THE CONVERSATION WE NEED TO BE HAVING

(in our own heads for starters)


Who Made Who

It’s never gonna come up in any cell phone
conversation

Or anywhere, out loud, across the nation

You’re never gonna admit it

Guys, ego to ego in the corner sports bar

Ladies, gossip to gossip in the hair salon



But deep inside

In your heart of hearts

In your nighttime thoughts

In your time on the can

On the street waiting for the man

America, you know it’s true

You think about how Bill Gates is better than
you



And not just Bill and that Microsoft crew

There’s also BET’s Robert Johnson

That Chicano dude who bought the Angels

Warren Buffett

George Soros

Oprah, Jay Z, Russell Simmons too

Anyone who’s light years above just making
do



Limousines passing in the night

They must have done something right

And you must have done something wrong

To keep sinking out of sight



Like the song says:“I don’t put down the man who’s got a better
hand

‘Cause I know I’m doing the best I can”



But those people on the cover of Business
Week

Are doing better than best

Is it really ‘cause they’re innovators or
because they never rest?



Their golden road was paved way before they
were born

Free labor from the slaves

Free land from the Indians

You could be as dumb as Dubya and build an
empire from that

Mexico and Hawaii

Stolen

Investments worldwide

Golden

You could be as dumb as Dubya and build an
empire from that



Bill Gates and all the billionaire boys and girls
didn’t start at the bottom and pull themselves up

They started at the top of a bloody ladder

The most they did was add a rung or two

And if that ladder gets shaky and they fall?

Congress says “Don’t worry, we’ll bail you out; you know how we do”

Seven hundred billion, and that’s just the
beginning

The top of the first inning

The corporate types are rewarded when they
fail

You get no health care, no job, and time in jail



Seven hundred billion wasn’t the first chapter
in the bailout book

Through boom and bust

With high tech industries and those covered
with rust

We’ve paved the corporate highway with
bonds, tax breaks, free land

In fact, we’ve given them anything they
demand



They make the dollars

But that really makes no sense

Since we paid for it all

Shouldn’t we own it?

We receive no crop although we’ve sown it



Instead

We’re dying at the gates of paradise

Just barely living in a country with more than
enough for all

A country where professional eating is a sport

And fourteen million children go hungry every
day



Can’t we take these funky economic relations
and twist ‘em

Get a new system

Where we can live our days

Instead of just counting our years



It’s time for you to step up and be the repo
man

To do that you need a repo plan

But you’ll never get that as long as….


Deep inside

In your heart of hearts

In your nighttime thoughts

In your time on the can

On the street waiting for the man

You turn history inside out, take the false and
make it true

And think that Bill Gates and Oprah are
somehow better than you

Lee Ballinger / January 2009