Anti-war
revere | January 30, 2010Howard Zinn is gone, now, but he left us plenty. Here is a short piece he wrote a little over ten years ago in Z Magazine (hat tip, SR). It's typical of his style: inspiring, humble, practical, especially in these times:
On Getting Along
Howard Zinn, March, 07 1999
You ask how I manage to stay involved and remain seemingly happy and adjusted to this awful world where the efforts of caring people pale in comparison to those who have power?
It's easy. First, don't let "those who have power" intimidate you. No matter how much power they have they cannot prevent you from living your life,…
revere | January 29, 2010Howard Zinn died on Wednesday. He was a colleague and more than an acquaintance but a friend, although not a close friend. I knew him for 40 years, although hadn't seen him recently, the last time was a few years ago when we shared a platform together. The auditorium was packed, not to see me but to see him and he was his usual feisty self. But it was a feistiness that was full of kindness and compassion. Just to be in his presence conveyed a strange kind of empowerment. He made you believe you could make a difference, even when it was crystal clear the one who was really making a difference…
revere | January 18, 2010Martin Luther King's birthday is an official holiday in the US, but King's example of non-violent resistance is not a US idea. So once again we have decided this non-traditional version of We Shall Overcome is appropriate. I've heard and sung this in churches, union halls, in the streets and in concerts for four decades and it inspires wherever and whenever it is sung. This 1996 version features Diana Ross in full concert hall regalia, backed by a symphony orchestra. The venue is Budapest, Hungary and more than one member of the orchestra and the audience were undoubtedly thinking of their…
revere | January 9, 2010My little ones now have little ones of their own, just barely out of their cradles. When this song was written, the prospect of global nuclear annihilation wasn't far fetched. Each side had massive overkill. There are still nuclear weapons so the threat isn't gone. But it's not a threat of nuclear winter. There are several reasons for this, including a world wide anti-nuclear movement. What would have happened had there been no opposition to nuclear weapons? I'm glad to say we'll never know. Unfortunately even without nuclear weapons the words of this song are still applicable to cradles…
revere | January 7, 2010When I was growing up "world music" didn't exist as a genre and didn't exist for me in any form. Now it's just a keystroke away. This is a different world for the younger generation, not just musically. Despite all the wars and the problems in the headlines, I think it's a better one.
Chanda Mama is a folk tune from Chennai, India. Like a lot of music, it's also from Argentina and Lisbon and Toulouse and South Africa and on and on. Here it is from Playing for Change via musicians from four continents:
revere | January 6, 2010If you don't share the sentiments, just enjoy the music. But why wouldn't you share the sentiments?
revere | January 5, 2010Conscientious refusal to participate in acts which are immoral although legal is a world wide phenomenon. It isn't new. We don't hear about the brave souls in highly repressive countries that risk death or imprisonment, but they exist. We celebrate them when they resist regimes we don't like, as in Iran. But we have our own prisoners of conscience. We know more about the ones in freer societies and their voices also deserve to be heard.
There are thousands in Israel. One group are the Shministim, "twelth graders":
On April 28, 1970, a group of high school seniors about to be drafted sent a…
revere | January 4, 2010I was also a conscientious objector, in another war. I couldn't in conscience claim the kind of religious grounds that young Joshua Casteel did, but I have to hand it to the kid. This is an amazing story:
revere | January 3, 2010Here's some forgotten history. Not ancient history, but nonetheless forgotten. Just a week over 30 years ago, the end of 1979, Afghanistan had a functioning government, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). The fact that it functioned, which now sounds remarkable, was not a good thing as far as the US was concerned because this was also a communist government allied to the Soviet Union (just over its border to the north). In the flight from reality known as The Cold War, the US wished the functioning government in Afghanistan would be toppled. Does the phrase, "Be careful what you…
revere | January 2, 2010We've had other wars besides Iraq and Afghanstan djinned up or whipped on by our "free press." Sometimes it's good to remember that "the power of the press" also meant the power of the person who owned the printing press. People like William Randoph Hearst, who had the power to make "the splendid little war" known as the Spanish American War. The same power also gave us The Philippines via Commodore Dewey's Battle of Manila Bay (referred to by a British historian as "more a military execution than a real contest"). The power that gave us domination over Cuba in the name of Cuban independence…
revere | January 1, 2010First day of a new year. First day of a new decade. It's dark out. So it's important to keep even a small light on in Times Like These:
Lyrics for In Times Like These by Arlo Guthrie
In times like these, when night surrounds me
and I am weary, my heart is worn
And the songs they're singing don't mean nothing,
cheap refrains play on and on
The storm is here, the lightning flashes,
between commercials, they're taking names
singers run to where the cash is,
it's just another link in slavery's chain
I see the storm clouds rise above me,
the sky is dark and the night has come
I walk alone along…
revere | December 31, 2009Last day of 2009, another year of war. A good time to step back and try for perspective. We'll let a young Nanci Griffith do it for us with this wonderful song by Julie Gold:
Happy New Year to all our readers, whether near or from a distance.
The Reveres, New Year's Eve, 2009
revere | December 30, 2009When the US still had "mandatory" conscription for males it was still possible to claim exemption on the basis of a conscientious objection to war. While this usually required a religious basis and was almost impossible for doctors because of a supposed non-combattant role, we were still given full C.O. status as a doctor without a religious basis. The explanation for this legal certification is not relevant and it didn't happen without a protracted struggle which we had no reason to believe would turn out as it did. Its lack of relevance is because the end of the draft or the war did not end…
revere | December 29, 2009Some needs to edit this to add faces from the Obama administration to those from the Bush administration. Because lives are still in the balance and Obama has his thumb on the scale. Jackson Browne:
revere | December 28, 2009War can take and spoil lives in many ways. The killing doesn't stop when the war is over or a combat role is ended. This year again has seen record suicide rates for the US military, but one can assume the same is true for those fighting on the other side and for the millions of civilians caught up in it. This song by Canadian singer-songwriter Garnet Rogers is not about Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam. It could be about any war. And one bullet:
revere | December 27, 2009Nina Serbedzija is the actress daughter of Croatian Serb actor-musician Rade Serbedzija. She wrote and sings this poignant song. If any part of the world knows about cruel and pointless wars, it's the Balkans:
revere | December 26, 2009Poppies grow in France, too. In fields that are now green but were once red with blood. And no one seems to know why. Two million died in vain. The Fureys and another moving Eric Bogle song:
revere | December 25, 2009Here's another wonderful song about the Christmas truce of 1914, this one by Mike Harding. What happened 95 years ago today shines down through the years. Let's transform Afghanistan from No Man's Land to Everyone's Land. Because but for some accident of birth any of us could be an Afghan or a soldier, fighting for who knows what. Just like No Man's Land, 1914:
revere | December 24, 2009A Christmas tradition in the Revere household is that I make Mrs. R. cry by playing this beautiful song by John McCutcheon about the Christmas truce of 1914. It's 2009 and bitter cold in the trenches of Afghanistan.
The Reveres, Christmas Eve, 2009
revere | December 23, 2009Afghanistan is out of the headlines but we have continued to signal the existence of this unnecessary war every day since Obama announced his attention to escalate and thus make the Afghan War Obama's War. Given the projections of how long it will take to satisfy whatever vague and ill-defined criteria of "success" needed to conclude our occupation, we would have to keep finding new YouTube clips for years. I'm not sure even YouTube has enough appropriate clips for that.
The real truth is The Reveres are having a hard time -- a very, very hard time -- letting go of the topic of the War in…