Tom Lehrer

Send The Marines

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Send The Marines Lyrics

	


What with President Johnson practicing escalatio on the Vietnamese, and then the Dominican Crisis on top of that, it has been a nervous year, and people have begun to feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis. Fortunately, in times of crisis like this, America always has its number one instrument of diplomacy to fall back on. Here's a song about it:

When someone makes a move
Of which we don't approve,
Who is it that always intervenes?
U.N. and O.A.S.,
They have their place, I guess,
But first - send the Marines!

We'll send them all we've got,
John Wayne and Randolph Scott;
Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
To the shores of Tripoli,
But not to Mississippoli,
What do we do?  We send the Marines!

For might makes right,
And till they've seen the light,
They've got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
Till somebody we like can be elected.

Members of the corps
All hate the thought of war;
They'd rather kill them off by peaceful means.
Stop calling it aggression,
Ooh, we hate that expression!
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo.
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt,
Send the Marines!

	

Submitted by

djb13 On Jul 07, 2005

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by Occams_Harmony

19y ago

This song really makes a lot of sense. The USA isn't a bad country, necessarily, but it is a selfish one. It will do ANYTHING to get its way, and they NEVER help anyone who didn't have something they wanted. WW2? They only helped because they were attacked. Vietnam? Geopolitical location. Iraq? HUGE sea of oil. But Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwae, any poor country with a dictator which either loves america or doesn't have anything useful, the USA wont' help or will actually befriend. USA was friends with evil evil Saddam when Saddam liked America. USA is friends with Saudi Arabia, who persecute the hell out of their women. But that's okay, they give us oil. The USA will hurt anyone who doesn't do something the USA approves of, no matter who rules the country.