[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14147-14148]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LIVES IN THE BALANCE

  (Mr. COHEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I wish to quote Jackson Browne's ``Lives in 
the Balance,'' a song written quite a few years ago but most 
appropriate for today.
  ``I've been waiting for something to happen
  For a week or a month or a year.
  With the blood in the ink of the headlines
  And the sound of the crowd in my ear
  You might ask what it takes to remember
  When you know that you've seen it before
  Where a government lies to a people
  And a country is drifting to war.
  ``And there's a shadow on the faces
  Of the men who send the guns
  To the wars that are fought in places
  Where their business interests runs.
  ``On the radio talk shows and the TV
  You hear one thing again and again
  How the U.S.A. stands for freedom
  And we come to the aid of a friend
  But who are the ones that we call our friends,
  These governments killing their own?
  There are lives in the balance
  There are people under fire

[[Page 14148]]

  There are children at the cannons
  And there is blood on the wire.
  ``There's a shadow on the faces
  Of the men who fan the flames
  Of the wars that are fought in places
  Where we can't even say the names?
  ``I want to know who the men in the shadows are
  I want to hear somebody asking them why.
  They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are,
  But they're never the ones to fight or die.
  And there are lives in the balance
  There are people under fire
  There are children at the cannons
  And there is blood on the wire.''

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