They Call It Democracy

THEY CALL IT DEMOCRACY by Bruce Cockburn (1985)

Padded with power here they come

International loan sharks backed by the guns

Of market hungry military profiteers

Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared

With the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality

Who render rage a necessity

By turning countries into labour camps

Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument

Who makes the gun into a sacrament

The only response to the deification

Of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'

Idolatry of ideology

North south east west

Kill the best and buy the rest

It's just spend a buck to make a buck

You don't really give a flying fuck

About the people in misery

IMF dirty MF

Takes away everything it can get

Always making certain that there's one thing left

Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

I see the paid-off local bottom feeders

Passing themselves off as leaders

Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows

And it's open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy, and they call it democracy

And they call it democracy, and they call it democracy

You see the loaded eyes of the children too

Trying to make the best of it the way kids do

One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast

To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast

They call the revolution

IMF dirty MF

Takes away everything it can get

Always making certain that there's one thing left

Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

And they call it democracy

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* Jeffrey Goffin Internet: jgoffin@acs.ucalgary.ca *

* Calgary, Alberta, Canada FidoNet: 1:134/160 *

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