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)



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


Monday, April 13, 2020

Jewish Skinhead Army: A New Poem

Here's a new poem. For various reasons I'm doing it now instead of waiting for 2 more to be ready. You can read about how I write my poems here. This one is about anti-racist skinheads and general notes for that kind of poem are here.

You can find all the other lyrics by clicking on the "lyrics" label at the bottom. The other SHARP/RASH poems are here.

 “Jewish Skinhead Army” based on “European Skinhead Army” by No Remorse. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about Jewish-American skinheads. I’m not sure how many of them are members of anti-racist skinhead crews (a skinhead gang but, with non-Nazi skinheads, it doesn’t mean what you think), but I’m sure some of them are.
2. The first 1/3 of a post here is relevant to this.
3. The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews in Nazi Germany of their citizenship and contributed to the creation of a kind of Apartheid for German Jews.
4. Normally I wouldn’t encourage White people to brag about being white, but Nazis don’t think that Jews are White like, for example, Irish-Americans are (of course there are Jewish Irish-Americans).
5. “Bourgeoisie” is a term for the upper-class. Anti-racist skinheads are overwhelmingly working-class and proud of it. Very few are socialists or anarchists, but some are and I’M writing the poem (if that implies I’m a skinhead, I’m not).
6. “Sunwheel banner” is a term for the Swastika.
7. ZOB is the Polish acronym for the Jewish Combat Organization, the group that carried out the rebellion in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII.
8. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi skinhead.
9. In the movie “Uprising” a member of the ZOB dressed in a German Army uniform jokingly says “Heil Shitler!”
10. Valhalla is part of Norse mythology, the idea is that it’s a place where warriors go after they die, although there seems to be some debate about exactly who gets in- only people who die in combat? Anyway, the fascists love it and have sort of taken over the concept, but in 2009 a friend told me that he likes the idea of the left claiming it and specifically said that if such a place exists, Che and others like him are probably there. (Do I believe in Valhalla? No, or at best in a political but neither spiritual nor religious way I am kind of an agnostic about Valhalla and am sort of solidly a Christian (in 2025 I started moving towards converting from the Catholic Church to a Protestant Church, which I think should establish my strong preference for Christianity in terms of my spiritual home)). This shouldn’t be taken too seriously- it’s a fun way to “poke the bear,” to celebrate various movements in conflict with fascism, etc. I would also add that although this wouldn’t be enough on it’s own to justify what I am doing with the idea of Valhalla, some of the fascist lyrics I alter mention it and I came up with a good way to alter those lines (out of about 9 references in my poems, all but one involved that word already being there- I only added it once).
11. Oi! is music that most skinheads (and some other fans of what you might call the kind of music that inspires moshing) listen to. I’m not sure how to describe it musically, although it resembles punk. I think it’s sort of defined by lyrics about violence and the working-class and being skinheads and the hair cut of most people in Oi! bands.
12. Hallah is a kind of Jewish bread.
13. **65% of this poem is me and 35% is the original.

On the Nazi boneheads we’re gonna go medieval
We're shaving our heads because it's good against evil
We've got the music, we've got the bands,
We never lose, we play the winning hand

Chorus:
Jewish Skinhead Army,
We stand together in the anti-fascist cause,
Jewish Skinhead Army,
We smash those who admire the Nuremberg Laws

We're on the streets, every night,
We’re of the working-class and we’re also White,
Smash the bourgeoisie, socialize their manors!
We raise our middle fingers to the sunwheel banner

We remember the ZOB, and fuck Shitler,
the Nazi bonehead is a class traitor,
If we fall in battle and go to Valhalla,
We’ll listen to oi! and eat some Hallah

1 comment:

  1. I love this. It's so playful, but it's on a very serious topic and you do it well.

    ReplyDelete