Pig People*

Pig people got no reason
Pig people got no reason
Pig people got no reason
To live

They got manicured hands
“Stepford Wife” eyes
They walk around
Tellin’ “flat tax” lies
They want “private” profit
And “public” loss
They let us hold elections
But it’s always “Meet the same old boss…”

Well, I don't want no Pig people
Don't want no Pig people
Don't want no Pig people
’Round here

Pig people are not the same
As you and I
(Piggy must pay)
They make life an endless competition
Until the day we die
(Let's find another way)

Pig people got big money
Pig people got big money
Pig people got big money
To love

They live in gated mansions
Our taxes subsidize
They own the goddamn system
And call it “private” enterprise
They ride in limousines
That go beep, beep, beep
They got the NSA
Goin' peep, peep, peep
They elect our dumbass Congress
With crooked cheating minds
They always stick it to us every time
Well, I don't want no Pig people
Don't want no Pig people
Don't want no Pig people
'Round here

* alternative lyrics to Randy Newman’s Short People inspired by George Orwell’s Animal Farm and my own experience living under the United States of America

What profiteth a man…

Clean air. Clean water. Rule of law. Unfettered access to education according to need and limited only by ability. Guaranteed retirement (e.g. National Savings Plan). And Health Care.

These are the basic human rights every American should demand from any society that generates vast wealth as ours (USA) does.

In this country, it's time to review very basic decisions, for ourselves and for this planet, like: Good business or no business? Good government or no government? Good life or no life?

After five decades of "progress" it seems clear that a happy life is far more basic, simple and elemental than our for-profit society allows for. Americans on average earn three or four times what their parents and grandparents earned in the 1950s, but are they happier? In the five prosperous decades since World War II, incomes have increased four-fold while incidence of clinical depression has increased ten-fold.

America has sold its democracy and its very soul for high corporate and individual profit and (collectively) gained little more than pornographic wealth disparity, slavish consumerism and unending anxiety.

Today Americans are overdue for honest reflection -- for a healthier private/public balance, regarding our basic human need for community, family and friends, toward a life of less materialism and more, un-abrogated joy.

Greed is not good! Progress does not collapse! In any healthy democracy, what we want less of (obscene, obsequious greed) we must tax away and what we want more of (knowledge, health, community and joy) we must subsidize.