Posted on 11/25/2012 2:08:29 PM PST by DanMiller
Music and verse have long encouraged churches, nations and others. Perhaps it's time to try that again.
Yesterday, I posted this piece because it provided a brief respite from the horrors of what now passes for civilization. It includes two YouTube videos of "flash mobs" doing their bit for good and a rendition of The Impossible Dream. Descending from my cloud of euphoria, I began to wonder whether music and verse might inspire us to understand what we need to do before it becomes too late.
During the years of Irish Rebellion, songs of revolution inspired many. During the War between the States, songs on both sides did the same. Neither side might have fought as well as they did without them. When I was in college, a history teacher commented that the horse cavalry had provided an element of class to what would otherwise have been dreary battles. Was he right? I think he was, but the horse cavalry has been relegated to purely ceremonial functions, generally involving funerals.
How about some new songs of rebellion, this time against the ever increasing national debt and distribution of pork and other free stuff, ObamaCare, vote fraud, political correctness and coverups? How about some urging the importance of the rights of States and of their citizens to release themselves from the tyranny of excessive Federal meddling? How about some urging the critical importance of freedom of speech?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhp32UYp2UI?feature=player_detailpage]
I am not a poet and were I to try to sing anyone foolish enough even to begin to listen would run away, hands over ears. So, the best I can do is try to provide a few suggestions. Maybe, should there be a demand, poets and musicians will come up with the necessary songs of inspiration.
Music of the Church
The Christian Church has long used music to inspire. Many composers and musicians were long employed for that purpose and some still are. Would Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and others have produced the beautiful music they did without such support? Remember Handel's Messiah? Beautiful music, and when the Hallelujah Chorus is played believers and non-believers alike are inspired to stand. Few can resist the inspiration of such music.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76RrdwElnTU?feature=player_detailpage]
War would be dreadful and should be avoided at any almost any cost except when that leads ultimately to even more bloody wars or worse. That happened in Europe in the 1930s; World War II, which could with relative ease have been avoided, resulted -- against far more powerful enemies than in the mid 1030s.
We have become accustomed to referring to many actions so different from war in the traditional sense that they are nonsensical; we have wars on drugs, wars on AIDS, wars on poverty, wars on obesity and now a (Republican) war on women (according to Democrats). No musical symbolism of actual war accompanies those spurious wars. Perhaps, however, if we are to engage successfully in a "war" on governmental tyranny some of the symbolism of actual war is appropriate.
Music from the War of Northern Aggression War Between the States.
I wrote in The U.S. Constitution and Civil War that the war was fought by the South to preserve the rights of the States and by the North to reunify the nation by force.
According to the National Endowment for the Humanities,
While the Civil War began as a war to restore the Union, not to end slavery, by 1862 President Abraham Lincoln came to believe that he could save the Union only by broadening the goals of the war. The Emancipation Proclamation [of 1864] is generally regarded as marking this sharp change in the goals of Lincoln’s war policy. (Insert added)
I understand that as the history of the war is now generally taught, States' Rights had nothing to do with it and the elimination of slavery was the sole issue. That was not the case. Did the Union begin to sense only in 1862 that the idea of rooting out slavery in the South had to be claimed as the cause because of the inspiration it could provide? I don't know. Be that as it may, many in the United States view the war "to preserve slavery" as a horrid disgrace to the South. It was not and was far from that.
That is also coming to be case with the origins of the nation as a whole.
[A]cademia's systemic hatred for America's cultural traditions and her Judeo-Christian heritage is reaching a fevered pitch. The volume in the echo chamber created by academia, big government, and the mainstream media grows with each election cycle and each major holiday. As many Americans tend to view these opinions as alien caricatures of values which they hold dear, the kooks on the left become more and more frenzied in their effort to "fundamentally transform" America. Case in point: A recent link on the Drudge Report led to a link about an article by a professor at the University of Texas.
In this piece, the author states:
Thanksgiving is the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers.
And further writes:
How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis?
Of course, such shallow analysis and views aren't all that new. Most of us realize that such views are the offspring of 1960's radicalism. Many of those radicals now hold positions of power in academia, government and the media and their worldview is dominant - at least within those institutions. But what's troubling is that this mindset is being foisted upon the minds of America's youth - at all levels of our educational system and often without the knowledge of parents. For example, it was recently reported that some Texas schools are teaching students that the Boston Tea Party was an "act of terrorism." (Emphasis in original.)
If the very origins of the United States are increasingly seen as pernicious, perhaps songs of the South might help to put other matters in better perspective as well. The Civil War is an important part of our history and we neither can nor should forgot it. Since I view the Civil War as having been fought principally to restore the rights of the States under the Constitution, and consider the rights of the States to be even more insidiously endangered today than even in the 1860s, I have selected only songs of the Confederacy. Some of their symbolism could be useful.
To Arms in Dixie
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vPVTqWJd28?feature=player_detailpage]
The Irish Brigade
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ot7amDyqbY?feature=player_detailpage]
The Battle Cry of Freedom
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogVKbpaFBz4?feature=player_detailpage]
To Arms in Dixie (another version)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd1oA47Ti0I?feature=player_detailpage]
Here are some from the Irish rebellion.
The Irish rebellion was in some ways similar to the American War Between the States. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem achieved popularity, as did their Irish songs, in the 1960s. The group split up but in 1984 got back together and sang for a few years. Liam Clancy, the last of the Clancy Brothers, died in 2009 and Tommy Makem died in 2007. Their songs have survived and many of their most popular songs relate to the Irish rebellions. Here are a few of my favorites:
God Bless England [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CySri9RAuQ?feature=player_detailpage]
In some ways, England's "love" for the ignorant Irish reminds me of the "love" the Federal Government professes for "its people," for whom it claims to seek only the best in keeping them on the Federal plantation.
Rising of the Moon [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWA8Nr5uIMU?feature=player_detailpage]
Dr. Johnson's Motor Car [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcdOCT_LirE?feature=player_detailpage]
Here's one from World War I.
That was a bloody war, with many needless deaths.
Over There [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbggEGUaE28?feature=player_detailpage]
Here's one from World War II.
Bless them all
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf4jhb9p2v8?feature=player_detailpage]
That was also a needless war that should have been prevented in proactive fashion during the 1930s. It wasn't, because a "peace at any price" notion commonly prevailed. We now see much the same, not only in the United States but throughout the non-Islamist, "civilized" world. The Middle East today provides striking examples and Israel likely faces a far bloodier and otherwise worse war to come than would have resulted from her continued efforts to root out the aggressive evils of Hamas and its Islamist allies.
We do not desire a bloody war, but neither did most of the people of England in the 1930s. Some of the best and brightest of the young agreed with the now infamous Oxford Resolution of 1933, "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country." In The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill wrote,
In this dark time the basest sentiments received acceptance or passed unchallenged by the responsible leaders of the political parties. In 1933, the students of the Oxford Union, under the inspiration of a Mr. Joad, passed their ever-shameful resolution, "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country." It was easy to laugh off such an episode in England, but in Germany, in Russia, in Italy, in Japan, the idea of a decadent, degenerate Britain took deep root and swayed many calculations. Little did the foolish boys who passed the resolution dream that they were destined quite soon to conquer or fall gloriously in the ensuing war, and prove themselves the finest generation ever bred in Britain. Less excuse can be found for their elders, who had no chance of self-redemption in action.
Some of that rings true today. As freedom wanes, we have become increasingly decadent and far too many have become willingly dependent upon -- and beholden to -- governments for the necessities and non-necessities they provide. As the "free stuff" continues to flow unabated, many recipients (along with those who enable them) evidently see less need for the freedoms which permit the exercise of personal responsibility and even a modicum of self reliance. Since they don't value those freedoms why should anyone else -- taxed to provide them the "free stuff" they crave -- cherish those freedoms? Obviously they must just be selfish jerks who hate the less fortunate who had nothing to do with causing their own misfortunes because "somebody else" did that.
Governmental ability to continue to maintain them in the style to which they have become accustomed is finite and a time will eventually come when it is no longer possible unless they are weaned off the governmental teat. What will happen when the ObamaPhones break and are not replaced, when patients who would otherwise have been treated do not receive the benefits they were promised under ObamaCare and when Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and food stamps are drastically curtailed because there is no more ObamaMoney to provide them? Will the previously content recipients riot or worse? Can we avoid becoming another Greece? The old Grecian Formula Sixteen slogan, "a little dab will do ya," hasn't applied thus far and instead of a "little dab" it has been seen as shovel ready to be heaped on with abandon.
We should use the means necessary to restore and preserve freedom and also the spirit of freedom in the United States; without that spirit, freedom will die. Music lifts and enables our spirits and can also help to "make the medicine go down in a most delightful way." We should at least try. It should be fun and might even do some good.
Weren’t there protest songs in the ‘60s? Didn’t seem to change things once people realized the musicians were becoming richer than “the Man” they were protesting against.
Oh, right, we're there.
“I’m a Good Old American”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRtlUi3OJ_c
3 years old, but still relevant
It is ALREADY war. It simply hasn’t evolved into mass bloodshed and violence yet.
But it will. History teaches that fact, and it is an inevitable course we are on.
Either Conservative Christians will simply be criminalized and gotten rid of with their surrendered compliance, or there is going to be resistance when the MarxoFascist state makes their last mistake and someone fights back.
We are being pushed into this deliberately - and the longer it takes to resolve the issue - the greater the conflict is going to be. What is being orchestrated against what remains of liberty is another French Revolution, where the Have Nots, go to war on the Haves at the behest of a revolutionary state and slaughter them en-masse. A society where jealousies and hatreds blow an institutionalized Terror wide open. I found that life may imitate art after seeing the latest Batman movie.
And yes, your assessment on the cause of the Civil War is correct - it was NOT about Slavery. Simply look at the date of the firing on Fort Sumpter and when the Emancipation Declaration was made. Lincoln was losing support for his war in the Northeast - who were of a growing opinion to let the South go - and he decided to create a moral imperative for the war. Slavery was that choice of moral imperative.
To our own generation that finds itself in the pre-dawn hours of another civil conflict, maybe that would be God’s judgment on us for infanticide for starters.
If the Civil war was punishment for the institution of Slavery - I shudder tho think what God will require for the extermination of an entire generation of Americans in the womb.
Musically, it is going to be hymns that hold what remains of the religious to their principles in the dark days to come.
The Lincoln-GOPe pretty much abandoned slavery as an issue in the 1864 election anyways to get support from War Democrats. They even put a Democrat on the National Union ticket.
Thanks for the Cold War songs! I appreciate them.
The Lincoln-GOPe pretty much abandoned slavery as an issue in the 1864 election anyways to get support from War Democrats. They even put a Democrat on the National Union ticket.
Excellent!
"The Good Old Rebel," from which this was taken, was written in 1914. Incredibly, this version has received nearly three quarters of a million Youtube hits--a century and a half after Appomattox.
The Good Old Rebel--Hoyt Axton
“That happened in Europe in the 1930s; World War II, which could with relative ease have been avoided”
Only an idiot would think that. They fail to know and understand the violence liberals like the NAZI use to get their way. As Reagan said, a liberal is someone that reads Marx but a conservative is one that understands Marx.
“The Good Old Rebel,” from which this was taken’
yup. I have the 2nd South Carolina String Band’s version. pretty hard core.
Then Winston Churchill must have been an "idiot." In The Gathering Storm, he wrote extensively of the many German treaty violations which were blissfully ignored by England and Europe in misguided hopes for "peace in our time." Had Germany not been permitted to rearm, construct war ships and to begin rebuilding her air force with "civilian flying clubs," violating the treaty which had ended WWI, and to begin to gain "lebensraum" also in violation, her military posture would not have permitted her to begin WWII.
Waiting and hoping for peace rarely bring it.
Although the Nazis would likely have continued to use violence on the German people, they would not on that account have been in a position to extend that violence throughout Europe.
Was Churchill also an "idiot" when he warned of the descending Iron Curtain? I don't think so.
I. Like. That!
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