“Just to sing…”

“Though your brother's bound and gagged
And they've chained him to a chair”

No, it isn’t Abu Ghraib or march to Guantanamo by Catholics to protest treatment of terror suspects there that has brought these lyrics to my mind.

It is the death of Senator Eugene McCarthy that brings these words to mind.

” Won't you please come to Chicago
Just to sing”

Yesterday, I was at a meeting of people working to Draft Lowell Weicker to run as a Democrat against Joe Lieberman. Weicker served his first term in the Senate in 1972. Gene McCarthy had just left the Senate. Some of the folks who were at the meeting had ‘Come clean with Gene” in 1968.

”In a land that's known as freedom
How can such a thing be fair
Won't you please come to Chicago
For the help we can bring
We can change the world -
Re-arrange the world
It's dying - to get better”

What happened to this drive to change the world? Where have all the flowers gone?”

Meanwhile, I read the news of anti-immigrant riots in Cronulla. The Australian rioters were attacking anyone that appeared to be middle eastern, fueled by their hate for Lebanese. One person wrote, “Went to cronulla today... Was great, only saw 3 leb's... and they were being taken away in ambulances…lol” and “Was a great day though.. heaps of aussie pride.. sure, maybe a bit to much alcahol[sic]...”

I live a few towns away from Danbury, CT, which is a strong Lebanese community. It also has a Mayor who is making national news for his anti-immigrant. I cannot wonder what Lebanese leaders in Danbury think when they read about Cronulla and then about their own Mayor’s actions.

I wish I could end on an upbeat note, yet the lyrics that come to mind are from Willie McBride.

” And did they believe when they answered the call,
Did they really believe that this war would end war?
For the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing and dying were all done in vain,
For, young Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again and again and again and again.”