It makes no difference whether private or public
Capitalism is everything that puts profit first
Regardless of what it may say about what it does
Philanthropy and capitalism are joined at the hip
Their hypocrisies and failures breathe the same air
Their claims egregious as they are are similar
For this is the system in which we live and move and have our being
And which by Abba's grace we'll overcome
For philanthropy is this globe's biggest failure
It embraces the failures of government and education and charity and health care
All efforts to do good
Wrapped in the ribbons of achievement
At year end telling us of its sad performance
The mothers who did not survive birth
The landmines that went uncleared
The children who never saw the inside of a museum
The young and female and weak who are excluded from survival
The acrid balls and other publicized celebrations of the rich good
To whom all media bow servile
Extracting their pay from the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table
And governance that noble engine of philanthropy
With its Assads and Annans
Its Putins and Obamas
Spends more time trumpeting and making excuses
Than it does rectifying its benign genocides
And its unspeakable massacres
The failure of these married elements
Of governance and philanthropy
Is the failure to properly identify crime
That would be capitalism (not by the way free enterprise)
Capitalism at root is a failure to grasp and live by proper values
Proper values place non-idolatry, helpfulness, tolerance and democracy
Ahead of profit
Proper values put profit in its place
Proper values
Underlie global democratic revolution
Proper values will overthrow
Philanthropy as it now is
Capitalism as it now is
Governance as it now it
Fallible people schooled in the values that lie at the core of all people
Will rule
And the first commandment will be
Thou shalt not boast
