Democracy is coming to the USA!

Well, maybe, maybe not. But a video version of the great Leonard Cohen's great song "Democracy" is posted on YouTube. Embedding is disabled on this particular vid, which features the original album recording, but you can view it at this link.

A sample of the song's brilliant lyrics:

It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

An alternative, live version is also available below. It is not quite as good musically, and Cohen's voice is pretty shot, but it is still very rousing (thanks in large part to backup singers Julie Christensen and Perla Batalla.) Makes you dream, don't it?



Special bonus video: A YouTube version of "First We Take Manhattan" can be seen and heard here.

News Update (June 12): Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush into the House yesterday, to very little fanfare and a minimum of news coverage (the most extensive report I found this morning was on Al Jazeera.) The House voted to send the articles to the judiciary committee, where they will probably sit until Bush is out of office--although the committee chair is John Conyers, no fan of Bush. In my view, the impeachment campaign always was a loser, if not a major distraction from actually building an effective anti-war movement, but Kucinich should be commended for keeping the issue of Bush's criminal actions alive. The detailed, 65-page resolution and the 35 articles can be found here. And here is a YouTube video of Kucinich trying to get the House's attention as he introduced them yesterday: