Your Possible Pasts (Waters) They flutter behind you your possible pasts,
Some bright-eyed and crazy, some frightened and lost.
A warning to anyone still in command
Of their possible future, to take care.
In derelict sidings the poppies entwine
With cattle trucks lying in wait for the next time.
Do you remember me? How we used to be?
Do you think we should be closer?
She stood in the doorway, the ghost of a smile
Haunting her face like a cheap hotel sign.
Her cold eyes imploring the men in their macs
For the gold in their bags or the knives in their backs.
Stepping up boldly one put out his hand.
He said, "I was just a child then, now I'm only a man."
Do you remember me? How we used to be?
Do you think we should be closer?
By the cold and religious we were taken in hand
Shown how to feel good and told to feel bad.
Tongue tied and terrified we learned how to pray
Now our feelings run deep and cold as the clay.
And strung out behind us the banners and flags
Of our possible pasts lie in tatters and rags.
Do you remember me? How we used to be?
Do you think we should be closer?
----------------------------------------------
After September 11, 2001, the US had the worlds sympathy - all of it. But that didn't fit the political ideas of some.
The great evil is those folks using the terror attacks for their political gain. Every time they need a political advantage, they drive the knife a little deeper in, and twist it to make the wound bleed again.
The Dividers. They divided Europe and the US by their harsh rethoric, their enigmatic and manipulating war escalations, their 'either you're for us or against us' and their generally unsustainable policies. They divided the US further after 911, a process that had been going on for nearly a decade already, maybe even two. They divided Europe into 'new' and 'old'. They divided the people inside every country on the face of the Earth by enabling the fascist forces that always are present, but are normally subdued by democracy, and gave them muscles.
They plunged us all into a war situation that's self propelled, driving us from one crisis to the next, no breathing allowed.
Always escalating, always moving forward. The 'creative destructive energy'.
----------------------------------------------
Two Suns in the Sunset (Waters) In my rear view mirror the sun is going down
Sinking behind bridges in the road
And I think of all the good things
That we have left undone
And I suffer premonitions
Confirm 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
Hmmmmmmmmmm
Could be the human race is run.
Like the moment when the brakes lock
And you slide towards the big truck
You stretch the frozen moments with your fear.
And you'll never hear their voices
And you'll never see their faces
You have no recourse to the law anymore.
And as the windshield melts
My tears evaporate
Leaving only charcoal to defend.
Finally I understand the feelings of the few.
Ashes and diamonds
Foe and friend
We were all equal in the end.
----------------------------------------------
This seems a gloomy prospect, but remember that only two years after the release of this song (it was released on March 21, 1983), the world turned many notches towards democracy when
Gorbachev came to power. And some years after that, the Berlin wall fell and Europe was free.
But 1983 was a year of gloom. On November 20, the film
The Day After was aired (interestingly enough, by the ABC), and it was lated aired at theatres across the world, and also in Norway. The Soviet was ruled by old men, so musty and secretive you'd think they were capable of anything.
I grew up in a world where my country was under threat of immediate annhilation at any time, by warning of four minutes - without having any say in the matter at all.
My father worked in the Civil Defense, and at the age of 8 I had managed to read through a book he had, 'We Will Survive', laying out in dry, documentary language the effects of a nuclear attack on my country. It merged with my childhood, hardened me to accept the unthinkable, yet oddly was somewhat comforting because of it's optimist title.
I spent 25 years of my life under that yoke, and when the world finally got free of Cold War, I raised my shoulders for the first time and could breathe.
Don't bring that ever-waning, meager Al-Queda spectre into my presence, because it's not a threat to me. I was never afraid of Al-Queda, even while watching the horror unfold live on TV five years ago. And I'm not afraid of Al-Queda now.
It is the fright that's our enemy, the enemy within. Terror. The fear itself. That, and only that. It's our own fear that enables Bush and his croonies to use it for their purpose, and be you of MIHOP or LIHOP orientation - or for that matter; a Republican Bush-supporter brainwashed into accepting the fear story - I say to you:
Good will prevail. We will never give in. We will never accept data being replaced with fake reality. We will never accept 'less than democracy' replacing democracy.
Two big hugs for every American today, no matter which political orientation you have. May your country soon find peace and solace - unity!
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