United States Labor Day 2018

Our current President keeps reminding us that the stock market is at the highest levels in its history but I've yet to encounter anyone, anywhere who can explain what that's supposed to mean in a nation where less than half of us own stock at all. 

Of course, if you have a red ballcap (made in China) with four words written on it, those aren't questions you ask, which is what the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is counting on, so keep up the good work. As for the rest of us, this is Labor Day 2018        

There's a Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign

Sitting there by the left turn line

The flag on his wheelchair flapping in the breeze

One leg missing and both hands-free

No one's paying much mind to him

The V.A. budget's just stretched so thin

And now there's more coming back from the Mideast war

We can't make it here anymore.

And that big ol' building was the textile mill

That fed our kids and it paid our bills

But they turned us out and they closed the doors

'Cause we can't make it here anymore

You see those pallets piled up on the loading dock

They're just gonna sit there til they rot

Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack

Just busted concrete and rusted tracks

Empty storefronts around the square

There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere

You don't come down here unless you're looking to score

We can't make it here anymore.

The bar's still open but man it's slow

The tip jar's light and the register's low

The bartender don't have much to say

The regular crowd gets thinner each day

Some have maxed out all their credit cards

Some are working two jobs and living in cars

Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink

If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. C.E.O.

See how far 5.15 an hour will go

Take a part-time job at one of your stores

I bet you can't make it here anymore.

And there's a high school girl with a bourgeois dream

Just like the pictures in the magazine

She found on the floor of the laundromat

A woman with kids can forget all that

If she comes up pregnant what'll she do

Forget the career and forget about school

Can she live on faith? Live on hope?

High on Jesus or hooked on dope

When it's way too late to just say no

You can't make it here anymore.

Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store

Just like the ones we made before

'Cept this one came from Singapore

I guess we can't make it here anymore.

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin

Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in

Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today

No, I hate the men sent the jobs away

I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams

All lily white and squeaky clean

They've never known want, they'll never know need

Their shit don't stink and their kids won't bleed

Their kids won't bleed in their damn little war

And we can't make it here anymore.

Will I work for food, will I die for oil

Will kill for power and to us the spoils

The billionaires get to pay less tax

The working poor get to fall through the cracks

So let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake

Let 'em eat shit, whatever it takes

They can join the Air Force or join the Corps

If they can't make it here anymore.

So that's how it is, that's what we got

If the president wants to admit it or not

You can read it in the paper, read it on the wall

Hear it on the wind if you're listening at all

Get out of that limo, look us in the eye

Call us on the cell phone tell us all why

In Dayton, Ohio or Portland, Maine

Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains

That's done closed down along with the school

And the hospital and the swimming pool

Dust devils dance in the noonday heat

There's rats in the alley and trash in the street

Gang graffiti on a boxcar door

We can't make it here anymore.

-James McMurtry

-bill kenny