The Night The Country Died

The Night The Country Died

by digby


The horror of forced health care is so terrible that it will, like slavery and the Great Depression, call forth poets and songwriters to speak for the oppressed and the displaced. I think when history records this era, it will see Michael Bérubé as the Woody Guthrie of the teabag movement:

The night the country died

In the deep of a Sunday night
In the land of the health care bill
When the free republic died
And they talk about it still

When a man named Al-Barack
Took his fascist voting bloc
And he called his gang to war
With the forces of the law

I heard my grandma cry
I heard her pray the night the country died
Brother what a night it really was
Brother what a fight it really was
Glory be

I heard my grandma cry
I heard her pray the night the country died
Brother what a night the people saw
Brother what a fight the people saw
Yes indeed

And we took our tea in bags
Through the streets around the Hill
As we screamed at blacks and fags
Chanting, “n****r kill the bill.”

There was Boehner on the floor
And threats of civil war
But by midnight it was done
And the socialists had won

I heard my grandma cry
I heard her pray the night the country died
Brother what a night it really was
Brother what a fight it really was
Glory be

I heard my grandma cry
I heard her pray the night the country died
Brother what a night the people saw
Brother what a fight the people saw
Yes indeed

Then there was no sound at all
But a hush upon the Mall
For as the clock struck one
The death panels had begun
And then at the break of day
Obama took grandma away*

The night the country died
The night the country died
Brother what a night the people saw
Brother what a fight the people saw
Yes indeed