So I keep resharing this video on my
facebook page. There's a reason for that. I can't believe how close to being true this video is now.
Let me explain:
When I wrote this song, it was back in August of 2011. There had been a successful occupation of the Wisconsin State Capitol building, but Scott Walker kicked everybody out. Paul LePage here in Maine had taken down the Labor Mural, and was pushing through anti-human legislation, such as lifting the ban on cancer-causing chemicals in toys and baby bottles, trying to make Maine a right-to-work (for less) state, cutting taxes on the wealthy, cutting services on the most needy, all in the name of being pro-business.
(hence the inspiration for
this graphic)
Occupy Wall Street loomed on the horizon as an exciting protest, but I, like many, didn't think it was going to end up being much more than just a week long endeavor, and hoped that I would be able to get down there to attend before it was over, just to say I was there and did my part.
I was working in a factory between 40 and 50 hours a week as a "seasonal hire"-- just the latest of a series of jobs where I was working full time, but being compensated as a "part time seasonal employee" aka no benefits, no bonuses, nothing that isn't mandated by law. Except for maybe the occasional balsam fir scented car freshener, or corporate logo-emblazoned baseball cap. ("Cuz' here at the corporation, we're all on the corporation's team.")
The lyrics of the song were my life at the time. The refrain of the song "And the whole fucking thing is coming down" wasn't coming from optimism like it may seem to now. What it felt to me, is that eventually the working class were going to be so completely crushed, that Capitalism would finally and entirely eat itsself, plunging our country into chaos and civil war.
This had long been a feeling of mine. This sentiment inspired the following
fable which I wrote in October of 2010:
They told us when they took our jobs overseas, "No hard feelings. It's just business, you know?"
They told us when they destroyed our 401ks through gambling with our money, "No hard feelings. It's just business, you know?"
They told us when we fell behind on our mortgage and foreclosed on our house, kicking us to the street, "No hard feelings. It's just business, you know?"
As more and more people were forced on welfare, the government's budget started to look grim. When they cut welfare spending entirely so that they could enjoy bigger tax cuts to "stimulate the economy," they told us, "No hard feelings. It's just business, you know?"
Then the poor had nothing left to eat, and no place to go.
So they had to kill and eat the rich.
They descended on Wall Street by the millions, stopping all traffic.
Their numbers were so large, the police couldn't do anything to stop the massive crowd of the disenfranchised. They flooded the buildings of Wall Street, the halls of DC, of the McMansions of Texas, and like a horde of zombies, they tore into the flesh of the horrified wealthy, who screamed and shat themselves, knowing that they were powerless to stop the oncoming mass of gnashing teeth and hungry mouths.
And as the poor picked the bones clean over the burning piles of money, the poor said to the bones:
"No hard feelings. It's just business, you know?"
And my youtube mentor Dennis Trainor Jr made this video in Dec 2010:
But back then, we were just pissing in the wind. Just frustrated, angry, and impotent, spewing our rage into the internet, and our message didn't really find purchase in the collective consciousness of the public.
So the refrain to my song
"The whole fucking thing is coming down, the whole fucking thing is coming down" that wasn't coming from a place of empowerment. That was coming from a place of complete and total desperation. It was coming from total hopelessness. It was coming from a place where too many people spend their ever dwindling paycheck at Wal*Mart, and too few people know how their State Budget works.
It came from a place where everything was fucked up, most were pissed, but most didn't bother trying to figure out WHY everything was fucked up, and just watched football instead.
But now... now that Occupy Wall Street has happened, and has been going for 7 months strong coming up on the 17th of this month, when you listen to the refrain of the song, "the whole fucking thing is coming down" imagine the alternative systems that will replace the systems that are around us now. Imagine the better ways we can organize our society- the better ways that those of us in the movement HAVE BEEN organizing our society.
It's been almost two years now that I've been feeling desperate and utterly hopeless; that something has got to give. And now something has given way.
Nobody knows the future anymore. Things that we once might have thought of as important aren't on our Radar-- Romney or Obama? Who gives a shit? They're both Wall Street Puppets. It doesn't matter.
With every incident of young and elderly women getting pepper sprayed, and Iraq War vets getting mortally wounded by police, the legitimacy of the plutocratic regime crumbles. It is a collapsing facade revealing behind it an ugly and terrible face, propped up only by combination of fraud and force. And when the majority of Americans see the regime for what it really is, they'll turn their backs, just like those of us in the movement already have.
The whole fucking thing REALLY IS coming down.
And it's beautiful.
This is an exciting time to be alive.
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