The God of War
David Gregorio (C) 2024
Take a whiff, can’t you sniff that tension in the air:
floods, riots, monster storms, disease, despair?
Everybody’s pointing fingers, anger’s boiling deep.
Won’t some hero rise up and lead this nation of lost sheep?
There’s a man whose speeches make us feel so proud and brave;
let’s cover ourselves with glory and put our foes into early graves.
Let's wave the flags again, let's bang the drums again.
Let's tell ourselves the moment of truth has come again.
Round up the young folks, train them to kill and ship them off to foreign shores,
Let's bow down and worship the God of War.
When I was young they said: “just wait, when communism ends,
we’ll rebuild America once Russia is our friend.”
But now you need three jobs to pay the rent in this gig economy.
You have to join the Army to be all that you can be.
If they can’t build more weapons then they’ll close the factories.
Uncle Sam, go pick a fight; we need an enemy …
So we can wave the flags again, we can bang the drums again,
Tell ourselves the moment of truth has come again,
Round up the young folks, train them to kill and ship them off to foreign shores,
They’re calling us to worship the God of War.
We’ve got to win the war on drugs
lick crime with a war on thugs.
After that we’ll spare no expense;
we’ll turn the God of War into the God of Defense,
We’ll consume our country, then cast the blame
on the poor, the blind, the sick and the lame.
Abraham climbed the mountaintop to sacrifice his son.
The one true God said: “Stop, that’s not how my blessing is won.”
Years later, in Gethsemane, an apostle drew his sword.
But Christ said: “Love your enemy,” so don't kill on his accord.
Now when war talk fills the air, we justify our choice to kill.
Just ignore the Gospel truth and lie that we do God’s will.
When they wave the flags again,
when they bang the drums again
and they tell us another moment of truth has come again,
when they come to get the young folks, train them to kill and ship them off to foreign shores,
let’s tell them we’re not worshiping their God of War no more.
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