Pete Seeger - Song about BP oil spill

The great national treasure Pete Seeger singing on the BP oil spill. As he always has, Pete combines biting social criticism with a positive message:



Some of my favorite lyrics:

... It's time to turn things around, trickle up not trickle down

... And when drill, baby, drill turns to spill, baby, spill

.. There's big problems to be solved, let's get everyone involved

... When we sing with younger folks, we can never give up hope
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
Hopin' we'll all pull through, Hoping we'll all pull through,
Hopin' we'll all pull through
Me and you.

Last Train to Nuremburg ...

... Last train to Nuremberg!
All on board!

Do I see Lieutenant Calley?
Do I see Captain Medina?
Do I see Gen'ral Koster and all his crew?
Do I see President Nixon?
Do I see both houses of Congress?
Do I see the voters, me and you?

Who held the rifle? Who gave the orders?
Who planned the campaign to lay waste the land?
Who manufactured the bullet? Who paid the taxes?
Tell me, is that blood upon my hands?

If five hundred thousand mothers went to Washington
And said, "Bring all of our boys home without delay!"
Would the man they came to see, say he was too busy?
Would he say he had to watch a football game?

Last Train to Nuremburg by Pete Seeger

I heard this on Pandora yesterday and it nicely fit into what I was going to talk about anyway. Pete Seeger wrote this song during the Vietnam War. Calley, Medina, and Koster all had degrees of complicity in the My Lai Massacre and it's subsequent cover-up.

The My Lai Massacre ... was the mass murder conducted by U.S. Army forces on March 16, 1968 of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, all of whom were civilians and majority of whom were women, children, and elderly people.

Many of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated.

... When the incident became public knowledge in 1969, it prompted widespread outrage around the world. The massacre also reduced U.S. support at home for the Vietnam War. Three U.S. servicemen who made an effort to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were denounced by U.S. Congressmen, received hate mail, death threats and mutilated animals on their doorsteps. Only 30 years after the event were their efforts honored.

The song intimates that the troops involved and their superiors were not the only ones guilty. Nixon (and various other Presidents) were guilty for conducting the war at all. We, as citizens, were guilty for voting for these people and for paying taxes to fund illegal wars. We had "blood upon my hands", all of us. And we continue to. We comfort ourselves that when bad things happen, it's someone else's fault.

Bad actions by bad people do not doom our world. What curses us is that supposedly good people will do and support the most vile acts because they were told it was OK by someone of authority. We tell ourselves that we are not personally guilty because it was given a pass by our President, our church leader, our "freedom fighters". It's OK to invade Iraq because they have WMD's ... OK, Mr. President, whatever you say. It's OK to torture because they might give us some important information ... OK, Mr. Vice-President. It's OK to hate gays because God says so ... OK, Pastor. It's OK that I shot that illegal alien because he was on the wrong side of some arbitrary line ... OK, Mr. Minuteman, you were just fighting for our "liberty".

What is this that comforts us in our guilt? Is it a defense mechanism or is it just human nature? There was a great discussion on Science Friday on NPR yesterday about the famous research psychologist Stanley Milgram. Besides conducting studies which became the basis of six degrees of separation, he is most famous for the Milgram Experiment:

"The experimenter orders the teacher , the subject of the experiment, to give what the latter believes are painful electric shocks to a learner , who is actually an actor and confidant. The subject believes that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual electric shocks, though in reality there were no such punishments. Being separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level."

The supposed shock levels increased all the way to 450 volts, a fatal level. An unbelievable 65% of the participants continued to administer a shock all the way up to this level merely because they were told to do so. Only one person refused to administer the shock before the 300 volt level. Milgram's conclusions:

"The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study ...

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."

Milgram's experiment was in response to the crimes of the Nazis and the complicity of the German people. But it's relevance to any situation where good people "go along" with the crowd is obvious. In effect, we're all on that "last train to Nuremburg".

Pete Seeger

If you get the chance, check out a great show on PBS, American Masters Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. It was a well put-together program following his whole life and career with many appearances by artists influenced by him including: Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, the Byrds, Peter Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, etc. Seeger is, perhaps, our country's most important folk music artist and he truly is the father of the modern politicaly active musician. There is a very obvious progression from the likes of Seeger and Woody Guthrie to Dylan and Baez to Springsteen to Rage Against the Machine and Pearl Jam.

Springsteen honored the influence Seeger had on him in an album and tour.

Read some excerpted lyrics from a couple of songs by Seeger about the Vietnam war and tell me they don't have relevance today:

Waist Deep In The Big Muddy
by Pete Seeger 1963, planned for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967 but CBS objected to the blacklisted Seeger making obvious references to the "big fool" in the White House, finally sung by Seeger on the Comedy Hour in 1968 as the finale in a medley of anti-war songs

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."
We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.

Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on ...

"We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy ... And the big fool said to push on." -- We certainly are neck deep in Iraq. The "big fool" then was LBJ. Take your pick today. Certainly Bush and McCain fit the role.

Bring 'Em Home

If you love your Uncle Sam,
Support our boys in Vietnam ...
Bring them home, bring them home.

It'll make our generals sad, I know ...
They want to tangle with the foe ...
They want to test their weaponry ...
But here is their big fallacy ...

I may be right, I may be wrong ...
But I got a right to sing this song ...

There's one thing I must confess ...
I'm not really a pacifist ...
If an army invaded this land of mine ...
You'd find me out on the firing line ...

Show those generals their fallacy ...
They don't have the right weaponry ...
For defense you need common sense ...
They don't have the right armaments ...
The world needs teachers, books and schools ...
And learning a few universal rules ...

So if you love your Uncle Sam,
Bring them home, bring them home.
Support our boys in Vietnam,
Bring them home, bring them home.

This song is an answer to those who try to frame patriotism as being blind jingoistic support of an unjustified war.

from Wikipedia: On August 18, 1955, Seeger was subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) where he refused to name personal and political associations stating it would violate his First Amendment rights... "I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this."

It's obvious that the government censors us, but we seem to do a pretty good job of censoring ourselves. Seeger was blacklisted for two decades for refusing to kiss the ass of McCarthyites. He cited the First Amendment, the freedom of association, instead of hiding behind the Fifth Amendment like a lot of others did.

As dangerous as the world we live in is, it seems that the things that people and governments are most afraid of are words and ideas. Pete Seeger showed that songs can be a lot more powerful than guns.


You may think we've came a long way since the day of the blacklists, but modern artists like Springsteen, the Dixie Chicks, Rage Against the Machine, etc. still catch heat for their political views. TV networks, radio stations, newspapers feel more obligation to their corporate bosses and Washington connections than they do to the truth.

It's refreshing when you find artists who truly don't sell-out. Seeger never did. He could have made it easier on himself. He could have went commercial and made a lot of money. You don't find many artists ... or people for that matter ... now days that don't compromise their ideals for that house in the 'burbs, that new car, that vacation home. Our souls shouldn't be for sale.

"Songs won’t save the planet, but neither will books or speeches. Songs are sneaky things; they can slip across borders." -- Pete Seeger

Springsteen/Seeger

The musical tastes of my wife and I rarely intersect. But when they do, it's generally for a good reason. One such intersection is Bruce Springsteen. While hers is a lifelong appreciation begun with his music and growing into his politics, mine is the opposite. His support of organizations like Amnesty International and the Vote for Change Tour elevated him in my eyes long before I realized the brilliance of his music.

Well, he has done it again with the announcement of the release of an album of songs by Pete Seeger, folk musician and political activist. From Common Dreams

"... Bruce Springsteen next month will be releasing an album, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, featuring thirteen traditional songs associated with Pete Seeger, the writer, performer, preserver, and champion of folk music.
With this disc, Springsteen continues as a pop culture-political force. It's an intriguing move for him. In the 2004 campaign, he spearheaded the anti-Bush and pro-Kerry Vote for Change tour--which also included R.E.M., Pearl Jam, the Dixie Chicks, Jackson Browne, Kenny "Babyface Edmonds, Bright Eyes and John Fogerty. Toward the end of the presidential campaign, Springsteen appeared with Kerry at huge rallies, in which he excited crowds but--unfortunately--highlighted the down-home-real gap between himself and the supposed star of these events. From identifying with Kerry's well-intentioned though poorly-presented conventional liberalism to celebrating Seeger's gritty authenticity and radicalism--that's an intriguing pivot.

Seeger has had a decades-long career that has combined promoting traditional folk music and practicing political activism. The latter led him to being called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955, where he was grilled on whether he was a communist. Seeger declined to talk about his political associations or ideas, but offered to tell the committee what songs he had sung in public. The committee was not amused. He was sentenced to one year in jail for contempt of Congress, but the verdict was overturned. Still, Seeger ended blacklisted and banned from performing on network television.

Springsteen's album is not an act of rehabilitation. That's hardly needed. Seeger long-ago transcended those ugly days. His neverending devotion to traditional music and activism outlasted his foes. But what Springsteen is doing is reaching beyond his roots to honor a historian of American song--for Seeger's mission has been to keep alive a certain slice of homegrown American music. The new album will include renditions of "John Henry," "Eyes on the Prize," "Shenandoah," and "We Shall Overcome."

Springsteen started out as a fast-singing wordsmith who obviously had been influenced by Bob Dylan and bar-band rock of the 1960s. But the Dylan who hovered over Springsteen's first album, Greetings from Asbury Park, was not the early, political Dylan but the next-generation beat-literary-fantastist Dylan, who threw together images and plot-lines to create impressions, not manifestos. In fact, Springsteen's career path flipped Dylan's arc. Dylan dropped the politics as his star rose; Springsteen expanded his range to include politics as his catalogue grew. It was after his Born to Run breakthrough that he began to identify with causes, perhaps first with his participation the No Nukes concerts of 1979. His songwriting, too, began to examine the plight--that is, stories--of living-on-the-edge Americans. "Born in the USA" was not a jingoistic anthem, as columnist George Will and Ronald Reagan falsely described it. It was a haunting tribute to veterans who had been screwed twice: first by the Vietnam War, then by the deindustrialization. The Ghost of Tom Joad, released in 1995, was a quiet-but-angry, Woody Guthrie-flavored look at the down-and-out of America. (Years earlier, Springsteen had started performing "This Land Is Your Land" during concerts.)

While Springsteen clearly made a conscious attempt to connect with Guthrie (as Dylan had done in his salad days), one might not have associated his decades of rock-driven work with Seeger. But by nobly nodding to Seeger in this way, Springsteen not only closes a circle, he advances it. This disc is a generous gesture. Fans of both men ought to hope the execution is as grand as the idea."