Be Not Afraid. Socialism is Everywhere.

ALL GOVERNMENT SPENDING IS SOCIALISM. Every penny.

They just use that word “socialist” (often erroneously paired with “Communist” or “Marxist”) to convince you (using FEAR) that it’s better if they spend YOUR TAX DOLLARS on tax breaks for the few, the wealthy and privileged. And maybe a few for-profit prisons to lock the rest of us up in (if we get high to try and forget the atrocities done by these miserable sons of bitches who are running this country).

Most people in prison are there for non-violent DRUG POSSESSION. In for-profit prisons, many of which hire them out for a fraction of minimum wage. Modern slavery.
Why? Profit. Exploit ordinary citizens for their own gains. People go to jail, or die, but they make money. So it’s OK.

They don’t make as much money if the government decides feeding the poor, or housing the homeless is a better use of the money. Because it helps people, they call it “charity”. The only reason they give to charity at all is for the tax write-offs and PR.
They call people who need help LAZY.
They say refugees who need help are ILLEGAL.
They say children who need help are EXPENDABLE.
All excuses NOT TO HELP

Like walking past a disheveled person asking for help on the street. Don’t look at them. Ignore the problem. Make excuses not to help.

Folks, THEY blame the poor, but the RICH are the problem. The WEALTHY have set up this system to exploit us, from cradle to grave, and they keep turning the screws, hoping we die. Less LAZY ILLEGAL EXPENDABLE HUNGRY mouths to feed, equals more profits for THEM.
Pure Capitalism is CRUELTY.

It’s $38 Trillion Now


Socialism recognizes the things people need to survive and thrive, and tries to guarantee those things to all through government ownership of those resources. Food. Medicine. Clothing. Housing. Education. Police. Fire Dept. EMTs. Energy. Military defense. Research. Good stuff for ALL. Democracy decides what’s important to us.
We all chip in to make sure everyone has what they NEED to survive and thrive. Importantly, innovators can still get rich selling people NEW creations and advances. For as much profit as they can. Things people WANT. Not what they NEED to survive.

In either Socialism or Capitalism, those with more must give more. That’s the social contract.

But Capitalism must be regulated to protect the social contract. Socialism IS that contract. Democracy decides. Capitalism doesn’t go away. It just gets deprioritized over survival, and human decency. Profits are NOT more important than the social contract to help each other.

Getting rich by exploiting what people NEED to survive is IMMORAL.
Getting rich by imprisoning people for profit is immoral.
Getting rich by controlling all of the food production and constantly raising prices to ensure “economic growth” (aka increased profits) instead of eliminating hunger, is immoral.
Getting rich by sending our children off to die, protecting “economic interests” (aka oil profits, weapons revenue) is IMMORAL.
Getting rich by controlling (for profit) all of the ENERGY society needs to exist and grow is Immoral.
Getting rich by deciding who deserves medicine by how much they can afford to pay is IMMORAL.

This is NOT a RED vs. BLUE situation. The two parties are BOTH working against US, The American People. This is a HUMAN DECENCY issue. Greed vs. Kindness and Decency.
This is a HAVE-TOO-MUCH vs HAVE-NOT-ENOUGH situation. Most of us fall into the SECOND group. We should start acting like it.
Towards THEM, and especially towards Each Other.

If (Revisited for the 2020s, with no apologies to Kipling and Dr Seuss)

If you can keep your head
when you’re surrounded by idiots
who blindly believe

If you dream of a future
where no one goes hungry,
no one in need

If your head spins from lies,
corruption and greed,
from sources empowered,
trusted to read. us the news.

If you care about kindness
and feel pain when others,
are hurt due to ignorance
of assholes unkind.

If you respect all creation,
and don’t understand,
why people and creatures
suffer at the hands
of inhumane humans
who don’t have a plan
to make anything better
if they can’t make a buck,
I know they all mock us,
think we’re all dumb as fuck
keep telling us it’s just
a run of bad luck
while they reap giant profits
Did i say reap? I meant SUCK
till there’s nothing to suck
because they’ve sucked it all up

If you believe in equality
and justice for all,
while living in horror
or hiding or fear
at the hateful who profit
by war and division
and shameless abuse
of the poor and the meek

If everything around you
seems way too insane,
a fucked up new normal,
a pain in the brain,
each new profanity
a breath of insanity,
making the last one
seem comfortable, fuzzy and warm.

If this is a world
that ain’t one you prefer,
and the people in power
seem doomed to make things worse

If you keep falling and getting back up
when the world seems dead set
on knocking your ass
right back to the pavement
as soon as you do.

If making things better
still seems important,
even after all
we’ve all been through

Then remember one thing,
my friend most of all.
The bigger the asshole,
the louder they fall

For so many have eyes
but refuse to be able
to see through the lies
to the truth on the table
in Freedom’s last light
We fade into denial
with barely a fight,
Staring into the Void
of our future destroyed
Pretending the darkness
Is too fucking bright

time to wake up now
the nightmare won’t end until we do
If…

Jamie Gray is a songwriter from upstate NY

Eggsistential Hill on You Tube

Eggsistential Hill

Life’s a box of chocolates
When it ain’t a box of dicks (tricks)
Some folks think that farmers
Are all a bunch of Hicks?
I used to live the city life.
Got tired of all that shit
At least here on the farm,
you know when you step in it.

I got ducks out In my yard.
I got turkeys on my porch
Got chickens out in back
and a little herd of pork
We ain’t got a lot
But what we got is real
Everyday is perfect
Up on Eggsistential Hill

I work hard every day
Building stuff and chasing ducks
Nobody’s gonna bring me down
Cause i stopped giving all them fucks
Working for the man.
You can’t never get ahead.
Keep you running till you drop.
Unless you drop on out instead.

I got ducks out In my yard.
I got turkeys on my porch
Got chickens out in back
and a little herd of pork
We ain’t got a lot
But what we got is real
Everyday is perfect
Up on Eggsistential Hill

New Year 2025

My video message to all, complete with song fragment.

so here we are
the end of ’24
I made it thru.
so did you.
so here we are.

I have no optimism to share
no words of hope
nor any advice
except this:

(Song fragment: wake up)

don’t let them win
without a fight
don’t ever give up
gotta make it all right

no time for hate
no time for revenge
we gotta fucking wake up
for this nightmare to end

Eight Years of Gloom

The past 8 years have been a hard road. A lot of loss. A bunch of struggle and worry. Thanks to the pandemic, it seems like the whole world has been living under a shadow of gloom and doom, and me…I’ve been hiding under a rock, keeping my head down. Crazy fucking times. I rarely go anywhere anymore. Who can afford it anyway?

Strong emotions and insane politics tend to bring the muses round over here. A lot of new songs have come my way during the half-decade of torment, though I’ve been too distracted by my life to really bring any of them to into their own. I think some are pretty good, grain of salt, being my own post traumatic opinion. But I hope you’ll agree, as I share the songs, and some of the process, in the coming weeks.

I took up the bass, I’ve been playing electric guitar a LOT, and still working on making midi my bitch. I have a bunch of elaborate arrangements fighting for a chance to be recorded. I’m such a perfectionist, those will take time. I’ve been trying, but never seem to make much progress.

Well now, I’m tired of waiting. I want you to hear the songs. So, I’m gonna share the songs, raw, as they were written. I write most stuff on an old six string acoustic. That’s where everything starts. The roots of the song. Where everything the song will ever be already exists, hiding amongst the crude bangings and ringing open strings, with no distracting background vocals.

So later, when the ‘album version’ drops (not too much later, hopefully), we can all look back and say, “Why the fuck did you do THAT to it, man?!”.

Stay tuned. ~jamie

Guitar practice (in space)

From a live session on TikTok and since I spent way too much time making the video effects, I figured I may as well share it out. Sound is iffy, mastering by me, so not really, and the backing track gets annoyingly repetitive, but every once in awhile I hit a couple cool riffs in a row.

Enjoy. Or hit mute. idc

#TikTokLive #livestream #music