Poem of the Day - for Occupy Wall Street -- "Piggies" by George Harrison

I've been following the Occupy Wall Street movement for a while now, including visits to the "ground zero" sites in New York City and Washington DC. Although the goals of the movement can be misinterpreted, both from those on the outside and even misinterpreted by those involved in the movment itself, one thing DOES stand out and must never be diluted or forgotten:

Corporate greed and corruption are both responsible for the situation we are in today (with our economy in general) and by the same token, they must also be stopped - directly and immediately - by drafting laws and prosecuting the "have a lots" who have been caught stealing from those who "don't have a lot". The thievery is happening EVERYWHERE, it is amazing.

I've stumbled upon a 2-inch thick 3-ring binder in a local coffee shop in Bethel, CT (Molten Java by name - a fantastic little hippie place filled with painted guitars, old tables and sofas, colorful and trippy artwork, funny little psychedelic knick-knacks, etc. - whoa, that's another story) whti the title "Unofficial Poetry Anthololgy" on the front cover. Cool. So I quickly opened it to find treasure -- 100's of "Occupy Wall Street" poems in a neatly assemled - I think alphabetically, hand printed anthology of political poems and lyrics. Lot's of poems, lot's of good sentiment, (lot's of bad poems) and lot's of good poetry - more or less focused on the Occupy movement.

I even encountered a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem or two in there.

This brings me to one of the best popular lyrics written specifically to address the establishment and corruption and greed, a classic lyric filled with biting sarcasm, often misinterpreted itself as a "cute little ditty about little pink piggies".

Not the case. Read Harrisons lyrics, and look at 1968 and tell me this poem was not about corporate greed. It was, admittedly a rare political poke by Harrison (remember he was far overshadowed by John Lennon and his political peace activism gone viral).

Enjoy - look around at the next restaurant you're in. Can you pick out the piggies?





Piggies

By George Harrison (recorded by The Beatles)

Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all those little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.

Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
And they always have clean shirts to play around in.

And in their styes with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
And in their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damm good whacking.

Yeah, everywhere there's lots of piggies
Playing piggy pranks
And you can see them on their trotters
Down at the piggy banks
Paying piggy thanks
To thee pig brother

- Everybody: -
Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.