the factory floor is silent,
cold,
a story that grew old.
the screen now glows,
the new gods rise,
with profit in their eyes.

the hands that built,
now clenched in fists,
by cultural twists and turns.
they're taught to blame the distant crowd,
the strange,
the new,
the loud,
to seek a savior,
pale and strong,
to whom they can belong,
and miss the hand,
the corporate theft,
that truly left them bereft.

the minds that see the social flaw,
the unjust,
ancient law,
with theories sharp,
they diagnose
the hate the other grows.
they punch with words,
so precise,
and pay the social price,
but miss the shared,.
the common foe,
the economic woe,
that feeds them both a different lie,
beneath the same blue sky.

so each side digs a deeper trench,
the worker and the clerk,
each fighting for a different truth,
upon the same dark earth.
they trade their rage across the divide,
with nowhere left to hide,
while on a hill,
in quiet delight,
they're sold the means to fight,
and shareholders,
with soft,
clean hands,
divide the stolen lands.

the circuit board,
the missile's heart,
the thing that makes it start,
is shipped across the ocean wide,
on the incoming tide.
the symbol of a nation's might,
can't function in the night
without the pieces from the hand
of the rival in the land.

so this is not a lack of thought,
but a brutal lesson that was taught;
to see the stranger in your sight,
as the source of all your blight,
and never, ever lift your head,
to see who truly is being fed,
and who it is that lays the plate,
and seals our common fate.