Failed State

When you're working two jobs and living in a tent When a house costs a million bucks and you can't pay the rent When politicians say they'll help but it keeps getting worse Each time the landlord lobby pulls the strings of the purse When the human right to housing isn't even part of the debate You know you're living in a failed state When millions of citizens are spending half their lives Locked up in a prison for trying to survive When laws must be broken just to have a place to stay When the prisons pay the senators to look the other way If you have to be a criminal to put food on your plate You know you're living in a failed state When you're facing climate breakdown, when the trees are all on fire When half the country's underwater, when a climate change denier Runs the nation and the opposition party Votes for oil rigs and pipelines, this is not so much a country As it is a corporation, buckling under its weight You know you're living in a failed state When your nation is an empire facing daily blowback And the only thing your leaders can think to do is attack Bipartisan consensus that we need to spend 700 billion before the year's end On a military budget to make America great You know you're living in a failed state When almost every day some psycho with a gun Has to open fire on a crowd before it's done When a music festival becomes a free fire zone And all they can say is it's OK now, he was acting alone Buy some armor, pray to God and hide behind a gate You know you're living in a failed state