FURTHER AWAY THAN EVER

I WANT TO LIVE

words and music by John Denver

There are children raised in sorrow

On a scorched and barren plain.

There are children raised beneath a golden sun.

There are children of the water,

Children of the sand.

And they cry out through the universe

There voices raised as one.

I want to live, I want to grow.

I want to see, I want to know.

I want to share what I can give.

I want to be, I want to live.

Have you gazed out on the ocean,

Seen the breaching of a whale?

Have you watched the dolphins frolic in the foam?

Have you heard the song the humpback hears

Five hundred miles away,

Telling tales of ancient history, of passages and home?

I want to live, I want to grow.

I want to see, I want to know.

I want to share what I can give.

I want to be, I want to live.

For the worker and the warrior,

The lover and the liar.

For the native and the wanderer in kind.

For the make, and the user,

And the mother and her son.

I am looking for my family

And all of you are mine.

We are standing all together

Face to face and arm in arm.

We are standing on the threshold of a dream.

No more hunger, no more killing.

No more wasting life away.

It is simply an idea and I know its time has come.

I want to live, I want to grow.

I want to see, I want to know.

I want to share what I can give.

I want to be, I want to live.....I want to live.

Copyright 1971 Cherry Lane Music Co.

It's almost forty years since John Denver wrote this song. Forty years and the dream not only hasn't been fulfilled, it gets further away every year.

There was another so called debate with the Republican candidates last night. They fell all over themselves justifying the use of torture. More than one of them has threatened to “carpet bomb” the Middle East. Some of them seem to believe that nukes are just bigger and better TNT. The forced birthers insist all children have the right to be born. It seems to be the only right they have.

And we have hundreds of thousands of refugee children, or children in war zones whose hopes don'e go as far as seeing dolphins or whales. They are reduced to just trying to get enough food, shelter or simply surviving for another day only to be branded as "terrorists." God/dess save us. 

Forget about decent food, clean water, jobs that pay enough to raise a family, an education or some kind access to basic health care. You and your family are on your own and frankly we don't give a flying fuck what happens to you. Roll the Republicans into one candidate and you still would be stuck with a psychopath or a sociopath, certainly nothing resembling a human being.