Fandango’s Provocative Question #32
For this week’s provocative question, I am going to do something I haven’t before done in my provocative question prompt. I’m going to post something a fellow blogger wrote. In this case, the blogger is Judy Dykstra-Brown, and in one of her recent posts she wrote:
WORDS
Oh my name it ain’t nothin’
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I was taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side
Oh, the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh, the country was young
With God on its side
The Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War, too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I was made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side
The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don’t count the dead
When God’s on your side
The Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now, too
Have God on their side
I’ve learned to hate the Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It’s them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side
But now we got weapons
Of chemical dust
If fire them, we’re forced to
Then fire, them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side
Through many a dark hour
I’ve been thinkin’ about this
That Jesus Christ was
Betrayed by a kiss
But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I’m leavin’
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feelin’
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
That if God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war
I thought I’d let Bob Dylan answer this one for me. Written in the early 1960s, it hasn’t gotten old. If anything, it’s more relevant now than it was then.
War never gets old and it seems we never tire of it. We never run out of reasons to fight. In every war throughout human history, God is on every side. Everyone claims him and is sure that all the horrors they perpetrate are “in God’s name.”
Since God has never made any comment on this, my best guess — should there be a god:
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
That if God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war
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Categories: god and gods, lyrics, Marilyn Armstrong, Music, Provocative Questions, War and battles
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
After Mike Pence visited the detention centers and had a photo op, “fake Christian” was trending on Twitter. I am sure 45 and his evil minions believe in the evil they are doing.
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God is probably on THEIR side, too.
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Probably not, but you can’t tell them that.
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We don’t have to tell them. I’m sure they know it already. Are, in fact, absolutely sure of it.
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You are absolutely right. The song fits it perfectly.
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I think this is why we keep listening to those songs of our youth. They had something to say. Most songs these days don’t talk about anything important. A few do, but most don’t.
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That’s spot on!
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Dylan so often was.
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👍
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Brilliant response Marilyn. Brilliant.
Now I have to find another song for my post….🤔
(just kidding)
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It kind of is a natural, isn’t it.
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Perfect!
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More evil has been done in the name of God. We need forgiveness…
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I’m not sure about that. Forgive who exactly? Maybe we need better laws to protect other people from ourselves.
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You have to enforce those laws…
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That’s always been the problem, hasn’t it? We can make laws, but we need the population to have respect for law — and mostly, to obey without a gun to their head. You can’t have a police force to make EVERYONE do the right thing. Most people in human culture have to do the right thing because it s the right thing.
Without enforcement.
If everyone does whatever they feel like doing without regard for the good of others, what we have is chaos and eventually, total tyranny.
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Unfortunately, a lot of people think the definition of democracy is ” everyone does whatever they feel like doing without regard for the good of others..” and that just isn’t so.
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No, it isn’t. Quite the opposite. Democracy is a fragile thing and requires citizens to CARE about keeping their government alive and healthy. That kind of selfishness is what is ruining us.
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I agree….
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Perfect response!
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If you are our age, that IS the song when someone says “With God on our side.” We grew up with it, after all. Or at least I sure did 😀
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So funny, when I saw the title of the post I said, “Hey! That’s a Bob Dylan song!” So I wasn’t surprised when you answered the question with that song.
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Bob did have a knack for saying what we are thinking. Back then and maybe now, too. Funny how relevant is has remained.
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A lot of his protest era songs are still very relevant. Unfortunately, some are more relevant now than they have been for decades….
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And that is both demoralizing and very frightening. But then again, war has never gone out of style, not even for a decade. There’s ALWAYS a war going on, or at least there has been as long as I can remember — which it back to Korea, listening to the news about it on the radio with my mother. And her commentary, which was always way ahead of her time.
You know, I remember it was during Vietnam and there were protests and I was involved in some. Not most. I had a little one and a fulltime job, so there were time limitations … and friends and a husband and dogs and cats and a home and at that point, an exceptionally lively social life.
So I pointed out to my mother that if we weren’t sending all that money to make war in Vietnam, there would be money to do things here, at home. Maybe do something about the medical care (my husband and I went almost bankrupt following my spine surgery … and we HAD insurance. It just didn’t cover everything and it was expensive surgery — and then Owen was born with club feet. It wiped us out and we never were able to rebuild after that. So WAY back then, My issue was healthcare. Funny how it still is. But I digress.
My mother raised an eyebrow and looked at me, and she said: “There will always be plenty of money for war, but there will never be enough to fix what’s wrong in this country. Never was, never will be.”
I was taken aback and I thought she was being too cynical.
But you know? She was absolutely right. Wars end and the war-making money vanishes. Never does it go toward healthcare or education. It just disappears as if it never existed and no one seems to question it. Because we all know — there’s war money, and then there’s “real” money. Apparently fixing things that would make life better is more real than war, which is obviously fake.
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