Written back in ’14, when we thought we were well shed of him, after only three terms of battering black youth, unions, affordable housing, and accessible cabs. He had two good ideas: bike lanes and shrinking sodas. Presidential?
Of missing you, there’s no risk
Bye, Bye Bloomberg
Luxury housing you adore
Let’s build enough for all the poor
Bye, Bye Bloomberg
Eviction orders clutter your credenza,
we’re all suffering from your affluenza
You love the law, let’s count the ways
Tried to block our paid sick days
Bloomberg, bye bye
Co-locate the charter schools
Inside the public vestibules
Makes folks jealous
Vandalizing Occupy
Class awareness has to die
Overzealous
Of all your clubs, your favorite is the billy
And your affordable housing isn’t really
On legal matters you were firm
That’s why you bought an extra term
Bloomberg Bye, Bye
Labor’s muscle you abhorred
Those pensions we just can’t afford
Bye, bye unions
You’re quick, you’re irrepressible
Prefer cabs inaccessible
Bye, bye wheelchairs
As you reach your long-awaited coda
Rest assured we like bike lanes and small sodas
Poor folk, brown folk, youth despair
Of billionaires’ pied-a-tierres
Our rights you deny
So Bloomberg bye bye
Bernie Bus
With the kind permission of the excellent French jazz band Beltuner, I have added my discussion of the various corporate candidates and of my man Bernie to some very nice music.
I like Warren when she’s roarin
But I’m on the Bernie bus.
Mayor Pete’s sweet but he’s way gone
Up Wall Street
I’m not in the Cory lorry
I’m not in the Klobuchar car
It don’t go far
Deval follows protocol
He’s the man from Bain, I won’t take that train
And the Bloomberg boat won’t float
Marianne, yes she can
Elevate the moral tone in the land
Forget Tulsi, Islamophobia lull she back to
Modi, the road he on, wrong.
Yang Gang? Dang! I like Andrew, I do
For Secretary of Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang
I mean,
Secretary of startups and champion of change, you go Yang
Right into the cabinet!
That other billionaire? Secretary of Calm the Climate Down.
Oh did I forget Uncle Joe?
I ain’t ridin the Biden, hidin on the railway sidin
Waiting, not creatin a bold plan like the old man
Who drives the Bernie bus
Have I mentioned the bus?
It’s not me, it’s us
Imagine Potus Sanders
Some folks say he’s too old, but do they really mean they’re scared of a movement that bucks the ruling powers of the centrist party that’s challenging Mussotrumpi? Let’s find out, in 1:47!
It’s easy if you try
Some say that he’s too old now
Like that Mandela guy
Imagine they don’t realize
He’s our boldest and best ally
Imagine corporate candidates
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing they really stand for
Least of all, me and you
Imagine all the people
Deciding to change the world
You—
You may say he’s a dreamer
But he can’t be bought or sold
Together we can stop the billionaires
Their rule is what is really old
Imagine revolution
Not me, it’s us you see
We give our 18 dollars
A grass-roots guarantee
Imagine all the people
In command of their destiny
You—
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
If we all stand up for justice
Come November, we will have won
Hanukkah Executive Order
White House Resident issues order defining anti-Israeli apartheid activity as anti-Semitism, and encouraging campuses to ban discussion of Palestinian rights. The order asserts that “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” denies Jews their self-determination. In other words, anyone has the right to self-determine by obliterating their neighbors. Whose land they have taken. And the beat-down goes on…
You’ve opened Pandora
Your out of tune harmonica
Don’t sound like the Torah
Telling every Jew they must love a state
Built on ethnic cleansing
You’re ordering hate
And when you ban free speech
Of those fighting for human rights
Here’s the real news
You’re not helping Jews
You’re in bed with Israel’s apartheid
Whites reign supreme
In your white house regime
It reminds us of days long ago
Calling Israel’s victims anti-Semitic
You would like to outlaw every last critic
Since your Muslim ban
The displaced you berate
You reject the refugees and silence debate
And while you so order
The voices of hatred you feed
White nationalism
Religious fascism
Remind us of days long ago
Oppression you’re aidin’
Your order is fadin’
We’re gonna rejoice when you go
When Rojava Can Live in Peace
Kurdish social pioneers, largely led by women, have forged a new chapter in the book of human possibilities. We will see if Trump and Erdogan can destroy their experiments; but we must continue to learn from them if we are to have hope for our species.
Can live in peace
When Rojava
Can live in peace
Well I want to be in that number
When Rojava
Can live in peace
Against all odds and enemies
Uniting all minorities
Well I want to be in that number
When we live in unity
Ethnicities
Different beliefs
Can create democracy
Well I want to be in that number
When we create democracy
When women build society
Only then can men be free
Well I want to be in that number
When women build society
We activate, cooperate
Don’t need a patriarchal state
Well I want to be in that number
When we all cooperate
We’ve got to learn
Some sanity
Save the earth from humanity
Well I want to be in that number
When we learn some sanity
When Rojava
Can live in peace
When Rojava
Can live in peace
Well I want to be in that number
When Rojava
Can live in peace
Ciao, Puma
Puma is the main sponsor of the Israel Football Association (IFA), which includes teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
More than 200 Palestinian sports clubs have called on Puma to end the sponsorship deal and stop supporting Israel’s illegal land grabs.
A profit-seeker
They are a sponsor of settlement soccer
Dehumanizing and colonizing
But we’re not buying apartheid
Replaced Adidas,
But you mislead us
When you say you never sway
From support for rights
Cause if you mean it
Then don’t smokescreen it
You’re terrorizing Palestine
Freedom of movement
And self-improvement
Both are banned by the plan of dispossession
Israel has flourished
Gaza malnourished
How can they make it to the goal
It seems that you’ve chucked
Your code of conduct
Against complicity in human rights abuse
Settlement scrimmage
Whitewash your image
You are erasing Palestine
Supporting conquest
Is what we protest
You are sponsoring grand
Theft of land and rights
Ethnic cleansing and dispossession
Are what’s running in your shoes
They’re occupying and always lying
Apartheid is but a step to their final goal
Take a decision against this prison
Come on Puma, have some soul
They’re Burnin’ Down the House
The wrong Amazon is burning.
Doom babies deranged to point of danger
With extraordinary lies
Burning down the house
Hold tight could it be the party’s over
Hold tight We’re in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
They’re Burning down the house
Oil and coal are such a drag
earth destruction’s overboard
Moment of decision is here
Closing in on rising seas
Methane is what we will breathe
Just so their profits go higher
Too hot! Hey you might need a swimsuit
Shakedown! Nightmares now in broad daylight
They’re adding 3 or 4 degrees
Burning down the house
What was once a temperate place
Subordinated to the self
Who had to come in first place
Corporate People did their worst
baby what did you expect
Gonna burst into flame
My house will be a cemetery
That’s right, deniers are too snotty
Rising temp hey have you read the tweet
Burnin’ down the house
Species dying yes you bet
And you have not seen nothing yet
Everything’s stuck together
End of life is not too far,
On the planet they make war
Just so their profits go higher
All We Are Saying
In concert in October 2019 with Laura Liben and Judy Gorman, at People’s Voice Cafe, NYC. Every religion (and non-religion) seems to get around to fascism at some point. But if we think while we sing, maybe, just maybe….
No one wants to talk about the Hindu brand
Pogrommin’ on the Muslims who can’t be protected
Then they lie about it and even get elected
There’s Buddhist fascism over in Burma
Rohingya ethnic cleansed from their terra firma
There’s Christian fascism in the USA
And now it’s in the white house, we’re in deep…decay
All we are saying is not in my name
All we are saying is we’re all the same
Nobody wants to talk about Israel twisting us
Jews who were beleaguered with nobody assisting us
Destroy Palestine and then blame them for resisting? Just
Jackin the locals, tearin’ down their homes and jobs
They’re all refugees, attacked by settler mobs
You know everybody wants to talk about human rights
Thinkin ’bout the children keeps us up at night
Anybody bullies poor people yeah we’re agin’ it
Unless they got oil and we got big bucks in it
Violation anywhere is violation everywhere
All people have rights, you know it’s only fair
You can’t have it both ways, c’mon people get aware
All we are saying is not in my name
All we are saying is we’re all the same
I am he as you are me and I am she
And we must come together