Whistle Blowers Blowin’ in the Wind

How many roads must a man walk down / Before you call him a man?

Yes how many times must the cannon balls fly / Before they’re forever banned?

How many times can a man turn his head / Pretending he just doesn’t see?

Yes, how many deaths will it take till he knows / That too many people have died?

The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind / The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

                    ~ Bob Dylan,”Blowin’ in the Wind,” The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)

The roaring gale of the mighty snatches away the song of the anawim. The great whistle blowers of history, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Mandela, Fannie Lou Hamer, Frederick Douglass, were each a small voice blowin’ in the wind. Theirs was a desire for a life they hoped to achieve for all and if necessary, for which they were prepared to die.

The right thing to do is not based on self-preservation, self-aggrandizement or power; it is not based on the will of the collective; it is not based on reason, high ideals or vision. Ultimately only the individual can access the still small voice of conscience, of consciousness.  Only in one’s own heart and mind can it be heard in the place where one is free, at peace, at home, in love: a place where hope sings, so beautiful. Only from the always already Heart-Mind-in-communion can an ethical choice be made.

The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind, the answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Song:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDFYbtp8h_w