Gil Scott-Heron - Work for Peace on Memorial Day!

[cascadiance]

Run time: 07:08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPqpV9olIlw   Posted on YouTube: April 20, 2009 By YouTube Member: ribeye280 Views on YouTube: 17988   Posted on DU: May 30, 2011 By DU Member: cascadiance Views on DU: 498

 
If there's a song today that this great singer in his last days would want us to listen to today it would be this one. Edwin Starr who gave us that great song "War", left us right when the Iraq War started. Now Gill Scott-Heron leaves us just days before this Memorial Day in a time when we really need to try and make this day more about celebrating our veteran's service for honorable causes in the future instead of being tainted by so many of our continuous wars that many people have a hard time giving an honest tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in their belief that they are doing it to protect our country.

Let's work for peace as Mr. Heron asks us so that we can make future tributes on this day one that we can all give full honor to those that have given an ultimate sacrifice for us.

"Work For Peace"

Back when Eisenhower was the President,
Golf courses was where most of his time was spent.
So I never really listened to what the President said,
Because in general I believed that the General was politically dead.
But he always seemed to know when the muscles were about to be flexed,
Because I remember him saying something, mumbling something about a Military
Industrial Complex.
Americans no longer fight to keep their shores safe,
Just to keep the jobs going in the arms making workplace.
Then they pretend to be gripped by some sort of political reflex,
But all they're doing is paying dues to the Military Industrial Complex.
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.
The Military and the Monetary,
get together whenever they think its necessary,
They turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries, they are turning the
planet into a cemetery.
The Military and the Monetary, use the media as intermediaries,
they are determined to keep the citizens secondary, they make so many
decisions that are arbitrary.
We're marching behind a commander in chief,
who is standing under a spotlight shaking like a leaf.
but the ship of state had landed on an economic reef,
so we knew he was going to bring us messages of grief.
The Military and the Monetary,
were shielded by January and went storming into February,
Brought us pot bellied generals as luminaries,
two weeks ago I hadn't heard of the son of a bitch,
now all of a sudden he's legendary.
They took the honour from the honourary,
they took the dignity from the dignitaries,
they took the secrets from the secretary,
but they left the bitch an obituary.
The Military and the Monetary,
from thousands of miles away in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
had us all scrambling for our dictionaries,
cause we couldn't understand the fuckin vocabulary.
Yeah, there was some smart bombs,
but there was some dumb ones as well,
scared the hell out of CNN in that Baghdad hotel.
The Military and the Monetary,
they get together whenever they think its necessary,
War in the desert sometimes sure is scary,
but they beamed out the war to all their subsidiaries.
Tried to make So Damn Insane a worthy adversary,
keeping the citizens secondary,
scaring old folks into coronaries.
The Military and the Monetary,
from thousands of miles in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
kept us all wondering if all of this was really truely, necessary.
We've got to work for Peace,
Peace ain't coming this way.
If we only work for Peace,
If everyone believed in Peace the way they say they do,
we'd have Peace.
The only thing wrong with Peace,
is that you can't make no money from it.
The Military and the Monetary,
they get together whenever they think its necessary,
they've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet, into a cemetery.
Got to work for Peace,
Peace ain't coming this way.
We should not allow ourselves to be mislead,
by talk of entering a time of Peace,
Peace is not the absence of war,
it is the absence of the rules of war and the threats of war and the
preparation for war.
Peace is not the absence of war,
it is the time when we will all bring ourselves closer to each other,
closer to building a structure that is unique within ourselves
because we have finally come to Peace within ourselves.
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.
Get together whenever they think its necessary,
they've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning parts of the planet, into a cemetery.
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
We hounded the Ayatollah religiously,
Bombed Libya and killed Quadafi's son hideously.
We turned our back on our allies the Panamanians,
and saw Ollie North selling guns to the Iranians.
Watched Gorbachev slaughtering Lithuanians,
We better warn the Amish,
they may bomb the Pennsylvanians.
The Military and the Monetary,
get together whenever they think its necessary,
they have turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet, into a cemetery.
I don't want to sound like no late night commercial,
but its a matter of fact that there are thousands of children all over the
world in Asia and Africa and in South America who need our help.
When they start talking about 55 cents a day and 70 cents a day,
I know a lot of folks feel as though that,
thats not really any kind of contribution to make,
but we had to give up a dollar and a half just to get in the subway
nowadays.
So this is a song about tomorrow and about how tomorrow can be better. if we
all, "Each one reach one, Each one try to teach one".
Nobody can do everything,
but everybody can do something,
everyone must play a part,
everyone got to go to work, Work for Peace.
Spirit Say Work, Work for Peace
If you believe the things you say, go to work.
If you believe in Peace, time to go to work.
Cant be wavin your head no more, go to work.

[sellitman]

1. I loved his music

He died way to young.