I think we all need a Dylan refresher course

They're selling postcards of the hanging -/- Saddam
They're painting the passports brown -/- Detain citizens as enemy combatants
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors -/-
Fashion is more important than global climate change
The circus is in town -/- General Election of 2006
Here comes the blind commissioner -/-
Can you say inspector generals relieved of duties
They've got him in a trance -/-
Listen to Kerry's joke, pay no attention to the GOP House members
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker -/- Congressmen Sweeney and Hastert
The other is in his pants -/- Foley and Haggard
And the riot squad they're restless -/-
Call out the private security forces to protect the hacking of machines
They need somewhere to go -/- Out of Iraq and Afghanistan?
As Lady and I look out tonight -/- Liberty and Justice
From Desolation Row -/- the USA

Cinderella, she seems so easy -/- Angelina Jolie
"It takes one to know one," she smiles -/- Nicole Kidman
And puts her hands in her back pockets -/- Jennifer Aniston
Bette Davis style -/- Renee Zellwegger
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning -/- Brad Pitt
"You Belong to Me I Believe" -/- Tom Cruise
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You had better leave" -/- George Clooney
And the only sound that's left -/- Hear those cameras click
After the ambulances go -/- Keith Urban
Is Cinderella sweeping up -/- Angelina in the third world
On Desolation Row -/- the USA

Now the moon is almost hidden -/- Hope for a better planet
The stars are beginning to hide -/- Global climate change killing species
The fortunetelling lady -/- Gaia's corporate-government enemies
Has even taken all her things inside -/- Document shredding begins in DC
All except for Cain and Abel -/- Dick in Bush
And the hunchback of Notre Dame -/- Roman Catholic pedophelia
Everybody is making love -/-
Conservative Christian anti-homosexual but still gay leadership
Or else expecting rain -/- ACLU
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing -/-
Entertainment infotainment celebrity attention span diversions
He's getting ready for the show -/- Follow the bouncing celebrity tits and ass
He's going to the carnival tonight -/- Main Streaming media
On Desolation Row -/- the USA

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window -/- Marisa Hargitay
For her I feel so afraid -/- Nicole Ritchie
On her twenty-second birthday -/- Lindsey Lohan
She already is an old maid -/- Paris Hilton
To her, death is quite romantic -/- Winona Ryder
She wears an iron vest -/- Gweneth Paltrow
Her profession's her religion -/- Madonna
Her sin is her lifelessness -/- Micha Barton
And though her eyes are fixed upon -/- Scarlet Johansson
Noah's great rainbow -/- the Kate/Cate/Kathryn/Kirsten
She spends her time peeking -/- Reese Witherspoon
Into Desolation Row -/- the USA

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood -/- Affleck and Damon
With his memories in a trunk -/- Another set of films
Passed this way an hour ago -/- Trying to open a dialog
With his friend, a jealous monk -/- Ferrell or Willis or Kutcher
He looked so immaculately frightful -/- Schwarzenegger
As he bummed a cigarette -/- Martin Sheen
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes -/- Sean Penn
And reciting the alphabet -/- Denzell and Samuel L
Now you would not think to look at him -/- Fishburne or Whittaker
But he was famous long ago -/- Hoffman and Newman
For playing the electric violin -/- Stephan G et Jean Luc P
On Desolation Row -/- the USA

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world -/- Cheney
Inside of a leather cup -/- Hadley and Addington
But all his sexless patients -/- Hastert and Frist
They're trying to blow it up -/- Foley is Haggard
Now his nurse, some local loser -/- Rove
She's in charge of the cyanide hole -/- Card
And she also keeps the cards that read -/- Dobson & Falwell
"Have Mercy on His Soul" -/- W or DeLay?
They all play on penny whistles -/- Boehner and the boys
You can hear them blow -/- Rumsfeld
If you lean your head out far enough -/- Capitol nor Pentagon
From Desolation Row -/- the USA

Across the street they've nailed the curtains -/- NASA, EPA, FDA
They're getting ready for the feast -/- corporate dinner donor lists
The Phantom of the Opera -/- DeLay of the K Street
A perfect image of a priest -/- Norquist
They're spoonfeeding Casanova -/- the citizens of the USA
To get him to feel more assured -/- celebrity news and the new TV season
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence -/- ignore all science for political pursuits
After poisoning him with words -/- what won't kill you won't hurt you too much
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls -/- food industry's GMO and other increased fats
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know -/- choking on global climate change
Casanova is just being punished for going -/- you people are all on your own
To Desolation Row" -/- the USA

Now at midnight all the agents -/-
DHS, FBI, DOJ, NSA, CIA, DOD, NCIS, ACID
And the superhuman crew -/-
all local militarized law enforcement
Come out and round up everyone -/-
the Constitution is in shreds
That knows more than they do -/-
pretty much most of the Earth's human population
Then they bring them to the factory -/-
the heart of the matrix of TV, iPod, Internets, media mind control central
Where the heart-attack machine -/-
overeating, over indulgence, over stimulation, over stress
Is strapped across their shoulders -/-
wage slavery fails to keep up with standard of survivable living
And then the kerosene -/-
disparity of the rich becoming ever richer and healthier
Is brought down from the castles -/-
increasing world poverty, more diseases, more catastrophes
By insurance men who go -/-
globalization of remaining capital assets
Check to see that nobody is escaping -/-
militarizing all foreign policy, a nuclear weapon is necessary
To Desolation Row -/- the USA

Praise be to Nero's Neptune -/- Rumsfeld
The Titanic sails at dawn -/- FoxNews
And everybody's shouting -/- Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh
"Which Side Are You On?" you are all terrorists
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot -/- Berube and Brayton
Fighting in the captain's tower -/- blogsphere expanding trope
While calypso singers laugh at them -/- 50¢, Eminem, JayZ, Snoopp
And fishermen hold flowers -/- commentors and posts on threads
Between the windows of the sea -/-
NYRB or Newsweek; Moyers or Blitzer; Olberman or Gibson
Where lovely mermaids flow -/- Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue
And nobody has to think too much -/- hours of celebrity infotainment
About Desolation Row -/- the USA

Yes, I received your letter yesterday -/- the ballot came in my mail
(About the time the door knob broke) -/- it could easily not be counted
When you asked how I was doing -/- i vote the bottom up anyway
Was that some kind of joke? -/- submit it to be counted
All these people that you mention -/-
the candidates, their supporters, and the corporations who run the machine
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame -/-
they are mostly scum who are zealously selfish about their own interests
I had to rearrange their faces -/-
evolution provided wonderful alkaloids for this purpose
And give them all another name -/-
changing the labels on the same old bottles of wine
Right now I can't read too good -/-
damn those alkaloids, all i see are geometric pattern fluctuations
Don't send me no more letters no -/- the voting processes are void of verifiability
Not unless you mail them -/- with NCR paper trail record keeping
From Desolation Row -/- the USA