The Republicans sit on one side of the train, the Democrats on the other.
Actually, both sides are Republican, but they’re having heated debates
Whether liberals or Arabs took all our freedoms and whether
Communist China or Marxist Obama put our economy in the tank.
They take occasional breaks to read different papers.
There are Democratic ones and Republican ones.
Actually they are all Republican papers, full of stories
That cheer our “top-secret war” on Yemen,
That compare the head of JP Morgan to Samuel Adams (not the beer)
For complaining to (his employee) Ben Bernanke
About too much regulation of banks.* The train arrives,
The commuters go on to their different jobs, where they’re free
To speak their minds and surf Fox News, CNN, New York Times, CNBC
While their Facebook accounts are monitored for subversion,
Personal email accounts and message boards blocked,
“Controversial” websites reported to security
And training is given on how seemingly innocuous verbal comments
Can be grounds for immediate termination.
These rules don’t concern anyone, for they still can order shoes,
View porn, watch videos illegally downloaded.
One day there’s a protest in the street – a candlelight vigil, really,
For the tens of thousands who die each year
From using drugs as prescribed. The workers,
So fragmented in interests and views, unite from their petty disputes
To condemn these unknown, ragamuffin protesters:
“They’re paid to do this – a rent-a-mob…”
“They’re resentful of other people’s success…”
“They oughta move to North Korea…”
They cannot know that these protesters are in a database
That will keep them from the jobs these workers enjoy.
They cannot know what will happen, after the tasering and arrests,
How they disappear as if their dissent did not exist at all.
* As a side note, I’m not sure what JP Morgan Head Jamie Dimon’s beef is with the government – his bank received more money from the government to purchase one bank (WAMU, in the form of $900 billion in bad debt taken over by the government and wiped off the books) than the Federal government paid out total in 2008 in Social Security AND Medicare for every recipient in the United States—and the WAMU gift is just the tip of an inconceivably large iceberg.
