Anti-War Essential

CBC News
Popular singer Bulent Ersoy... is charged with turning the public against military service.

The trial of a popular Turkish singer accused of criticizing Turkey's armed forces was postponed on Wednesday after she failed to appear in court.

Bulent Ersoy, 56, was not present in court in Istanbul on Wednesday, saying in a petition that she was unable to attend due to concert obligations.

The judge ordered her to appear at the next hearing, scheduled for Sept. 24.

In February, while appearing on a local television program, the singer questioned sending so many young Turkish soldiers "to their deaths," and said that if she had a son, she would not allow him to fight.

At the time, Turkish soldiers fighting Kurdish separatists had been in the midst of battles in northern Iraq.

Several individuals lodged official complaints against the performer, saying that her comments could discourage young men from their compulsory military service or negatively influence current soldiers.

Under Turkish law, it is a crime to discourage or denounce military service. If found guilty, Ersoy faces several years in prison.

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The decision to go to war is something that, like many things, the majority of the population has no say in. Even though we live in a dempcracy, we have no input . The population is there to cheerlead, of get into debate club discussions. Manufacture consent is one apt way to put this undemocratic feature of modern governments.

Anti-war movements are hopeful signs that perhaps the people can do something about it. People challenge power, and discover how power works in the process. They have a complaint about the war, and through aactivism, develop a radical analysis. (I heard Michael Parenti say words to that affect.)

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"We can never forget that everything that Hitler did in Germany was 'legal,' and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did was 'illegal.' It was 'illegal' to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany, but I am sure that if I lived in Germany during that time I would have comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal ... we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive." Martin Luther King Jr.

I am a backseat driver from America
They drive to the left on Falls Road
The man at the wheel's name is Seamus
We pass a child on the corner he knows
And Seamus says,"Now, what chance has that kid got?"
And I say from the back,"I don't know."
He says,"There's barbed wire at all of these exits
And there ain't no place in Belfast for that kid to go."

It's a hard life
It's a hard life
It's a very hard life
It's a hard life wherever you go
If we poison our children with hatred
Then, the hard life is all they'll ever know
And there ain't no place in Belfast for these kids to go

A cafeteria line in Chicage
The fat man in front of me
Is calling black people trash to his children
He's the only trash here I see
And I'm thinking this man wears a white hood
In the night when his children should sleep
But, they slip to their window and they see him
And they think that white hood's all they need

It's a hard life
It's a hard life
It's a very hard life
It's a hard life wherever you go
If we poison our children with hatred
Then, the hard life is all they'll ever know
And there ain't no place in Chicago for these kids to go

I was a child in the sixties
Dreams could be held through TV
With Disney and Cronkite and Martin Luther
Oh, I believed, I believed, I believed
Now, I am a backstreet driver from America
I am not at the wheel of control
I am guilty, I am war I am the root of all evil
Lord, and I can't drive on the left side of the road
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that song in 1990. I had helped organize an anti-war rally and asked a friend, whose name I have forgotten, to perform. The Nanci Griffin song was recorded and used to open a film on the local (Olympia, WA) anti-war movement. I had always thought my friend wrote the song, until I came across a recording of Nanci's.. The line "If we poison our children with (anger)" is a line that remains with me to this day.
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Heaven
That's a pretty song when you're trying to force yourself to cry...

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