Will there be Songs?

Ramble

As with Pete Seeger on WFSU a few weeks ago, last night Peter, Paul and Mary opened flood gates of the mind. Civil Rights Movement, MLK, moral outrage, Naval War College, Vietnam, Kent State, My Lai, shame v. pride, home in San Diego, dungeness crabs and a bottle of wine every Friday evening, USS TRIPOLI, separation from beloveds, Saigon, CH-46 helicopters loaded with Marine Corps ground troops and Vietnamese children, DisneyLand ...  

The power of music to gather and unify part of a nation. Protest in song. Protest of evil. Protest of war. Protest of social immorality. Linda observed that there’s currently no such, no music, no songs. Why not? Maybe because the war in Afghanistan came out of fury about 9/11 and there was national determination to punish, stop, and avenge. If the Iraq war stood alone there might be songs. 

Or maybe not.

National character has changed since the folk singers, hippies, and Flower Children. Conscience is gone. Youthful idealism, righteous indignation, outrage at wrong to others, injustice, evil, has given way to selfishness, greed, opportunism. CEO generation’s mentality of entitlement to pillage a corporation while worker pensions evaporate. Isaiah, where are you?

But then London, riots across England. What’s it all about? Protests across the Arab world. Will there be songs?

Is Elijah at the door?

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