Living with war in my heart

Yesterday I bought Neil Young’s new album, Living With War. As soon as I put it into the CD player in my truck my heart went heavy, and my spirits rose. It’s plainspoken, anthemic, compassionate and outraged. It’s unpolished, unashamed and inspiring. I read in an interview of Young that he kept waiting for someone in the younger generations to write these songs, and when they didn’t, he had to.

This morning I came across a Salon article about the billion-dollar memorial being proposed for Ground Zero. The author made some choice observations. One is that the number of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan has now surpassed the number killed on 9/11. But the best was this excerpt from the preamble to the Declaration of Independence:

“The history of the present King ... is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States ... He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power ... He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation ... For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences ... For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”

Sound like anybody we know?

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