About My Blog

My blog is about history, popular culture, politics and current events from a democratic socialist and Irish republican perspective. The two main topics are Northern Ireland on one hand and fighting anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia on the other. The third topic is supporting the Palestinians, and there are several minor topics. The three main topics overlap quite a bit. I have to admit that it’s not going to help me get a graduate degree, especially because it’s almost always written very casually. But there are some high-quality essays, some posts that come close to being high-quality essays, political reviews of Sci-Fi TV episodes (Star Trek and Babylon 5), and a unique kind of political, progressive poetry you won't find anywhere else. (there are also reviews of episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and reviews of Roseanne)

(my old blog was not showing up in Google search results AT ALL (99% of it wasn't being web-crawled or indexed or whatever) and there was another big problem with it, so this is a mirror of the old one although there will be some occassionnal editing of old posts and there will be new posts. I started this blog 12/16/20; 4/28/21 I am now done with re-doing the internal links on my blog) (the Google problem with my blog (only 1% of this new one is showing up in Google search results) is why I include a URL of my blog when commenting elsewhere, otherwise I would get almost no visitors at all)

(The "Table of Contents" offers brief descriptions of all but the most recent posts)

(I just recently realized that my definition of "disapora" was flawed- I thought it included, for example, Jews in Israel, the West Bank and the Golan Heights, and with the Irish diaspora, the Irish on that island. I'll do some work on that soon (11/21/20 I have edited the relevant paragraph in my post about Zionism))

(If you're really cool and link to my blog from your site/blog, let me know) (if you contact me, use the word "blog" in the subject line so I'll know it's not spam)

YOU NEED TO READ THE POST "Trump, Netanyahu, and COVID-19 (Coronavirus)" here. It is a contrast of the two on COVID-19 and might be helpful in attacking Trump. And see the middle third of this about Trump being a for-real fascist.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Nuclear Assault Your Daughters and Your Sons

UPDATE 11/6/10: This first 1/3 of this post used to be fairly pro-Obama. Analyses of the election (in some cases stuff written shortly before the election) by Marc Cooper, Harold Meyerson, and Paul Krugman (and possibly also David Corn, Bob Herbert, and Eugene Robinson) have convinced me that Obama and more generally most of the Dem leaders screwed up big time. So I am eliminating the references to Obama from this part of the post.

I'd like to talk about some of the songs I listen to whose politics I like. From the songs I've altered (about 1/2 of what I've altered is based on stuff I agree with, I've indicated which are which) and my profile, you should have some idea of what I listen to, although there's a lot of miscellaneous stuff (i.e. "Free Your Mind" by En Vogue (I like the song, but the video with the moshing is awesome)). I just added one to my favorites, and it might actually be number one, although I need to spend some time listening to more of their stuff, especially stuff besides the one album I listened to a bunch in High School, but I'll get to that soon.

First, the song that in some ways is significantly different from the others I'm going to talk about. It's possibly my favorite song. I first heard it in that documentary I keep referring to "Off Our Knees." It's played at the end during five minutes of what is probably some of the most inspiring material a progressive could ever see in video.

The song is "Your Daughters and Your Sons." I think it's by Tommy Sands, but like most republican songs, there are multiple versions and the one I sing is a little bit unique. It's a republican song, although for all you know looking at the lyrics, it's a Vietnamese song. One explanation I've heard is that the song is about how, between the formation of N. Ireland and the late 60s when the Nationalist community rose up en masse, there were some very unsuccessfull attempts (militarily or otherwise) at reforming or ending the state, and people basically passed on the dream of freedom from one generation to the next.

Going back to the song, my version is below, and here are some notes:
1. I have a policy with songs I like that I eliminate, unless impossible, any trace of sexism. I've considered adding "woman" to the 2nd line of the 2nd verse, but it sounds a little odd, and overwhelmingly the song is already inclusive regarding sex.
2. The reference to Belfast is not necessarily about the IRA- plenty of people were tortured who weren't in the IRA.
3. The reference to Spain could be about the Basques (even as an IRA supporter I don't support ETA, but I do support the Basque people) or it could be a reference to the Spanish Civil War (it's a safe bet the fash used torture).
4. Chile refers to the Pinochet years.
5. In that documentary, the line "writing's on the wall" seems to refer to Free Derry Corner.
6. I took the chorus and switched sons and daughters and used it in one of my songs, "The Spirit of Che Guevara." (I also used that line in another song "comrades")

"Your Daughters and Your Sons"

They wouldn't play your music and your paintings they pulled down
They wouldn't read your writings and they banned you from the town
But they couldn't stop you dreaming, and a victory you've won
For you sowed the seed of freedom in your daughters and your sons

Chorus:
In your daughters and your sons, in your daughters and your sons
You sowed the seed of freedom in your daughters and your sons

Your smile proudly hides the chain marks on your hands
As you bravely strive to realize the rights of every man
Though your body's bent and low, a victory you've won
For you sowed the seed of justice in your daughters and your sons

Chorus

I don't know your religion, but one day I heard your pray
For a world where everyone could work and the children they could play
Although you never realized, a victory you've won
For you sowed the seed of equality in your daughters and your sons

Chorus

They tortured you in Belfast, and they tortured you in Spain
And in that Warsaw Ghetto, they tied you up in chains
In Vietnam, in Chile, where they came with tanks and guns
You sowed the seed of peace in your daughters and your sons

Chorus

Now your music's playing and the writing's on the wall
And all the dreams you painted can be seen by one and all
Now you've got them thinking, and a victory you've won
For you sowed the seed of freedom in your daughters and your sons

Chorus

******

Now going back to what might be my new favorite band. Besides some mostly weak rap music (Fresh Prince, who I still kind of like, Run DMC who I still pretty much like, and Beastie Boys, who I still really like) the first real music I got into was Megadeth in 10th grade. I got into other metal, mostly thrash/speed (Metallica, Anthrax, Suicidal Tendencies, D.R.I., Body Count), and within a year was also into some punk (mostly Dead Kennedys, Dead Milkmen) harder rap (mostly Ice-T, Public Enemy) and what was vaguely and lazily referred to as "Alternative" (mostly Nirvana, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Primus, Rage Against The Machine, and L7). One day I might do an entire post about my transition during High School to being a socialist, for now I'll just say that since about 65% of the music I was listening to was basically liberal, and 5% was progressive (the rest was either non-political, it's possible 5% was conservative), that music was a big part of the transition. There were two bands I listened to that I want to focus on- they probably weren't/aren't as progressive as the Dead Kennedys were, but as far as I can tell, they're close. Also, both of them, I'm only familiar with roughly 1/10 of their stuff, but I'm pretty certain they were and are progressive.

First, their music, they're both basically thrash-metal. In High School, and I think even today, thrash might be my favorite kind of music overall. And as far as I can tell, it's pretty non-political some large minority of the time and maybe conservative or even worse some small minority of the time, liberal some large minority of the time, and the rest would be progressive, including these two bands (admittedly, this is largely based on my knowledge from listening to 1980s and 1990s stuff, but I have some small knowledge of the current situation).

The first band, Sacred Reich, amazingly seems to have had almost no role in my transition towards being a socialist. I think I only listened to one song on their tape (Surf Nicaragua (lyrics are here), which only had three originals- 2 political, and a cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs"), the title track, which is pretty progressive. The thing is, five months ago I discovered another song that I do not remember paying attention to at all, and it is now one of my top 10 favorite songs. It's called "One Nation," the lyrics are here (the last line, although it's not clear what it actually is, according to other sites is "why don't you understand?"; the line "Your ideas are decided By where you have been born" must be a quote and not the band's opinion). Although I'm not certain, I get the impression that the rest of their lyrics are also very progressive.

The band which might now be my favorite is Nuclear Assault, which I had two tapes of in High School, although I barely listened to "Survive," I listened a lot to "Handle With Care," which is overwhelmingly progressive. It's got two environmentalist songs, 1-2 anti-racist songs, a song about police harassing people, a couple other political ones. The lyrics for one song I'm going to post below. I had kind of forgotten about it, but it's a very good anti-racist song.

I almost forgot, that as far as them being progressive, NA has done two songs, although it doesn't seem like the second is an original, called "Butt Fuck (You Figure It Out)" and "Lesbians." The first one is reportedly about Vince Neil of Motley Crue. I've looked for the lyrics and I'll probably have to dig to find out what they are and what they mean, but more generally, we are talking about 80s heavy-metal, the odds are these two bands are homophobic, or at least were until recently (it wouldn't surprise me if at some point they figured it out).

I think that's it for now, like I said, this post might have some updates, or after I gather enough info, I might do a second post to follow-up. Below are the lyrics from the anti-racist NA song, and below that are some new lyrics that I did.

"New Song" (really captures the message of the lyrics)

Closed books is what some people's minds are like
Shut tight, new ideas, they just always get passed by
Prejudice, living in their thoughts and deeds
Ignoring all the other people's needs

Chorus
You say a double standard's OK
I'm telling you that this is insane
What is it that you've got in your fist
Could it be another one of your lists

No one else can do the job just right
Unless they're Anglo-Saxon Protestant white
Foolish, the minds that have this attitude
You can't judge everybody by that rule

No place in this country for this shit
Everyone has to have an equal place
Nazis, they lost it 40 years ago
Rednecks just realize this a little slow

*****

So, I've done two more songs. The first is based on the music whose fans do not like "New Song," for more of an explanation, see this. The rest of the songs/poems can be found by clicking on the "lyrics" label (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page). (the second song is based on one I agree with)

UPDATE 6/11/09 I am renaming songs that had retained the original name.

"Anti-Sectarian", based on "Unity is Power" by Kill Baby Kill, original lyrics are here

1. In general, it's about left unity, although I can imagine some groups I would have trouble uniting with even informally with, or in single-issue coalitions. There was some left-wing group about 20-25 years went around attacking other leftists with baseball bats, I think it was the Spartacist league (U.S.), but I can't figure out for sure. Besides them and possibly a few others that are almost as bad, I'm pretty comfortable with the idea of single-issue coalitions with the more hard-left Marxists and the moderate anarchists, and I have always expressed support for some kind of federation of the Democratic Left, the groups usually mentioned are the Democratic Socialists of America, the Committees of Correspondence, Solidarity, Freedom Road Socialist Organization (the one associated with Bill Fletcher Jr.), and the Socialist Party USA.
I have similar feelings about working with people who are more accurately called progressive and probably the vast majority of people called liberals (as I define and describe them here), although this song is more about unity on the ideological left.
Also, I have not always behaved as a perfect non-sectarian leftist, but in my heart I'm one and in practice, to one large degree or another, about 80% of the time I am.
2. I'm only about 1/2 anti-cop and I wouldn't be surprised if some large minority of them are inclined to use excessive force, but cop seemed the best substitute.
3. The last line, "movements'" refers to all/almost all the movements on the left, and when I talk of enemies, unless I specify otherwise, I'm talking about people with whom I have major disagreements with on a lot more than one issue- that is, leftists who don't support the IRA, in general, are not my enemy, the GOP is.
4. In the 3rd verse/Chorus, "peoples" is used to refer to struggles against racism, homophobia, etc. I needed a substitute and it seemed pretty good.
**5. 8% of this version is me, 92% is the original.
6. I give this song/poem three out of five stars.
7. The references to fighting our real enemies are meant to be about 99% non-violent, and fortunately about 99.99% of the fighting among the Left has been non-violent.
8. update (1/18/10) I just made a small but important change- I changed "leftie" to "comrade" (not sure why I didn't use "Comrade" when originall typing this poem). Also the reference to "comrades in arms," is referring to a different kind of weapon than most would think about- kind of like when Ice-T rapped "the lethal weapon is the mind."

So much wrong in the world today, the worker's being oppressed.
What’s the point of fighting each other, when our world’s in a mess?
Violent cops on every corner, Nazis in every town.
People of color and gays are victimized, the GOP tries to bring our country down.

This is the voice of the underground, a voice still prepared to fight,
calling out with a message now to stick together and unite.
So listen comrade, listen well, unity’s a must.
If we can’t achieve to unite as one our war’s already lost.

Unity is power, unity is strength. Unity’s the weapon to defend our class.
Unity’s the answer to the worker's call.
Unity will set our class and peoples free. Unity will bring us final victory.
If we stand united, we will never fall.

All this senseless infighting only gives the right a laugh.
Comrade we must stand as one, alone is not enough.
Shoulder to shoulder, comrades in arms, make sure we’ll never fail.
So stick together and act as one, united we’ll prevail.

To all of those who share our beliefs: United we will win,
unity brings victory. It's the power from within,
so join our ranks on the battlefield. Together side by side,
to fight our movement's enemies and crush 'em with our might.

*****

"You Are Woman" based on "I Am Woman" by Helen Reddy, original lyrics are here

1. I started singing the original after I found a YouTube video that celebrated the contribution made by women to the Republican Movement and this song was the soundtrack. I was and still am prepared to sing the original for people, especially if they find that amusing, but I decided that it would be more appropriate to alter it for male feminists.
2. Considering the rules of altering lyrics (I alter as little as possible and the lines have to rhyme) which I almost never break, I'm not sure the quality is as good as the original, but it's close.
3. "Yes, we're now wise" I realize a lot of male feminists didn't have much room for improvement, and it would be fairly inacurrate to say I was ever a sexist, but most of us have, to one degree or another, learned over time, and considering that probably not a single one of us is 100% perfect, you could say we're still learning. And when it comes to making mistakes of a personal nature with women, I'm probably no better than average among male feminists.
4. The second to last line of the chorus, I thought it would be good that way, especially because part of it is aimed at left-wing-liberal activists, even though that line makes the next line a little awkward compared to the original. Also, the 5th line of the chorus refers to male feminists fighting sexism.
5. In general I switch back and forth betwenen women and male feminists, and sometimes "we" refers to both (4th line of the second verse and I suppose the very last line) but I think it makes sense.
6. The line "a long, long way to go" was written in the early 1970s, maybe cut that in half at this point.
7. Besides her being more or less feminist, I almost named the song after Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey because the lines in the second verse and the the lines about "standing toe to toe" remind me of her activism and involvement in, for example, the Battle of the Bogside. But it's still iffy whether or not I should have my blog named after her.
8. I'm not sure of the line "born of pain" in the chorus, but it could refer to how the oppression of women, once men figured it out, educated them, or something like that.
9. The line about doing anything is meant to be about efforts that are overall at least 99% non-violent.
10. I barely changed anything but stuff like female-to-male and singular-to-plural. If I added that stuff up it would be about 25% me, 75% the original, if we ignore that stuff it's about 1% me.
**11. I give this song/poem three out of five stars.

You are woman, we heard you roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And we know too much to go back and pretend
'Cause we've heard it all before
And you've been down there on the floor
No one's EVER going to keep you down again

Chorus:
Yes, we're now wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes you paid the price
But look how much you gained
If we have to, we will do anything
Together we are strong, we are invincible
You are woman!

They can bend but never break you
'Cause it only serves to make you
More determined to achieve your final goal
And we come back even stronger
Not novices any longer
Cause they deepened the conviction in our souls

Chorus

You are woman, we watched you grow
We saw you standing toe to toe
As you spread your your loving arms across the land
But you're still an embryo
With a long, long way to go
Until we make our brothers understand

Chorus


For the rest of the lyrics posts, click on the "lyrics" label.


****

This is of course only covers the two songs right above, not "New Song" or "Your Daughters and Your Sons"
One last note: Even with the songs that are only about 10% me (and at the upper end, one is 75% me), I have a request, although I don't have strong feelings or expectations about this. First, I want credit for these songs. Second, I'd appreciate it if the notes follow the lyrics around the internet. If you modify the lyrics further, please either make some notes for the changes if you leave some of my changes, or just provide a link to this URL so people can see my version. Although I'm not sure how many people will like what I'm doing with the lyrics, to one degree or another (depending on how much I changed them) I'm proud of these songs- and at the risk of getting a little personal, if people like the songs, I could really use the extra boost of getting credit for them right now (or if you don't like them, they were all written by Sarah Palin- that fascist, what kind of sick person enjoys altering racist lyrics?).

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