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after some words from
James McMurtry
"We Can't Make It Here "
There's a Viet Nam vet with a cardboard sign
...
Now I'm stocking shirts in a Wal-Mart store
Sitting there by the left-turn line   Just like the ones we made before
Flag on his wheelchair flappin' in the breeze   Except this one came from Singapore --
One leg missing and both hands free.   I guess we can't make it here anymore.
No one's paying much mind to him    
The VA's budget is just stretched too thin   Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin?
And now there's more coming back from the Mideast War.   Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in?
We can't make it here anymore.   Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today?
    No -- I hate the men who sent the jobs away.
And that big old building was a textile mill   I can see 'em all now; they haunt my dreams
It fed our kids and it paid our bills   All lily-white and squeaky-clean
But they turned us out and they closed the doors   They've never known want; they'll never know need.
We can't make it here anymore.   Their sh*t don't stink and their kids won't bleed.
    Their kids won't bleed in their damn little war
You see those pallets piled up on the loading dock?   And we can't make it here anymore.
They're just gonna sit there 'till they rot    
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack   We'll work for food; we'll die for oil
Just busted concrete and rusted track   We'll kill for power and to us the spoils:
Empty storefronts around the square   The billionaires get to pay less tax;
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere   The working poor get to fall through the cracks.
You don't come down here 'less you're looking to score  

So let 'em eat jelly-beans; let 'em eat cake.

We can't make it here anymore.  

Let 'em eat sh*t; whatever it takes.

    They can join the Air Force or join the Corps
And the bar's still open but man, it's slow   If they can't make it here anymore.
The tip jar's light and the register's low.    
The bartender don't have much to say.   So that's how it is; that's what we got
The regular crowd's getting thinner each day   If the President wants to admit it or not
Some have maxed out all their credit cards;   You can read it in the paper or read it on the wall
Some are working two jobs and living in cars   Or hear it on the wind if you're listening at all.
'Cause minimum wage won't pay for a roof   Get out of that limo and look us in the eye
Won't pay for a drink. If you gotta have proof,   Call us on the cell phone and tell us all why
Try it yourself, Mr. C.E.O.   In Dayton, Ohio or Portland, Maine
See how far five-fifteen an hour will go   Or a cotton gin out on the great High Plains
Take a part-time job in one of your stores   That's done closed down, along with the school
I bet you can't make it here anymore.   And the hospital and the swimming pool
    And dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There's a high school girl with a bourgois dream   And there's rats in the alley and trash in the street
Just like the pictures in the magazine   Gang grafitti on a box-car door
She found on the floor of the laundromat.   We can't make it here
A woman with kids can forget all that.   Anymore....
If she comes up pregnant, what'll she do?    
Forget the career, forget about school    
Can she live on faith, live on hope?    
High on Jesus and hooked on dope    
When it's way too late to Just Say No    
You can't make it here anymore.