Sunday, October 9, 2005
Eve of destruction?
Hey, look at the bright side! We can stop working so hard to kill each other by war, street fighting, pollution and disease. That old stand-by sweetie-pie, Mother Nature, has taken it upon herself to show that she can outdo anything we can dream up. In just the few recent months, tsunamis swept over hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia, hurricanes swamped coastal America killing "only" a thousand, an earthquake buried tens of thousands in Pakistan, and a landslide buried a Guatemala town. So relax, we don't have to worry about wiping each other out - it's being taken care of by someone bigger and stronger.

For a lighter way to look at it, and allowing for changes over the last forty years, the 1965 PD Sloan song that Barry McGuire recorded seems alarmingly germane (and which, by the way, is often listed as a really bad Dylanesque ripoff - shows what they know). I particularly like the part about piety-cloaked hatred.
"Don't you understand what I'm tryin' to say, An' can't you feel the fears I'm feelin' today?
There'll be no one to save, with the world in a grave. Take a look around you, boy, it's bound to scare you, boy.
An' you tell me, over and over and over again, my friend, Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction....
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin'. Think of all the hate there is in Red China,
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama. Ah, you may leave here for four days in space,
But when you return it's the same ol' place, The poundin' of the drums, the pride an' disgrace. You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace. Hate your next-door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace,
An' you tell me, over and over and over again, my friend, You don't believe we're on the eve of destruction,
No, no, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction."

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Permalink | | posted by jau at 12:53 PM


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