Captain's Corner

I like to think that I generally listen to a fairly wide spectrum of music. However, if I were completely honest I’d admit that my tastes run to the harder side of rock more often than other types of music. For instance, every once in a while I have to have a day of “Light Listening” which will consist of the Foo Fighters, Audioslave, and the like.

So anyway, I was recently listening to one of my “harder” playlists and came across a frightening parallel. Okay, I gotta tell the truth, I came across this a while back, but didn’t have a blog… so deal with it. Shortly after playing War Pigs by Black Sabbath (off of what is probably their most popular album, Paranoid) the playlist came upon the song B.Y.O.B. by System of a Down (off of their recent release, Mezmerize). These songs were written 35 years apart, and both are a biting criticism of their contemporary, war-mongering, administrations. Indeed it seems that George Santayana’s saying, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” seems more and more applicable.

For those of you not familiar with the tunes here’s an excerpt from each of their lyrics:

War Pigs:

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that all to the poor

Yeah!

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait ’til the judgement day comes

Yeah!

Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes were the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour

And now, B.Y.O.B.:

Why do they always send the poor?
Barbarisms by Barbara
With pointed heels
Victorious victories kneel
For brand new spanking deals
Marching forward hypocritic and hypnotic computers
You depend on our protection
Yet you feed us lies from the tablecloth

Everybody is going to the party
Have a real good time
Dancing in the desert
Blowing up the sunshine

Kneeling roses disappearing into Moses’ dry mouth
Breaking into Fort Knox stealing our intentions
Hangars sitting dripped in oil
Crying freedom
Handed to obsoletion
Still you feed us lies from the tablecloth

…

Why don’t presidents fight the war?
Why do they always send the poor?
Why don’t presidents fight the war?
Why do they always send the poor?
Why do they always send the poor?
Why do they always send the poor?
Why do they always send the poor?

Thirty five years after War Pigs we find ourselves in a war we shouldn’t be in, sending our brave men and women to die for a personal grudge of our leader and the economic interests of our nation. Regardless of your domestic politics, your political party of choice, etc, it seems very clear that the unilateral, preemptive war on Iraq had no basis in a noble cause. In fact, it seems that the freeing of the Iraqi people, in light of all we now know, seems more of a side effect than one of the reasons we went to war.

In truth we needed to refocus on being civilized human beings and actively pursuing intelligent and strong diplomatic channels, channels which were never even considered, let alone “exhausted” during our current war. In the book, God’s Politics by Jim Wallis, a plan of action for diplomatic dealings with Iraq was outlined. This outline was drawn up by several Christian leaders and sent to both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair. It did not preclude ever going to war, but it gave an alternative to try before leaping in with both feet. As is seen from current events, this cry to cooler-headed diplomacy was ignored.

The basic thing that I find so terrifying is that as a nation we are continuously fighting to serve the interests of the rich and powerful, but we’re using the lower classes to do this fighting. If we were fighting for something meaningful (ie: to stop a tyrannical dictator bent on world domination and genocide – read: Hitler) then I would wholeheartedly support going to war. I understand that our nation is not a Christian nation (in the sense that it is governed by a body that is given power by the church), but the concept of a justifiable war should be universal, especially in light of what history has taught us about the effectiveness of war to end conflict.

I could probably write a book on the subject, but I think I’ll leave it at this for now…

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