He went to fight wars for his country and his king
Of his honor and his glory, the people would sing
Ooh, what a lucky man he was
Ooh, what a lucky man he was
A bullet had found him, his blood ran as he cried
No money could save him, so he laid down and he died
Ooh, what a lucky man he was
— Emerson, Lake and Palmer, “Lucky Man” from their album “Emerson, Lake and Palmer”, released in UK November 20, 1971
Senator Bernie Sanders taped a PBS show at the University of Virginia on Monday. I had corresponded with the host Doug Blackmon beforehand, and offered him ideas for questions on military spending and war, questions like these:
Will all your money
Buy you forgiveness?
Keep you from sickness?
Or keep you from cold?
Will all your money
Keep you from sadness,
Or keep you from madness
When you’re down in the hole?
— “Down in the Hole“, the Rolling Stones, from their 1980 recording Emotional Rescue
President Franklin D. Roosevelt said:
Anyone struggling to understand the violent upheaval in Yemen this year might be tempted to consult the country’s ‘most important source of news’ – the BBC. An online piece titled ‘Yemen crisis: Who is fighting whom?’ explains:
Yemen is in the grip of its most severe crisis in years, as competing forces fight for control of the country.
The article continues:
Sometimes so much electronic data has been configured and processed from keystroke to platform software (one used to say “ink spilled” but we already have a generation that has probably never seen ink, and certainly not in fluid form) that the written equivalent of a shout is necessary. When the chattering becomes loud enough, one can scarcely avoid the breach of good manners by yelling “shut up!”.
Saudi ground forces invaded Yemen for the first time in this war on August 27. Officially, the Saudi government characterizes the invasion as an incursion that will be limited and temporary. The Saudi government made similar representations about their terror-bombing of Yemen that began March 26 and has continued on a near-daily basis to the present.
We all want peace, don’t we? Peaceful relationships and communities; an absence of violence and conflict: a World at Peace. This is surely everyone’s heartfelt desire. Without peace nothing can be achieved, none of the subtler essential needs of our time, such as feeding everyone and providing good quality health care and education to all – let alone the urgent need to save our planet (S.O.P.), beautify the cities and develop sustainable alternative energy sources.
The American-backed genocidal war on Yemen is in its fifth month, making it one of the hotter issues in the 2016 Presidential campaign, right? Wrong.
When news of the latest white racist gun horror came up from Charleston, South Carolina last month, I was teaching Michael Moore’s 2002 film Bowling for Columbine. Once again, it seemed, Moore’s apocalyptic vision of an America armed-to-the-teeth and pushed-to-the-edge had proven prophetic. Once more, contrary to war-mongering media and ‘counter-terrorist’ propaganda, we were reminded: America’s terror is mostly home-grown.
Yemeni people are not bad people, they are good people. They want to be respected, they want their sovereignty to be respected. We did not wage a war, a war was brought upon us. Our issue was an internal one and it would have been sorted out internally.
— Hanan al-Harazi
