About The Billionaires
We are the Brothers of Bullion, the Sisters of Stock Options, the Compañeros of Cash. We are the wealthiest 0.001% of the population, but although we are a tiny minority, we have a way of making our influence felt.
From 2000 to 2008, we were the Billionaires for Bush, but we are so much more than that: The Billionaires for Wealthcare, the Billionaires for Greater Global Greed, the Billionaires for More Media Mergers, the Billionaires for Private Prison Profits – anywhere there is an opportunity to funnel more money upward into our bursting coffers, we are there, ready to Capitalize! And our most profitable investment has been the many elected officials who rely on our largesse to buy airtime to run ads to get elected so they can do our bidding.
This is a time of great opportunity for us in America, but also one of tremendous challenge: Public support is flagging for our continued war profiteering in Iraq, our Pharmaceutical firms, our Credit Industry, our Lobbyists, our Trade Pacts, even our beloved Republican Party.
Pressure is being brought to bear on all those politicians who’ve been working so hard for us. Americans’ selfish desire for Healthcare Reform could put a crimp in our Health Insurance profits. They’re balking at us expanding our operations in Afghanistan. The Obama government might feel inclined to change many of the policies that have inordinately benefited us. We must resist at all costs!
Stay The Course!
Felonius Ax [signature]
Minister of Musical Manipulation
TheBillionaires.org
But really now…
We Billionaires for Bush perform a kind of Sympathetic Magic that hearkens back thousands of years. Each year, our cave dwelling ancestors would get ready for the bear hunt. They feared the bear for good reason. But in order to survive the harsh Ice Age winter, they had to hunt this powerful predator. So what did they do? The shaman would don the previous year’s bearskins and do the bear dance and call upon the bear goddess to infuse the limbs of the hunters with the power of the bear so they could face the bear and conquer it.
That’s what we do. We live in a world that is being rendered uninhabitable by Multinational Corporations that have bought our government and coöpted our elected officials to serve their needs. Although we fear them and their power, we know that our long-term survival depends on us finding a way to face them. In the sixties, we could have struck a tone of earnestness as we sung songs of righteousness in the face of powerful injustice. But these are darker, more cynical times. The media is weary of covering protest marches and strikes except to portray them as an inconvenience. But they find us amusing and engaging and tend to offer us excellent coverage while we impersonate the corrupt CEOs for whom our president works and in doing so, take power over them by showing just how absurd and silly they are. We street performers are shamans who will inspire new generations of hunters to stand up and hunt the bear.
I have heard that Franco was less afraid of his political opponents than what the satirists would say about his regime. He could more easily silence criticism than laughter. Toward the end of his life and regime, the laughter became stronger and his response against it, less effective.
We have been creating the music for The Billionaires for the last 8 years. I have had the honor and company on this journey of some of L.A.’s best studio musicians and singers (and one extraordinary rapper), as well as my friend and partner in corporate crime, Paul Berolzheimer (Billionaire name: Georgie O’Marauder), a phenomenal engineer who makes everything we create sound that much better. Like me, these fine people have been donating their talents to our project.
What we are striving to be is Artist/Activists. Our music is what we have to bring to the Movement. We hope that what we create here will not only broaden our base by getting people who haven’t been engaged to start thinking about issues from a different angle, but also to provide succor in the form of joy and laughter to those stalwart, hardcore activists at our base who have been fighting the good fight relentlessly.
On this website, we offer our newest CD, STAY THE COURSE as well as our previous release, THE BILLIONAIRES ARE IN THE HOUSE on a “Pay What You Want” basis. We really want you to have our music, because if the music isn’t reaching people, this is a futile endeavor. If the money’s tight, please download our albums for free, and be sure to share our music with everyone you know! But if you can, and if you value the work that we’re doing, we welcome you to pay for our music whatever you think it’s worth. Every cent of revenue that these CDs generate will go right back into making more web-based video and musical content so we can continue getting our message out.
We mark the passing of the George Bush era as human beings with hope that the next president of the United States will dare to repudiate his wretched policies; and as satirists with a tiny twinge of regret that we’re losing the main butt of our humor. But no matter the result of November’s election, the real Billionaires will continue to exert a disproportionate degree of power in dictating policy, and as much as we wish our humor would be rendered obsolete, we’re confident that it won’t be.
Thanks for your support.
Stay The Course!
Clifford J. Tasner
The Evolution of the Billionaires’ music
A Brief History Of The Billionaires