Iraq/Afghanistan
revere | December 19, 2009This is not the first time we've done this poem by ee cummings. Alas. I guess it has to be done periodically. Because the steaming pile we are being asked to eat keeps mounting:
i sing of Olaf glad and big
i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or
his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while…
revere | December 18, 2009Tomas Young is a veteran in a wheel chair. He was shot in the spine by a sniper in Iraq. His story was featured in Phil Donahue's film, "Body of War," the story of Young's conversion from soldier to anti-Iraq war activist. You can see Young and others in the slides taken back stage at the Lollapalooza concert in Chicago, 2007.
This is a tribute to Tomas Young by Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam:
revere | December 17, 2009While the Obama administration makes its choices, ordinary people in the rest of the world don't want more trouble:
revere | December 16, 2009The truth of this is disheartening. But truth often is:
Hat tip reader Erin.
revere | December 15, 2009A reminder that many nations fight stupid wars. Remember the Falklands?
Mark Knopfler's version of the Dire Straits song, Brothers in Arms.
revere | December 14, 2009Bob Dylan recorded this in 1962 but it wasn't released until decades later. By then there were many more John Browns. And we are producing them in quantity in Afghanistan.
revere | December 13, 2009Obama's election opened Pandora's Box and one of the things that flew out was Hope. No good change comes without Hope as one of its wellsprings. There is much justified anger at Obama's War on Afghanistan. You've seen it here and you'll see more of it as the Afghanistan debacle continues to take and spoil lives and sap our strength as a people.
But Hope remains a necessary ingredient for those of us who oppose this war. We know it will draw cynical comments from those who see it as pie-in-the-sky utopianism (although pie-in-the-sky pushed by religion or politicians is OK?). Cynicism for them…
revere | December 12, 2009I usually choose music clips featuring the performer and the song. I prefer live performances. I don't like videos with graphic or powerful images because they often distract from the music and I am powerfully affected by the music itself. But this is an exception in two ways. First, this is contemporary music, a 2009 Dash Berlin remix video of the still extant 1980s alternative band, Depeche Mode; and this time it is the powerful video that takes center stage, not the music.
Long after there is peace on the battlefield the war will go on in the lives of its victims, on both sides. This hit…
revere | December 11, 2009President Obama made his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech yesterday. Full of irony, thoughtful, analytic, nuanced, humble. So much more elegant than George Bush could ever hope to do. Other than that, same bottom line, only now it's the Obama Doctrine, dressed up. I'm not buying it. I'm as angry as ever. I'm not ready to make nice:
revere | December 10, 2009We're saving lives on the battlefield. Lives that would have been lost in previous wars. That's good. War takes too many lives. But there are ways to take lives that don't involve killing someone. And we're taking a lot of lives that way, many more than before. Here's Liam Clancy with the great song by Australian singer-song writer Eric Bogle:
revere | December 9, 2009We're talking about sending 30,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan. We're not talking about the ones that are coming home. I used to work for the VA. There's lots to talk about. Let's start now:
revere | December 8, 2009Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, testified in Congress yesterday. Not surprisingly he said what Generals always say: "we" can win.
Back in 1963 Pete Seeger gave a concert in Melbourne, Australia. If you never saw him in concert, this is what he was always like. The Australians are hesitant at first, unlike typical American audiences, so the pay-off doesn't come until near the end (around 7:07), where Pete asks, wouldn't it be great if all the Generals around the world could be there to hear them sing this song. The response is immediate and spontaneous. That's…
revere | December 7, 2009The only flowers growing in Afghanistan seem to be poppies. When will we ever learn?
revere | December 6, 2009Yesterday we were all Universal Soldiers. Today this one's not marching any more. Phil Ochs:
revere | December 2, 2009From a reader in Western Massachusetts:
10 Reasons to Oppose the Escalation of War in Afghanistan
Human cost of war: Soldier and civilian deaths and injuries have been escalating each year since 2001. Nearly 1000 U.S. soldiers have been killed while 32,000 Afghan civilians have died as a result of the war.
Economic cost of war: Each soldier in Afghanistan costs U.S. taxpayers $1 million per year. Private military contractors, known to de-fraud the Pentagon, exceed the number of soldiers in the war. No matter the war’s outcome, the defense industry wins with windfall profits.
U.S. economy…
revere | December 1, 2009What else is there to say? Lyndon Johnson may have done a powerful amount of good for civil rights but his legacy went down the Vietnam toilet. He was a big fool who listened to the wrong people, people who told him to push on. Barack Obama seems to be another Big Fool:
Pete Seeger, singing on CBS television, 1968. Afghanistan, 41 years later. Stuck in Afghani quicksand:
But every time I read the papers, that old feeling comes on,
We're waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy,
The big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy,
The…
revere | November 8, 2009It looks like there's going to be some kind of health care reform bill, but we're not celebrating. It's legislation that could have been important and meaningful and instead is a neutered industry-friendly cup of weak tea with a Draconian anti-choice amendment. That Obama would disappoint us is no surprise. We expected it and predicted it during the presidential campaign. And we said we'd complain. And we are. Expecting it, though, doesn't prevent us from being disappointed and angry he has turned out to be lousy on things that count. He's not George Bush, we'll give him that. But no…