Out On the Edge of Darkness

(“Trouble, oh trouble, set me free…”

Long past time for a little peace.

(FP’ed 12:15 AM, PDT, September 18, 2007) – promoted by exmearden)

In the summer of 1970 an English singer/songwriter by the name of Steven Demetre Georgiou wrote a song about peace. 

The world needed to hear one.  Two million men, women, and children had been killed in Vietnam.  50,000 young American soldiers were also dead.  Despite Pentagon reports of progress; years of bombing villages, shelling villages, and burning villages from the Mekong Delta to the DMZ had somehow failed to win the hearts and minds of the traumatized survivors.  Concerned that America’s honor and resolve had not been sufficiently displayed yet, Richard Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia, and the consequences were horrific as two million more human beings died in the killing fields of the Khymer Rouge. 

Steven Demetre Georgiou knew that writing and recording Peace Train would not end the killing in Southeast Asia. But since its release in 1971, this Cat Stevens song has won more hearts and minds around the world than Pentagon weaponry ever has or ever will.  Cynics dismiss it as futile and naive cheerleading for peace, but as Iraq descends into barbarity and the BushCo/corporate media drumbeat for attacking Iran grows louder, fearful millions weary of hate and greed and killing are hoping that somewhere, out on the edge of this gathering darkness, there rides a peace train.

I admire heartfelt appeals for peace.  Like Yusuf Islam, I believe in the power of hope and optimism, they can sustain us through the darkest of times when all else seems lost. But seven years of Bush/Cheney treachery and Democratic cowering have drained our hope and optimism until there’s very little left. Pathological liars and moral cowards in Washington keep taking turns posturing as responsible American leaders while our soldiers keep dying and the bullets keep flying and the NSA keeps spying and we all keep trying to be heard so we can finally bring this nightmare to an end. 

Many of us hope that Peace Train Yusuf Islam is singing about is out there somewhere, but it doesn’t seem to be heading our way.  It doesn’t seem to be moving at all.  So some of us have given up waiting for it.  Some of us want to go find it.  Others are hoping it will roll into view on January 20, 2009 with Al Gore at the throttle, or Obama, or Edwards, or Kucenich, or Dodd, or Mrs. Bill Clinton.

But there is no Peace Train waiting to be found out there on the edge of darkness somewhere, it’s not going to head our way simply because we hope it will.  The Peace Train we seek, the Peace Train this country longs for, the Peace Train this world so desperately needs is in each of us.  I’m a peace train, you’re a peace train, Buhdy and Turkana and OPOL and Nightprowlkitty are peace trains.  Every progressive is a peace train.  Everyone who speaks out against injustice is a peace train. 

Thousands of peace trains rolled into Washington DC on September 15, hundreds of thousands of peace trains will be seen in towns and cities across this country on September 21, Iraq Moratorium Day.  Millions of peace trains will throw these warmongers out of power next year. 

We have to take back this country, we have to bring it home again.

Believe in it.

Think about the good things to come, dream about the world as one.

Someday it’s going to come.  And when it does, generations living in a world of peace and justice will look back on these dark days and remember what we did here.