LAND OF GOOD AND PLENTY
(a song for Woody)
[ country/folk ]

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                 On independence day we sailed the ocean
                 Fleeing wicked hands of tyranny
                 Opportunity’s foreign shore
                 Couldn’t have hoped for more
                 In the land that spans sea to shining sea

                 Through wind, rain and fire in the hard times
                 Three centuries we struggled to be free
                 Taught our children to work hard
                 And to fear only God
                 In the land that spans sea to shining sea

                       We were livin' in a land of good an’ plenty
                       Golden harvest land of liberty
                       Blest by freedom’s hand
                       New world promised land
                       This land we sang was made for you and me

                 Now a cloud hangs over our lady's harbor
                 Casting shadows where twin towers used to be
                 The wretched, tired and poor
                 Can't find shelter anymore
                 In the land that spans sea to shining sea

                       We were livin’ in a land of good an’ plenty
                       Golden harvest land of liberty
                       Blest by freedom’s hand
                       New world promised land
                       This land we sang was made for you and me

                       Now homeless war veterans
                       Wander our streets wondering
                       If Woody Guthrie’s land still made for you and me * ** ***


U.S. Homeless Information

U.S. Native Poverty Information

U.S. Homeless Veterans Information

National Coalition For The Homeless

National Law Center On Homelessness and Poverty


What manner of nation would use half of the world's resources, harbor much of the world's wealth, contain a large percentageof the world's educated elite, continue to build some of the world's most expensive (and entirely worthless) religious edifices, provide unwarranted tax breaks for the extremely wealthy top 1% of the population and an entertainment industry which routinely spends over one hundred million dollars to create meaningless motion picture drivel, claim to have the preferred form of government for the entire planet and to stand for truth and justice. . . and yet look the other way as impoverished homeless war veterans, senior citizen's and children are forced to sleep in cardboard boxes, in back alleyways, under bridges, in city parks and on city sidewalks?  Will the country which Samuel Clemens referred to as the "land of bibles" go down in history as the one nation beyond all others, that devolved into an utter profane insult to the Creator of the universe?


* Inspired by painter, songwriter and worker's rights activist Woody Guthrie and American author of courage and conscience, John Steinbeck.

**FootNote II:  "Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom:  She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." Ezekiel 16:49.  See also Fleeing Sodom for more details.

***FootNote III:  Many modern intellectuals and liberal activists do not believe that the Creator will come down hard on a nation that does not make a concerted effort to help the sick and poor.  People who vainly imagine that there is no Creator in control who does to nations as they do unto their own are even more insane than the current Bush Junior administration and the Christian Coalition combined (good luck).



           


Copyright © by Richard Aberdeen ASCAP
Copyright © by Freedom Tracks Music ASCAP

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