How do you compare bad with bad? Do you substract the dead Salvatorians From dead Iraquis? Do you substract tortured Chileans Form poisoned Kurds? And with whom do you exchange The exterminated Vietnamese? He who calculates with a bad memory He whoe tells lies from lies apart He who wants to compare evil with evil Deserves the war het gets And the off-writers sharp their pencils Like the military sharp their bayonets On balances of power They weigh corpses by the million They divide fear by honour And deduct radiation from profit He who's in the red Finds no mercy in their eyes
And he who pays his debts Is considered by them as weak They measure everything In valuation and prognoses, except The shortest way from their office To the underground shelter They measure it in mm/sec They've got tongues like split atoms With which they lick Theirs pens of rocket steel Before they balance their books They work day and night They work fire and ice They write off Cities against oil-wells Childrens against money-lenders Freedom against power They work day and night They work fire and ice They write off And end up at Zero