9-11-01 was The International Day of Peace

September 14, 2001 11:14 AM

9-11-01 was The International Day of Peace and this is the Culture of Peace Week. Here, take a meme: peace peace peace peace peace peace.
posted by xowie (18 comments total)

Somehow I never thought of peace as a burning piles of wreckage and thousands dead.

There have been many times in the history of the world when people have had to stand up for their right to survive as a people.

As much as I hate war and fear war, the alternative, waiting for death, appeals to me even less. Inaction on our part would be just that, waiting for death.

I don't think I overstate the fact that this is one of the moments when the survival of the United States and the civilized world is at stake. Can we have peace now, without first engaging in war? That remains to be seen. I have a hope that that is true, but my clouded eyes cannot see it today.
posted by dewelch at 11:38 AM on September 14, 2001

Peace.
posted by muckster at 11:39 AM on September 14, 2001

The fight for peace.
posted by owillis at 11:44 AM on September 14, 2001

Peace.
posted by xowie at 12:26 PM on September 14, 2001

As I walk through this wicked world
Searching for light in the darkness of insanity
I ask myself, "Is all hope lost?"
"Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?"
And each time I feel like losin' sight
There's one thing I wanna know,
What’s so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding? Oh
What’s so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?

As I walk on through troubled times
My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes
So where I've gone, and who I trusted
And where is the harmony, sweet harmony
'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away
It just makes me wanna cry,
"What’s so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?" Oh
"What’s so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?"

by Elvis Costello
posted by flowerdale at 12:22 AM on September 15, 2001

And if you can't be with the one you love, honey
love the one you're with.
posted by xowie at 10:06 AM on September 15, 2001

peace will guide the planets
and love will steer the stars
posted by xowie at 2:51 PM on September 15, 2001

What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding

By Nick Lowe, actually.

(these things are important to some of us)
posted by Grangousier at 3:08 PM on September 15, 2001

Grangouisier, you're dead right. My source lead me astray, but I should have known that.
Try one from the guv'nor.

Shipbuilding
posted by flowerdale at 4:48 PM on September 15, 2001

"I am sorry," said Frodo. "But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum."
"You have not seen him," Gandalf broke in.
"No and I don't want to," said Frodo. "I can't understand you. Do you mean to say that you and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death."
"Deserves it!" spoke Gandalf. "I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in punishment. For even the very wise cannot see
all ends."

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
posted by muckster at 7:17 PM on September 15, 2001

Hmm.
What would Uncle Bob say?
Masters of War
posted by flowerdale at 11:42 PM on September 15, 2001

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
If God's on our side He'll stop the next war.
posted by xowie at 4:52 AM on September 16, 2001

The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

WB Yeats
posted by flowerdale at 5:42 AM on September 16, 2001

Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great and will suffice

Robt. Frost
posted by xowie at 7:05 AM on September 16, 2001

I'm not willing to let this thread die without posting more anti-war songs, some of which changed history.

I am in my fifties, which means the Liberal Party of Australia (once again in power) and two Presidents of the USA once spent considerable time plotting the deaths of me and others of my age.

I thought these songs were just scratched curios at the bottom of the record pile, but it seems that they're just as relevant today.

When 2000 came around, I said to my wife how glad I was that the Twentieth Century had ended, and how things were looking up for the world. Boyoboy, how wrong can you be...

We're looking at another Vietnam. The Russian army, which no one ever said minds a fight, fought for ten years. Result? end of the USSR.

And now I've got an 18 y.o. son.

As war looms, the original Buffy reminds us of the hero and the villain...(hint: look in the mirror).

The Universal Soldier

And Bob Dylan looked at the horrors of the ultimate conflict.

Hard Rain
posted by flowerdale at 10:18 PM on September 18, 2001

Masters of War
posted by emf at 12:08 AM on October 23, 2001