So many orders of destruction! We can see the pattern: destroy all opposition, within the government and the nation and the world. Oh, and remove all obstacles to the enrichment of the few and the immiseration of the many. No news here. Just an unprecedented onslaught. Well, since 1933. Forgive me for having smooshed it all into a song.
ON THE FIRST DAY — MEDLEY
Just before taking office he bullied Tel Aviv
Got a settlement
In exchange for more settlements
On the first day of 2.0, Project 2025
Dropped Paris agreement, saving trillion dollars, losing only one planet
Declared trans people to be nonexistent, like Palestinians
Renamed Denali back to Mt McKinley, erasing first nations,
we’re the only nation on the only planet, which we’ll get to next
All I want is a planet where there’s no indigenous people there
White face, white hands, white sheet ah wouldn’t it be Trumperly
Mass deportation millions doing crimes,
okay I’m lying as I do sometimes,
sure they do our work
But do you really need housing and food?
All I want is to separate
families who I teach you to hate
So I’m rescinding Biden’s reuniting families plan
And you’ll stay with me abso-feckin-lutely still
You won’t notice when I kill
The bill of rights, that’s my skill
All they want is a smart phone app
To apply to enter, well that’s just crap
They’ll only eat your cat and that’s not law and orderly
Reinvigorating Muslim ban you’re hating, yay!
E-racism feels so feckin good
Feck W.H.O.
Who needs health, long as you’ve got your wealth
D-E-I, diversity’s such a lie
Inclusion just makes me cry
And so I reserve equity for me and mine
Declare energy shortage cuz it wasn’t sunny
Opening Alaska’s Arctic wildlife refuge
Kill baby kill
And we’re also taking Mexico’s gulf
If they want it back, help us attack
Panama to show that China can’t use our canal
Billionaires kneelin’ on their knees
I make sure they say pretty please
I take good care of these
Because they are so Trumperly
I’d like to be indictment-free
With a sourpuss’s pardon of my thugs
I’ll let them out, every last lout
And prosecute those who indicted me
Race baitin’ keep on churnin’
Proud Boys keep returnin’
And we’re trollin’, trollin’ make the libtards quiver
Forget the stinkin’ permits
Let the miners mine
We love clean coal
EV’s are for sissies, real Americans love gas
Save the planet, nah, thank you, I’ll pass
Choke holds are in, pronouns are out
More private prisons, profits have risen
If you’ve done nothing wrong then you’ve got
Naught to worry about
And from now on:
You never have to think about others
Leonard Peltier
I wrote the song in 1978 and recorded it in 1981, live in Berkeley, with Kevin Pina and myself on vocals and Pat Fahey on mandolin.
FBI agents attacked the Indian land
On with the genocide, that’s what they planned
Two FBI agents ended up dead
But the government continues to kill the Red Nation
Joe Stuntz, an Indian man
Was killed in the battle on the Pine Ridge reservation
No one was charged for this colonial murder
No one ever is in a concentration camp
Call it what it is
Chorus:
|Let me sing you a true tale
For defending his people
This man lands in jail
While all those genocidal politicans
Sit around and cheer
Native people say
White man’s government, no, no
Has got no right, no, no
To judge Peltier
To judge Peltier
Leaders are a threat, so they took Peltier
Shove him in a prison cell til his last livin’ year
In the Indian heart they would like to strike fear
Haven’t they learned nothin”?
Who started this war?
And what, what for?
The white government has always lied
About justice, while Native people get FBI’d
Chorus
You Can’t Do That
For mentioning Gaza, a student can be suspended and a professor can lose their career. This is the new McCarthyism, product of a nationwide conspiracy by Congress, donors, trustees, and other miscreants to keep genocide a sacred trust.
If I catch you talkin’ bout Gaza again
I’m gonna clamp you down
Suspend you flat
Because I told you before
Oh, you can’t do that
Well you say you’re being doxxed
I gotta take you to task
If you’re demonstrating
and you wear a mask
I’m gonna clamp you down
Suspend you flat
Because I told you before
Oh, you can’t do that
Everybody’s green, red black white and green
They’re all supporting Falastin
But if they’re seen
We smack down their rights, and put out their lights
If you’re SJP or JVP
You want your first Amendment, gotta go through me
I’m gonna clamp you down
Suspend you flat
Because I told you before
Oh, you can’t do that
If you carry a sign you’ll end up in Court
Your thought crimes will be in your Delaney report
I’m gonna clamp you down
Suspend you flat
Because I told you before
Oh, you can’t do that
No microphone, no posters, 20 people tops
Don’t even think about it or we’ll call the cops
I’m gonna clamp you down
Suspend you flat
Because I told you before
Oh, you can’t do that
Everybody’s green, red black white and green
They’re all supporting Falastin
But if you’re seen
We take down your name
It’s the end of your game
Now don’t get me wrong
we’re all about free speech
But criticizing Israel is out of reach
I’m gonna clamp you down
Suspend you flat
Because I told you before
Oh, you can’t do that
Now I trust you understand
no more protest here
This year’s fashion trend is riot gear
I’m gonna clamp you down
Suspend you flat
Because I told you before
Oh, you can’t do that
Yes we’re gonna zip tie you if you read that poem
We’ll defend the genociders
till the cows come home
I’m gonna clamp you down
Suspend you flat
Because I told you before
Oh, you can’t do that
Everybody’s green, red black white and green
They’re all supporting Falastin
But if they’re seen
I pity the fool
Who’s kicked out of school
The university’s not faculty or students oh please
The important people are the donors
and trustees
I’m gonna clamp you down
Suspend you flat
Because I told you before
Oh, you can’t do that
You got tenure so you’re safe, well that’s a joke
Your tenure expires when you’re woke
I’m gonna clamp you down
Career goes flat
Because I told you before
Oh, you can’t do that
You think you’re helping victims
but I know what’s right
If you don’t like ethnic cleansing
You’re an anti-Semite
I’m gonna clamp you down
Suspend you flat
Because I told you before
Oh, you can’t do that
Eve of Destruction
P.F. Sloan wrote this in 1965 at age 19. Needed an update. Using my best Barry McGuire impression to convey contemporary nearly-post-democratic terrors.
They’re bannin’ the books, now it’s tweets they’re quotin’
We live for fear and hate, and that’s how we’re votin’
And the Jordan River has even more bodies floatin’
But the daily news is all sugar-coatin’
And you tell me over and over and over again
My friend
How you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of destruction
Don’t you understand what I’m trying to say
Can’t you feel the fears I’m feeling today?
Our democracy was always made for the rich
Now it’s fallin’ all around us, payback’s a bitch
Take a look around you boy,
it’s bound to scare you, boy
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
How you don’t believe
In a fascist buffoon seduction
Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin’
I’m sittin’ here just contemplatin’
When human respect is disintegratin’
One lone Bernie Sanders can’t pass legislation
This Magaverse is just a wee bit frustratin’
When the leader’s not leadin’, he’s just dictatin’
With the courts and the Congress, they’re checkmatin’
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
How you don’t believe
We need a third reconstruction
Elon may leave here for four days in space
Wish he wouldn’t return to wreck this place
As the world tries to warn us
Of our pride and disgrace
Hate your next door neighbor but don’t forget to say grace
And you tell me
Over and over and over and over again, my friend
You don’t believe
That there’ll be a mass abduction
And you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of destruction
Who’s Gonna?
Starting from the old trad song, via Woody, “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet” (I know, I know, women often have sturdy, tough, competent, strong feet!), we take a look at the promises/threats of the returning narciso-fasciod menace, who brings in tow his able executioners.
Who’s gonna till your land?
Who’s gonna build your house so fine
When José and Carlos are gone?
When Daniela is gone, lordy lord
Who will care for your mom?
Who’s gonna work in the restaurant
When Manuel and Camila are gone
America is occupied
We’re no longer safe in our homes
The Latin folk rule us
Says President Fool Us
They’re poisoning our chromosomes
The fastest plane I ever did ride
Held a hundred friends of mine
Deported below the Rio Grande
To preserve a white man’s land
To preserve a white man’s land, so grand
To make it great again
Where women and colored folk
know their place
All according to God’s plan
And the unions endanger free enterprise
Big labor must shrivel and fall
Cause the only way to be manly and strong
Is to make others weak and small
Men are endangered, victims of change
Women have too loud a voice
Back in your box, here, have some botox
It’s your body, it’s my choice
The women should be in the kitchen, good lord
They’ve got to stop runnin’ wild
We’ll take away their flats and their cats
And make sure each one has a child
And make sure each one has a child, make sure
The orange genius prevails
Cause affordable health care’s a
Communist cause
And Amazon owns the mail
Yes Amazon owns the mail, good god
Yes Google knows who you date
And the DOJ whisks the gays away
And coal makes America great
Yes coal makes America great, also oil
No longer with solar we’re cursed
While the glaciers melt and the cities submerge
Yes we’re putting America first
We’ve put America first, praise Trump,
We’ll be number one as we fry
When the rivers are poison
and Pittsburgh’s beachfront
And you can’t go outdoors in July
No we don’t demonstrate any more
Since our neighbors turned us in
There’s no politics,
Everything has been fixed
And elections declared a sin
In an English-only city, In a hetero only state
In a land of book bans
We are free from the trans
And no one is eating our pets
Is Trump a fascist, are Stefanik and Noem
Are Pam, Pete, Stephen and Steve
America may become great once again
The morning after they leave, Steve
The morning after they leave
Singing CIA Agent George Shrub on the Meddle East—Part 1
From 1983 to 2008, and occasionally beyond, George Shrub, the world’s only known singing CIA agent, pontificated in song, dance, and fake news on his methods of keeping our world Our World. The Problem of Palestine was a recurrent theme. Here, from the archives, he rises again to the challenge of explaining settler colonialism away.