Help Save the Youth of America

written in 1987, and as relevant today as it was then. Maybe more so.

 

Help save the youth of america

Help save them from themselves

Help save the sun-tanned surfer boys

And the californian girls

 

When the lights go out in the rest of the world

What do our cousins say

They’re playing in the sun and having fun fun fun

Till daddy takes the gun away

 

From the big church to the big river

And out to the shining sea

This is the land of opportunity

And there’s a monkey trial on tv

 

A nation with their freezers full

Are dancing in their seats

While outside another nation

Is sleeping in the streets

 

 

Don’t tell me the old old story

Tell me the truth this time

Is the man in the mask or the indian

An enemy or a friend of mine

 

Help save the youth of america

Help save the youth of the world

Help save the boys in uniform

Their mothers and their faithful girls

 

Listen to the voice of the soldier

Down in the killing zone

Talking about the cost of living

And the price of bringing him home

 

They’re already shipping the body bags

Down by the rio grande

But you can fight for democracy at home

And not in some foreign land

 

And the fate of the great united states

Is entwined in the fate of us all

And the incident at tschernobyl proves

The world we live in is very small

 

And the cities of europe have burned before

And they may yet burn again

And if they do I hope you understand

That washington will burn with them

Omaha will burn with them

Los alamos will burn with them

– Copyright Billy Bragg

 

Monday morning. Some folks are heading back to the picket lines, while some of us are greasing up the cogs in the corporate machine for another week. Heads down, plowing forward, hoping we’re not the next ones to be pitched into the street.

 

I’m not a political person. I don’t believe in Utopia’s. Every attempt I’ve ever seen at creating heaven on earth has unleashed nothing but horror on mankind. But I know that the path we are currently on is heading the wrong way. Changes need to be made. Not wholesale, revolutionary, tear down the system changes, but the more difficult kind. Thoughtful, constructive, and fruitful changes that bring the system into control, and put it back to serving us.

 

I don’t know exactly what the answers are, but I know this. If we continue to serve the system as it now exists, it will consume us.

 

Also? My final edits arrived for my upcoming article in the International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship. (Not to be confused with the National Journal of Social Entrepreneurship apparently). I’m also back to teaching again, so for the next 5 months I’ll be doing my best to corrupt the minds of tomorrow’s youth as a part time adjunct instructor at a local institution of higher education that shall remain nameless, lest I besmirch their reputation.

 

No, not really. My students are all adult learners, ranging in age from late 20’s to mid 50’s. I honestly learn as much from them as they do from me. Maybe more. Sshhhh… don’t tell anyone, or they’ll start charging me to teach, instead of paying me.