[Sorry,
folks, I couldn't find a video of Dylan performing the song.]
Come you masters of war
You that build all the
guns
You that build the
death planes
You that build all the
bombs
You that hide behind
walls
You that hide behind
desks
I just want you to
know
I can see through your
masks.
You that never done
nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little
toy
You put a gun in my
hand
And you hide from my
eyes
And you turn and run
farther
When the fast bullets
fly.
I've been a Bob Dylan fan
for many years. The places he went with his music spoke to me from
the time of his earliest recordings. I especially appreciated his
sense of outrage at the injustices in society in those early years.
I did however think that his anti-war song "Masters of War",
the first two verses of which are given above and that is now 50 years old, was a bit naive. It
seemed to lay blame more at the feet of the arms manufacturers than
at the feet of the politicians that lead us into wars. Well, I no
longer feel that way. To varying degrees, both are to blame.
Look at armed
conflicts in Africa, military interventions in the Middle East, US
gun homicides, international arms trade, terrorist attacks ...what do
these have in common? Two things: the resort to violence as a means
to an end and
the availability of weapons to carry out this violence.
We may be unable to change a
predilection to violence but we sure can do things to decrease the
availability of weapons. Okay, maybe not anything as dramatic as the
Overlords in Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, who
made a nuclear missile already in flight simply disappear..but surely something
more than the machinations of those US Senators who blocked a
background check bill designed to keep guns out of the hands of
felons, the mentally ill and, yes, terrorists.
The human toll due to war
and war's after-effects are enormous. Not all wars make non-stop headlines in
the United States. The Second Congo War (1998-2003), also known as
the Great African War, is one example. Besides the deaths of tens of
thousands of combatants, it has been estimated that the war has caused
betweeen 2.7 and 5.4 million excess civilian deaths (through the
present). This includes more than 350,000 violent civilian deaths
(through 2001) with the remainder dying from hunger and disease
unleashed by the war. [Wikipedia]
As the worst of the
hostilities of the Second Congo War were coming to an end, the United
States was beginning to gear up for the war with Iraq. That totally
unnecessary invasion against a country that was no threat to us, that had zero WMD's and no connection to the 9/11 attacks
resulted in more than 600,000 excess deaths according to a 2006
Lancet study. [Washington Post] During the time it was waged, the Iraq War
became one of the biggest Al-Qaeda recruiting tools of all time.
The ongoing gun slaughter
on our streets is appalling. There is an undeniable
correlation between gun ownership, gun laws and gun deaths. 10 times
the number of people who died in the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001
die each year in the US from guns. By 2015, annual gun deaths in the
United States are expected to exceed deaths caused by automobiles.
We license and test people before they can drive cars, which is,
after all, just a means of transportation. How much more so should
we demand background checks on people who want to own guns, the
purpose of which is to kill? Sadly we are treated to a spectacle of
the NRA contributing to Congressional campaigns and lobbying against
not only an assault weapons ban but also against universal background
checks and for cutting funding to research gun violence.
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
In this January article, Mother Jones destroys 10 gun myths perpetrated
by gun-rights groups and lobbyists. Here's one myth: "Guns
don't kill people, people kill people. " Fact: "The states
with the highest gun ownership rates have a gun murder rate 114%
higher than those with the lowest gun ownership rates."
Let me ask you one
question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
The arms lobby's money may
not buy forgiveness but it sure can influence votes...at least in the
United States. Fortunately, not so in the United Nations. On April
2, 2013, delegates from 154 nations, including the US,the largest
arms exporter in the world, voted to adopt the first-ever
international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Per the UN ATT Conference
webpage, the ATT will regulate "the international trade in
conventional arms, from small arms to battle tanks, combat aircraft
and warships. The treaty will foster peace and security by putting a
stop to destabilising arms flows to conflict regions. It will prevent
human rights abusers and violators of the law of war from being
supplied with arms. And it will help keep warlords, pirates, and
gangs from acquiring these deadly tools." Let's hope the US
Senate will approve this treaty when Obama presents it...else the
Senators join North Korea, Syria, and Iran in voting no to the ATT. [See Oxfam America and UN ATT Conference webpages.]
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