rom Bagdad to Baltimore, a world-wide war
The tactic of destruction as a double-bladed sword
As the contracts hit the billions and the billions hit the street
In protest of the slaughter, getting slaughtered police
We grow to love our neighbors then to stab them in the back
In a crooked game of power with a deck that's always stacked
The goal's to struggle through your labor just to find your place in line
While the profiteers repeat the pattern, holding down rewind
And if the foreground's so destructive think what's happening behind
If I had a rocket launcher, my place would be defined

I watch the television, see the headlines now and then
Slogan after slogan, repeating the refrain
We trust these movie-stars of media, and we're fetishizing fame
As little tidbits of reality go flashing across the screen
They say that everything is even it's all following the plan
The dead are stacked in piles being bulldozed in the sand
There's nothing different about it, it's just like all the rest
Limbless children without parents, homeless cancer-ridden vets
They try to cloak it all in logos, every day another myth
The news reporters smiles, gaining stories from the death
What they did to Southeast Asia they are doing here today
If I had a rocket launcher, I'd make somebody pay

Down at Central Booking in the over crowded cells
The poor are housed together fending for themselves
Against the prison guard's union, the criminals with keys
Calling punishment "correction", doing anything they please
Locked away inside this concrete cage all hope is torn apart
As the guards complete the cycle breaking down the human heart
Until the verdict is not guilty or the final lever's pulled
Still the circle is unbroken and the cells are always full
You know the war across the ocean? Well here's the one at home
From the ghetto to the graveyard, the path is set in stone
The duty done by prisons is maintaining poverty
If I had a rocket launcher, I'd abolish slavery

Time continues slowly sometimes dangerously still
Everyday a new beginning finds you staring up the hill
Another war another clearcut, another killer cop
A society collapsing with the ticking of the clock
You'd think there'd never be an outlet, never something so immense
That it could break this spell of silence and the deeds it represents
But between the benefactor's and the people beaten back
It's evident by history that something's gonna crack
And when it does there's only action, the changing of the hands
Aggression laying waste to all the best laid plans
And don't blame me if I'm smiling when it all comes tumbling down
If I had a rocket launcher, I would make each second count