Three New Poems

Three new poems. For more about how I write my poems, see this. To read the rest of the poems click on the lyrics label at the bottom.

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:

Bush's reasons for invading Iraq were many, Israel was a small part of it. There was the opportunity to give lots of money to corporations in multiple ways, the strong desire for using the US military that most GOPers have, the desire to teach the world a lesson in terms of what the US will do to them if they piss off D.C., the desire for oil, the idea of democratizing the Middle-East. I also heard something about it being connected to countering the growing strength of the Euro. It's possible they half believed that stuff about WMDs and Al-Qaeda. Israel was a small part of it.

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!

Strategically Comprehensive

In a recent poem I created this rhyming couplet about Sinn Fein and the IRA (if you're not familiar with my poems, I should explain that I almost always write with someone else's voice, not my own)- “We started with defending our areas, now we’re on the offensive/The republican struggle is strategically comprehensive.” (The first line isn’t relevant to this but I think it’s a good rhyme) (it's a reference to the diversity of their tactics and strategy, for more on that keep reading). Not long after that I discussed with a friend in Dublin (who is also a left-wing supporter of Sinn Fein) the calls by some for SF MPs in the British Parliament (now, *7* of them!) to take their seats (the Democratic Unionist Party took 10 and there is one independent unionist). The argument that I read here and there in favor of SF doing it is that, in the context of a conflict over Brexit between most N. Ireland voters and most British voters (including what must be a majority of the Tory party), N. Ireland needs representation from more than one anti-Brexit politician (the DUP are pro-Brexit and the independent Unionist is anti-Brexit). More generally and especially after the DUP used it’s MPs to prop up the Conservative government, the argument is also that N. Ireland needs anti-Tory representation to try and help stop more austerity and other Tory initiatives.

My friend in Dublin felt that abstention should be seen as a tactic and that SF could embarrass the DUP in the state-wide Parliament and reduce the strength of the Tory/DUP arrangement.

Initially I wrote the following:

“I’ve been thinking of SF and abstentionism. My opinion of Devlin-McAliskey is not hurt by the fact that she took her seat, but I’m inclined to go with what SF says about them taking their seats. I mean, clearly their voters seem just fine with that policy. I also wonder, what is behind that policy? Would they see it as recognizing British rule over the Six-Counties? is it that they have [outside the European Parliament] absolutely zero desire to vote on laws that effect the British people the way British politicians [in the Westminster Parliament] pass laws that govern Irish people [in the North]? Also, isn’t there a good chance it would result in another split in SF- not necessarily a tiny one?

I’m open-minded about what you’re saying, but so far I’m more inclined to just back whatever decision they make about it.”

(although I usually read a LOT about N. Ireland current events in the Irish News and the BBC News, I don’t have the money or time to also read more than a few things a month from republican sources of news and opinion and thus am not REAL familiar with the current thinking in SF)

(Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey is described here)

I’ll return to talk of abstention TODAY shortly.

After the 1981 Hunger-Strike which saw prisoner Bobby Sands elected to Westminster, SF started contesting elections in N. Ireland- I believe for the first time since the ’69/’70 split that saw the Provisionals created. This was a major step forward strategically for the Republican Movement (what back then would have been called the Provisional Republican Movement and what are called in more recent decades Sinn Fein and the IRA). I believe that during most of the years 1982-1997 the PRM was doing almost everything they could do to A) put pressure on the British and the Unionists, B) strengthen their movement, and C) help people. (although I wasn’t doing N. Ireland activism at the time, I would have supported the 1994-96 cease-fire by the IRA (the now permanent cease-fire started in 1997))

I’ll be briefly describing (and here and there evaluating) each part of this effort.

Armed Struggle

First, I did some research and some estimating and some math and concluded that only in .3% of their operations did the (P)IRA attempt to kill civilians. A post about that is here. Also, even though SF’s vote was only (on average) 40% of the Nationalist vote this is not the end of the story. There is plenty of evidence that almost the entire nationalist community supported the 1981 Hunger-Strikers (see the middle third of this). There is also evidence that almost no one in the Nationalist community went to the police about crime and instead almost everyone went to the IRA (this is supported by a statement by Eamonn McCann on pages 22-23 of the 1993 edition of his book “War and an Irish Town” and by an article around 2003 in the Irish Times). Most Nationalists who didn’t support the IRA’s campaign nonetheless agreed more or less with the IRA’s goals and wanted Volunteers (IRA members) around- for defense during times of sectarian tension and for when crime HAD to be dealt with violently.

Armed struggle was many things. It was a statement to the world that (independent of  how that statement was made) Republicans and Nationalists in general had serious problems with being ruled by Britain and with the inequality they experienced at the hands of the British and most of their Protestant neighbors. It was a refutation of Thatcher’s “Normalization” policy. The deaths of British soldiers, RUC officers and UDR (a locally recruited British Army unit) members made the news and underlined the occupation as such (and kind of suggested the possibility that if it weren’t for the British Army the IRA could defeat the local security forces and loyalist paramilitaries to such a degree that it would change the attitude of the Unionist population towards (and in) negotiations with their Nationalist neighbors and the Southern state). Those deaths were also aimed at sapping the will of the British to remain in N. Ireland. The bombing campaign in England had similar goals- sapping the will of the British, making the news and occasionally (in ways that RARELY resulted in civilian death) giving the British people some small sense of the terror their Army inflicted on the Nationalist population. Bombing of economic targets specifically in both England and the North was aimed at pressuring the business community into pressuring the British and the Unionists to change their attitude to negotiation with SF (bearing in mind what I write in the next paragraph (with parentheses), some IRA bombs in the North and in England were aimed largely at just disrupting life for people, to hopefully put more pressure on British and Unionist politicians). Armed struggle might have shown the security forces that they couldn’t  brutalize the Nationalist community with impunity.  Attacks on loyalist paramilitaries were relatively infrequent and probably rightly so- I think an argument has been made that they helped the British with their propaganda about being peace-keepers between two mutually hate-filled tribes.

(about 99% of the time that the IRA bombed civilian property the plan was to place the bomb, leave, phone in a warning, the place would be evacuated, and the bomb would go off. About 99% of the time that that was the plan that is what happened)

When I offered .3% as a relatively solid estimate for IRA operations where civilian life was targeted, I was not counting their efforts to help keep loyalist mobs outside Catholic areas and (towards the very beginning of the conflict) their efforts to help keep the security forces outside of some Catholic areas. The former saw them viewed as defenders of the Nationalist community. The latter made the “no-go” areas (especially Free Derry) possible for about two years. Including that stuff would lower it from .3% to something like .2%

As part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process after the first democratic election in South Africa, the ANC partly justified it’s use of force by saying that by attacking the infrastructure and security forces of the Apartheid state they were encouraging others to resist in other ways- that is, they showed that it was possible to strike at the state oppressing them.

Mass Struggle

Mass Struggle might be defined as the mobilization of large numbers of people for non-violent political conflict where their numbers (not arms or money or political power) are their weapons and public spaces are their battlefields- what we saw with the civil rights movements in both the US and N. Ireland. Marches and rallies around the prisoners issue (roughly 1978-1981) were organized (frequently by members or supporters of the Provisional Republican Movement). In terns of getting people in the street it was a massively successful effort, but when the prisoners struggle was over mass struggle appears to have decreased. The nationalist community broke back down into it’s constituent parts and marched separately or not at all. But SF still did organize marches and rallies and such and some WERE very large. Such actions demonstrate how DEEP a movement’s support is, and can result in helpful confrontations with the security forces, in a way more widely accepted than armed struggle.

Young People Rioting

I don’t know how many of those young people were members or supporters of the PRM but I think this is very relevant to putting pressure on the British. This was closer to being mass struggle than armed struggle was and could have been the result of mass struggle. But it also contained some plusses that were found more with armed struggle. It was probably more likely to get in the news than mass struggle, it could have resulted in serious injuries for the security forces (and often did) and even in the absence of an injury it could have sapped the will of the non-local part of the British Army, who were reminded more deeply than usual that they were unwanted in certain areas. But as it was less lethal than armed struggle and less likely (probably a LOT less likely) to result in civilian deaths caused by nationalists and republicans, it was more acceptable than armed struggle to many people.

Elections

Although I feel safe assuming that the PIRA campaign had the support of about 40% of the nationalist community in the 1970s, it is helpful to be able to point to votes for SF as proof that almost half that community DID support the PIRA’s armed campaign in the years 1982-1997. I believe in both “parliamentary” and “non-parliamentary” methods for creating political change but I, and a LOT of people attach a lot of value to how much popular support underground armies have. Election campaigns also give another chance to interact with voters and with the media and explain a party’s platform. Elected politicians, even those who don’t take their seats, might get more respect and/or a larger audience of (for example) potential converts and and might get more assistance of one sort or another from other politicians or activists, etc. (although less relevant, elections were also contested in the South)

Local Government Battles

SF not only contested local government elections, when elected they took their seats. This resulted in two different kinds of important battles engaged in by SF councilors and activists. First, to gain equality within the council- MANY SF councilors were blocked from access to the chamber, and/or to funding they and their areas were entitled to. Second, battles over issues relevant to local government. For example, around 1990 (according to the 1993 edition of McCann’s “War and an Irish Town” (p. 43)) a SF councilor in Derry led a successful campaign against the building of a toxic waste incinerator outside the city. Lastly, in general I think that sitting on local government councils proved that they were willing to try non-violent democratic engagement with their Unionist political opponents.

Propaganda

Propaganda is often defined neutrally and just means putting out a party’s message. SF did one newspaper during this time. One thing that might be sort of unusual in such situations was the HUGE number of murals in areas that were at least heavily if not mostly republican. Murals about the IRA, murals about international struggle, murals comparing the experience of nationalists to the experiences of people of color elsewhere, murals about community issues like poverty or eating disorders, murals about other topics. (I am almost certain that at least 90% of those murals were commissioned by SF, SF members or SF supporters)


International Solidarity

SF has done a fairly good job of generating international solidarity with them and with the nationalist community in some countries outside Ireland and Great Britain. But as I have explained elsewhere on this blog, in my opinion they are handicapping this work by making their approach in America much more moderate than progressive. (although significantly different, semi-successful efforts were made to mobilize supporters in Britain)

There is one tool that was used against Apartheid and that is being used against Israel that they have not pushed and that is boycott of, divestment from, and sanctions against the UK (not UN sanctions of course because of the veto the UK has in the Security Council). SF might have been silent about BDS because they knew that they didn’t have enough support globally to make it work. I go into that in a post here, starting with the paragraph that begins with “Was S. Africa much worse?”


One reason I have done this post is to say that members and supporters of the Republican Movement (and others in the Nationalist community in the North, but I have focused on SF because I support them) have done almost everything they could do to get the British out. Which makes it even more infuriating when I think of how little was done by the Left in western Europe and by the Left in America.


Abstention Today

Going back to abstention in Westminster today, exchanging some emails about it with my Dublin friend got me thinking more about SF taking their seats. I wonder if Westminster could be/should be seen by SF as just another battlefield on which to push the peace process, equality and even Irish Unity. In general it could be a forum to raise those issues. Also, it could help build a broad-based movement of British people supporting the Nationalist community if SF were to consistently vote progressively on things affecting British people like austerity, the environment, etc. (there’s a small mystery for me- the Troops Out Movement, which had good relations with SF, seems to have evaporated??????)

I should say that I believe that what we are talking about here are tactics and strategy but not principles (I have supported the 1997 IRA cease-fire since day one). I believe that the PRM usually did a great job of using them during the conflict and has usually been doing a great job using most of them since the conflict died down and basically ended (I would say around 2005) (with the exception of armed struggle and rioting the others are still being used by members and supporters of SF).

IF SF decide to take their seats, I would not criticize them about that (possibly about some of their votes, but with the exception of abortion I doubt even that would happen).

New Poems: Saorsie is Irish for Freedom

Three new poems. In the next few months you'll see a lot more poems (as well as "reviews" of Babylon 5 TV show episodes and maybe a long essay) here. I explain some stuff about the poems here.

The rest of the songs/poems can be found by clicking on the "lyrics" label (there are four pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).

“Saoirse” based on “Freedom” by Brutal Attack, original lyrics are here.

1.This is about a loose collection of Irish political elements that might be described as “non-republican/non-nationalist but anti-partitionist, radical and fairly militant anti-Unionists.” It would, to one degree or another, include the late group Peoples Democracy, and probably around 50% of the Civil Rights Movement and probably somewhere around 25% of the movement in support of republican prisoners around 1980. It is basically set between the beginning of the civil rights movement (around 1967) and the 1981 Hunger Strike. (actually if it weren’t for some talk of socialism and the bit about Blacks, I would be on very safe ground attributing the positions in the poem to the nationalist community which would also include many of the people I referred to above (UPDATE 4/24/17 I'm increasingly unsure why I DIDN'T do that- I guess I wanted to do something a little bit different- there ARE people who are neither nationalist nor republcian but who still have very good positions on issues very central to the search for equality, justice and freedom for the nationalist community, AND who are also DEFINITELY VERY socialist and DEFINITELY VERY anti-racist (somewhere around 50-85% of the nationalist community is anti-racist and/or socialist, but ALL the miscellaneous people I'm thinking of are SOLID anti-racists and socialists)))
2. Orange parades should stay out of Catholic areas. For a good set of reasons why, see this.
3. The starry plough is generally the flag of republican socialism but there are non-republican groups that use it as well.
4. During the conflict frequently city centers were off limits to anti-unionist marches and rallies.
5. The RUC were the police until late 2001.
6. The anti-internment march attacked on Bloody Sunday was part of the civil rights movement. Although many of the original demands of that movement had been conceded, the existence of “emergency” legislation was also an issue addressed by that movement since it’s beginning.
7. Kent, Ohio is where the Kent State massacre took place in 1970. (Four anti-war college students were killed by the National Guard)
8. Squaddies is a term for British soldiers.
9.Bread is a term for economic justice.
10. In the mid and late 70s a struggle between republican prisoners and the prison authorities developed around whether they were prisoners of war or criminals. After about 2-4 years the prisoners had a majority of the nationalist community behind them. For more see the middle third of this starting at “For 3-4 years in the 1970s….”
11. When internment was phased out in the 1970s it was replaced by a series of mechanisms collectively described as a “conveyor belt.” This included the power to hold suspects for 7 days without charge, and non-jury courts.
12. “Bourgeoisie” is a term for the upper-class.
13. The original is by a British band that supported the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.
**14. 69% of this version is me and 31% is the original.
15. I give this poem 4 stars out of five.
16. Saorsie is Irish for freedom.
17. The second to last line, I’m not envisioning something where 100% of the people on the island are black. To a large degree it was just me being a smart ass twisting the lyrics of the original. It could be a future where Ireland is roughly 2-5 times as diverse as it is now and most of the relatively white population are less than 100% white.

when we don’t want an Orange parade on our streets the police won’t ban it
And take a look at history, the British began it.
Yeah, they’re afraid of us because we tell the world
As we stand up to them with the Starry Plough unfurled
My patriotic heart for my country feels so proud
But when we want to march in the city center we’re not allowed

Chorus
We want freedom from poverty and the British Empire
They’ve joined forces and against us they conspire
London can try to suppress us with their army and the RUC
we will emerge victors against the British bourgeoisie

the Civil Rights Movement marched in Derry against internment
We were shot down by state terrorists just like those in Kent
We don’t want no squaddies, and yes most of us are reds
We’ll resist, the Unionists, and push for universal bread

So let’s keep organizing, the prisoners need political status
We will not tolerate the British “conveyor belt” apparatus
We want a country full of reds, and why not a country full of blacks
we want a United Ireland with a progressive income tax

******

“Irish Revolution” based on “Final Solution” by No Remorse, original lyrics here.

1. The first verse is basically about the decades before the deployment of massive numbers of British Army soldiers in 1969. To a large degree British politicians were reluctant to get involved with the N. Ireland issue. The Tories especially deferred to the Unionists, who were part of their party. In the first 5 decades of N. Ireland, there were many protest efforts, political, or violent, or non-violent and the hands-off attitude of Westminster and #10 Downing St. contributed to the explosion of violence in 1969.
2. I believe that the use of force by the IRA did get London to briefly negoatiate with the republican movement in 1972. And I believe that two decades of IRA actions are part of why the combination of the Good Friday Agreement and the political scenery behind it was better than the combination of the 1974 Sunningdale Agreement and the political scenery behind IT.
3. The chorus is sort of influenced by the slogan “No Justice, No Peace.”
4. Some of the statements are about the IRA, not the nationalist population in general (I’m defining that as including northern republicans). Those are: Verse 1, line 1; verse 2, line 1 is about the IRA and rioters; same with the first half of verse 2, line 2; second half of Verse 2, line 4; first half of verse 3, line 1.
5. Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
6. As I explain in the middle third of a post here, what I wrote about global support was a bit off or something- huge chunks of the world didn’t want to be educated or be involved even though they should have.
7. The last two lines are about the protest among republican prisoners. There’s more about that in the middle third of this.
**8. 66% of this version is me, 34% is the original.
9. I give this poem four stars out of five.
10. No Remorse were British and supporters of the British and unionist causes in N. Ireland.
11. This poem is set basically in the decades before 1969 and ends roughly in the late 1970s.

Most of the Brits never listened Until the guns were in our hands
They read the Unionist papers and Ignored our democratic demands
We Nationalists protested for equality or fought to secede
London left it up to the Unionists, No matter where it would lead

Chorus:
Irish revolution
As conflict resolution

Our strategy is not to rock the boat We've got to blow it out of the sky
Got to make their nation tremble Expose and challenge all their lies
We’ll educate the world and isolate the British Tory scum
They may ignore our speeches But they'll listen to the gun

Chorus

As we gain momentum, The People continue to let loose
words, rocks, petrol bombs the BA and RUC are showered with abuse
As the blanketmen start the protest, the support starts to grow
The nationalists need defenders, they don’t want the IRA to go

Chorus

******

“Free Occupied Ireland” based on “Still Occupied” by Razor’s Edge, original lyrics are here.

1. In late 1968 the civil rights movement in N. Ireland seemed very strong. They had had two major marches, one of which was attacked in such a way that it generated a lot of anger among Catholics. The Prime Minister had made some moves towards meeting some of their demands and he SEEMED to have the support of the Unionist grass roots in doing so.
2. The RUC were the police until late 2001. A “game changer” march in early 1969 was attacked directly and indirectly by the RUC and the B-Specials (a semi-military force that could be described as a cross between the State Patrol and the National Guard in American states). In Aug. of 1969 the RUC and loyalist mobs joined together and unleashed a couple days of anti-Catholic pogroms or attempted anti-Catholic pogroms in Belfast and Derry.
3. The march that was attacked on Bloody Sunday was a civil rights march. The initial response to the massacre was a flurry of demonstrations, but in general the civil rights movement kind of ended shortly after BS and the Provisional IRA’s campaign intensified and became the dominant response to unionism and imperialism.
4.  James Connolly was Ireland’s greatest republican-socialist, Collins was a major leader of the IRA during the war of Independence and has been credited with developing urban guerrilla warfare, and
5. Che is Che Guevara, who has been credited with developing rural guerrilla warfare.
6. “West Brit” has multiple meanings- indigenous/relatively indigenous Irish people sympathetic to the unionists/British in relation to Ireland, friendly to the British monarchy, hostile to Irish culture, friendly to British culture (that last one isn't necessarily so bad, in this poem it refers to the others, especially the support for unionism/the British in relation to Ireland).
7. Green Tories are basically centre-right nationalists (in the South that refers to a political instead of community identity).
8. Most of the time, in most parts of the North there was intense conflict between republicans and the Church.
9. The Stoops are the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Fein’s more moderate rival in the Nationalist community. For more on them see this.
10. In 1974 a brief power-sharing attempt to resolve the conflict was made. It was aimed partly at destroying the IRA politically. Among other problems, the first half of the Sunningdale period PSF was a banned party, and when that was fixed, the UVF (a loyalist paramilitary) was legalized for about 1.5 years.
11. In recent decades and I think in the 1970s as well, republicans have been very supportive of the Palestinians.
12. Lines that end with * are referring to just the IRA.
13. I ignored a non-rhyming line at the end of both verses of the original lyrics.
**14. 80% of this version is me, 20% is the original.
15. I give this poem three stars out of five.
16. Estates are basically neighborhoods.
17. UPDATE 7/8/17 Calling N. Ireland a dictatorship (before the GFA) isn't the most accurate thing you could say, and to a large degree fascists were not among the most immediate enemies of Catholics in N. Ireland- the British government and Unionists weren't fascist, it's just a statement against fascism and dictatorship.
18. Razor's Edge were British and supporters of the British and unionist causes in N. Ireland.

in ’68 the future looked so bright,
It seemed we were so close to getting our civil rights
But then the RUC and loyalist mobs invaded our estates
Because for our civil rights we dared to demonstrate
The civil rights movement was shot off the streets by the BA
And now we’re fighting in the spirit of Connolly, Collins, and Che *

Chorus
Still occupied, we're not free -
But we are definitely off our knees!
Still it’ll be hard, hard to defeat *
the crown forces patrolling on our streets! *

The Brit, west brit, and green tory propaganda begins
to the priests conducting mass our resistance is a sin. *
The stoops are trying Sunningdale, but it’s just one big mistake
And we are fighting on for Irish freedom, whatever it takes. *
We're against fascism and dictatorship
We’re for freedom and justice, in the North and in the Gaza Strip

My Two Favorite Things

My Two Favorite Things
A Review by Tom Shelley of “Where Are You Really From?” memoirs by Tim Brannigan

As you might guess from reading this blog, my two favorite things are fighting racism in America, and the politics of Northern Ireland. When they (or anti-racism in the North and Irish republicanism) intersect I get pretty excited. For example, after reading a book in 1998 about connections between blacks in America on one hand and Irish nationalists and republicans and  civil rights activists on the other I proposed to the student group I was organizing on the issue of the North that we get funding to bring the author, Brian Dooley, to speak on campus. Or, when Gerry Adams tweeted the n-word in the Spring, I wrote what might be one of the best posts I’ve written on this blog.

It was when I read about that tweet that I first learned about Tim Brannigan- he was described as being a republican ex-prisoner and of mixed race. Not long after that I learned a little more about him and then I bought his memoirs. I have read the book twice now and it’s great. It’s called “Where Are You Really From?: Kola Kubes and Gelignite, Secrets and Lies- the true story of an extraordinary family.” It includes a fair amount of biographical material about his mom, but is mostly about him. Two-thirds of it is political and about one-third is personal (which is almost as interesting to me- his life is a great story). He writes about experiencing racism in the nationalist community, his family’s involvement with the IRA, school, supporting the Hunger-Strikers as a teenager, his first job, going to college, being interrogated at the notorious Castlereagh interrogation centre, the many interesting details of being a republican prisoner (first on remand and then in Long Kesh prison (informally but partly run by the IRA prisoners)), his career as a journalist, his mother’s death, and meeting his dad for the first time.

His mom became pregnant with him as a result of an affair with a junior doctor from Ghana in 1966. She convinced the relevant staff of the hospital she gave birth at to say that the baby was stillborn and to take him to a baby home (with instructions he wasn’t to be adopted by anyone but her). A year later she adopted him (she had long ago made it clear to friends and family that she was anti-racist). Part of the fascinating story is that she didn’t tell him that she was really his mom until he was 19.

His description of how bad racism was in Belfast is a bit mixed. He says that unlike what was happening in some British cities there wasn’t much racism in Belfast because there weren’t many people of color there. His description of the racism he experienced from people in the nationalist community as a child in the 1970s made me think I had seriously under-estimated how racist the nationalist community was back then. On the other hand, he says that, although he doesn’t want to overstate this, in the nationalist community, “to be a racist was to have crossed a line.” In the middle of the book he describes some of the racism he experienced as a teen-ager- it sounded like it was not as bad as it was when he was a child, but still kind of surprises me. He also writes about how British soldiers on patrol in west Belfast would abuse him racially, but that’s not a surprise at all.

His mom was a republican and she often let the IRA use her home for meetings and for hiding weapons or explosives. In 1981 initially he wasn’t interested in the Hunger-Strike by republican POWs, but his mother made him go on the first march in support of the strike. After that he went on more marches and attended at least two funerals and started selling Sinn Fein’s newspaper. On May Day 1984 he joined SF.

Like most republicans, his opposition to injustice went and goes way beyond the usual issues for N. Ireland (the division of the country, the police, etc.). One story that’s brief but worth a mention is that he tried unionizing his work-place. It didn’t work out, but it’s still pretty cool. When his mom asked him if he was interested in finding his father, he said no and, writing his book, he says that he didn’t identify with Ghana but identified strongly as Irish and was very interested in African-AMERICAN politics (he was reading books about Black Power like “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”) (when he meets his father later in the book, it’s in Ghana and he learns some about the country of his father). There's some stuff in his book indicating he's probably a socialist, and according to his Twitter page he IS.

When he was probably around 19 years old and raising money for SF by going around to bars with a tin for collecting loose change from people he had a pretty serious incident with a racist. At one bar one day, this guy asked what was he doing collecting for SF and used the N-word. A very brief and minor physical altercation develops. One or two days later two men (probably with the IRA) spoke with him about it and offered to have the racist shot. He said no. In the book, he writes: “if I decided to have everyone shot who ever made a racist remark to me, there would be a bloodbath. They were satisfied once they had made it clear to me that my back was covered. I knew this but it was good to have it reiterated.”

In 1990 he got a degree in Politics from Liverpool Polytechnic. Earlier he had also studied sociology and English literature. Although he had planned on enjoying a more diverse city than Belfast, he was housed with the other Irish students and became quite patriotic.

Shortly after he came home to Belfast he allowed the IRA to hide some weapons in a car in the driveway of his mom’s house. The security forces learned of this and he and his mom were taken to the notorious Castlereagh Interrogation Centre where you could be held for seven days without charge. He describes the interrogation efforts of the police. Also, as if there was some doubt, we get evidence of racism among the police- a police officer refers to him by using the n-word. He ends up admitting to hiding weapons and explosives in order to get his mom released.

The next two parts are very interesting. First he describes life in the Crumlin Road Jail, where he was on remand. It’s largely about the non-political aspects of life there, but also about tension between the republican prisoners (with whom he lived) and the loyalist prisoners. After about a year there, he was convicted and was moved to the Long Kesh H-Blocks, the large prison containing hundreds of sentenced republican POWs. Although he wasn't an IRA member, that didn’t stop the IRA from making him the leader of one of the H-Blocks. He describes the daily routine in Long Kesh, and touches on politics here and there. There were some racist comments during his 4-5 years in the prison. For example, one prisoner insisted that the republican struggle wasn’t Brannigan's fight, despite him explaining his background in the mid- Falls Road area and the sectarian and racial abuse he took from the British Army. On the other hand, he says that the prison was the least racist place he had ever been. Once when watching a football game on TV a fellow prisoner called a black player a mugger. After he said that and he noticed Branngan was there the racist then spent the entire game praising anything done by a black player. Brannigan writes: “that was as rough as it ever got.”

When he got out in 1995 he soon started a career as a journalist. That’s a good part of the story, but one I’m going to largely skip. He spent some time working at the Irish News and more recently he has been a free-lance journalist.

The second to last part is about the tragic decline of his mom’s health and then her death. It’s very moving in at least one way- he got to spend a lot of time with her before she died- he taking care of her and them just enjoying each other’s company.

The last part is about Brannigan connecting with some of his black half-siblings and eventually, with his father. He had promised his mom, not long before she died, that he would search for his father. During the search he also became more interested in where he came from on his father’s side. He does meet his father, but unfortunately, his father was kind of a jerk and at the end of the book, Brannigan is apparently no longer welcome in the lives of his father or his black half-siblings.

Although I’ve only touched on it a little, there is a lot of material about how other members of the nationalist community and the republican movement saw him, and how he identified strongly as Irish and as a republican- “a black Irish republican.”

There is a fair amount of humor in his book. One example is found while reading his description of his time at Castlereagh.  The police showed him the first two lines in his security file: “this man is a republican,” and “this man is black.” He writes in his book, “clearly they’d had their top men on the job.”

Unfortunately I think I have good reason to criticize one small bit of his story. He gives (as an example of the racial harassment he experienced) a description of an incident when he proudly wore a child’s toy American Indian headdress and held a rubber tomahawk while standing outside his home’s front door hoping to impress other children (I think he was around 8 years old). Older boys walking by called him “Geronimo” and “Sambo,” and made “war-cry” sounds they had heard in John Wayne movies and made him feel, as he frequently did while growing up, isolated, picked on, and angry. I like to think it’s apparent that I’m sensitive to what he has experienced at the hands of ignorant and racist people in the Nationalist community, and how that made him feel. But I have to say that his mom buying that headdress and tomahawk for him offends me as an ally of Native American people. It’s called cultural appropriation, taking something from a community of nations in this hemisphere that has already had so much taken from them. I think I have to kind of criticize him for wearing the headdress and holding the tomahawk, but I realize he was a young child and had no idea how offensive what he was doing was. As much as I love the book that I am reviewing, I am disappointed that he, while writing it as an adult, failed to say anything about how offensive this (his mom buying the headdress and tomahawk and him wearing it and holding the tomahawk in order to impress other children) was. If  he DID write something critical of it and his editor took it out I’ll edit this review to acknowledge that. To his credit, he DOES suggest that the Indians in John Wayne movies are not like real Indians.

I have referred a couple of times to me thinking that the nationalist community of the 1970s and 1980s as described in the book was more racist than I had earlier estimated it was. I have some solid information for the recent period. The Northern Ireland Life and Times survey seems well respected. The following question was asked annually 2005-2014 with the exception of 2011: “How much do you agree or disagree with the statement, ‘In relation to colour and ethnicity, I prefer to stick with people of my own kind’”. The average answers for the Catholic population are: Strongly Agree 4%; Agree 18%; neither agree nor disagree 24%; disagree 35%; and strongly disagree 19%. For the Protestant community the numbers are: 9; 24; 28; 28; 10. In August of 2015 a crowd of young people in west Belfast spent three hours throwing bricks etc. at Brannigan’s house, an attack based on race considering the verbal abuse they also hurled at him. It did surprise me when I read about it. Because of his story I have made minor adjustments to about 5 paragraphs on this blog that are about racism in the nationalist community.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in studying race/racism/nationality/nationalism or The Troubles.

The anti-Apartheid Struggle and Republicans

I have mentioned Apartheid S. Africa several times on my blog in some connection to the Republican Movement. I've been aware of four connections between the two groups in recent decades, and a couple more connections between the two have just surfaced, which I’ll get to soon (I'm not sure they are as confirmed as I would like them, but the source for the new info seems like a good source).

First, here are the four connections I’ve been aware of for some number of years

1) A plaque remembering the sacrifice of both anti-Apartheid and Irish Republican Prisoners of war, is on Robben Island, which is kind of a monument to the anti-Apartheid struggle. That info was found here.
UPDATE 1/27/17  If that link is dead for some reason, I did a search of http://www.independent.co.uk using google and found a link to the article. It should show up here and is head-lined "Adams pays tribute to detainees' suffering." One quote from the article is:

The ANC changed its mind after Mr Adams's meeting with Mr Mandela who described Sinn Fein as "an old friend and ally''.

2) In 1981, as IRA (and INLA) prisoners went on hunger-strike, there was talk among ANC Prisoners of War of going on a solidarity hunger-strike. That's taken from an on-line only article in The Nation, by Tom Hayden- it was published some time in 2004, or 2005, or 2006. I can't find it online. When I do I'll update this.

3) In 2005 the Minister of Intelligence for South Africa visited Ireland as a guest of Sinn Fein and compared what he did as a member of the ANC's military wing during the anti-Apartheid struggle with what IRA members did during the Troubles. He spoke at republiccan events and at one point, according to the Irish Times said: "I could never accept that Sinn Féin has debased republicanism. They carried the flag of republicanism in the most difficult of times. ... The Irish struggle is a particularly heroic one." You can read at least a little of an Irish Times article about this here. If all you read there is the brief free paragraph, reading this from a Sinn Fein publication will make it clear what the Minister meant with his comments in that brief intro of the Irish Times article. I now have the text of the article and can email it to you if you want

4) In 1992 Nelson Mandela was on a British political talk-show and said that he supported the IRA. That information is found here (it's towards the bottom, says "mandela. and. ira").


There are some more pieces of information about this relationship. Those are found here, here, and here.

UPDATE 4/25/15 Another one here.

Tom

Revolutionary Dreams

I've got six more songs/poems (I'm in transition to using the word "poem" which is more accurate for what I've been calling "song"). They're all "Those Lyrics" see this for an explanation. I'm not sure how many more songs I'll be doing that aren't "Those lyrics" since I think I have altered all the songs that I can work with from one of the two main sources I have for non-offensive material to alter.

For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).

Anyway, these are roughly in order from okay to good, although I'm not sure I would call any of them very good.

1. 65 Days. IRA Hunger-Striker Bobby Sands.
2.  Victory or Death. The IRA in N. Ireland.
3. The Left Sat. The American Left and N. Ireland.
4. Socialist Dream. Progressives in America.
5. People's Dream. About People's Democracy, the left-wing/civil rights/anti-partition group in N. Ireland that existed from 1968 until sometime in the 1980s.
6. 32-County Republic. Republican struggle in N. Ireland.


“65 days” based on “forty-six years” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. The song is about Bobby Sands, the first Irish republican hunger-striker to die in 1981. The hunger-strikers were demanding that republican prisoners be treated as prisoners of war instead of as criminals. He was on strike for 65 days before he died. See this and this for more info; see most of the second half of this for a description of how much support they had. He was 27 years old when he died.
2. The hope refers to how inspirational his sacrifice was.
**3. 40% of the lyrics are me, 60% is the original.
4. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
5. Skrewdriver was supportive of the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.

Twenty-seven was his final year
his memory brings hope and tears
A man whose courage, it was unsurpassed
No surrender until the very last

(chorus)
65 days, 65 days
65 days, he stayed true to his cause

They tried to break him with their corrupt ways
tried criminalization until the end of his days
They wanted to see his spirit subdued
But his commitment was always true

Chorus

And now he's dead, they couldn’t break him
The London fools thought they could take him
a soldier who paid the ultimate price
We won't forget his sacrifice

****

“Victory or Death” based on “Win or die” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. The title is a republican slogan (at least, it's on a republican t-shirt I have). The song is more or less focused on members of republican paramilitaries, although there’s one bit about republicans who fought through mass struggle.
2. This is set in the first 1-2 years of The Troubles (starting in Aug. 1969).
3. the Nationalist community had some very large majority that was working-class or small farmers, and that was even more so for republicans.
4. Armalites are a kind of automatic rifle.
5. The Catholic Church was pretty consistent in being hostile to republicans.
6.Orange is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry.
7. Connolly is James Connolly, Ireland’s greatest republican and greatest socialist.
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. 27% of this version is me, 73% is the original.
10. Considering the source of the original, I feel like I have to point out what is probably obvious: as long as it doesn't cross a certain line (and I imagine it rarely does) Irish pride is very different from White pride. (I just heard something making me think that it's probably a small minority of northern nationalists that would talk about "Irish pride"; I still feel odd completely re-writing that line, so I'm going to keep it)
11. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
12. Skrewdriver was supportive of the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.

As we look 'round at our nation, the resistance starts to settle in
Our once united Irish land, as the revolution starts to begin
Arrests on the streets are often, house raids happen every single day
loyalists stalk the darkened streets, looking for defenceless prey

(chorus)
Fight for your country, fight for your class
Fight for your nation, with armalites or en masse

As the people stand up against it, the Brit propaganda begins
To oppose the northern occcupation, is counted as a sin
We're proud of being Irish, and we want to show the world
Against the Orange and reaction, we stand with flags unfurled

As we stand and face the future, our eyes raised to the sky
We pledge ourselves to struggle, we'll either win or we’ll die
We won't lose ground, and be knocked down, we've got a history
In Valhalla Connolly looks down on us, and prays for victory

*******

“The Left Sat” based on “The Snow Fell” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. In general it is based on the earlier post I did about how the world (overall, but the problem is focused in small number of countries and varies from country to country) and especially the left, didn’t do what it should have done on N. Ireland between 1968 and today, although it also varies from time period to time period, and the worst would be 1994 (when S. Africa was democratized) until 9/11 and crucially between 1994 and the Good Firday Agreement in 1998. I won’t bother going into it anymore than that, but you should read that post before you judge this song (since it was published in March, that post has gradually gotten even better and is now about 10% different than it was when originally published).
2. The first verse refers to Margaret Thatcher.
3. I don’t know if Thatcher had a desire to rule all of Ireland, but it’s possible, and if it wasn’t for republicans (during the War of Independence) London would still rule all of Ireland.
4. The reference to unions is sort of a tangent from the main thrust of the song, but is relevant as republicans are overwhelmingly pro-labor and concerned about British workers and it worked with keeping the word “power.”
5. The second half of the second verse refers to the period of the early 1970s when I’m pretty sure the world was probably doing a fair amount, although probably still not what they should have been doing considering the nationalist community was going through the worst of their 30-40 year nightmare. I assume that at some point, as the situation in Apartheid S. Africa got worse in the mid-1970s, that attention was shifted to that until 1994. That’s reasonable, but there are two problems. Strongly worded resolutions weren’t being passed and when S. Africa was democratized, none of that energy seems to have been shifted into N. Ireland work.
6. I believe that this failure on the part of the world and the left is what made the armed struggle go nowhere, and contributed greatly to Sinn Fein compromising via acceptance of the Good Friday Agreement. Another factor was that their nationalist constituents who had experienced the bulk of the violence aimed at civilians in the conflict were tired of the war and being terrorized by loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces.
7. The Union Jack is the British flag, Belfast is the main city in N. Ireland.
**8. 73% of it is me, 27% is the original.
9. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
10. Skrewdriver was supportive of the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.
11. The second and fourth verses are about mainstream republicans including the IRA.
12. UPDATE 9/8/11 In the third line of the second verse, I'm actually not sure to what degree the left WAS concerned about the North in the early years of the Troubles. I might change that.
13. UPDATE 11/22/15 I added TRADE- to the last line of the first verse.
14. UPDATE 6/14/16 I changed THEY to YOU in the second verse Same with the chorus.

She stood in a room in a home at number ten
She'd rule all Ireland if it wasn’t for the republicans
She'd stand and she’d stare at the city skyscrappers and towers.
for she was a beast as she hatched plans to break trade-union power.

(chorus)
as the left sat
abandoning it’s vision and ideals.
And the left sat
ignoring the Irish revolutionary appeal
And the left sat
You had to compromise in your people’s interests
And the left sat
and the revolution was so much less

You used the old methods that revolutionaries had used before.
You fought as the forces of light against the darkness in an insurgent war.
One day you were looking around and the left was concerned about the North
The next day the left went back to Apartheid and focused on that till 1994

(chorus)

But they weren’t even passing strongly worded resolutions
They had abandoned the nationalists and the Irish revolution
Then, after 1994, they were distracted by the environment and globalization
And did nothing to help the oppressed of the divided Irish nation

(chorus)

You finally came to the point where you decided to compromise
You had to, while the left sat your people were terrorized
Many people had fought and died their courage was unsurpassed
It still sickens my heart to see the Union jack flying in Belfast

(chorus)

****

“Socialist Dream” based on “European Dream” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. It’s about the US.
2. Depending on the circumstances, I’m quite comfortable with white supremacists being banned from marching on the public streets.
3. I have had this idea that the left could flip the right-wing slogan “Better Dead Than Red” since socialism would make- fatal accidents on the job less likely; fatal health problems connected to the environment or having poor or no health insurance less likely; and murders less likely.
4. Brown is the color of fascism.
5. In general, when I said liberal, I had trouble thinking of a word that would fit better, but I think the way it is now works. there are some liberals who, based on their beliefs should be friendlier to the left and less friendly to cops and capitalists. (see this for my thoughts about liberals)
6. The line about shooting cops is a reference to recent spate of cop-killings carried out by white supremacists.
7. By capitalist, in this case I meant those who have a lot of capital.
8. As far as cops helping Nazis, there's evidence that some do. My theory is that some very tiny minority are in bed with white supremacists and a tiny minority would drag their feet on going after them. There was a state trooper in, I think, Nebraska who turned out to be a Klansmen, and according to a Southern Poverty Law Center interview with a former Nazi skinhead, some cops would hang out with his Nazi skinhead group. I read a bunch of other stuff about white supremacists in the police in a mid-1990s book called "White Lies, White Power" by Michael Novick, plus some other sources.
**7. 56% of the lyrics are me, 44% is the original.
8. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
9. I'm not sure I should have left the 2nd line of the 2nd verse the way it is- I might change it to something. In the meantime, I think it is possible to have some kind of progressive patriotism.
10. This is supposed to be at least 99% non-violent.
3/14/11 UPDATE 11. I can't remember what I was thinking when I referred to our land as democratic- I mean, to some degree it is, but I might change that line. (UPDATE 6/1/11 I just changed it to "western")

Brothers and sisters across the states
we have to end this fascist hate
I want to know just where we stand
we fight the nazis in this western land
They try to divide the workers- try to bring us down
spread their poison in all our towns
Police protect them as they march
and arrest those whose skin is dark

(chorus)
socialist dream, there's things that should be said
socialist dream, better red than dead
socialist dream, for freedom and for bread
socialist dream, better red than dead

It's the workers' country, we want it back,
love for our nation we do not lack
Why do some liberals put us down,
when the real enemy is the brown
It's not us who is shooting cops,
this right-wing hatred has got to stop
Racist cops and capitalists help them,
I hope all liberals realize before the end

****

“People’s Dream” based on “European Dream” by Skrewdriver original lyrics are here.

1. This is my second song about People’s Democracy, somehow towards the beggining of the process it just seemed like it would work best that way. PD was a militant, left-wing, and initially student part of the Civil Rights movement in N. Ireland starting in Oct. 1968 (it later became a political party and then around 1980 declined, and many members joined Sinn Fein and then it adopted another name). There’s more about them here and the first 1/3 of this. PD doesn’t exist anymore, so this doesn’t violate my rules on publishing songs about actual organizations.
2. There are six-counties in N. Ireland. I’m pretty sure that in the very early years of the PD it was organized just in N. Ireland, and in any case, it makes sense for the song to be about the northern members.
3. It takes place 1970 to early 1972, the time when republicans were engaging in armed struggle and the civil rights movement was still marching.
4. An explanation of why it’s wrong for the police to force Orange Order marches through Catholic areas is found here.
5. I have had this idea that the left could flip the right-wing slogan “Better Dead Than Red” since socialism would make- fatal accidents on the job less likely; fatal health problems connected to the environment or having poor or no health insurance less likely; and murders less likely.
6. The Dail is the parliament of the South of Ireland, which has pretty much always been hostile to the IRA.
7. PD offered critical support to the Provisional IRA (now known simply as the IRA).
8.The RUC were the police in N. Ireland until late 2001 and there’s evidence that to one degree or another they were sympathetic to loyalist paramilitaries. I explain that around 2/5 the way through the post here. The RUC also did quite a number on the Catholic population directly.
**9. The poem is 57% me, 43% the original.
10. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
11. Skrewdriver was supportive of the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.

Brothers and sisters across the six
in the cities and out in the sticks
I want to know just where we stand
we resist the Brits in our Irish land
They try and crush us- try to keep us down
occupy our cities and our towns
Police protect Orangemen as they parade
it’s been that way for all these decades

(chorus)
people’s dream, there's things that should be said
people’s dream, better red than dead
people’s dream, for freedom and for bread
people’s dream, better red than dead

It's our country- we want it united
british imperialism will be smited
Why does the Dail put the IRA down
when the British Army’s on Irish ground
we support the ones planting bombs
and we’re the reds who are marching on
The RUC helps loyalists
they’re just public sector terrorists

*****

“32-County Republic” based “Aryan Nations” by Bound For Glory, original lyrics are here.

1. There are 32 counties in Ireland.
2. People claim that the British presence in N. Ireland isn’t imperialistic. I explain why that’s not true here (it’s about 43% the way down in a large paragraph, half of which is numbered points).
3. Squaddies is a term for British army soldiers. Volunteers are members of republican paramilitaries.
4. Belfast is the capitol of N. Ireland.
5. Stoops are the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Fein’s moderate rival in the Nationalist community. I describe what’s wrong with them here.
6. To one degree or another, what the vast majority of republicans envision is revolutionary change for Ireland.
7. This is set in the period 1970 till about 1990, before the Peace Process got going; when republicans were not interested in the compromises being offered by the British and/or unionists.
8. Republicans get a lot of inspiration from other struggles elsewhere, such as S. Africa and Palestine.
9. Since the original is American I made sure to include certain elements, see this.
**10. 54% of this song/poem is me, 46% is the original lyrics, although you could say it’s 60% me since I switched the third and fourth lines of the first verse.
11. Considering the source of the original, I feel like I have to point out what is probably obvious: as long as it doesn't cross a certain line (and I imagine that in N. Ireland it rarely does) Irish pride is very different from White pride. (I just heard something making me think that it's probably a small minority of northern nationalists that would talk about "Irish pride"; I still feel odd completely re-writing that line, so I'm going to keep it)
12. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
13. In the 4th line of the second verse, I am talking about the dream of a 32-County Republic, which is alive in our minds.
14. This is about republicans, and a republican appeal to nationalists unhappy with the SDLP.
UPDATE 5/19/16 15. The third and fourth lines from the end are not meant as an endorsement of the traditional republican view that the 1916 republic still exists- they're meant as referring to what you might call a dream or vision, possibly in the hearts of republicans? (to be a little poetic about it). Something like that.

In the midst of our struggle, that we will sustain
I see through the lies and see the imperialistic reign
I can see oppression, 'cos there's squaddies all around
Volunteers are fighting soliders, every day in Belfast town
Now tell me would you work and vote for the stoops and their creed?
Are you willing to vote for their lies when revolution is what you need?

Chrous:
the 32-County republic is rising (rising) to make a brand new start
There is no disguising (disguising) the pride that's in our hearts
the 32-County republic is rising (rising) and we will never fall
the 32-County republic is rising (rising) to answer our people's call

we're too smart to play these reformist compromise games
We've got our own thing going now and revolution is it’s name
From the gay pride marches in Dublin to the workers with raised fists
The 32-County republic is still alive as long as the dream exists
Across the mighty oceans there lies our inspiration
we stand in soldiarity with those fighting to free their nation


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?).

Oh no, Here comes a green tory

I have four more songs. I've sort of upped my standards as far as the quality of what I post and what I don't. At this point I've got something like three songs I'm not posting because I'm just not happy with them. So, these are all a bit better than the average I post- they're not my favorites, but they're pretty good.

For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).

1. Never Again. Republican struggle in N. Ireland.
2. Oh, No, Here Comes a Republican. The GOP in America.
3. Blanketmen. The struggle of republican POWs in British prisons to be treated as POWs.
4. Green Tories. Moderate or conservative Irish Nationalists.

With the exception of the last one, they're all "Those Lyrics," see this for an explanation. There's not much difference, but the higher quality ones are towards the bottom.

“Never Again” based on “Tomorrow Is Always Too Late” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. Stoops are the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Fein’s moderate rival in the nationalist community. For what’s wrong with them, see this.
2. The no-go areas were parts of Belfast and one huge part of Derry where the security forces were kept out by barricades and armed IRA members. They were in existence most of the time between Aug. 1969 and July 1972 and acted as safe areas for Catholics being targeted for harrassment by the security forces and murder by the loyalist paramilitaries.
3. Since this takes place during the period Jan. 1970 to Jan. 1972, the people had started marching about 2-3 years earlier, but it sort of works anyway (it doesn't say when they awoke, so it could be 2-3 years earlier, and the statement that they're marching right now would be accurate).
4. The Tri-color is the Irish flag and the starry plough is the flag of socialist republicanism.
5. The general idea of the song is that in order to guarantee that the events of Aug. 1969 would not be repeated (1,500 Catholic families were forced out of their homes by loyalists, see this and this for more details) Ireland should be united and so the sooner that happened the better, and that involved putting pressure on the British through armed and other actions. Although things ended up not being catastrophic for the nationalist community, it was reasonable to think at the time that something at least as bad as Aug. 1969 could happen again. (I don't know how many republicans and nationalists saw it that way, but probably a lot)
6. Connolly is James Connolly, Ireland greatest socialist and greatest republican and a major leader of the 1916 Easter Rising, who was executed afterwards.
7. Pearse is Padraig Pearse, a major leader of the 1916 Easter Rising, who was executed afterwards.
8. Tone is Wolfe Tone, the grandfather of Irish republicanism who led a rebellion in 1798 and committed suicide when in jail awaiting execution afterwards.
9. Bombay St. was the main area where Catholics were forced out of their homes in Aug. 1969.
10. Long Kesh was the main prison camp holding republican paramilitaries.
**11. 32% of this version is me, 68% is the original.
12. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
13. Considering the original, I should say that Irish pride is very different from white pride (most of the time). (I just heard something making me think that it's probably a small minority of northern nationalists that would talk about "Irish pride"; I still feel odd completely re-writing that line, so I'm going to keep it)
14. Skrewdriver was supportive of the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.
15. I changed the 2nd line of the 1st verse by removing the word "only" from bewteen "my" and "interest."
16. This is basically about the IRA.

The stoops say what we should do, but I don't want to know
My interest is revolution, and maintaining the no-gos
The people have awoken and are marching right now
‘cause we are loyal to the Tri-Color and the starry plough

Chorus:
Tomorrow is always too late
We should never sit around and wait
Tomorrow is always too late
Get out there and do something today

Our enemies are tories, unionists as well
Both these forms of evil are raining our death knell
We salute the troops of yesterday, who fought the British plague
And we will carry on your fight as the republicans of today

(Repeat Chorus)

We must remain true to our cause, for comrades thrown in jail
For their sake and sacrifice, we must never fail
For Connolly and Pearse and Tone too, and Bombay St. as well
For the proud Volunteers in Long Kesh, our efforts they must tell


(Repeat Chorus)

*****

“Oh No, Here Comes A Republican” based on “Oh No, Here Comes A Commie” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. It’s about a member of the American Republican Party, the GOP. It’s also about a republican who probably represents a very small minority of today’s GOP, if you add up all the things I say about him, probably between 10% and 40% of the GOP matches this description.
2. Looking to the past means looking at periods when women had more inequality, gays were in the closet, and people of color were "in their place."
3. In the 1968 election, Nixon used what was called the “Southern Strategy” of appealing to people unhappy about desegregation. It represented a major part of the shift of the South from the democrats to the republicans. In general, white supremacists are more likely to work with the Republicans than the Democrats.
4. Only some small minority of the support that the GOP gets comes from white supremacists, but it seemed like the best substitute.
**5. 44% of this version is me, 56% is the original.
6. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
7. As I think might be obvious, there is nothing violent about this.

He looks to the past, he worships the upper-class
Nothing but air in his head
Appears in your eyes, peddling lies
Selling ideas that are dead

He's out there every single day
Talking 'bout the unions and the gays

(chorus)
On no, here comes a republican
elephant on his breast
Oh no, here comes a republican
Won't you give it a rest?

He hates his own land, he has a plan
To bring it all down to the ground
Confuse you with lies, installs his spies
Brings our destruction around

He just wants to see our nation declining
He wants the white man’s future to be shining

(chorus)

Support for his plans, comes from the Klan
People who only know how to hate
They wear robes of white, they’re so full of shite
Just like with Nixon in 1968

The elephant gets it’s support from these anti-semites
Hopes that they’ll help roll back our hard-won civil rights

(chorus)

Oh no, here comes a republican
the stars and stripes he flies
On no, here comes a republican
Won't you off and die?

******

“Blanketmen” based on “Justice” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. Blanketmen were republican prisoners who, in the late seventies until shortly after the end of the hunger-strike in 1981, wore blankets because they refused to wear a criminal’s prison uniform. In the late 1970s the British tried to break the republican family by criminalizing republican prisoners. See this and this (most of the last 1/2 is about the hunger-strike era). The prsioners resisted this effort, culminating in the 1981 Hunger-Strike when 10 men died, Bobby Sands was the first. This song is set in the mid 1970s before there was a large degree of support for the prisoners (from what I’ve heard, the first 1-2 years very few people understood what was happening to the prisoners and therefore very few people cared).
2. Most, perhaps all republicans who were “on the blanket” had been convicted by jury-less courts.
3. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that large numbers of people started to care about the prisoners.
4. The nationalist population were more or less terrorized by the British security forces and by loyalist paramilitaries, although they remained strong and determined to win and confident; but you could still say they were terrorized.
5. Orange is the color of anti-catholic bigotry in N. Ireland.
**6. 47% of this version is me, 53% is the original.
7. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
8. Skrewdriver was supportive of the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.

My spirit is strong as I'm dragged from the court
My mother screams "Brits out" in support
One by one, they lock us all away
non-Jury “Justice” is the game they play

(Chorus)
Call that justice, well it just ain't fair,
How much longer before they care
Call that justice from an alien judge
Jailed for fighting for the land you love

In a blanket, your time you’ll spend
‘cause you won’t break nor will you bend
A degrading regime if you won’t be criminalized
you fight for your people who are terrorized

Chorus

Call this orange state a democracy
But it’s steeped in division and inequality
Here's the reality, an alien state
Locking up patriots behind prison gates

*****

“Green Tories” based on “Government Out” by The Oppressed, original lyrics are here.

1. Green Tories are Irish nationalists who would normally be members of a normal conservative party. It could also refer to republicans with conservative politics.
2. Fianna Fail is the largest party in the South of Ireland. They’re conservative populists, generally socially conservative, and corrupt and very cooperative with the United States.
3. The stoops are the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Fein’s moderate rival in the nationalist community. I describe what’s wrong with them here. Probably some large minority of them are definitely not Green Tories, but the rest, to one degree or another, are Green Tories.
**4. 32% of this version is me, 68% is the original.
5. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
6. Only violence is part of the "revolt" referred to and the possibility of a future violent uprising by workers in the South.

You listen to their stories
you listen to their lies
You listen to their propaganda
They’re the bastards workers despise...

Chorus:
Hear the people scream and shout
we want green tories, green tories out

Fianna Fail coddles the rich
The stoops hold back the revolt
Neither party gives a shit
all they’re after is your vote

Chorus

To who will green tories answer
when corporations rule the state
If they answer to Washington
Irish independence will be faked

Chorus

So don’t listen to their stories
don’t listen to their lies
don’t listen to their propaganda
They know one day we will rise


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?).

Lyrics!! Lyircs!! Lyrics!!

On one hand this is a new batch of songs, the second I've posted in just a few hours. The first were songs which, with one exception, I had created a week or months ago. This batch are all new. They're from a variety of sources, some involve twisting lyrics (see this for an explanation) those will be ID'd with ++ as a symbol.

For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).

I think that's about it. As usual, I start with the least impressive and end with the most.
1. University of Freedom. The 1981 Irish Republican Hunger-Strike.
2. Stand up and Be Counted (IRA). Guess.
3. Scum of Britain. About Ian Stuart Donaldson, the late leader of the world-wide Nazi skinhead movement.
4. The Great Esacpe. Allied POWs in WWII.
5. Son of America. Martin Luther King, Jr.
6. Soldiarity. The American Left and N. Ireland.

“University of Freedom” based on “Bowels of the Devil” by Body Count (Ice-T's heavy metal band), original lyrics are here.

1. Irish republicans often would refer to the main prison that held many of them, Long Kesh, as the “University of Freedom” becaue they did a lot work educating themselves and eachother in anti-imperialism and (for the majority) left-wing politics.
2. ASU is an Active Servicce Unit. Most of the IRA (it’s not super clear, but I’m pretty sure this was not univeral throughout the organization) adopted a structure where the ASU was the smallest unit. The Company was another, larger unit of the IRA.
3. There are 32 Counties in Ireland.
4. Squaddies is a term for British soldiers.
5. The Falls is a republican area.
6. In the late 1970s the British tried to break the republican family by criminalizing republican prisoners. See this and this (most of the last 1/2 is about the hunger-strike era). The prisoners resisted this effort, culminating in the 1981 Hunger-Strike when 10 men died, Bobby Sands was the first.
7. The Hunger-Strike resulted in the prisoners’ demands being quietly conceded by the government, which meant that the British failed to break them, and although it involved 10 men dying on hunger-strike, it strengthened the struggle. It also involved the incorporation of electoral politics into the republican struggle which greatly strengthened that struggle.
8. It's basically about someone in the prison during the struggle against criminalization, and who is speaking between then and 1997.
9. I eliminated some of the Ice-T stuff (“yo”), but left some of it.
10. I ended up using the word “learns” the way that people say “teaches.”
11. The "North's LAPD" refers to the police, the RUC. I thought it was a nice way of thanking Ice-T for the original lyrics. Also, I've heard that very recently the LAPD has improved, and you could say that even before that change started, the LAPD was not as bad as the RUC.
12. the seperate race line is probably GREATLY exaggerating, especially in terms of how widespread that sentiment is.
**13. 71% of this version is me, 29% is the original.
14. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
15. UPDATED 2/8/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
16. Is about the IRA, but it's not a bad moment to remind readers that around 80% of the nationalist community supported the hunger-strikers.
17. UPDATE 5/1/17 A "nine" is a gun.
18. UPDATE 6/8/18 The first two lines might sound like I'm calling the British Army the "North's LAPD." I didn't mean that and I think it makes sense to see the first line is about the BA and the second is about the RUC police, but I wanted to make CERTAIN there is no confusion.

Out one night, fighting Brits with my Company
We fight for our people, against the North’s LAPD
Got a nine at my waist
Brits think we’re a seperate race
They fuck with West Belfast right here'll be their resting place.
Some squaddies, they tried to put a move on the Falls
I shot them in the face, but I was captured in the brawl
Then I was in Long Kesh, They wanted us to crawl
they thought they’d break us, but we remained standing tall

Chorus:
University of Freedom,
let me tell you what that muthafucka learns,
its faculty filled with revolutionaries
liberation, socialism, the people’s concerns.
University of Freedom,
listen close, 'cause I've been there before
And those who died there,
They are why we will win this war,
THEY ARE WHY WE WILL WIN THIS WAR!

Aiming the mortars at the British Army base
With the people’s support we’ll get them out of this place,
and my ASU’s down, we don't mess around,
Brits fuck with us, They’ll be six feet underground.
Prison couldn’t break us, we’ll resist to our last breath
Thatcher, that motherfucker, is responsible for Bobby’s death.
That's right, homeboy couldn’t be broken by the bourgeoisie
up there in Freedom’s University.

Chorus

******

++“Stand Up And Be Counted (IRA)” based on “Stand Up And Be Counted” by The Klansmen original lyrics are here.


1. The original is a classic Klan song, but the version I heard is by a side project of Ian Stuart Donaldson of Skrewdriver, a British Nazi skinhead band which was very supportive of the British and loyalist causes in Ireland.
2. Since the original is American racist, I made a point of including certain elements, see this.
3. This is not meant as an endorsement of armed struggle since the IRA’s declaration of a cease-fire in 1997.
4. AK-47s are rifles.
5. The Plough is the Starry Plough, the symbol of republican socialism.
6. The Sunburst is the symbol of the old youth wing of the IRA..
7. Bread is a symbol of economic justice.
8. I went with Tory instead of Brit because A: it involved further twisting, and B: the Tories are a much bigger part of the problem, probably something like 1/3 of Labour are friendly to Sinn Feiin, probably something like 1/3 are okay-good, and probably 1/3 are more or less (less) Unionists.
**9. 47% of this version is me, 53% is the original.
10. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
UPDATE 2/2/11 I just replaced the word "mortar" with the word "Tri-Color" (the flag of Ireland) in the 2nd verse.
11.  UPDATED 2/8/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.

Chorus:
Stand up and be counted, we’ll make a stand today
Stand up and be counted, and join the IRA

We are anti-fascists, who love our country too
We always can be counted on, when there's a job to do
We serve our people day and night, and soon they will be free
Proudly wear the mask, fighting for our community.

Chorus

Survival calls for vigilance the symbols of our fight
The Sunburst and Plough, Tri-color and AK, we know we are right
In search for freedom and bread we fight with rifle in hands
We must defeat the Tory to unite our Irish land

Chorus

******

++“Scum of Britian” based on “Son of Britain” by Saga, original lyrics are here.

1. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi skinhead.
2. Suss seems to mean, in British, smarts or something like that.
3. Ian Stuart was the leader of Skrewdriver, which in the 80s and early 90s was the world’s leading white supremacist skinhead band; he died in a car accident in 1993.
4. Valhalla is part of Norse mythology, it is where warriors go when they die, although there’s some debate about whether or not you have to die in combat. The nazis love Valhalla and are all convinced that Ian Stuart went there, but an anti-Ian Stuart song by the Stage Bottles says that he didn’t because he was killed in a car accident; I’d imagine he was more a musician than a fighter, and then there’s the idea that people who attack others (likely smaller and/or weaker) through bigotry are not eligible for Valhalla; so I’m open-minded about whether or not he’s in Valhalla (that is, if I believed in it, and I sort of pretend to just to have some fun at the expense of the fash, and to make a good point).
5. Musically he was actually very gifted; I don’t believe in Hell.
6. The RA is the Republican Army; Ian Stuart was a supporter of the British and Unionist causes in N. Ireland.
7. The line about Nazis driving is inspired by a professional anti-Ian Stuart song by MDC called "Nazis Shouldn't Drive."
8. You could argue that, like Hitler, he will long be remembered, but I don’t think so.
**9. 66% of this version is me, 34% is the original.
10. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
11. If not for the 2nd to last line I would say there's nothing about anti-racist violence and in my opinion that anti-racist violence would be a small or tiny part of things- small if we're just talking about dealing with Nazi skinheads, tiny if we're looking at the larger picture.
UPDATE 2/2/11 12. When I refer to a nightmare and a greatest enemy, I'm sure I'm kind of exaggerating, ESPECIALLY with the latter. For a large number of individuals, it has been a nightmare. And as far as I can tell, in terms of physical violence, armed or unarmed, they have the potential to do huge amounts of damage.
 UPDATE 2/4/20 I just added the word fascist to the second line of the chorus.

From the boneheads of Great Britain, a nightmare came to us.
He brought us hate and terror, The man who had no suss
Ian Stuart has now died, but our hatred for him still lives on.
So it will continue, until all the Nazi hate has gone.

chorus:
Their ranks are filled with boneheads, marching down the street.
They are our greatest fascist enemy since the Axis regimes were beat
Ian Stuart is no longer marching, but nor is he in Valhalla
His music sucks, he’s in Hell, and Up The Irish RA

Ian Stuart's downfall, was that Nazis don’t know how to drive
unfortunately the other nazi bonehead scum they all survived
A messenger of hate, a man who helped us see
That we must always be vigilant against the return of the Nazis

Chorus

When all the Nazi hate is gone, we will soon forget the man,
who weakened the working-class, because he could not understand.
The smashing of his mission is now our destiny -
To democratize our nations, and to set the working-class free.

Chorus

*****

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

++"The Great Escape" based on "Men Behind The Wire" by the Thornlie Boys, original lyrics are here (not exactly what I used, but close enough).

1. It's about Allied POWs in WWII. Frustratingly, it's only slightly twisted. The original is N. Ireland loyalist, and they did more or less support and fight in the Allied cause- sometimes, especially when they talk about the IRA and Nazi Germany and/or they're accused of being racist or friendly to British Nazis, you can't shut them up about how they helped defeat Nazi Germany : ). And even worse, it's not specific to a certain organiation, so I can only sort of point to the UDA being friendly with today's Nazis. You could imagine the character is an Irish-American Catholic, for whatever that's worth. As you can tell from the sampling of movies I watch on my profile, I'm really into Allied POW stuff (there's at least two other such movies I like besides "The Great Escape") and this was a good song for that. UPDATE 2/20/20 I just confirmed that the UDA was a majority of the loyalist paramilitary community and learned that the other main group, the UVF had some minor contacts with British fascists (contacts that followed some members who broke off and formed the LVF)) (UPDATE 2/21/20 I changed "cried out "No Pasaran,"" to "said a quick Hail Mary, thought." The Hail Mary prayer is MUCH MUCH more common with Catholics than Protestants, and I doubt more than a tiny minority of members of loyalist paramilitaries were raised to say it and probably stopped saying it as they became incredibly bigoted towards Catholics since Mary is a lot more important to Catholics than Protestants in general)
3. I imagine that only something like half of the American and British forces were motivated by anti-fascism (probably some moderate-sized minority were totally non-political and probably another moderate-sized minority were so conservative and/or anti-semitic and/or racist that they were open-minded about the Nazis maybe being okay), but I like to talk about it that way. As far as being anti-racist, this guy was part of the, let's say some very small minority of White American personnel who could be called anti-racist.
5. I felt like I had to switch two sets of two lines, and thus the second verse is a little awkward in terms of twice referring to "men behind the wire."
6. As far as POWs opposed to anti-semitism, realisticly probably some moderate-sized minority of the Allies. But they were determined to defeat the Nazis, who did hate the Jews.
7. What's that? It's "wierd" that my pro-IRA blog contains songs in favor of the Allies when the IRA accepted aid from Nazi Germany? Read this.
**8. 49% of this version is me, 51% is the original and I switched two sets of two lines, so maybe it's more accurate to say something like 60% me.
9. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
10. UPDATE 10/6/11 I am not sure if "Jerries" is an offensive term (it's not like Germans (in recent decades) have been or are oppressed because they're German); Even if someone says it is offensive, I might leave it considering how that's how some of the Allies spoke at that time.
11. UPDATE 2/27/17 I changed "jerries" to "krauts."

it was a dark and grey november morn as we flew off towards Germany
in a cramped and cold B-29, we were going to bomb the enemy
when the flak got real heavy, we took some hits and went down for a crash
I said a quick Hail Mary, thought "bless FDR and fuck all the racist fash"

We crashed hard but my spirit was unbroken and my heart was still on fire
for soon I knew I would be with the men behind the wire
We were captured by Krauts and interrogated, but our situation was not dire
we were soon allowed to join our brothers, the men behind the wire

There were many faces strange to me, and many more I knew
who were solidly committed to smashing those who hate the Jews
and a love for dear old democracy, even in it's darkest hour
did shine within, these brave men, the men behind the wire

and when this war is over, and our victory is won
let us not forget the sacrifice made by these courageous sons
they were staunch and true, for me and you, so lift your glasses higher
where would we have been, without them, the men behind the wire

*****

++“Son of America” based on “Son of Britain” by Saga, original lyrics are here.

1. It’s about Martin Luther King Jr.
2. The reference about Americans isn’t meant to exclude people, but seemed a bit better than “people” or “humans.” (the original is “comrades” but that wouldn’t go over so well with most people at a MLK march)
3. Dr. King obviously had an impact beyond America, especially in N. Ireland.
4. America could become significantly more democratic, as I discuss in the post "American Democracy" and could happen in a way that could possibly be referred to as something close to a revolution, especially if several changes were made at once.
5. Towards the end of his life, he also addressed the Vietnam War and poverty. Besides his talk about poverty, I’d also say (in connection with the last line) that racism shackles the working-class (obviously it affects middle- and upper-class people, and what I’m thinking of will involve rolling back racism throughout society, but it negatively affects the working-class more).
**6. 42% of this version is me, 58% is the original.
7. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
8. Just non-violence.
9. UPDATE 7/5/16 I changed "Americans" to "people" in the chorus.

From the great city of Montgomery, a leader came to us.
He inspired courage and bravery, in a struggle that’s so just
Dr. King has now fallen, but his memory still lives on.
So it will continue, when all the hate is gone.

Chorus
Our ranks are filled with people, marching down the street.
We are preassuring the enemy, let's force them to retreat!
Dr. King is still marching, walking by our side.
His words are still clear and loud, his spirit spread world-wide!

Dr. King’s weapon, was the message he worked to spread
His spirit fills my backbone, and it will until I’m dead.
A messenger of justice, a man who made us see
eternal laws of equality in his words for you and me.

Chorus

When the new democracy rises, we wont forget the man,
who bravely stood against war, poverty, and the Ku Klux Klan
Fulfilment of his mission is now our destiny
To further democratize our nation, and to set the working-class free

Chorus

****

++“Soldiarity” based on “Napalm In The Morning” by The Klansmen, original lyrics are here.

1. The original is written by Ian Stuart Donaldson for a side band of his, but he was mostly known for his British nazi punk band Skrewdriver and he supported the loyalist paramilitaries.
2. The reference to Vietnamese flags makes more sense than you think. First, it’s part of twisting the lyrics, since the original is pro-America in relation to the Vietnam war and refers to Confederate flags. Second, in general the nationalist community and the republican family supported the Vietnamese resistance. At one point when Free Derry Wall was painted in the colors of the flag of N. Vietnam, Eamonn McCann highlighted that in an article and said that in the late 1960s a lot of the student radicals who were part of the N. Ireland civil rights movement would have had that flag in their rooms. It’s unlikely more than a very tiny minority of those student radicals joined republican paramilitaries, and it’s still not a perfect line, but it’s pretty good.
3. It’s technically off, but the body bags are those of British soldiers.
4. In general, a large part of this song is the soundtrack for one of my earlier posts.
5. The Union Jack is the British flag, that refers to it flying in the Six-Counties of N. Ireland.
6. Although you should read that post, the first line of the last verse refers to the worst of the problem, the leftists in America, the EU, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, (possibly others), who dismissed the oppression of Northern Catholics because of their religion and/or the color of their skin. The word traitor was already there, and kind of works in the sense that they betrayed their committment to supporting oppressed people.
7. I believe that people looked at the number of Catholic civilians killed by the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries and thought that it was small, but didn’t consider that the Catholic population was small and those deaths had a great impact on that community.
8. The Civil Rights marchers refers to Bloody Sunday, when 14 marchers were killed.
9. As I explain elsewhere, the world and specifically the Left failing to do what it should have done varies from country to country based on various criteria, but referring to the all foru directions pretty much makes sense.
10. Bombay St. was one of the main victims of the Aug. 1969 anti-Catholic pogroms which is usually seen as the beginning of the conflict. During a period of 2-3 days in Belfast, 1,505 Catholic families fled their homes (probably something like 18% of Belfast’s Catholic population, probably something like 1.8% of the North’s Catholic population). For more, see this.
11. I’m almost reluctant to post this song. Even though I have improved the post this is based on and am even more convinced than before that there was some kind of serious gap between what the world did and what they should have done, I’m a little uncomfortable rubbing it in with a song. I’m basically saying “Greetings Comrades, care for another kick in the balls?”
**11. 69% of this version is me, 31% is the original.
12. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
13. Besides the part about the global left, this is about the IRA and has little to say that would be repeated by nationalists.
14. UPDATE 1/25/14 I just changed the words "was on" to "begun" in the second line, first verse.
15. UPDATED 2/8/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.

Northern kids in Belfast signed up to fight London
To fight against Orange tyranny an epic war begun
The kids signed up in Derry, south Armagh and Tyrone too
They wouldn’t submit, to the Brits
So they did what they could do

Stand and fight, for what was right
We wouldn't give in to imperialist might
The republican gains, the new day dawning
The Brits will count their dead in the morning

The Northern kids they went to war they took North Vietnamese flags
The rest of the world did nothing while these Volunteers filled body bags
Across the world no one was taking to the streets
A war wasn’t won because of leftists whose politics were weak

The idiots stand, in all our lands
But they will never raise their hands
They want to see a new day dawning
But they don’t care if the Union Jack is flying in the morning

The traitors were idiots and bigots of the political left
They couldn’t figure out the math on all those Catholics’ deaths
The Civil Rights marchers, they'd fallen to British guns
But these idiots, all they could think of were anti-gay priests and nuns
The Left’s very best, North, South, East and west,
Didn’t try to learn, how Bombay St. burned,
unless we end Irish partition
there will continue to be murders sectarian


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?).