Musical Diversity

In the last 33 years I have probably listened to music an average of four hours a day (how is that possible? One factor is that I did about 40 hours a week, for a total of 4 years, at a job that allowed me to listen to music I chose as I was working). There was one period of about 3 years around 2006 where I didn’t listen that much, but in High School and the last 16 years I listened about 6 hours a day on average.

(The value of this post is fairly low- only about 45-55% of it will be political)

Before I get to the best part of it, let me first explain a few minor details and some background to my addiction to music. I pretty much exclusively listened to cassette tapes until some time around 1999. I also have bought very few CDs (my commitment to being a good fan went down at some point in the late 1990s and has pretty much stayed there in terms of buying CDs, etc. instead of mostly just listening to YouTube which is what I’ve done about 4/5 of the time in the last 7-8 years). I have never had an iPod, I don’t listen to streaming music sites (“muve” I believe is one example, or Last FM perhaps). I have been doing almost all of my music-listening the last 16 years on YouTube. About 2/5 of what I listen to is stuff that I paid for earlier when I bought tapes and/or CDs, and with a big chunk of the stuff I DIDN’T ever pay for, I’m very comfortable ethically with that (see “The Music of my Enemy” below).

When I was very young (about 9) I was a fan of Michael Jackson. At 13 or 14 I went to a massive concert which included Vanilla Ice, I BELIEVE MC Hammer, and I THINK En Vogue. I’m almost embarrassed by that, although in the last 35 years there is one En Vogue song that I really like (“Free Your Mind” (the main reason I like it is the moshing in the official music video)). I kind of liked Vanilla Ice and I just learned some stuff about him that is kind of cool. And in a brief spoken word bit on either Home Invasion or Original Gangster Ice-T said something positive about MC Hammer. But I’m still kind of embarrassed about it.  In one, two or three year(s) of Jr. High School I listened to a lot of rap- of the Beastie Boys (“License to Ill”), 2-3 albums by rappers Run DMC (and 1-2 albums by The Fresh Prince, but I think I stopped listening to him in 9th grade and since then I think I’ve listened twice (in the last several years) to two of his hits, just out of curiosity and/or nostalgia).

At the risk of getting a little personal, in 9th grade my two best friends got into Megadeth and some other heavy metal bands. I was sort of open-minded about it, but not very. For various reasons I won’t go into, at the beginning of 10th grade (1991-1992) we had a falling out. I WAS a little guilty in the first 1-2 months after that of suddenly discovering a strong interest in heavy metal and wearing combat boots and that might have been pathetic. But I kept listening to rap, I started listening to more hard-core rap like Public Enemy and Ice-T, and I started listening to miscellaneous stuff that was labeled “alternative.” The bands labelled that way in the 1990s that I still listen to a LOT today include: Rage Against the Machine, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Fishbone, L7, Faith No More, Ministry, and Biohazard (I didn’t listen to  Biohazard until 1993).

Starting in the Summer of 1992 I listened to the punk bands The Dead Kennedys and The Dead Milkmen (just an amusing coincidence). More recently I started listening a lot to a CELTIC punk band called Dropkick Murphys. Some of the bands that I lazily put in the metal category have some major connection to punk music. This includes DRI and Suicidal Tendencies who I enjoy listening to. Biohazard is also kind of a punk band.

Going back to my ex-friends in 1991/1992, I am, in one way and one way only, proud of the fact that when they started listening to Slayer and some death-metal bands I didn’t follow them (the thing is, since I didn’t follow them in that direction, it couldn’t be called pathetic). In early 1993 I bought one Slayer album (Seasons in the Abyss) and bought no more until 2 years later, when I was in college. Around the same time that I bought the Slayer album I bought one Napalm Death tape (From Enslavement to Obliteration) (Napalm Death are death-metal) but that was it for death-metal until about 25 years later.

In High School the main two heavy metal bands I listened to were Megadeth and Metallica. I listened a fair amount to some others including Anthrax, Sepultura, Pantera, Nuclear Assault, Body Count, DRI, and Suicidal Tendencies (unlike every other band I mention in this essay, I no longer listen to Sepultura).

There’s one minor heavy metal band that I listened to a little bit in High School that really should have been part of me transitioning towards being a socialist (a transition that took place in High School), but I don’t think it was. In a few minutes I’ll talk about how in general listening to music contributed to me becoming a socialist. The minor  band I just mentioned is called Sacred Reich, and even though in High School I had been less familiar with this, I’ve known for 1-2 decades now that they were progressive. In HS I had an EP of their’s with four songs. One was totally non-political and about evil or monsters or something. One was a cover of the anti-war Black Sabbath song “War Pigs.” The one I remember listening to was a (1980s) anti-intervention song called “Surf Nicaragua. The fourth song turns out to be a very progressive song, but I only identified it as such in the last 16 years. “One Nation” is anti-war, anti-racist, and even a little critical of economic injustice (there’s a brief reference to “greed”).

I can’t remember which came first, but the first bit of political activity I engaged in MAY have happened after I took a music-connected step towards identifying strongly with the cause of anti-racism. That step was going to the first concert I care to remember. It was in 10th grade and it was an Ice-T and Body Count concert. I saw the first band play and there was moshing which I quickly decided I liked and I saw Ice-T do some rap (which also inspired moshing), and then I had to leave before Body Count played because I had to get home before it was too late (my parents didn’t know I was at a concert and wouldn’t have believed that what I told them I was doing would go that late). (In High School and college I was into relatively non-violent moshing (and I felt very strongly about picking up people who fell down)).

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The High School Years: Becoming A Socialist

So, a focus on music and my political development. If I ever get around to typing it, a future post about how I became a socialist will overlap heavily with this post.

One aspect of this that I think about is, why did I come to focus more on racism than other symptoms of capitalism and get an Ethnic Studies degree instead of a Women’s Studies degree? I have no idea how I found myself listening to rap music in Jr. High. I wasn’t watching MTV and my parents were no more than moderately anti-racist. I didn’t have older siblings who listened to rap (actually, I might have been watching a LITTLE MTV because I have memories of watching 1-2 music videos by The Fresh Prince). On one hand, as far as I can remember, the rap I was listening to in Jr. High was non-political and only about 3/4 of it involved Black people, but It probably contributed to how I started listening to Public Enemy and Ice-T in late 1991.

I think that listening to that “Hard Core” rap is a huge part of why I did my first political act (and that may have been AFTER the Ice-T/Body Count concert I went to). In the Spring semester of 10th grade, in early 1992, I walked out of my 4th period class (I think it was 4th period) and joined about 50 of my peers walking around Boulder protesting the not-guilty verdict in a California trial of the racist white police officers who beat Rodney King a year earlier. That night I went to a march and rally for the community in general and/or the CU-Boulder campus and I was actually on the front page of the paper the next day (next to me was someone who later was the first or second person to get an Ethnic Studies degree at CU-Boulder, and there was someone wearing a Primus shirt and one person wearing a Body Count shirt).

This is a little embarrassing because I have heard things here and there indicating they’re not progressive, but I think some political stuff by Megadeth and Metallica nudged me towards the left in High School. Those songs are:

Metallica
“Fight Fire With Fire” is about the need to avoid nuclear war.
“Ride the Lightning” is in opposition to the death penalty.
“For Whom the Bell Tolls” could almost be mistaken for an anti-fascist song because it is indirectly inspired by an anti-fascist novel by Ernest Hemingway. The thing is, the MOVIE based on that book retained the anti-war message but not the ANTI-FASCIST message of the book.
“Disposal Heroes” is anti-war.
“Blackened” is about nuclear war.
“…And Justice for All” is basically about politics and power in this country, but I am very unsure about what EXACTLY is it saying. This one may have had no affect on me becoming a socialist.
“One” is anti-war.

Megadeth
“Set The World Afire” is about nuclear war.
“Holy Wars…. The Punishment Due.” The first half I’ve heard might be about international conflicts like Israel and the Palestinians and/or (possibly more specifically) Northern Ireland. Beyond that I’m not sure what to say about it.
“Take No Prisoners” is anti-war.
“Rust in Peace” is about nuclear war.
“Symphony of Destruction” is about politics but I can’t figure out what they’re trying to say.
“Architecture of Aggression” is sort of the same- it probably IS anti-war, but I am less certain than I am when it comes to “Take no Prisoners.” Megadeth just wasn’t consistently and explicitly progressive.
“Foreclosure of a Dream” is I BELIEVE about US federal farm policy in the 1980s. I am just not familiar with farm policy. I DO like the license plates in Colorado that say “No Farms, No Food” but I just don’t know anywhere near enough to comment on this song.

I think that is a pretty complete list of the relevant Megadeth and Metallica songs I listened to in High School that may have nudged me towards the left.

As I have said earlier, the harder rap I listened to, including three Ice-T albums, and 3-4 Public Enemy albums probably had a better effect on me than the Metallica and Megadeth stuff I just referred to. And then there was the Dead Kennedys stuff- some of their songs might not inspire progressive politics but about half of them do. And there was at least a couple that were about economic injustice- “Let’s Lynch the Landlord,” and “Kill the Poor.” There were several other political DK songs whose lyrics I’m too lazy to confirm- with the exceptions of “Police Truck” (police brutality), “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” and “We’ve Got a Bigger Problem Now” (about Ronald Reagan), which I definitely remember (as I was typing this I started listening to the DKs for the first time in about 4-5 years) (I believe that in High School and college I listened to 3/4 or 4/4 of the Jello Biafra DK studio albums).

There were a handful of songs by Suicidal Tendencies that contributed to me becoming   progressive:

“Two Sided Politics” is basically contrasting the life of a rich person with that of a working-class person, and there’ some anti-Reagan stuff, etc. One thing I think is noteworthy is that there’s one line that says “I’m not anti-government, government is anti-me.” I like to think that might be in part an anti-anarchist statement.
“Fascist Pig” could be a little more political (that is, deeper) but Mexican-Americans criticizing the police may have pushed me a bit to the left.
“I Want More” is about the class conflict with some references to the minimum wage.
“Give It Revolution” was a little vague but probably nudged me in the right direction.

There were a handful of songs by a thrash-metal band called Nuclear Assault that pushed me to the left in High School. Although I have listened to their other stuff in recent years, in HS pretty much the only album I listened to was “Handle with Care.”
“New Song” which was a fairly good anti-racist song.
“Critical Mass” is a pretty good environmentalist song.
“Inherited Hell” is also like that.
“When Freedom Dies” Although I’m not sure what it’s saying about US foreign policy during the Cold War, it IS saying that freedom and civil liberties, etc. shouldn’t be weakened in the name of national security.
“Search and Seizure” is sort of similar, but basically about law enforcement harassing metal-heads (I’m not sure whether or how the lyrics-writer would generalize that statement to include punks, hippies, etc.)

Another band that influenced me in High School was a “cross-over” hard-core punk/thrash-metal band called DRI (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles). In HS I saw them play live twice and listened to three of their albums.

First there was the album “Definition” which included the following songs:
“Acid Rain” was about the environment.
“The Application” is about multiple forms of employment discrimination and DOES include a line about racism and a line about homophobia, and one about religion and one that is probably about being HIV+.

The album “Thrash Zone” has several political songs.
“Labelled Incurable” might be about AIDS (as far as I can tell DRI were probably anti-homophobic).
“Kill the Words” is sort of generally about censorship and dictatorship but seems to be at least partly if not totally about that sort of thing in the Muslim world; I have no idea if they’re anti-Muslim or just consistently opposing fundamentalism, censorship, and dictatorship (there IS another song where they condemn religious discrimination in employment, so they probably aren’t anti-Muslim)
“Worker Bee” although it’s not written as a socialist song, I think it’s basically about economic justice and is by a band that I’m pretty sure is in favor of social justice as well (I’m suspicious of bands, people, etc. who are economically progressive but not socially liberal).

There was one Soundgarden song about the environment called “Hands All Over.” Although I don’t feel like looking at the lyrics, I believe that there were at least a few L7 songs I liked politically (one example is “Pretend We’re Dead”).

This will require at least one paragraph. Although I’m not real familiar with this, I have gotten the impression that Rage Against The Machine were a bit to my left politically. One social-dem critic told me that the political forces RATM admired either would have told RATM to fuck off, or alternately, should be killed (I think that may have been a reference to the Peruvian leftist army/terror organization called Shining Path). I sort of stumbled onto RATM a little earlier than most of their fans. Somehow I knew that their performance at a small club in Boulder around late 1992 or early 1993 would inspire moshing, so I showed up. I don’t remember thinking about it much but I guess I liked the music enough and the general vibe and bought their album shortly after the show. At some point at least a couple months later they came to Denver with House of Pain and it was great listening and moshing KNOWING that they were promoting dissent in this country. At that concert I learned about Leonard Peltier, and generally drifted towards the Left. (Right before House of Pain came on stage they played the music sans vocals of a song I mention below called “Just Look Around” by Sick of it All). Yes, RATM was alternately politically vague and/or leaning towards the hard-left. But they contributed to me becoming a dissident of some sort and it’s slightly possible that wouldn’t have happened if not for them. And musically they were pretty cool.

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The Last 16 Years

This next section will be pretty brief. It’s about what music I have been listening to in the last 16 years.

Between about 1998 and about 2009 I only listened something like 4 hours a day to music. In 2008, for I think the first or almost first time I got on YouTube. Since then I have listened to almost all of the Megadeth and Metallica that I missed, plus the older stuff. I started listening to practically all Slayer and I started listening to a LOT of death metal. The following bands are the death metal bands I listen to: Carcass, Napalm Death (I love their music and I think that if I paid attention to their lyrics I’d agree with a lot of them), Deicide (MUSICALLY I LOVE Deicide, but I assume I would be offended by their lyrics if I read them), Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, and Morbid Angel.

I got caught up on Body Count albums that I missed after Born Dead and also listened to the first two albums. Although I don’t listen to them much I listen some to stuff I missed earlier from Anthrax, Nuclear Assault, and Testament as well as what I listened to earlier. Although I’ve barely looked at the lyrics I some times listen to stuff I missed by Sacred Reich, and I am even more sure than before that they’re progressive politically.

Yes, my very favorite genre is thrash metal (and/or speed metal- at the risk of sounding stupid, I am not sure what differences there are, if any, between speed and thrash).

I listen to the following Suicidal Tendencies albums, both now and in High School: Their first (self-titled) album, How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today, Controlled By Hatred/Feel Like Shit… DeJaVu, Lights! Camera! Revolution! and The Art of Rebellion. I haven’t listened to any ST that I didn’t listen to in High School. On a related note, I would say the same about DRI albums Definition, Crossover, and Thrashzone.

Today and in high school I listen(ed) to three Ice-T albums: The Iceberg, Original Gangster, and Home Invasion.

Until recently I took a 10-15 year break from listening to more than three songs by Public Enemy.

In the last 5 or so years I listened a little bit to Run DMC (albums Tougher Than Leather, Raising Hell, and probably King of Rock) and the Beastie Boys’ License to Ill and Check Your Head. I listen A LOT to the House of Pain song “Jump Around,” but it has been so long since I listened to the entire album.

I have a huge number of YouTube mix-tape playlists. A large chunk of it is miscellaneous 1990s stuff (some mainstream, some not), and another large chunk is some stuff where the theme of the fan-made video was anti-racist skinheads.

I found a massive playlist of mainstream 1980s pop hits and placed the ones I liked (about 58 of them) in my own playlist. To some extent (not a large one) I was exposed to many of those songs as a little kid (I was born in 1975) when watching a 1980s movie or when I occasionally was listening to the radio. I listen to that playlist about once a week. And one of the songs on it I have kind of fallen in love with- the music, the images in the video, but I have not examined the lyrics. It’s Holding Out for a Hero by Bonnie Tyler.

I also fell in love with a great song by the Dropkick Murphys called “Out of our Heads.” In the last year I have probably listened to it an average of once a day and I listened to their first three albums once as well.

Since the early 1990s I have been a fan of two Tom Petty albums- Full Moon Fever and Into the Great Wide Open.

I was at least kind of exposed to ska starting when I got into Fishbone in High School and I’ve been increasingly curious about it in the last 23 years. Although they might be more accurately called “Ska PUNK,” I do enjoy listening to The Mighty Mighty BossTones for about half an hour a day on average in the last 5 years.

I listen to a small amount of Irish Republican music. I bought an entire album by Black 47 but for some reason, even though I get the impression they’re progressive, all I listen(ed) to were/are the two republican songs (one of which I believe is a Celtic rap song).

In the last several months I’ve started listening to about seven Beach Boys songs, I have fallen in love with the song “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs and I like “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” by The Robins.

I have studied (i.e. read articles on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s web-site) skinheads in general and totally opposed Nazi skinheads specifically, and I listen to a fair amount of “Anti-Fascist Oi!” Oi! In general, both fascist and anti-fascist, might bear some resemblance to punk and might be defined by the lyrics (about violence, the working-class, and being a skinhead). The main such band I listen to is The Oppressed.

I listen to a small number of songs by the progressive (largely folk and/or punk) singer-songwriter David Rovics.

In the last 4-5 years I have spent a fair amount of time listening to YouTube playlists of music from the Vietnam era. For some reason I have used that word to find good mix tape playlists of classic rock, including classic rock that I vaguely remember from movies about Vietnam. (I believe that what we did there was wrong and I have evidence from more than just left-wing sources)

Alternative
Rage Against the Machine (the first two albums) Soundgarden (Badmotorfinger and Louder Than Love, and a little bit of some others that I didn’t listen to in High School), Nirvana (all 3 studio albums), Alice in Chains (Dirt and Facelift), Fishbone (Truth and Soul, The Reality of my Surroundings, and Give a Monkey a Brain and He'll Swear He's the Center of the Universe), L7 (Smell the Magic, Bricks are Heavy), Faith No More (The Real Thing and Angel Dust from High School, and We Care a Lot in the last several years), Ministry (The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste and ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ), and Biohazard (I didn’t listen to  Biohazard until 1993) (Urban Discipline, State of the World Address, and Mata Leao)

I THINK that covers about 99% of the songs and albums that I should mention here.

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The Music of my Enemy

Since late 2008 I have spent probably an hour a day on average listening to Nazi Skinhead music. For multiple reasons, some a little vague, I enjoy listening to the music of my enemy. I stumbled onto it shortly after I first got on YouTube in 2008 and I recognized the name Skrewdriver that I had learned about in 10th grade when researching the racist right for a paper I was writing (primarily about the racist right in this country, but I’m not surprised some of the sources I read mentioned the BRITISH Skrewdriver). Anyway, I liked most of the music (not the lyrics) and just really enjoyed listening to the music of my enemy (yes, I also listen to a small amount of anti-Catholic N. Ireland loyalist music). I also learned a handful of things by studying the lyrics and the imagery in fan-made videos. Crucially, I quickly started to alter the lyrics into anti-fascist poems- in many cases, so that my poems were saying the exact opposite of what the original was saying (when there was a change in topic, there was always at least some conflict between my poems and what the authors of the original lyrics believe (and some times a LOT of conflict- a lot of the N. Ireland poems were based on lyrics by people who supported the British and Unionist causes)). The first poetry post is here.

I wish I could explain in better detail why I enjoy listening to the music of my enemy.

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The High School years- the PMRC and “musical intolerance.”

In 11th grade one of my best friends (James, of Portland, OR) and I did a “‘zine” (a very small and unprofessionally written/edited magaZINE). It was kind of political, kind of creative (well, James’ stuff was creative, my stuff less-so but the ‘zine in general (called The Conformist Monthly) seemed pretty popular with our friends and probably about 10% of the BHS students). One thing I did that I am a little embarrassed about is an essay about what I called “musical intolerance.” Although actually typing that and making copies of an issue that contained it is something I probably shouldn’t have done, I DO believe that most of my peers in High School were close-minded about different kinds of music, and at the time I believed that I was better because I listened to metal, rap, alternative, and punk.

Something I wrote for The Conformist Monthly that I AM proud of was an essay about the Parents Music Resource Center. The PMRC was created in the mid-80s, primarily by Al Gore’s wife Tipper Gore, and Susan Baker, the wife of senior GOP leader James Baker. It was largely supported by the religious right and practically no one to the left of Bill Clinton supported it. It’s been decades since I studied it, but the main thing it did was successfully push for an industry agreement to place “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” stickers on certain albums.

I really am not insensitive to the desires of many parents (probably around 95% of them) to keep young children from listening to songs about sex and drugs and songs which use swear words (I believe there is a spectrum between two situations- one involving children under 13, and one involving young adults who are around 15, and at the latter end of the spectrum I’ll be honest I am not sure if I care about parents wanting to keep their teenage kids away from that kind of content). And these stickers were a problem. In the past, MANY music stores wouldn’t sell those albums. In the past MANY of the artists negatively affected were people of color, and in general, many of the albums targeted contained songs with political messages that were liberal or progressive. This country might have been a better place in the 1990s if those songs had been heard by more people.

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“There Goes The Neighborhood”

(The title of a Body Count song about their presence in the punk and metal genres)

As I near a conclusion, the climax to this is something I want to talk about that is very special to me. That is the intersection of rock (or at least the heavier and/or faster variants of it) and rap (I’ll be honest, I think I’ve always failed to understand that many fans of rap and/or hip-hop define one as corporate and the other as something closer to the street, and I’m just going to use the term “rap”).

I don’t listen to a lot of music made between 1998 and today, so I’m going to focus almost exclusively on stuff from the 1980s and 1990s. Here is I think a complete survey of that topic up until some point in the mid- or late 90s.

1. In 1986 Run-DMC and Aerosmith collaborated on a new version of the latter’s song “Walk This Way.”
2. In 1989 industrial metal band Ministry did a song with a rapper- the song is called “Test” and is a great combination of rap and industrial.
3. In 1991 Anthrax and Public Enemy collaborated on a new version of the latter’s song “Bring Tha Noise.”
4. Shortly after that, Public Enemy and Anthrax went on a national tour together.
5. Ice-T and his musician friends created Body Count in 1990.
6. In 1991, Rage Against The Machine was formed with music that was sort of heavy and/or sort of fast and vocals that would often be labeled “rap.”
7. I am having some difficulty nailing down the details, but in the early and mid-1990s Biohazard, who were more or less a hard-core punk band, did at least two songs with a rapper (Onyx) and, crucially, did music videos for the two songs that involved Onyx that I can remember (one reason this is VERY significant is that I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s true that Biohazard had, years earlier, toyed with white supremacy as a marketing tactic in NY City’s competitive music scene, and may have done these 4-5 collaborations (including TWO videos) to make up for that).
8. In 1993 the soundtrack for a movie called “Judgement Night” was entirely devoted to collaborations between rockers and rappers.

I could and probably WILL do a lot of research on this topic in the next year or two and write something very substantial, but I have always had very positive political thoughts about this series of collaborations because I THINK they had some potential to positively affect race relations in this country. IF they HAD that potential it wasn’t something permanent, as 35 years later we are struggling to prevent a white supremacist from occupying the White House. I am not sure what is the status today of that potential- I’m not sure I should be making a big deal about the need for such intersections today, especially because there might be plenty in recent years and/or they are having no impact on American race relations.

When thinking about this topic, I wish I had a better grasp of sociology and psychology.

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Some miscellaneous thoughts

1. For about 10-15 years until recently, I took a break from being a fan of Public Enemy, although in hind-sight that didn’t involve changing the “Favorite Music” section of my blogger/blogspot profile page. I have listened over the years to about four albums by PE, all of which were either in the 1980s or the very earliest 90s. On one of them, there’s a song that includes two lines I have always found offensive, but which really got me pissed off about 10-15 years ago. One line is applauding homophobic VIOLENCE and another one implies it’s okay for a man to beat his partner if he takes her on vacation around the world. I am still very offended by those lines, but decided to listen to those albums from High School again).
2. In the early 1990s there was one song by the hard-core punk band Sick of it All that I really liked and which I have always really liked. For some reason I have practically never listened to any other SOIA songs. The one I listen to is called “Just Look Around.” The thing is, in 2001 I was at a party for progressives and one person asked the room what is the most progressive hardcore punk band? Part of me DID know that the correct answer was Fugazi, but because of that one SOIA song I said it was SOIA. The guy who asked the initial question said something about a pirate flag and slapping women. For some bizarre reason I didn’t respond. But if you look at the lyrics you’ll see that something like 2/3 of the lyrics are completely acceptable to progressives. The other third is some slightly questionable lines (i.e. mentioning anti-Semitism among blacks when that might not be helpful (for all I know it IS helpful)) and the very worst of the lyrics in that 1/3 is a reference to the “workingman” when “worker” or “working person” would be a lot better (this might be what the guy at the party was talking about when he suggested I wanted to slap women).

In the official music video, when the lyrics refer to “diseases and modern plagues of our times” they flash the “Silence=Death” symbol of the movement calling for a better national response to the AIDS crisis. I guess it could be a negative statement, but I have always assumed it was a positive statement about that symbol, which would probably also mean that SOIA are anti-homophobic. Lastly, another song on that album seems to be about attacking Reagan over Iran/Contra.
3. I organized my first fund-raising show (it was a VERY small venue) in 1995 to support the Left Hand Bookstore (in Boulder) and the college-years ‘zine that James and I did (it was called Subliminal Prison). The opening band was called Sonnus and I don’t have much to say about them. The other two bands were A) a High School band from the Denver area who were probably influenced by punk, and an amazing band called D-Town Brown. The latter’s music I have difficulty describing. I believe it was possibly influenced by rock (at least one of the 2-3 times I saw them playing a regular show there was moshing and 1-2 band members had earlier been involved with a band that was either thrash/speed-metal or death metal)) but I think it was more influenced by some other stuff (mariachi perhaps? (There were 4-5 members in the band and all but one were Chicano (the last member was black)). Although James and I did a publicity campaign in waves, very few people showed up. Not sure why.
4. The second fundraiser I did Involved Sonnus, D-Town Brown and a punk band called Dead Silence. It was for the Colorado Coalition for Single-Payer (the Canadian health-care system) and I gave Denver CCSP a LOT of flyers to put up in Denver (the venue was in Denver, where I didn’t live) and I don’t think any of those flyers were put up anywhere. I’m not saying I was totally blameless, but I do think that most of the blame was CCSP’s. The only reason that a significant amount of money was raised is that the owner of the venue (The Mercury Cafe) took less money than she usually did in that situation.
5. In high school and college, when I went to a show/concert I would dress in the spirit of taking nonconformity as far as I could. If I was at a Dead Milkmen show, I’d wear a Megadeth shirt, if I was at a Primus concert I would wear a Public Enemy shirt, etc.
6. You might like a post I did about whether or not Slayer is racist.

UPDATE 12/25/24 I unintentionally left out a handful of bands I should have mentioned, but with one of them I feel like I really need to do this update. In 10th grade I started listening to the heavy metal band Ugly Kid Joe, and after about two decades I just recently re-discovered them. I started listening to their EP "As Ugly As They Want To Be" (their first release) and their first full length album "America's Least Wanted" in High School. They describe themselves as neither glam nor thrash and I think that's accurate. In a minute I have something more important to say, but first a little story. In the Summer of 1992 there was a tour with (from top to bottom) Ozzy, Slaughter, and Ugly Kid Joe. I have pretty much never liked Slaughter, but I have always had at least some positive thoughts about Ozzy and in the last several years probably 1% of all the music I listen to is Ozzy. The concert was at an amazing venue called Red Rocks and although it doesn't facilitate moshing (I THINK I remember that right) I'm glad I went to a concert there. But I got lost on the way there, so A) I somehow missed almost all of UKJ's set (I think they may have started early??), and B) after I heard ALL of Slaughter's set I had to leave after about 30 minutes of Ozzy because my Mom didn't know where I was I and I was afraid if I got lost again I'd get home so late she would worry. BUT I GOT TO SEE ALL OF SLAUGHTER'S SET!!!!! (The important part of mentioning UKJ is that on the first full-length album there's a fairly good anti-racist song ("Same Side"). It's not militant, it's not angry, but I think it's pretty cool despite that. As I was typing this and listening more and more to the song, I started asking myself some critical questions about the idea that it's an anti-racist song and then I remembered that the vocalist, Whitfield Crane contributed to a special re-recording of the Motorhead song "Born to Raise Hell" where he and ICE-T did some of the vocals and in the official music video they appear together)

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Conclusion

Although there was one gap that lasted about 3 years where I listened to very little music, it was a huge part of my life in High School and college and in the last 16 years. I find listening to it very enjoyable and it contributed to the several factors that led me to embrace progressive political values, and it generally makes me feel very good. Although I don’t think I’ll be expanding my interest in music any further (I don’t think I’m going to try bluegrass for example) I am (perhaps too) proud of the fact that I have fairly wide-ranging interests in music.

Most of the time I was typing this up I was listening to a song from the very early 1990s by a band called EMF. It’s called “Unbelievable” and I think it’s sort of a dance song but could also inspire moshing. The song, and to a greater degree the video as well, is very energizing and I got so much done with the multiple writing assignments I gave myself.

People of Color and Racism

(This is what you might call a special post- I am for reasons that are both personal and political addressing something that some people who looked at my blog between 2009 and 2017 may have criticized me for)

In early 2018 a political friend (who is a widely respected Black veteran of the fight against racism) explained something to me about racism which had not been explained to me very well before that. I had done a post on my blog about the theory/fact that people of color in America can’t be racist. It was originally written and published in 2009 and in 2017 I re-wrote it so it would be more convincing. This essay is largely about how it shouldn’t be held against me, but my position in that 2017 post was that people of color can be racist.

(Not sure exactly where to place this, but in early 2018 I deleted that post)

To a large degree, back then I thought of racism as a set of beliefs and I only sort of thought of it as a system in America. I remember I DID, in the decades before 2018, use the word “structural” a lot but I did not use the word “system” and I think that using the former is less critical than using the latter (I think the latter is a more holistic way of describing it (or comprehensive or something like that)). My friend explained that since there is only one racist system in this society and it’s for the benefit of white people, people of color can’t be racist (I knew of course that there is only one racist system here and it’s for white people, but I didn’t connect the dots the way most white allies do). My very limited 2009 research into this theory/fact had led me to believe that the argument in favor of it was that people of color didn’t have the power to be racist towards whites. In 2018 the explanation that referred to a “system” made a lot more sense to me.

The 2017 version of that post focused largely on two arguments. First, that people of color DID have SOME power with which to be racist towards whites (i.e. the use of physical violence). Second, that I referred to both anti-Catholic and  anti-Protestant bigotry in N. Ireland with the word “sectarianism,” and if I did that I was going to communicate in a similar way about racism in this country.

There are three general points I need to stress. First, what I was calling “anti-white racism” is what many people (including the friend I refer to above) call “anti-white bigotry.” Second, I wrote a very long paragraph in that post explaining why I believe that what I now call anti-white bigotry is a very small problem. That paragraph, with a couple of small changes, is available in a post here. It is about half-way down from the top and starts with “Even without that…” Third, since 2018 there have been 1-2 posts that were “labelled” (“tagged”) “anti-white bigotry,” meaning that they are partly or mostly or completely about that topic (in early 2018 I deleted the post where I said people of color could be racist). At this point there are 109 posts labelled “anti-racist” and there are about 41-189 more that could more or less be labelled that way, so I was and am OVERWHELMINGLY more concerned about white supremacy than I am concerned about anti-white bigotry.

In the context of admitting this mistake I made I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but as you may know I got an Ethnic Studies degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Somehow I missed being told in those classes that people of color can’t be racist. First, I hope this isn’t held against any of my professors. Second, I really was a fairly or almost very good Ethnic Studies student and further down I publish the grades I got in those classes.

And there’s some even better evidence that I was a good anti-racist in general. Although some of my anti-racist activism wasn’t about power and privilege and control and exploitation (some of it was just about challenging the prejudice of most white people) I DID do a lot of anti-racist activism that WAS about what I then called “structural racism.” In the mid-90s I did a lot of activity around defending Affirmative Action and defending immigrants. In 1996 and 2000 I attended a total of about 5 actions that were part of two labor union campaigns by the “Justice for Janitors” project of the Service Employees International Union. In 2001 I helped organize three events about racism in America that were largely about racial injustice and inequality. In the late 1990s I went to 3-4 actions in Denver about police brutality and in the last 10 years I went to two Black Lives Matter protests in Boulder. Some of the material on my blog is about “structural racism” (that is not everything I did as a white ally, but probably about 2/3 of it).

Although it was about challenging the prejudice of racist Irish-Americans and not about concrete improvements in the lives of people of color, a large chunk of my Northern Ireland activism was done in a way that was in conflict with white supremacy in this country. That and some other relevant thoughts are in a long post here.

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There are four things I need to explain that help justify my belief that this political mistake shouldn’t be held against me.

First, a lot of the books I read about N. Ireland that were written by anti-Unionist (“unionist” meaning pro-British) leftists referred to both anti-Catholic and anti-Protestant bigotry as sectarian. I offer examples of that further below.

Second, the post I deleted in 2018 was called “Guilty of Being White.” I got that title from a song of the same name by a 1980s punk rock band called Minor Threat. The man who wrote that song is Ian MacKaye and it was apparently inspired by he and his friends in High School getting beaten up by Black kids (I may have gotten that from wikipedia but I just found a better source for it here). The thing is, Ian MacKaye I believe is very anti-racist. That’s mostly based on the following: I found a YouTube fan video about anti-racist skinheads that had 4 Minor Threat songs as the soundtrack; and after leaving Minor Threat, he became the vocalist for a band called Fugazi and according to another Black veteran of the fight against racism (Daraka Larimore-Hall) Fugazi was in 2001 the most progressive hard-core punk band.

Third, in a song on Body Count’s first album, Ice-T (the vocalist of the heavy metal band) refers to a Black woman who hates white people as a racist. That was on the same album as “Cop Killer” and was thus long before any alleged “selling out” by Ice-T when he joined the cast of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Also, since he got that job Body Count has often played "Cop Killer" at concerts and on a 2017 BC album (Bloodlust) Ice-T did a song called “No Lives Matter” where the lyrics are a creatively written hybrid of support for Black Lives Matter and opposition to poverty. Another reason I would say that he didn’t “sell-out” by joining the cast of SVU is that in 1993 when BC played “Cop Killer” at a concert I went to, Ice-T first said something about how in theory being a cop is something cops should be proud of, but that the reality is very different. He wasn’t 100% anti-cop even then and if you consider the fact that almost once a season SVU’s writers give his character good lines criticizing the police, I don’t think that he has compromised his values to be on that show.

Fourth, I know that at least in 2009 at least some people at the Southern Poverty Law Center believed that people of color could be racist. Although they are wrong about that I imagine it was a semantics thing the way it was with me (in the sense that they were probably referring to anti-white bigotry but were inappropriately using the word “racist”). (Part of why I am reluctant to penalize them much about this is that, at least in recent years and maybe for decades now, in addition to their work on stuff like tracking Klan activity, they also do a lot of work that’s about economic justice)

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Below are the grades I got for classes that were part of my major.

Intro to Asian-American History. B-

Intro to Ethnic Studies B

Indian/Govt Conflicts FBI on Pine Ridge A (Note: about 1/4 of it was about the Black Panthers)

Race, Class, and Pollution F (Note: although I probably wouldn’t bother mentioning this if I were to apply for grad school, a huge part of why I failed this is that I made some bad decisions about what to spend time on, I had some personal problems, and I hadn’t, at that point, taken the Research Methods in Ethnic Studies class and until I took it I did not like doing research)

American Indians in Film A

Emergence of Modern Mexico D (Note: although I probably wouldn’t bother mentioning this if I were to apply for grad school, a huge part of why I got a D is that I learned that Summer that Summer School isn’t a good way for me take college classes)

Asian-Pacific American Communities C

Chicanos/US Social System C

Research Methods in Ethnic Studies B

Topical Issues in Native North America A

Selected Topics in Ethnic Studies: Prisons, Crime and Culture B- (Note: About 10% was about the Black Panthers)

Research Practicum in Ethnic Studies B+

Japanese-America: Critical Thinking A-

North American Indians: Traditional Culture B

Senior Seminar in Ethnic Studies A-

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This last part is about the N. Ireland dimension of this that I referred to above. It’s a work-in-progress because I have only just started reading those books (4 out of 5 I have read before and I remember some stuff that backs me up on this, but I need to read them again and take some notes and then I’ll add that material here). (I get the impression that in the last 10-20 years it may have become unpopular among anti-Unionists to refer to anti-Protestant bigotry as sectarianism, but most of my reading of the books I’m referring to was around 2000 (I might change how I talk about it, but I am unlikely to become active on the NI issue in the future and may not have the opportunities to discuss this with other anti-Unionists))

 

UPDATE 5/3/24 I just finished the N. Ireland book relevant to this that I haven't read before (Twenty Years On, 1988). It is edited by one of it's contributors (Michael Farrell) but the essay that contained something relevant is by a Northern Ireland Protestant man named  Geoffrey Bell. On p. 93 he says that the involvement of some Protestants in the Civil Rights Movement proved it was non-sectarian. On p. 94 he says that efforts by the left of the CRM to reach out to Protestant workers helped the anti-sectarian cause.

Motherfuckin' Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola (My Thoughts on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit)

("Fin" is played by Ice-T)

I love TV shows, although only about 40% of what I watch is from the last two decades. My top six favorite shows are Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, The Big Bang Theory, Supergirl, Roseanne, and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. There’s a more complete list of shows I like under the “Movies” part of my profile. This is going to be about Law and Order: SVU.

I’m going to assume you are at least sort of familiar with the show, and if you’re not, you can read that wikipedia page.

I have seen every episode (with one exception where I couldn’t fix the disc and Netflix sent another disc that also had the same problem) up to season 18 and in about a month I’ll be done with season 19. I have 6 seasons on DVD in my collection, most of which I got at thrift stores.

Besides the obvious (it’s opposition to sex crimes and child abuse/kidnapping and sexism and misogyny) which is pretty awesome, there’s a lot of other things I like about L&W: SVU.

1) It’s incredibly anti-racist. Not 100% because it is, of course, a little soft on cops. But in general there's a lot of anti-racism. On average, in any episode, something like 25% of the main and recurring characters have been people of color. Of course the population of NYC is much more diverse, but we are talking about the NYPD and I think that 25% is probably a reflection of how diverse the NYPD is, or an appropriately mild exaggeration of how diverse it is. My memory of specific examples is a little fuzzy, but there are a lot of times when the anti-racism gets a little sharper than that.

There is one episode involving a hispanic SVU detective who might qualify as a person of color in a bad fatal  shooting that I think the show could have dealt with more critically- I remember thinking that it was too pro-cop. But there is another episode on almost the same topic that is, overall, much better. Some white non-SVU cops, while helping SVU, fire about 15-30 bullets into an unarmed black man. The (main character) Assistant DA who works with SVU insists on prosecuting the cops and I think the last we hear about that is that he gets an indictment from the Grand Jury. The head of SVU disagrees with him but they don’t have a heated argument and there is no falling out and for about 2 seasons after that episode that character is still the Assistant DA for SVU, and I think it would be totally unrealistic if all the SVU members agreed with the Assistant DA. Unfortunately it DOES end on a fairly racist note. There’s a notice about the fatal shooting of a cop, which is kind of a lame ending for what otherwise is a very good episode. I mean, it’s even worse than saying “All Lives Matter” in response to the statement “Black Lives Matter.” It’s responding with “Police Lives Matter.”

As I mention below, Ice-T has played a main character since season 2 and there are now 21 seasons.

I think that the % of defendants that are people of color is probably a lot less than the % of NYC’s population that is people of color, and I’m almost certain it’s not more.

2) It’s incredibly anti-homophobic. Other than the idea that the Assistant DA in seasons 15-19 is gay (there is a lot of speculation but it’s apparently all wrong and he's actually straight (but played by a bi-sexual man)), I can only think of two examples. First, when an off-duty cop witnesses a sex-related crime (while on a date with another man) and notifies SVU, SVU offers to keep his name out of it to avoid outing him to the “brass” of NYPD. Also, the son of the character played by Ice-T is gay.

3) It’s incredibly anti-transphobic. In one episode, for example, a woman transitioning from being male kills her boyfriend when he sees a penis. I can’t remember exactly what SVU does, but I don’t think they prosecute her or they go easy on her or something. I DO remember the Assistant DA saying that in that situation, when a man learns his girlfriend has a penis or used to be male, he simply kills her. In general it highlights violence against transgender people.

4) It’s pro-immigrant. For example, there’s a two-parter about a witness who is gay and an undocumented immigrant from Syria who will be killed if he is deported. SVU tries to keep ICE from deporting him but fail. It’s as damning of our immigration policy as an innocent person being executed would be damning of the death penalty.

5) There are miscellaneous other liberal-progressive elements like OCCASIONAL negative portrayals of the military or corporations.

6) Since the second season there’s been a character, detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola, played by Ice-T. In the near future I’ll do a post about why I greatly admire Ice-T, but his long-time presence on this show is one reason I like him and his presence on the show is one reason I like the show so much.

7) They infrequently go after other cops.


One thing that I would largely put in the very small negative column is the five or so cross-over episodes with the TV show “Chicago PD.” The main thing is that the senior officer on that show is comfortable with things that at least come close to torture. But it’s not as damning of the creative people behind the show L&O: SVU as you might think because in one of those episodes, the head of SVU criticizes that officer for that, although she focuses exclusively on the impact it’ll have on getting a conviction. It’d be better if she was more principled about it, but A) I think she figured the pragmatic appeal would work better, and B) if I’m wrong about that and she’s not principled about it, that’s disappointing but realistic, and C) it’s better than nothing.

I’ll soon start going through these episodes for the second time and doing “reviews” on this blog of the ones that have something that politically goes beyond the liberal feminism and basic anti-racist stuff that’s dominates the political dimension of the show (when I say “dominates” I mean there are minority tendencies, some progressive and some moderate). (You could say that I'll focus exclusively on highlighting the issues raised that are NOT sex crimes, because of course they have material about that, but they also have stuff about, for example, homophobia or marijuana or homelessness or abortion)

(Mariska Hargitay, who has been on the show since day one (and whose character has been head of SVU for about 6 seasons) and has been a director and producer on L&O: SVU since 2014, founded the Joyful Heart Foundation)

Law and Order

I also watch the original, homicide-focused show. It is overall less liberal-progressive (I think the cops and Assistant DAs are a little more flexible ethically than their SVU counterparts are as far as how they figure out who to arrest and/or get convictions). In an average episode I think that about 25% of the main or recurring characters are women, which isn’t too good considering that of the six main characters, only three are cops. But in an average episode, about 25% are people of color, which isn’t too bad considering that it should be either a reflection of reality or a little more diverse than reality, in my opinion (it’s about the NYPD and the Manhattan DA’s office) (I think that the % of defendants that are people of color is probably a lot less than the % of NYC’s population that is people of color, and I’m almost certain it’s not more). There are some progressive elements here and there, some anti-racism, some anti-homophobia, some stuff where a corporation is the bad guy, etc. (they infrequently go after other cops). At some point in about 2-10 years at the rate I’m going I’ll do the same sort of reviews I mentioned above.


Corporations on both shows

From what I remember, the last thing these shows do is criticize capitalism or express more than infrequent support for labor, but the episodes about corporate people are better than the old TV show Cops which focused exclusively on poor people. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more likely to feature rich criminals than other cop shows, although I wouldn’t know for sure because outside the L&O franchise, I’ve probably watched a total of 30 episodes of cop shows since I became an adult and a socialist (at 18) (I’m 44).

(I should offer my very brief, non-philosophical definition of “liberal.” It’s someone to the left of Bill Clinton and to the right of Senator Elizabeth Warren. More details are here) 

 

(UPDATE 3/18/21 About 1-3 times each episode the detectives and/or prosecutors engage in behavior aimed at determining guilt and/or getting a conviction that I think is somewhere between questionable and bad (but that's only about 10-20% of what they do to charge a suspect and convict them in court; the rest of what they do I am fine with). There’s something else, maybe once a season on average, where they do something else bad (i.e. in one Law and Order episode of the last season to involve the character Assistant DA Ben Stone, Stone says something uncharacteristically racist). Going back to the first sentence, I have mixed feelings about a lot of the tactics I’m referring to and I am almost certain that explaining why I sort of support them or why I almost totally oppose them, etc. would just clutter those posts and people would be less likely to read them. If you’re thinking that I don’t expose this aspect of the two shows because of some kind of white/middle-class/cis-gendered-male/straight/Christian privilege, you’re wrong and I have a bit of evidence. In one episode of SVU when a suspect is brought to the station for questioning he requests not a lawyer, but that his therapist be present and SVU says no. In recent decades I have gotten tons of therapy and have occasionally asked my therapist for a little more help than they usually give and if I were being questioned at a police station I would probably want my therapist present, although I doubt I would actually request it. With these two shows I have a policy I almost never break- I don’t criticize them)

 

ALL THE POSTS WITH THESE REVIEWS CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING ON THE "L&OSVU" LABEL AND THE "LAW & ORDER" LABEL

Taking Down Columbus: Three New Poems

I explain about my poetry here. The second is based on a song I agree with. The other two are not. The third one is about anti-racist skinheads. You might want to read the notes about that kind of poem here.

All the poems are available by clicking on the "lyrics" label at the bottom.

1. Indigenous Peoples Day. Opposition to Columbus Day Parades.
2. A Letter From Ardoyne To British Labour. An appeal by a Northern Ireland Catholic to the British Labour Party.
3. Taking Down the Boneheads. Anti-racist skinheads.

“Indigenous Peoples Day” based on “Freedom” by Brutal Attack. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about opposition to Columbus Day parades, from the perspective of a white ally, but not me (frankly, I LOVE those parades- just joking; the thing is, I practically never or never write from my perspective when I use the first person in my poems; in this case, the last line of the first verse is not something I have done)). For multiple reasons, you should read several paragraphs here, beginning a little more than 1/2 way down, starting with the paragraph “For many reasons…” and ending with the paragraph “For whatever it’s worth….” You should definitely read some of the material here.
2. Although this is about such parades nation-wide, in Denver at least, the group organizing the parade is or has been the Sons of Columbus (there seem to be groups using that phrase throughout the country) (UPDATE 3/27/20 It's been 15-20 years and I was wrong- in Denver it was the Sons of Italy, but the other phrase, in connection with the word parade, IS found all over the internet).
3. When Columbus was governor of Hispanola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic), at least 99% of the indigenous population was killed.
4. I mentioned Irish-Americans for three reasons:

A: We’re awesome.

B: In the last 20 years or so, frequently local organizations of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (an exclusively male, Catholic and Irish-American group) have marched in Columbus Day Parades (see the very end of an article here). They’re more or less conservative (some are economically progressive) and this just pisses me off even more.

C: I think that sometimes Sinn Fein should intervene in American political fights considering A) how internationalist they are and B) how much time they spend here. Considering how Columbus Day parades stand for something worse than Orange Order parades, and the fact that many of their supporters are MARCHING in Columbus Day parades, I think it’s one of the few times that SF should speak out, IN AMERICA, about injustice here.

5. This isn’t written from MY perspective. But here’s a little story relevant to the last line of the first verse. After the controversy about Ward Churchill broke, I attended a rally and/or protest in support of him. I was wearing an anti-Columbus t-shirt and some College Republican said that Columbus was his hero. I explained what I mentioned above about Hispanola and the GOPer said that when he moved into his apartment he wiped out the “indigenous population of spiders.” I should have explained how offensive it is to compare that with killing brown-skinned people, but I just called him a motherfucker. He asked if I wanted to fight and then speculated that I don’t believe in fighting (I’m not a pacifist). I just stood there looking at the rest of the crowd until he’d been silent for 2-3 minutes and then I walked away.
6. As far as the FBI, in the 1970s the American Indian Movement was targeted for destruction by the FBI (exclusively or almost exclusively on Pine Ridge). On the Pine Ridge reservation, 1973-1976, the US government and its corrupt reservation allies were responsible for the murder of at least 69 AIM members and supporters (according to the chapter “AIM Casualties on Pine Ridge” in Ward Churchill’s 1994 book “Indians Are Us?”). The population of that reservation I would estimate was, at the time, about 20,000 (I can’t find anything for that, and according to the US Census Bureau via Wikipedia, in 2017 there were almost 20,000 people there, and between the fact that it was likely 1/2 of 1/3 that in 1975 and the fact that I have found some confusing facts indicating that it may be higher than 20,000 today, I’m just going to go with 20,000). In The Troubles, five years that saw 200+ deaths each year were 1972-1976 and since 1972 saw 480 deaths in the conflict, I looked at the years 1972-1975. During that time, almost exactly 422 members of the Nationalist community, including members of republican paramilitaries (including three from the South who were killed in the North; I mention that because I’m sure some AIM members on Pine Ridge were not locals), were killed by either the security forces or loyalist paramilitaries. Now, when considering population figures, if things were equal in terms of these sorts of deaths, the figure for N. Ireland would have been 1,725 (for good reason, I looked at just Pine Ridge and on the other hand, all of N. Ireland). I should also point out that AIM was not as militant as the IRA, and as far as I know, killed none or almost none of their opponents and probably ZERO civilians, and were not blowing up buildings. If they had been more aggressive and/or had killed civilians, I can only imagine how many of them and their supporters would have been killed (there’s evidence that around 90% of the Nationalist community, including republicans, supported republican paramilitaries TO ONE DEGREE OR ANOTHER, see the middle third of this for support of internees in the 1970s and hunger-strikers in 1981). UPDATE 12/19/20 I just got an email from Churchill saying that the population of Pine ridge at the time was about 10,000, so instead of 1,725 the hypothetical figure for N. Ireland is 3, 450.
7. In the last 25 years I celebrated the 4th 3-6 times. A) I have some slightly patriotic tendencies and B) I was hanging out with friends who were more or less liberal or my Mom who was (overall) fairly liberal. But I’m sure that most white allies who oppose these parades don’t celebrate the 4th and I agree that some of what it is symbolic of is fucked up shit.
8. Columbus may have been Italian, although according to Ward Churchill there’s some disagreement about that. MANY Italian-Americans (around 60-90 years ago), in response to bigotry against them, started talking up the idea that Columbus was Italian and began celebrating him. At a 2000 talk in support of a protest of the Denver Columbus Day parade, Ward Churchill said that there SHOULD be a celebration of Italian-America, but based on pasta, not Columbus. Sacco and Vanzetti were Italian immigrants and anarchists convicted of murder in 1921 during a wave of anti-immigrant, anti-Italian, and anti-anarchist hysteria in America. It’s widely agreed that there’s plenty of reason to believe they were innocent.
9. Police body cams make it less likely that they’ll do fucked up shit. There should be some kind of serious penalty for the officers and/or department if they claim that the footage isn’t available (it wasn’t turned on, it broke, the computer doesn’t work, whatever their excuse is).
10. **80% of this version is me, 20% is the original.
11. This is dedicated to my late friend Chris O’Laughlin, who died of cancer in 2002. He was very progressive, and an opponent of these parades, and was Irish-American and Italian-American (and probably proud of both- I know he was an Irish Republican). RIP Chris.
12. UPDATE 3/27/20 I'm not real familiar with to what degree American Indians live communally today, especially those who live off the reservation, but A) I think that continues to one degree or another today and B) only about 150 years ago around 1/3-1/2 DEFINITELY lived communally and C) 300 years before that, they all definitely did and D) it's something that many Indians, to one degree or another, aspire to.
13. UPDATE 3/28/20 In case I need to clarify this, here it is. I have said, explicitly, in at least two other places on my blog, that I would feel better if there hadn't been any European settlement here at all. I mentioned westward expansion  for two reasons: A) A LOT of the time people focus on criticizing "Manifest Destiny" (the idea behind westward expansion) and B) the settlement of the 13 colonies was not something done by the government I recognize as mine, it was done by the British. But I DO feel bad about the settlement of the 13 colonies.
14. UPDATE 4/9/20 I imply in the poem that all American Indians want the parades banned. I'm not sure that's totally true. About 10 years ago an Indian I was friends with said she wasn't into the idea of blocking the parade. That might extend to getting it banned. But among Indians who oppose blocking it, there might be some or many who are sort of okay with it being banned by the city. In Denver I had been to a few other protests organized by the group (or the main group) that organized the protest of the parade (Colorado AIM) and was slightly familiar with the Denver American Indian community and I think that maybe around 1/3 or 1/2 of Indians in that area identified with them (most of the others hated them). It's possible that if the others opposed blocking the parade, for some of them it was because CO-AIM got in front of opposition to the parade at the very beginning, and like I said, a lot of Indians in Denver really don't like them (that might be because they’re fairly comfortable, in theory and at least once in practice, with militancy, and without being Marxist or social-democratic or anarchist, CO-AIM could be described, to one degree or another, as leftist). And if some people would say that the issue of freedom of assembly would indicate opposition to the parade being banned, I would say that it seems pretty popular among Indians to tell sports teams what they can do with their “Indian” mascots. The Native American Rights Fund, a group more moderate than CO-AIM, supported at least one lawsuit and supports creating a legislatively created and empowered committee in CO that would have the power of the law to approve or reject the mascots of public schools (including higher education). The streets are public, and Columbus Day is probably more offensive to American Indians than “Indian” mascots are. In any case, something like 99% of American Indians don't like the parades.

When the Sons of Italy want to march the city won’t ban it
But take a look at the genocide, Columbus began it
Now they’re afraid of us because we tell the truth
To the masses of white people, including the Irish-American youth
When I think about America’s westward expansion I feel some shame
But when I stand to make a speech the police ask me for my name

Chorus
Freedom from genocide is the very least they deserve
Capitalism and Imperialism joined forces, two things we should not conserve
The White man can try to suppress Indians with their police and the FBI
Indians will emerge victors- and fuck the 4th of July!

Communal Nations with a lot of respect for the land       
They’ll keep working until Columbus Day parades are banned
We don’t hate Italians-Americans and remember Sacco and Vanzetti
As Ward said, let’s celebrate Italian-America with a ton of spaghetti

So, let’s help promote the next protest against those parades
If we have to, we’ll keep doing this for many decades
We want a country free of bigotry, and based on community
We believe in police body cams and equal opportunity

**********

“A Letter From Ardoyne To British Labour” based on “Body Count” by Body Count (Ice-T’s heavy metal band). Original lyrics are here.

1. I removed a lot of Ice-T’s non lyrical talk, except for the very beginning.
2. Ardoyne is a nationalist/republican neighborhood in North Belfast.
3. This is basically in late 1970 and 1971, after British Labour were removed from power by the voters and yet, close enough to the beginning of the conflict that you could say the republican struggle was still growing, and when Orange is definitely the right word because Stormont, the Unionist-dominated regional devolved Parliament and Government, still existed.
4. As far as I can tell, there are some pro-unionist tendencies in BL, some pro-republican tendencies, some pro-SDLP tendencies (although officially they’re sister organizations, the SDLP doesn’t belong in the Socialist International and I think a lot of people in BL know that (that post also explains how, setting aside the question of the IRA’s campaign, getting behind the SDLP was not getting behind an effective path to equality, justice and freedom for the Nationalist population)), and some other tendencies (i.e. some wanted Labour to organize in the North, but British Labour, not Irish Labour).
5. The red, white and blue, in this poem and not the original lyrics, refers to the BRITISH flag.
6. Partition is the division of Ireland.
7. Orange is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry in the Anglo-Irish context.
8. The BA is the British Army.
9. AKs are AK-47s which are automatic rifles.
10. RA stands for “Republican Army” and is pronounced “raw.”
11. Loyalist refers to the paramilitaries that focused mostly on killing Catholic civilians because they were Catholic.
12. Squaddie is a British soldier.
13. I choose North Belfast because, behind West Belfast, it saw the most deaths in the conflict (compared to the other 3 quarters of Belfast, Derry, and Counties Armagh, Down, Antrim, Derry, Fermanagh, and Tyrone). But I think it was worse for Catholics in North Belfast than those in West Belfast because it was a mixture of Nationalist and Unionist areas, whereas the Nationalist areas of West Belfast were all grouped together.
14. **25% of this version is me, 75% is the original.
15. I have calculated that only about .3% of the IRA's operations resulted in civilian death.

You know, sometimes I sit at home, you know, and I watch the BBC
And I wonder what it would be like to live in some place like
You know, Manchester, Liverpool
You know, where the peelers come and got your cat outta the tree
All your friends die of old age
But you see.. I live in North Belfast
And unfortunately... SHIT AIN'T LIKE THAT!!
It's real fucked up!

God damn, what brothers and sisters gotta do
To get a message through
To the red and white and blue
What? I gotta die, before you realize
I was a person with open eyes?
Partition’s insane, while you drink champagne
And I'm living under Orange reign
The BA fears Irish people with AKs
Here the ‘RA's got ten stashed With a case of hand grenades

You'd know what to do
If loyalists killed your kid on the way to school
Or a BA sniper shot your kid in a rural barnyard
Shit would hit the fan motherfucker and it would hit real hard
I hear it every night, another gun fight
The struggle mounts,
on with the IRA’s squaddie Body Count

God damn what the Irish gotta do
To get a message through
To the red and white and you?
What? I gotta die before you realize
I was a Catholic with open eyes?
Orange society’s insane, while you drink champagne
And I'm living under Imperialistic reign
Don't you hear the loyalist guns?
You stupid, dumb British Labour politicians!!

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

“Taking on the Boneheads” based on “Tearing Down the Flags” by Razor’s Edge. Original lyrics are here.

1.  This is about anti-racist skinheads. They might not exist anymore, but that’s not going to stop me from doing poems like this.
2. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for nazi skinhead.
3. Cardiff (Wales) is the home of Roddy Moreno and the Oi! band The Oppressed are based there. Moreno is the most popular anti-racist skinhead in the world.
4. Las Vegas is where in 1998, two anti-racist skinheads were killed by Nazis.
5. A large town in the Czech Republic is where, in 2008, an anti-racist skinhead was killed by a Nazi Skinhead.
6. Perth (Australia) rhymes with Earth.
7. Anti-racist skinheads are embarrassed (or something like that) by the existence of Nazis in their culture.
8. SHARP stands for “SkinHead Against Racial Prejudice.”
9. Fash is short for fascists.
10. Suss is a skinhead/British word for intelligence (or something close to that).
11. Around 95% of skinheads are working-class and even when it’s warped by fascism, have a strong sense of working-class pride.
12. The idea is that, since the skinhead culture started in connection with Black English people, if you’re a racist you can’t be a skinhead.
13. Bread is a term for economic justice. Although the average SHARP is only sort of political and only sort of progressive, Nazi skinheads are, for better or worse, very political and have a (racially narrow) belief in economic justice.
14. Ian Stuart was the opposite of Moreno, and died in 1993 in a hilarious car accident.
15. I think the fash (and, sort of separately, the Christian Right) try to ignore the way they have a lot in common with the Muslim fundamentalist Right (if you think I have a racist double standard, see the first third of this).
16. I don’t believe in Hell, but if it does exist Ian Stuart and Al-Qaeda members are there.
17. A patch on, for example, a bomber jacket (popular with skinheads).
18. Docs are Doc Martens, boots that almost all skinheads (and some non-skinhead fans of music that inspires moshing) wear (it’s possible that in the last 20 years, a LOT of other people are wearing them, too).
19. **63% of this poem is me, 37% is the original.

They wear their swastika patches, their symbols full of hate
Don't they f*cking realize, that their defeat awaits
We're taking on the boneheads, all across the Earth
In Cardiff, Las Vegas, the Czech Republic and Perth

(Chorus)
We're taking down the boneheads- we'll banish Skinhead’s shame.
We're taking down the boneheads- SHARP is our name.
We're taking down the boneheads- we’re never giving in.
We're taking down the boneheads- we’re gonna f*cking win.

Fash still marching on our streets, they haven't learned a thing.
Don't they f*cking realize, our fists will swing and they’ll swing and they’ll swing
They're just a bunch of wankers, who haven’t got the suss
To the skinhead culture and the working-class they’re treasonous

They shave their heads and wear Docs but they aren’t real skinheads
They don’t realize you can’t promote hate and successfully push for bread
We're taking down the boneheads, and we hate Ian Stuart real well.
So they can join Al-Qaeda, in the fascist motherfuckers hell

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?).