Lives in the Balance

When you know that you've seen it before
And a country is drifting to war
Where a government lies to a people
There are people under fire
I want to know who the men in the shadows are

But they're never the ones to fight or to die
There are lives in the balance

They sell us every thing from youth to religion
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You hear one thing again and again
How the U.S.A. stands for freedom

These governments killing their own?

They sell us the president the same way
There are people under fire
Where we can't even say the names
And there are lives in the balance
Or the people who finally can't take any more
And there's a shadow on the faces
Of the wars that are fought in places
And we come to the aid of a friend
They sell us our clothes and our cars
And there is blood on the wire

Of the men who fan the flames
The same time they sell us our wars
There are children at the cannons

I want to hear somebody asking them why

There are children at the cannons
But who are the ones that we call our friends

Of the men who send the guns
Where their business interest runs
On the radio talk shows and the TV
To the wars that are fought in places
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
You might ask what it takes to remember
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There's a shadow on the faces
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are