SMASH COMBAT 18

I found this video on YouTube. It basically describes how the IRA is going to smash Combat 18, an armed Nazi organization (I know the IRA decommisioned in 2005, but it makes an entertaining point about stopping Combat 18- it's kind of political fantasy in the post-decommisioning period, but a good political fantasy)
Some notes on the video before you watch it:

1. The UVF is a loyalist (Protestant/Pro-British) paramilitary.
2. The guys with heavy weapons and/or camoflauge are the IRA.
3. The video quotes an Irish National Liberation Army statement. As far as I can tell, the creator of the video (who is awesome) is close to the Republican Socialist Movement. I don't support them today, I flirted with supporting them in the late 90s, and I believe that from 1974-1982, they were amazing. I might post more on that later. See this post.
4. Although I'm sure the creator is anti-racist, it's disapointing that the video says nothing about loyalist/Nazi violence towards people of color in the North of Ireland.
5. The music is "Bash the Fash" by Oi Polloi. It pushes a message I only agree half-way with- that the best way to deal with fascists is through violence. I agree with Billy Bragg (the popular British left-wing singer-songwriter) when he says that although there are much better ways of dealing with fascists than beating them up in the street, he also does support beating them up in the street.
6. UPDATE 2/11/20 The person who made the video might be a little too eager for conflict with loyalists. Before you get the wrong idea about me, see the second note in the notes BELOW the poem here.

The youtube page of the creator is here



I appologize for the dificulty you'll probably have with some of the text.

 

 

 

Slaytanic Wehrmacht

 (As far as the anti-bigotry part of this blog, I decided at some point early on that I wanted to work around the edges of battling bigotry, offering ideas and information that most people are unaware of but which might help them here and there with anti-bigotry work. So that’s why there are a lot of posts that seem a little weird, including this one)


This was originally written and published in Dec.of 2008. I have re-written it to improve it’s read-ability and have written it from my perspective in early 2015.

(I came up with this new version by editing the old and I hate to say it, but I didn't make any changes to reflect the sad passing of Jeff Hanneman. Besides the part about them needing to do more anti-racist stuff now, this post is about the time when the band included Hanneman, King and Araya)

There are many, many people (in both the nazi and anti-nazi camps) who think that Slayer is a racist and/or ant-Semitic band (Slayer of course is one of the top four thrash metal bands, known for it’s creative and controversial lyrics and creative and very aggressive music). As I’ll explain, although I’m sure they AREN’T racist or anti-semitic, they need to do more to combat those kinds of bigotry among their fans.

Am I writing this as a long-time and dedicated fan of Slayer? Have I carved SLAYER on my arm? Will I if that gets their attention? Not really, no, and possibly. I started listening to that kind of music in 1991 and a couple years later started listening to the Slayer album Seasons in the Abyss. I bought Divine Intervention in 1994 but didn’t like it until recently. In the last few years I have started listening to almost everything by Slayer for an average of about 1 hr. a day and I love it. Unfortunately I listen to it on YouTube and I don’t pay for it and for various reasons that’s not gonna change. But I AM now close to being a real fan. And if you look at thrash metal in general, I have been really into it since 1991. Some of my long-time favorite bands are more or less in that genre (Megadeth, Metallica, Nuclear Assault, Anthrax, Body Count, Suicidal Tendencies, and DRI).

Even with that I still doubt Slayer will listen to me, but maybe enough of their real fans will be convinced to do something and convince Slayer to do more. In any case I decided in 2008 that this issue(s) fascinated me and that if this effort were successful it would help the broad anti-hate movement make more progress.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t been an active fan of metal since roughly my mid- or late twenties (I was born in 1975). No concerts, a declining number of T-shirts that I have barely worn since 2005, etc. But I still listen to it a lot and I am concerned about the presence of racism in that scene (reflected in part by about 95% of the audience being white and about 95% of the performers being white). I think back to the Body Count song “There Goes the Neighborhood,” where Ice-T yells about that problem. Sure, it was in 1991 but in 2008 I looked around the internet some and got the strong impression there is still a problem with racism in metal. What can be done about the existence of racist thrash-metal fans? Well, a SMALL part of this problem I believe is/was the small but largely unchallenged presence of nazi skinheads- their presence by itself and also the effect that can have on young, impressionable minds attending such concerts. And this part of the problem should be relatively easy to address by making Nazi Skinheads unwelcome. Looking at the punk scene in the not-too-distant past, Black Flag and Fugazi would make it clear from the stage that Nazi skinheads weren’t welcome. More recently, there was an example of this at a punk show in CA. Although I don’t know the details, there was at some point in the last twenty years or so a feud between Slayer and Sepultura, with the latter criticizing Slayer about their attitude towards Nazi Skinheads at Slayer shows.

My problem with Slayer is that they need to take the struggle against racism seriously when racism rears it’s ugly head among their fans- I’m mostly thinking of their concerts, which attract a LOT of Nazi skinheads. Many Slayer fans would probably say that the band has nothing to do with that. Even if they do NOTHING to make Nazi Skinheads think they’re welcome, Slayer needs to do more to make it clear they’re UNwelcome.

*     *     *

As I have explained above and will explain below, I'm taking the unusual step of writing and publishing this because of the following combination of reasons: 1) nazi skinheads (not racists in general, but people who are very comfortable engaging in unjustified and bigoted violence) are very visible at Slayer concerts; 2) why isn't Slayer doing what other bands have done in a similar situation?; 3) solid evidence that at least in the past and to some degree today racist Slayer fans saw Slayer members as being fellow racists; 4) the cover of "Guilty of Being White" gives white people the wrong idea about anti-white bigotry; and 5) to settle the argument over whether or not Slayer ARE racist.

*     *     *

At some point I should say that I found an online discussion among white supremacist fans of Slayer (on the Stormfront site here). Most of them indicated that at some point in the past and/or during the discussion they believed Slayer was a white power band.

UPDATE 6/13/17 in 2013, shortly after the death of guitarist Jeff Hanneman, I read a couple discussion threads about his death on the world's largest white supremacist web-site. NO ONE mentioned the song Slayer did with Ice-T for the Judgement Night soundtrack (see below)- despite the fact that in the 2002 discussion about Slayer and race it was mentioned a few times; it appears that Nazi Skinheads might be even less aware of that song now than they were back in 2002

*     *     *

And, they HAVE done a handful of things that have had or probably have had the effect of making nazi skinheads feel welcome. The smaller ones are:

1. A song called “Angel of Death” is about nazi death camp doctor, Joseph Mengele and has apparently been widely mis-interpreted (by both advocates and opponents of anti-Semitism) as being pro-Nazi.

2. Their official fan club (and a lot of unofficial fan stuff refers to this as well) is called the "Slatanic Wehrmacht." The Wehrmacht was the non-SS military of Nazi Germany.

3. Apparently in response to the criticism they received as a result of "Angel of Death," they temporarily adopted a symbol some have said is based on the Nazi "Eagle Atop Swastika." Jeff Hanneman sometimes appeared with (what might be called) Nazi “accessories” such as SS symbols on his guitar strap or a t-shirt with the symbol of the SS unit responsible for the Holocaust on it and possibly displayed other similar imagery.



There are a handful of small things and between 1 and six big things about Slayer that all combined make me certain they’re not racists or anti-semites:

1. For about 1-2 years they were signed to Def Jam, a record label primarily for rap music. The co-founder of that label, who is Jewish, produced most of their albums.

2. Tom Araya is from Chile and Dave Lombardo is from Cuba. I'm not sure that proves it, as much of Chile is White and 65% of Cuba is white. On a related note, 1-2 members may be Jewish.

3. Two members were briefly in a band with Rocky George (of Suicidal Tendencies fame).

4. One band member, at one point, had a Dead Kennedys sticker on his guitar (probably not a lot of racist DK fans out there).

5. Kerry King did some work with the Beastie Boys on their album “License to Ill.”

6. There are at least a few big things which are in this category and I’ll mention them further below.



The big thing they did that has encouraged racist Slayer fans is a song on an album they did which was mostly a bunch of punk covers. They did "Guilty Of Being White" by Minor Threat. As far as I can tell, when that was written Minor Threat were anti-racist and nowhere near as tainted by the sort of stuff I mention in the first category above. The vocalist who wrote the song was apparently inspired by being beaten by black kids at his mostly black school; apparently he had good reason to think (or maybe KNOW) that it was racially prejudiced. Also, unlike with Slayer, I feel comfortable assuming that at Minor Threat shows and in interviews the vocalist, Ian MacKaye, made anti-racist statements (I'm basing this on the politics of another band he was with (Fugazi), on a report that during the Minor Threat era MacKaye was a big fan of Bad Brains and was close to Henry Rollins, and on a pro-SHARP (SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice) video on YouTube that had music from 4 Minor Threat songs).

Slayer's version changed the last line from the song title to "Guilty of being right." It's not real clear, but they seem to have admitted that, although they were just trying to be controversial, it was supposed to be interpreted as racist. And based on an online discusson among racist Slayer fans on Stormfront, it WAS interpreted as racist by some racists.

Even without that lyrical twist at the end, there would still be a problem with this. Sure, there's anti-White bigotry.  But it's safe to say that racism is more common among white people than anti-white bigotry is among people of color. Around 2009 I looked at FBI figures on hate crimes for the preceding 10-15 years. At first I just looked at murders, then I looked at the numbers for hate crimes in general. I found that according to the FBI, for every anti-White incident, there were about six incidents motivated by white supremacy. I had heard that there are a lot of hate crimes unreported to the FBI, so I made it seven. I have had trouble figuring out what percentage of the population is White (this is complicated by the fact that I’m pretty sure there are a lot of white people classified as “Hispanic/Latino” and when I last looked at this it would have been the 2000 Census data), but I’d say around 75%, making people of color around 25%. I then did some math involving those figures, but I can’t remember what I did. I DID conclude that racism was about twice as common among white people as anti-white bigotry was among people of color (that is, if 50% of whites are racist, 25% of people of color are bigoted towards whites). I have since learned that the Department of Justice believes that for every hate crime that is included in the FBI’s figures, there are 20-30 more that aren’t. I don’t know how they came to that, but it makes sense. There are two main reasons for believing this- 1) Many, MANY law enforcement agencies do not send hate crime figures to the FBI and undoubtedly, such areas would be very racist, and there would be a lot of racist crimes; 2) There must be a HUGE number of homophobic crimes unreported partly because there are so many gay and bi-sexual people who are more or less still in the closet, and because you take what I wrote in #1 above and change “racist” to “homophobic.” I can’t remember how I did the math earlier, but it makes me think that racism is about 10-20 times more common among white people than anti-White bigotry is among people of color. This part about hate crimes involves any kind of incident (pro-white or anti-white), the sort of thing that pretty much everyone is physically capable of doing as a result of prejudice and is about how widespread a belief is, compared to another belief, as indicated by actions that pretty much anyone can take. I am certainly not talking about how oppressed people are (people of color are infinitely more oppressed than white people, since the ways in which anti-white bigotry is manifested do not add up to white people being oppressed (as white people) at all), just how widespread a belief is, compared to another belief, as indicated by actions that pretty much anyone, white or non-white, can take). When there isn't an appropriate amount of hostility towards white supremacy to balance it out, discussing anti-white bigotry can easily lead white people to think that anti-white bigotry is a greater problem than it is, which can lead a lot of white people to become racist.

There's also the racist twist of the lyrics and some of the other things I've mentioned. So, Slayer ought to do AT LEAST about 10 things of equal significance (to recording that song) to challenge white supremacy. As far as I can tell they have done at most 6 total (I’m counting stuff done before that Minor Threat cover, because it’s still out there and could contribute to making Nazi skinheads unwelcome).

The first big anti-Nazi thing is that Slayer recorded a song (a medley of three songs by The Exploited) called "Disorder" with Ice-T. Some of the lyrics were altered to apply to American politics in the early 1990s, and some of it was anti-racist. It's very clear that they're referring to the LA Riots of 1992, when they sing "Injustice drives you crazy, it drove LA insane."

But it was on a soundtrack. There were probably MANY Slayer fans who didn't even hear about it, but did hear Slayer's cover of "Guilty of Being White" (that’s based on the Stormfront discussion I referred to above).

The second and third things are pretty minor. They did at least two tours with Suicidal Tendencies (a racially diverse band that’s more or less thrash metal).

The fourth anti-Nazi item is a song on the album “South of Heaven” called “Behind the Crooked Cross.” First, it’s about a soldier in Hitler’s army that is starting to feel disillusioned about what he’s involved with. I didn’t know it was an anti-fascist song until someone who was arguing with me about this post mentioned it. And I doubt that more than 5% of Slayer’s fans know it’s anti-fascist. The thing is, the “crooked cross” is another word for the swastika, but who knows that? (at one point I found a video on YouTube that had a lot of WWII imagery with that song playing, but I’m certain it’s a fan-video).

In Oct. 2012 I wrote the following: “I'm not sure why this took so long, but I finally figured I could do some internet searches to get some solid idea of how many Slayer fans know what the song is about. I did a google advanced search for the phrase "crooked cross is another term for swastika" and the word "Slayer." There were only two results- one was this post, one was a discussion on Irish Indymedia where I and a Slayer fan went at it, and s/he told me about the song. I did another (Google Advanced) search for "crooked cross is another word for swastika" and the word "Slayer." Nothing came up with that phrase, but there were 10 results with all those words: A) A wikipedia page about the swastika, which at this point doesn't contain the word "Slayer"; B) A page on what probably is a sort of high-traffic heavy metal site, a page on Slayer; C) Basically the same thing; D) a blogpost which doesn't do much more than explain that the crooked cross is the swastika, and briefly discusses the Slayer song; E) An anti-fascist discussion forum post about this issue where the only person to mention this song is me; F) This post I'm typing right now; G) A music site I imagine has a lot of traffic, it says little or nothing that explicitly identfies the song as anti-Nazi; I got distracted and forgot to check the last three, and now they don't show up in the search anymore, but they didn't look like they touched on this song. I did another (Google Advanced) search, with ""crooked cross is the swastika" and "slayer." There were three results: A) A page with the lyrics for the song and a brief discussion about them, identifying them as anti-Nazi; B) the same web-site, and a very brief anti-Nazi description of the lyrics; C) This blog post.”

Because of that (and in general the lyrics aren't quite as explicit as "Guilty of Being White"), I’m being generous by counting that song as a whole anti-Nazi item. Although their lyrics are even less clearly anti-fascist, anti-Nazi items 5 and 6 are the songs “Angel of Death” and “SS-3.” (there are so many things about Slayer that can only mean they’re anti-Nazi that I’m assuming that these unclear lyrics were intended to be anti-Nazi or at worst, with "Angel of Death" were written to be neutral descriptions of horrible things (as far as I can tell, MANY Slayer songs are like that))

Slayer, I imagine, might not be around much longer. They should do some stuff to compensate for the damage they've done (see the Stormfront discussion). They could do explicitly anti-racist songs, more collaborations with rappers (especially those who are people of color), do benefit concerts for anti-racist organizations, make explicit, detailed anti-racist statements that go well beyond simple denials of racism (if they're so inclined, maybe, denouncing the Confederate flag) do more tours with groups that are mostly/completely people of color, etc.

I found myself thinking as I re-typed this in 2015 that the earlier discussion on Stormfront might have dis-illusioned most of the racist Slayer fans who speak English (I know of a recent discussion in a Spanish and Portugese part of that site about Slayer being Nazis). But I read several recent discussions about Slayer on that site and hardly anything was said about the band not being Nazis, and there were a few things said going the other way. So it seems that it’s still a problem- the anti-racist movement could really benefit (in different ways) from Slayer acting as you would expect violence-friendly, outspoken people who oppose racism to act when Nazi skinheads show up at their concerts.

I'd also like to say that if it were JUST a small amount of controversial imagery and their lyrics occassionally made it very clear they're anti-racist, that'd be fine. I haven't thrown myself into their stuff yet, but I am pretty sure that many Sacred Reich songs are anti-racist (certainly "One Nation," and "Blue Suit, Brownshirt" are). I've got no problem with their name, especially because it's hilarious considering the politics in their lyrics.

But I believe that what I have written about above means that lots of young white Slayer fans have seen and maybe DO and WILL see a thumbs up from Slayer when it comes to racism and that might possibly lead them to even get involved with Nazi skinheads.

As far as I can tell, they've done 6 things to make that less likely, and at the VERY least they need to do 10, so at least four more.

UPDATE 4/24/15 I just learned that a video album by Slayer (Soundtrack to the Apocalypse) includes "Disorder." So now they are three items short of the minimum of 10 (I doubt that more than a minority of Slayer fans have actually seen that video album). The video album was released in 2003, and as I wrote in the above, in recent discussions on Stormfront the Nazis STILL believe Slayer is more or less in their corner.

UPDATE 9/30/15 on the 11th Slayer released their most recent studio album, "Repentless." I bought it (I'm happy that Slayer will get some of that money, it's a great album) but it took me about 2 weeks before I read the lyrics for the song "Pride in Prejudice" but I just did. I'm not a real "deep" thinker and if not for the 2nd to last line, I would say that I have a weak grasp of what it's about (I have only read the lyrics of about 20% of Slayer songs because most of them are very cryptic-  it's difficult for me to figure what they're saying (is "War Ensemble" pro-war, anti-war, or just a creative illustration in words of what war is probably like?) and sometimes even the subject is difficult to identify ("Behind the Crooked Cross")). But the subject of this song is made clear with a reference to "racial slurs." Between that and my certainty that they are anti-racist, I will count this song as the 8th thing they have done to compensate for covering "Guilty of Being White." Two more things at the very least, Slayer. (UPDATE 3/26/20 I just saw the video for that song, and although it's not clear EXACTLY what it's about and I suppose Nazis can misinterpret it, it's clearly about white supremacy. So that's #9)

 UPDATE 3/14/20 I have to admit I am not incredibly familiar with the band Biohazard, but as far as I can tell, they were sort of racist at the beginning- I heard it was to steal fans from a racist band, which is either a lame excuse or just bizarre. In any case, I have looked into it a little in the past, and I also remember when they were interviewed in the early 1990s (maybe on MTV's The Headbanger's Ball) they tried to spin the lyrics of a song as anti-racist and I think they were trying to sweep under the rug their racist or faux racist past. The thing is though, in the mid 1990s they did not just two songs with a black rap group called Onyx, they did a music video for each one, and I assume they got a fair amount of exposure on MTV. One song was called "Slam" and the other one was the title track on the Judgement Night soundtrack.

(Also, since I have not yet mentioned N. Ireland in this post, and that's a crime or it should be, at the 2002 National Conference of Sinn Fein Youth in Galway, Ireland, a member of SFY offered to give me his Biohazard t-shirt)

******

Some of my sources for some of the more controversial claims:

Slayer's page on Wikipedia, and related pages for specific band members, songs, albums (I've looked at TONS of stuff on Wikipedia and have yet to find one thing that I know is inacurate, and a lot of what I've looked at includes info I was already aware of)

Slayer and Nazi Skinheads- well known that the latter love the former (multiple sources, just do a search on it)

Minor Threat and related Wikipedia pages

In general, I doubt anyone will seriously question the facts I've presented. I'm sure plenty of Slayer fans will disagree with my analysis, I'm pretty sure the facts are not in dispute.

American Democracy

On 6/13/17 I made some significant changes to some of this.

First, let me address something. I know sometimes when people talk about making America more democratic, some people, either because they're anal, or because they oppose making America more democratic, respond by pointing out that America is a Republic, not a Democracy. Although I consider myself some kind of amateur political scientist (about 1/5-1/4 of my degree, Ethnic Studies, could be taught in a PSCI course and I took 4 PSCI courses outside ETHN) I struggle a little with this. When I looked at it recently and asked several very political people I know, I found different definitions for “republic” and different definitions for “democracy.” It was so mixed that I am not sure which definitions are right. I lean a bit towards defining a republic as a democratic or undemocratic state which, critically, has no monarch. Also, I’m tempted to tell the “we’re a republic not a democracy” people I’ll take them seriously about it when they convince more than 1% of America’s elected politicians to stop calling it a democracy. You can label my writing below a call for a more democratic republic, or a call to strengthen our democracy, or something like that. I think most people will see that the problems I’m briefly addressing in this post are in conflict with democratic and/or republican values. If I could remember what my PSCI professors had said 20 years ago about this, I might just go with that, but I can’t remember what they said, so I’m just going to go with what I have written above.

(I'm talking about POLITICAL democracy- don't get me started about America's democratic deficit economically (capitalism) or sociologically (i.e. white cops getting away with it when they murder unarmed Black men) which is much worse than the problems with our democracy in a political sense)

How do we make America more democratic? There are several ways. To varying degrees I’ll describe them below. And I'll be honest- although I'd support greater democracy anyway, there's reason to believe that what I'm proposing would benefit the liberal/progressive/left side of politics.


1. Proportional Representation. Although I prefer the form where there are many districts with something like 3-5 members elected from each, and I also prefer Single Transferable Vote (you rank the candidates based on your preference and your vote is transferred depending on how each candidate does at each stage of the counting), it'd be great to see some kind of PR for one part of the Congress.

2. Let felons vote. Although there's probably tons of people in correctional institutions who shouldn't be there, I'm willing to concede that some small majority of them probably should. But their punishment is that they lose their freedom, they don't lose their citizenship. Also, it's not insignificant that felons barred from voting are disproportionately people of color. At the same time, they're counted in census counts that shape congressional districts. Under slavery, slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person for this purpose. Now it's 100% and they still can't vote. Also, to some small degree, since a lot of these institutions are in rural areas, it may mean more mostly rural ( and probably conservative) districts.

3. Instant run-off voting for President. I wouldn't say this is the most important. I kind of feel that 3rd parties like the Greens should just ignore the Presidential race and focus on races they have some chance of winning (I might later on post my thoughts on progressive 3rd party electoral stuff), but the fact is they aren't going to ignore it and will continue to act as potential or actual spoilers. IRV will allow them to vote their conscience without throwing away their vote.

4. Statehood for DC. The residents of Washington DC, a mostly non-white city don't have a voting member of the House and have no one at all in the Senate. The population of DC is bigger than that of Wyoming. They should have a voting member of the House and two senators. It’s basically “taxation without representation.”


5. There's probably a bunch of things relevant to this that I'm going to skip (i.e. shortening the work week so people have more time for activism/civic involvement, taking money out of politics, etc.); The last item, and in fact the one that prompted me to write this in the first place, is about the Senate.

(UPDATE 6/10/09 The stuff about how the process of amending the constitution works, and the general population and racial demographic figures come from Wikipedia)

Our Senate is ridiculously undemocratic. Each state has the same representation regardless of how big or small they are (population-wise). To look at the extremes, Wyoming and California, if you take 2 and divide it by the number of either eligible voters or the number of citizens in each state, it means that the tiny fraction of a vote that you could say each Californian has in the Senate is MUCH tinier than the one that you could say people in Wyoming have. This is wrong. Also however you define "small" (as long as they have less than 10 congressional districts) the small states are mostly conservative. Even if that changes, it would still be undemocratic, and it's not likely to change.

The reform should be that each Senator gets a number of votes based on how many seats in the House their state is entitled to.

I have had some trouble coming up with a perfect way of convincing even the least willing to concede defeat when it comes to how undemocratic the current set up is. What I wrote above about CA and WY might work, and another possibility is to describe a hypothetical situation where the American President is directly elected by the people, but the people in Wyoming get something like 60 votes and the people in California get 1 vote. It's not a solid analogy, but the Senate is roughly as powerful as the President, which strengthens this argument. Lastly, it might make sense to say that if you take the population of Wyoming and divide by two you get a certain number and if you do the same thing with CA, you get a number about 55-60 times bigger- then ask what they would think if in one state, there was a congressional district for every X # of people and in another state, there was one for every 55X # of people (for some reason I can’t be sure, but I believe that could described as one state having more representation per capita). Also, it occurred to me that, not only are the people in the smaller states likely to be conservative, they're VERY likely to be white (depending on how you look at it it’s kind of close, but when considering this, if you give a lot of weight to CA with it's huge population, and also to the really small, really white states, this is a significant problem)..


On a related note, something should be done about the Electoral College. I'm not sure if we should get rid of it, but at the very least it should be reformed so that it eliminates the 2 votes each state gets from having two senators. UPDATE 10/13/20 I just did a post about the EC. It's here.

 

UPDATE 3/6/21 I am going to offer some ideas for how to accomplish this. Obviously getting Senators and representatives from small states to vote in favor of it will be difficult, and then the same sort of thing will happen getting 3/4 of the states to ratify it. I think you start by creating a coalition at the national level with state and local sub-groups. As you’re building the coalition, you start talking about the unfairness of the current set-up and then you start doing polls about the subject in CA, NY, TX and many of the other states that have at least 10 congressional districts. You release the results of these polls, you demonstrate support through marches and rallies, etc. At that point you have the appropriate documents for a constitutional amendment submitted in the House and the Senate. At some point you need to internationalize the campaign and explain to the world how unfair the current set up is. In order to get politicians from and in small states to vote in favor of this, you’ll have to get NGOs in other countries to pressure corporations based in those countries to threaten to boycott any state and/or congressional district whose politicians vote against the amendment. To a lesser degree you could probably put enough pressure on some AMERICAN companies to do the same thing. 

 

UPDATE 5/25/21 The person behind the site I link to below thinks that we should just abolish the Senate. Although I think we need to reform and keep it (the House can't take on the extra work of confirming presidential appointees (i.e. cabinet members, etc.) considering that there's a lot of them and they all want some time speaking for the cameras and it's part of the checks and balances) abolishing it is preferable to the status quo. 

UPDATE 6/1/21 I just thought of something that makes reforming the Senate a better idea than abolishing it. For the foreseeable future the odds are very high that a reformed senate will have a Dem majority (a majority of the votes will be controlled by Dems) and that can block legislation from the House when it's occassionally controlled by the GOP.

UPDATE 6/24/22 I just thought of another good point to make in favor of reforming or abolishing the Senate to address the undemocratic way it works. State Senates (that is the upper chamber of every American state legislature with the exception of Nebraska which is unicameral) don't use counties the way the US Senate uses the states- State Senate districts aren't two for each county, and they don't give each county the same number of seats in the State Senate. Why do that sort of thing at the national level when we don't do it at the state level? No one says that the less populous counties need protection from the more populous counties (some State Senate districts are made up of multiple counties and some counties have more than one State Senate district). Why is it seen as important for democracy to protect the less populous STATES from being out-voted by the more populous STATES?

********

UPDATE 5/25/21 There's a large site with some good stuff about this issue- making America more democratic here. I don't agree with all of it completely.

Anti-racism and Republicans

Sinn Fein is a very anti-racist organization, probably a very large majority of members are anti-racist. It's almost that good for the Nationalist (Catholic) community in general (based partly on a N. Ireland Life and Times 2008 survey that says: 51% of Catholics are more or less anti-racist and 29% are non-racist) (the SDLP and Alliance (who have a toe in nationalist neighborhoods) are probably just as anti-racist as SF (racists in the nationalist community are probably disproportionately unaffiliated to any political party)). About 1% of N. Ireland is people of color, about 5% of the Republic of Ireland is people of color. There's always been a fair amount of white supremacist racism in the North, often resulting in violence, almost all of which emenates from the loyalist/unionist side (based partly on Northern Ireland Life and Times surveys, I'd say there's a large minority of unionists who are racist). There's some in the South as well.

There are/have been strong connections between loyalist paramilitaries and British Nazis. For example, see this. One time I saw a Confederate flag in a loyalist area of North Belfast. UPDATE 3/20/20 A mainstream article here about loyalists and racism.

In all fairness, it appears that the Loyalists are not anti-semitic. In recent years, in response to republicans putting up Palestinian flags in their areas, Loyalists put up Israeli flags (these were temporarily taken down when British Nazis came to visit). Later on I'll write something about anti-semitism and Jews in Ireland, as well as something about homophobia. (the former is here, and the latter is here)

The Ulster Unionist Party has a history of racism. Two bits are:

1. About 6 years ago, in Portadown, UUP Councilors opposed the construction of a mosque.

2. In the 60s and 70s there was a British Tory MP named Enoch Powell. He made a notorious speech known as the "Rivers of Blood" speech attacking immigration from the Commonwealth and the civil rights Race Relations Act. Six years later when he left the Conservative Party over Europe, he was elected as an Ulster Unionist from South Down, and was an MP with them between 1974 and 1987.

The Democratic Unionist Party also has a history of racism. Two bits are:

1. It's founder and until recently long-time leader, Ian Paisley, was close to Bob Jones University, an American university with a solid reputation as racist, at least until recently.

2. After 9/11, the Muslim community in Ballymena approached the local council (on which the DUP were the largest party) with some artwork as a gift. The council said that after 9/11 they could not accept it.

(UPDATE 2/26/18 I might change this, but A: It seems like a LOT of people refer to anti-muslim bigotry as racism, and B: as far as I can tell, I think a LOT of anti-muslim bigots see their victims as non-white even when their families have been in Europe for several centuries (if not for millennia) and they have fairly/very light-colored skin (i.e. Chechens))

Getting back to Sinn Fein, here's some facts that more or less support my statement that SF is very anti-racist (this is  not an  exhaustive list).

1. In the 70s and 80s probably some very large minority of them had been involved in the Civil Rights Movement. The NI CRM was based very much on the American one, to the extent that they would often sing "We Shall Overcome."

2. When Gerry Adams first came to America in 1994, he met with Rosa Parks. On another trip around 2002, he spoke at a black church.

3. Gerry Adams has spoken at at least one anti-racist rally (that I know of), and Sinn Fein representatives held a meeting between SF MEPs and representatives from anti-racist and people of color organizations in the Republic of Ireland.

4. At the 2002 National Conference of Sinn Fein Youth, there was a panel discussion attended by everyone (there was not a competing event) about multi-culturalism in Ireland. Two of the speakers were people of color.

5. In 2003, SF Northern local councilors launched a campaign to get Northern local councils to adopt anti-racist programmes.

6. Also at that time, the editor of the Andersontown News, a republican/SF-aligned community paper in West Belfast, wrote about how the nationalist community was exaggerating how anti-racist it is (I assume that was referring to claims that a large majority of the nationalist community was anti-racist when it's a very small majority).

7. There's probably about 40 murals in republican areas of N. Ireland that celebrate liberation struggles in the developing world or African-American political figures, that explicitly condemn racism, or that compare the experiences of nationalists with those of people of color.

8. Sinn Fein's newspaper often contains anti-racist material, and also material about the struggles of people of color in other parts of the world.

9. Sinn Fein gets along great with the ANC, and does a lot of work to support the Palestinians.

10. When I was at the 2002 National Conference of Sinn Fein Youth, I was representing the Anti-Racism Commission of the Democratic Socialists of America. They all knew that and I was invited to attend the private part of the conference and hung out with them 2-3 nights at a pub during the conference. This was despite the fact that early in the conference I criticized SF in front of at least 200 people (well, they might have agreed with my criticism, but it could also be that they valued my presence there as an anti-racist American supporter so much that even though I had just publicly criticized their party they still wanted me around).

UPDATE 2/13/15 11. For at least about a year and maybe about 6 years, SF has had a local councilour who is a person of color (Edmond Lukusa is a member of the Fingal County Council, just outside Dublin). I've heard they are the only party in the South able to say that.

Some things that indicate that there's probably a very small minority of SF members who are racist:

1. There is that article about how the nationalist community is less than 100% anti-racist, and I've found polls indicating that's definitely true. A 2008 Northern Ireland Life and Times poll found that, in response to the statement "in relation to colour and ethnicity, I prefer to stick with people of my own kind" 5% of Catholics strongly agreed and 16% agreed.

2. I'd estimate that some small minority of their American supporters are racist and that has probably rubbed off on a small number of SF members.

3. At the 2002 National Conference of Sinn Fein Youth, I met a SFY member who told me that he was racist (I had significant conversations with about 10 members total).

Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey

This is my first blog. Not sure exactly what I 'll be doing, basically offering my thoughts on various political issues, some history, etc. I'm an American democratic socialist (democratic marxist/left-wing social-democratic), and more or less an Irish Republican (I largely support Sinn Fein).

I'm not sure it was the best idea to name the blog after a living person (thank god she's still with us!!) (it was originally named after Bernadette devlin-McAliskey) and I'll change it if she requessts it, but my ultimate favorite hero is Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey, whose politics largely (not totally) reflect what this blog will be about- socialism, republicanism, and opposition to bigotry (we disagree about SF and the GFA and I doubt she uses the term "social democrat" to describe herself and there's probably some more disagreements when you get into the details and/or look around the world).

the Wikipedia page about her is here.

She was a major leader of the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland, and was with the Peoples' Democracy, a student, militant and left-wing section of the CRM. She took part in the 1969 Belfast-Derry march by PD (there's more about that in the first 3rd of this), which was based on the Selma-Montgomery march in the American South. Over 3-4 days they were repeatedly attacked by loyalist/unionist (Protestant/pro-British) militants and given a hero's welcome in Derry.

In April 1969, she was elected as a Unity candidate to the Westminster Parliament from Mid-Ulster. In Aug. of 1969, when the police, followed by a loyalist mob, tried invading the Catholic Bogside neighborhood in Derry, they were repulsed by local youth, with Devlin providing great encouragement. She ended up serving a brief jail sentence for her role.

She remained an active leader of the civil rights movement and was present at the Bloody Sunday shootings in Jan. 1972. The next day, in Parliament, when she wasn't allowed to speak despite having witnessed the event under discussion and a British Minister justified the shootings, she hit him.

She lost her seat in the 1974 Westmisnter election (she stood as an Independent Socialist) when the Social Democratic and Labour Party ran a candidate and split the anti-Unionist vote, allowing a Unionist to win.

In 1974 she helped found the Irish Republican Socialist Party with Seamus Costello. She left a year later when she felt that the armed wing, the Irish National Liberation Army, was being given priority. However she spoke fondly of Costello when he was killed in 1977.

In 1979 she ran for the European Parliament, largely as a supporter of IRA and INLA prisoners who were demanding status as prisoners of war. In 1981, largely because of her work in support of the prisoners, loyalist paramilitaries almost killed her and her husband (she was one of very top leaders of the movement to support the prisoners). For more on the prisoners issue, see the middle third of this.

In 1988, when a coalition of people who had been involved in the civil rights movement in the late sixties organized to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the civil rights movement, she wrote and narrated a documentary called "OFF OUR KNEES: 1968-1988 From Civil Rights to National Liberation."

More recently she has become fairly (or perhaps very) critical of Sinn Fein and is an opponent, on republican and socialist, not militarist grounds, of the Good Friday Agreement. She continues to be active in various efforts of republican, socialist, and generally progressive causes (anti-raccism, feminism, gay rights, etc.). (I largely support SF and the GFA, but she does not).

In addition to the above, what I also greatly admire about her is that when she first came to the United States (and on subsequent visits) she continued to support progressive causes. Most importantly, even though her first visit involved fund-raising (mostly) from Irish-Americans in 1969, she stood up against racism consistently. For example, when she was given the key to the city of New York, she passed it on to the Black Panther Party. On another trip here, in 1971, she met with Angela Davis in jail. In 2003 the Bush administration had her deported, because, as Anthony McIntyre put it, she knew too much and said it too well.

UPDATE 6/2/14 I left out two other examples: 1) at an event in Boston on her first trip here, there was some disturbance caused by opponents of integration in America and she made it clear how she felt about that, and 2) when speaking in Washington DC on her first trip, she pointed out to the audience that there was a huge disconnect between how black the district was and how white the audience was. (there are more examples on the wikipedia page, which is probably accurate)

Anyway, that's a good intro to one of Ireland's top 3 republican-socialists ever. Like I said, I named the blog after her because it will mostly reflect her politics.