The title is based on the song about the “Big Muddy” written by Pete Seeger in 1967. See for a summary of the circumstances. The Vietnam War was in full swing. I was stationed at Ft. Sam Houston, in San Antonio, Texas, in 1969 and was able to hear him perform that song and others at that time. Not too long after that, I received my orders to head to what was then the current “Big Muddy” of Vietnam.
Once again we seem to be waist deep in the Big Muddy, in part because the world as a whole is in a deep state of unrest, and in part because doesn’t have a clue about how things can be made better. The “Big Fool” still says, “push on.” If you’re thinking that the Big Fool is a single individual, you’d be wrong. As was true back in the Vietnam era, the Big Fool is systemic rather than a single individual. The attitude of the wealthy toward the poor has typically denigrated the concerns of poor people with a Let them eat cake attitude.
This hasn’t worked well in the past. The original saying of “let them eat cake” (erroneously attributed to Marie Antoinette) was said in part to justify the French Revolution, in which poor people (including basically the middle classes) had revolted against the rich. Although beheading had been a common method of execution for a long time, the French Revolution made the Guillotine famous. The French Revolution, which was really a series of conflicts, eventually gave rise to a merchant class and some political stability.
It wasn’t the only revolution in which the poor went to war against the rich. The Russian Revolution and the Chinese Revolution were fought for similar reasons. (Note: China actually had several revolutions.) This brief summary does not, of course, take into account all the other “revolutions” major and minor throughout the world. In general, poor people will only take so much suffering before resorting to violence to improve their lot.
In the States, we had our Revolution in the late eighteenth century, and we had a Civil War in the mid-nineteenth century. The U.S. participated in the First World War and, of course, the Second World War. After that, we had the Korean War and the Vietnam War. While both WWII and the Korean War produced some social protest, the Vietnam War produced significant protest and civil unrest. In addition to a significant amount of draft resistance, including marches against the war and expatriation to Canada, music also played a role:
The “Vietnam Era” also saw the ending of the draft, which meant that young men could no longer be forced to serve in the military. By this time, however, many felt that the States had become a “war machine”:
It’s hard to find a nice, neat list of every place in the world where U.S. military personnel are engaged in conflict. See the US is now involved for a fairly complete list. In some ways, we have become the new Roman Empire.
My musical tour is probably best closed with two songs that express my feelings about what’s most needed today. Tommy James and the Shondells hoped for a Crystal Blue Persuasion that would lead to “peace, love, and brotherhood.”
And the second song is “Imagine,” by John Lennon:
I admit that I’m an aging hippie, but I know what feels good and want more of that and less of what makes me (and probably you) feel bad.
