Democracy Inaction

I posted a new song called Democracy Inaction today on myspace.com/markheimonen (also on audiostreet.net/markheimonen) This is a higher-energy song, dealing primarily with the subject of getting money out of politics. Campaign finance reform is a huge issue - it isn't just another buzzword campaign issue - it lies at the heart of democracy.

I was at least partially inspired to write the song after reading a chapter entitled "The Soul of Democracy" from Bill Moyers' book, Moyers on America - A Journalist and his Times.

I'll just leave you with a few facts to ponder:

• Money magazine estimate that each American pays $1,600 per year as a result of favors granted to corporations and wealthy people as repayment for campaign contributions (Moyers, Moyers on America, p.96)
• One study estimates that it would cost only about $5 per average taxpayer to cover the cost of a publicly
• 80% of political contributions come from the wealthiest one-quarter of 1 percent of the population (Common Dreams)
• In 1980, CEOs were paid on average 40 times the salary of the average worker. By the year 2000, just twenty years later, the average CEO was making an astounding 531 times the salary of the average American worker. Americans are working longer hours, have fewer rights, and are paid less, when adjusted for inflation, than in the 1970s. (Wages in America: The Richer get Richer, and the Rest get Less and CEOs are Overpaid)
• The Bush Administration continues to push the neoconservative agenda, which is stripping the average American of rights by the day, and handing out favors to corporate interests. Some examples include the bankruptcy bill, CAFTA, the Clear Skies initiative, the new energy bill , the regressive tax cuts, and Medicaid Reform, which all serve the interests of corporations and the wealthy, while removing or eliminating the rights of American citizens.
  

Democracy Inaction

I don't want to have to compromise
The way we run this place no more
Campaign contributions -
Politicians selling out like dirty whores

It’s not the way it's meant to be –
Democracy's become hypocrisy
Corporate interest lobby groups
Have robbed us blind – Why can't you see?

Record-setting deficits
With unemployment through the roof
Housing costs at all-time highs
And health insurance that makes me want to cry

New Source Reviewvs been gutted to the floor
Our nation fails to feed the poor
Our school's budget's razor-thin
Oil's record profits quite a sin

Social security reform
Our kids in debt before they're born
A two-class system's where we're at
The CEOs are getting mighty fat

Updated Music (Mass Media and Walk Away)

I uploaded new versions of Mass Media and Walk Away this evening. I ended up adding a bridge and chorus to Mass Media, and the song now feels a lot more complete to me. You can check out both songs at audiostreet.net/markheimonen (alternatively at myspace.com/markheimonen)

In an incredibly strange coincidence, I actually wrote and released the initial version of Mass Media the day before Lawrence O'Donnell broke the Karl Rove story. Considering that the song actually directly mentions the smearing of Joseph Wilson, the timing seemed almost too perfect.

Mass Media (Lyrics)

PlameGamte, GannonGate, RatherGate, CoinGate
VoterGate, TortureGate, BoltonGate, RoveGate
Halliburton, Enron, Harkin, WorldCom
Downing Street memos - Where have the weapons gone?

The Moral Values label seems a bit misplaced to me,
but maybe that's just me,
could it be..I just don't know

Corporate-sponsored right-wing think tanks
handing out their lies they sell as news
We have a president who doesn't seem to understand or care
About the consequences of the choices that he makes
He lied about the reason that we went to fight a war
And yet was somehow reelected in 2004
Our media has failed to do its job – the fourth estate –
To hold the government accountable for choices that it makes

The Moral Values label seems a bit misplaced to me,
but maybe that's just me,
could it be..I just don't know

Whatever happened to accountability, responsibility –
Not loyalty, or royalty or fealty
Our government's demanding silence –
Look at Newsweek, Wilson, Rather –
Silenced by the Neocon attack machine
These patriotic claims are just a game – a plan to silence
Truth enough to keep the public in the dark for one more day
It's time to stand for truth – demand our media to do its job –
To seek the truth, expose the secrets and the lies we're told

The Moral Values label seems a bit misplaced to me,
but maybe that's just me,
could it be..I just don't know

PlameGamte, GannonGate, RatherGate, CoinGate
VoterGate, TortureGate, BoltonGate, RoveGate
Halliburton, Enron, Harkin, WorldCom
Downing Street memos - Where have the weapons gone?

The Moral Values label seems a bit misplaced to me,
but maybe that's just me,
could it be..I just don't know