Makana Occupies President Obama In Honolulu

President Obama, or someone at the White House, seems to have liked Makana's music well enough to invite him to perform for the president again, this time at a dinner for the APEC leaders meeting in Honolulu where they're pushing more economically devastating "free trade" agreements. Makana had played at the White House in 2009 but it's not likely he'll be invited back again. As police across America swooped down on Occupy encampments-- Portland and Denver were hard hit-- Makana stopped with the background dinner music and launched into 45 minutes of an awesome Occupy movement protest song. He sang something like 50 versions of he song. Political leaders rarely listen to lyrics.

I remember sitting at a table with Dick Lugar at a White House state banquet for Vaclav Havel. Lou Reed sang "Dirty Blvd," his then-current hit. People kind of recognized the melody or something and they kind of danced in their seats. I remember Lugar could barely contain himself. His big plastic smile never even faded when Lou sang:

Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em
That's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death
and get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard

No one seems to have noticed but me and my friend Brian.

In other news, President Obama ended the silly shirt tradition at these meetings, forever embittering the Phillipines. Oh... and Obama told China to start acting like a grown up.


Here are the complete lyrics to "We Are The Many":

Ye come here, gather ’round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage
From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged, we won’t withdraw
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this Republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight
They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none
So take heed of our notice to redress
We have little to lose, we must confess
Your empty words do leave us unimpressed
A growing number join us in protest
We occupy the streets
We occupy the courts
We occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
You can’t divide us into sides
And from our gaze, you cannot hide
Denial serves to amplify
And our allegiance you can’t buy
Our government is not for sale
The banks do not deserve a bail
We will not reward those who fail
We will not move till we prevail
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
We are the many
You are the few