We've let fear become the novacaine
Like whiskey for the wounds
Swallowing denial pills
For truths that lie ahead
Injecting hopelessness
With needles of realities too real
For optimism's foreign policy
Behind our walls
We alienate the cure
To division's disease

A contagion known by many names
Ignorance is uttered most
A sickness in the veins
Of cancerous medical costs
A pestilence set upon
The amber fields of grain
A plague quarantining classes
In prison-bars and penthouses
A famine on the families
In this minimum cage

Where once we flew with eagles
Now we wallow in the dirt
Born into a dying world
Grown from selfish roots
Watered on pessimism
Bending to the will of hate's
Axe of opportunity
Cutting down the other trees
That dared to share the light of our
American dreams