A Special Message from Pete Seeger

Protest music has been around for thousands of years. It just leaks out every so often and helps make history. A group of young people and not-so-young people have gotten together to sing one of my songs that I wrote around 1965 about the Vietnam War. And they’ve done what I did a few years ago; they’re singing it about the situation in Iraq. “Bring ’em Home!” You can watch them singing and share it with your friends right here: http://www.workingfamiliesparty.org/bringthemhome/ What they are saying is we need to send the politicians a message in a language they understand: election day votes. Here in New York, voting on the Working Families line is the best way to tell the politicians, bring them home, bring them home. We’re in a very dangerous situation. The problems in the Middle East are not going away they’re getting worse. Churchill said, anybody who thinks, when they get into a war, that they know what’s going to happen, is fooling themselves. With all the power that the American military establishment has, they still cannot predict all the things that are going to happen. To quote Martin Luther King, the weakness of violence is that it always creates more violence. Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. That’s the message at the end of the song, “the world needs teachers, books and schools . . . And learning a few universal rules.” I’m glad they left that verse in. Watch the video and then pass it on: http://www.workingfamiliesparty.org/bringthemhome/ There’s a saying from William James a young friend painted on my barn. It goes: “I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for all those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual . . . like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride.” Apply this to the current situation: Take this email and forward it to your friends and family. Technology will save us if it doesn’t wipe us out first. We need to spread this message. Back in the sixties, I’d go from college to college to college singing songs. That’s how folk songs were shared. Sure, some person who thought it was an unpatriotic song might boo, but a few seconds later he’d be drowned out by a few thousands voices who started cheering enthusiastically. Made the poor guy start thinking. Change comes through small organizations. You divide up the jobs: Some people sing bass, some sing soprano. Some copy the sheet music, others drive and pick up those who ride the subway. You take small steps. They all add up. Take a small step today. Here’s your part: Tell your family and your friends about what we can do to send a message to the politicians to bring our troops home. And then vote on election day. The very worst thing is for people to say: “My vote doesn’t count. So why bother to vote at all?” Our votes do count. And if we vote to bring the troops home, they count even more. Let’s bring them home: http://www.workingfamiliesparty.org/bringthemhome/ In solidarity, Pete Seeger