with strings
Their boom is our bust.
Another world is possible I know
For in the South I trust.

Last year, we had a revolution
At the ballot box
Our first peasant leader of Indian blood.
The rich sought to secede
They love our country only when
Our country they can run.
I fought them in the street
They knocked me to my knees
And I looked up as I breathed
And saw the models on the billboard
All were blonde.

When the northern military comes
With capital for guns, and dreams
Which they’re selling
On the street again
And someday we’ll accept it seems.

That’s the way it is with shiny things
They draw us in
Then pull our strings
And disappear and rust
Another world is possible I know
For in the South I trust!

Calling all ye faithful to repair
In our southern hemisphere
We work, we lay our lives bare
But capital is scarce
And change is rare.

Some days, I wish you would see us
And maybe change your life.
Change your politics before we slip
Beneath your rising tide.

When the northern military comes
With capital for guns and liquidity
And they tell us how our lives could be
If we’d only let them run our economy.
Loans like shiny things draw us in
But we cut the strings; and we’ll do what we must
Another world is possible I know
For in the South I trust.
Every day another dawn, come on now
Another world is possible I know . . .

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