Well hello there!

It’s Fourth of July weekend, so what better way to celebrate than to learn about all the things that America is BEST at?
What IS America good at, you ask? Well here’s a list of things at which America is number one:

Corporate welfare: "corporate welfare" is defined as any federal spending program that provides payments or unique benefits and advantages (such as tax cuts) to specific companies or industries. The U.S. spends about 100 billion per year on corporate welfare

Cost of health care: 15% of the national budget is spent on “health and human services”, yet we still pay more than any other nation on top of that for our health services – almost twice as much as the second highest spenders - thanks to multi-billion dollar-earning CEOs of health insurance corporations who put profits before people. 

Military spending: nearly 800 billion in 2009 alone – almost as much as all other nations Combined. 

Imprisoned citizens: 25% of the imprisoned people in the world are in U.S. prisons. Out of 159 countries, the average number of prisoners is around 51 thousand. In the U.S., the number of prisoners is over 2 million. Only communist China comes close to our numbers, and even they are lagging far behind. 

Debt owed to other countries: America owes 12 trillion dollars (mostly to China), and the UK comes in second with 10 trillion in foreign debt.

Household spending: We sure are great at consuming! The government can say “I learned it from watching you!” every time a neo-con complains about the national debt... or maybe vice-versa... 

Obesity: We may not be the best, but we’re the biggest. 

Number of Plastic Surgery Procedures: We’re also the fakest! 

Childhood poverty: Alright, we’re not quite #1, but the U.S. is #2 (second only to Mexico) out of all industrialized nations in its percentage of children living below the poverty line. 

Not feeling patriotic enough yet? Let’s look at all the things at which America is NOT number one:

Effectiveness of Education: America ranks 18^th out of 24 industrialized nations in math, science, and reading tests of 14-15 year-olds, as well as adult literacy.

Happiness: U.S. ranked 17^th on a world-wide “happiness” scale 

Health: US ranked 11 on Forbes healthiest countries list 

            infant mortality rate: percentage of infants that survive one year after birth, US ranks 42^nd (from least amount of deaths on down)

            number of hospital beds: U.S. ranks 27 out of 29 industrialized countries 

Female political candidates: U.S. comes in 161^st place in number of female political candidates... sad face

Voting: US placed #55 in percentage of Registered voters who turned out to vote in the last election... double sad-face 

Okay, now cheer up with some of my favorite quotes about patriotism!

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!  ~Albert Einstein

Nationalism is an infantile disease.  It is the measles of mankind.  ~Albert Einstein, The World As I See It, 1934

To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.  ~George Santayana

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, I am a citizen of the world.  ~Socrates

Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill.  ~Richard Aldington

Patriotic societies seem to think that the way to educate school children in a democracy is to stage bigger and better flag-saluting.  ~S.I. Hayakawa

Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.  ~George Jean Nathan

Patriotism, the virtue of the vicious.  ~Oscar Wilde

I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.  ~Eugene V. Debs

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.  ~Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary

I love America.  I love the world.  Brotherhood and sisterhood have no borders.  My heart orbits the Earth, love cannot be measured in longitude or latitude.  ~Terri Guillemets

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.  ~George Bernard Shaw

And now, Lyrics to most of the songs played on this week’s Politics of Singing...

Bruce Springsteen: Born in the U.S.A.

Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
'Til you spend half your life just covering up

[chorus:]
Born in the U.S.A.

I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man

[chorus]

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son don't you understand"

[chorus]

I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a little girl in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go

I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land

This land is your land
This land is my land?
From California to the New York island; 
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters 
This land was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway: 
I saw below me that golden valley: 
This land was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps 
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts; 
And all around me a voice was sounding: 
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling, 
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there 
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing, 
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I saw my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me

Nobody living can ever stop me, 
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back 
This land was made for you and me.

Rufus Wainwright: Going To A Town

I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down
I'm going to a place that has already been disgraced
I'm gonna see some folks who have already been let down
I'm so tired of America

I'm gonna make it up for all of The Sunday Times
I'm gonna make it up for all of the nursery rhymes
They never really seem to want to tell the truth
I'm so tired of you, America

Making my own way home, ain't gonna be alone
I've got a life to lead, America
I've got a life to lead

Tell me, do you really think you go to hell for having loved?
Tell me, enough of thinking everything that you've done is good
I really need to know, after soaking the body of Jesus Christ in blood
I'm so tired of America

I really need to know
I may just never see you again, or might as well
You took advantage of a world that loved you well
I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down
I'm so tired of you, America

Making my own way home, ain't gonna be alone
I've got a life to lead, America
I've got a life to lead
I got a soul to feed
I got a dream to heed
And that's all I need

Making my own way home, ain't gonna be alone
I'm going to a town
That has already been burnt down

Morton Harvey: I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier

Ten million soldiers to the war have gone
who may never return again.
Ten million mother's hearts
must break for the ones who died in vain
Head bowed down in sorrow in her lonely years,
I heard a mother murmer through her tears:

"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy.
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder
to shoot some other mother's darling boy?"

Let nations arbitrate their future troubles.
It's time to lay the sword and gun away.
There'd be no war today if mothers all would say,
"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier"

What victory can cheer a mother's heart
when she looks at her blighted home?
What victory can bring her back
all she cared to call her own?

Let each mother answer in the year to be,
"Remember that my boy belongs to me!"

"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy.
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder
to shoot some other mother's darling boy?"

Let nations arbitrate their future troubles.
It's time to lay the sword and gun away.
There'd be no war today if mothers all would say,
"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier"

Street Dogs: Fading American Dream

Working hard from day to day now, I get a check that barely lasts
I'm just another no choice member in Uncle Sam's desperation class
Finding it hard to face my wife, new kid born out of shotgun life
Twenty years old and I love them both, see no sunshine in our skies

Silently we pray for turbulence to break
How much more financial stress can we all take?
Getting closer to our limit
We chase the penthouse from the basement
Our current rat race, we run to stand still
This is our fading American Dream

Bad news coming in, these higher rent rates gouge us thin
The sands of time are running down as we slip further behind
Bleeding my family, they're stretched too
Eviction notes, what can I do?
Twenty years old, feel my life's on hold
Yell at a school-taught God, oh why?

Silently we pray for turbulence to break
How much more financial stress can we all take?

Getting closer to our limit
We chase the penthouse from the basement
Our current rat race, we run to stand still
This is our fading American Dream

Have we ever been above water?
Do we ever see ourselves coming out of it alive?

Getting closer to our limit
We chase the penthouse from the basement
Our current rat race, we run to stand still
This is our fading American Dream

I got no time no to go and cry now
Leave for a second job, don't want to go poor
I'm just searching for my dignity
This is our fading American Dream

Bad Religion: New America

do you know the cost of future misery?
have you lost your sense of sustainability?
we are just a step away
from realizing what we strive to be
but we've got to break out
from this insulated blind and lame senility

wake up the new america
transcend the mass hysteria
change is the thing you're wary of
we need a new america

laurels, human triumph,
bestowments from the past
victories don't mean a thing
if they don't last
we are just marching toward extinction
with blinders on our eyes
jeopardizing everything
we've learned and come to realize
you call that wise?

open your eyes america
see through the lies they tell to us
confront the fears that worry us
we need a new america

we don't have to be afraid to re-invent
we've got to start to build,
progress, and implement
for when we take our fill,
and never pay the price
we only build ourselves a fleeting,
false paradise
you can live in staunch denial
and mark me as your enemy
but I'm just a voice among the throng
who want a brighter destiny
they say with me

we are the new america
wo-oh!

this is the new america?
wo-oh

The Distillers: Red Carpet and Rebellion

makes ya wonder at the established ones
they aint out to get ya
cause you're a mile .. away

i heard a siren, a city warning , they said a new
dawn arrives in the morning .. so i wait out tonight
for the, the new sunrise
they laid me to rest with an, an aberration
i woke up the living dead colossally mistaken
i ran through the streets where i, i break down

there aint no money there aint no time
yeah im outta my mind dont wanna waste this away
shamed when i am; shamed when i'm not
the configuration of the american dream

the palace died and the streets were burning
the red horizon came crashing through the morning
there was no contentment only blood shed
red blood and social discontent bruised by puritan
oh puritan exempt its like a peasant uprising

chorus

st petersburg, 1905
father garpan led the protest .. up inside .. up inside.. distillers break down
yeah, we are gone, oh yeah, we are gone, we are gone, we are gone, oh yeah,

red carpet and rebellion
makes ya wonder why they smell so bad
they aint out to get ya cause your a mile away
red carpet and rebellion
makes ya wonder at these established ones
they aint out to get ya
cause you're a mile .. away

i heard a siren, a city warning , they said a new
dawn arrives in the morning .. so i wait out tonight
for the , the new sunrise
they laid me to rest with an an aberration
i woke up the living dead colossally mistaken
i ran through the streets and i broke down

there aint no money there aint no time
yeah im outta my mind dont wanna waste this away
i feel ashamed when i am and shamed when im not
the configuration of the american dream

the palace dialed in the streets were burning
the red horizon came crashing through the morning
there was no contentment only blood shed
red blood and social discontent bruised by puritan
oh puritan exempt its like a peasant uprising
st petersburg, 1905
father garpan led the protest .. up inside .. up inside
we are gone we are gone we are gone
ill run a mile till i find a hung jury
where there is red carpet there is rebellion
red carpet and rebellion
makes ya wonder why they smell so bad
they aint out to get ya cause your a mile away

Descendents: ‘Merican

We flipped our finger to the king of England
Stole our country from the Indians
With god on our side and guns in our hands
We took it for our own
A nation dedicated to liberty
Justice and equality
Does it look that way to you?
It doesn't look that way to me
The sickest joke I know

[Chorus]
Listen up man, I'll tell you who I am
Just another stupid american
You don't wanna listen
You don't wanna understand
So finish up your drink and go home

I come from the land of Ben Franklin
Twain and Poe and Walt Whitman
Otis Redding, Ellington,
The country that I love
But it's a land of the slaves and the ku klux klan
Haymarket riot and the great depression
Joe McCarthy, Vietnam
The sickest joke I know

[Chorus]

I'm proud and ashamed
Every fourth of July
You got to know the truth
Before you say that you got pride

Now the cops got tanks 'cause the kids got guns
Shrinks pushin' pills on everyone
Cancer from the ocean, cancer from the sun
Straight to Hell we go

Pennywise: God Save The U.S.A.

God you must be kidding me, thought this was supposed to be
The home of the brave and the free for you and me
But now there's something wrong - shit's been going on too long.
It's never gonna change, there's no way i say.
What's the CIA and the NRA?
They're all the same - just the names are changed.
F*** - there's no excuse - any way you lose.
It's all a joke in the good old USA.
All we need is more factories pumping filth into the sky.
Corporate greed and perverted priests, it's the story of our lives.
And apathy's the national disease and there is no end in sight.

God save the USA - blame the president and say your prayers tonight.
The irony of liberty is no one here is truly free
When elections are stolen bij the G.O.P.

So watch the nightly news - find out how you are getting screwed.
What you gonna do? - there's no use i say
F*** the industry - the aristocracy
F*** they're all the same - just the names are changed.
F*** there's no excuse, any way you lose.
It's all a joke in the good old USA.

Government hypocricy - American Idolatry - Corporate philosophy.
Nightly news of tragedies - Where no one cares what's right or wrong
Our heroes now are all long gone - The freedoms that we all abuse
The obituaries front page news

Anti-Flag: Gifts From America: With Love, the U.S.A

The world keeps turning and I still keep fighting
'cause what else are you to do?
When there's a fascist telling you,
"It's time you were put in your place!"
As he salutes the Stars and Stripes
By raising fists and starting fights,
Like an aberration from Hitler's Nazi Riech

NOT PROUD - Of my skin

NOT PROUD - Of where I live

I'm f***ing proud of who I am!

National pride inside you
Building you up, or limiting you?

Everyone keeps asking,
"Why's he so pissed and so angry?"
When there's killing in this world,
of men and womyn, boys and girls
For the sake of a dividend gain
These actions proclaimed in our name,
turn Stars and Stripes to shades of shame
"Gifts from America: With Love, The U.S.A"

NOT PROUD - Of my skin

NOT PROUD - Of where I live

I'm f***ing proud of who I am... I AM HUMAN!

National pride inside you
Building you up, or limiting you?
Fighting for what on the battlefield?
Humanity? Corporate control and greed?

This country's flag flies as a corporate symbol
This country's flag strikes hearts with fear-COLD FEAR!
This country's flag represents oil interests
The president wages an endless war so he can,
Justify stealing f***ing billions
Steal the public's rights through the use of fear, use of fear...
That is a system which I can not endorse

National pride inside you
Building you up, or limiting you?
Fighting for what on the battlefield?
Humanity? Corporate control and greed?
Look for the truth you'll see...

MADISON AND JEFFERSON ARE TURNING IN THEIR GRAVES!

Flobots: Same Thing

Somewhere between prayer and revolution?between Jesus and Huey P. Newton?that’s where you find Jonny 5 shoot shootin?water guns at the audience while ya scootin’?your gluteous max due to the fact that I’m tootin’?on the horn gonna warn you that I’m rootin’?for the other team in the culture wars?so I stab the beast belly while the vulture roars

YO JOE!

let it blow with convulsive force, til walls fall off their false supports, til Jericho’s aircraft carriers alter course and all brave young Americans are called ashore. cause we’ve already lost the war they keep wagin, splattering the streets in battles that keep ragin bloodyin each page of the story that we’re studying each day the same just the names keep changin

Hook:

saying the same things over again, repeatin the same slogans we don’t know where we’ve been
We’ve been all over the globe on our government’s funds?leavin man woman and child dead bloody and numb

saying the same things over again, repeatin the same slogans we don’t know where we’ve been
we’ve been overthrowing leaders with legitimate views democratically elected but we didn’t approve….

How many times can the line divide?
how many wars to uphold some pride? fears uncontrolled just swoll the tide of blood in the streets while the people die

Ima keep on tryin longs as suffering’s multiplyin, and why not? souls get tossed and left out to rot, my backs broad enough to help left your cross

as long as you help with mine, the process of healing will take some time. to see the pain on your face is the same as mine, not a game or a race but the stake is high. we maintain our mistakes for the sake of sides. as long as it takes I”ll say it one more time, as long as it takes I’ll say it one more time, as long as it takes I’ll say it one more time

Hook

we need money for healthcare and public welfare
free mumia and Leonard Peltier
human needs not corporate greed
drop the debt and legalize weed

we say yes to grassroots organization, no to neoliberal globalization, bring the troops back to the USA and shut down guantanamo Bay

the same things over again, my throat’s so sore from shoutin no war for the soldiers again
lookin for cloud cover when the explosions begin, lookin the crowd over wonder if you know where we’ve been?
we’ve been all over the globe Iran to Nicaragua guatamala Angola grenada Dominican republic Haiti chile

It don’t stop and it won’t stop unless we keep

Hook

Who let’em overthrow Jacobo Arbenz? Who let’em overthrow Mohammad Mosaddeq?

Who let’em assassinate Salvador Allende?
I didn’t let them but they did it anyway
Who let’em overthrow Kwame Nkrumah?
Who let’em overthrow Aristide?
Who let’em assassinate Oscar Romero?
I didn’t let’em but they did indeed!?
don’t let them assassinate Hugo Chavez
don’t let them assassinate Evo Morales
bring back Martin, Malcolm, Medgar, Hampton, Goodman, Schwerner, Chaney  

Comments

Add a Comment

Comments:



Please confirm the characters in the above image: