What have we ever learned?????

Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago,
'Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley-folk below.

On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley-people swore
They'd have it for their very own.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they'd kill.

Came an answer from the kingdom,
"With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there."

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

Now the valley cried with anger,
"Mount your horses! Draw your sword!"
And they killed the mountain-people,
So they won their just reward.

Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it...
"Peace on Earth" was all it said.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

Tomorrow it's Memorial Day and memories run deep...why the hell are we going backwards? We have the science and the technology to move into the future and yet there are groups of people that would take us back to the tenth century. What the hell people, grow the fuck up and grow a sac while your at it.

I am talking to all of you, of all stripes and beings, get a fucking grip on reality and move us forward to a world that finds peace a better alternative to the death of our young men and women for pointless causes, simply because a "higher power" seems to command it.

All I ask for this day is that we all take a long look at what we have created in our race to make the world perfectly awful ... dominion over the earth is not a licence to kill, rape, and pillage our own resources or our fellow humans.

To quote someone much more astute than I..."Give peace a chance"..John Lennon.

Take time today to remember fallen friends and those who remain unknown.Respect the price they paid for our own idiocy. And never ever give up the struggle for peace in your childrens lifetime. They are the one who will inherit the mess we leave them, not to mention all the oil that BP has given us.(sarcasm but the truth as well).

Some lessons take a lifetime to learn...Peace, Love, and Light...Tau

Ten soldiers and Nixon's coming...remember?

This is a repost of something I wrote a couple years back but I have to say it again, because it is to important to forget...Kent State University 40 years ago, and still important more than ever now. From an old Woodie Guthrie song brings to mind a simple question..."How many deaths does it take till we know, that to many people have died?"

How many does it take? How about countless thousands in Darfur, or how about 50,000 plus in VietNam, or maybe its 4,0000 and counting in Iraq, oops I forgot the 1.25 million Iraq soldiers and mostly civilians, then again maybe its the 33 students killed at Virginia Tech, at the hands of a poor delusional nut, is that enough or should we add more...?

Maybe four more...the four that should count pehaps the loudest. May 4, 1970, a date that should live in infamy, four students, some exercising the right of free speech and some not, died at Kent State University because our own soldiers, Americans themselves, following immoral orders, turned as they were retreating and opened fire on unarmed civilians. At a school! American soldiers , most not more than kids themselves, shooting at unarmed kids. All in the name of politics and "moral outrage". This has been swept away in the gift of forgetfullness, for the vast majority, but to this writer it was a life changing experience. I found myself questioning freedom itself and our inherrant right to express it in our own way. Maybe that is why I taught all my kids to "question authority", which they have done, way to well at times.

I was in the Navy at the time, fairly gung ho and all proud till that fateful day, in an instant I changed, I came to the realization that no war is worth such a price and I could not support such an unjust cause. This is just not what ones pride and sense of justice is able to understand, and to this day I still dont. What the hell were we all dieing for, and I mean troops and civilians.

In a day or so I will turn 58 and though its been a long hard road, my deepest feelings have not changed. In these past 40 years many things have changed and unchanged as the case may be, I am still a "hippie" and a "peacenik", but now we find ourselves yet again facing the horrid reality of an immoral, illegal, and lost war. A war with more horrid implications than I care to think on. Not only are our rights being eroded or stolen at will, but the voice against it is weaker it seems and perhaps with good reason, perhaps not enough remember....or maybe to many are just afraid to stand anymore because to many have died. So tomorrow I will don my "remember Kent State" shirt and do just that....remember.


Those of you that are to young won't remember because most History books will ignore ...those of you that do had better learn and remember to stand for what is meant to stand for freedomm in the 21st century.

Peace, love, and light to all and I Hope Beltane was happy for you all..

TR...

P.S. those of you that know it, turn on your music boxes and listen to CSN&Y,or just do what it takes to never forget. Per the Declaration...Life, Lberty, and the persuit of Happiness...they died for that right!

PSS.. Remember the right of all people to tie the knot...support equal right for everyone.