Memorial Day 2012:

A Lesson Not Yet Learned

by Walter Brasch

          

             Today is Memorial Day, the last day of the three-day weekend. Veterans and community groups will remember those who died in battle and, as they have done for more than a century, will place small flags on graves.

But, for most of America, Memorial Day is a three-day picnic-filled weekend that heralds the start of Summer, just as Labor Day has become a three-day picnic-filled weekend that laments the end of Summer. 

            There will be memorial concerts and parades. The media, shoving aside political and celebrity news, will all have stories. Among those who will be the first to patriotically salute those who died in battle are those who enthusiastically pushed for them to go to war.

            Each of the extended weekends also provides forums for politicians to stand in front of red-white-and-blue bunting to deliver political speeches they hope will make the voters think they care about veterans and the working class—and if it helps their election or re-election campaigns, so much the better.

The first Memorial Day was May 1, 1865, when hundreds of freed slaves, missionaries, and teachers held a solemn ceremony to honor the Union soldiers who died in a Confederate prison camp in Charleston, S.C. That memorial evolved into Decoration Day and then in 1882 to Memorial Day. The last Monday in May now honors all soldiers killed in all wars.

            There haven’t been many years when the U.S. wasn’t engaged in some war. Some were fought for noble purposes, such as the Revolutionary War and World War II; some were fought for ignoble purposes, such as the Mexican-American and Spanish-American wars.

            The U.S. is currently engaged in winding down the longest war in our history. The war in Afghanistan had begun with the pretense of a noble purpose—to capture the leaders of al-Qaeda who created 9/11. But, that war was nearly forgotten while the U.S. skip-jumped into Iraq, which had no connection to al-Qaeda, 9/11, or any weapons of mass destruction. It did have a dictator who allowed torture against its dissidents— but so did North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and dozens of other countries that the Bush–Cheney war machine didn’t consider.

            No, it was Iraq that became the focus of the White House Warriors. It wasn’t long before the U.S. commitment in Iraq was more than 10 times the personnel and equipment than in Afghanistan. It was a commitment that had left the U.S. vulnerable to the effects of natural disasters, as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita within a month of each other proved. The Bush–Cheney administration had diverted funds from numerous public works projects, including reinforcement of the levees in New Orleans, to increase the U.S. presence in Iraq. By the time Katrina had hit the Gulf Coast in August 2005, National Guard troops and their equipment, including deep water vehicles, were in Iraq.

            Also in Iraq was now al-Qaeda, which Saddam Hussein had managed to keep out of his country; and a civil war, as Iraqi political and religious groups fought for control.

            Barack Obama, as promised in his campaign, did end the war in Iraq, and reasserted American presence in Afghanistan, sought out and killed Osama bin Laden, and then created a way for complete U.S. withdrawal from combat.

            The Bush–Cheney Administration had figured a maximum cost of $100 billion for what they believed would be no more than a two year war. The financial cost of the wars has been almost $4 trillion, according to an investigative study by researchers at Brown University. The $4 trillion includes rampant corruption and no-bid contracts to numerous companies, including Halliburton, Dick Cheney’s home for several years.

            But the real cost is not in dollars but in lives. The war is being figured not by names and their lives but by numbers. The war in Afghanistan as of Memorial Day has cost 3,016 American and allied lives. The American wounded, some of whom will have permanent disabilities or may die lingering deaths from those wounds, is now at 15,322. In Iraq, 4,486 Americans died; 32,233 were wounded. There are no accurate estimates of the number of civilian and enemy deaths and wounded, but the numbers are in the hundreds of thousands.

“War represents a failure of diplomacy,” said Tony Benn, one of the most popular politicians, who served in the British parliament for more than 50 years, including several years as leader of various cabinet departments.

            In wars throughout the world, there will be more deaths today and tomorrow and the next day and the day after that and every day thereafter. And once a year, Americans will honor the deaths of young men and women sent into battle by intractable politicians, supported by media pundits and a horde of civilians with the wisdom of asphalt who have not learned the lessons of Tony Benn.

[Walter Brasch’s latest book is the critically-acclaimed journalistic novel, Before the First Snow, which looks at the anti-war movement and the cost of war.]

I once wanted to be a protest folksinger, going throughout the country to rally the people for social justice, but two things kept me from that. I couldn’t sing and there wasn’t much call for a protest clarinetist.

But there was journalism—which, I sometimes point out, became my profession because I wasn’t good at anything else. Nevertheless, many of the people at the forefront of social change have been journalists; the revolution of the 1960s, with journalists of an alternative media at the forefront, was built upon the base of a revolution two centuries earlier. Sam Adams, Ben Franklin, Tom Paine, and dozens of newspaper editors and writers helped unify a minority of colonists to rise up and create a new nation, founded in liberty and justice. Journalism seemed like a good place to learn more about people, government, and different cultures, while also fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. After all, wasn’t Superman a journalist?

I didn’t mind being exploited by long work days, low pay, and weak benefits. I was an idealist who would help effect change and improvement—even if I had to spend all day balancing demands of police reports and city council meetings, while also rewriting press releases and covering supermarket openings.

I also found myself in the company of greatness, of singers and musicians just starting out and others desperately holding on to their fame. While some journalists reveled at being able to attend parties with the rich and powerful, I preferred listening to and talking with the singers and musicians I met.

Later, I developed expertise in multimedia production, but that’s for another day.

Please, over the next weeks, search out and play some music of protest, of social justice, of the stories of those killed in war. Anything by Judy Collins is wonderful. Check out Pete Seeger’s “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” and “If I Had a Hammer,” Barry McGuire’s and P.F. Sloan’s “Eve of Destruction,” Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter’s “One Tin Soldier,” Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “The Universal Soldier, CCR’s “Fortunate Son,” Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War,” John Fogerty’s “Déjà vu,” Pink’s “Dear Mr. President,” Joan Baez’s “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again,” and some of Pink Floyd’s, Anti-Flag’s and Green Day’s songs. There are so many that weren’t included in this series, but deserve your time and thought.

 A brief special dedication: This eight day series (yes, eight has a special meaning) is for every person who lost a friend or relative in war . . . and for every person who marched for peace so that some day we could celebrate Memorial Day with fewer and fewer flags on graves of those killed in battle. And it is also dedicated to Apryl, David, Sam—and, especially, Rosemary.

For today, the eighth and last day of the Memorial Day Week, I have three musical selections that sum up what Memorial Day should be about—if only we could shut up the politicians from their jingoistic crocodile-teared speeches that invoke God and America, and who seem never to really understand the sacrifice made by those whose lives were cut short because of war.

The advance in battlefield medical practices has led to fewer deaths. But soldiers are still coming home wounded, and thousands a year are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Better psychological evaluation is helping many. But, for Ira Hayes, his death was just delayed many years after he came home.

Peter LaFarge (1931-1965), a Navy veteran and folk musician who was a part of the Greenwich Village life in the ’50s and ’60s, wrote about the life of Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona, who was one of six Marines to erect the flag at Iwo Jima. Possibly today, in the atmosphere of hate that has tried to engulf Arizona, Ira Hayes might be stopped and searched for possibly being an illegal Mexican. This version of the “Ballad of Ira Hayes” is from Johnny Cash. Most people know he was active with groups less fortunate than most of us; few, outside his friends and family, also knew he didn’t support the Viet Nam War.

In today’s Act I, please listen to a ballad of a hero.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnNt-mlRB8E

Act II: Many of the songs of the Civil Rights era had origins in the songs of West Africa and American slavery. Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972), a descendant of slaves, was the “Queen of Gospel,” and one of the more active Americans in the fight for civil rights. In her career, she won six Grammys, including one for Lifetime Achievement. She influenced more than a generation of singers. Dinah Shore (1916-1994), the daughter of immigrant Russian Jews, was one of the Big Band era’s most popular singers. During the 1950s and 1960s, her variety television show was one of the most popular on air—and also brought to a national stage many persons who were discriminated against by other shows and other media.

Please take a few moments to hear Mahalia Jackson and Dinah Shore sing a Gospel spiritual that long before the ’60s became an anti-war anthem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJwp_JCZ7Co

Act III: Ed McCurdy (1919-2000), from Willow Hall, Pa., began his career as a romantic ballad singer, and then became a popular radio DJ, song writer, and folksinger in Canada His most popular song is “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream,” which became the official song of the Peace Corps. It has been recorded in more than 70 languages, and covered by almost every major folksinger of the 1960s and 1970s, and is still being sung today. John Denver (1943-1997) is well known for both his singing and songwriting. His causes were for the environment and the homeless. In this special video, John is at the Capitol Mall during a 500,000 person peace march against the Viet Nam War.

For Act III of the final day of the Memorial Day Week series, let’s hear John Denver’s version of Ed McCurdy’s dream about the end of war, and dream that the sentiment of this song may yet come true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBcwAJZGXsk

Thank you for listening

walt

It was a Saturday afternoon in November. My wife, Rosemary, and I were with a four or five dozen other people in front of a county courthouse to protest what all of us knew would be the upcoming war in Iraq.

It wasn’t the first time we were protesting; it certainly wouldn’t be the last. But this time, our bodies were a lot colder than comfortable; our tempers were a bit shorter than civil.

Many persons driving past honked their car horns in support. But, in this rural county in Pennsylvania there were also dozens who drove past and gave us the finger or shouted obscenities.

We were called many names for having the audacity to exercise our First Amendment rights to protest the Bush–Cheney rush to war in Iraq. “Hippie Communists” was just one of the comments directed at us, apparently by people who never met a Hippie or a Communist.

Several called us “unchristian.” I guess they thought the Quakers, Brethren, and Church of Christ members, among others in the protest were part of some alien religious sect. I, of course, didn’t mind being called “unChristian”—I’m a Jew.

Many, with bumper stickers and flag decals pasted onto their car bumpers or trunks, a couple of whom also had Confederate flag decals, and never saw the irony, called us unpatriotic, that we were traitors. Apparently, if you don’t agree with certain pretend-patriots you must be a traitor. In our small group were war veterans; no one was anti-American. Rosemary and I during the first Gulf War in 1990-1991, were editors of Oasis, a newsletter sponsored by the Red Cross for families of combat troops. Now, as the nation again prepared for war, we resurrected the newspaper as Oasis II. Rosemary, had been a secretary many years and after earning her M.S. in labor studies continued as a strong supporter of labor; maybe someone thought working with the working class was unpatriotic. She was also a family services specialist for national disasters for the Red Cross; helping those still in shock from the disaster and who may have lost their houses may have also been unpatriotic. I was active in emergency management, and even on a Governor’s task force against counter-terrorism. But I guess protesting the government was somehow unAmerican, somehow unpatriotic. Our son, now on 80 percent disability, was a Marine who served during the first Gulf War. I guess since we didn’t want to see any more sons die or become disabled by what we thought was a senseless war, we were unAmerican.

The response by the mainstream media to protests throughout the country was as expected; they largely ignored the protests, no matter how large; when they did cover the them, it was more like tabloid coverage of any curiosity, expanded when a celebrity was involved. What they did do was to channel whatever lies were spewed by the Bush–Cheney administration. As a journalist, I was appalled but not surprised by the “super patriotism” of the media, nor the fact that many newspapers were killing my columns about the impending war.

The New York Times and Washington Post, both believed to be liberal newspapers, eventually apologized for their jingoistic coverage, for how they took the Administration’s handouts, with not much more than a superficial question or two.

Years after the U.S. invaded Iraq, and it was proven how many lies the nation was told by politicians and pretend-patriots, Rosemary and I still haven’t heard one apology from anyone in any of dozens of rallies who called us unAmerican, unpatriotic, traitors and Communists. Not one reader who wrote scathing replies to some of my columns that did get published, some in print, many on the Internet, ever apologized. We don’t expect any apologies. But we do expect that at the very least people who proudly wave flags, declare they are patriots, support Tea Party and ultra-right calls to “take back our country” (apparently from that foreign-born half-Black Muslim who somehow got the most popular votes of anyone in history), might at least see a connection between unqualified support of a government that sends young men and women into battle and then has a 3-day weekend of picnics and politically-correct patriotic speeches to honor those who died in battle.

John Prine (1946 - ), born in Chicago, is an Army veteran who became a letter carrier after his discharge. He, like many on the ’60s went into the Greenwich Village part of New York City to develop his music skills. He was influenced by the music of Hank Williams; Johnny Cash was one of Prine’s fans. He had millions of others.

Among Prine’s songs was a country classic, “You Never Even Called by Name,” co-written with Steve Goodman and recorded by David Alan Coe; and antiwar songs, “The Great Compromise” and “Saigon,” about a soldier with PTSD.

John Prine wrote “The Flag Decal” in 1971, an upbeat song about phony patriotism during the Viet Nam War. Like all good music, it didn’t die that first year. It has been brought out again and again to counter the Super-Patriots who absolutely positively know that anyone who disagrees with a conservative government (apparently it’s acceptable to disagree with liberals) must be unpatriotic traitors.

Please take a few moments on this, the seventh day of Memorial Day Week, to hear a song that exposes the phony patriotism of some Americans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgRVNjsuycQ

Coming Monday, Memorial Day, the conclusion of Memorial Day Week, two powerful songs that will linger in your memory for a long LONG time.

“They had this amateur stage [at Woodstock] away from everything else, and anyone could perform. Bands and poets and jugglers and people who just wanted to have their say. Well, Joan Baez—can you believe it, Joan Baez!—well, she sees that there are people kinda just hangin’, so she does an hour! A whole hour on an amateur stage! Know what else? She didn’t just go up on that stage. She waited her turn. Must have waited an hour, two hours. No one knew she was waiting, I guess, but she waited her turn, just like everyone else. Was almost late for the main stage.”

—Joyce Katzman, Before the First Snow, by Walter M. Brasch

Today, the sixth day of Memorial Day Week, we honor two more of the important voices of the Movement—Joan Baez and Phil Ochs.

Joan Baez (1941- ) was born in New York City, but lived in Southern California, Boston, and dozens of other cities, a result of her father’s profession. Dr. Albert Baez, born in Mexico, was a professor of mathematics and physics and co-inventor of the X-Ray microscope. Her mother, Joan, for whom she was named, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Both were active in the peace movement and had become Quakers during the 1940s.

Influenced by the music of Pete Seeger, Joan Baez began singing in Boston area coffeehouses. By the age of 19, she had her first album. That album and the next two went gold.

Joan was active in the Civil Rights and labor movements, standing with Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez. Her beliefs in nonviolent protest for human rights, against the war, and the environment led to arrests.

In 1975, she recorded one of he r most famous songs, “Diamonds and Rust,” the story of a woman looking back to a faded love in the 1960s. That love was Bob Dylan, with whom she often sung duets.

Today, the First Act of the sixth day of Memorial Day Week, is Joan Baez singing Bob Dylan’s song, “With God on Our Side.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUZGGFOV6FM

One of Joan Baez’s greatest hits was “There But for Fortune Go I,” written by Phil Ochs (1940-1976).

Phil was the son of Jacob Ochs, a physician, and Gertrude who, like Joan Baez’s mother, was a resident of Edinburgh. There were other inter-tangling similarities—their agent was Albert Grossman, who also managed the careers of Peter, Paul & Mary, Bob Dylan, and Janis Joplin. Like Joan, Phil was influenced by Pete Seeger, as well as the early rockers.

Phil Ochs, a brilliant clarinetist in his teens, later mastered the guitar. Like Joan he began a music career playing at small coffeehouses, which he continued to do long after his success that included Carnegie Hall appearances. And, like Joan Baez and other protest singers, he was at innumerable anti-war, civil rights, and labor rallies, helping to unify and stir up the people to fight for social justice.

Phil, a journalism major at Ohio State, always called himself a “singing journalist” who, he said, wrote topical songs, not folk songs. In a 36-year life, ended by a descent into alcohol and suicide, complicated by untreated bipolar disorder, Phil wrote hundreds of songs, including “White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land,” and the whimsical “Draft Dodger Rag.” His own records never charted, but his music influenced every protest singer since the 1960s.

His powerful anti-war song, “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore,” covered by almost every protest folksinger of the 1960s, became his signature song.

Please take a few minutes to listen to Phil Ochs tell us something about protest and a moral conscience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keQmLFsXE8s

A couple of months ago, a San Francisco newspaper asked my opinion about the differences between the protests during the 1960s and the protests of Occupy Wall Street.

I discussed many difference and similarities, but noted that there are two major differences. First, the protestors of the ’60s seemed to be more joyous, more sprite-like. Abbie Hoffman, Paul Krasner, and others knew the power of humor and satire, and how to use it to make the media and the people actually believe that the Yuppies might lace the Chicago fountains with LSD or, through mental willpower of thousands, levitate the Pentagon.

The other major difference was protest music, something that is missing from much of the current protests. At one time, music was an integral part of the Movement. At one time, writers and journalists, blocked by the walls of the mainstream media, could turn to an alternative press, one that sometimes was published on ditto masters, and to music as a powerful medium to help unite the people.

Tom Paxton (1937- ) is one of the most successful writers/folk musicians. Taking the news, he fashioned upbeat musical satires to show the absurdity that was becoming an American way of life.

He was born in Chicago, but grew up in Arizona and Oklahoma. After graduating from the University of Oklahoma he joined the Army and then settled into Greenwich Village after his discharge. He played coffee houses and rallies, his music becoming one of the more important parts of the Civil Rights, labor, and anti-war movements. Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and, later, Burl Ives and Harry Belafonte were his musical guides. They, and dozens of others, also covered his songs, giving them a wide popularity.

Paxton is best remembered as the writer of “The Marvelous Little Toy,” a staple of the Christmas season—and numerous other songs, including “The Last Thing on My Mind,” “Bottle of Wine,” “My Ramblin’ Boy,” and “Jimmy Newman,” the story of a dying soldier.

Today, the fifth day of Memorial Day Week, we have three Tom Paxton songs, all powerful anti-war satires. Please take some time today and listen to all three. You won’t be disappointed. You will be entertained. And, maybe, Paxton’s humor will help us all to better understand why Memorial Day may be necessary, but Peace should be our goal.

First up: “Buy a Gun for Your Son”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WphNO24h9nA

Next, “The Willing Conscript”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo4hc1xv_WU

Finally, “George W. Told the Nation,” a reworking of his song three decades earlier, “Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation,” thus proving that we still haven’t learned the lessons of war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft36GQMmvXs