Wednesday, December 16, 2009

A Hard Rain's A-gonna Fall

In 1962 Bob Dylan performed A Hard Rain's A-gonna Fall for the first time one month prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1963 in response to a question about if the hard rain was a reference to nuclear fallout. He answered with this.

"No, it's not atomic rain, it's just a hard rain. It isn't the fallout rain. I mean some sort of end that's just gotta happen... In the last verse, when I say, 'the pellets of poison are flooding the waters', that means all the lies that people get told on their radios and in their newspapers."

The Copenhagen Climate Summit has come to an end with a weak non-binding agreement. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change the agreement attempts to cap the warming to two degrees Celsius, though a leaked document from the same organization states that it could lead to a three degree rise.

Here is what was done to get this accord. 1. Invited participants from environmental groups were blocked from entering the conference, and in many cases were arrested because there was a suspicion they might break the law. 2. Developing and third world countries reported that they received extreme pressure from the U.S. and other developed nations to accept higher limit to CO2. This included Hillary Clinton offering a $100 billion fund to help developing nations, but only if a particular accord was accepted (the funding source was undefined). 3. Poor nations were not included in the final negotiations.

So, what do we have? Amy Goodman of Democracy Now reported this.

"In an all-night session that followed Obama’s announcement, delegates from around the world denounced the US-led deal as an undemocratic sham that sacrificed the interests of poor countries. Ambassador Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, who chairs the largest grouping of developing countries called the G-77, though it represents more than 130 countries, condemned the agreement as 'extraordinarily flawed.'”

This agreement sentences nations to extinction. Maldives will cease to exist if we do not do more. Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands: the same. The number of climate refugees will increase as large parts or all of nations drown. The glaciers around the world will melt, turning off the tap for millions. History has told us that this will lead to more regional conflicts.

Unless the United State accepts that our use of fossil fuel is a form a genocide, selectively killing millions of people based upon national origin; unless the United States invests in improving the world rather than attacking sovereign states; unless the citizens of this country force our government and industry to change, if humanity survives my grandchildren will witness the greatest extension of species since the Ice Age.

Literally with tears in my eyes I give you this.

A Hard Rain's A-gonna Fall, Bob Dylan

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin',
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
And, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

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