This has been knocking around in my head since the beginning of the war and I finally got around to making it gel, after reading so many recent direct references to the Bard Of Empire by the usual gang of idiots.
Take Up The Halliburton
Adapted From The White Man’s Burden by S.L. Peterson
With No Apologies To Rudyard Kipling.
Take up the Halliburton-
Send forth the best ye breed-
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve the corporate greed;
To sweat in desert wasteland
To further bottom lines-
Your leaders’ venal partners,
Half devils and half swine.
Take up the Halliburton-
In misery to die,
To lend an air of truth
To the vile and loathesome lie;
A thousand times repeated
By a hundred soulless drones,
Who seek to book a profit
From the crushing of your bones.
Take up the Halliburton-
The savage wars of peace-
To bring them no-bid contracts
And plunder without cease.
And when your goal is nearest;
The security you sought.
Watch greed and loathsome folly
Bring all you hope to naught.
Take up the Halliburton-
No tawdry rule by vote.
But reign of pure rapine
That has your country by the throat.
No holy thing unsullied-
No good thing undefiled-
No honor unbesmirched-
All gentleness made vile.
Take up the Halliburton-
And reap his old reward:
Contempt from those ye serve
Neglect from those ye guard.
Your bodies unprotected
To save them half a sou.
Your food and water rotten
So their dividends accrue.
Take up the Halliburton-
You really have no choice.
They care not what you suffer,
They hark not to your voice.
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
Once they have reaped their harvest
They care not a whit for you.
Take up the Halliburton-
Have done with childish thought
That war leads to nobility:
That honor can’t be bought.
They’ve bought your country outright,
They’ve whored its very heart.
For lust for gold and power-
They’ve torn its soul apart.