My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying - Buffy Sainte-Marie

[ConsAreLiars]

The "Columbus Day" Special on Democracy Now! (National Genocide Self-Awareness Day for some) features Buffy Sainte-Marie for the whole program. Watch or listen and learn: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/12/democracy_now_sp...

Listen to her words and the several songs partially presented during these 45 minutes. There's a lot more truth therethan a week (or year) of 24-hour cable TV.

A short tribute, Youtube link and lyrics are found at IWW: http://www.iww.org.au/node/582

Buffy Sainte Marie singing on Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest program: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=tl08n8_b3Sw

The full lyrics, also via IWW, which go a bit longer than the portion played on DN!:

My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying Buffy Ste Marie

Now that your big eyes have finally opened

Now that you're wondering how must they feel

Meaning them that you've chased across America's movie screens

Now that you're wondering how can it be real

That the ones you've called colorful, noble and proud

In your school propaganda They starve in their splendor

You've asked for my comment I simply will render My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Now that the longhouses breed superstition

You force us to send our toddlers away

To your schools where they're taught to despise their traditions Y

ou forbid them their languages, then further say

That American history really began

When Columbus set sail out of Europe, then stress

That the nation of leeches that conquered this land

Are the biggest and bravest and boldest and best

And yet where in your history books is the tale

Of the genocide basic to this country's birth

Of the preachers who lied,

how the Bill of Rights failed

How a nation of patriots returned to their earth

And where will it tell of the Liberty Bell

As it rang with a thud Over Kinzua mud

And of brave Uncle Sam in Alaska this year

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Hear how the bargain was made for the West

With her shivering children in zero degrees

Blankets for your land, so the treaties attest

Oh well, blankets for land is a bargain indeed

And the blankets were those Uncle Sam had collected

From smallpox-diseased dying soldiers that day

And the tribes were wiped out and the history books censored

A hundred years of your statesmen have felt it's better this way

And yet a few of the conquered have somehow survived

Their blood runs the redder though genes have paled

From the Gran Canyon's caverns to craven sad hills

The wounded, the losers, the robbed sing their tale

From Los Angeles County to upstate New York

The white nation fattens while others grow lean

Oh the tricked and evicted they know what I mean

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

The past it just crumbled, the future just threatens

Our life blood shut up in your chemical tanks

And now here you come, bill of sale in your hands

And surprise in your eyes that we're lacking in thanks

For the blessings of civilization you've brought us

The lessons you've taught us, the ruin you've wrought us

Oh see what our trust in America's brought us

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Now that the pride of the sires receives charity

Now that we're harmless and safe behind laws

Now that my life's to be known as your "heritage"

Now that even the graves have been robbed

Now that our own chosen way is a novelty

Hands on our hearts we salute you your victory

Choke on your blue white and scarlet hypocrisy

Pitying the blindness that you've never seen

That the eagles of war whose wings lent you glory

They were never no more than carrion crows

Pushed the wrens from their nest, stole their eggs, changed their story

The mockingbird sings it, it's all that he knows "

Ah what can I do?" say a powerless few

With a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye

Can't you see that their poverty's profiting you

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

(minor edits)

[annabanana]

1. I played the grooves off of the album this was on

when it came out in the 60's.

[canoeist52]

2. me too- still have the album, it's just unplayable