Jerry Garcia on What It Takes To Get Beyond War

by Robert Wilkinson

It’s Sunday. Before getting back to the astrology of Mercury retrograde now going direct, I got to thinking and did a little more research on Jerry Garcia and his attitude about being anti-war.

Yesterday I paraphrased something Jerry Garcia said about why the Grateful Dead didn’t write and play antiwar songs. After looking for the exact quote, I found something else he said about the subject that explains it perfectly, in his own words in his own unique way.

From classicalvalues.com, I found this: “In his characteristically circular manner, Jerry Garcia explains why the Grateful Dead never bothered with anti-war politics and didn't write anti-war songs -- in a video of anti-war demonstrations to the tune of "Cream Puff War." When you’re done here, check it out, since it’s a great (audio-only) performance by the Dead after the quote! While I could get into some things about why this may not be the perfect stance under some conditions, it’s still something to consider.

Here’s the quote:

It’s tough when someone takes a topical stand and makes their work political, even if the nature of the politics is to say “Give peace a chance.” It’s like what you’re doing is you’re entering in the war game whether you like it or not. Your saying “give peace a chance” is like saying forget about war for a while which is really like saying remember war.

Back in the sixties when everybody was either on one side or the other, we used to spend all our time avoiding being on one side or the other, because in that particular game there’s only one side, and any energy that you give to the idea of war, is war, you know. And it’s all war, and the best thing to do is to drop the whole notion.

I mean fighting about war is just like fighting, fighting about peace. A war is a war, a fight is a fight, and a struggle is a struggle and if you put yourself in that position you’re going to have to pay the dues, and so as far as I was concerned, it was always.

That’s why we never wrote any anti-war songs. It’s because like why participate on any level, why give war any energy. Any energy you give it, glamorizes it; any energy you give it, even to say that it’s a bad trip.”

While often we are called to rise to an occasion and speak truth to power, which just as often gets us entangled in a dispute, we must always be ready to examine why we are attached to the conflict while still doing battle as a Spiritual Warrior. Some do it with words, some do it with ideas, some do it with music, and some refuse to participate in the game of evil by "making progress in the good." The nature of evil is to create war and conflict, even when it is unnecessary. This of course is a redundancy, since all war is unnecessary.

For your consideration, the quote with a great Dead performance that begins about 3 minutes into the clip. A great snap from the past with the oxymoronic title “If you want war, prepare for peace”

Copyright © 2013 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Micheline]

Great article. Andy Garcia is wise man! He is right. I must get around to listening to their music!!!