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BELATED ANTI-WAR SONG FOR THE 4TH DAY OF JULY

How can we celebrate the 4th of July without acknowleging the children who have been maimed and killed in our two unjust wars with Vietnam and Iraq ? How can we celebrate our Independence in a world that is now interdependent ? How can we possibly escape the karma of the hundreds of thousands of children who have been innocent victims of our blind arrogance and stupidity ? We can't and we must make amends soon or we will eventually suffer the karmic fate of humiliation, disgrace and universal contempt : Allen L Roland
Posed on his wooden horse of hubris, and playing his guitar of death ~ George W Bush has become a modern day Don Quixote flailing away at the windmills of the evil world that he himself has created.
Meanwhile, the world clearly sees Bush for
what he really is and what we refuse to acknowledge ~ a moral coward masquerading as a world leader.
As such, the lyrics of a song by Tom Rapp in the early 70's seems appropriate for, in reality, it is an ode to hundreds of thousands of forgotten children who were sacrificed for our ongoing blind hubris and greed.
And all our hands are stained with their innocent blood .
Allen L Roland
THE FOURTH DAY OF JULY
And it came to pass on the first day of July The last man home from Vietnam was going to arrive The ship came in so silently, its bow a ghostly white And when they looked upon the decks, there was not a man inside
Then the sea began to roll and from the ship a moaning A line of broken children, all from the ship a-coming The light of death was in their eyes The broken children of Vietnam On the first day of July
Like a war beyond control, to Washington at dawn A line of ghostly children upon the White House lawn Grown men did turn away, not to see it anymore To see the burning child running to the White House door No one found a place to hide The burning children of Vietnam On the second of July
All across America a line ten miles long The dead children all coming home From the land of Vietnam To men who got too far away From what was done in their name Someday must all have to pay Who never saw a child die The dead children are coming home Four days in July
On every door and window across this sad gray land A mark that would never go away of a thousand thousand hands A voice like voices in a dream A voice like somebody else’s scream Or not somebody else’s scream A voice within a fire The burning children of Vietnam On the third day of July
Then they came upon the sea, it did open up before them A line of children all with wounds, upon the ocean walking Then the sky began to rain And beat the land with tears of rage And every year upon that day if a hundred years go by It rains upon America On the fourth day of July
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