1. Bush is a Fool. About the Iraq War.
2. Remember Bobby Sands. About the IRA Hunger-Striker.
3. Smash Internment. About the internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans during WWII in America.
“Bush is a Fool” based on “Fools No More” by Skrewdriver. Original lyrics are here.
1. This is about the Iraq War.
2. An Improvised Explosive Device was the US military term for bombs.
3. I don’t think that Bush was honest about some of his many reasons for invading Iraq, and wasn’t honest about other things like Enron. His reasons for invading Iraq I described elsewhere in posts about anti-Semitism:
4. This is not ABOUT the Iraq Veterans Against the War (now, About Face) and hasn’t been endorsed by them.
5. Tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed and I’m sure many of them were killed when weapons were aimed at them and triggers were pulled. See the last part of a music video for a David Rovics song here.
6. My theory is that the average member of the military was less enthusiastic about the invasion of Iraq than the vast majority of GOPers.
7. Although Bush was less racist as President than Trump is, he DID express support for displaying the Confederate flag and the vast majority of his supporters are okay with that flag. Even the late GOP moderate John McCain in 2000 said he was okay with it.
8. I think one reason for invading Iraq is that it provided multiple opportunities to give money to corporations. Besides arms contractors and those doing privatized work for the military, corporations getting money for reconstruction spent about half of what they got doing actual reconstruction (often a contractor would keep half and give the rest to a subcontractor and sometimes THAT corporation would keep half and give the rest to another subcontractor).
9. Although only about 5,000 soldiers and marines were killed, because they had advanced body armor (despite Donald Rumsfeld’s best efforts) I’m sure that the wounded were in the tens of thousands.
10. I don’t care if the term MASH (a term for a kind of Army hospital in the Korean War) is technically inaccurate when it comes to the Iraq War, it rhymes.
11. I imagine that soldiers and marines who opposed the war were called hippies and were spoken to as if they didn’t have substantive and non-pacifist concerns about what was being done in Iraq.
12. In a post here I describe what I did to oppose the invasion.
13. Although some white supremacists are anti-intervention, A) they’re fine with racial homicide, and B) in the Iraq War it was reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center that a LOT of Nazis joined the military hoping to get combat experience in Iraq.
13. **46% of this poem is me, 54% is the original.
14. UPDATE 5/17/20 I just changed "your" to "America's" in the 7th line of the first verse. I could argue that the way it was written originally should have been interpreted as referring to the Bush Administration, but this makes it clearer. UPDATE 5/27/20 "May not be" almost works but I just changed it to "aren't."
Patrolling in the streets, choppers in the sky.
You’re waiting for the IED, you’re waiting to die.
You’re looking all around, with fear in your eyes,
Looking for the enemy and you start to wonder why.
Obey all your orders, and you do what they say,
but you’re a pawn in Bush's imperialistic game.
And America's leaders aren't all that they seem
Your bravery’s exploited by a crooked regime.
Chorus
Be the fools no more.
Contact the IVAW and find out the score.
Thousands of men and women are dying because of Bush’s plans,
And it’s not for the good of the American working-woman or man
They’re dying for profit and political greed,
but it’s always the soldiers not the politicians who bleed.
With few exceptions most of the GOP are total scum
who lie to the people whilst they beat on their drums
and they plead to the people to heed national pride,
But their idea of patriotism involves anti-Arab homicide
Chorus
It’s rarely been those with the flags in their hands
who have fought and have died out in the hot dessert sand.
While the leaders stay home with their massive cigars
They’re supported by those who fly the Stars and Bars
They take all the credit, and their pals take all the cash
whilst tens of thousands of working-class soldiers end up in a MASH
And if you dare to object and ask them to cease,
you’ll be accused of valuing nothing but peace
“Remember Bobby Sands” based on “Farewell Ian Stuart” by No Remorse. Original lyrics are here.
1. This is about Bobby Sands, the first of 10 Irish republican hunger-strikers to die in 1981. They were demanding to be treated as Prisoners of War instead of criminals. There’s more about that here, here, and in the middle third of this.
2. The red, white and blue are the colors of the British flag.
3. Volunteers are members of republican paramilitaries.
4. In addition to the ten who died, there were 13 more who went on hunger-strike before it was called off, and/or their relative had them taken off medically.
5. David Rovics is a progressive American singer/song-writer who has done at least two songs about Irish resistance to British rule.
6. Provos is an old term for Sinn Fein and the IRA.
7. Che is Che Guevara, Mandela is of course Nelson Mandela, and Connolly is James Connolly, Ireland’s greatest republican-socialist (a large train station in Dublin is named after him).
8. Valhalla is part of Norse mythology, 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 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? You could say I’m sort of an agnostic on that question and am sort of solidly a Christian. The way I see it, this is pretty flexible, don't take it too seriously, and one way to think about it is that if you believe in Heaven and would rather these people went there instead of Valhalla, maybe they can do both, spend some time in Valhalla and some time in Heaven; but my friend and I do like the idea of reclaiming it from the fash).
9. An ASU is an Active Service Unit, a component of the IRA’s structure, probably comparable to a squad. I don’t know if he was a leader of one, but if he was the POWs leader in the few months before he went on hunger-strike, he was probably a leader outside prison as well, and I am trying to get an answer from the Bobby Sands Trust, but I don’t know when they’ll get back to me.
10. An estate is a neighborhood.
11. Sands was a singer/song-writer and guitarist.
12. Sands wrote a poem about oppression throughout the world and throughout history, including one reference to what was done to American Indians.
13. The Catholic Church considered involvement with the IRA to be a sin.
14. I decided at some point to refer to Sands in the third person because I didn’t know him, and I have mixed feelings about how I should refer him to (2nd or 3rd) so it’s a little uneven in that sense, but I’m just going to leave it like that.
15. Based on a fairly scientific approach, I have estimated that only .3% of the IRA’s operations resulted in civilian death.
16. **54% of this poem is me, 46% is the original, and that ignore the last two lines that I left out entirely.
17. No Remorse were British and supported the unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.
Bobby Sands, your comrades really miss you
You gave your life in defiance of the red, white and blue
You were a Volunteer, a hero, an inspiration to them all
there were dozens of men, that heeded to your call
Nine resisted by your example, and took that short hard road
Unmatched in dedication, and hearts that knew no cold
When you took on the system, you set it on fire
By attacking the Brits you turned the North into a quagmire
So with David Rovics in ears and the Provos in mind, this poem I'll write
To honor Bobby Sands, and remember the anti-British fight
Sands is missed by comrades, and remembered by friends
He did the best, he shone above the rest
He was an Irishman 'till the end
With Che and Mandela and Connolly he resides
He lives on in Valhalla because true heroes never die
His ASU, said “we look to you,” to lead them and defend the estate
His republican songs, could never be wrong
He spent years in prison because he fought to liberate
Through all the years, with all the Provo Volunteers
And the comrades he met on the way
The times in the cell, when they gave him hell
From the course never did he stray
Against the police and the Brits, with his index finger and wits
he stood up for the oppressed of the world
on the offensive and defensive,
So proudly the flags he unfurled
And they carried on, with the hope in his songs
To turn back would have been the real sin
Inspired by him they fought, when arrested they never talked
Because of his sacrifice they knew they would win
The POWs said farewell to a comrade, one who wouldn’t bend
He did the best, he shone above the rest
He was an Irishman 'till the end
Bobby Sands was a man they held so high
He lives on in Valhalla because true heroes never die
“Smash Internment” based on “Smash the IRA” by Skrewdriver. Original lyrics are here.
1. This is about the WWII Internment of Japanese people in America, which included many American citizens. It's written from the perspective of a non-Japanese American in about early 1944. I'm not sure when the fighting was in Italy and when the internment camps were closed, but there must have been several months when there was fighting in Italy and the camps were open.
2. The 3rd line might sound a little weird, but it rhymed and makes sense and although they contributed in many ways (as workers for example), they also made our society richer culturally.
3. Although unemployment was above zero (so there wasn’t a shortage of workers) I’m sure that many of those interned would have been, for example, better on airplane assembly lines than some of the non-Japanese-Americans doing that job. In general, some should have been kept out of the Defense industry, but there should have been an assumption of innocence until they were proven to be sympathetic to Japan. If that were done with high standards in the the following cases, the US could have recruited many more native or at least fluent Japanese speakers for things like intelligence, interrogating prisoners, etc. I doubt they had 100% of the people they needed for that. And those that would have been kept out of certain jobs could have been surveilled and those who were serious security risks could have been interned like a handful of Germans and Italians were with good reason. But the indiscriminate wholesale internment of Japanese and Japanese-American people was very wrong and counter-productive.
4. Those who advocated for internment were in conflict with, for example, the FBI who said they had the situation under control and that internment wasn’t needed. I think the military also didn’t request internment. Also, in Hawaii, where there was a small but actual threat of a Japanese attack, hardly any members of the Japanese community were interned, because if they had been interned wholesale, the economy and society of those islands would have collapsed. The Japanese community wasn’t, with some exceptions, a threat to the security of the US.
5. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was a segregated Japanese-American unit of the US Army. I think some of the officers were white but I think a lot of them were Japanese-American. They fought in Europe and saw more combat than any other similarly sized unit of the US Army in Europe during the war. After the war, it was the most decorated Army unit its size in all US military history up to that point. There’s more information about them and a poem I wrote here.
6. My thoughts about FDR are found in note #2 of the first poem here, in a post with two poems about the Allied effort during WWII, something I have positive thoughts about. My posts that are partly about WWII are here.
7. Although the original lyrics are about the IRA, Skrewdriver was a Nazi skinhead band. So, this version is in conflict with what the authors of the original lyrics believe.
8. **80% of this poem is me, which ignores the last line of the chorus, which I ignored. Also, in the last verse, I switched the first two lines with the last two lines and remembered that when calculating what % is me.
On the West Coast, because of America’s racist syndrome
Japanese people were taken away from their homes.
They contribute to our nation and society beautifully
Gotta stand with them, support the Japanese community
Smash. Smash. Smash Internment.
Smash. Smash. Smash Internment.
Smash. Smash. Smash Internment.
Gotta end internment and release the Japanese
Let them help our nation defeat the Axis disease
Stupid politicians and sniveling racist scum
Justify Internment with bullshit analyses
Come on America!
Are we gonna continue disgracing our country?
Are we gonna listen to racists spreading nativist lies?
Japanese-Americans in the 442nd are marching on the Axis in Italy.
Are we gonna intern their families while they fight and die?
Come on America!
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