Matt Meyer & Dave Lippman, together again for the first time, penned this for the rolling general strike begun in May 2020.
Will it last two months or perhaps a year?
There’s so much we don’t know,
except where we can’t go
It’s Corona after all!
Government has gone AWOL
Let’s meet at the web town hall,
Just keep calm and bring Lysol
It’s a hang in there together alone world
Shall we blame Obama or just the Chinese?
Will Boss Tweet keep lying
I hope he won’t sneeze
Where’s the test? We’re betrayed!
There’s big bucks to be made
It’s Big Pharma after all!
It’s a Trump plague after all,
Don’t go for a pub-crawl y’all
Grab your phone, plot their downfall
It’s a Trumped-up world!
There’ll be banging pans
And horn-honking drives
We will zoom together
And fight for our lives
Evictions aren’t fair
And we’ve got no health care
Can we help this system fall?
It’s a Trump plague after all,
Incompetence has cast a pall
A general strike would be a ball
It would help this system fall
Fixin’ to Die Rag, Trump-style
Lyrics: Thanks to Bill Leon, who had the idea and wrote the first draft; and to Heidi Beiber Sanchez for the limerick.
Music: Thanks to Country Joe McDonald and also to Kid Ory, whose live version of Muskrat Ramble from 1926 appears here.
Maga Man done gone berserk
He thinks you cure corona with bleach and sun screen
That’s why we’re all gettin’ COVID-19
Why he won’t wear a mask, do you gotta ask
Oh he’s totally up to the task
Now come on Wall Street don’t be slow;
Bet on the crash, then buy it up low.
There’s plenty good money to be made
In viral marketing to folks afraid.
Stable genius knew all along
Too bad everything he knew was wrong
And it’s 1,2,3 what are we dyin’ for?
Don’t ask me I don’t really know
Ask PT Trumpum, it’s his shit show
And its 5,6,7, open up the pearly gates
Well, there ain’t no need to test the poor
It’s just another common cold
Well, all you folks in our great GOP
Think government keeps you from being free
But I know you gonna scream holy heck
If you don’t get your stimulus check
1200 bucks for all the Joe Six-Packs
And for the rest of them stock buybacks
Now all of us don’t get equal hell
Like the black and brown who don’t live so well
A mob of the MAGA persuasion
Conducted a statehouse invasion.
Though heavily armed,
They parted unharmed,
And that’s how you know they‘re Caucasian
And it’s 1,2,3 what are we dyin’ for?
Don’t ask me I don’t really know
Ask President Nero, it’s his shit show
And its 5,6,7, c’mon and feel the hate
Old ladies are someone else’s mom
So let ‘em be real gone
We shelter in place, they deliver our food
While Amazon workers are totally screwed
We can order TP with a couple clicks
And if that gets old there’s always Netflix
Meanwhile prisoners and immigrants
Be the first to come home in a box
Now you know who started it, them Chinese
And some Mexican rapists oh please don’t sneeze
W.H.O. gets no more dough
They’re only the world, what do they know?
But I can’t wait for the courtroom drama
When we blame it all on Obama
And it’s 1,2,3 what are we dyin’ for?
Don’t ask me I don’t really know
Ask Jared, it’s his shit show
And its 5,6,7, open up the pearly gates
You want PPE don’t look at me
That’s totally up to the states
Anyway the fix is in
It’s Hydroxychloroquine
Ciao, Viral System
They weren’t prepared to save people, but seem well prepared to take the opportunity to further enrich billionaires at the expense of billions of people. With people going hungry, can we eat the rich?
But we’re not waiting
If we unite for what’s right
We will win this fight
Come Facebook likers
You could be strikers
Then you’ll really have some friends
We know we’re misled
And some are not fed
We know that food, health and housing
Are human rights
Government’s viral
A downward spiral
This system’s clinically insane
Essential workers
Out on the front lines
Meanwhile the Congress is bailing out
Oil tycoons
Tax cuts for wealthy
This is not healthy
The table-turning day has come
All work we’re stopping
No going shopping
We know Amazon workers are suffering
Dismal conditions
Hey politicians
Tell us which side are you on?
We lack finances
Here’s what our stance is
If we have no work
We won’t pay our rent
You can’t evict us
You won’t afflict us
We’re clicking like on strike today
System is breaking
The crooks are quaking
We can survive, we can thrive
Tell the landlord
If there’s no paycheck
Then there’s no rent check
So just back off at least six feet
Prison’s for poor folk
Whose bail they revoke
We won’t die in your jails
While your system fails
We say the state must
Decarcerate us
The President can have my cell
For living wages
Health for all ages
We must create a much greater
democracy
We’re gonna build a better future
And we’re gonna start right now
If You Can See Me
Political prisoners are people who fought for us. We could have been them. They are us. They represent the best of what we have done, could have done, or should have done in our lifetimes. When we honor them, we honor all of humanity. (Recording from the I Hate Wal-mart album, 1998.)
I heard about civil rights down in the South
I could not keep my mind on my program
I had to use my heart and my mouth
I lived in Harlem, I was Black Panther
I looked for answers for my people
I am not famous, I’m not Mandela
But I am imprisoned in a jail
My name is Sundiata Acoli
And my soul is not for sale
They call me terrorist for conspiring
Against the government and companies
Who strip mine, pollute and destroy
In Puerto Rico they do as they please
They like to talk about freedom fighters
But not in their own back yard
They took my sister and me, we’re doin 83
And there will be no bail
My name is Ida Luz Rodriguez
And my country’s not for sale
Down at the market, no one talks about it
On the TV you won’t see this tale, but
If you can see me, then they must free me
So won’t you please lift up the veil
Driving cab is a good way to pay the rent
For a journalist who tells the truth
They been after me since I been after them
No I did not waste my youth
In Philadelphia, police won’t help ya
Except to beat you to the punch
They beat my brother, there was another
Shot the policeman, but I’m doin the time
My name is Mumia Abu-Jamal
And the system is the crime
Once proud nations reduced to reservations
Government goons come to terrorize
We had a duty to defend our family
From corruption, guns and lies
The FBI came, they played that old game
Divide and conquer to maintain their power
I am not famous, I’m not Mandela
But I am imprisoned in a jail
My name is Leonard, Leonard Peltier
And this land is not for sale
Down at the market, no one talks about it
On the TV you won’t see this tale, but
If you can see me, then they must free me
So won’t you please lift up the veil
The Ten Weeks of Mnuchin
$1200 should last a family ten weeks, right? Would Last Mnuchin and hour. Or Bezos 12 minutes. Right?
With $1200 you’ll be fine.
In the second week of stimulus Mnuchin said to me
It’ll last ten weeks
And anyway, it’s free money so shut up
In the third week of stimulus Mnuchin said to me
Why are you complaining?
What did you run out of?
Anyway, two meals a day are enough
In the fourth week of stimulus Mnuchin said to me
I know you’re worried, but we’re kinda busy
Bailing out Jeff Bezos
We’ll get back to you perhaps in July
In the fifth week of stimulus Mnuchin said to me
17 bucks a day!
That should keep you fine
How much could it cost to feed some kids?
We’ll get back to you on August 3rd.
In the sixth week of stimulus Mnuchin said to me
You chose to live on
That side of the tracks!
When you could have had a cush job
With me at Goldman Sachs
Drinking rum on our private jets
In the seventh week of stimulus Mnuchin said to me
Sorry I can’t hear you
I was focusing on
Tax cuts for the rich
See my secretary
She’ll help with your water bill
You should receive a coupon early in the fall
In the eighth week of stimulus Mnuchin said to me
Yes I heard your story
That your check was taken
By the bank for payment
Of your unpaid bills
What did you expect
If you don’t pay your mortgage, hey
Maybe you should try the great outdoors
In the ninth week of stimulus Mnuchin said to me
Bridge liquidity’s the order of the day
Though over in Australia folks are getting paid
Two grand a month
There’s no shame in changing your undies maybe twice week
And wearing the same outfit twice a month
In the tenth week of stimulus Mnuchin said to me
Sorry for confusion I misplaced a zero
I have been informed of what it really costs
For me to live my lifestyle
1200 an hour
Sorry for the mixup
Rest assured the fix is in
We’ll be back in touch
By Christmas Day
Apartment Quarantine
We all live in apartment quarantine…so guess the tune.
We must stay six feet apart
So we live on zoom and skype
Touching only our sweetheart
Seeing friends, we can’t afford
Even though they live right next door
So we burrow in our caves
Zooming in to virtual raves
Cho:
We all live in apartment quarantine
We watch our giant screen
An isolated scene
We’ll be here til the last lima bean
Until next Halloween
Or til there’s a vaccine
And we go to see Times Square
It’s so pleasant that no one’s there
But we’re better off at home
Watching movies like Home Alone
All the while out in the street
There are people without a home
And in jail they’re crowded in
Call for their release
Pick up the phone
Cho
Isolation Makes Us Strong
We’ve had a lot of Battle Hymns since John Brown’s Body, but we’ll need Solidarity Forever, especially when we’re in isolation. Right?
We have always washed our hands
and now we wash them better still
Yes we wash and wash and wash
until the virus we can kill
We don’t kiss or hug or shake
or lean against the window sill
Isolation makes us strong
In our hands is placed detergent
Maybe even alcohol
Then we scrub and run hot water
Oh we’re having such a ball
We can keep our precious health
If we don’t venture down the hall
Isolation makes us strong
Cho:
Isolation is the ticket
Cocktail parties are not cricket
We will stay inside our homes
Reading philosophic tomes
Isolation makes us strong
They have squandered opportunities
To ready us for this
They have privatized the masks
In every way, they’ve been remiss
If we quarantined the politicians
We could be in bliss
Disinfect the White House now
Cho:
Isolation is our watchword
Webinars are where we’re all heard
We can share a common womb
If we all just download zoom
Isolation makes us strong
Bye Bye Bloomberg
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