Bush/Obama Deliver a Grand Christmas Present

... to the the rich, of course. Here's the theme song for this year's Christmas to be sung by all the ultra wealthy...



I'm so depressed that Obama, the Chicago "community organizer" for poor neighborhoods, has shown his real adeptness as the majordomo of Wall Street. He has stepped into George Bush's shoes and graciously assisted the rich, the super rich, and the ultra rich so they can celebrate a gorgeous, grand, glutonous Christmas. The rest of us get to stand outside in the cold and watch. We are supposed to do all the heavy lifting, all the chores, but we don't get to sit at table. That is reserved for our 'betters'.

I want to hear the Burt Bacharach standard 'What the World Needs Now is Love' re-written as 'What the World Needs Now is a Populist Leader who Seriously Cares for the Downtrodden'.

I'll have to work on that title... that one is a little too long, not catchy enough, not sufficiently inspiring.

I was watching the PBS special on Woody Guthrie last night. Now there's a guy who could write a lyric for the poor. He did 'catchy' swell. OK, on the personal level he was a flake, but in the arena of big ideas, he could pump out songs that lifted up people and pointed them to a better tomorrow.

What populism means is exactly what Guthrie put into his song This Land is Your Land:

• Don't look for somebody to save you, save yourself.


• The land doesn't belong to the rich. The nation is a social construct. It is created by social collaboration. It can dissolve in an instant if people stop 'believing' in the property system and the rule of the rich. From time to time, people need to remind the rich that they aren't above, or beyond, or independent of the broader social fabric. Their success is built on collaborations that a civil society makes possible. (Warren Buffet understands this and constantly admits that if he were born in Timbuktu he would be poor and useless, but in a capitalist society his skills at evaluating companies and their prospects has made him a multi-billionaire.)


• Here's my favourite verse:
  

  There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
  Sign was painted, it said private property;
  But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
  This land was made for you and me.

• He revels in this world in the joys to be had in this land, now. He didn't buy into religion that sells you 'pie in the sky' promises.


• Woody reveled in people. He loved all the characters you meet in life. He enjoyed the earthiness of real living. He hated pretense and self importance. That's the kind of populism we need. What ever happened to the 'can do' American who didn't look for hand outs. The Americans who did barn raising and took pride is pulling themselves up by their own boot straps? Populism needs to celebrate the spirit of a people who take back control of their lives.

To understand the mind set of the rich and their view that everybody works for them, for life, eternally indentured servants with no rights to their own labour is captured by this bit of text pulled from the Wikipedia article on Woodie Guthrie:

In his recordings in the early 1940s Woody Guthrie included the following “Copyright Warning”:

“This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”[90] Currently the copyright in much of Woody's songs is claimed by a number of different organizations.[91]

When JibJab published a parody[92] of Woody's song This Land Is Your Land to comment on the US 2004 Presidential election, Ludlow Music attempted to have this parody taken down, claiming it breached their copyright. JibJab then sued to affirm their parody was Fair Use, with the EFF acting for them. As part of their research on the case they found that the song had actually been first published by Woody Guthrie in 1945, although the copyright was not registered until 1956. This meant that when Ludlow applied to renew the copyright in 1984 they were 11 years too late, and the song had in fact been in the public domain since 1973 (28 years from first publication).[93] Ludlow agreed that JibJab were free to distribute their parody. In an interview on NPR Arlo Guthrie said that he thought the parody was hilarious and he thought Woody would have loved it too.[94] Ludlow still claims copyright in this song; however, it is not clear what the basis of this claim is.

Note how the rich love 'property rights' even when what they are doing is illegal, they still 'assert' their rights. They use the power of the state to crush everyone so they can extort as much wealth as they can. This is the Moloch which Obama (and Bush) serve.