"The spectacle of two opposing armies each praying to the same God for help in slaughtering 
each other is common enough, but only mocked in peacetime." (unattrib.)

God bless daddy, God bless mom,
Bless our latest nuclear bomb;
Give it's aimer's steady hands
Smite the spot where'er it lands.

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Help our troops to maim that child;
While you're there, before you're through,
Blow its parents' brains out, too.

Bless the minefields that we've sown,
'Specially those where crops are grown;
For the man who works that farm,
He doesn't need a leg or arm.

|"I need no fish, I need no rice,
|I need no meat, or even bread,
|I ask for nothing for myself,
|For I am dead.
|
|"I was but seven, when I died,
|In Hiroshima, long ago;
|I'm seven now, as I was then,
|When children die, they do not grow.  
("Little dead girl of Hiroshima", by Pete Seeger, sung in folk song clubs in my 
mis-spent youth.)

Bless napalm and Agent Orange,
Burn the crops of wily foreign
Gentlemen; For their predation
Soon will bring them mass starvation.

Bless the hindus, moslems, Jews,
Those with skins of different hues,
Point out each delineation,
Thus to aid discrimination.

|"All good things avout us, are sent from heaven above, 
|So thank the Lord, yes thank the Lord for all his love." 
("We plough the fields and scatter."
(Paul Erdmann, trans. Jane Montgomery Campbell.) 

Now we've got for our deployment,
Clever stuff, to bring enjoyment,
Laser beams are much more kind,
Kill 'em not, just turn 'em blind.
Help me make it through the night,
Now those beams have ta'en my sight.


|"Peace on earth" was said. We sing it,
|And pay a million priests to bring it.
|After 2000 years of mass
|We've got as far as poison-gas.
(Christmas 1924 - Thomas Hardy.)


Mustard gas, that's now old hat,
We can do much worse than that;
In our highly secret stores,
Smallpox, plague and anthrax spores.

|God made the bees and bees made honey,
|God made man, and man made money,
|God made the devil, the devil made sin,
|We better dig a hole for to put the bugger in.
   (Old Johnny Bugger, trad.)

"Evil", what a great idea,
That makes everything most clear;
Things go wrong? Ain't that a shame -
We've the devil now to blame.

"Go and multiply", and soon
There'll be no more living room,
Some must be annihilated...
Bless the god that man's created.

- Tiddy.

go back to the dross

Last updated: Wed, 30 Aug 2000.