Mexicans, Immigration, And The Irish

I submitted the Guest Opinion below to the Daily Camera about three weeks ago. I am not sure why it wasn't published- probably because they have a policy where in any rolling 365-day period no one can get more than four Guest Opinions published, and I think I had about 1-2 months left before it started over for me. The essay is a little TOO honest about something- I AM behind on staying informed about political developments here. I kind of HAD to say that, at least because of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

 

I think it has some potential, more or less, to get more Irish-Americans to support immigrants, and to emphasize that for some reason(s) we are not hearing about white undocumented immigrants being deported.  

 

Tom 

 

I am a bit behind on reading articles about current events and politics, but I did some research for this, I have a 2003 CU-Boulder BA in Ethnic Studies, and I was with the “Irish Solidarity Movement” in America between 1997 and ending somewhere 2005-2020 (the ISM were people, some non-white, concerned about Northern Ireland Catholics).

Because I am about 2.5 months behind (I have a system where, for example, I save today’s articles until I read yesterday’s articles) I only just now read something that concerns me greatly. GOPers, including many in the Trump administration, are expressing hostility towards the Mexican flag, which has become prominent at many recent protests in America. 

The main thing that needs to be said is that I don’t hear any GOPers complaining about the display of the Irish flag at US demonstrations, etc. in the 70s, 80s, 90s. For about a year in college I displayed a very visible Irish flag outside my house. I took it once in the late 1990s to a progressive pro-Zapatista protest at the Mexican consulate in Denver and was welcomed.

I haven’t heard anything from GOPers about how in Colorado (and maybe elsewhere) there are special license plates you can get that have the Italian flag and a note that the driver is Italian-American. And the thing is, that statement, especially in the Denver area, could be described as incredibly offensive. I don’t know much about this parade post- 2000, but I am sure that many people with that license plate were involved with or supported the Denver Columbus Day parade, which was a celebration of the genocide of American Indians. I have not heard of American Indians and their allies denouncing those license plates as racist and trying to get them banned- but I wouldn’t blame them if they tried. Genocide is A LOT worse than the worst thing Mexico has done to the US.

Going back to Ireland and The Troubles, it wasn’t just British patriots who said that when Americans displayed the Irish flag, it was often in support of what some mislabeled a “terrorist” organization- the Irish Republican Army (the one associated in the past with Gerry Adams, and the one that bent over backwards around 2000 to help the Peace Process). I have, in an April 2014 post on my blog, proven objectively that the IRA were not terrorists (that is, I explain in detail the math and analysis involved). There is no Mexican organization attacking the US the way that the IRA attacked the British, and most of the people angered by the Mexican flag being displayed here would never feel that way about the Irish flag.

There are strong connections between the Irish struggle and the chicana/o movement here. A veteran chicano Denver activist I used to know named Leo Griep-Ruiuz told me that “politically aware” chicanos don’t think it’s a coincidence that IRA member Bobby Sands died on hunger strike MAY 5TH 1981. In 1998 or 1999 I attended a Cinco de Mayo fund-raiser in Denver for the Chiapas Coalition (which was supporting the Zapatistas in Mexico). I asked if I could speak for a couple minutes about Bobby Sands and they agreed. The audience, probably hundreds of Zapatista supporters, responded very positively.

I have also been wondering, have there been any white undocumented immigrants arrested and deported in the last 7 months? Between the fact that I HAVE read a TON of articles about Trump’s agenda between January and June and I recently consulted some friends, I get the impression that there haven’t been so many that it would reflect their numbers here, or any at all. Specifically, any Irish? I know that there must be a lot of undocumented Irish here, partly from the fact that around 10-20 years ago at least two large Irish political parties (SF and Labour) frequently called for legalizing them. Various other facts I’ve come across also contribute to my certainty that there is a substantial population of them.

The double standard we see among GOPers when it comes to Mexicans on one hand and the Irish on the other, is simply racist.

A 2023 LTE About Gaza And The IRA

Below is something I wrote about Gaza. It (probably with some changes to what is below) was published in late Dec. 2023 on the web-site of the Boulder Weekly, but not in the print version of their paper and I can't find it on their site anymore.

 

Tom 

 

 Editor,

 

I have been a supporter of the Palestinians for about 30 years. In 2002 I convinced the other members of a CU-Boulder group (Students for Justice in Northern Ireland) that we should endorse the campus Coalition for Justice in Palestine. In the last 15 years one of the main topics on my blog is supporting the Palestinians. But an even bigger part of my blog is about opposing anti-Semitism, and I’m proud to say that those two parts of my blog overlap heavily.

 

There are many progressives who reject anti-Semitism but have failed to condemn Hamas’ Oct. 7th offensive. Although that failure is not necessarily bigoted, what Hamas did IS bigoted. They are religious fundamentalists and overwhelmingly targeted civilian life, and it was Jews they were after. As someone who looks back and supports almost everything the IRA did in The Troubles, I condemn the Oct. 7th pogrom but I would not condemn a Palestinian effort that resembles what the IRA did- targeting the security forces and (using methods that almost always prevent civilian death) destroying government and commercial property.

 

Why would I say something like that? Because although what happened Oct. 7th was horrible, the Palestinians have very serious and legitimate grievances. Those Palestinians who are Israeli citizens experience a fair amount of inequality (the State is officially Jewish, it cannot be simultaneously democratic). Those in the West Bank have it even worse (they are state-less (they have no citizenship, and thus no civil rights)). And those in Gaza the last month have endured a nightmare much worse than living in the world’s largest open-air prison- which was their existence for almost two decades until the last month.

 

They have every reason to be furious at the Israeli state and Israel’s Jewish population. But intentionally killing civilians in war is, to one degree or another, wrong, and in this case bigoted. Palestinians should leave that to Israel and/or it’s settlers, as we see in the West Bank and Gaza.

 

There must be a cease-fire in Gaza!

 

Tom Shelley
Boulder

 

Law and Order Reviews B

I have done reviews of many episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and published some more general thoughts about it here. In that post I offer a smaller number of general thoughts about the original Law and Order show (the one that went from 1990-2010). Although I do not like L&O as much as I like the SVU version, I do like it. There’s some liberal or even progressive stuff here and there and they’re good detective stories, and they’re homicide detectives- if they were narcotics, I’d probably be a lot less fond of the show.

Although I’m not sure I have done and will do this consistently, with the original Law and Order show I will make a note and maybe offer some comments when the issues that are at the core of Law and Order: SVU appear on this show.

“Life Choice” Season 1. See this for a plot summary.

Although it’s a little mixed, this episode leans heavily towards being pro-choice.

“A Death in the Family” Season 1. See this for a plot summary.

In this episode the detectives and the ADAs see things differently. The ADAs ask if the life of a cop is worth more than the life of a civilian. They find themselves investigating the death of a corrupt cop. Most damning of all, the senior ADA says that a lot of cops carry an untraceable gun that they can plant on someone if they shoot a suspect and it turns out the suspect was not armed.

“Mushrooms” Season 1. For a summary see this. 

The Black woman whose sons are killed or wounded doesn’t get along perfectly with the police. But that’s just realistic (MANY people of color don’t get along with cops) and I don’t think it dilutes what I’m about to say- she’s not seen as a suspect or an enemy of the police or something (you’re supposed to sympathize with her). She says at one point that her supervisor (she’s a janitor) wouldn’t allow her to go to the morgue and the hospital about her two sons. First, that’s just messed up in general. But people of color are more likely than white people to be in a financial situation where they cannot afford to lose their job in a crisis like that. Poverty is a more common problem among people of color than it is among white people. Part of this means that they are less likely than white people to know someone who can loan them some money until they get a new job after they lose their job (for leaving work during a family emergency). And, even more damning of some supervisors and employers, in some cases like this it’s a job that probably can be skipped for a day.

“The Troubles” Season 1. See this for a plot summary.

This is largely about N. Ireland. There are so many statements that are demanding I comment on them that this review would be about 3,000 words if I commented on all of them. The short version is that there’s a lot of nonsense.

There is one thing I’m going to comment on, something that, for some weird reason I haven’t really commented on before. One of the two cops buys the IRA member’s PR effort for America, and is sympathetic to him, basically because he (the cop) is Irish-American. Does law enforcement and the intelligence community in America go easy on the IRA because the vast majority of IRA supporters here are white Irish-Americans? First, as I explain here and here, the IRA was not a terrorist organization, and that has nothing to do with their skin color or their political goals. Second, the US government was largely on the side of the British, as I explain in note #17 of the poem here.                              

Are there or were there racist NYPD cops who supported the IRA but not the armed wing of the African National Congress? Yes, and there may have been a few FBI agents like that (although probably just a few- I imagine the FBI was less tolerant of IRA supporters than the NYPD were). Was there something racist about the fact that the IRA was never on any US list of terrorist organizations? Although I’m not real familiar with those lists, as I explaIn above, the IRA were, objectively, not terrorists.

If you look beyond the white privilege of most IRA supporters in America, globally their supporters were mostly what we would call in America “progressive.”

A Brief Argument in Favor of the IRA During The Troubles

 In the last year I have written very little here about N. Ireland, which is one reason I am doing this post.

I spend a lot of time imagining political arguments I might get into with people. Some of that ends up being published on this blog but some of it doesn’t. I often initially don’t put all the arguments I come up with in a post- in the past I would initially leave some stuff out, saving it for when I get into an argument and my opponent says something I expect them to say. But then I started adding that stuff to the relevant posts- about 10% of the “UPDATES” I’ve done in the posts on my blog are just arguments that I was saving. I realized that readers might read the post, think it’s flawed in some way and that I’m wrong, and move on without giving me a chance to respond to their criticism of the post.

There is a very basic argument in favor the IRA’s campaign during The Troubles that I developed about 5-10 years ago but have been saving for an argument with someone. That someone is usually (in my daydreams) a citizen of the Republic of Ireland who opposes what the IRA did in The Troubles. They say something about how the presence of a pro-British voting majority in N. Ireland means that it was wrong for the IRA to try to force the British out. But I guarantee you that these same Irish people are glad that the “Old IRA” fought during the “War of Independence” (around 1920) and gained freedom for most of the Irish population.

The thing is, until they made compromises in the negotiations after fighting in the South stopped, that IRA was fighting for ALL of Ireland to be free, not just those parts with a Catholic majority. About half of the IRA felt so strongly about this that they rejected the Treaty which contributed to the beginning of a civil war. Michael Collins, the main leader of the pro-Treaty side continued sending arms to Northern units of the IRA even after he negotiated and promoted the Treaty.

(UPDATE 5/16/22 See this where I explain how I concluded that only .3% of the IRA's operations resulted in civilian death and this where I explain Provo strategy)

Tom

Law and Order: SVU Reviews W

  This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

(Now that I’m watching the episodes that involve the character John Munch, I’m going to ignore most of his political statements)

(These are the four reviews I had postponed earlier)

“Grief” Season 4. Wikipedia summary is: “A waitress is found dead outside of a bar. Her death is ruled a suicide because the victim's boss (Paul Leyden) continually raped her and drove her into depression. When the victim's father (Joe Morton) becomes too close to Stabler, the victim's father snaps and vows revenge against his daughter's rapist.”

At one point a suspect (who is later cleared as innocent) refers to the 1997 NYPD rape of Abner Louima with the handle of a broom or toilet plunger. Even though it came from a suspect, it’s still worth mentioning as an example of what’s liberal or progressive on the show because about 5-10 episodes earlier there was another episode that was clearly inspired by what happened to Louima. I’m sure the reference to Louima in this episode was meant to remind people what the NYPD did In reality.

“Debt” Season 6. Wikipedia summary is: “A child abandonment incident prompts Benson and Stabler to investigate the disappearance of a mother. They learn from her sister (Ming-Na Wen) that she made a deal with human traffickers to have her teenage daughter (Jenny Wong) smuggled to New York from China. It is revealed that the teenage immigrant has been forced into prostitution and her life is subsequently used as a bargaining chip by the gangsters to avoid prosecution. When the squad captures the gang's leader (Jack Yang), Detective Stabler is able to get help from one of his junior members (Aaron Yoo) by convincing him that the bright future he was promised is a lie. After arresting a corrupt immigration attorney (Loren Dean), the NYPD finally learns where the captive women are being held. Detective Stabler arrives just in time to keep the promise he made.”

There are five things I want to comment on:
1) I was reminded recently by CNN that there is a stereotype of Asian women of being both hyper-sexual and also submissive. There is something about how non-Asian men see Asian women in this episode.
2) At one point the detectives assure immigrants that they come into contact with during the investigation that they aren’t Immigration officers.
3) I recently learned from a good source something that a more recent episode of SVU implied- that the “coyotes” who help people cross the US-Mexico border illegally are often bad and dangerous people. This episode said the same sort of thing about Chinese criminal organizations that help Chinese enter America illegally. I’m pretty sure that it’s a fair and accurate illustration of such criminals and it’s good for pro-immigrant forces (like Law and Order: SVU) to occasionally criticize them- I imagine that anti-immigrant forces would love to accuse us of liking coyotes because we’d look pretty stupid if we did like them.
4) For the second time recently a law enforcement officer on the show says that Chinatown doesn’t like cops, although it’s not clear why- do they fear gangs in Chinatown, or do they not like the police for roughly the same reason police are usually unwelcome in the Black community?
5) At one point one of the detectives offers the “we’re a nation of immigrants” argument in support of the pro-immigrant position. It’s not the worst thing I’ve heard, but when you think of American Indians and almost all black Americans, it’s a bad argument in favor of a good position.

“Ghost” Season 6. Wikipedia summary is: “A series of drug-related hits leads the detectives back to the notorious drug lord Cesar Velez. The detectives are left with one survivor (Reymond Wittman), a scared child whom the drug lords are trying to finish off. The gun used in the murders is linked to Liam Connors (Brían F. O'Byrne), one of Velez's top agents. Connors has a strong defense which almost gets him acquitted until Benson and Stabler arrest him for trying to kill ADA Alexandra Cabot a year earlier. Alex returns from witness protection to assist with the case.”

The drug cartel’s asassin is a former IRA member who drifted away from the cause because of the cease-fire and started working for the drug cartel. Through a character the writers say that a lot of former Volunteers did that. This is more or less total nonsense. It’s probably inspired by the case of the “Columbia Three,” three men who were members of Sinn Fein and/or the IRA that were arrested in Aug. of 2001 leaving that part of the Columbian jungle controlled at the time by the FARC, the largest left-wing insurgent army in Columbia’s civil war. They were accused of helping the FARC. I don’t know for sure what they were doing, but for a lot of reasons I doubt they were helping the FARC. There was a lot of concern in Ireland about the conditions they were living in in a Columbian prison- so much that there were multiple delegations of politicians and human rights activists with no connection to the IRA traveling to Columbia to investigate those conditions. My theory is that they were there to learn from the FARC about the military aspect of a peace process- there was such a process going on in Columbia and the FARC were participating in it.

There’s a scene with an Irish-American supporter of SF who is accused of raising money for the IRA- it’s not clear that he wasn’t doing both- supporting SF and the IRA, although it seems like the detectives were just being lazy and conflating SF and the IRA. Anyway, this guy said that SF are “fighting for peace in Ireland.” The thing is, SF and the IRA bent over backwards to make the peace process work. They compromised when they would have been justified in refusing to do so. The Good Friday Agreement is alright but should have been much better. The IRA also would have been justified in refusing to decommission until after Ireland was united. The ANC’s military wing didn’t decommission their weapons until there was major progress on ending Apartheid- I think it was after the 1994 election that was won by the ANC.

“Night” and “Day”, Season 6 SVU, and Season 1 Law and Order: Trial by Jury. Wikipedia summaries are, respectively,

“Benson and Stabler investigate the rape and murder of a woman found with a wad of money stuffed in her mouth. They trace the money to a lawyer (Bradley Cooper) handling the finances of a wealthy family. The woman (Angela Lansbury) demands that the detectives stay away from her son (Alfred Molina) even though they suspect that he preys on illegal immigrants who do not report the crimes out of fear of getting deported. The people are short on evidence until a Bosnian immigrant has the courage to come forward. Angry about exposing the fact that she was raped, her brother (Stelio Savante), an Islamic fundamentalist, brutally assaults ADA Casey Novak.”

And

“ADA Kibre works to prosecute a serial rapist (Alfred Molina), whose trail of victims through the years has been whitewashed by his wealthy and protective mother (Angela Lansbury). Kibre must also overcome witness intimidation, and even sees her crucial DNA evidence tossed out, but the slippery suspect's lawyer has yet another surprise up his sleeve.”

Although they end up focusing on only one rape, they believe that their suspect is guilty of a string of rapes of working-poor undocumented immigrants. At one point SVU detectives make it clear that they aren’t concerned about the immigration status of witnesses and victims. A community activist who tells them about the string of rapes accuses the NYPD of not caring about them, but the rape survivors aren’t going to the police because of their immigration status, and it’s believed that’s why the rapist is targeting them. It's just one more reason to oppose anti-immigrant politics.

The one rape survivor whose case is prosecuted is a white muslim from Bosnia who sometimes wears a scarf over her hair but usually doesn’t. I’m not the sort of progressive who believes that every Muslim woman who dresses conservatively is a victim of patriarchy, but it’s nice to see a muslim character who appears to be religious but is flexible about it.

The brother of that woman says he was tortured by Bosnian Serbs in the Bosnian War. And one of the rape survivors is a Catholic from Belfast who refers to The Troubles as an “uprising.” I haven’t typed much stuff about N. Ireland in the last year but you can find the posts largely or totally about that topic here.

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!

Fuck George W. Bush: Three New Poems

Below are three more poems. For an explanation of how I write my poems, see this. The last one is based on lyrics I agree with, the others are NOT.

For the rest of the lyrics, click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom.

1. Smash the Klan II. What you think it's about.
2. From Out of the Ashes. The birth of the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland.
3. Surf the Euphrates. About the Iraq War.

“Smash the Klan II” based on “Aryan Pride” by Final War. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about slightly militant opposition to the KKK among white people. It’s sort of inspired by the time that I joined around 100-300 people in 1995 protesting a “rally” by the Klan in Boulder. At the end we surrounded the building they had rallied in front of and trapped them there for about an hour or two until the police tried something sneaky that involved getting them out in an ambulance.
2. Instead of “crossing the border,” many Mexican-Americans are partly or totally descended from Mexicans who lived in what was Mexico until it became CA, NV and the South-West of the US (and TX).
3. The 54th Mass was the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the segregated Black unit that fought in the American Civil War and whose story is told, accurately or otherwise, in the movie “Glory.”
4. Racists have a greatly exaggerated sense of how much anti-white bigotry there is. In a paragraph more than half-way from the top of this post that starts with “Even without that…” I explain why I think anti-white bigotry is a very small problem.
5. I exaggerate how easy it is for white people to get a job, although if we focus on times when it’s a white person and a person of color, it IS pretty easy for the white person to get the job. Affirmative Action helps a lot, but “Hispanics” and Blacks still have an unemployment rate fairly close to twice that of white people (it’s a bit higher for Blacks than for “Hispanics” and the gap fluctuates a bit, but it’s around twice; see this). Racists think that white people are discriminated against and have more trouble getting a job. Of course, that’s probably because they think that the natural order of things should involve full employment in good jobs for white people and see anything else as unfair.
6. My thoughts about the white identity and European-American ethnic identities are in the first 2/5 of this (you should also read the conclusion, which is the second to last section) (I realize that BEFORE they read that many anti-Klan white people might not like what I say, but I think that after they read it, they will).
7. The St. Patrick Battalion was a group of American soldiers, most Irish and almost all Catholics, who deserted the US Army during the US-Mexico War and joined the Mexican Army. I’m sure it varied from individual to individual, but to one degree or another they thought that what the US was doing to Mexico was unjust (they were also alienated by anti-Catholic bigotry in the US Army (and of course Catholics *used to be* on the Klan’s list as well)).
8. After I started altering stuff, I switched the first verse with the chorus. Also, there were only three verses in the original, and the fourth verse is totally mine.
9. **70% of this poem is me, 30% is the original. I don’t know if the 3rd line of the second verse in the original lyrics I found on-line is what was actually written by the original lyricist.

Many people hate the Klan for spreading prejudice
Gay people, Muslims, and Jews are on their fucking list
Black people aren’t criminals like you see on your TV
The border crossed Mexican-Americans, its a fact of history

Chorus
Brothers and sisters, join together as one.
We’ve got the fucking KKK totally on the run
in memory of the brave 54th Mass soldiers who died
Fuck the Nazis, and fuck the Klan and fuck Aryan Pride!

Racists cry “Black man, yeah Black man full of hate”
Widespread anti-White bigotry is the bullshit story they narrate
Its fucked up how white people can secure any job by race
It’s funny how the Klan deny that that’s totally the case.

Chorus

Our solidarity won't be broken, and we won’t hide from an affray
We will keep on working until we asphyxiate the KKK
Our message will be spread. Our voices loud and clear
Inform the youth, of the truth, the Klan’s greatest fear.

Chorus

We’ll never be proud of being white, it’s an artificial identity
It’s totally steeped in privilege, hate and inequality
We’re proud of being Irish, Scottish and German, Greek, Polish and Italian
We’re in solidarity with the oppressed, just like the St. Pat’s Battalion

*********

“From Out of the Ashes” based on “After the Fire” by Skrewdriver. original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the aftermath of the anti-Catholic pogrom in the Lower Falls Nationalist/Republican area of Belfast in Aug. of 1969 (it wasn’t INCREDIBLY Republican BEFORE that month, but not long afterwards it certainly was). In July, August, and September, and mostly 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). In one night alone 650 families were burnt, or at least forced, out of their homes.
2. The DUBLIN-BASED LEADERSHIP OF THE IRA had demilitarized it in the years before Aug. 1969 and only a few IRA weapons were available to help defend the area, a defense that was largely unsuccessful.
3. The Civil Rights Movement that started in mid- and late 1968 was overwhelmingly committed to non-violence and had hoped to democratize N. Ireland.
4. Provos refers to what we call in recent decades Sinn Fein and the IRA. They broke off from SF and the IRA (what became known as Official SF and Official IRA) partly because of the leadership’s decision to demilitarize the IRA.
6. Initially the British Army kind of saved the Catholics from police-led loyalist mobs and were welcomed for about 9 months, but they became increasingly like the notorious Black and Tans unit of the British Army that served in Ireland during the War of Independence 1919-1921.
7. Squaddie is a term for British soldier.
8. On the night of June 27th 1970, the Church of an isolated Catholic enclave in East Belfast was attacked by a loyalist mob. The British Army wouldn’t defend the area but members of the PIRA did. It was their first major action.
9. I like calling The Troubles the Second Anglo-Irish War, the first being the War of Independence.
10. There is or was a T-Shirt designed by either SF or their old American support organization Irish Northern Aid, that said: “From Out Of The Ashes Arose The Provisionals.” It was referring to the ashes of the mythical bird, the Phoenix (in this case representing the IRA they split off from (actually, I used to think it was the ashes of the burned out homes, and I kind of prefer that interpretation because there were some good people in the Officials in the early 1970s and I don't believe in speaking positively about the feud between the two groups)).
11. Skrewdriver were British and supported the British and Unionist causes in Northern Ireland.
12. Based on a fairly scientific look, only .3% of the PIRA’s operations resulted in civilian death.
13. **62% of this poem is me, 38% is the original.

The fires burned for hours, it was a time of terror.
Dublin had ordered the IRA disarmed but they were totally in error
Those nights there were burnt out homes, our community was battered
Non-violence had been our people’s hope, but now that hope was shattered

Chorus
After the fire, the ruins there did lay.
After the Provo victory there will come a brand new day.

The Falls stood in misery, and initially welcomed the British Army Man
But increasingly the Squaddies acted just like the old Black and Tans
Then, on the night of June 27th, it was known the Provos had come alive-
Seeds of resistance once sown, now had grown, new life that would not die.

Chorus

The new Anglo-Irish War is approaching, and with the Provos we shall be.
They rose from the ashes of August ’69 and they will fight for you and me.

*************

“Surf the Euphrates” based on “Surf Nicaragua” by Sacred Reich (despite their name, their politics are very progressive- I'm fairly familiar with all of their music and at least some of it is more or less socially liberal and it's also economically progressive and it's anti-war). Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the Occupation of Iraq.
2. The Euphrates is a major river going through Iraq.
3. One of the MANY reasons Bush had for invading Iraq was that it has a lot of oil.
4. A major argument in favor of invading was that Iraq was connected to Al-Qaeda. In fact, shortly after the war began a poll found that about 70-75% of Americans thought Iraq was responsible for 9/11. It was such bullshit that Tony Blair didn’t use that argument when trying to convince the British people and Parliament to invade. It’s also been strongly suggested that the % of the anti-US forces that were foreign Islamists was very tiny.
5. There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction found, and that was predictable based on what the UN weapons inspectors were saying just before the invasion and what former Marine and former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter said around 2000.
6. Donald Rumsfeld was the Secretary of Defense.
7. Based on multiple pieces of anecdotal evidence and the existence of Iraq Veterans Against the War (now, About Face), and how unpopular Bush became shortly after the 2004 election, I imagine a lot of American soldiers who voted for Bush in 2000 or 2004 wished they hadn’t after they did one or more tours there.
8. I think another 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. This poem is not pro-insurgency. It was reasonable and natural that a large majority of Iraqis wanted the US out, but my favorite slogan of the anti-war movement was “Support Our Troops, Bring Them Home.” Also, some group at some point, and they may have been anti-war, was raising money to send men and women serving there body armor, and I would have supported that (it’s different than giving them extra ammunition with which to kill Iraqi civilians). (it’s also not pro-Saddam- it would be great if Saddam had been pushed out of power in a better way, but the methods that the US and UK used were bad)
10. Besides the insurgency, there was other instability caused by the invasion and occupation- Al-Qaeda attacks on Shiite neighborhoods, ethnic cleansing by Shiites and possibly some by Sunnis, and tension between some of the Shiite population and the Occupation forces. At one point it came close to a full-blown Sunni-Shiite Civil War.
11. The Surge was a brief but dramatic increase in the number of soldiers and Marines in Iraq.
12. Between 1991 and 2003 Iraq was frequently bombed by the US and UK.
13. I think that Bush supporters enjoyed the political dimension of the war, where they tangled with anti-war groups. We were in a time of a “New McCarthyism,” where disagreeing with Bush was seen by a lot of people as politically taboo. As I said, at the beginning of the war, the vast majority of Americans blamed Iraq for 9/11.
14. As far as Bush’s reasons for invading Iraq, here is something I included in two 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.

15. Bush liked the idea of being a popular war-time president the people would rally around.
16. **46% of this version is me, 54% is the original.
17. In a post here I describe what I did to oppose the invasion.

I know a place Where you're all going to go
They'll pay you to kill for oil If You're eighteen years old
First You'll need a haircut And then some new clothes
They'll stick you in Baghdad To play G.I. Joe

CHORUS:
You think you’re fighting Al Qaeda and that you’ll find WMD
But it’s total bullshit, concocted by Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney
But now it's too late You're entering Iraq
You voted for Bush, you’ll soon wish you could take it back

What is this we're fighting for and What are our goals
To create a cash cow for US corporations and improve Bush’s polls
Instability  and Sunni resistance grow deeper everyday
The situation worsens, the Surge is on it's the way

CHORUS:

Lessons we have learned Are easy to forget
Hints of Vietnam How soon we all forget
First we used sanctions and bombs, now go in the troops
Another chance for the Right to slander anti-war groups

Irish Unity: Three New Poems

Three more poems. For info about how I write my poems, see this. 2-3 of these poems are based on lyrics I find offensive, see the next paragraph. The last poem is about anti-racist skinheads. There are notes for those poems in general here.

I have until recently been very unsure about whether or not “Sweet Home Alabama” is a racist song. But, if wikipedia is not totally full of shite, I lean very heavily towards saying that it’s racist. That’s based partly on the song’s wikipedia page. I looked at the interview with the back-up singer, and I looked at the page with the statement by Ed King. Also, although Neil Young says they were right to be angry about his song “Alabama,” “Sweet Home Alabama” refers to the Neil Young song “Southern Man,“ which he doesn’t apologize for and which is (lyrically) a fairly-very good anti-racist song. I also found an article in The Atlantic that  makes it pretty clear they were racists when the song was written (the confederate flag has always been a symbol of racism).

You can find the rest of the lyrics, about ten pages of them, here.

1. "General Maurice Rose" About the Allies in WWII and specifically about Jewish-American soldiers who fought Nazi Germany.
2. "The North." N. Ireland. (A BLACK AND GREEN POEM)
3. "Skinhead Unity." Anti-racist skinheads.

“General Maurice Rose” based on “European Skinhead Army” by No Remorse. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is a little complicated. It started out as a poem about the US Army IN GENERAL in the European part of WWII. But then I needed something that rhymed with “Valhalla” (see below) and I found a kind of Jewish bread. Then I remembered about General Maurice Rose (see below) and made it PARTLY about Jewish-American soldiers in that theater (it's not from General Rose's perspective, and I imagine a lot of Jewish-American veterans might not know what to think about the part about Odin, but I explain that below (for whatever it's worth, the reference to Odin was already there)).
2. A medical center in Denver is named after the late General Maurice Rose. On their site they say the following about a point in 1945:

“It was around this time that news broke that General Maurice Rose, a Denver son and the highest-ranking Jewish officer in the U.S. Army during World War II, had been killed in combat. Rose was known for his aggressive style of leadership, directing his units from the front rather than a rear command post. When he and his staff, surrounded by German troops, were attempting to surrender, a panicked young German tank soldier fired one shot to Rose’s head, killing him instantly. His death caused an uproar: demands were made by congressmen for an investigation, and it was front-page news. Suddenly, the committee knew they could achieve two goals—create the new Jewish hospital and memorialize a fallen Jewish hometown hero.”

3. The Waffen-SS was the tactically-elite military, as opposed to paramilitary, part of the ideologically-based SS.
3. The Rhineland was a strategically important part of western Germany with a lot of industry.
4. FDR was the President of the US during almost all of WWII, until he died about a month before Nazi Germany was defeated.
5. Nazis made Jews wear a yellow star armband.
6. Although it’s true that the WESTERN Allies rarely carried out night assaults A) The Soviets frequently did, B) it rhymes, and C) sometimes they DID- see this and this.
7. The Wehrmacht was the German military, although it’s unclear if the Waffen-SS was part off the Wehrmacht.
8. The “sunwheel banner” is a term for the Swastika flag.
9. Odin is the god of Valhalla. 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). I MADE A POINT OF REFERRING TO ALL U.S. SOLDIERS IN THAT THEATER NOT JUST THE JEWISH ONES, TO LESSEN THE DEGREE TO WHICH I AM SAYING THAT GENERAL ROSE (SPECIFCALLLY) WENT TO VALHALLA. (also I’ve done six other poems where I imply that people who don’t believe in Valhalla go there, and one of them was about Allied soldiers in the Western European theater (the other five references to Valhalla were largely but not exclusively about Irish Republicans)
10. After Germany was defeated, a process was started that resulted in a democracy being created in what would be West Germany. Although some would point out that it was done through military occupation and an effort called “de-Nazification”, I think the entrenched nature of Nazism in Germany meant that there was no other way to create a democracy there. If it weren’t for a lot of Allied soldiers, de-Nazification would have been impossible to enforce, and the German Army would have reconstituted itself.
11. The second to last line. It’s meant to refer to members of the Waffen-SS. They were responsible for massacres of civilians (even in the West), the execution (in ONE incident) of American POWs, and some of them were concentration camp guards. Such people, IF soldiers in general go to Valhalla (see above), don’t go to Valhalla, in my opinion.
12. Hallah is a kind of Jewish bread.
13. You have to emphasize the “er”s in “banner” and “shatter” to make them rhyme.
14. **73% of this poem is me, 27% is the original.

On the Waffen-SS, we’re gonna go medieval
The Allies have teamed up and it's good against evil,
We've got the tanks, we’re heading for the Rhineland
We won’t lose, we’ll play the winning hand

Chorus:
United States Army,
We fight together, commanded by FDR
United States Army,
We fight for the people who wear the yellow star

We're advancing day and night,
Behind the front our air support takes flight
Smash the Wehrmacht, make it shatter
We raise our middle fingers to the sunwheel banner

many U.S. soldiers will meet Odin, unlike Hitler,
After we take Berlin, a democracy we’ll configure
When we kill Nazis in battle, they won’t go to Valhalla
After the war, we’ll celebrate with some Hallah

******************

“The North” based on “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Original lyrics are here.

1. See my thoughts above about whether or not the original is a racist song.
2. This is set around 1990.
3. I assume that BA units were flown into the North instead of traveling by sea.
4. “The Six” is short for the Six-Counties, a republican term for N. Ireland (I say “the Six” not because republicans say that (they don't) but because it rhymes).
5. In 1983 the very popular British Nazi skinhead band Skrewdriver did a song called “Smash the IRA” and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of young, working-class, conservative and patriotic BA soldiers were fans. Skrewdriver’s vocalist and lyricist Ian Stuart Donaldosn started, in the late 1980s, a side project called The Klansmen, which was about the American South.
6. Margaret Thatcher’s constituency was Finchley.
7. “Tiocfaidh ar la” is a republican slogan coined by Bobby Sands and means “Our Day Will Come.”
8. There’s a theory, which must be embraced by N. Ireland anti-Catholic bigots, that Catholics aren’t real Christians.
9. Bangor is a medium-sized city (in the NI context, if Belfast is a large city, and Derry is also a medium-sized city) that’s almost entirely Unionist.
10. In my version the boos are coming from Nationalists and republicans.
11. The Provos is an earlier term for the movement made up of what we now call simply Sinn Fein and the IRA. I explain here how they had, 1981-1997 a comprehensive strategy for getting the British out and helping their community.
12. “The Falls Rd. Curfew” was a major turning point in the very first year of The Troubles. In Aug. 1969 there were massive anti-Catholic pogroms in Belfast which were destructively and lethally successful. Because of this, the British Army, who sort of saved the Catholics, was welcomed by a decreasing number of Catholics in the first several months after the BA came onto the streets of N. Ireland. On June 27th there was a major and partly armed, attack by loyalists on the isolated Catholic enclave of the Short Strand in East Belfast. The British Army wouldn’t help but about four members of the Provisional IRA successfully defended the area and killed five armed loyalists. 9 days earlier a British general election had been won by the Conservatives. The Unionists were furious about the PIRA action in the Short Strand and demanded action. The following is from the Conflict Archive on the InterNet:

********

Friday 3 July 1970
Falls Road Curfew
Beginning in the afternoon, the British Army carried out extensive house searches in the Falls Road area of Belfast for members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and IRA arms. A military curfew was imposed on the area for a period of 34 hours with movement of people heavily restricted. The house searches lasted for two days and involved considerable destruction to many houses and their contents. During the searches the army uncovered a lot of illegal arms and explosives. However the manner in which the searches were conducted broke any remaining goodwill between the Catholic community and the British Army. During the period of the curfew there were gun battles between both wings of the IRA and the Army. Two people were killed by the British Army during the violence; one of them deliberately run over by an Army vehicle. Another person was shot and mortally wounded by the Army and died on 10 July 1970.

Saturday 4 July 1970
 The Falls Road curfew continued throughout the day. A man was killed by the British Army.

**************

(I should clarify something- I don’t think there was any inter-republican fighting, but both the Provos and the Officials, separately, fought the British during the Curfew; also, although the official record doesn’t totally reflect this, a Polish-British photojournalist was killed by the BA, bringing the total to 4 civilians killed; one of the two local men shot was 62 years old)

13. The red, white, and blue are the colors of the British flag.
14. The Civil Rights Movement in N. Ireland in the late 1960s and the early 1970s was inspired by its counterpart in America, and at the very end, a delegation from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference attended the Bloody Sunday funerals.
15. **77% of this version is me, 23% is the original.

Jet turbines keep on turnin’
Carrying British soldiers to the Six
Singin' songs about the Southland
Occupying northeast Ireland because of Tory politics

Well I heard Mrs. Thatcher say the North is
as British as Finchley
Well, that’s nonsense and won’t stop us from
creating a border in the Irish sea

Chorus
Tiocfaidh ar la Derry
Where the skies are so blue
Tiocfaidh ar la West Belfast
Where Catholics believe in the Lord, too

In Bangor they love the Queen, (Boo! Boo! Boo!)
Now the Provos are doing all that they can do
The Falls Rd. Curfew angered me
An atrocity carried out under the red, white and blue

Now Southern Blacks had “We Shall Overcome”
And they overthrew segregation
They inspired us to march for our rights
And it turned into a struggle for liberation

***************

“Skinhead Unity” based on “European Unity” by Brutal Attack. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about anti-racist skinheads. Although there might not be any left in America, they used to exist, so I’m going to occasionally do poems about them.
2. I get the impression that when Nazi skinheads became part of the skinhead scene, non-racist and anti-racist skinheads initially didn’t do much to stop them.
3. D-Day was the Allied invasion of Europe during WWII.
4. Skinhead was started in connection with Jamaican immigrants in England. Nazi skinheads claim it isn’t true.
5. Most anti-racist skinheads are patriotic.
6. Anti-racist skinheads are frustrated by those skinheads who are more or less neutral.
7. Ska is a kind of Black music that a lot of non-racist and anti-racist skinheads (as well as others of course) listen to.
8. As far as I can tell in the 1980s and 1990s a LOT of anti-racist skinheads were homophobic, but I have reason to believe that, as homophobia became less common among youth in the last 20-30 years, it became less common among anti-racist skinheads.
9. Although anti-racist skinheads occasionally used guns, Nazis love guns. And there was a similar gap when it came to knives.
10. A mask is sometimes defined as a PROTECTIVE covering. So, they’re not hiding their reasons for being more or less neutral. I wouldn’t be surprised if they can’t handle the kind of beating that Nazis give anti-racists.
11. **50% of this is me, 50% is the original.
12. I just added "great" to the 4th line. It makes more sense, I forgot I'm not writing 10 years ago, when I wrote most of my poems.
13. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi skinhead.
14. UPDATE 4/14/20 I just changed "from" to "of" in the last line of the chorus.

You know our scene’s been taken over by fools
Mis-using their strength, inspired by the Nazi tools
Some of us are to blame for not stopping them right away
But now we’re fighting the fash like our great-grandfathers did on D-Day

Chorus
Skinhead unity
friendship, class pride, a diverse community
Skinhead unity
Our culture free of the Nazis

Our skinhead forefathers were Black English people you see
But that’s not what the boneheads would have you believe
So how come our scene’s been overrun?
By alien ideologies, the fascist atrocities, with the knife and the gun

So listen skinheads, listen very carefully
It’s time to wake up, time to make a stand you see
United we'll win, come here our call
If we stick together nothing’s gonna make us fall
It wont be easy it'll be a long hard task
And there are those fools who hide behind the neutrality mask
But we'll pull through, ‘cos ska wins in the end
To anti-Semitism and homophobia we will never bend

"The Connolly/Larkin Brigade" A New Poem!

A new poem. I explain how I write my poems here. This one is based on a song that I like politically. For the rest of the poems, click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom.


"The Connolly/Larkin Brigade," based on “Last Lincoln Veteran” by David Rovics. Original lyrics are here.

PLEASE READ!! 1. This is a bizarre one. It’s about a very alternate history. Written from the perspective of an American socialist in, about, 2040, it’s about fictional events in the 1980s, (which is similar to the chronological perspective of the original (the original was written about 65-70 years after the events in it, when there were still some Lincoln veterans alive)).
It’s based on a song about the anti-fascist foreigners who fought in the Spanish Civil War (there was an Irish anti-fascist contingent, largely ex-IRA members, called the Connolly Column). The premise of this poem is that at some point in the 1980s, a similar call is made for people to fight in the North of Ireland. It IS possible that if the IRA had a launched a Tet-style offensive (in the Vietnam War, there was the Tet Offensive by the VietCong in 1968) as they had planned to in the 1980s, the conflict would have been transformed and it would have made sense to call for large numbers of foreign fighters.
3. James Connolly and Jim Larkin were senior or semi-senior leaders of the broad Irish republican family in the first 2-3 decades of the last century. Both spent time as union organizers in America.
4. May 1st is International Workers Day.
5. Dixieland is a racist term for the American South. Orange is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry in the Irish-British context. (UPDATE 3/18/20 I used Dixieland because A) it rhymed, B) I thought it would indicate that I was comparing the North with the South in the sense that they were both bigoted, etc.)
7. The West Bank refers to the 99% nationalist part of Derry, to the west of the River Foyle. It’s where 14 anti-internment/civil rights marchers were killed by the British Army on Bloody Sunday in 1972.
8. Chronologically three of the cities/places I chose don’t make much sense, since they were sites of ongoing struggles in the 1980s OR, the struggle hadn’t begun. Whatever.

Ramallah is in the West Bank in PALESTINE. There’s a lot of solidarity between the Irish and the Palestinians.

Paris. When Bobby Sands died (see this and the middle third of this), the socialist Prime Minister of France offered to attend the funeral, but he consulted Dublin and they said no.

Chiapas. In 1998 or 1999, on May 5th (Cinco de Mayo and the day in 1981 that Bobby Sands died) I went to a fundraiser for the Chiapas Coalition in Denver, CO (the CC were supporters of the Zapatistas, the EZLN). I asked if I could say something about Bobby Sands and they let me speak for a couple minutes. Later, another speaker who had spent time with the EZLN, said that they (the EZLN) were very concerned about the North.

Cape Town. The ANC strongly supported the IRA (see this). I think their military wing was large and I THINK they had trouble finding work for everyone and it MIGHT have made sense, in this scenario where a call is made for foreign fighters, to send some.

9.  Until late 2001 the RUC were the police in N. Ireland.
10. Orthodox republicans, if there are any left, believe(d) that the Republic proclaimed at the beginning of the 1916 Easter Rising still exists and has been usurped by the Northern State and the Southern State. I have never believed that, but it still seemed like a good adjustment to the original lyrics, and in the 1980s, I think that almost all Northern Sinn Fein members probably DID believe it, and probably a large minority of Southern SF members also believed it.
11. Margaret Thatcher was a hardcore Tory and British imperialist who was Prime Minister in the 1980s.
12. Ian Stuart Donaldson was, in the 1980s and early 1990s (until his hilarious death in 1993), the leader of the worldwide Nazi skinhead movement, and as a British Nazi, he was incredibly supportive of the British and Unionist causes in N. Ireland.
13. Ian Paisley was, between the mid-1960s and about 2005, a very visible, extremely Unionist and anti-Catholic politician.
14. In the late 1990s a US Representative, Donald Payne from NJ, sponsored legislation in the House that would ban the sale of plastic bullets to the UK. He had traveled to the North and I feel safe assuming that some US corporation was selling the plastic bullets used in the North (or he was just really cool and pro-active, but I bet they were being sold to the UK). (Payne is Black)
15. I mention they were Catholic because I recently decided it’s frustrating that American Catholics in general showed almost no interest in the conflict, frustrating because although there were other factors (anti-Irish bigotry, economic factors, etc.) to a large extent SECTARIANISM affected the lives of Northern Catholics.
16. I wanted to recognize the contributions made by gay members of the Nationalist community.
17. Here are some ways that Washington wasn’t neutral:

1) It seems that D.C. never privately put firm pressure on the British to dramatically change its policy in N. Ireland and/or create a significant role for the South in the affairs of the North (or even, better, begin a process of withdrawal). If they did this privately, it didn't work, and they should have done it publicly (it's possible that to some degree that happened between Clinton and Blair, and had some small effect on the GFA, but the GFA could have been much better, and then there's the ultimate goal of a British withdrawal).

2) Although at some point in the 1970s the President or Vice President of SF did speak at a committee hearing of the US Congress, from 1983 until 1994 the President of SF, Gerry Adams, was not allowed into the US. (he was first allowed into the U.S. in 1994). During this time SF represented about 35-40% of the Nationalist community, and probably about 60% of the poorest, most oppressed half of that community.

3) During the entire conflict, something like 20 former republican Volunteers went through either extradition or deportation proceedings. I think all the extradited were sent back to the UK, I think most of the deportation cases were deported. I know of at least one deportation, and this was probably the case with all of them, where the issue was that he said on the immigration paperwork that he was never convicted of a crime, and the U.S. government said that he in fact had been. The thing is, republican Volunteers don't consider themselves criminals, and even the British government, to some degree, has recognized this by treating them as prisoners of war during most of the conflict. But the U.S. Government disagrees. There's evidence that some very large majority of the nationalist community more or less supported the hunger-strikers of 1981 (see the middle third of this) whose struggle convinced the British to extend status as prisoners of war (or political status, basically the same thing), which makes me think that some very large majority of the nationalist community was more or less unhappy about the extraditions and deportations (also, the massive anti-internment march that was attacked on Bloody Sunday in 1972 was primarily organized not by republicans but by a senior SDLP politician).

18. I can’t abide praising Reagan for a lot of reasons. He and Thatcher were best friends.

19. Practically the entire last full verse was in the original, and the 95 yo is, I assume, someone David Rovics actually knew (possibly Robert Steck). That’s part of why I changed it to “she” and “her”. Like practically all of my poems, this is not written from my perspective, it’s some faceless American socialist character I invented. I don’t know any Communists- please tell the House Un-american Activities Committee that if they ask about me. :  )
20. The Short Strand is an isolated Catholic enclave in Unionist East Belfast.
21. I almost hate bringing this up, especially because the post I’ll link to needs some work but it’s massive and I don’t know when I’ll make it near perfect. I believe that during The Troubles, and especially after Apartheid was shattered by the ANC and before those assholes in Al-Qaeda attacked on 9/11, the world, to one degree or another kind of or totally dropped the ball when it came to solidarity with the Nationalist community. I focus like a laser on the American Left and to a lesser degree the west European Left. That post is here, and the relevant part starts with the mention of South Africa about 1/3 from the top.
22. I couldn’t make up my mind about how the story ends. But then I decided to make a few more changes and make it a happy ending- not what happened in the Short Strand, but Ireland being united in the end.
23. **36% of this version is me, 64% is the kick-ass original.
24. UPDATE 4/1/20 I maybe should have altered the very last part less than I did. I deleted the phrase "It's a place that we all know so well" because it's not well known among American progressives today, as I mention in note 21 above. I forgot that in this alternate timeline, it IS well known. But I'm going to keep it the way it is, I just didn't want anyone to think that I didn't like David's lyrics.
25. UPDATE 4/1/20 I deleted the word "most" from the 3rd line of the second verse. It implied, for example, that Hindus didn't fight. I was lazy and didn't alter that when I first wrote it, I didn't mean to exclude anyone.
26. As I prove in a fairly scientific way here, only .3% of the IRA's operations resulted in civilian death.

They were old when I was young Now they're all but passed away
Now it's just a second hand story we hear about on the first of May
When from all around the world They sailed off to Ireland
Where they fought against the Brits and to liberate Orange Dixieland
Who will recall the days When they all stood side by side
Now that the last Connolly/Larkin Veteran died

Beside striking workers Or in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade
You could see those who made the journey To join the Connolly/Larkin Brigade
When men and women of many nations Of every creed and hue
Catholics and Protestants, Muslims,  Atheists and Jews
Joined together in the West Bank To avenge the fourteen who died
Now that the last Connolly/Larkin Veteran died

The working class of many countries responded to the desperate invitation
With what weapons they could find They fought to unite the Irish nation
From Ramallah and Paris, Chiapas and Cape Town
Who will recall the Brigadistas Who bravely took the RUC down
There beside the Catholic people Even the sheep and cattle cried
Now that the last Connolly/Larkin Veteran died

The 1916 Republic had the people But the British Army had the tanks
Thatcher and Ian Stuart got only some of Paisley’s premature thanks
'Cause the plastic bullets to take down rioters Came from the USA
And the boys and girls they knocked down Were Catholic and some of them were gay
Uncle Sam wasn’t neutral, and praising Reagan is something I can’t abide
Now that the last Connolly/Larkin Veteran died

Some say people get conservative The older that they age
They say that being radical Is just a youthful stage
But the finest communist I've known Lived to 95
And she spent her whole life fighting For humanity to thrive
To forget these fallen heroes Is something I cannot abide
Now that the last Connolly/Larkin Veteran died
Now that the last Connolly/Larkin Veteran died

There's a neighborhood in East Belfast called the Short Strand
It was there that we showed our solidarity Where so many comrades made their final stand

"Anti-Imperialist Unity" A New Poem

For the first time in about two years I wrote a new poem. I will usually do more than one at a time, but I am so excited about this that I wanted to post it ASAP. I explain how I write my poems here. (as I mention in that post, when I use the first person, I am almost never using my perspective, but I don't feel like changing all the first person terms, and I guarantee you I haven't attributed an opinion in this one to Costello that is in conflict with what he believed)

You can find all my poems by clicking on the "lyrics" label at the bottom.

“Anti-Imperialist Unity” based on “Unity is Power” by Kill, Baby, Kill, original lyrics are here.

1. The title is a phrase used by Seamus Costello, who was a leader of the Irish Republican Socialist Party and its military wing the Irish National Liberation Army. He believed in this concept, although I’m not sure what groups he had in mind besides his RSM and the Provisionals (what have been called in recent decades Sinn Fein and the IRA). Maybe he hoped he could convince his former comrades in Official SF and the Official IRA (the other side of the 1969/70 split that produced the Provisionals), but probably not. Probably People’s Democracy (a civilian but militant left-wing anti-Partition group born as a part of the civil rights movement that had taken place between 1967 and 1972), who I have reason to believe were friendly to the IRSP. Maybe 1-3? tiny left groups that were anti-Partition and maybe one or two tiny republican groups that I can’t think of. And maybe unaffiliated individuals would be welcome. I haven’t read his speeches and interviews in a long time and am not sure I can find them, but I imagine the unifying principles would be at least a lukewarm belief in socialism and a firmer opposition to Partition. He died in 1977, so this about the period 1975-1977.                 
2. The RUC were until late 2001 the police in N. Ireland.
3. I doubt Army bases were in anything smaller than a medium-sized town (i.e. Omagh, Strabane).
4. Starting around the beginning of the conflict and continuing in recent years some statistics about average pay indicate that the cost of labor is lower in N. Ireland than it is in Britain. On the other hand, the rate of unionization is higher in N. Ireland, but I think this has little effect because

A) sectarianism divides workers from taking effective action together,

B) it’s difficult for passionately anti-sectarian socialists to get into major positions of power in N. Ireland’s labor movement,

C) many of those who might take that kind of role were busy with the National Question and related issues and/or had/have criminal records from republican activity (something similar could be said about some reformed loyalists, for example the late David Ervine),

D) although the Churches aren’t nearly as central to N. Ireland politics as you might think, the Catholic Church there is not that of El Salvador’s late Archbishop Oscar Romero,

E) center-right politics dominate the Unionist community, perhaps because bigotry and colonialism tend to do that (i.e. most leftists advocate against that kind of shit, and are ignored even when they focus on issues that are purely class), and

F) it might be relevant that the police were, until recently, VERY prepared to break some heads and until recently had excellent political cover if they did so (potential strikers may have also been reluctant to confront soldiers with powerful rifles who were trained for aggression and had even better cover if they killed someone),

G) there is no labour party with the kind of power that the British Labour Party has in Britain (the SDLP don't count, see this and SF is hated by Unionists (you could say something similar about the SDLP, either because they're Catholics, or because they're socially conservative and middle-class, so the vast majority of those Protestants who are working-class and/or progressive don't vote for them))

More evidence for what I say in the last line of the 1st verse is found in the following facts taken from the book Northern Ireland: the Orange State by Michael Farrell:

“In 1974 45% of all firms in Northern Ireland employing 500 or more workers were controlled from Britain, as were 28 out of 51 firms employing between 250 and 500 workers” p. 326

5. The pride would be both the working-class kind and the Irish kind.
6. Fenian is a derogatory term for Catholic and republican, but has been adopted by republicans.
7. James Connolly was Ireland’s greatest socialist and greatest republican.
8. Republicans did a lot of feuding. Even if it was slightly unavoidable, it was bad. People who were, to one degree or another, good republicans and/or socialists were lost. It was demoralizing for the communities they were based in. It distracted form fighting the British. It was used by the British in anti-republican propaganda.
9. In 1975 the IRSP became one of the two first political parties in Ireland to call for gay rights (the other one was PD). I wouldn’t be surprised if in the mid-70s about 25% of the Provos supported gay rights (in 1991 a publication by and for IRA POWs published an article by a gay Volunteer calling for the movement to recognize the contributions made by gay and bi-sexual Volunteers).
10. **27% of this poem is me, 73% is the original.


So much wrong in the North today, the Catholics are being oppressed
What's the point of fighting each other, when the North’s in a mess?
RUC Barracks in every district, Army bases in every town
The Brits are occupiers and they’re trying to keep the cost of labor down

This is the voice of Costello, a voice full of pride
Calling out with a message now- we must all be allied
So listen fenians and reds, listen well, unity's a must
If we can't achieve to unite as one our efforts will go bust

Chorus:
Unity is power, unity is grand, Unity’s the weapon to defend our land
Unity's the answer to Connoilly’s call
Unity will set our class and nation free, Unity will bring us final victory
If we stand united, we will never fall

All these senseless feuds only give the Brits a laugh
Comrades we must stand as one, fighting on the people’s behalf
Shoulder to shoulder, brothers and sisters, make sure we'll never fail
So stick together and act as one, united we'll prevail

Chorus

To all of those who share our beliefs: United we will win
Unity brings victory, it's the power from within
So join our ranks on the battlefield, together side by side
To fight our people's enemies and for Irish freedom and gay pride

The General Election in Ireland, the Working-Class, and the Palestinians

I am a little late doing this, but here are links to two articles about the recent election in the South of Ireland (the Republic).

1. An article about how Sinn Fein is a working-class party. About 15 years ago in another election there about 1/3 of SF candidates had some connection to the trade-union movement.

2. A post by Juan Cole about how Ireland is overwhelmingly in support of the Palestinians and a Sinn Fein government might turn that into policy.

Because of some things in the first article and the fact that in the PAST Cole has attacked the IRA, I want to link to a post on my blog where I explain that the IRA were not terrorists.

Also, it looks certain that there will be another election there, the numbers just don't add up to a 80 without so many different parties and independents that I doubt it will be a stable government. And, since SF didn't run many candidates, if there is another election, they might get a large plurality- hopefully seats taken from FF and not the left, but in any case it might make it more likely SF can form a government.

Also, SF is very much against anti-semitism, although it's a bit complicated. There's some stuff about that here, here, and something a little more critical here. UPDATE Another critical piece is here.



Something I wrote elsewhere:

In a recent post on his blog Juan Cole talks about SF and the Palestinians and says that unlike Germany with it's Nazi history, Ireland will be able to support the Palestinians without that kind of baggage. But That is not entirely true since Ireland was neutral and the IRA accepted aid from Nazi Germany. Unless SF has admitted recently that the IRA was wrong to do that, they are vulnerable to attacks. I go into more detail about that here. But multiple things indicate that SF IS VERY much against anti-Semitism (although it's not all favorable and some of it is ancient history much of this post is about SF and anti-semitism) and I wanted to make that even clearer to people who will criticize them over supporting the Palestinians. (I just did a google search for news about SF's current stance on the IRA and Nazi Germany, and subscribed to the Irish Times and searched that site and found nothing about SF changing it's stance on this (I found something from 2004 indicating that SF was still defending what the IRA did (using Google Advanced Search, I searched SF's web-site and found nothing, although several possibly relevant documents seemed to have been moved or removed (they probably can't archive everything (I also used the search function on SF's web-site and didn't find anything)))))

**********

UPDATE 2/22/20 First, there is an article here you read. Between this, and the WWII stuff, if Juan Cole is right, SF will be destroyed by Trump and AIPAC and much of the Left in America will look the other way because of the IRA/Nazi Germany thing.  A moderate Dem will be more merciful, but even a progressive supporter of the Palestinians like  Sanders will be pressured to criticize  SF. And AIPAC can use Congress to hurt SF. SF really needs to say that the IRA was wrong. As I said in a recent email to the TD mentioned in that article (I am typing a post about her tweets), what if the Israeli government in the 1970s offered the Provisional IRA money? Also SF needs to understand how much Americans like what we did in WWII.