Wilkinson Public Library Blog!

Brief descriptions of programs held at the Wilkinson Public Library, in Telluride, Colorado.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Peter Yarrow Still Sings for Peace!


Friday, January 5, 2007--Peter Yarrow, the songwriter and activist of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, screened a premiere of his new documentary to friends and filmmakers at the Wilkinson Public Library, requesting feedback on his unique vision for bettering our world.

Legacy of Denial is a 52 minute long film that takes the viewer through the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam era to a post-war Vietnam where the repercussions of the war there continue. It shows the larger picture, and unfinished tale, of the legacies of war, the unexploded ordinance, and the onging effects of Agent Orange, that pollute the grounds they commandeer.

Third-generation congenital deformities due to Agent Orange
Unexploded Ordinance

are just some of the symptoms remaining from the specious, nationalistic US foreign policy which still, to this day, denies any wrong-doing in the Vietnam deception.

The film is a potent collage evincing an evolution of consciousness, and the horror that, contrary to the adage, "History repeats itself": Humans repeat history.

It's shocking to think that after all the apparent progress in the 60s and 70s--civil rights, and the grassroots termination of an unjust war--here we are again today, repeating the same egregious folly, and for the same reasons.

Peter is a heartfelt, Jupiterian man. He is filled with benevolent energy. His voice alone is enough to make one weep--and when a guitar augments that sound with the perfect fifths and pithy Pythagorean ratios, well, it just makes you cry!

Why?

Because it is so simple! Peter asks us to open our hearts and realize the truth behind our motives. His music tells of the great pity--that suffering is unnecessary; that it results from restriction of others and the supremacy of unchecked national hubris. He asks us to take responsibility for our actions and the actions of our country, and adress the mistakes of the past with acknowledgement and actions to prove it. He says there is more than this! Something sublime, in the hearts of all children, before the corruption of years and the conditioning of societal norms... He asks us, simply, to be honest--with ourselves and others.

The tragedy is that this simple, honest, natural human state, is sullied by pervasive greed, perverse ambition, and the profit-driven immorality of multi-national corporations that have no loyalty to creed or country.

"Man is born free, and yet I see him everywhere in chains," said the French Philosopher Rousseau. Peter asks us, with endless love and patience, if we will let him share the key to unshackle ourselves, and begin the transformation of consciousness to a better world through acknowledgement, apology, and the forgiveness of ourselves and those we have harmed.

This film is a clarion call to embrace its cause. At once it offers compassion toward all humanity; a kaleidoscope of imagery that is profound in its implications. It's the story that seems to end where it started. From early Civil Rights footage, protests; the power of the 'folk music' movement that took music back from the entertainers and gave it to the artists as an inspired medium for change; and Peter's central role in it, to the rhetoric of the war machine (the military-industrial-government complex) disguising the hunger of the wallet with the blood of the patriot.

This rhetoric has never changed. And the truth hasn't either.

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