How do you instruct seven billion people how to relate to the Earth?

August 12, 2013

NOTE: Images in this archived article have been removed.

Image RemovedHundreds of Native Americans and their allies arrive in New York City today after paddling more than a hundred miles down the Hudson River to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first treaty between Native Americans and the Europeans who traveled here. The event is part of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, first proclaimed by the United Nations 20 years ago. We speak with Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation who helped establish the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples in 1982. "We’re concerned about the future, we’re concerned about the Earth — seven generations hence — and the conduct of people," Oren says. "We wonder, how do you instruct seven billion people as to the relationship to the Earth? Because unless they understand that, and relate the way they should be, the future is pretty dim for the human species." We are also joined by one of their supporters, Pete Seeger, the legendary folk singer, banjo player, storyteller, and activist; and by Andy Mager, project coordinator for the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign and a member of Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation.

Watch parts 2 and 3 of this interview:
Pete Seeger Remembers His Late Wife Toshi, Sings Civil Rights Anthem ‘We Shall Overcome’

Pete Seeger & Onondaga Leader Oren Lyons on Fracking, Indigenous Struggles and Hiroshima Bombing

 

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Today marks the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. First proclaimed by the United Nations 20 years ago, the day focuses on indigenous people’s alliances, honoring treaties and respecting cultures. Events in New York kick off this morning when more than 200 Native and non-Natives are set to to arrive in New York after a two-week journey paddling in canoes down the Hudson River. They’ll be met by Dutch Consul General Rob de Vos, representatives of Native nations, and many supporters, before heading to the United Nations for a series of events. The canoers began their journey in Albany, the capital of New York, and paddled over 140 miles on a voyage to commemorate the first agreement between the early European Dutch settlers and the Haudenosaunee, the Iroquois Confederacy, known as the Two Row Wampum Treaty. This is Chief Jake Edwards of the Onondaga Nation explaining its significance.

CHIEF JACK EDWARDS: In the Two Row Wampum, it’s stated, all the teachings that we shared from the Great Law of Peace, we shared with these newcomers to the forest. And so, in doing so, we also told them to be respectful of all and only take from Mother Earth as what you need to survive. And so this agreement came about. And what the Two Row represents is the Haudenosaunee people, Onkwehonwe, in their canoe, traveling down the river of life alongside the newcomers in their vessel, their ship.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Chief Jake Edwards of the Onondaga Nation. Canoers who are part of the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign say environmental conservation is at the heart of the campaign. Many Native organizers are working closely with their neighbors at Onondaga Lake and along the Saint Lawrence River to protest fracking, the controversial method used to extract methane gas from shale.

For more, we’re joined by three participants in the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign. Oren Lyons is with us, faithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation. He sits on the Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs, also helped establish the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples in 1982.

Andy Mager is with us, project coordinator for the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign and a member of Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation.

And we’re joined by Pete Seeger, the legendary 94-year-old folk singer, banjo player, storyteller and activist. For over 60 years, he’s been an American icon, the author or co-author of so many songs, including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" "If I Had a Hammer," "Turn! Turn! Turn!" Pete Seeger has also been a longtime supporter of Native American rights.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Oren Lyons, let’s begin with you. What is the significance of this day? Why the paddling up the Hudson River to the United Nations today?

OREN LYONS: Today we’re celebrating 400 years of association with our friends from across the great waters. Four hundred years ago, we met with the Dutch on the issues of trade, peace, friendship. And we agreed at that time that we would establish a relationship of peace and friendship for as long as the sun rises in the east, sets in the west, as long as the rivers run downhill, and as long as the grass is green. Grass is quite green today, and the rivers are running, and so is the sun rising. So here we are, 400 years. We’re going to have a 400-year-old handshake at—being met by the kingdom of the Netherlands, Attorney General de Vos and his wife, representing the counterparts of that original meeting, which is the grandfather, I would say, of all treaties made after that. This was the original agreement.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain? We just watched Chief Jake Edwards holding the treaty, which is not words, it’s beads.

OREN LYONS: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain.

OREN LYONS: Wampum and the belts and the strings that we’ve used over these many centuries was at that time the political currency of the time. That’s how things were agreed upon. That was our process. And over that past 300 or 400 years, it was used by everyone, all the Spanish, whether it’s English, whether it’s French—the peace and friendship and also what we call the Covenant Chain, to be polished again and again. The depiction of the two vessels side-by-side going down the river of life in peace and friendship, tied together with the Covenant Chain of peace—three links: peace, friendship and as long as the grass is green. So, we’re here celebrating the 400th anniversary of that. The past 400 years, of course, subject to all of this historic events of that time, and yet here we are. And yet, the issue remains, peace and friendship.

And I think, from our perspective, we’re concerned about the future. We’re concerned about the Earth, seven generations hence, and the conduct of people. And so, we wonder, how do you instruct seven billion people as to the relationship to the Earth? Because unless they understand that and relate the way they should be, future is pretty dim for the human species.

AMY GOODMAN: Pete Seeger, as Oren Lyons is speaking, you’re nodding your head "yes." Why are you involved with the Two [Row] Wampum campaign?

PETE SEEGER: I was fortunate to meet a man named Ray Fadden, who was a teacher on the Mohawk reservation near the Saint Lawrence River way back in 1950. And he taught me things. I was trying to run a little festival in the Adirondacks, and he came there with some of the students from his reservation. I remember asking him if he would teach me one of his songs. He said, "Pete, our songs are sacred to us, and you should not even try and sing them, except here’s a Seneca canoe song. I’d be glad if you learned that." So, for 65 years, I guess, I’ve been singing the Seneca canoe song if I’m ever asked about Native American culture.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you sing it now?

PETE SEEGER: Ka iyo wa jin eh. Yo ho-oh.
Hey. Yo ho.
Ka iyo wa jin eh.
Ka iyo wa jin eh. Eh!
Ka iyo wa jin eh.
Yo-ho. Hey.
Ka iyo wa jin eh.
Ka iyo wa jin eh. Eh!

And it keeps on going.

AMY GOODMAN: You have said that we should look not across the ocean for role models.

PETE SEEGER: An extraordinary man—no one knows exactly how many hundreds of years ago—paddled out of Lake Ontario and went to a little village, the first village he came to, and said, "My name is Deganawida, but you can call me the peacemaker." Well, the local war chief says, "Get out of here. That’s women’s talk. I am Tadodaho, the war chief." So this young man went to another village, and there he met a man named Hiawatha, who was grieving for his wife and daughter who had died. Longfellow used his name, but Longfellow was actually telling a different story.

But these two men now went from village to village to village and described a very interesting form of keeping the peace. These people, the Six Nations—the Senecas in the far west near Lake Ohio; the Canandaiguas, maybe 40 miles east; Cayugas, another 40 miles east—Lake Cayuga, that’s where Cornell is; the Onondagas, where Chief Oren Lyons is from; and the Tuscaroras and the Mohawks, some of them as far east near Vermont—and they started fighting with each other. And the system that this man, Deganawida, proposed was that the women, who were the heads of the clans—they know whose baby is whose—they appoint men who will meet once a year, and they’ll meet in the longhouse under a great tree of peace. And the white roots of peace will go east and west and north and south. And the eagle in the top of the tree would look for danger from afar. But they would discuss, instead of fighting, what were the things that people disagreed on. And it had an interesting rule: Nothing would be voted on unless it was slept on at least one night. I think that should be done more often. You don’t vote until you’ve slept on it at least one night.

And at one time, Deganawida predicts an eclipse. He says, "Tomorrow, the afternoon, the sky will darken itself, as proof that we’re speaking the truth." And it did darken itself. He must have watched exactly where the moon and the sun were rising and setting, and says, "They’re going to touch each other." And, finally, this extraordinary system of government took place. Deganawida stuck around. Nobody knows exactly how long, whether it was half a year or two years. But he stayed to make sure that this system was working, and then he got into his canoe and paddled north into Lake Ontario, and nobody ever saw him again. But isn’t that interesting? I told the story more or less correctly, didn’t I?

OREN LYONS: More or less. More or less.

AMY GOODMAN: Andy Mager, this campaign that you have helped to organize, why are you involved, as a non-Native? And the significance of it, what you’re focusing on?

ANDY MAGER: Well, the campaign is about justice. It’s about marking this 400th anniversary of the treaty that Oren talked about and calling on our people, on the people of the United States, the people of New York state, the non-native people of the world, to look at how we’ve behaved, how we haven’t honor this treaty. We haven’t abided by it. We have knocked the Haudenosaunee people out of their boat. We have sought to steer their boat. We have tried to control their way of life, in complete violation of this treaty. So it’s a call to us to look backwards, but to look backwards to look forward, to see how do we work together to re-establish peace and social justice, and in doing so, to preserve the environment. As Oren mentioned so eloquently, we’re in deep ecological crisis, and if we don’t shift our ways, the future for all of us looks very bleak.

AMY GOODMAN: Between Pete Seeger and Oren Lyons, you’ve got 177 years. You’ve seen a lot of history with the American government and Native Americans. Oren Lyons, this is how the Haudenosaunee reportedly replied to the initial Dutch treaty proposal: quote, "You say [that] you are our Father and I am your Son. We say, ‘We will not be like Father and Son, but like Brothers.’ This wampum belt confirms our words. … Neither of us will make compulsory laws or interfere in the internal affairs of the other. Neither of us will try to steer the other’s vessel." Can you talk more about the treaty and what you think happened to it, whether it was honored over 400 years, and the significance of the belt?

OREN LYONS: Well, at this particular time, the Haudenosaunee, the Onondaga Nation, the Tonawanda Seneca and the Tuscarora Nation and the Cayuga Nation are probably the last independent governments still in charge of land and not under the processes of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., or the Department of Indian Affairs in Canada. We still raise our leaders as we did before, by consensus and by agreement and by, first of all, having the women choose the leaders. The women have a great deal of responsibility in this process, in that they not only choose the leaders, but the leaders have to be agreed upon by consensus by the family. And until she finds that leader that finds that consensus, then they will agree to raise that leader. And then the Council of Chiefs will also have that right of consensus. If they don’t agree, she has to go back again. And finally, it goes to the council. The Grand Council itself, Six Nations, will challenge that, as well. So, this leader is going to be vetted many, many times. And clearly, she has to make a good choice. She also has the power of recall, and she can remove that title for malfeasance of office, for violations against women or children, or any kind of violation that the—the structure of the league is very old, and it’s a continuum and probably is the original democracy that so inspired Ben Franklin and the Continental Congress to follow our lead. And we were in discussion with them many, many years and closely associated with their development.

PETE SEEGER: This—

AMY GOODMAN: Could you—yes, Pete Seeger?

PETE SEEGER: This is an extraordinary thing. Twenty-three years after Benjamin Franklin received a letter describing this method of government, the Constitutional Convention for the United States was about to break up. The Jeffersonians didn’t want to talk to the Hamiltonians, the North and the South, and so on. And Franklin holds up this piece of paper, saying, "These are people we call savages because their ways are different from ours, but they have kept the peace for hundreds of years. And if they can, why can’t 13 English colonies?" And he shamed the Constitutional Convention to keep on talking and find compromises that they could make a constitution.

OREN LYONS: Yeah, it is the foundation of this United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the significance of the headdress you have in front of you?

OREN LYONS: Well, I talked about the eagle on top of the tree of peace. That’s this feather. The eagle represents a spiritual leadership of the animal world for the birds and the leader of the birds, and all animals have leaders. The deer is the leader of all the animals for four legs. And so, the feathers of this powerful entity, who carries our words the highest of any bird, flies the highest and carries our words the closest to the creator. And it is our principal messenger of peace. And so, we revere these feathers, and we revere this representation of our—of the bird nations. And we carry it close to us. And our staffs are always with these great birds’ feathers that remind us of our responsibility.

AMY GOODMAN: Andy, can you talk about the horseback ride today?

ANDY MAGER: Sure. The Dakota Unity Riders, who have come from Manitoba, Canada, traveling over 4,000 miles, though not continuously on horseback that journey, have sort of joined with the Two Row campaign. They started as independent initiatives, and we realized that there was much in common, so they have joined us in Troy, New York, before we started paddling down the Hudson, in Catskill, in Beacon, and we expect them to be joining with us at some point today, although there were problems with the permit. There will be a march today after our paddlers—our paddlers are on the water today now in their final journey into Pier 96 in Manhattan. They’ll land there. We’ll have a welcoming from the Dutch consul general, from our congressman based in central New York, Dan Maffei, and others. Then we’ll march across Manhattan to the United Nations, where we’ll be welcomed by the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Somehow in that process, the Unity Riders will join us. The NYPD would not give a permit, at least the last I had heard, for them to walk beside our march, so there’s a little bit still up in the air about that. But there’s very much a shared sense of unity, of renewal, of call for respect for Native rights at the core of both campaigns, and we’re delighted to work with them.

AMY GOODMAN: How does fracking fit in with this story, Oren Lyons?

OREN LYONS: Well, of course—

AMY GOODMAN: Hydraulic fracturing.

ANDY MAGER: Water—water is the first law of life. And looking through the generations ahead of us and protecting their future and being responsible to that, fracking, of course, impacts water amazingly—millions and millions of gallons of fresh water being used and absolutely contaminated beyond any point of redemption. And so, it’s an attack. It’s an attack on the future lives of our children and everybody else’s children, as well, and life, in general. The laws of nature are such that you will suffer in direct ratio, in direct ratio to your transgressions. Simple as that. And there’s no—and people should understand this. There is no mercy in nature, none whatsoever, only the law, only the rules. And if you follow those laws and rules, you have regeneration again and again. And if you want to challenge those laws, then you suffer the consequence. And that’s where we are right now. We are—so, fracking is probably the most damaging challenge that America has today in terms of its future.

AMY GOODMAN: Pete Seeger, would you like to weigh in on fracking?

PETE SEEGER: That’s absolutely true. It’s incredible that people say, "Oh, I need a job. I’ll work for the fracking." But to get a little gas to run cars or factories, we’ll destroy the future for our children and our grandchildren. Horrifying.

AMY GOODMAN: Oren Lyons and Andy Mager, I want to thank you for being with us. Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation. Andy Mager, one of the organizers of the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign. We’re going to go to break, and when we come back, I want to speak a few more minutes to Pete Seeger, and then we’re going to combine together for a post-show conversation, which we’ll post online at democracynow.org. Stay with us on this Indigenous People’s Day.

Part 3 of the interview continues below:

An extended web-only discussion with two elders, the legendary folk singer Pete Seeger and Onondaga Leader Oren Lyons. They are in New York City today to greet hundreds of Native Americans and their allies who have paddled more than a hundred miles down the Hudson River to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first treaty between Native Americans and the Europeans who traveled here. The event is part of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, first proclaimed by the United Nations 20 years ago.

Watch Part 1 & 2 of today’s interviews:
Onondaga Leader Oren Lyons, Pete Seeger on International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples

Pete Seeger Remembers His Late Wife Toshi, Sings Civil Rights Anthem ‘We Shall Overcome’

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Pete Seeger, Oren Lyons and Andy Mager. Pete?

PETE SEEGER: And Oren Lyons is one of the wisest men in the world, this Onondaga leader. I have heard him speak on different occasions, and I’ve come away and said, "How I wish this man could be heard by everybody in America, everybody in the world." He’s a wise man.

AMY GOODMAN: How did the two of you meet, Pete and Oren?

PETE SEEGER: He came to speak for the Clearwater annual meeting, the little—little organization we have trying to clean up the Hudson River. And he came to speak to us. And he—when I heard him, I said, "This man—this man should be heard by everybody."

AMY GOODMAN: Oren Lyons, on this Indigenous People’s Day, what are your thoughts you’d like to share with our viewers and listeners and readers around the world?

OREN LYONS: Well, as I listened to Pete sing, recognizing the spirit in all of us, the spirit is powerful, and the will, the will to continue and do what has to be done, and responsibility for adults to act like adults, for leaders to act like leaders, and to take away from the corporate powers that are currently in charge of the direction of this Earth and return it back to the people, where it belongs, and also to protect, really be responsible for seven generations of life coming. That’s our mission, and that’s my mission. It’s always been our mission. The mission is peace. The mission is forever. And the mission is friendship, and to understand that the human family is a family—doesn’t matter what color you are. You can change blood. You can’t get any closer than that. And people should understand that.

AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean to be the faithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation? And tell us the history of the Onondaga.

OREN LYONS: The Onondaga Nation was the central fire that the peacemaker had to deal with. The Todadaho was the fiercest of all people, and he changed that man. He changed that man. And that is—that proves that no one is above redemption. I don’t care what you do, you can change. And that was a severe lesson to everybody. We remember that. So, today, the Todadaho, Sid Hill, will be up here meeting and greeting with the people and carrying these words of peace. Over a thousand years ago, he was the fiercest, the fiercest enemy of peace. And so, the ideas of democracy, the ideas of leadership by the people and for the people, those are old words. Those belong to our confederation and were taken on by the new government. I think they stalled in several places, but the essence is still there. The essence is still there, but it needs the work of the people. The people have to stand. The people have to move. It’s they who hold the power. They hold the authority, and always did and always will. So, they have to understand that. So, as long as you’re waiting for somebody to tell you to do something, you’re going to wait a long time.

AMY GOODMAN: The significance of the Idle No More movement in Canada?

OREN LYONS: Oh, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what it is?

OREN LYONS: Well, it’s four women, three Indian women and one white woman, who just said, "This is enough, and we are not going to stand by. We’re not going to be idle no more." And they challenged the leadership of Canada. And Prime Minister Harper has really challenged the future of people in opening up this huge open-pit mining, you know, that Keystone pipeline, is so intent. All about commerce, nothing about the future. And so, they took a stand, and they said, "We’re not idle anymore." And, of course, the media never followed it, but it went around the world, and there are people around the world responding to that. It’s a grassroots movement, and it’s a lesson in what you can do if you make your stand. And so, that’s what common people do: lock their arms and stand.

AMY GOODMAN: Andy Mager, Reuters is reporting Chesapeake Energy has abandoned a two-year legal battle to retain leases on thousands of acres of land in New York, where it planned to drill for natural gas using, you know, the controversial technique of fracking, provided the state lift a ban on the practice. Do you know about this and what the significance of this is?

ANDY MAGER: It was announced to our camp that they were abandoning the leases a couple of days ago, not with that last caveat about New York state lifting the moratorium. So, obviously, we would oppose the lifting of the moratorium. We welcome them abandoning the leases and stopping harassing the people of New York state to try to get them to allow this drilling technique.

To get back to what Oren was saying, you know, the purpose of this journey down the Hudson, and the larger campaign of which it’s a part, is to sow seeds to build a social movement, a movement powerful enough to compel New York state and the United States to live up to these treaties and, in doing so, to honor the Earth. And we have been overjoyed by the response we’ve received all the way down the Hudson River from individual citizens, from local government leaders and civic organizations, welcoming what we are doing, providing support, aligning with this broader mission, that we need to honor the treaties that we have signed, to live up to them after 400 years, and to work together for a better future. So we welcome people to join with us today at the pier, in the future through our website, Facebook, etc., because this is not—this landing in New York is in some ways a ending of the paddling journey, but the beginning of a broader movement that we will be looking for support from progressive people, far and wide, to engage in.

AMY GOODMAN: Pete Seeger, I wanted to get your assessment of President Obama. I mean, look at this moment in time. You sang at his inauguration, that remarkable moment, "This Land is Your Land." We are coming up on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Actually, President Obama will be standing in the same place as Dr. King did when he delivered his speech, and will give a speech on August 28th in front of the Lincoln Memorial. You were not at the March on Washington, were you?

PETE SEEGER: No, I took my family—my wife and I took our three children out of school, and in 10-and-a-half months we visited 28 countries around the world, small countries. We visited Somoa in the Pacific, and then Australia, Indonesia. And her father joined us. He saw his own family again for the first time in 50 years. He helped the American war effort. He did very dangerous things. He wrote to Washington right after Pearl Harbor, says, "The only hope for Japan is to get rid of the militarists," because fascists had taken over Japan just like they took over Germany.

AMY GOODMAN: Where did you hear about Dr. King’s speech, "I Have a Dream"? Do you remember?

PETE SEEGER: I read it. I’m a readaholic. And—

AMY GOODMAN: So, somewhere in that journey?

PETE SEEGER: And he was surely one of the most astonishing speakers in the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you ever get to meet him?

PETE SEEGER: I met him only twice—once very briefly when he—just a year after the bus boycott, where he first became well known—

AMY GOODMAN: In Montgomery?

PETE SEEGER: No, he came to the little school in the Highlands of Tennessee, called the Highlander Folk School. And that’s where he heard me sing "We Shall Overcome." And then, I was singing a few songs in the street outside the United Nations when he made perhaps the most—one of the two most important speeches. He said, "I have to face the fact that my own country is the greatest purveyor of violence. We must get out of Vietnam." I’m sure—

AMY GOODMAN: You were at Riverside Church, April 4th, 1967?

PETE SEEGER: No, I was in the streets, where he gave the same speech a day later outside the United Nations. And I was up on the speakers’ stand when I saw a black car inching its way through the crowd. And I heard people: "He’s here! He’s here!" He got 20 feet away from the speakers’ stand, and the door opened, and Dr. King got out. It took six strong men to help him—to make it possible for him to make 20 feet from the car to the speakers’ stand. I said, "How can anybody live with this kind of adulation?" Well, I’m sure—I have absolutely no proof, but I think that’s when LBJ lost his temper. He said, "After all I did for that guy, look what he does to me!" He probably picked up the phone to J. Edgar Hoover, said, "Do what you want!" Slam!

AMY GOODMAN: What was Dr. King’s reaction to hearing you sing "We Shall Overcome" at the Highlander Center?

PETE SEEGER: Oh, he was sitting in the backseat of a car, while a woman I know, wonderful woman, was driving him to some speaking engagement up in Kentucky. He said, "’We Shall Overcome,’ that really—song really sticks with you, doesn’t it?"

He—at only age 14, some man wrote a letter to the big newspaper in Atlanta: "Why do Negroes want to marry white? Don’t they know that we’re supposed to be separate people?" And this 14-year-old writes a letter to the editor of the newspaper: "Surely, Mr. So-and-So, whoever wrote this letter, must know that if there are people in America of mixed ancestry, it’s not because Negroes want to marry whites, but because of aggressive white males taking advantage of defenseless black females." In one sentence, he said what most people would have taken paragraphs to say.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Martin Luther King when he was 14 years old?

PETE SEEGER: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: What is your assessment of President Obama?

PETE SEEGER: I wish that he had made so few compromises that he would not have gotten re-elected. And then, four years later, he would have gotten re-elected, because the contrast between what he did and the people who took over for the four years in between would have been obvious to the whole world.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I know that you all have to go to the pier to meet the rowers who are coming up the Hudson.

PETE SEEGER: We do.

AMY GOODMAN: But I was wondering if you could take us out on a song, maybe the hammer song, "If I Had a Hammer," which was sung by Peter, Paul and Mary at the March on Washington, your song, 50 years ago, August 28th.

PETE SEEGER: Well, Woody Guthrie was one of the greatest songwriters I knew, but the bass in The Weavers, a man named Lee Hays from Arkansas, was another one of the geniuses. And he knew that a lot of old gospel songs, just change one word, and you’ve got a new verse. So he sent me four verses, says, "Pete, can you make up a tune?" I tried to, but it wasn’t as good a tune as it should have been. And Peter, Paul and Mary improved my tune. And then the song went around the world. Marlene Dietrich toured the world, and—no, she sang "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" But the song, "If I Had a Hammer," went all sorts of places that I could never go, and I’m very glad.

[singing] If I had a hammer,
I’d hammer in the morning,
I’d hammer in the evening,
All over this land,
I’d hammer out danger,
Hammer out a warning,
Hammer out love between,
All of my brothers,

Oh, a woman said, "Make that ‘My brothers and my sisters.’" Lee says, "It doesn’t roll off the tongue so well. But she insisted. He said, "How about ‘All of my siblings’?" She didn’t think that was funny.

[singing] All over this land.
If I had a song,

Don’t need to sing the whole song. You can sing it to yourself, whether you’re driving a car or washing the dishes or just singing to your kids. We haven’t mentioned children much on this program, but it may be children realizing that you can’t live without love, you can’t live without fun and laughter, you can’t live without friends—and I say, "Long live teachers of children," because they can show children how they can save the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Can we end with "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" for the children?

PETE SEEGER: No. You sing it.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to end on a lovely note.

PETE SEEGER: No. I’ve sung lots of songs. And the other day, a group of Japanese Americans remembered Hiroshima, and I sang four short verses.

[singing] We come and stand at every door
But none can hear my silent tread
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead, for I am dead.

I’m only seven, although I died
In Hiroshima long ago.
I’m seven now, as I was then.
When children die, they do not grow.

My hair was scorched by swirling flame;
My eyes grew dim, my eyes grew blind.
Death came and turned my bones to dust,
And that was scattered by the wind.

I need no fruit, I need no rice.
I need no sweets, not even bread;
I ask for nothing for myself,
For I am dead, for I am dead.

All that I ask is that for peace
You fight today, you fight today.
So that the children of this world
May live and grow and laugh and play!

AMY GOODMAN: Pete, thank you so much, and especially on this day, August 9th, the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki 68 years ago, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima 68 years ago.

PETE SEEGER: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And now you head to greet the rowers coming down the Hudson.

PETE SEEGER: Mm-hmm, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And I thank you so much for being with us. Peter Seeger, Oren Lyons, Andy Mager, thanks for giving us a gift today.

ANDY MAGER: Thank you, Amy.

OREN LYONS: Thank you, Amy.

Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 1,400 public television and radio stations worldwide. The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard honored Goodman with the 2014 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence Lifetime Achievement Award. She is also the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize' for “developing an innovative model of truly independent grassroots political journalism that brings to millions of people the alternative voices that are often excluded by the mainstream media.” She is the first co-recipient of the Park Center for Independent Media’s Izzy Award, named for the great muckraking journalist I.F. Stone, and was later selected for induction into the Park Center’s I.F. Stone Hall of Fame. The Independent of Londoncalled Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! “an inspiration.”

Tags: Fracking, indigenous social movements