Bruce Cockburn

Call It Democracy

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Call It Democracy Lyrics

	


Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so called "developed" nations'
Idolatry of ideology

North, south, east,And it west
Kill the best and buy the rest
It's just spend a buck to make a buck
You don't really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery

I-M-F dirty M-F
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

See the paid off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies, shake hands with the fellows
And it's open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy

See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution

I-M-F dirty M-F
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy

	

Submitted by

songmeanings On Feb 06, 2012

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by JediDryad

8y ago

I know that in discussions about Bruce Cockburn's move away from spiritual music to political music, most people are talking about If I Had A Rocket Launcher. It's understandable since that song is more direct and obviously violent, but I think this one is just as angry and just as violet in a more observational and prophetic way.

The whole song is calling out the growth of democracy in the world as as nothing but a false front for the greedy west to make money off the backs of the poor and oppressed who continue to be as poor and oppressed as "free citizens" of a "democratic nation" as they ever were under the tinpot dictators the west has supposedly freed them from. It's about sweat shops and assembly lines moving to countries with lax labour laws so that the rich get richer. In the end, it's all driven by money, not idealism.

His line "one day you're going to rise from your habitual feast, to find yourself staring down the throat of the beast they call the revolution." sends chills down my spine.

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