“Die Gedanken Sind Frei”, “I Think As I Please”, is the Peace Song for Wednesday, October 19, 2011. Duchess Susanna would like to dedicate this song about freedom of expression to author Naomi Wolf, and everyone else who has been arrested for their activism during the occupations.
You can find English words to “Die Gedanken Sind Frei” by Arthur Kevess at Rise Up Singing (available for purchase: here). I stumbled upon the song in a library book, “Songs That Changed The World” by Wanda Willson Whitman. The words at the bottom of this post are based on a Pete Seeger version of the song.
Hi, Just found this post. Thank you for choosing my song. It has recently been re-recorded, the entire version on Vimeo under the title “Like A Mountain” Portland version. I resurrected the song in response to the results of the catastrophic election of tRump – a threat to all things good and beautiful.
Sincerely
Naomi Littlebear Morena
It’s all connected.The wars in the Middle East are just another method to transfer out tax dollars to the 1% — the war profiteers. Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex still needs to be heeded 50 years later.
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. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. 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. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. … Is there no other way the world may live?
Throughout the #AfghanstanTuesday campaign, I have been quoting the blog Scarry Thoughts. He comes through again on the effect of war on our economy.
The fact that Occupy Wall Street bloomed into a global phenomenon in little more than a week, and that it all happened at the beginning of October, 2011 — coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan War — has given tremendous hope to everyone who has been working to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan. People are in the streets, talking to each other, and that is how we’re going to find answers.
Especially important is the fact that the Occupy movement understands the systemic nature of the problems our country is mired in. And they have a determination to go to the root of those systemic problems. That’s essential to the antiwar movement. We don’t just have a war problem … we have a war economy problem!
“O Had I A Golden Thread” by Pete Seeger is the Peace Song of the Day for 10/17/2011. You can find the words to this song on page 31 of the Rise Up Singing group songbook.
We are sharing two videos for this song. The video below is a young man playing the song on baritone uke. The second video, at the bottom of the post, is the song performed as a duet by Joan Baez and Judy Collins.
The fifth chapter ofThe Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace brings us into the 20th Century with a section from Jane Addams 1907 book Newer Ideals of Peace. She is the first woman’s voice we hear in The Power of Nonviolence. Her approach to peace work is informed by her work battling poverty, furthering feminism and engaging in electoral politics.
Addams paid a dear price for her pacifism. She was attacked by the newspapers of her day, including the New York Times, for her opposition to entering World War I. Dr. King was similarly attacked the leading newspapers, including the Times, for his opposition to the Vietnam War. Despite this she worked for peace internationally and became founding president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Some believe her opposition to participation in World War I, was the reason he Nobel Peace prize was delayed until 1931.
The first paragraph from the selection from Newer Ideals of Peace subtly brings forward her belief that women are needed in politics to bring forward peace to create a “change in men’s attitude toward war”. This became the focus of her argument for women’s suffrage. Continue reading First US Woman to Win the Nobel Peace Prize 10/17/11→
“War Is Not The Answer, Never Was, Never Will”, by Pat Scanlon, is the Peace Song of the Day for Sunday, October 16th. It’s a cheery and hopeful song! Sung below with a whole chorus of Veterans for Peace.
All around the world, including in Times Square, New York City, New York, people took to the streets today, for the sake of justice and democracy. It is ironic that this song, “Der Traum Ist Aus”, which is about war, peace, and struggle, was performed on September 16, 2011, the day before Occupy Wall Street began.
“Der Traum Ist Aus” (The Dream Is Over) by Rio Reiser, is the Peace Song of the Day for October 15, 2011. I discovered this song while perusing the PeaceSmiths Archives. It was published in the War Resisters League 2006 calendar, “Peace Loving Nations: Music of Peace and Resistance”.
The video shows the song performed in German. At the read more are the words in English.
