The Story's Still The Same

Tonight I am working at Petaluma's Aqus Cafe with an actor friend - Roger Marquis - on a set of readings from two different wars that have, to a certain extent bookended my life to this point. The show will be presented on Monday and Tuesday evening at the cafe and if you're in Petaluma this week, I hope you will drop in (Aqus Cafe - 7:30pm Monday and Tuesday admission FREE).

As a whole - along with my rather personal involvement with issues that surrounded the Central American wars of the Reagan years - this is a theme that has occupied my life from the time I was fourteen up to this moment as I type this on my computer. I even produced a song (now 25 years old) by Ken Medema that I will be playing as part of the show, and which could not be a better lead in to what we have conceived for this performance, The Story's Still The Same!

It would be nice (and rather a bit fanciful) if I could imagine that these wars really are bookends in my life and that we might be moving to some other place in world reality, but that seems unlikely. We seem, instead, to be moving to a time, similar to that which Orwell imagined, of endless war for the purpose of commerce and distraction.

In the shadow of Armistice Day and in the presence of a Petaluma Historical Museum exhibit that glorifies the VietNam War and refuses to give appropriate attention to the questionable (and immoral) circumstances that took us into, and kept us in, that war, while so many people (both U.S. and Vietnamese) died and suffered, I find this one of the most important things I have ever worked on.

Act One of "Winter Soldiers" is a dramatic reading of the direct testimony of veterans at the first Winter Soldier hearings in 1971, Act Two comes from the testimony of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, given as testimony at a second set of hearings in 2008. As I work with this material, dig through photos, videos, writings, and testimony, I find my emotions torn apart.

I have been actively working against war for 42 years!

One of the most important conversations I have ever had in my life occurred in Los Angeles about the time I produced the song I mentioned above. My friend (who will likely be reading this) made the suggestion that out of Justice, Truth and Beauty, he had been inundated with Justice and Truth and was ready for a little Beauty. The statement stopped me in my tracks, and I conitnue to reflect on it - regularly - today.

Has anything that I did, am doing, or will do made a damn bit of difference in all of this? I don't think so.

The wars still go on... the excuses still fly... the military/industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about continues to make bank on the spoils of war.

The Story's Still The Same... but I keep wondering if there is some way to change it.

Is it possible to BE THE CHANGE that Gandhi referred to?

My life has been turned upside down once more by the process of working on this show. Even in this embryonic form that we will present in Petaluma on the next two nights, the testimonies, the questions, and the declarations of courage and hope have given me a determination to seek and hope for justice, truth and beauty once again.

Semper Fi is what the Marines say... These principles, hopes, dreams and desires for Justice, Truth, and Beauty are the things to which I can similarly dedicate MY life.