Work for Peace
Gil Scott-Heron's poem on Peace is a deep resonant voice during times of war. Peace is not just absence of war, but also absence of preparation for war....
Work For Peace---Introduction:Back when Eisenhower was the PresidentGolf courses was where most of his time was spent.So I never paid much attention to what the President saidBecause in general, I believed the General was politically dead,But he always seemed to know how muscles were going to beflexedHe kept mumbling something about a military-industrial complex.The military and the monetaryThe military and the monetaryThe military and the monetaryThe military and the monetaryGet together whenever they think it's necessaryThey have turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,They are turning the planet into a cemetery.The military and the monetaryUse the media as intermediaries.They are determined to keep the citizens secondaryThey make so many decisions that seem arbitrary.We've been standing behind the 'Commander-in-Chief'Who was under a spotlight, shaking like a leafBecause the ship of state had landed on an economic reefSo we knew he'd be bringing us messages of grief.The military and the monetaryWere 'Shielded' by January and went 'Storming' into February.They brought us pot-bellied Generals as luminaries.Two weeks before I hadn't heard of the sons of BitchesAnd then all of a sudden they were legendary.They took the honor from the honoraryThey took the dignity from the dignitariesThey took the secrets from the secretaryBut they left the 'bitch' in 'obituary'Yeah, they had some 'smart bombs'But they had some dumb ones as wellThey scared the hell outta CNN in that Baghdad hotel.The military and the monetaryThe military and the monetaryThe military and the monetaryGet together whenever they think it's necessaryWar in the desert sure could seem scaryBut they beamed out the war to all of their subsidiariesTried making 'so damn insane' (Saddam Hussein) a worthyadversaryKeeping all of the citizens secondaryScaring old folks into coronariesMaking us all wonder if all of this was really, truly necessary.We've got to work for peace.We've got to work for peace.If we all believed in peace we could have peace.The only thing wrong with peace is thatYou can't make no money from it.The military and the monetaryGet together whenever they think it's necessaryThey've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenariesWe are turning parts of the planet into a cemetery.We hounded the Ayatollah religiously,Bombed Libya and killed Qadafi's son hideously.We turned our back on our allies, the PanamaniansWatched Ollie North selling guns to the IraniansWitnessed Gorbachev slaughtering LithuaniansSo we better warn the Amish, they may bomb thePennsylvanians.We've got to work for peacePeace ain't coming this way.We've got to work for peace.Peace is not (merely) the absence of warIt is the absence of the rumors of war and the threats of warAnd the preparation for war.Peace is not (merely) the absence of warWe will have all touched the power of peace within ourselves.Because we will have come to peace within ourselves.Peace ain't gonna be easy.Peace ain't gonna be free.We've got to work for peace.
[Now and Then: The Poems of Gil Scott-Heron, Payback Press/CanongateBooks, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2001, p. 29-31. Recorded on the "Spirits" CD, TVTRecords, 1994.]
