October, 2008

In October 2008, Congress passed Treasury Secretary (and former Goldman Sachs CEO) Henry Paulson's criminally irresponsible Wall Street Bailout $700 billion plus bill. This music video, sung by Margaret Flowers, is our response. For this video, we took inspiration from our country's rich tradition of protest folk singers such as Woodie Guthrie, Joan Baez, and, more recently, Tracy Chapman. Perhaps this tradition is relied upon too heavily in today's rallies and gatherings. Yet for our purposes, one woman singing her heart out - accompanied only by her guitar - made sense. We hope the message of the lyrics will ring out. We need to mine from all the arts to re-ignite peoples' passions for justice, fairness and common sense - through government policy - in the 21st century. Thank you to David Swanson, director of www.afterdowningstreet.org for re-writing the lyrics to "American Pie," and thank you to Don McLean, American composer and singer. Please visit The Institute for Policy Studies and read their report called "A Sensible Plan for Recovery.