Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Theme song for the #Occupy movement?

Here's a video of Bruce Cockburn's classic, scathing, protest song Call It Democracy. This song appeared on the 1986 album World of Wonders. One of the most socially conscious albums of the 1980's. Cockburn (pronounced "Co-burn") is a Canadian singer-songwriter-guitarist, and a member of the Order of Canada well known as a political activist and socially conscious artist. WoW is perhaps his greatest record, well worth a listen. This song was written as a P.F.O. letter to the IMF, but I think it sums how many of us feel about the International Banking Cabal in general with equal aplomb. 

Lyrics below the jump...

Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament --
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'
Idolatry of ideology

North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It's just spend a buck to make a buck
You don't really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy

See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for that. I recently discovered Cockburn, totally hooked on The Charity of Night, and now I will have to seek out World of Wonder.

    As potential anthems go, this one is up there.

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