From the recording COUNTERBALANCE
“Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on.” Benjamin Franklin
Some of the terrible things happening in Burma have never made our news. The military regime was fully aware of the wall of silence in the western media about their brutality at home, and played on this in order to maintain a hold on power. Popular opinion sways governments. The media sways popular opinion. Newsmakers make decisions, rarely along altruistic lines, about what we should know about. The Burmese people, so mild and uncomplaining at the best of times, so often wondered where the world was and why they were doing nothing to assist. In 2003, during the invasion of Iraq by American forces, the US embassy in Rangoon received a letter three words long, which read: “Please invade us!”
Lyrics
SHIELD
We’re not expecting Planet Earth
To stop spinning on its axis
But perhaps this wouldn’t go amiss
If it highlights our cause
We don’t expect the seas to dry
But if the sparring waves
Called off play for a day
We’d see they cared after all
Do these things ask too much?
Do these things ask too much?
We’re not expecting prominence
Or media recognition
To sweep its way through our lives
Place us squarely on the map
But we’re too scared to open up
Let our thoughts speak their name
We’ll maintain a silent flame
Till the strong grant us power
Do these things ask too much?
Do these things ask too much?
Why Mother Earth
Can’t you shield those I love?
Somehow we have to put things right