“Behind every great fortune, there is a crime.” – Honore de Balzac

For this week’s Duty to Warn column, I simply offer the lyrics from two related songs from the little-known anti-war, anti-fascist, anti-predatory capitalist protest CD “If All the Land Would Rise.”

These powerful songs were written, recorded, and courageously performed by the equally little-known Maine musicians Ethan Miller and Kate Boverman, who are probably on some government black-ops enemy list somewhere (and definitely black-listed by the mainstream music community and media).

These protest songs, very pertinent to America’s current suicidal, bankrupting (both spiritually and economically), perpetual, full-spectrum global domination war policies, were recorded in 2005. The two artists are part of a cooperative farm in Maine. The lyrics are offered here without further comment—except to point out that there is a very short list of the treacherous organized criminals in the last verse of the second song below.

The CD, which has many equally thought-provoking songs, can be accessed and purchased at http://www.riotfolk.org/?m=katebovermanethanmiller&p=music.  

These and other songs can be heard at http://archive.org/details/emkb2004-03-05.flac16.

Several other videos from Miller and Boverman can be viewed at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=g04fMYdsy6c&NR=1.

Organized Crime

We’ve all seen the movies ‘bout gangsters and thugs ’Bout cunning mob bosses and the lords of the drugs But listen here closely if you’ve got the time ‘Cause I’d like to tell you ‘bout organized crime

Well the old mafiosos and cinema crooks  They may sport the pinstripes and sinister looks  But you’ll have to look elsewhere  If you’d like to find the real perpetrators of organized crime

So raise up your hands now if you’ve got a job Making shit wages working until your head throbs They’re making a profit by robbing you blind They say it’s just business, it’s organized crime

And the more the rich got then the more the rich get While everyone else lives on toil and sweat The boss makes ten dollars, you just make a dime It’s not fair compensation, it’s organized crime

Well the tide of prosperity lifts every boat They say as you fall down and drown in their moat It’s a game of roulette that you’ll loose every time This economy’s nothing but organized crime.

Tell me who are the crooks and who’s just getting by? Who’s doing honest work, who’s working lies? The real crooks go free while the poor folk do time If you’re not angry you should be, it’s organized crime

But this time we can’t just call up the police ‘Cause the criminals got all the cops on a leash We’ll have to take things in our own hands this time If we’re going to shut down their organized crime

So come on now friends, are you ready to fight? They’ve stolen our power like it was their right Let’s take it all back from those blood-suckin’ slime The real perpetrators of organized crime

Now talk to your neighbors and talk to your friends Turn off the TV and start organizing We won’t let them get off so scot-free this time When we topple their empire of organized crime


Declaration of War

“This song should remind us that we cannot give in to the dark lullabies of fear, complacency and silence that are emanating from the halls of power. We must turn toward the sources of our outrage and fight for all its worth: struggle, create, dream, defend, overcome, undermine, imagine, build, cultivate, unearth, dismantle—working in all of the many creative and courageous ways that each of us can discover and enact. Ours is a struggle of hope against despair, memory against forgetting, life and livelihood against exploitation and greed, autonomy against coercion and force, solidarity against isolation and fear.”  – from the liner notes

In times of war, the folksingers Are supposed to write peace songs
Go to candlelight vigils  And lead all the people in sing-a-longs Say, “Make love not war!” And, “Have no vengeance on your enemies! Meet violence with love  And hatred and anger with empathy!”

Now don’t get me wrong, I ain’t got nothing ‘gainst peace songs Or going to rallies to call for an end to the guns and the bombs But in times like these, I feel compelled to declare my support For the ongoing escalation of the war effort!
 
(Chorus, sung between each verse): This ain’t no peace song, this is a declaration of war This ain’t no sing-along, this is the rise of a mighty roar

When the towers came down,  everyone looked around for a culprit And the media moguls and corporate elites took the pulpit “Ain’t no fault of ours if all these millions are angry Living in rubble in crumbling hovels in poverty”

Draped in a flag, they are pointing away at their enemy “United we stand,” they say, cleverly shirking complicity “Don’t ask any questions, just follow us, we will show you the way Rise up America, come bomb another impoverished nation today”

Now just look around as the bombs hit the ground,  tell me what do you see? Are the ones calling the shots your friends or your enemies? Who are the victims? Who are the innocent? And who commits crimes? And who gets to spin it the next day on the cover of the New York Times?

And furthermore, if I may ask, who are they anyway, Who can give us our freedom and then with one vote they can take it all away? Now I do declare they’ve exceeded their share of the oxygen And we will not stand for one more command from their lips again

An eye for an eye will leave us all blind, I have heard it said Yes, but peace without justice and struggle will surely leave a million more dead So stand up on your feet and take to the street, this is not time for fear Call us traitors or spies and spread all your lies but we will persevere

It’s been said before and I’ll say it once more, let’s bring the war home And battle the forces of greed and injustice wherever they may roam And united we’ll stand here in this land of hypocrisy To take back our lives from the rulers and build a democracy

No more will we stand idly by While they ravage the earth and hurl flame from the sky No more we’ll be silenced, no more we’ll be still No more we’ll be pillaged, no more we’ll be killed No more silent vigils, this time we will roar We’ll call out the traitors and we will declare war:

On the oil executives, corporate elites, Wall street vigilantes in mountain retreats, IMF bureaucrats, Monsanto thugs,  CIA agents with tap and with bugs, Rich greedy landlords and real estate crooks, Corporate lawyers with corporate law books, Fascists in the white house and fools on the hill, Puppets in uniform, guns set to kill, Racist avengers and pentagon brutes, Slick politicians and bankers in suits, Old money, new money, privileged few, Owners of Nike, Chevron, and GQ, Pesticide pushers of chemical war, Econ departments, Wal-Mart superstores, Kings and their armies and princes and dukes, Religious zealots who kill for the truth, Free trade agreements and global control, Smokestacks and gasoline and ozone holes.

This ain’t no peace song