Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Peace, War, & Indifference

(Host - Andrew Reissiger) Open up a newspaper, flip on the tv, turn your computer on ? and the heard of elephants in the room is aggression, violence, and war.? Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Liberia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, East Timor, Kosovo, Bali, Haiti, Colombia, Brazil, and the United States of America?to name just a few. Join me Andrew Reissiger on this edition of World Tour as we listen to the words of some of our past presidents. We?ll hear the speeches of Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ and Reagan alongside poets and musicians and perhaps we might learn something of the possibilities of peace ? today on World Tour.

(Optional content for stations not airing the news ? 5min.)
We are on the threshold of a new century, a new millennium. What will the legacy of this vanishing century be? How will it be remembered in the new millennium? Surely it will be judged, and judged severely, in both moral and metaphysical terms. These failures have cast a dark shadow over humanity: two World Wars, countless civil wars, the senseless chain of assassinations (Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Sadat, Rabin), bloodbaths in Cambodia and Nigeria, India and Pakistan, Ireland and Rwanda, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Sarajevo and Kosovo; the inhumanity in the gulag and the tragedy of Hiroshima. And, on a different level, of course, Auschwitz and Treblinka. So much violence; so much indifference.
What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil. What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?
Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the Other to an abstraction
(?)
In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony. One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it.
Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.
The president?s address to the nation from his office in the White House ? Jan 17, 1961:
Good evening my fellow Americans. First I shall like to express my gratitude to the radio and television networks ?.

(fade in ?The Times They Are a Changin?? by Bob Dylan)

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin' (fade out)
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea. Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Kennedy (from a commencement Address at American University in Washington,
June 10, 1963) That is the most important topic on earth: world peace. What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women -- not merely peace in our time but peace for all time. I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by 11 of the Allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn. Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use the is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles -- which can only destroy and never create -- is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace. I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war -- and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.
(Eisenhower ? April 16 1953) Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
(play ?The Darling Son? Stephan Smith)
Where did you get the blood on your shirt? Son, please talk to me
It's only a stain from a game we play and play most harmlessly
Where did you get that gun in your hand? Son, please talk to me
I got it from the children's store of toys right down the street
Oh that there blood it is too real. Son, please talk to me
And that there gun is made of steel. My two eyes can see
Oh mother, true, you are no fool. Your two eyes can see
For the blood is of my friends at school I killed most vengefully
And mother, true, you are so wise. Your two eyes can see
For this here gun it is the one I did take with me
Oh where oh where did you get that gun? Son, please talk to me
I got it from your husband, mom, who rarely talks to me
But where did you learn to be so cruel? Son, please talk to me
I learned it in the books at school that taught me history
But where did you learn to kill my son? Son, please talk to me
I learned it from this great, great land that kills across the sea
What will you do now my darling child? Son, please talk to me
I'm going where the air is mild for all eternity
But, where will you go my only one? Son, please talk to me
I'm going far beyond the sun where no one's eyes can see
(Eisenhower ? April 16 1953) This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense (?)We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. (?) The peace we seek, founded upon decent trust and cooperative effort among nations, can be fortified, not by weapons of war but by wheat and by cotton, by milk and by wool, by meat and by timber and by rice. These are words that translate into every language on earth. These are needs that challenge this world in arms (?)This would be a declared total war, not upon any human enemy but upon the brute forces of poverty and need (?) The monuments to this new kind of war would be these: roads and schools, hospitals and homes, food and health.
(Mandela at G8 conference ? July 2005) How do remove the face of poverty from our world? So much of our common future will depend on the actions and plans of these leaders. They have a historical opportunity to open the door to hope and the possibility of a better future for all. History and the generations to come will judge our leaders by the decisions they make.
(fade in Kalakuta Show by Fela Kuti)
Make we talk something
We never talk before and
We dey see am everyday
(Ahh?Ohhh?.Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh)
*repeat 2x

Look de man he dey waka
*[CHORUS] GAGA GUGU GAGA GUGU
*repeat

Hungry dey run for him face
*[CHORUS] WOKO WOKO WOKO WOKO
*repeat

Him pepeye* cap for him head
*[CHORUS] PEPE PEPE PEPE PEPE
*repeat

Him khaki woolen shirt for him body
*[CHORUS] WULU WULU WULU WULU
*repeat

Him trouser dey fly above him knee
*[CHORUS] YAYA YAYA YAYA YAYA
*repeat

The people wey employ da man
Give him permit to carry the thing
Weh bad
Dem give him permit to carry baton
Dem give him permit to carry tear-gas
Dem give him permit to carry bullet
Him fit carry basket for protection too
Na so we dey see am every day
No so he dey happen every day

One day
*[CHORUS] SATURDAY
One day
*[CHORUS] SATURDAY MORNING
The whole thing change
One day
*[CHORUS] 5 A.M.
One day
*[CHORUS] NOVEMBER 23
The whole thing change
One day
*[CHORUS] 1974
One day- Kalakuta Show
One day
*[CHORUS] SATURDAY
One day
*[CHORUS] SATURDAY MORNING
Kalakuta Show
*[CHORUS] 1979

Kalakuta Show

Dem make sure dem
Use tear-gas, baton & bullet
*repeat

Dem use them basket
For protection too
*repeat

Dem do one thing
Dem never do before
*repeat 3x

Dem-o hire ? axe-o? dem-o bring? cutlass

*[CHORUS] DEM-O HIRE? AXE-O? DEM BU-RING? CUTLASS
*repeat under verses:
Kalakuta show-o-o
Kalakuta show (una na na na na na na na na)

Kalakuta Show (2x)

Babu wire dem-o cut
Look fence dem break
Look gate dem fall
Everybody dey run
Look head dem break
Look blood him dey flow

Kalakuta show o-o
Kalakuta show
Na na na na na na na

Look loya** him dey come **(lawyer)
Him he loya him dey come
Look loya dem beat
Look loya him dey run
Look loya him dey run

Kalakuta show o-o
Kalakuta show
*Etc?.
(La ciudad ? Gonzalo Millan ? from Rattapallax)
El Rio invierte el curso de su corriente (?.)
The river flows against the current
The water runs up the waterfall
The people start walking backwards
The horses walk backwards
The soldiers unmarch the parade
The bullets leave the flesh
The bullets enter the barrels
The officers put their pistols away
Electricity returns to the cords
Electricity passes through the plugs
The tortured stop shaking
The tortured close their mouths
The concentration camps empty
The missing appear
The dead rise from their graves
Lot 29 is empty
Whose are the bones in bag #20?
Jets fly backwards
The bombs rise towards the jets
Allende fires
The flames die down
He takes off his helmet
La Moneda rebuilds itself entirely
His skull repairs itself
He steps out on the balcony
Allende backs up towards Tomas Moro
The prisoners leave the stadium backwards
September 11th, airplanes full of refugees return
Chile is a democratic country
Argentina is a democratic country
The armed forces respect the constitution
Uruguay is a democratic country
The military go back to the barracks
Neruda is reborn
He returns by ambulance to Isla Negra
His prostate hurts. He writes
Victor Jara plays the guitar. He sings
The speeches enters the mouths
The tyrant embraces Pratts. He disappears
Pratts revives
The unemployed are rehired
The workers parade singing ?We shall overcome!?
(Kennedy - 1963) We seek to strengthen the United Nations (?) to make it a more effective instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine world security system -- a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of insuring the security of the large and the small and of creating conditions under which arms can finally be abolished.
(fade in Beast of no Nation by Fela Kuti)
Dem call the place, the ?United Nations?
Hear-oh another animal talk
Wetin united inside ?United Nations??
Who & who unite, for ?United Nations??
No be there Thatcher & Argentina dey
No be there Reagan & Libya dey
Is-i-rael versus Lebanon
Iran-i-oh versus Iraq-i
East West Block versus West Block East
No be there dem dey oh- United Nations
Dis ?united? United Nations
One veto vote is equal to 92 [?OR MORE, OR MORE]
What kind sense be dat, na animal sense (2x) (fade out)
(Kennedy - 1963) We must reexamine our own attitude -- as individuals and as a nation (?) every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward -- by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace (?) There is no single, simple key to this peace -- no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process -- a way of solving problems (?) Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable.
(The Bell by Stephan Smith)
"Oh where are you going?" said the man at his desk
"I'm going to a new world," said the child and he stood
And he stood, and he stood, and t'were well that he stood
"I'm going to a new world," said the child and he stood
"Oh I'm sounding drums of war," said the man at his desk
"Oh, I will not fight your war," said the child and he stood
And he stood, and he stood, and t'were well that he stood
"I will not fight your war," said the child and he stood
"Oh, but don't you love your country?" said the man at his desk
"Yes, I do, but you don't," said the child and he stood
And he stood, and he stood, and t'were well that he stood
"I do but you don't," said the child and he stood
"Oh, but do you know the truth?" said the man at his desk
"Yes, you lie and call it truth," said the child and he stood
And he stood, and he stood, and t'were well that he stood
"You lie and call it truth," said the child and he stood
"Oh, you must be scared to die," said the man at his desk
"No, I'm prepared and you're scared," said the child and he stood
And he stood, and he stood, and t'were well that he stood
"I'm prepared and you're scared," said the child and he stood
"Oh, I think I hear a bell," said the man at his desk
"Yes, it's ringing you to hell," said the child and he stood
And he stood, and he stood, and t'were well that he stood
"Yes, it's ringing you to hell," said the child and he stood
(Eisenhower - 1953) A world that begins to witness the rebirth of trust among nations can find its 'way to a peace that is neither partial nor punitive (?) Any nation's right to a form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable (?) Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
(Kennedy ? 1963) For there can be no doubt that, if all nations could refrain from interfering in the self-determination of others, the peace would be much more assured.
(Get up Stand Up by Bob Marley)
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: dont give up the fight!

Preacherman, dont tell me,
Heaven is under the earth.
I know you dont know
What life is really worth.
Its not all that glitters is gold;
alf the story has never been told:
So now you see the light, eh!
Stand up for your rights. come on!

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: dont give up the fight!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: dont give up the fight! (fade out)
(Kennedy ? 1963) For we are both devoting to weapons massive sums of money that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty and disease.
(LBJ ? Nov 5 1964) The Great Society?we?re going to go ahead with our education, you know, and our countryside, and our health, and we?re going to ? Lincoln abolished the slavery, and we?re going to abolish poverty.
(LBJ ? Jan 8 1964 with ?This Land is Your Land? Woody Guthrie music bed) For our ultimate goal is a world without war, a world made safe for diversity, in which all men, goods, and ideas can freely move across every border and every boundary (?) This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. I urge this Congress and all Americans to join with me in that effort. It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won. The richest Nation on earth can afford to win it. We cannot afford to lose it.
(My Warfare performed by Estil Ball)
My Lord told his disciples
after I'm risen and gone
you'll meet with troubles and trialsbear your rebukes and scorns
my warfare will soon be ended
my race is almost run
my warfare will soon be ended
and I'm coming home
you can rebuke me all you want to
I'm travelling home to God
I'm well acquainted with the crossesand all my ways are hard
they say my lord is the devil
they call his saints the same
I don't expect much more down herethan grief and scorn and shame
God bless them holiness people
the Presbyterians too
those good old shouting Methodists
those praying Baptists too
tnd when you get to heaven
I wanna see you there
tnd when I say amen
I want you to say so too
my warfare will soon be ended
my race is almost run
my warfare will soon be ended
and I'm coming home
I'm coming home
(Martin Luther King Jr. - April 4, 1967) A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such (?) As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
(Sueno con Serpientes by Silvio Rodr?guez)
"Hay hombres que luchan un d?a y son buenos.
Hay otros que luchan un a?o y son mejores.
Hay quienes luchan muchos a?os y son muy buenos.
Pero hay los que luchan toda la vida:
?sos son los imprescindibles".
-- Bertolt Brecht.
Sue?o con serpientes, con serpientes de mar,
con cierto mar, ay, de serpientes sue?o yo.
Largas, transparentes, y en sus barrigas llevan
lo que puedan arrebatarle al amor.

Oh, la mato y aparece una mayor.
Oh, con mucho m?s infierno en digesti?n.

No quepo en su boca, me trata de tragar
pero se atora con un tr?bol de mi sien.
Creo que est? loca; le doy de masticar
una paloma y la enveneno de mi bien.

Oh, la mato y aparece una mayor.
Oh, con mucho m?s infierno en digesti?n.

?sta al fin me engulle, y mientras por su es?fago
paseo, voy pensando en qu? vendr?.
Pero se destruye cuando llego a su est?mago
y planteo con un verso una verdad.

Oh, la mato y aparece una mayor.
Oh, con mucho m?s infierno en digesti?n.

(Kennedy ? 1963) It is discouraging to think that their leaders may actually believe what their propagandists write. It is discouraging to read a recent authoritative Soviet text on Military Strategy and find, on page after page, wholly baseless and incredible claims -- such as the allegation that "American imperialist circles are preparing to unleash different types of wars . . . that there is a very real threat of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists against the Soviet Union . . . [and that] the political aims of the American imperialists are to enslave economically and politically the European and other capitalist countries . . . [and] to achieve world domination . . . by means of aggressive wars."
(Eisenhower - 1953) Any nation's right to a form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable (?) Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
(Reagan ? June 8, 1982) So let us ask ourselves?what kind of people do we think we are?
(Fade in Industrial Park by The Mammals)
(Kennedy ? 1963) For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal (?) But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because freedom is incomplete (?) "When a man's ways please the Lord," the Scriptures tell us, "he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights -- the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation -- the right to breathe air as nature provided it -- the right of future generations to a healthy existence?
(Words spoken by Pete Seeger, quoted from various sources, including)
(William James - 1899) ?I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible, loving, human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride.?
(a Columbine High School student - 1999) "The paradox of our time in history, Is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, We have wider freeways but narrower viewpoints, We spend more but we have less, We buy more but we enjoy it less, We have bigger houses and smaller families, More conveniences and less time, We have more degrees but less depth, More knowledge but less judgement, More experts but more problems, More medicine but less wellness.";
(Eisenhower - 1961) "Disarmament with mutual honor and confidence is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Another war could utterly destroy this civilization, which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years. We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex."

(fade in Zombie by Fela Kuti)
Tell am to go straight-- Joro, Jara, Joro
No break, no job, no sense-- Joro, Jara, Joro
Tell am to go kill-- Joro, Jara, Joro
No break, no job, no sense-- Joro, Jara, Joro
Tell am to go quench-- Joro, Jara, Joro
No break, no job, no sense-- Joro, Jara, Joro

Go and kill
*[CHORUS] JORO, JARA, JORO *(after each line)
Go and die
Go and quench** **(destroy)
Put am for reverse
Go and kill
Go and die
Go and quench *(3x)

Joro, Jara, Joro- O Zombie way na one way (3x)
Joro, Jara, Joro- Ooooh

Attention
*[CHORUS] ZOMBIE *(in time- average every 2-3 words)
Quick march
Slow march
Left turn
Right turn
About turn
Double time
Sa-lute
Open your hat
Stand at ease
Fall in
Fall out
Fall down
Get ready *(2x)

Ha-lt
Or-der *(Repeat 3x from "Attention")

(Host - Andrew Reissiger) Well thanks for tuning in for this weeks edition of World Tour. ?You can visit www.worldtourmusic.com for playlists and more information about the show, including how you can help support its continued production.? Send us an email at worldtourmusic@yahoo.com and let us know that you?re listening. We?d love to hear from you. Until next week, same time same place my name is Andrew Reissiger and this is World Tour.

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