"Politics... in the promised land."
1.
You can still hear the gost of Nixon
howl in the phone taps of the Oval Office. ("Hello, Henry?")
And in the ___? now unfolding,
blacked-out passages form out of nothing.
Politicians protct their intersts;
you're not it, one in a mass statistic.
LIfe means nothing without consumption;
look at the Third World and the products pumped in...
from the same people who brought you the bombs in Laos,
campaigns financed by the sales of arms,
Don't believe me? Ask Kennedy.
"Infantrymen raised their rifles high as they lowered the casket
beneath the ground, and as the rifles went off, Mr.Ted Kennedy
threw himself on the ground, thinking maybe someone was shooting him."
2.
What can you expect: Enron execs,
think tank vets, Iran-Contra convicts?
Condeleeza Rice at a Chevron desk...
A coup in Venezuela Otto Reich directs...
The Tips Program... how many phones fixed?
Blankets of cameras... Tom Ridge
signs the checks that buys the bullets, rubber-tipped,
mace canisters and tear gas clips
for hired nightsticks to turn demos to riots.
Bobby Seale, tell 'em what time it is:
"The long arm of fascist surveillance reaching from the '60s
into the present"
"You think you're smarter; the system's older."
Collateral slaughter... stagehand 'soldier's
theater of war, but the plot's even colder...
armed actors and embedded photographers.
Kidnap the Arabs, lock 'em in Cuba...
3.
"It's another assassination song. There are some variants to
the song. Sometimes it's called "The White House Blues."
It's the single impossible in the slogan-vacuum
of a bumper sticker vendor that resonates;
but one tremble of the mad, atomizing dream
of the Rome Statute.
Blood against blood, he threatens neighbors with nukes when
he reads from his cue cards and punches at the camera.
Don't look at the forest, he's burning it down for
the royal family and the prison landlords.
We ain't the band for any campaign tour;
we rap to distract in times of war.
"Not righteous, but might just make you want to listen;
I'm Elvis... with the words of wisdom."
"What Brian Jackson used to refer to as "the ex-officio blues."
4.
Arrest the president...
A rhymin' indictment...
"Tonight's your arraignment."
Can you cuff a government?
"Guilty, face down on the pavement."
"Heroes and snailliv. Seoreh and villians."