Some caregivers at nursing homes work without a contract, for low wages, with prohibitive costs for their dependents’ health care. They’re mobilizing.
We have slopped up your excretions
Emptied bedpans by the gross
We have mopped your fevered brow
And given you your daily dose
But the thanks we get from management
Do not come even close
So we’ll go marching on
Chorus:
Glory glory to a living wage
Glory glory place it on the page
With the wages you propose
We’ll be homeless when it snows
So we’ll go marching on
Nobody should go bankrupt
With gigantic doctor bills
Nor should people have to choose between their dinner and their pills
The studies are already done,
And lack of healthcare kills
So we’ll go marching on
Chorus
We are your friends and neighbors and You see us every day
We help the aged and infirm
So hear us when we say
That when we aren’t respected
We don’t meekly go away
No, we go marching on
Chorus
We Shall Not Be De-Climatized
We marched, and will march again, and then will lie down in front of the liars, and stand up to the climate-killing profiteers.
Chorus:
We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
Just like a tree that’s planted by the water,
We shall not be moved
Oil and coal destroy the earth
We shall not be moved
We’re gonna fight for all we’re worth
We shall not be moved
Just like a tree that’s planted by the water,
We shall not be moved
The 1% steals everything
We shall not be moved
Economic justice we will bring
We shall not be moved
Just like a tree that’s planted by the water,
We shall not be moved
They’re fracking here, they’re drilling there
We shall not be moved
To benefit some billionaire
We shall not be moved
Just like a tree that’s planted by the water,
We shall not be moved
Oil war hawks are swarming
We shall not be moved
Bringing global warming
We shall not be moved
Just like a tree that’s planted by the water,
We shall not be moved
Fossil fuel pollution
We shall not be moved
Clean energy solution
We shall not be moved
Just like a tree that’s planted by the water,
We shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
Just like a tree that’s planted by the water,
We shall not be moved
In the Hummertime
Burying a pink Hummer in an art park in Detroit – world’s most unsingable singalong.
You can drive a hummer and darken the sky
When the weather’s hot
We got oil wars and pollution on our mind
Have a drink, have a drive
Go see whose pocket’s being linedIf your daddy’s rich he can make oil plumes
If your daddy’s poor you can suck on the fumes
Speed along the lane,
Weighs 3 tons, or 3 tons and twenty-five.
When the sun goes down, no one’s lookin’
So you’re better on a bikeThey’re a threat, people, they’re dirty and mean
They’re civilian tanks for civilian marines
They need so much oil
They destroy most of the Caribbean sea
Don’t make us happy,
Life’s for destroying yeah that’s their philosophySing along with us, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee
Da da da da da, hum vee vee vee
We will bury you
Never again see your chassis on TV
Now we’re happy
Life’s for living yeah that’s our philosophyWhen the wind is here, then it’s party time
Bring the solar power, we’ll be doin’ fine
We’ll build buses and trains
That run on seaweed, seltzer and two buck chuck wine
No more guzzling gas
No more war for oil in our lifetimeIf your daddy’s rich which he must be
Takes a shitload o dough to drive a hum-fuckin-vee
Either that or you’re maxin’, maxin’ out your visa credit card
We’ll be better off
Now that we’ve buried it in Heidelberg Yard
Sing along with us, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee
Da da da da da, hum vee vee vee
We will bury you
Never again to see your chassis on TV
Now we’re happy
Life’s for living yeah that’s our philosophy
This Brand’s Not Made for You and Me
A jaunt through the history of boycotts – the ones I’ve joined in, anyway – to help us realize the power of putting the wallet back in the pocket.
This brand’s not your brand
From Delano grape fields
To Montgomery buses
From Nestle’s formula to fossil fuel stocks
This brand’s not made for you and meI’ve roamed and rambled
And followed the footsteps
Of corporate criminals,
Government accessories
And all around me a voice was sounding
This brand’s not made for you and meAs I went walking
I saw South Africa
An apartheid system
With Polaroid passbooks
I didn’t play Sun City, I’m not that shitty
That boycott was made for you and meTo keep us buying
Sometimes they’re lying
Maybe domination
Is their occupation
Do they do aggression, even dispossession
That brand’s not made for you and meIf you’re ever wonderin’
Is the seller plunderin’
Let your conscience wake up
Give the thing a smell test
Is it bad for the planet or indigenous people
That brand’s not made for you and meThis brand’s not my brand
This brand’s not your brand
It oppresses workers
It oppresses women
So don’t buy bombers
Tear gas or land grabs
This brand’s not made for you and me
This brand’s not my brand
This brand’s not your brand
If it steals the wages
If it steals the farmland
If it takes the power
For one tenth of one percent
This brand’s not made for you and me
Hands Up, Don’t Shoot
Michael Brown isn’t even the latest to die from white cops’ fear of black people and failure to implement non-lethal methods and most of all the warehousing of unwanted humans. He was – for two days.
Michael Brown went down
Laid there, stayed there
Four hours to show the powers
Of the powers that be
This is F.U.Q.D. up up up, alla way up
This system is deranged
Tanks in the cities
Tear gas in our eyes
Your average police spokesbot
Almost always lies
Military occupying brown communities
Has anything really changed?
chorus:
Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant and Michael Brown
If the list gets any longer this whole system will go down
Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant and Michael Brown
If the list gets any longer this whole system will go down
Clergy wearing gas masks
Why you killin’ us, a mother asks
Nothin’ left to live for, feels like Palestine
A mere child, state gone wild, no charges filed
Death by assembly line
They coulda tried anything besides six shots to kill
No job, bad schools, worse cops – call it what you will
When the whites gonna get it, this goes on because we let it
Hands up don’t shoot
Two days later, seven more shots
Another child falls, democracy rots
American trees bear strange fruit
Hands up don’t shoot
Looks like Katrina, looks like Gaza, looks like South Africa
Warehouse the poor and colored, police lied, justice died
Black youth caught in the jaws, cops are the cause
chorus
More Dead and Gaza Moans
Israel periodically “mows the lawn,” as they themselves call massacres, to demoralize Gaza, while spinning insulting stories about their motives. It makes things even worse, right? Time to cut aid and boycott yet? Not yet? When, then?
Jet fighters and troops are coming
Apartheid has really grown
While westerners’ hearts are numbing
More dead and Gaza moansGotta get down to it
Settlement’s taking our town
Should have been stopped long ago
What if you knew us
And saw them blow up our homes
How can you run when you know?Jet fighters and billions coming
Palestinians on their own
They’re losing their land and water
Israelis must now atoneGotta get down with it
Indigenous people must live
Uprooting their trees is a crime
What if you lived in an
open air prison like us
How could you run when you know?
The Interdictacall
The present, actually-existing International that has been organized by The Man consists of a buncha robots logging your blogs, phone calls, thoughts and feelings…but if you’ve done nothing wrong, why you bitchin’?
Arise phone callers of the earth
For Google swipes your information
Of privacy there is a dearth
No more the NSA shall bind us
Arise ye slaves of the purloined call
Our metadata’s their foundation
We have been bought, now we’re in thrall
By the spies we have been tricked
Every call falls to these thieves
The international snooping class
A web through wi-fi weaves
‘Tis the time to encrypt
Close the book on their face
Their international cache of calls
Our hackers shall eraseOriginal lyrics: Eugène Pottier, 1871
Music: Pierre De Geyter, 1888
The Times They Aren’t A-Changin’
What actually is “fit to print?”Apparently whatever fits in the bubble that we’re not supposed to be aware we’re in. Pinnacle of journalism or stenography for the established order? You be the judge.
Whenever you’re stumped
And admit that George Orwell’s
Journalistically trumped
And accept it that context
And sense have been dumped
If the Times to you
Is worth bravin’
Then you better start skimmin’
Through the parts fit to print
For the Times they aren’t a-changin’Come writers and editors
Who supersize with your pen
You use misleading weasel words
Time and again
Like “the West” and “our interests,”
“Moderate” and “friend”
And there’s no end to all this renamin’
And the reader will vote
Based on the objectivity they pretend
For the Times they aren’t a-changin’Come publishers, headline writers
With your hidden point of view
That which “stirs up concerns”
May concern mainly you
Try putting your foot
In a poor person’s shoe
There’s a battle outside
And it’s ragin’
But you’d never know that
Inside the bubble that skews
For the Times they aren’t a-changin’Come all ye truth-seekers
Throughout the land
And do criticize
The sly bias at hand
These corporate insiders
Are deaf to our demand
Never calling for corporate jail terms
In a world upside down
Such clear vision is banned
For the Times they aren’t a-changin’The old gray lady
Will always stand fast
Do her best to stupefy
The news-reading class
As reliable reporters
They’re woefully miscast
Will alternative media save us?
Let the youth write their stories
Produce their own broadcasts
For the Times they aren’t a-changin’