A “Just” Cause

I paid my penance, but there was no fee.
It was just my own mind bargaining to be let free.
Striking a deal with the devil that owns me.

What is the price to be owned like a slave?

Born in debt, born a sinner, born to owe for what I am.
Born _never_ to understand.

Why?

What did I do that killed poor Jesus?
What do I do that this killing never ceases?
I could be your prophet, but I’d be dead too,
Just so you could silence what I knew.

The God’s are not evil, they’re laughing at us,
watching genocide through political blood lust.

History is this repeating game,
seemingly different, but it all ends the same.
Powerful rulers, powerful wars,
fighting for what is righteous, a “just” cause.

“Just” is defined by some theoretical position,
an objective perspective that supersedes contradiction.

We’ll fight for God,
fight for freedom,
fight for a system,
fight for a reason.

Kill for safety,
kill for love,
kill for hell,
kill for heaven above.

Call me old fashioned, but reasons aside,
death is death and a chide is a chide.
I don’t want to fight for a rulers petty quarrel,
my understanding’s adrift in this unsettling world.

When I sink down to feel that undercurrent flow,
there’s something quite deeper I suddenly know.
All the petty tyrants and all their misdeeds
are just part of this systems dehumanizing greed.

There’s no one to blame in a bureaucracy,
it’s always the other guy and never me.
A system created akin to religion of old,
always an excuse for what we aren’t told.

There was the saying “God’s will be done”,
Of course these days it’s “Politics as usual”.

I’m trying to understand but my limit’s been reached.
Won’t somebody suck George off so we can get him impeached?
Terrorists promote terror, but what is war?
Killing innocent people and what for?

Weapons of mass destruction,
have we looked at ourselves?
A massive case of seduction,
“Mission Accomplished” fails…
to fill me with encouragement.

My heart weeps at what’s there
even if the news keeps me unaware.
There’s still a war being fought,
mass destruction being wrought.

I’m scared of the retaliation we now deserve,
scared the United States won’t be left undisturbed.
I’m scared that Osama might have been right,
not in his methods, but in his fight.

Iraq has shown us worthy of hate and rage,
proven to be an animal let out of its cage.
We’ve been let loose, feral and free,
the largest beast in human history.

A system where humanity’s been replaced by the bottom line,
raised in a world where money _is_ time.
Once those in power held influence through gold,
but cash turned into credit, or so I’m told.

Credit is time,
credit is sublime…
Credit determines the worthy,
we once were rated by piety.

We have no God;
but give religious extremism a nod.
We have no preachers;
corporate media is our cultural teacher.

Mass control in a convenient form,
instant communication, perception reform.
Technology brought us to a new precipice,
Television now the new printing press.

Gutenberg’s Bible once the most distributed text,
Television’s brought us to what’s next.
Informed by a handful of media giants;
staying in business as long as they’re compliant.

Control comes down to who can distribute information,
who holds that power determines societal sedation.

Where is my vote?
Where is my choice?
Where is my freedom?
This is my voice.

I am still free to speak,
but when will that go?
More secret trials,
are courts just for show?

Democracy baby, “By the People, for the People”
begs the question, who do we consider people?
And who’s buying?

-Archie Underwood 3/2005

Tagged as: credit, george bush, God, iraq, political, Rhyming