Everybody Knows

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded.

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.

Everybody knows that the war is over.

Everybody knows the good guys lost.

Everybody knows the fight was fixed.

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking.

Everybody knows that the captain lied.

Everybody got this broken feeling.

Like their father or their dog just died.

That's how it goes.

Everybody knows.

-- Leonard Cohen (1988)

The Road Warrior

When the world was powered by the black fuel, the desert sprung great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel, they were nothing; they'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. Cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting. A firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men....

-- George Miller, et al (1981)

inflation to war

 The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

-- Ernest Hemingway

open your eyes

 

Video games train the kids for war
Army chic in high-fashion stores
Law and order's done their job
Prisons filled while the rich still rob

Assassination politics
Violence rules within our nation's midst
Ignorance is their power tool
You'll only know what they want you to know

The television cannot lie
Controlling media with smokescreen eyes
Nuclear politicians picture show
The acting's lousy, but the blind don't know

 

Open your eyes, see the lies right in front of you
Open your eyes....

They scare us all with threats of war
So we forget just how bad things are
You taste the fear when you're all alone
They gonna get you when you're on your own

The silence of conspiracy
Slaughtered on the altar of apathy
You gotta wake up from your sleep
'Cause meek inherits earth six feet deep

 

-- Bators / James (Lords of the New Church) 1982

End foreign wars

The American people are tired of our ‘endless wars’ and seem to understand that long-term military commitments like those in Afghanistan and Iraq don’t serve our national interests and aren’t worth the costs. With nearly 70 percent responding in favor of bringing our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq, it’s clear that our approach to the Middle East doesn’t square with the will of the American people who bear the human and financial costs of these decisions. Unfortunately, the Washington foreign policy establishment, including many in government, has resisted real change....

Americans look ready for a more thorough-going rethink of our foreign policy and shift away from the military-first strategies that have seen trillions in tax dollars spent and thousands of American lives lost. The president’s instincts on ending endless wars are with the American public’s. He should work to withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and forge a different path forward in the Middle East—one that employs the many other, less expensive, and more effective tools in the statecraft toolbox.

[W]e need to stay focused on what America’s long-run national interests require and define our approach... based on that.... [A] full and speedy withdrawal of our troops is imperative. Our national interest isn’t served by continuing to wage a futile battle, but by exiting it. 

-- William Ruger (Koch Institute) January 23, 2020

Move Over

Things look bad from over here
Too much confusion and no solution
Everyone here knows your fear
You're out of touch and you try too much

The country needs a father
Not an uncle or big brother
Someone to keep the peace at home

If we can't get together
Look out for stormy weather
Don't make me pay for your mistakes
I have to pay my own

If we can not wake you
Then we'll have to shake you
Though some say you'll only understand a gun
Got to prove them wrong or you will lose the battle
Don't you know we'll start a war which will be won by none

Yesterday's glory won't help us today
You want to retire?  Get out of the way

-- John Kay / Gabriel Mekler (Steppenwolf) 1969

Between the Wheels

To live between a rock and a hard place -- in between time,
Cruising in prime time -- soaking up the cathode rays.

To live between the wars in our time -- living in real time,

Holding the good time -- holding onto yesterdays.

You know how that rabbit feels going under your speeding wheels.

Bright images flashing by like windshields towards a fly.
Frozen in the fatal climb, but the wheels of time just pass you by.

Wheels can take you around.  Wheels can cut you down.
We can go from boom to bust; from dreams to a bowl of dust.

We can fall from rockets' red glare down to brother can you spare.
Another war, another wasteland, and another lost generation.

It slips between your hands like water -- this living in real time.

A dizzying lifetime reeling by on celluloid.

Struck between the eyes by the big time world.

Walking uneasy streets, hiding beneath the sheets.
Got to try and fill the void. 

-- Neil Peart (Rush) 1984

two suns in the sunset

In my rear view mirror, the sun is going down
Sinking behind bridges in the road. 
I think of all the good things that we have left undone,
And I suffer premonitions -- confirmed suspicions -- of the holocaust to come.

The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in
Gives way, and suddenly it's day again.
The sun is in the east even though the day is done.
Two suns in the sunset; could be the human race is run.

-- Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) 1983

The Undrainable Swamp

The establishment’s concerns have less to do with peace and security than raising sales, earnings, and stock prices in the Atlantic-area's military industrial complex. And the establishment won’t abide any threat to its power.

The Swamp is so undrainable that it will end up making mincemeat of Donald Trump.... The ultimate causes of his demise are anchored deep in the failing status quo. America is so addicted to war, debt, and central bank driven false prosperity that even the most resourceful and focused challenger would be taken down by its sheer inertia.

But [Trump] is so undisciplined, naïve, out-of-touch, thin-skinned, unfocused, and megalomaniacal that he is making it far easier for the Swamp critters than they deserve. To a very considerable extent, in fact, he is filling out his own bill of indictment.

-- David Stockman (The Daily Reckoning) August 4, 2017

buried by the blues

Absolved forever into the darkest shades,
I'll vanish from the light to the still-calling me
Enslaved forever or buried by the blues?
Wear your wounds like a soldier; and let your ghosts run loose

Exploding waves, you wish you could belong
A piper at the gates to steal you from the dawn
No suicide could ever change your fate
Fold your hands in reply beneath the trembling rain

Against the night, you will rise and set your body free
Frontier of light, you desire to let your body sleep
Away from the static and noise
Away from the bombs and the war

-- Stephen McBean (Black Mountain) 2010

Russian Distraction

[T]he demonization of Russia [is] a way more idiotic exercise than the McCarthyite Cold War hysteria of the early 1950s since there is no longer any ideological conflict between us, and all the evidence indicates that the current state of bad relations is America’s fault -- in particular, our sponsorship of the state failure in Ukraine and our avid deployment of NATO forces in war games on Russia’s border....

Rather, the Evil Russia meme seems a projection of our country’s own insecurities and contradictions. For instance, we seem to think that keeping Syria viciously destabilized is preferable to allowing its legitimate government to restore some kind of order there. Russia has been on the scene attempting to prop up the Assad government, while we are on the scene there doing everything possible to keep a variety of contestants in a state of incessant war. U.S. policy in Syria has been both incoherent and tragically damaging to the Syrians.

Russians stood aside while the U.S. smashed up Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. We demonstrated adequately that shoving sovereign nations into civic failure is not the best way to resolve geopolitical tensions. Why would it be such a bad thing for the U.S. to stand aside in Syria and see if the Russians can rescue that country from failure? Because they might keep a naval base there on the Mediterranean? We have scores of military bases around the region.

It’s actually pretty easy to understand why the Russians might be paranoid about America’s intentions. We use NATO to run threatening military maneuvers near Russia’s borders. We provoked Ukraine — formerly a province of the Soviet state — to become a nearly failed state, and then we complained foolishly about the Russian annexation of Crimea — also a former territory of the Soviet state and of imperial Russia going back centuries. We slapped sanctions on Russia, making it difficult for them to participate in international banking and commerce.

What’s really comical is the idea that Russia is using the Internet to mess with our affairs — as if the USA has no cyber-warfare ambitions or ongoing operations against them (and others, such as hacking Angela Merkel’s personal phone). News flash: every country with access to the Internet is in full hacking mode around the clock against every other country so engaged. Everybody’s doing it.

-- James Howard Kunstler (The Daily Reckoning ) Oct. 29, 2016

Not Me

Who's gonna fight?  Not Me!
Who thinks it right?  Not Me!
"The threat of war is a passing phase."
Try telling that to a waiting grave.
They say the bunkers will be safe.
They're not big enough for the human race.

Who's having fun?  Not Me!
Gonna carry a gun?  Not Me!
I've got to fight; I got no choice.
They'll never hear my fucking voice.
Deafened in the deathly noise
Created by their brand new toys.

Who's gonna die?  Not Me!
I'll tell you why....
I won't do whatever they say
Even if it means getting put away.
That's what I think -- OK?
You've got to react -- it's the only way.

Subhumans, 1983

Russians

In Europe and America, there's a growing feeling of hysteria.
Conditioned to respond to all the threats in the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets.
Mr. Krushchev said, "We will bury you."  I don't subscribe to this point of view.
It'd be such an ignorant thing to do if the Russians love their children too.

How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?
There is no monopoly on common sense on either side of the political fence.
We share the same biology, regardless of ideology.
Believe me when I say to you, I hope the Russians love their children too.

There is no historical precedent to put the words in the mouth of the president.
There's no such thing as a winnable war; it's a lie we don't believe anymore.
Mr. Reagan says, "We will protect you." I don't subscribe to this point of view.
Believe me when I say to you, I hope the Russians love their children too.

We share the same biology, regardless of ideology.
But what might save us, me and you, is if the Russians love their children too.

-- Sting / Prokofiev (1985)

Apparitions

In the night, we'd run around in the streets
jacked up on life in hell.
Thunder love has struck us again;
we're apparitions of a sinful spell.

Elude the harsh reality of our lives,
we saw tears and tragedy.
We joined a pack of rebel angels at night
like apparitions of an infantry.

Let's get out of here.
I want you to come along.

In the sunless days of war,
I was a young pilot strewing death.
I see tears in frightened eyes;
put them to sleep 'til I was out of breath.

A silhouette of jealousy in the sky,
I took revenge on love nightly.
I'll take a hard look back someday
and deny we're apparitions of sympathy.

-- Sune Rose Wagner (Raveonettes) 2011

endless war profiteering

"[T]he insidious increase in power, and the influence over foreign policy that the military has, is very dangerous.  And maybe in the long run it's even more dangerous than a coup.  Because what happens is, the power shifts gradually, and gradually, and incrementally, over to the war-making side, to where you wake up one morning and all you're doing is making war.  And you have so many people, from Lockheed Martin to the Congress of the United States, to the Armed Forces, to you name it, who are making so much money off that war-making, that you can't stop it.  That's not a coup, but it is something worse in my view.  It is ultimately the destruction of our Republic."  
-- Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (U.S Army, retired) 2012 interview

war is a racket

War is just a racket.  A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people.  Only a small, inside group knows what it is about.  It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else.  If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight....  I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers.  There are only two things we should fight for.  One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights.  War for any other reason is simply a racket.

-- Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC.  1933 speech

The Riddle

I'm the button that's been passed from hand to hand.
I'm the tidal wave in a sea of fear.
I'm the tornado from the fiery holocaust.
I'm the acid rain and the fallout dust....

I'm the supersonic jet with a nuclear payload.
I'm the conscience of the future world.
I'm the mushroom looming in the sky.
I'm the finger on the button, who but I.....

-- Space Ritual (2007)

I Can Feel Him in the Morning

Take me down to the water, let me feel it run over me.
Let me feel the pain and the coldness, the loneliness that there must be.
Can’t you see their dreams as they go drifting by?
Can’t you see their faces and their tear-soaked eyes?

I can feel Him in the morning; I can feel Him in the evening too.
I can hear Him in the morning telling me what I got to do.
Got to make a new world; ought to make the old one right.
I can see Him in the morning; I can see Him in the stars at night.

Take me out to the battlefield; let me hear the shells flying by.
Let me hear the sound of the cannons; let me hear them scream and cry.
Can’t you hear their dreams as they tumble to the blood-soaked ground?
Hear them scream for shelter from the world they never found.

-- Brewer / Farner (Grand Funk Railroad) 1971

Radio Clash

This is Radio Clash, stealing all transmissions.
Beaming from the mountaintop, using aural ammunition.
With extreme prejudice on a terminator mission.
This is Radio Clash, consider your position.

Breaking news flash:  Assassination!
The whole country has been shot.
Evil will abate in revelation -- the ministry of whitewash.

This is Radio Clash from pirate satellite
Orbiting your living room, cashing in the Bill of Rights.
Cuban army surplus or refusing all third lights
This is Radio Clash on pirate satellite.

This sound does not subscribe to the international plan
In the psycho shadow of the white right hand.
Them that see ghettology as an urban Vietnam
Giving deadly exhibitions of murder by napalm.

Forces have been looting my humanity.
Curfews have been curbing -- the end of liberty.
Hands of law have sorted through my identity
But now this sound is brave and wants to be free!

-- The Clash (1981)

war is hell

"I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have never fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. Some say that war is all glory, but I tell you, boys, it is all hell."
-- William Tecumseh Sherman (1879)