There is always money for Bombs

There is always money for bombs

Feeding the poor is just too expensive

We can’t afford it anymore

Medicare and Medicaid, too

These programs aren’t something the government should do

They no longer fit our budgetary concerns

But there is always money for bombs

And there’s just nothing to be done about the price of housing, utilities, insurance, healthcare, or medicine

It’s all just so complicated, these systems so hard to untangle and fix

There’s really nothing that we can do to make it work better for you

Give your one life to feed the machine, to satisfy the insatiable indulgence of the rich

Work harder, and more, that is the only solution

Because there must always be money for bombs

And more, more, more, tax cuts for the wealthy

You might join that club someday, too, don’t you know?

If you try real hard and don’t ever stop

To wonder why there’s so little for you, and so much for them

Or why there’s always money for bombs

Our public schools cost way too much - abolish education, let business take control

They can teach kids never ask questions or look to the side

To be good little workers who never ask why there’s always money for bombs

Our country is broken and ill

Housing and healthcare are priced out of reach

People are here to feed private equity’s needs

Infrastructure crumbles right before our eyes

It’s expensive to repair, and more to improve

We simply can’t afford that, either

But there’s always money for bombs

You know what it is, why the world feels so scary?

And why this one life isn’t all that you hoped?

It’s that other guy’s fault - the one over there

He’s who to blame for the things that you face

The high price of eggs, those big interest rates

That’s why you struggle

Why your schools can’t keep up and why healthcare’s so much

Keep blaming him, and things will get better

Throughout our history, the faces they change

African, German, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Muslim, Hispanic

Who doesn’t matter, just someone to blame

A distraction that keeps us caught up in the fray

So we never ask how life became a rich person’s game

Or why those same people with power in hand

Fill us with fear and incite us with dread

And why there’s always money for bombs

I think we know why, and it’s always been true

Weakened old men with greed in their hearts,

Won’t know what to do if we stop playing their game

When profit isn’t our most vaunted of goals

If values change and we cared a bit more

About our friends and our neighbors, and even the poor.

If we get to a place where we look for the truth,

We might change the framing and ask a new question

Why do we suffer and struggle and toil?

Why do accept lives of quiet desperation?

Why don’t we invest in our lives and our souls?

But there’s always money for bombs.

McCarthyism was a term coined in the 1950s to describe the practice of publicly accusing government employees or employees of government contractors of political disloyalty or subversive activities and using unsavory investigatory methods to prosecute them. Joseph McCarthy, as chair of two powerful Senate committees, led the effort to identify and accuse people he thought were Communist sympathizers. Many of those publicly accused lost their jobs even when there was no or little evidence to support the accusations. In this March 9, 1950, photo, Sen. Joseph McCarthy gestures during a Senate subcommittee hearing in Washington on McCarthy's charges of communist infiltration of the U.S. State Department. (AP Photo/Herbert K. White, File)