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antiwar song
This is a great meme. I saw this on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
substitute's journal, and thank him for it.
I nominate everyone who likes music (um, and for sureannathebean who mentions cool contemporary antiwar somgs to me, but then I never hear them, and gordonzola, and jactitation, and oblomova, and mistersmearcase and lots of people I'm not thinking of, including redlibrarian39) to choose an antiwar song and post its lyrics. I already alluded to this Steve Earle song, but still -- it's the most recent antiwar song I've heard:
Rich Man's War
Jimmy joined the army ‘cause he had no place to go
There ain’t nobody hirin’
‘round here since all the jobs went
down to Mexico
Reckoned that he’d learn himself a trade maybe see the world
Move to the city someday and marry a black haired girl
Somebody somewhere had another plan
Now he’s got a rifle in his hand
Rollin’ into Baghdad wonderin’ how he got this far
Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war
Bobby had an eagle and a flag tattooed on his arm
Red white and blue to the bone when he landed in Kandahar
Left behind a pretty young wife and a baby girl
A stack of overdue bills and went off to save the world
Been a year now and he’s still there
Chasin’ ghosts in the thin dry air
Meanwhile back at home the finance company took his car
Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war
When will we ever learn
When will we ever see
We stand up and take our turn
And keep tellin’ ourselves we’re free
Ali was the second son of a second son
Grew up in Gaza throwing bottles and rocks when the tanks would come
Ain’t nothin’ else to do around here just a game children play
Somethin’ ‘bout livin’ in fear all your life makes you hard that way
He answered when he got the call
Wrapped himself in death and praised Allah
A fat man in a new Mercedes drove him to the door
Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war
One of the reasons this particular song resonates so much for me right now is that teaching in this new working class Bay Area suburb, instead of Oakland, I have a lot more contact with both heavy duty Christians and people whose patriotism is unquestioned and sort of knee-jerk. My school has the Pledge of Allegiance read by a student during announcements every morning, and students are mildly exhorted to stand and deliver. I have not (well, duh) myself -- just quietly continued whatever I'm doing to get ready for class that morning. Most seventh and eighth graders omit it, too, or are perhaps following my passive aggressive lead? I'm a bit worried, because next year I will very likely be teaching a sixth grade humanities core class -- the morning one -- and may be expected to inculcate this patriotism. I am not looking forward to making it an issue, but obviously it is one for me. Public school teachers have to sign a loyalty pledge left over from the fifties -- I don't know whether the administration could make an order out of the Pledge. Ughh.
Anyway, also, I thought of this song when I was getting tea on the way to work last week. I usually stop at a place a block from the school, and there are some regulars from the neighborhood who sit outside and bullshit most sunny mornings. In the old days they would have been sitting on the tin-roofed porch of a general store, tipped back on wooden chairs and whittling, or hunched over, playing checkers. Now they sit on molded plastic resin chairs and gossip, their Chevy Blazers with yellow ribbon decals parked within sight.
So, last week, I was getting my tea, and decanting it into a thermos, when I eavesdropped on the woman who was talking to someone else beside me. She was local. She had one young kid and was inquiring about other friends' children. She reported on her older three. All three of them are in the military. All three, including her daughter. The last one just joined the Marines. She sort of laughed nervously and said that it was a job, it was good career training... and then tailed off. She did not ssay a word about where her son would be posted at the end of his training.
It's not that this wouldn't occur in West Oakland -- ROTC is the most popular extra-curricular program at McClymonds' High School, and many of the kids with the most drive and skills and desperation to actually live a broader life throw themselves into ROTC and eventually into the military.
It's that it seems different with these white and largely Christian families. I don't know why. I guess I do, though. In West Oakland, there are more basic politics that include an automatic questioning of any policy of any level of the government, and a basic rejection of America's foreign policies. That coexists with the magnetic economic attraction of the armed forces for a lot of West Oakland teenagers with aspirations.
substitute's journal, and thank him for it. I nominate everyone who likes music (um, and for sure
annathebean who mentions cool contemporary antiwar somgs to me, but then I never hear them, and gordonzola, and jactitation, and oblomova, and mistersmearcase and lots of people I'm not thinking of, including redlibrarian39) to choose an antiwar song and post its lyrics. I already alluded to this Steve Earle song, but still -- it's the most recent antiwar song I've heard:Rich Man's War
Jimmy joined the army ‘cause he had no place to go
There ain’t nobody hirin’
‘round here since all the jobs went
down to Mexico
Reckoned that he’d learn himself a trade maybe see the world
Move to the city someday and marry a black haired girl
Somebody somewhere had another plan
Now he’s got a rifle in his hand
Rollin’ into Baghdad wonderin’ how he got this far
Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war
Bobby had an eagle and a flag tattooed on his arm
Red white and blue to the bone when he landed in Kandahar
Left behind a pretty young wife and a baby girl
A stack of overdue bills and went off to save the world
Been a year now and he’s still there
Chasin’ ghosts in the thin dry air
Meanwhile back at home the finance company took his car
Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war
When will we ever learn
When will we ever see
We stand up and take our turn
And keep tellin’ ourselves we’re free
Ali was the second son of a second son
Grew up in Gaza throwing bottles and rocks when the tanks would come
Ain’t nothin’ else to do around here just a game children play
Somethin’ ‘bout livin’ in fear all your life makes you hard that way
He answered when he got the call
Wrapped himself in death and praised Allah
A fat man in a new Mercedes drove him to the door
Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war
One of the reasons this particular song resonates so much for me right now is that teaching in this new working class Bay Area suburb, instead of Oakland, I have a lot more contact with both heavy duty Christians and people whose patriotism is unquestioned and sort of knee-jerk. My school has the Pledge of Allegiance read by a student during announcements every morning, and students are mildly exhorted to stand and deliver. I have not (well, duh) myself -- just quietly continued whatever I'm doing to get ready for class that morning. Most seventh and eighth graders omit it, too, or are perhaps following my passive aggressive lead? I'm a bit worried, because next year I will very likely be teaching a sixth grade humanities core class -- the morning one -- and may be expected to inculcate this patriotism. I am not looking forward to making it an issue, but obviously it is one for me. Public school teachers have to sign a loyalty pledge left over from the fifties -- I don't know whether the administration could make an order out of the Pledge. Ughh.
Anyway, also, I thought of this song when I was getting tea on the way to work last week. I usually stop at a place a block from the school, and there are some regulars from the neighborhood who sit outside and bullshit most sunny mornings. In the old days they would have been sitting on the tin-roofed porch of a general store, tipped back on wooden chairs and whittling, or hunched over, playing checkers. Now they sit on molded plastic resin chairs and gossip, their Chevy Blazers with yellow ribbon decals parked within sight.
So, last week, I was getting my tea, and decanting it into a thermos, when I eavesdropped on the woman who was talking to someone else beside me. She was local. She had one young kid and was inquiring about other friends' children. She reported on her older three. All three of them are in the military. All three, including her daughter. The last one just joined the Marines. She sort of laughed nervously and said that it was a job, it was good career training... and then tailed off. She did not ssay a word about where her son would be posted at the end of his training.
It's not that this wouldn't occur in West Oakland -- ROTC is the most popular extra-curricular program at McClymonds' High School, and many of the kids with the most drive and skills and desperation to actually live a broader life throw themselves into ROTC and eventually into the military.
It's that it seems different with these white and largely Christian families. I don't know why. I guess I do, though. In West Oakland, there are more basic politics that include an automatic questioning of any policy of any level of the government, and a basic rejection of America's foreign policies. That coexists with the magnetic economic attraction of the armed forces for a lot of West Oakland teenagers with aspirations.