This is my first diary ever on Kos. I have been nervous about starting, but today I had the incredible feeling of living aspects of the past again.
The Iraq War has surfaced many comparisons to Vietnam. Having lived in that sad period of US history as a teenager, one of the things that strikes me about our time now, is how devoid of artistic documentation it is. You see, we had the MUSIC to speak of our feelings, to shape the drama and importance of Vietnam and what it symbolized.
I want to share the lyrics of some of these songs of that time that meant something to me and that hit my memory hard.
The Iraq war is being held in relative artistic silence. No poetry, no music - only ocasional bloody photographs. Our media is mute to the injustice and horror except paranthetically, cautiously. 9/11 is the only work for mass consumption so far - and it is less about our spiritual and philosophical needs to keep up the resistance, than about replacing the role of the absent/mute media in telling truth to power. Don't get me wrong, that's good and appreciated. We need more though...
Again, in one lifetime I now know how little we learned, how little that much pain and suffering mattered. I think that is why I am so impatient with our leaders on this war..it is too much to see this again, too much to accept falling in the same trap.
There are three songs: "Fiddle and the Drum" by Joni Mitchell, "The Great Mandala" by Peter Yarrow of Peter Paul and Mary and "Save the Country" by Laura Nyro.
1. The Fiddle and the Drum - Joni Mitchell
And so once again
My dear johnny my dear friend
And so once again you are fightin' us all
And when I ask you why
You raise your sticks and cry, and I fall
Oh, my friend
How did you come
To trade the fiddle for the drum
You say I have turned
Like the enemies you've earned
But I can remember
All the good things you are
And so I ask you please
Can I help you find the peace and the star
Oh, my friend
What time is this
To trade the handshake for the fist
And so once again
Oh, america my friend
And so once again
You are fighting us all
And when we ask you why
You raise your sticks and cry and we fall
Oh, my friend
How did you come
To trade the fiddle for the drum
You say we have turned
Like the enemies you've earned
But we can remember
All the good things you are
And so we ask you please
Can we help you find the peace and the star
Oh my friend
We have all come
To fear the beating of your drum
2. The Great Mandala (The Wheel Of Life)
Peter Yarrow
So I told him that he'd better shut his mouth
And do his job like a man.
And he answered "Listen, Father,
I will never kill another."
He thinks he's better
than his brother that died
What the hell does he think he's doing
To his father who brought him up right?
Chorus:
Take your place on The Great Mandala
As it moves through your brief moment of time.
Win or lose now you must choose now
And if you lose you're only losing your life.
Tell the jailer not to bother
With his meal of bread and water today.
He is fasting 'til the killing's over
He's a martyr, he thinks he's a prophet.
But he's a coward, he's just playing a game
He can't do it, he can't change it
It's been going on for ten thousand years
(Chorus)
Tell the people they are safe now
Hunger stopped him, he lies still in his cell.
Death has gagged his accusations
We are free now, we can kill now,
We can hate now, now we can end the world
We're not guilty, he was crazy
And it's been going on for ten thousand years!
Take your place on The Great Mandala
As it moves through your brief moment of time.
Win or lose now you must choose now
And if you lose you've only wasted your life.
Laura Nyro - Save The Country
Come on, people! Come on, children!
COme on down to the glory river.
Gonna wash you up, and wash you down,
gonna lay the devil down, gonna lay that devil down.
I got fury in my soul,fury's gonna take me to the glory goal.
In my mind I can't study war no more.
Save the people! Save the children! Save the country now!
Come on, people! come on, children!
Come on down to the glory river.
Gonna wash you up and wash you down.
Gonna lay the devil down, gonna lay that devil down.
COme on people! Sons and mothers!
Keep the dream of the two young brothers.
Gonna take that dream and ride that dove.
We could build the dream with love, I know,
We could build the dream with love, I know,
We could build a dream with love, children,
We could build the dream with love, oh people,
We could build the dream with love, I know,
We could build the dream with love.
2nd verse:
Come on, people! Come on, children!
There's a king at the glory river.
And the precious king, he loved the people to sing;
Babes in the blinkin' sun sang
We Shall Overcome.