Monday, 8 January 2018

How Long, America?

How long we gonna play this game
Like there's more than one America?
How long are we gonna send people home
To the streets?
How long we gonna keep exporting
Violence, extortion, corruption and gangs?
How much we gonna pay in the factories?

Ensenada T-shirts the factory pays 90 pesos a day that's less than
Five bucks a day just an hour and a half cross the border
(And we talk about $15 an hour as a just wage)
And the Governor of Baja Sur is talking to the farm workers
From Oaxaca, says get back to work
If not you'll get deported

How long we gonna deny
That this is our mess?
How long we gonna build walls on the lines
In our heads?
How long will we say that it's "free and fair trade"
For trickle-up profits to keep workers enslaved
The corporations come in, they have free reign
They buy the elections and they own the terrain

I have this friend who rode the train all the way
From Honduras as a teen
Just following that money stream
No capital, no money, and death in the streets

I met this girl in Guatemala, she was cute as could be
Unfortunately some gangster, he thought the same thing
Asked her to be his he said please
And when she said no he shot out her face
She was fifteen
You know where street gangs started? 
Good old LA.

In Mexico City, this girl shows up she's been raped
The coyotes said "this is Texas" and left her on the street
She paid 3 years' wages to come to the States

And there were so many people I met in the 
Soup kitchen in Guate
Who had just been deported

This system kills people.
This system destroys families.

The best Americans I know are illegals
They work hard, they invest,
They sacrifice for their families

This is how it works:
The gringos sell the guns and buy the cocaine
Wal-Mart pays the bribes and corrupts the state
California deports the Dieciochos and MS13
And Americans hire illegal so they keep on coming
It's simple supply and demand, baby.

We want everything we want; we want it cheap
Law and human cost be damned, it's for the money
Economic growth is a lie if the people don't have a stake
And that's hard to have when your country is ruled by
 8 families

I'm an American citizen
But I ain't earned it,
If we're going to treat countries like colonies
They are citizens the same
And if Dole and Chiquita and Firestone gonna run countries
If they're gonna bully nations to get paid
Well, than who am I to blame their citizens for running away
Who invaded who?
The Marine Corps has toured every place here to Panama
And that's not to mention the thugs from the old CIA
But its unjust businesses who run the extortion ring
And mega-corporations shout out free trade
Because they are making a killing exploiting the weak
That's not to mention US farm subsidies

So tell me, what's a living wage?  
How much are you worth?
I guess that depends on your passport.

How long we gonna play this game
Like there's more than one America?
How long are we gonna send people home
To the streets?
How long we gonna keep dumping the surplus
Of our gluttony on our neighbors' fragile economies?

Look I know one thing:
Love your neighbor as yourself.
America can be proud, she's a good neighbor to
Countries that are far away,
But if you think the United States is or was great
You obviously haven't read Central American History.

I look around, and I see Americans.
Somos Americanos,
And we're all in this shit juntos, waist-deep
And you know, the rich families in Guate, they build their
Walls bigger and bigger and put broken glass on top,
They send their kids to private schools
Because they want to keep out the city that's outside their gates
And the racist Estadounidenses are doing the exact same thing
But everything just perpetuates and nothing will change

Until we all, rich and poor,
Take some pride in our city
Our continent, our people,
Nuestra América,
And we tear down the walls
Break monopolies and the "too-bigs"
And the people are free

I'm an American citizen
And I believe every person from here to Panama
Has earned that right in blood
You can't treat countries like slaves
You can't say we're not the same.

You wallies,
You should be afraid, but not of Latinos
You know there's a cure for that fear, it's called Spanish class
No you shouldn't be afraid of poor people
You should be afraid of justice, that America, one day will pay
Do you think God doesn't hear the cries of the mother deported away from her children?
Do you think God doesn't hear the cries of the worker denied his wages?
Do you think God doesn't hear the cries of the exploited?
Do you think God doesn't hear the cries of the poor?
And to the Donald Trumps, to the ones who feed off of racist fear
Who stir up hatred to get a response
Who manipulate with stereotype and hate
Your fall will be swift and you will be judged 
With the same measure you extended to those outside the system
Thus says the Lord

How long we gonna play this game
Like there's more than one America?
How long are we gonna send people home
To the streets?
How long we gonna keep exporting
Violence, extortion, corruption and gangs?
How much we gonna pay in the factories?


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