Oakland Warehouse Tragedy (Or, just SCREAM)

(Without Music) I’ll probably regret making this “public.”

(Without Music). Forgive me if I seem to speak for other people (as“we”).

(Without Music) Please forgive me in advance if this seems heartless. Because I’ve been so solitary (aside from my job) and unmusical lately, my lament, mourning or attempted celebration may come off too cold-hearted, abstract, detached, general, cultural (“damn right, I’m skeptical about the motivations of CNN for making this tragedy an [inter]national headline!”). Forgive the “misplaced rage,” or self-indulgence, but perhaps I need to work this demon out (as if overheard)…..

I was facebook friends with two people who died in the fire (both of whom I had first met personally, at art or music events or meetings). In the last year or two, all of our encounters were on facebook (I’m tempted to go back through all my facebook posts and see what we wrote on each other’s pages….but, more deeply, I remember them “offline” as it were, as strong positive souls working hard to create and sustain social/cultural alternatives to facebook, et al….

Even though I’ve never been to the Ghost Ship, in many ways it reminds me of some of the live/work warehouses where I stayed (whether in Philadelphia in the last century, or one with a similar name in Oakland). I stamped some of the hands of those who’ve died. Even when we only knew each other by face (or by dance style even), there was often a warmth that transcended words. and the scenes in which I met these people is the closest to a sense of “home” I ever managed to find in the Bay Area. ….And so I understand why some have written, it could have been me; it could have been us. [1]

 So it’s hard to avoid that catastrophist feeling that somehow this Warehouse Fire is also the end of an era, and that things are likely to get worse for the survivors, and for artists and musicians or anybody netting under $30,000 a year looking for safe affordable housing in this city. We can already see the mechanisms of disaster capitalism in the mayor’s public statements and the mainstream news’ blaming and stereotyping the victims: a cautionary tale (this morning I heard the editor and chief of the relatively speaking “alternative” East Bay Express on KPFA on 12/5/16 refer to the victims as “burning man” types). Already you can see them use the Tragedy of the Fire as an excuse to retroactively justify all the previous evictions, as well as the onslaught of forthcoming ones (as if “yes, they only care about our safety,” as our warehouse’s landlord claimed at the eviction trial, when for over a decade he had been looking the other way….until he realized he could evict us, and then rent the place out for 3X the amount. Last I heard, it was still unrented…but he can write it off—at taxpayer expense--for those ‘improvements’). “If we wouldn’t have evicted them, a fire would’ve destroyed them too!” “We saved their life by evicting them!” Etc...

They milk the disaster (and the feeling of disaster) in ways similar to the mass hysteria stirred up on a national level in 2016 by social engineers who figured out how to make mass media and social media work together to cause further chaos, and fragmentation of democratic “impulses” (i.e. people) in the last election. Locally, use this disaster to fuel their anti-artist (and, I’d argue, anti-Made In Oakland) agenda.

This anti-artist agenda itself isn’t new. The criminalization of artists who love and value local culture (more than say the placelessness of Hollywood or Silicon Valley), and who provide a community service to this city, at extremely cheap rates, if the city but knew or appreciated it, had been ongoing even before the tech boom. As it so happens, this is one of the things Kiyomi Tanouye and I would talk about. We could bond on that principle, that faith in local artists…but she also had skills I lack! And, chief among them, was her ability to organize multi-genre, and multi-media events, publicize them, and bring people together who might not otherwise…..She was a commanding presence, but more in the sense of “okay, time to get down to business” sense. She could be smart and deep without losing her sense of necessary fun. I remember her smile, as much as her “furrowed brow,” when thoughts rolled fast and she was on a verbal roll (some call it “holding court.”).  Her serious laughter…..She could thus make me feel at home during meetings to organize the Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival. If she was in the audience and we were playing music, and by chance I made eye-contact, it always made me get in the groove better…..

Oh, I wanna sit down with the mayor, with tears in my eyes, and say, “you know what Kiyomi would have wanted,” but that sounds too much like “a politician,” and besides others know her way better than I did…..

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From second hand (mostly facebook) hearsay, there seems to be a general understanding that The Ghost Ship was far from an ideal, safe, venue, even compared to some of the other warehouses that once laced this city. For instance, I heard one story from someone who had lived there who said he’d offer to do repairs and build out the place to make it safer (stairs were mentioned, and another exit door; probably sprinklers…..). He was prevented from doing so either by the landlord (Ms. Chor N. Ng), and/or the man he rents it to (Mr. Dereck Ion Almena, who one paper calls the building’s manager) who then sublets it to the artist collective. I don’t know all the facts, but there’s reason to believe that the landlord deserves at least as much of the blame as the renter (ION), based on my experience with other warehouses.

In every case, the landlord knows that there are people living there (even if that’s not what he tells the city), but generally doesn’t care as long as he’s getting his check. But neither will he fix things, or at least pay for some of the materials so that the self-directed artists (there’s usually at least one carpenter) can pay for improvements. Given the fact that these warehouse spaces are often the closest that artists can find to affordable housing (as well as studios), the sublessees often enter into the agreement with a “beggars can’t be choosers” attitude. Sure, they would love to live legally (though there’s always at least one who doesn’t), but for quite a few, it’s either this or homelessness (and they’ll be criminalized at least as much as homeless). In addition, some of us accept such living situations with their hazards (and weather the lack of heat, etc) because even when we did the more legal standard one, or two-bedroom, apartment, where we can’t really make art, the conditions weren’t necessarily any safer or properly heated (however legal).

At least these (illegal) spaces had the ‘perk’ of also being studio spaces, thus cutting into the extra monthly fee we’d have to pay for a studio place (with a midnight lock-out) separate from our living space. These places also provide the “perk” of a necessary community meeting place, gathering place (with the healing powers of dance), to build community in the increasing absence of any sanctioned city supplied spaces (or increasingly as these, too, become privatized, like say “Impact Hub” with its monthly fees for a desk to meet; another example of “making us pay for something that used to be free”).

Furthermore, many of us artist types are more introvert and need someone else to set things up for us, even if they end up being kind of shady (and, yes, some of these illegal warehouse renters are shady, but so are many of the perfectly legal ones---so we’re at their mercy either way, unless we too have start up capital). In any event, the implication that those who live, and/or attend events, at such warehouse spaces are to blame for their own demise (just as, say, Reverend Falwell or was it Swaggert said Katrina was God’s justice on New Orleans for all that jazz, R&B and Vodun), is a convenient way for the City of Oakland (and its real estate policies in particular) to disclaim its own culpability in this tragedy.

This does not mean that the renter (Mr. Ion) is not without fault, but it will be interesting to see if the landlord will be punished as much as the renter, even if he’s not to blame for arson. Beyond that, the only blame the city government is giving itself is that it didn’t crack down on this kind of illegal activity sooner (I hear rumors that some warehouses were able to buy off city officials to prevent such disclosures) rather than blaming themselves for creating and fueling a local economy and culture that made such illegal, and unsafe, gathering spaces more of a necessity than they were in, say, the 1950s and 1960s, when Oakland was more of a walking city with a legal, albiet segregated, nightlife with cheaper real estate and many more small clubs to go out dancing and hear (or be) local talent. It was in the absence of such places that the illegal warehouses sprung up to take up the slack…..

Anyway, disaster capitalism does not require the belief that 9/11 was an inside job, or that the 9^th ward levees were purposely left in disrepair in order to kill and displace black folk and make way for the whites who are willing to pay more, or that a landlord purposely set his own building on fire-- in order to realize how the wealthy power elite can benefit by such disasters. And however, “deeply concerned,” Libby Schaaf’s recent statements can hardly hide the developers she speaks for licking their lips in their plan to destroy affordable housing (affordable, as determined by the median income of those already living in a neighborhood rather than the projected “market value” figures based on the income of possible people you’re hoping to lure here).

There will inevitably be a crack down on the few remaining “underground” or “illegal” or “not up to code” (even if safer than Ghost Ship was) warehouse spaces left (ostensibly due to “public pressure”). And this of course would be exactly the wrong course of action. Instead, the city should devote more funds and resources to building and permitting more spaces based on the same kind of collective live/work space principles that Ghost Ship could represent. If the city took a short term loss in subsidizing getting these buildings “up to code,: in the long term, this could economically (to say nothing of culturally) benefit the city (and not just because such warehouses are important counter-pulls that check the inflationary “market rate” economy, and thus value anybody who has a stake in lower rents---the majority of people living here—if not the owners, a powerful minority), but also by creating a cultural export beyond the food/tourist industry.

At present, there are other people living in similar spaces (if not already evicted), panicking that this national (CNN, Reuters, etc) news story of the Oakland Warehouse Fire has BLOWN THEIR COVER. But if it’s too late to avoid the increased intrusion of the surveillance state on what was once a “safe space,” can we somehow take this as an opportunity for equal, respectful dialogue in negotiation with a amply funded City Arts & Culture Department (rather than, say, the city’s ongoing expenditures of tax payers money on outside consultants from Bloomberg, etc., to “study Oakland’s art ecosystem” the better to colonize it!).

That being said, I understand why some would say that I sure am making some below-the-belt ad homimen attacks (“licking their lips”) on city officials, and for one who calls for a more civic, equal, dialogue, I am certainly letting my emotions get hold of me in my characterization of this city’s power structure (Hey, city, you let down your arms criminalizing the patrons of the warehouse, and I’ll let down my arms, and won’t assume your oligarchy is endemic, and can’t change).

But, Frankly, I think Kiyomi would have loved for that dialogue to happen, now more than ever---and I know she had the “people skills” to effect such mediation and negotiation much better than my “hot blooded” effusions.

But City Fathers & Mothers, and Chamber of Commerce, you do have the power to make this disaster a real opportunity so that these artists will not have died in vain! For instance, you can look at recent proposals for that newly declared Black Arts Movement and Business District to find one possible model that address both the housing crisis while also taking pride in the wealth of artistic talent here. Certainly some of these people should be allowed to sit at a board that would be responsible for the programming for a city funded civic auditorium. Or they could have, had you not decided, in the mad rush of privatization, to convert the auditorium into tech offices….

I’d be remiss if I didn’t call out to the media. As I sat in front of a TV on Saturday 11/3 around 6PM listening to the clueless but seemingly genuinely earnest and concerned newscasters on Channels 2 and 5 talking about how they wanted to listen to the hopes and fears of all those survivors of this fire, and the families of those who perished, I felt the media’s ghoulish presence. And I wouldn’t be surprised if right now some script writers weren’t busy plotting a movie, kind of like 24 Hour Party People meets The Towering Inferno, and of course are putting out feelers for real life stories (well, anecdotes) of say, the DJ who plays soul oldies (and was going to guest DJ on KPOO) who died in the fire, and build some boy-meets-girl thing around it, and of course they’ll be looking for drugs. It must fit their “rave” script (then they could tie it into the much hyped OPIOD EPIDEMIC).

The glories of the Oakland Warehouse scene of which I was a part (especially 2005-2011) can not be done justice to by your mass media unless you actually realize that it was fighting a culture war, or you could say “was trying to save you from yourself.” It wasn’t just fighting for “youth culture,” or “multi-cultural safe spaces,” though that was certainly part of it, but for local, affordable culture, grassroots culture, as opposed to the One-Way Street of mechanized, placeless, trickle down culture (whether Brittney, Jay-Z, or the constantly resurrected Neil Young & Beatles). You may even say fighting for the right not to have to always be slick, fighting for the right for warm mistakes! Fighting against consumer society, and insane inflation. Fighting to break down the wall between art and life! It may not have been as “punk” as it had been 20 years earlier, and many of us felt much more on the “defense” than on “attack” per se, but nonetheless warriors, even in our worrying and spacy artist introversion….

Yes, most of us would have loved to go legal if there was a path. Most of us (at least those I met) loved this city much more than what you (oh media, and oh city government) have been trying to replace us with does….

It may seem petty, but it makes me terribly sad that so far not one of the media outlets are talking about how amazingly talented many of the artists in this scene, or, better, showed this art. You would think that if this news media really cares about the human dimensions to this tragedy, it would actually share some of the art. Or, failing that, that some tech conglomerate like Pandora---which coincidentally is based in Oakland (so one would think it has a stake in homegrown Oakland Culture at least as much as the As and Raiders who have ponied up some matching funds)—would seek out this local art, even for putatively selfish reasons, now that “the whole world’s watching”—a misrepresented version of us---and maybe smugly mocking ‘neath their veil of sympathy—but still kinda curious about the art these people made and life, their beauty and dignity….

Perhaps this could help. I’m not saying that every artist who perished in that fire would’ve wanted their art shared, especially now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some did. But it might be a tribute that could help heal the community. I remember brainstorming with Kiyomi, wondering how great it could be if some of these Tech Venture Capitalists could be persuaded to create an “all Oakland” playlist channel (often under the radar, and certainly under the radio) we got here. There was always going to be some resistance to such idea to publicizing the scene because of the fact that many of our spaces were illegal. I know at least one musician who had to turn down a cover story because it would have outed our warehouse space, and made us vulnerable to eviction, but Kiyomi thought it was a cool long term idea once we got some other things off the ground…..And yes, her death, and the death of so many others, makes me feel more desperate than ever to want to do something about it…..but what? How? If no longer warehouse spaces, what (next?). Phone reality? I’m at a loss, a fuckin’ loss….

But I’ve had too much time to think about this stuff since we got evicted from our live/work warehouse this past Spring….and it’s been welling up with news of each other warehouse I’ve heard shuttered. This is the more structural crisis the majority of people who attended Ghost Ship that fatal night knew was threatening them. The “great sucking sound” of musicians, and music, leaving Oakland…..a new "gentrified" Oakland encroaching that seems even less balanced, less healthy, than before….and, frankly, meaner, more self-destructive in its culture (even though we’re supposed to be grateful that we’re in some “blue state bubble”).

If you made it this far, please forgive me again. I leap ahead of the immediate grief to abstract cultural analysis. But genuine expression is difficult in words without music, and I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the artists at Ghost Ship knew that more than “talking head” America. Or I guess this says less than a pithy TWEET, or a Meme with the picture of Ghost Ship’s raging fire in the background that reads, “That moment at a candle-light vigil when all you can do is SCREAM!” (I’ll bring my trumpet).

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[1] https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/12/04/it-could-have-been-any-one-of-us/

“Joe Klein, The Specter of Citizens United & Political Advertising”---From #Trump#TIME

In the November 9, 2016, “President-Elect Trump” issue of TIME Magazine, Joe “Primary Colors” Klein claims that “the American political establishment has been toppled. As a long time member of the clan, I am writing from beneath the rubble. The view from here is rather limited.” Yet, I remain skeptical of his claim that “the entire political-consult industrial complex has collapsed. Money raised and spent on advertising meant nothing.”

Although this was true when considering the main story of the election the case of HRC and Trump, it doesn’t mean that money spent on advertising meant nothing on the less hyped elections that allowed for the Republicans to retain control of both houses of congress, as well as the vast majority of state governers and legislatures (with the power to gerrymander districts, deny voting rights and ensure that the electoral college is not abolished). By claiming that “advertising meant nothing,” Klein is, in effect saying that the fears that Citizens United (that allows unlimited corporate spending on political advertising) would radically transform, and render less democratic, American politics have been disproven by this election. Citizens United isn’t really worth worrying about, and had little to do with what gave us Trump….

Yet, since the advertising industry has benefited with increased revenue as a result of Citizen’s United, I’d be very surprised if Trump’s victory in and of itself will reverse that trend. I think Klein is being somewhat of a catastrophist there (after all, Joe, if things were this bad, TIME wouldn’t be using the money it gets from Big Pharma to pay you for your opinion). Obviously, he’s licking his (collective?) wounds. On the other hand, those who wish to repeal Citizens United and the political advertising media industrial complex should not, however, be appeased. The media was good to Trump—insofar as he knew that no publicity is bad publicity-- because it knew it could make more money off him (and sell ads to its other advertisers) than it could from the standard deal it usually made with politicians, parties and other interest groups: Pay To Play; coverage for advertising, etc.

TIME commentator David Von Drehle compares him to the way Facebook “cut out the middleman” while Zeke Miller claims “Trump presented himself as a destructive app; his campaign staff compared him to Uber.” Trump used social media to Trump TV. Trump was, in fact, one of the best advertisers, for social media (an unacknowledged spokesman for Twitter).

From Klein’s perspective, “the greatest danger of [Trump’s] victory is that it will spawn a whole generation of candidates, in both parties, who believe that being obnoxious is the path to power,”[1]who will use the tools and weapons Trump honed as a celebrity millionaire to become what the media deems charismatic, or newsworthy enough to be able to bypass the advertising-based political establishment in which Klein could thrive. And even Klein acknowledges that he created a climate in which “it became permissible for a certain sector or people---white people without college educations—to say and think a lot less savory things too. Trump empowered a brutal ignorance, especially toward Latinos and Muslims and the world outside our borders.”

But though the corporate media banked on Trump, it was smart enough to hedge its bets. While it’s likely it will continue to cultivate characters as “obnoxious” or “charismatic” as Trump, it will also continue to court those advertising dollars, and vigorously fight against any media regulation that would, for instance, mandate that stations fulfill their license in the public trust by mandating as much coverage of the local races as it devotes to the more lucrative and “glamourous” national ones. Since under the current system, many voters get much of their “information” through advertisements, this regulation would render political advertising not only illegal but also superfluous.

Joe Klein, of course, does not bring this third option up as within the realm of possibility (Hell, it’s hardly even ever brought up on Democracy Now, which prides itself on its coverage of third-party candidates like Jill Stein). Perhaps it sounds too much like the Fairness Doctrine in going against the country’s dominant secular and commercial religion of advertising. But it’s not just an either/or choice between the allegedly toppled political establishment, and the race-baiting obnoxious celebrity. And if we collectively refuse to support any candidate (or ballot initiative) that spends money on political advertising, we may be able to truly topple, or at least trump, the political establishment more than this election was able to.

And I appeal to any of those (like, say, Rod Smith) seriously considering running for office on a grass-roots level, whether democrat, republican, or so-called independent---to make the refusal to buy advertising a selling point. Don’t pull a move on.org sending out pleas, “She’s winning despite being outspent. Donate, please!” But consider the possibility, “she’s winning because she’s being outspent.”

And, regardless of what one thinks about Trump’s agenda, he was successful at breaking down the traditional political dichotomy between “serious message” and “rowdy party” and one doesn’t have to be a “law and order,” white male supremacist candidate to so this as effectively as he did, at least on a local level. And while Klein laments that Trump’s campaign has shown that “even truth, sadly, has shown to be irrelevant,” we can make truth relevant again with a good soundtrack.

Bernie couldn’t do this (maybe had he played the late Sharon Jones’ version of “This Land Is Your Land” instead of trying to sing it himself), but imagine a local city council candidate, who can still bombard social media with a series of ostensibly apolitical tweets designed to unify as much as Trump’s were designed to divide.

Imagine a slate of city council candidates who for the last two years have been involved with this Oakland podcast/ radio show, who plays local hip hop, who plays local “indie rock” or whatever they call it now, who plays local contemporary country, and holds dance party contests for campaign theme songs that stir local pride, and can even create jobs, all on a shoestring budget. In a city with 60% renters that is being destroyed by gentrification, these candidates will run on an affordable housing agenda, for instance. I’d donate money for that, or, better, try to provide people power—bring this person to my class at Laney College (though I can’t “endorse” him), or get some musicians together and stimulate the economy by recording at the Creamery and/or another local studio….

There are many possibilities to create a populist grassroots movement that does away with the “business of usual” of “respectability politics” (i.e. it’s okay to support racist policies, just don’t sound racist), even if Klein fears that the defeated Democrats will go more socialist which he calls “a philosophy at odds with the American spirit.” Is it really, Joe? Given your erroneous prediction about this last election, it’s quite frankly a little hard to take your assertion seriously that “America’s only possible is…globalist.” Yes, Trump will have to adjust to an increasingly multi-cultural America, but certainly the anti-globalist Trump supporters, as well as the millions of anti-globalist Bernie Sanders supporters who didn’t vote for Trump, together, suggest another possibility if they can somehow find a way to unite, despite the media and the political establishment which, alas, has not been toppled, even in this presidential electoral defeat. Citizens United did play a large role in this election, but primarily on the congressional, state and local levels. I don’t want to go so far as to say the election of Trump is a false flag, only that we have a lot of work to do if we wish to make his claim that “money spent on advertising meant nothing” a reality.

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[1] If you’re a white male, that is, for as Charlotte Alter (42) reminds us, a white man can get away with such “obnoxiousness” while a white woman, or a half-black man in Obama’s case, has to be ‘squeaky clean.’ Certainly Obama couldn’t have won had he spoke about grabbing pussies, for instance.

From THE LOST YEARS: 2005

I tried to cry Katrina into art that would do something

In a feeble John Prine-esque country-folk waltz

I packaged as a New Orleans Benefit CD (not the Red Cross, dammit).

I raised like $527, a lot for one who sucks at hustlin’.

I saw people cry when I played it on a casio

Lying on my belly on the floor of Adobe Books

(couldn’t get comfortable crosslegged after the accident)

Yet it was kinda sanctimonious

Lacking the spirit of New Orleans

I felt at the Mother-In-Law Lounge just before K-Doe died

And the Krewe du Vieux parade with Brett and Janine

Who were now trapped in an abandoned warehouse[1]

After the flood took their dog

Still, I self promoted my little song

More than I self-promoted my previous art

(much to the chagrin of my publishers)

because it didn’t seem like a mere self

I was promoting and perhaps it was

Sanctimonious enough for the old white folks on KPFA

Using Katrina as an excuse to dig out

Their old Randy Newman records

As they used Desert Storm as an excuse

To dust off their old Phil Ochs.

KPFA didn’t play it….

Was I hung up on trying to convince

The whites to feel some sympathy for black people

Or was I just trying to act like what whites called “my age?”

Like my Tom Waitsy cover of  The Coup’s “Ride The Fence”

Or strategically using Merle Haggard’s “Branded Man”

To convey the same message about the P.I.C

They couldn’t hear if Tupac rapped it

Even though at least as many racist whites

Listened to hip hop as that kind of northern country folk

So beloved in Nor-Cal during the height of the hyphy craze…

And soon The Legendary K-O’s “George Bush

Don’t Care About Black People”

Was getting play in commercial pop stations—

(I love the lineage of that song

sampling a Kanye song

that sampled Jamie Foxx singing

a Ray Charles song

that caused a controversy

for sampling “It Must Be Jesus”…)

KPFA didn’t play it, but KPOO did.

I went to KPOO to buy a shirt

And got talking to Terry Collins

About Katrina and told him about the CD

If they would be so kind to mention it.

I didn’t expect them to actually play the song

(I was as humble and/or embarrassed

as I was when one of K.Doe’s musicians

invited me to play trumpet on stage with them—

in retrospect I deeply regret it

so in awe of the black musicians

or perhaps feeling solidarity

with all the black musicians

who criticized James Brown

when he hired a white musician

or when the Panthers

hired a white lawyer to get Huey out of jail).

But my favorite Bay Area radio jock,

The legendary station manager J.J. On-The-Radio

Said, “we could interview you about the song now.”

There’s no recording of that. Thank God

And I went back in shame and think

Of what my friends Brett and Janine told me

About a debate brewing in Nawlins next February.

“Should we celebrate Mardi Gras

even amid all the destruction or cancel it?”

Cancelling it would be letting them win, of course,

And however noble in intent my song was,

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing

Or the transformative power of the second line[2]

Or even the funk of the legendary K.O

Sampling Jamie doing Ray—

You can’t be truly pro-New Orleans

In Eurocentric words only…

Maybe that’s when I got sick

Of trying to pass so when Yezal got shot

I made sure to go a nearby traffic triangle

With my trumpet and blast out

When The Saints Go Marchin In (screw my cliché)

As cars flip me the bird or even the bitch

(which almost makes up for my regret

for not jumping up on stage with K Doe)….

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[1] I bet it’s now a luxury market rate condo

[2] I got to join in with one in front of The Make-Out Room, blocking off streets in the Mission to bring a little Mardi Gras back to the city that’s now less than 4% black.

Post Election Blues

Post Election Blues

The minor character said:

Oh, the only vote they really care about

Is how you vote with your pocket book.

Every month, AT&T for President,

Comcast for King of Kings, taxation without rep.

The Emperors have their Colonial governors

And gives them little fortress gated community land grants

In the heart of what used to be

Your proud working class city…

Their blue collar servants drive up in Vans

To procure more money

Under the guise of fixing the equipment

That breathes new life into the phrase “planned obsolescence”

And, you vote, sheepishly

And kinda feel forced—

You need it for your job

    Of trying to find a job

And this government

Has more power than the one

We try to convince ourselves is democratic—

Some know the story of Apple’s “heroic stand”

Against U.S. Government surveillance

But we could use a government

To take a heroic stand

Against Facebook’s surveillance.

“Oh, they like Trump—what can we sell them?

(up pops a confederate flag)

“oh, they like Bernie”

“don’t worry, that doesn’t mean

they plan to boycott big tech anytime soon.”