Masters Of War Lyrics - Bob Dylan

Thankyou for giving equal space for a Biblical view RE: JD's Reincarnation Review of Masters of War 4/17/13 We live in a democracy, he has a right to his opinion. and I have the right to mine based on the scriptures of the Holy Bible, the living word. ... It says in Hebrews 9:27 "...It is appointed onto man once to die, but after this the judgment." (for those of us who have received Jesus for our Saviour, the judgment for our sins was put on Him. Therefore, we won't be judged for our sins. But our works shall be judged whether what we did will be rewarded or burned (so it is not remembered any more) ...The word of God in the Holy Bible tells us the Lord's way for protecting ourselves, and our children from the evil that is in this world. He says, in Ephesians, Chapter 6:11- to "Put on the whole armour of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery cars of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching with perseverance...let your requests be made known unto the Lord. ...Jesus said in John Chapter 10:10 "The thief comes to steal, kill and to destroy", but "I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly". People get in trouble when they accuse God for what the devil is doing. Yes, He could have stopped it, and sometimes He does, but He will do it His way. Some of His ways are too mysterious for finding out, He says He'll reveal some things to us only in Heaven. However, He makes it clear in Hebrews 6:12 and 11 Peter 1:4 that the promises (his word for protection, healing, salvation, our needs being met, etc) are received by faith and patience. "Whereby are given unto us exceedingly great and precious promises: that by these ye may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."...be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

In reading some of the other reviews, I feel that some of it is coming out of misunderstanding...This song I believe was written because of what many young men and women felt about the way the Vietnamese War was being handled. The United States could have ended that war sooner than in 10 years. Instead, many young men from this generation were sent there without the back up they needed to win and get it over with fast. It's not wrong to try to rescue people from something like the enslavement of communism, if they want us to help them to have freedom. But what was wrong is not doing everything we could to protect our own when they risked their lives to do it. The way it dragged on for 10 years, with many young americans shedding their blood, there rose up a protest from that generation. It seemed like to them, that their friends were being sent to the slaughter field. Why? Who knows why!

"a 6 year old girl is raped by a 45 year old man, and god watches this happen... seriously? freewill?"

If you believe in reincarnation, and that everything travels in circles, and you get back what give out, then this makes perfect sence for the soul to learn thru empathy. Who knows what atrocities the girls soul committed in a past incarnation?
The belief in reincarnation predates any church's control philosophy, and is a perfect way to teach,with a "soul cage",trapped on this prison planet. I belive all evil doers will be held accountable by the creater.

This is a wonderful song and should be sung at Thatcher's funeral as well as the funerals for George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, and that horrible Rumsfeld. As well as for Obama and Clinton and all those macho leaders that think making war makes them look strong. It takes a much stronger man / woman with bigger balls that these slackers and AWOLers to make PEACE and enforce it with peaceful means.

Right. North Vietnam WAS the aggressor in seeking unification of their country without foreign domination in exactly the same way as the Thirteen Colonies were the aggressors in 1775.

You people are aware that there was the Cold War going on at the time, right? And that North Vietnam was the aggressor in the Vietnam War? Some of the ignorant and naive comments that have been posted here...

Thank you for putting the comment section here 365.com. I was going to just give up and let the world fall apart! However there are people and things worth fighting for and things can get better without violence in a true democracy if the majority of adults are willing to work for positive change. It's WeThe People not we the elected government !!!!

True anarchy is not the way. You speak of strength as if its a good thing and power as if the people in power are weak. Power these days has grown beyond brawn and is far beyond the eye can see. people like me and you obviously cant even begin to see the true scale of the 'power' ladder. Free will and power/mental problems are very different. Children get raped without order, hence forth anarchy would be without order. Rape crime and abuse would go sky high, what a stupid contradiction and proposition. This all leads to mental illness, it is proven that nearly all killers/rapeists have had abusive childhoods. You really want your kid growing up in an anarchy driven 'power struggle' in the year 2012? I do believe though that the way we are now Is an absoloute disgrace and some things have made me almost suicidal such as 'whats the point in living if im just a fucking pawn, my passions are useless i am an object of control'. There needs to be something done. Anytime there is, people get shot.

Reading these reviews it strikes me as quite interesting the shades of overlapping thoughts put forth. I wonder how much easier it is to rant biasedly, vehemently, and with such certainty that which is at it's base as ignorant an opinion as anyone's. That is to say, there is no one alive today that has witnessed all of history - though we are so very overwhelmed with it's various versions poured down on us by decendents of the victors - and sometimes the victims - of societal upheaval, empires come and gone, and the millions of talking heads and commenters in our global media.

Personally, I agree with those that think the colonel's arguments lacking in both knowledge of facts and ethical resolution of thought. But I also see that given the massive unwillingness of citizens of the world to resist the onslaught of war and profiteering in general, his opinions are sadly more popular than some of us would like to think - as is his ignorance, in my opinion. But they could say the same of those of us on the other side - that we are ignorant of the bigger picture; that the loss of the lives of millions and the rape of women, children and lands all brought us to where we are today - a state of military industrial supremacy over the world. Oh, we can bring on the facts then that china owns our debt, that our country is filled with resources, but the distribution is an abysmal mess; that billionaires exist while millions starve. But this has been known for centuries, and has not stopped those in power, or those sheep that support them.

What I find ironic is that jesse - and I also appreciated many of your words - speaks of anarchy and yet even he misses still the greatest point! Anarchy in my mind is not at all about the strongest surviving. If you take a look at the recorded history of our now ubiquitous species, only when we first established permanent settlements and a system of writing and class systems did we begin a steady, sure road upwards towards war, capitalism and profit off the labors of our fellow humans. The evidence clearly suggests that before this time - and up to the present time in smaller and smaller enclaves and periods - it was never competition against one another, but rather through cooperation with one another that the human race accomplished anything that benefitted more than a select group of individuals. If we are to move past this many thousand year blight on the record of humankind, we must first see this glaring fact for what it is - a very bad turn taken by our ancestors that we have wittingly or unwittingly followed to the present.

These words are, of course, my opinion; and they are as ignorant and as wise as anyone else's. To share them is one thing humans are certainly gifted at. Hurray for us. And hurray for Bob Dylan, who wrote of many things - women and love, war and politics, and many other things - for once when he was young and frustrated, writing a song which brought awareness to thousands that they were not alone in their dismay and horror at what the world had become. It's certainly better than the lyrics of millions of songs blathering on about nothing important whatsoever.

hats off to jesse. i actually copied your text and pasted it onto my computer. i like you. probably because you sound like me - you even use small case. i have been arguing the same thing for a while now.
it pisses me off the way people go on and on and on. sounding so intelligent and saying it all so gramatically well. but they miss that very point you mentioned.
we humans bull-shit ourselves so much nobody can see through the shit anymore. perhaps they never did. and perhaps they never will. it seems like you need a kind of deeep analysis or understanding to see it, but when you do see it then its so clearly there. and it seems like people dont realise. they just ape so-called 'leaders' of thought. its a way of hiding their own inability to see clearly. just talk the talk of 'he who is respected' and you will also be given respect. crap.
no offence to anyone but i have felt for a long time that dylan really does not have very deep lyrics. intelligent, poetic and quirky. but deep? no.

colonal whats-his-name............... wha?????
your logic - not to mention your knowledge of history - is primitive to say the least. its a bit like having a rapist say in court, "before me everyone raped with a knife. i didnt. therefore..............". im ok!!!????
but respect for jesse. you have said what i have been trying to say to people for a while also. you got it spot on. the 'colonal' is a perfect example. but liberals lie just as convincingly and the media seems to work in a kind of symbiotic alliance with our personal desire to believe our own bull-shit.

I have a Bob Dylan Documentary called No Direction Home.. really good.. In that he comments on this song and says that he was just so fed up at that point when the song was written .. it's not on any specific wars its in general about that msters who fund and make civilians fight in wars. The song basically says it itself

i find it funny that people believe that anything they say will sway the opinions of one another. life is petty and death is "release", just believe in some sort of celestial oak and youre covered, or gale-bearded politicians preaching of "the brotherhood of man", all the while waging wars for profit. some people sell fruit and profit from juice, some people sell god and profit from fear, and some people sell weapons and profit from war. people are weak minded consumers. strike the shepard and the sheep will scatter. live alone long enough to kill for company, live in shit long enough to kill for kingdoms, or even the promise of such. everything we see is a false reality, there has always been and will always be a curtain, and when drawn, another curtain, and when drawn, another curtain, and when drawn, you guessed it, another curtain. the true intentions of man are simple to figure out, there are no true intentions, everthing we have built was built on lies, everything we have destroyed was destroyed on lies. i say that anarchy is the only true freedom, forcing people to face their fears, allowing the strong to prosper, and the weak to thin out and hide or be consumed by the strong. natural selection would make the best and the brightest prosper, rather than laws protecting the weak and powerless. if there is a god, then he/she /it is cruel. everyday in this country alone a 6 year old girl is raped by a 45 year old man, and god watches this happen... seriously? freewill? is that your answer? was it the will of that child to be violated and plagued with memories and sleepless nights for the rest of her life? "our father" is a sick creature. believe if you will, but know that if you do, you are ignorant and weak and need to look to yourself for strength, and not believe everything that you read. its the oldest game of "telephone" passed down and rewritten for thousands of years. changed to suit the needs of the current leaders. burn it all, and start anew.

For the record Colonel Marksman:

1) We kept most of Mexico when we invaded it (Arizona, New Mexico, California, Texas, Oklahoma, etc...)

2) Philippines were never "conquered" by the US, we bought them for $20 mil in 1898. We then defeated the Filipino war for independence. The war dept ran them as a protectorate until after WW2.

3) Cuba was never "conquered" almost the same deal as the Philippines, we "won" them from Spain in the Spanish-American war (then let them go 4 years later) and after the 1962, the embargo has pretty much killed any type of progress -- so yeah, we kind of did enslave them...

4) Guam is still a territory of the US, not a "self-running" government

5) Irag and Afganistan have admittedly been done so that they become a magnet for anti-american violence - "Fight them there, so we don't have to fight them here" - not as a way to promote democracy or freedom as you suggest.

BUT.... That's all irrelevant. I think many people miss the point of this song. I don't think it's anti-war exactly. It's just against the industry of war. It was written in 61-62... Korean war was long over, Vietnam hadn't started. It's a protest against fear. It's a protest against profiteering. War seems to unfortunately be necessary, but murder and death should not be a source of wealth. Some posts here seem to elude to American Exceptionalism - implying that when we kill people it's okay, because we mean well. But it is never okay to kill people because you want them to live like you. And it is a terrible burden to carry when you must kill people to defend the way you want to live.

People make a great deal of money making other people carry that burden, and I'm with Bob Dylan in protest of that.

Colonel, I'm sorry but when a nation conquers another it does not enslave and destroy. This technique was only employed in a few circumstances such as Thebes after Alexander the Great destroyed it. In most cases when a nation or area was conquered they were only made to offer loyalty and tribute.