Well, I certainly wish the aboriginal inhabitants of this country had taken your viewpoint! Disease ridden criminals coming in by the boatload in their day. So freaking stupid they couldn't even grow their own food.
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 called noble, colorful 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
Forbid them their languages then further say
That American history really began
when Columbus set sail
out of Europe and stress
That the nation of leeches that’s conquered this land
Are the biggest and bravest and boldest and best
Yet where in the history books is 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 the kilns of mud
And the 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 small pox 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
Yet a few of the conquered have somehow survived
Their blood runs the redder though genes have been paled
From Grand 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 lifeblood shut up in your chemical tanks
And now here you come bill of sale in your hands
And surprise
in your eyes
For our lacking of thanks
For the blessings of civilization you brought us
The lessons you’ve taught us
The ruin you wrought us
Oh see what our faith in America’s bought 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 you 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 never seen
That the eagles of war whose wings lent you glory
They were never no more than carrion crows
Pushed the wren from theirs nests
Stole their eggs
Changed their story
The mocking bird sings it
It’s all that she 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
- Buffy Sainte-Marie, "My country 'Tis of thy People"
Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
™ Version 4.2