Chords for Utah Phillips Ani DiFranco Anarchy

_ I learned in Korea that I would never again in my life abdicate to somebody else my right and my ability to decide who the enemy is.
Please [F#m] forgive me.
_ Please, please forgive me.
[C#] _
Please, please forgive me.
[F#] _ _ _ _ [A#] _
[G#m] Please forgive me.
[A#] _ Please forgive me. _
Please [F] forgive me.
_ _ _ [C#m] _
I got back from Korea.
I was so mad at what I'd seen and done, I wasn't sure I could ever live in the country [C] again.
I got on the freight train, something every north of Seattle, and kind of cruised the country for two years, making up songs, but I was drunk most of the time and forgot most of those.
I'd heard there was a house in Salt Lake City by the Ropery Yard of the Denver Rio Grande Equestrian where there was a clothing barrel and a free food.
So I got off the train there.
I was heading for Salt Lake anyway.
I found that house, but right where they said it was, most of all I found this wiry old man, 69 years old, [A] tougher than nails, hard of gold,
telling by the name of Ammon Hennessey.
Anybody know that name, Ammon Hennessey?
_ [N] _ _
_ _ _ He was one of Dorothy Day's people, the Catholic workers.
During the 30s, they started houses of hospitality all over the country.
They're about 80 of them now.
Ammon Hennessey was one of those people.
He'd come with, started this house I found [C] called the Joe Hill House of Hospitality.
[G] _ _
Ammon Hennessey was a Catholic, anarchist, _ pacifist, draft dodger in two world wars, tax-refuser, vegetarian, one-man revolution in America.
I think that about covers it.
_ _ It was pure hell.
[Am]
First thing he did was he said, after he got to know me, [G#m] he said, you know you love the country.
And you love it.
You come in and out of town on these trains, singing songs about different places and beautiful people.
You know you love the country, [E] you just can't stand the government.
Get it straight.
He quoted Mark [B] Twain, loyalty to the country always, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
Get it straight.
Get it straight. _ _
It was an essential distinction I had been neglecting.
[Em] And then he had to reach out and grapple with the violence, but he did that with all the [Cm] people around him.
The [F#] second world war vets and all, on medical disabilities and all drunk up.
The house is filled with violence and damage as a pacifist dealt with it every moment, every day of his life.
He said, you've got to be a pacifist.
I said, why?
He said, it'll save your life.
My behavior was very violent then.
I said, what is it?
He said, well, I can't [C#m] give you a book by Gandhi, [Cm] you wouldn't understand it.
[D#] I can't give you a [Em] list of rules that if you sign it, you're a pacifist.
He said, you look at it like booze.
[C] You know, alcoholism will [F#] kill somebody.
Until they finally get the courage to sit in a circle of people like that and put their hand up in the air and say, hi, my name is Utah, I'm an alcoholic.
And then you can begin to deal with behavior, see.
And have the people who signed it for you whose lives were destroyed.
He said it's the same with violence, you know.
[C] An alcoholic, they could be dry for 20 years, they're never going to sit in that circle and put their hand up and say, well, I'm not an alcoholic anymore.
No, they're still going to put their hand up and say, hi, my name is Utah, I'm an alcoholic.
It's the same with violence.
You've got to be able to put your hand in the air and acknowledge your past violence and then deal with the behavior and have the people whose lives you've messed with define that behavior [E] for you, see.
And it's not going to go away.
[D#] You're going to be dealing with it every moment and every situation for the rest of your life.
[C] I said, okay, I'll try that.
[A] _ And Hammond said, it's not enough.
I said, oh.
_ [Em] He said, oh.
_ [A] _ _ [G#] He said, [A] you were born [Em] a [Am] white man in mid-20th century [E] industrial America.
[A] You came into the world armed to the teeth with a arsenal of weapons.
[C] The weapons of [A] privilege.
[Em] Racial [F#] privilege, sexual privilege, [E] economic privilege.
[A] You want to be a pacifist, not just giving up guns and knives and [C] clubs and fists and [A] angry words, but giving up the weapons of privilege.
[Dm] [C] Going into the world completely [A] disarmed.
Try that.
[C] That old man has been gone now 20 years [N] and I'm still at it.
But I figure if there's a worthwhile struggle in my own life, that's probably the one.
[C] _ Think about it.
I'd always [A] wanted to write a [Em] song for that old man.
He never wanted one about him.
[A] That way, something mulched up out of his thought.
His [C] anarchist thought.
Anarchist is an incessant [A] word.
Oh, so many times he stood up in front of Federal [F#m] District Judge Ritter that day and [A] he picked up a picketing illegally and he never [Gm] pled innocent or [C] guilty.
He declared anarchy.
[A] _ And Ritter would say, [F#] what's an anarchist?
And I see, and Ammon [A] would say, well an [C#] anarchist is anybody who doesn't [C] need a cop to tell him what to do.
_ Kind of a fundamentalist anarchist.
[G#] And Ritter would say, but Ammon, you [N] broke the law.
What about that?
And Ammon would say, oh Judge, your damn law is the good people don't need them and the bad people don't obey them, so what use are they? _
Anarchy. _ _ _ _ _ _
Anarchy.
[C] _ _ Do you want to [F#] know the history [Em] of Anarchy?
Well, I [A] lived there for eight years and I watched him.
And then he watched [Em] him.
And I discovered, [Am] watching him, that anarchy [Em] is not a noun but an adjective.
It [A] describes the tension between moral [Em] autonomy and political authority.
[Am] Especially [A] in the area of combinations, whether [E] they're going to be voluntary or [A] coercive.
The most destructive, coercive combinations [Em] are arrived at through [Am] force.
Like Ammon said, [Em] force is the [A] weapon of the weak.
Strong enough, _ _ _ [Em] _
_ [A] _ _ [Am] _ _ _ [C#] _ _
_ _ [A] _ strong enough, _ [C#]
you're not going to cry.
[C] Does anybody know that name, Ammon Hammond? _