Barack Obama

His first name is the last name of an Israeli Prime Minister
His middle name’s the last name of Saddam
And his last name’s middle syllable
Quite conveniently is “bomb”

Some people call him Mr. President, some people call him an elitist
Some people call him Mr. Smart Bomb
Some people call him Mr. Drone Strike, some people call him a wanker
Ralph Nader calls him Uncle Tom

But his name’s Barack Obama, Barack Obama
Barack Obama, Barack O-bomb-a

Some people say it’s wonderful, a black man in the white house
And his kids are awful cute, he’s got a feministic spouse
But he’s locking up his people, throwing away the key
He could have skin as white as birch or as black as ebony

He’s still Barack Obama, Barack Obama
Barack Obama, Barack O-bomb-a

They say he’s in his second term now, he can show his true progressive side
He can tax the rich, bring the troops home and fill his base with pride
He can stop the frackers in their tracks, spend money on the schools
He can stop all the evictions
he can free all the whistleblowers
he can triple the minimum wage
he can take away the assault rifles
he can jail corrupt bankers
he can start building windmills
he can shut down the dirty coal plants
he can shut down Guantanamo
he can at least start trying to do these things
Or he can just keep playing us for fools

I’m talking about Barack Obama, Barack Obama
Barack Obama, Barack O-bomb-a

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“Barack Obama” originally appeared on the 2013 online album, Into A Prism. It’s one of a series of songs about President Obama. I guess they’re all different versions of the same song, but I seem to need to re-write the song every year or so, for therapeutic reasons. This one was written well into his presidency, by the time he had made it abundantly clear that although he talks a great line on all kinds of issues, in reality his politics are very neoliberal and otherwise pro-business, pro-military, etc. Under his (and all the other Democrat-run administrations) military spending has continued or risen, militarily occupying and bombing many different countries has continued, arresting and prosecuting whistle-blowers is at an all-time national high, the prison torture and solitary confinement continues, the bankers are still not in jail, the “free trade” deals just keep getting worse and he’s all about the secretive TPP/TTIP negotiations, coal plants still burn coal all over the country, global warming is on track to get worse due to the world’s biggest or maybe now second-biggest polluter (the US)… And so on. It’s called hypocrisy. What politicians do is what matters, not what they say, or what they look like.