A playlist of songs directly related to the Trump agenda, and opposition to it.

Trump 2.0

"Antisemitism" is the new "communism" -- have you ever said anything that could be construed in someone's convoluted mind as somehow anti-Jewish?  Iran is the new USSR, Elise Stefanik is the new Joe McCarthy, and the House Un-Israeli Activities Committee is going strong, ruining one life at a time, and striking fear throughout academia and beyond.

The House Un-Israeli Activities Committee

Out of the ashes of the free internet, our techno-fascist future has arrived, with billionaires and their algorithms in control of our means of communication and our very minds.

My Techno-Fascist God

While sitting at my screen it occurred to me one day
It’s been years since I’ve heard what those people used to say
Back when the algorithms favored them
And their form of opposition to the system
Now it’s other folks that occupy my feed
And so they are what I write about and this is what I read
When was it that I handed the control over my brain
To billionaires with everything to gain

With a phone in my pocket, sheared and shod
All from inside my pod
I learn who should get the rhapsody
and who should get the rod
From my techno-fascist God

I remember long ago when the internet
Was as decentralized as anything could get
Before the billionaires hijacked
Sealed off the leak that had briefly cracked
The network of control, now multiplied
Each device with your own dictator inside
To personalize your program, to train you to respond
The way you should when they wave their wands

Chorus

Who should I hate this morning, I turn on the app
Scroll a couple hours, get my brainwashing on tap
What matters, what doesn’t, who’s telling us the truth
Should we blame the boomers, should we blame the youth
Should we blame the Proud Boys or the liberal elite
And how should we behave when we see one on the street
How much time did I just spend arguing with trolls
And racing down another rabbit hole

Chorus

My Techno-Fascist God

Ever feel like a marionette whose strings are being pulled by billionaires who like to watch their puppets form circular firing squads?  Me, too.

Divide and Rule

What’s more important – gender, race, or class?
Give me the wrong answer and I’ll have to kick your ass
Do Black lives matter a little, or do they matter a lot?
What were you doing on the night that Bettie Jones was shot?
Do you really care?  If so, then how much?
Or are you some kind of privileged person, completely out of touch?

Let’s argue about it, let’s be perfect little tools
Let’s play the game of the billionaires – the old divide and rule

What is your position on Vladimir Putin?
Is he God, or the devil – for which side are you rootin’?
Do you support negotiations?  Or do you support the war?
There is no room for nuance here, which side are you for?
Let’s shout at one another until we get tired of shouting and then
Entrench our positions and make sure to never talk again

Is it a genocide in Gaza, or is it just a slaughter?
What do you call a country that won’t let people have water?
Is antisemitism on the rise?  Is it true
You can’t call someone a Nazi if they are a Jew
How do we even start to have such a debate
What’s your position on the existence of the Jewish state?

What’s your pronoun, how do you define?
Your gender, sexuality, where do you draw the line?
What’s the difference between X and Y?
Who gets to be a girl, who gets to be a guy?
Who do you exclude and who do you embrace?
What’s your definition of safer space?

Have you been doing the work, and if so are you sure?
Are you progressing towards the genuinely pure?
Have you got the right perspectives, your ducks all in a row?
Is that Facebook banner just the one you really want to show?
Do you look good in the camera, sound earnest in the mic?
Was there a post for which you regret clicking “like”?

Divide and Rule

My impression is Donald and Kamala have some significant differences in their intended policies if elected, as well as significant differences in terms of their records in office.  However, if there's any distinction between the two of them when it comes to the genocide of the Palestinians currently being carried out by the Israeli military with US armaments and US tax dollars, I have yet to discern it.

Ballad of Donald and Kamala (When it Comes to Israel)

Jabaliya

Everything is burning as I watch the video
She crawls out of the ruins, venturing to go
Out in search of water, the final human need
Although the consequences are almost guaranteed
As she goes out in the open, beneath the killer drones
Which aims its sights on her, then shreds her to her bones
Then waits for any people who might be fool enough to try
Come to fetch her body, beneath the smoke-filled sky

Two million people behind the ghetto wall
Wait for two-ton bombs to fall
To crush and burn the schools and tents
Where your whole extended family went
Scores more murdered with each passing day
With so many more on the edge of being taken away
Surrounded by tanks that fire at will
And the rest of the world stands by still

Completely surrounded with no food getting in
Ghost-like faces, impossibly thin
Kids that look like babies, babies born
Thirsty, starving, and forlorn
Men are being taken to who knows where
The elderly, the babies, the wounded in wheelchairs
With donkey carts and wagons, south on cue
As the drones above the rubble ordered them to do

They’re carrying out the Generals’ Plan
Which means kill all the kids that you possibly can
Anyone moving, soldiers take aim
Who they are doesn’t matter, they’re all the same
Make no distinctions, orders decree
Killing them all is just how it must be
And right now in New Jersey you can buy shares
In the resort Jared Kushner plans to build there

Jabaliya

Delay, deny, depose.  A song for Luigi Mangione.  New remix from Chet Gardiner's studio in Hawai'i. #FreeLuigi

So Many Ways to Kill a CEO

Moving on from the frying pan to the fire.

If we deported the billionaires and nationalized their wealth, the rest of the US could be twice as well-off at least.  A much better deal than whatever benefit we're supposed to get from deporting our neighbors!

Deport the Billionaires

After the worldwide revolution, when the people united, we looked back at our accomplishments.

When the People United

The Richest Man in the World Says So

Another song for the ongoing DOGE coup d'etat.

It's A Coup

The Israeli government has shut off the Gaza Ghetto completely, so no food can get in.  After a brief message from our sponsors, this holocaust now continues.

Meanwhile in Gaza

I'm constantly unable to decide whether they're brilliantly theatrical, Machiavellian coup-plotters or just bumbling billionaires whose emotional development stalled out a long time ago.

Toddlers-in-Chief

ICE agents taking orders directly from the top and disappearing a student activist with no warrant, no due process, canceling his green card and holding him incommunicado in an unknown location, this is what's happening in the USA right now.

Mahmoud Khalil

Trump.

From the album, 1939:  http://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/1939

Lyrics:

He was born a rich man, then he got richer still
By bribing politicians on Capitol Hill
By declaring bankruptcy, by working with the mob
By causing lots of Americans to lose their union jobs
By exporting industries to sweatshops overseas
By acting like an idiot on national TV
But now add to his accomplishments one more impressive trait
He's God's gift to the Caliphate

In between his beauty pageants and gambling casinos
And pretending to be a self-made man in films and TV shows
Donald Trump decided he should run for president
For jihadi recruiters his campaign is heaven-sent
It's a war between religions, a civilizational fight
That's what Daesh says – and Donald Trump says “that's right 
All you Muslims stay out of here – just go join Islamic State”
He's God's gift to the Caliphate

He's not much for statistics, he doesn't have the time
Between harassing women and committing corporate crime
But he's a savvy gambler, he knows how to play the game
He's got a list of groups ready-made for him to blame
He doesn't just hate Muslims – he hates Mexicans as well 
And he's prepared to win the contract for the wall he wants to sell
But the terrorists around the world think he's really great
He's God's gift to the Caliphate

The future of the world may be technically unknown
But if the past is any indication then Trump has set the tone
Along with 27 governors and Congresspeople by the score
Who, if we turned the clock back to 1944
Would be turning back the refugees just like we did back then
Hey that worked out so well, why not just do it all again
Because what the world clearly needs is more bile, bombs and hate
He's God's gift to the Caliphate

God's Gift To The Caliphate

Scott Warren was facing a 20-year prison sentence for, in the words of his federal accusers, providing, "food, water, clean clothes and beds" to two men very much in need of all of those things for a few days. 

From the 2019 album, Strangers and Friends.

I Was A Stranger

The other day on NPR they reported that of the estimated 60,000 homeless in Los Angeles County, almost 1,000 were found dead on the streets, sidewalks, alleyways and highway medians of LA County in 2018.

Living On The Streets Of LA (It's 2019)

To live in a country with concentration camps.

So This Is What It's Like

According to some study I read, there were 20,000 Germans who engaged in various acts of sabotage and other heroic acts in situations where they knew they would be killed for doing what they did.  Each one of them had a complex of reasons for doing what they did, surely, but the main one was simple:  they had to do something in the face of the fascist madness.  Welcome to 1933.  This song is a bus-burning song.  This guitar burns buses.

The Time To Act (Song For Will Van Spronsen)

2017 album recorded at Big Red Studio with Billy Oskay, Elona Planman and others.

14. Make The Planet Earth Great Again

Singer/songwriter, writer, podcaster (on Spotify, Substack & Patreon), libertarian socialist, dad, lover of life.