A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

One of the things we
Might learn from history
Is that the government's interests are not
Necessarily the same as ours in fact
Are rarely the same as ours because if you
Think the government's interests are
The same as yours
Then you think - "Well if something
Is going wrong it must be
That they made a mistake 'cause
They really care about us"
They don't care about us!

The greatest beneficiary of Reagan
Years was corporations
Wealthy businessmen and ministers
Of foreign nations
Bush promised that he would
Save the environment
Signed the Clean Air Act and
Had the public buyin' it
Two years after that, we see it as imprudence
The EPA allowed tons of hazardous pollutants
Little money was allocated
For the enforcement
Contaminated drinkin' water
Everywhere was dormant
But business worries override the
Safety of the public
Ecological breakdowns and nobody
Would publish when Reagan got elected and he
Finally took to office
He spent a quarter million dollars
On his livin' quarters
He built the military even more
And paid for it with cuts
And benefit's for the poor
He made 140 billion cuts in social programs
Human consequences wasn't justified
To no man
He said that he still balanced the budget
Wassily Leontief guaranteed that he wouldn't
The 80's were the triumph
Of upperclass America
Ascendancy of the rich
The poor he would bury ya

The gap between the rich and
The poor grew dramatically
Black families were hit the hardest
Be emphatically
Lack of resources, and racial discrimination
Broken homes, drug addiction, incarceration
Instead of trying to help the
People out of this position
Politicians called for the building
Of more prisons
Reagan lied about Iran, lied to Nicaragua
Lied about the Soviets and
Lied about the Contras he sold arms to Iran
All of it was cited but plausible denial
Is why he ain't get indicted
Oli North stood trial
The jury found him guilty but he ain't
Do no time because the motherfucker's filthy
Reagan sent Marines into a crazy situation
Two hundred died in Lebanon
'cause it was dangerous
After that he sent forces into Grenada
Congress was notified but not consulted
That's a horror
What good's a show of force
If you never use it?
That's the way that Reagan's mind
Worked and he abused it
Why do people die in countries
We invading? So we can make it clear that
Violence was understated

Reagan's raid on Libya, that was terrorist
Bombs fell on a crowded city
A hundred victims
The Cold War? Let me relay you the facts
The foreign policy just delayed the collapse
The US policy motivated by Fed
To justify the suppression
Of independent care
The military budget was 280 billion
Colin Powell said he wanna
Scare the world's civilians
In order to boost his popularity with voters
Bush went to war with Iraq
And hid the motives
He abandoned sanctions and said
It was for protection
He only chose war because
The presidential elections
Who believed that we would liberate Kuwait?
When we invaded other countries
Every single week you think that they could
Build a nuclear bomb? They was 10 years away
From having nuclear bombs
Less than half of us favored military action
No blood for oil was the citizen's reaction
Officials lied about small bombs
American reporters were kept from
The war's harm

Clinton got in and appointed people of color
But he abandoned them when
They started working together
He spoke of a new government
For a new century invoked Dr king's name
Compared their philosophy
Recalled Dr king's dream of racial equality
But put more blacks in prison
Than anybody in history
Continued the military budget in
Cold War levels
It doesn't matter the party, homie
They all devils
Approved the FBI attack on Koresh
Fire swept through the whole
Building burning flesh
His crime bill got a lot of
Attention but it emphasized punishment
Not prevention
Persuaded voters he was tough on crime
But tougher is dumber when you
Give 'em double the time
Clinton removed welfare benefit's
From immigrants legal or illegal
Most of y'all don't know the difference
Who did the Free Trade
Agreement really preserve?
Why the number of prisoners
Doubled when Clinton served?
Domination of the media was
There to vaccinate
If god intended us to vote
He would've gave us candidates

Bush verse Gore, that was your decision
Both support the death penalty
And broke the prisons
Nader ran too but the media denyin' it
He emphasized education
Healthcare environment
Half the country didn't even vote
And that's a sign
Appealin' to class warfare that
No one's buying
Gore received hundreds of thousands
Or more votes
Proof the electoral process is a joke
Bush took office and pushed tax
Cuts for the wealthy
Opposed environmental regulations for
The money nine months into his presidency, 9
11 immediately declared a war on terrorism
He said that they were Saudi
Said it was the Taliban
Then he ordered the bombing of Afghanistan
You kill our civilians
We kill y'all civilians
How the fuck that make sense
When we all civilians?
Wartime presidents do wartime shit
That's why wartime presidents can
Suck my dick there were minority voices that
Were criticizing war
You can't match violence or violence
Should be the law
We stationed troops in Saudi on
The holiest of shrines
Military aid for occupying Palestine
Killing innocents Arabs would come
Back to haunt us
And stupid motherfuckers sit and wonder
Why they bomb us

If you're like me
You have a lot of friends who are depressed
A lot of friends who go around very gloomy
Think the world is coming to an end
You can understand people feeling depressed
You can understand people feeling desperate
Because the truth is, we're faced with evil
There's an enormous number of
People who care
About the world and about the country
Wanna do something about it
And those numbers are going to grow
So long as people persist and don't give up