War! huh-yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
Ohhh? War! I despise
Because it means destruction?
Of innocent lives
War means tears
to thousands of mothers eyes
When their sons go to fight
and lose their lives
So wrote James Brown in his song simply called "War" and this was just one of the songs featured in a programme I watched on Sunday evening. Over the past few weeks I have been pondering on the futility of war but held back from blogging about it as I wasn't sure how to write it or how to ensure it didn't sound trite or naive.
So here is my trite and naive starting comment.
Why can't nations live side by side in peace?
And as I write this I realise just how naive that statement is because it's sadly something that is never going to happen.
And the even sadder point is that the huge majority of people living on our planet want peace. They want to live together nation with nation. Just look at how we have welcomed Ukrainian people into our lives.
Sadly so many of the leaders of countries both now and in the past only care about themselves and their own bombastic aims and don't give a fig for their people although of course they will say otherwise. People become simple pawns in a deadly game of chess. Fodder for the death machines.
I was talking about this with the other threequarters. I admit that I don't know much about the Israel-Palestine conflict. I took a book out of the library on Saturday on the subject but as so often happens it was really detailed and technical and virtually unreadable. What I always want with history books is a narrative that is simple and easy to understand.
War is often complex but one thing I do know as I've already said is that leaders put what is often their own twisted logic ahead of the safety of their people. And that is true in virtually every situation.
In just a few days people from all over the UK will gather in churches and around war memorials to remember those that died in the two world wars and other conflicts. For me this is the most poignant day of the year and a very important one. It's when we wear our poppies with pride. But my mind always goes to the futility of war. I have helped research the names of those featured on our own war memorial and also written about the memorial itself. Whenever I go to a churchyard anywhere in the country one of the first things I do is look at the names of those commemorated. Often I find there are stories surrounding these people, stories that need to be told. Stories where I try to put myself in the position of those commemorated. That surely is what history is all about.
Lest we forget and all too often we do forget.
One of my themes at the moment is, as I've already said, the futility of the war. As James Brown said:
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing.
And another theme for me has always been the pawn idea that I have already mentioned.
Did Stalin care about his people, did Hitler, did Mussolini, does Kim Jong In of North Korea, does any number of other despots and tyrants over the years? The answer is the largest NO it is possible to give. The power of the people can eventually overthrow a tyrant but doesn't have the power to stop deep seated wars between nations that usually go back centuries.
On Sunday I watched two documentaries. The first was entitled Death Songs and was a project involving a small orchestra and singer Brett Anderson who has an interesting and slightly unusual voice that I have always enjoyed when he was the lead singer of the Brit Pop band Suede. But that's a topic for another day and the songs were nowhere near as depressing as you might express.
The other documentary linked protest music and the Vietnam War - two subjects right up my street as they say.
For me the interesting thing is how the musical renegades of the time are now accepted as the truth tellers that they always were. Much of the programme centres on the riots and anti war demonstrations at Kent State university in Ohio which is immortalised in the Neil Young song Ohio - one of the best protest songs ever written.
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio
The point here is that the four dead in Ohio is a reference not to soldiers killed by an enemy but to students gunned down by their fellow Americans and there were people interviewed at the time saying that these defenceless students brought it upon themselves and deserved their fate.
The truth is that most Americans were already questioning the validity of a war they just didn't understand and sons and husbands being killed for a cause they really didn't care about.
We visited Vietnam a number of years ago and the futility of that war really hit home, particularly when our guide explained that American troops had problems identifying friend from foe. "To westerners we all look the same. They can't tell north Vietnamese from South Vietnamese," he said. That helped to further underline to me the futility of war.
The programme had input from a number of Vietnam vets who were scathing about the whole thing.
"This was a war we didn't understand and certainly didn't approve of," one said.
"We were presented with a myth. We had no argument with these people we were being asked to kill, " said another.
And while Neil Young was singing Ohio, one of my musical heroes Phil Ochs was giving us "I Ain't Marching Anymore" and Dylan was singing the truth with "Masters of War."
Come you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
Vietnam was the perfect example of an unnecessary war. Those sent to fight had no idea why they were fighting and this would be very similar for those sent to fight in the First World War. Even today it's difficult for us to understand what that conflict was about with all its strands.
War! huh-yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
There I've got through it and although I'm not sure that I expressed my views as eloquently as I would have liked I think I've said most of the things that have been percolating on my mind for some time but I'm not sure any of it makes sense. No doubt you will tell me.
As you know I really appreciate and enjoy reading all your comments and would particularly value comments on what I've written today.
I'll leave this section of the blog with lyrics from the Phil Ochs song that I previously mentioned.
It's always the old to lead us to the wars
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun
Tell me, is it worth it all?
Call it peace or call it treason
Call it love or call it reason
But I ain't marching anymore
No, I ain't marching anymore
I feel before I go today I need to lighten the load a bit. Although I might be getting myself into hot water here because at the time this was quite a serious thing.
This appeared on a piece on social media by record producer Simon Napier Bell. It is taken from his book on the music business entitled simply The Business.
He talks about the respect he has for opera singer Enrico Caruso. A man of fastidious habits who bathed and completely changed his clothes twice every day.
Enrico got into trouble at the zoo when he was accused of squeezing a ladies bottom. In court he claimed the offender was in fact a monkey. Not surprisingly the court didn't believe him.
I need to point out at this juncture that at no time did I squeeze the bottom of my other threequarters at Colchester Zoo and neither was she molested in any way by an animal although she did get a rather strange look from a snake.
That incident with Caruso has over the years turned from being serious to being amusing. Go into many churches and you will find ancient grafiti on walls or scratched into choir stalls etc.
That would have been a serious matter in its day but is now a piece of social history. As I seem to be in the mood to illustrate today's comments with song lyrics. Here's one about Caruso that comes from The Night I Heard Caruso Song by Everything But The Girl.
Then someone sat me down last night
And I heard Caruso sing
He's almost as good as Presley
And if I only do one thing
I'll sing songs to my father
I'll sing songs to my child
It's time to hold your loved ones
While the chains are loosed and the world
Runs wild
*. *. *
Please note I've got through this entire blog without mentioning Halloween. Whoops now I've mentioned it.
I think I've worked out the bus situation thanks to a few travels yesterday. I'm going to make a few more on Friday - this time with a travelling companion. I like to get these things right.
It's good news and not so good news for our village. There are many more buses moving around. We got one to Wymondham.
The Market Cross in Wymondham is where the buses stop and when we got there we found no less than five there. We had a number six, a 13, a 14 and a 15. I felt like shouting out "House" as I felt I was playing a game of bus bingo.
The good news for Hethersett is if you live anywhere near the B1172 road as we do, you now have a choice of five buses in either direction and a sixth in the centre of the village. But we still only have two going through the village itself. It all gets a tad confusing in that the number 14 which never used to go through the village now does whereas the number 15 which used to go through the village now doesn't. I bet that's confused you. It has all made my Monday trips to see Cousin Belinda much easier as one of the buses now goes virtually past her door.
And I think that's more than enough for today.