March 19th, 2003, NYC NY

They say it’s over
The need, now, is for justice,
Not for militarism
For humanity
We must be full of grace, or on the way there,
Civilization must lead to something,
Morally instructive, dull, but stemming from universal rights
Which mostly dealt, if I remember,
With life, liberty, and the pursuit of property
and enterprise
My constitution, Jefferson, where is it got to-

But we
Who have created wealthy men,
Have financed foreign wars,
Buried our partners,
Buried our founders, when these did humble themselves for
philanthropic reasons-
An American gesture to assuage senility with the endowment or
social program
Who know our labor for bitches,
We who have utilized the desperate in different countries
And experienced great profit,
Have destroyed environments,
Settled claims, invested and born returns
Who have instigated revolutions, counter-revolutions and
Counter-counter-revolutions
Who have seen many systems of government
And many a good ventures fail
Who have been at the Docklands
In Tokyo in Chicago and in Wall St
During the rally there,
(I speak figuratively,)
Who have seen assets deflated in Asia’s centers
And cast into the red
Who have developed other countries as well as our own have
spoken and understood the language of progress
and have answered the call to modernity;
We have something that cannot be taken away from us by an article
Nor abolished by a critical agreement of United Nations

The searchers for justice will find that there is a certain
humanity in the acceptance of profits.

They may, that is;
They rarely find out anything they cannot read in Marx or
Chomsky.
We’ll start the wars.
They will not fight them
But their children may
If they have children.