All I Ever Have...

Bulletins of the Coming Nonviolent Revolutionary Religion Revolution

Hey y’all, I’ve been caught up in my own explorations too long to post anything. And all this shit I’ve been raging about here is finally makins some sort of sense to me, so hopefully soon I’ll be able to express it. I’m working on a unified project out of it all finally, adn to be truthful, putting it in webpage bulletins that i hammer out in half an hour without editing seems trivializing it. So it’ll just have to wait a bit. The revolution, unfortunately, it seems, will not be webcast.
But that doesnt mean I’m going to stop posting anything here, it will just probably be more general postings and observations of a radically progressive nature... the manifesto for revolution will come out in book form later.
I have to hand it to “President” Bush, he’s accomplished the most amazing foreign policy feat of anyone in recent years: with his “war on terror”, he’s managed to unite the entire world against a common enemy. Unfortunately, that enemy is us. How incredible is it that in the space of less than a year, we have gone from having the sympathy and support of the world to, in the words of Nelson Mandela, “appalling” them. Harsh words from one of the greatest representatives of peace of the last century. “We are appalled by any country, whether a superpower or a small country, that goes outside the UN and attacks independent countries,” he says. Reading between the lines, it seems to me that Mandela’s onto something here, as he exposes the so called war on terror as merely a guise to legitamatize state sanctioned terrorist actions. Even Bush’s usual ventriloquist dummy from across the Atlantic, Tony Blair, seems to be developing a mind of his own. So where’s the dissent at home? Too terrified of Ashcroft’s internment camps and McCarthyist tactics to act, it seems to me. You’d think we would have learned from the negative legacy of Japanese internment in WWII. Sigh. Did any of these guys ever take a history class or read the quote from Jefferson on the value of history?
Anyways, I know i’m going nowhere with that complaint, just exxpressing a little frustration, frustration inlaid with hope now that the rest of the world is starting to wake up. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, fortunately. Which is one small part of why I’ve been feeling hopeful for the ffuture lately, that it really is possible to make the world a better place within our lifetimes. I can’t express the exact reasons behind my hope lately.. but I am going to try reflect past expressions of similar hope by posting a bunch of exerpts from Redemption Songs (that title coming from the name of a Marley song, which will be the first one posted). Lemme know in an email (ryanmcw@stanford.edu) what your personal Redemption songs are too, and I’ll post them. Peace and love to y’all... PS, best of luck to all of you starting college classes. Let me know how it goes, exciting if terrifying times to live in these are.
Redemption Songs
“Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the 'and of the Almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfil de book.
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.”
- Bob Marley, “Redemption Songs”
“They say ev'rything can be replaced,
Yet ev'ry distance is not near.
So I remember ev'ry face
Of ev'ry man who put me here.
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.
They say ev'ry man needs protection,
They say ev'ry man must fall.
Yet I swear I see my reflection
Some place so high above this wall.
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.
Standing next to me in this lonely crowd,
Is a man who swears he's not to blame.
All day long I hear him shout so loud,
Crying out that he was framed.
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.”
- Bob Dylan, “I Shall Be Released”
“'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."
And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured
I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."...
Now the bonds are broken
But they can be retied
By one more journey
The holes were our spirits hide.
Its a never ending bttle of peace thats always torn
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."
- Bob Dylan, “Shelter From The Storm”
“I listen to the wind
To the wind of my soul
Where I’ll end up only God really knows...
I listen to my words but they fall far below
I let my music take me where my heart wants to go
- Cat Stevens, “The Wind”
“And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree
There will be an answer
Let it be.
For though they may be parted
There is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer
Let it be.”
- The Beatles, “Let It Be”
Anyways, thats it for now. I’m going to try to make a habit of this, ending each post with a redemption song to remind myself that despite all the shit, the confusion there will be an answer. Send me suggestions.