LYRICS
08. America, can you spare some change?
Words by Jeremy N. Willet / Music by Willet
America, can you spare some change?
A continents going up in flames
And our corporate policies can’t blow it out
Government, maybe 1%
We could try to clear some debt
There’s a child at the door, let her in
I can’t sleep
When there are children that won’t eat
We’ll never know why
But I swear to God that I’ll die trying
Blood stains and cuts, clothing that’s torn up
Stomachs swollen, begging for more
Doorbell, take one glance, are you my child, are you from somewhere else?
I think I saw your picture on the T.V.
We have programs and special funds
Ask someone else please
Hey baby where’d you get that gun?
Did they teach you that the war is over here?
I regret that we stopped fighting long ago… |
EXPLANATION
“Since September 11, 2001, the United States has launched a war on terror, but it has neglected the deeper causes of global instability. The $450 billion that the United States will spend this year on the military will never buy peace if it continues to spend around one thirtieth of that, just $15 billion, to address the plight of the world’s poorest of the poor, whose societies are destabilized by extreme poverty and thereby become havens of unrest, violence, and even global terrorism.”
- Jeffrey D. Sachs, The end of poverty
“…if we’re honest, there’s no way we could conclude that such mass death day after day would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Certainly not in North America, or Europe, or Japan. An entire continent bursting into flames? Deep down, if we really accept that their lives-African lives-are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. It’s an uncomfortable truth.”
“Some people will say we can’t afford to do it….I disagree. I think we can’t afford not to do it.”
“We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies – but will we be that generation?”
“History will be our judge, but what’s written is up to us.”
- Bono, 2004
“The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty.”
- Secretary of State, Colin Powell
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