500 years

500 years

Copyright © 1997 by EmpowermentResources.com

to the tune of "The Bloody Red Baron."

1. In 1492, 500 years ago
Columbus invaded America, as we all know.
Back in Europe, the Inquisition was underway there,
If you're a woman, Jew, or Pagan, well you'd better beware.

Chorus: 500 years have come, 500 years have gone
Still our conquest keeps carrying on.
Plundering everything that we can
Destroying the earth for the profits of man.

2. In the 1500 and 1600's, they stole what they can
The harvest of the peasants and then some of their lands.
Then they discovered new sources of loot
As the European pirates plundered foreign lands.

3. Silver and gold, slaves and sugar too
They stole everything that they could use.
Some said it was part of a Divine Plan
Since they gave people the bible as they stole their lands.

4. For hundreds of years, peasants lost their lands
To the growing industries they had to sell their hands.
Dickens and Marx, many others as well,
Recorded that growing industrial hell.

5. Arms races lead to war as we all should know
And in Imperial Europe that's the way it did go.
In 1914 the slaughter began
As we machine-gunned and gassed our fellow man.

6. After the carnage and the holocaust of World War II
We had technological progress and social progress too.
Now progress is our boon but our enemy too
We're gonna run out of the resources we need to use.

7. Whether Chief Seattle said these words or not, they ring true
Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the people too.
If our population keeps growing and our consumption too
We'll destroy the earth and our future too.

8. I try to live simple, I try to live free
I watch my money go to the rich and the military.
We've got to change society as well as our lives
If we want a sustainable society that will survive.