Given the choice of saving millions of lives
Or conducting business as usual
Bottom line calculations drive capitalists
To say the cure can't be worse than the disease.
As we practice distancing and shelter in place
Trump fumes and his desperate sycophants sing chorus
Like it's our patriotic duty to be exposed to the pathogen
Volunteering to be culled from the population.
When I was a young man subject to the military draft
It was the old men who ordered us to fight and die
Unlike in this pandemic that is putting everyone at risk
Trump would send the elderly in particular to die.
The brutality of capitalism stands in stark contrast
To the way that China contained the virus
Mobilizing with a single-minded purpose to save lives
Doing whatever was necessary to get it under control.
Here what matters most is the stock market
When shutting down the virus means shutting down commerce
Then push comes to shove and our lives are expendable
Sacrificed to try to save the wealth of a few rich people.
Just think what happens if all the old and disabled get snuffed out
How much less money Social Security and Medicare will pay out
Like this will be a kind of final solution population cleansing
As the overwhelmed hospitals are forced to triage those left to die.
But all those needless deaths won't save this system
As the financial house of cards collapses around them
Unable to prop up their confidence game against the panic
Creating the conditions demanding a cure for capitalism
