Billy Joel Quotes
We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it
Joel, Billy. "We Didn't Start the Fire." Storm Front, Columbia Records, 1989.
While this was a common attitude for years before, the horrors of World War II produced a general revulsion to war and an awareness that war between two nations spills over to other states in the region and in an era of globalization, effects countries in other parts of the world. So there has been a tendency to use diplomacy endlessly, even after "things have gone too far". Historically, when things reached that point, the parties did fight it out, and when one was weakened sufficiently, negotiations and diplomacy could then be fruitful.
At the time 18 year old Douglas wanted to enlist to fight in the Philippines where his father was about to be given military command. Young Douglas took his father’s prescient advice and attended West Point instead. In an amazing historical precursor, General Arthur MacArthur ended up in policy disputes with the President over how aggressive American tactics should be. President Taft relieved MacArthur of his command.
Alluding to Ecclesiastes 3:1 ff, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die;.." The exact wording of his sermon has been lost, but the sentiment was reported by many.
They had seen many other abolitionists attacked and butchered by the pro-slavery forces. The civil war of Kansas was over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a slave state of a free state. If a free state, the free states would be able to block further slavery. If Kansas were to become a slave state, the slave states would have a sufficient majority to make all future expansion hospitable to slavery. The slavery forces started sending man and families into Kansas so that they could vote; the abolitionists did the same. Both sides armed and a war began with each faction trying to kill or drive the other faction out of Kansas before the vote. See {617388} and {612516}.
William Martin Joel is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Piano Man" after his first major hit and signature song of the same name as well as the similarly named 1973 album, he has led a commercially successful career as a solo artist since the 1970s, having released 12 studio albums from 1971 to 1993 as well as one studio album in 2001. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, as well as the seventh best-selling recording artist and the fourth best-selling solo artist in the United States, with over 150 million records sold worldwide. His 1985 compilation album, Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2, is one of the best-selling albums in the United States.
