Don't get me wrong i know you've done your time
from Inchon to Khe Sanh to the Quaker Oats line,
And yes sir, you've got me by more than a few years
might learn something, if i shut up and open my ears
and i know, that my less than great generation ain't savvy
and worldy like you.
So with this beer hoisted allow me to offer some gratitude long overdue
Thanks for the culture of thought sanitized
by Christians, and Bigots, and Reaganites
thanks for your silence as witch hunts and red squads
dragged down your neighbors like dogs.
Thanks for the Cold War and COINTELPRO
for Vietnam, Nukes, and for talk radio
And your wide-eyed credulity stretched beyond reason
toward con-men and quislings, and cheap demagogues.
Thanks for your idle consensus as pitchmen
sold assholes as presidents, lapdogs to rich men
for letting the joyless and spiteless decide right from wrong
for everyone else.
Thanks for abandoning all that you taught,
about fair play and freedom of speech and of thought.
For this world of shit we inherit from stewards
who couldn't be bothered to think for themselves.