Okay you guys I need your help!

Believe it or not, we are having a Black Vigil in THIS small republican town , and we even have a minister presiding (as spokesperson against the Iraq war)...many many people are showing up , in black, in SILENT protest on Dec 12 at noon here.
Heres the deal..Ive been asked to direct and create an anti war play...to be presented in January...so I need as MANY anti war songs, quotes, poetry, etc you can find...I will research also, I can find Twains war prayer..I figure a play that just uses ALL the quotes of History against war, all the songs and lyrics, even the letters of soldiers and children and civilians would be the most provocative way to do a play..I also need as many quotes from Jesus (yes it would be a good idea to use this in the play in this town), that are against war and for peace..
IF you have a lyric, quote, song, poem, historical figure who speaks against war and injustice, please PM me and leave it for me so I can print it out...I have to get started on this..My stepson goes to Iraq in January and I need to fight with this play and the Black Vigil.....Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Blesses are the peacemakers" - JC
"All we are saying is give peace a chance" - J Lennon

Mark 9:50 - Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.

Romans 8:6 - For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Johnny Got His Gun - Dalton Trumbo. This book could just be read out loud and would satisfy your needs.

"All Quiet On The Western Front".

'He fell in October, on a day that was so silent and still that the Army report for that day was confined to the single sentence: "All quiet on the Western Front".
He had fallen forward. Turning him over, one could see that he could not have suffered long. His face was calm and peaceful, as if almost glad the end had come at last.'

I had a copy that was missing the last page. Boy, did I sound like an idiot in class the next day. I had to show my teacher the book, missing the page, because I got the ending so horribly wrong.

amazing what 65 words can do, eh?

("We spent what they had made" rings particularly true in the current war for oil)

Southampton Dock

They disembarked in 45
And no-one spoke and no-one smiled
There were to many spaces in the line.
Gathered at the cenotaph
All agreed with the hand on heart
To sheath the sacrificial Knifes.
But now
She stands upon Southampton dock
With her handkerchief
And her summer frock clings
To her wet body in the rain.
In quiet desperation knuckles
White upon the slippery reins
She bravely waves the boys Goodbye again.

And still the dark stain spreads between
His shoulder blades.
A mute reminder of the poppy fields and graves.
And when the fight was over
We spent what they had made.
But in the bottom of our hearts
We felt the final cut.

From "The Gunners Dream"


Somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street
Where you can speak out loud
About your doubts and fears
And what's more no-one ever disappears
You never hear their standard issue kicking in your door
You can relax on both sides of the tracks
And maniacs don't blow holes in bandsmen by remote control
And everyone has recourse to the law
And no-one kills the children anymore
And no-one kills the children anymore



From "The Fletcher Memorial Home"

Did they expect us to treat them with any respect?
They can polish their medals and sharpen their smiles
and amuse themselves playing games for awhile
Boom boom, bang bang, lie down your dead

Safe in the permanent gaze of a cold glass eye
With their favorite toys
They'll be good girls and boys
In the Fletcher Memorial Home for colonial
Wasters of life and limb

705. Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)


THE SEA is calm to-night,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. 5
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch’d land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, 10
At their return, up the high strand.
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago 15
Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea. 20

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 25
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems 30
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain 35
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

The story is, Athens is gearing up for a stupid destructive war, and Lysistrata gets all the women of Athens to agree not to have sex with their husbands until they call off the war. It's sort of Lucille Ball meets Homer.

On a more contemporary note, Todd Rundgren wrote a song with the same title on the same theme. I think it was on the Utopia record entitled Swing to the Right.

How about the poem In Flanders Field?

Lyrics and tabs:

http://trconnection.com/trc/tabs/lysistrata.crd.txt

17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"<4> says the Lord. 20On the contrary:
"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."<5> 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

still gives me goosebumps. This poem was written by a WW I soldier and we studied it in American Lit as one of the seminal poems marking a turning point in how humanity views war.


Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.


--Wilfred Owens

Our Father, up in heaven,
hear this fervent prayer
May the people of all nations
be united in thy care.


For earth's peace and man's salvation
can come only by Thy grace
And not through bombs and missiles
and our quest for outer space.


For until all men recognize
that "The Battle is the Lord's"
And peace on earth cannot be won
with strategy and swords.
We will go on vainly fighting,
as we have in ages past
Finding only empty victories
and a peace that cannot last.


But we've grown so rich and mighty
and so arrogantly strong,
We no longer ask in humbleness
"God, show us where we're wrong"


We have come to trust completely
in the power of man-made things,
Unmindful of God's mighty power
and that He Is "King of Kings"
We have turned our eyes away from Him
to go our selfish way,
And money, power and pleasure
are the gods we serve today.


And the good green earth God gave us
to peacefully enjoy,
Through greed and fear and hatred
we are seeking to destroy.


Oh, Father, up in heaven,
stir and wake our sleeping souls,
Renew our faith and lift us up
and give us higher goals.
And grant us heavenly guidance
as war threatens us again
For, more than guided missiles,
all the world needs guided men.


Helen Steiner Rice

so very much

"Why stand on a silent platform? Fight the War, fuck the norm!"

Might be a bit over the edge for your purpose, but it's a great quote!!!