In a book report (it wasn’t very analytical) I did in 2022 about a sort of sci-fi/sort of techno-thriller novel with a left-wing message, I admitted that a big chunk of the fiction I read is by Tom Clancy or authors like Tom Clancy (1989-2009 it was about 70% and since 2009 it’s been about 25% (hopefully I won’t go to Socialist Hell)). As far as I can tell, the author of the book I just referred to (David Mace) is progressive. If you look at the books I’ve read in the Tom Clancy genre there’s a handful with some stuff that is liberal or even progressive. It’s usually a small island of progressive viewpoints (by characters you’re supposed to like) with an ocean of center/center-right politics. There is one book which is written by someone much more right-wing than left-wing but which can nonetheless be greatly enjoyed politically by progressives, if you think about it the right way. I’m talking about Larry Bond’s 1991 novel “Vortex.”
“Vortex” is about Apartheid South Africa, and a “last gasp” attempt by hardliners to maintain Apartheid and Afrikaner colonialism. I believe the story starts in May of 1992, although it’s not clear what the year is. I am not sure how much or how little progress was made in the Peace Process between Mandela’s release and May of 1992 (in reality). Towards the very beginning of the book the President of SA talks about significant progress being made, which prompts the main villain (Karl Vorster, a Cabinet member) to carry out something which is basically a coup, but which appears to be the ANC’s military wing (MK) assassinating the rest of the cabinet (although this is known by almost no one until the last 1/3 of the book, the MK operation was manipulated by Vorster and the Intelligence agency he runs). He then reverses the small number of reforms that had been made to Apartheid, invades neighboring Namibia, and turns the security forces loose against Blacks and any dissent by whites.
The situation becomes chaotic. The leader of the Zulu population (who, in reality, may not have been as militant as the ANC was during the anti-Apartheid struggle) calls for the rest of the world to take action against the new regime and his people take up armed struggle. A large chunk of the military in Cape Town refuses to massacre white civilian protestors and rebels against the government.
Things also start to fall apart for Vorster in Namibia, whose government asks the Cuban Army in Angola to help repel the invasion. Although this is more complicated, to one extent or another during most of the book you can root for the Cuban Army. The head of the Cuban Army in Africa (General Antonio Vega) convinces Castro that Cuba should resolve the conflict by invading South Africa and overthrowing Apartheid. With some help from other “anti-Imperialist” countries (including three Libyan units probably the size of battalions) three columns (probably around 2,000-3,000 men in each) enter SA from the east, north and west. Because the Cubans hid their preparations for the invasion the SA military is still focused on Namibia and rapid progress is made, especially the column approaching Pretoria from the West. Because it is a desert and a sparely populated area (and because he is psychotic) Vorster eradicates that column with a nuclear bomb. SA is on the verge of using two more nukes to attack strategic targets when the US military captures them and removes them from the country in a massive airborne operation. Shortly after that the US military lands something like a division on the east coast of SA (at Durban) and starts fighting the SA Army on it’s way to Pretoria. Naval aircraft start attacking the East column of Cubans.
As you might guess, the US military stops the Cubans from reaching Pretoria until they (the US) can get there first. The aftermath of this victory for the US is largely a GOP fantasy. Because of some significant friction with the Cubans (see below), the ANC abandons it’s commitment to socialism. There IS something about recognition of the trade-unions, something proposed by the occupying US military, but I think we’re talking about something that is probably engineered to foster a pretty centrist labor movement.
There are two large aspects of this story relevant to how close it is to being a progressive book.
First, the US government moves very slowly at each stage of the crisis and are usually far behind Cuba. And they (characters who are officials of the US government) are pretty honest about why they are initially very slow and behind Cuba, and they’re also very honest about why they DO send their own invasion force after Cuba invades- they don’t want Cuba to get credit for overthrowing Apartheid. I will add a lot of details to this in about a year when I read this book (for the 6th or 7th time) and take some notes, but in general, Cuba looks better than the US government.
On the other hand, there are some things Bond has the Cubans do that A) usually involve quite a bit of imagination on Bond’s part and B) make Cuba look bad. After one of his columns is wiped out by a nuke, Vega decides to compensate for that by using chemical weapons. In all fairness to Vega and in all fairness to Bond who was probably tempted to really slander Cuba at this point, they use NON-PERSISTENT chemical weapons which become impotent pretty quickly after they are released into the air. This means they’re not quite as indiscriminate as they would be if they were persistent. We don’t know how many battles involved Cuban chemical weapons, but there was at least one. And some small part of the nearby black population was affected, with some deaths.
Those black deaths contribute to the erosion of congeniality between the Cuban Army and the ANC’s military wing, Spear of the Nation. There is one bizarre incident that was a pretty good example of Bond trying to reassure most of his readers that he did not go commie while writing this book. The Cubans ask the black population in one town to help them make an airfield they took over functional again. There weren’t enough volunteers so a small number of Blacks were forced to help. This of course contributes to the conflict developing between the Cubans and the ANC. Bond does sort zig-zag a bit and quotes Vega’s thoughts, pointing out that he has Black officers on his staff- who he describes as brave and competent.
There is something I really need to say about Bond. Vortex is his second book. His first and third books are politically fairly centrist overall. His fourth and fifth books, I thought were racist towards Muslims and I will never read them again and I haven’t read anything he wrote after book five. (see this and this (and look for my name)). (I lost track of those two novels in my collection for several years but in the end I made a decision about 5 years ago to throw them away instead of taking them to a thrift store (I’m not totally okay with that, because it resembles book burning, but throwing them away was probably the right thing to do))
There is one last thing I need to get out of the way. In the very first sentence of the book, in a section that includes maybe 500 words, it sounds like Bond is saying that rural, uneducated Zimbabweans think that helicopters flying at night are “demons.” There’s a bit more to that short first section, and I also think after I explain this next part, progressive readers will feel comfortable assuming that Bond is not racist towards Black people. In his first book (about a second Korean War), one of the main characters is an Air Force pilot who gets shot down behind enemy lines, and is rescued at night by a helicopter. This character does say that the helicopter appears like a demon.
It’s a massive book- 896 pages in paperback. If you’re not totally against anything military and you hate Apartheid, you will probably like this book. In about a year I will probably read it again and take some notes and have more to say.
Friday, July 12, 2024
My Review of Larry Bond's 1991 Anti-Apartheid Novel "Vortex"
Monday, October 9, 2023
Fuck Hamas
This is my position on what happened in Israel and Palestine in early Oct.
First, as far as the history of that conflict, about 20% of my knowledge comes from Juan Cole’s site Informed Comment and about 20% is from the BBC. The rest, about 60% is from various sources, some mainstream, some progressive, including The Nation, the Washington Post, the Times of Israel, etc. In the last week it’s something like 50% the BBC, 10% Juan Cole, 10% CNN and the rest is miscellaneous.
I have been a supporter of the Palestinians pretty much since I started becoming more than a tiny bit political. I sort of explain my general thoughts about the conflict in a post here. I have only briefly been VERY familiar with Israeli and Palestinian politics, and that was the first 2-3 months of 2020 when I was reading about 15 articles a day on the web-based newspaper The Times of Israel. I used to be a member of what used to be the American section of the Socialist International (the Democratic Socialists of America) and in 2001 learned that Fatah, the leading part of the PLO (Arafat was a leader of Fatah), was a less-than-full member of the SI. Until recently I basically supported them.
That was increasingly (in recent years as more and more criticisms were made of the PLO) because of who the main alternative was. My position has always been- “Fuck Hamas.” To one degree or another Hamas is a lot more socially conservative than Fatah is, and I think that the activities of the military wing of Hamas were more likely to intentionally kill innocent civilians than the PLO was when they were fighting Israel.
But for decades now I have heard about the PLO being corrupt and abusing their power. They also have done a horrible job of advancing the interests of their people. Although that’s been clear to one degree or another for decades now, there was a BBC article that really explained that just recently. And then there was a BBC article accusing the President of the Palestinian Authority (sort of an extension of the PLO, in the West Bank) of giving a VERY anti-Semitic speech. As you’ll understand if you read that article, Abbas said that European Jews were targeted because they had money. This is not true and even if all Jews were rich, how in the world would that justify killing them- especially when rich people outside the Jewish population were not targeted as well.
I won’t discuss this in this essay, but I am not sure who I can support among the political movements in the Palestinian population.
The Palestinians have very serious and legitimate grievances. Those who are Israeli citizens experience a fair amount of inequality. Those living in the West Bank have it worse (they are state-less), and in different ways the residents of the Gaza Strip have it even worse than that. The first two of the three aspects of the Israeli state I just referred to are often referred to as being governed by “Israeli Apartheid.” I explain how that’s a legitimate term for how the Palestinians are treated here. The two state solution has been dying a slow death for decades as Israel plants settlers in the West Bank, changing the “facts on the ground” that will make an independent Palestine non-viable. The Israeli Right, who are in power right now, wants to annex all of the West Bank, at the expense of the Palestinians living there.
So, yes, the Palestinians have every reason to be FURIOUS with the Israeli state and the Israeli people. But what Hamas has done in the last few days is horrible. IF it had been aimed at the military and (using methods that avoid civilian death) government and commercial buildings, I would at least sort of approve. But that’s not what happened. What happened was a massacre of civilians and, especially with a right-wing extreme Zionist government in Jerusalem, it will provoke an even greater (UPDATE 310/10/23 bigger, and/or more extensive) response than what we have seen in the last few days. It will probably bury any chance at peace for a generation.
Is that guaranteed? Fortunately it is not. We need to continue our efforts to change American policy on Israel. That effort will be boosted if we do more to incorporate opposition to anti-Semitism into our solidarity work in support of the Palestinians. That is one of the main themes in my post on Zionism and a one state solution. At the risk of scheming internationally, this is one more reason to support the Irish political party Sinn Fein. After SF got within striking distance of leading a left-wing and republican government in Dublin in 2020, Juan Cole wrote a post about what that might mean for the Palestinians. In recent years there has been a trend of bigger and bigger percentages of the Jewish-American population supporting the Palestinians, and this will help.
In general I am a supporter of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, although I worry that a CULTURAL boycott could fuel anti-semitism. But an economic and political BDS network would be awesome.
So, we need to do a better job than we have done. And I think that a good place to start is to react to recent events by condemning Hamas, talking up a one state solution, and doing more of what we have already done.
********
UPDATE 10/12/23 There is another item on the same theme here.
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Movie Reviews B
Emperor (IMDB Wikipedia)
I’m not sure how historically accurate it is, but overall it’s a fairly good movie. I’m glad that we defeated Japan in that war and it’s great that afterwards we became friends with Japan. I also liked how one character, a senior Japanese politician who got along with the allies, pointed out that the British and Americans were roughly as imperialistic as Imperial Japan was.
I give it 2 stars out of 5.
Dr. Strange (IMDB Wikipedia)
Not anything political in this movie, but I do like super-hero stuff. I focus mostly on DC Comics stuff, but I also watch the live action movies about Marvel super-heroes.
I give it 2 stars out of five.
The Best of Enemies (IMDB Wikipedia)
This is an amazing movie. It’s a true story about a KKK leader rejecting racism. I missed the very ending when I saw it in the theater, but when I watched it at home recently, I learned that after CP Ellis transformed, he worked as a union organizer for the AFL-CIO. In general I was a little surprised at how class-conscious the Klan leader is but not that surprised. Obviously we have plenty of reasons to fight racism, but there’s one more- a lot of racists will become progressives when they reject their racist beliefs. And we need to recognize the role that unions have to play in fighting racism, as I’ve written elsewhere on this blog. We need to convince fiscally moderate and conservative Dems to support unions as a way to combat racism.
I give it 5 stars out of 5.
Easy A (IMDB Wikipedia)
This movie is about a teenage girl who lies about having sex for various reasons- for example a gay boy gets her to lie about them having sex so that he won’t be outed. She kind of enjoys having an (inaccurate) reputation as a promiscuous young woman, but she also says towards the end that she doesn’t know when she’ll lose her virginity- but that it might be the next day or it might be on her wedding night or somewhere in between.
I give it 5 stars out of 5.
The Color of Freedom (also known as “Goodbye Bafana") (IMDB Wikipedia)
It’s based on a true story, although I’m not sure how historically accurate it is. It’s inspirational to see a racist journey through life to a point where he is friends with Nelson Mandela. This movie also highlighted the fact that Mandela was a driving force behind the armed part of the ANC’s strategy. In all honesty, the ANC’s military wing did a better job of not killing civilians than the IRA did, but the IRA wasn’t too far behind the ANC as I explain here.
Thursday, March 11, 2021
Donald Trump and the 1/6 Capitol Riot
Below is something I sent as a letter to the editor of two local papers. UPDATE 8/3/24 On 7/14/22 the Boulder Weekly published this.
Former president Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate last month in relationship to his role in the 1/6 riot at the Capitol. Part of the argument in favor of convicting him was that he had used the word “fight” when encouraging his supporters to protest at the Capitol that day. His defenders have pointed out that people often use that word without referring to physical violence, and they’re right. But Trump still bears some responsibility for what happened. His use of the word “fight” needs to be considered in connection with two things. First, he painted a picture of America being in grave peril if the results of the election were not overturned. Second, he has a history of encouraging political violence. During the 2016 election campaign, there were at least a couple times when he encouraged his supporters to physically attack protesters at his rallies. There’s also his statement directed at the Proud Boys during the first Presidential Debate last year- “stand back and stand by.” The proud boys are all about political violence and they were at the Capitol that day. Trump had spent months lying about the election and we shouldn’t be surprised that his followers did what they did on 1/6 when he said “fight.”
Tom Shelley
Boulder
https://theblackandthegreen3.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Proud Boys and Nazi Skinheads
Some of this is at this point widely-known but one part of it isn’t. After Trump’s endorsement of the Proud Boys (which he has kind of walked back) in the first presidential debate, a lot is known about the Proud Boys. A fair amount of background is available here and here.
They’re militant white supremacists but don’t appear to be skinheads. I had gotten the impression that the skinhead population had declined in recent years but was still surprised that there were reports of Antifa fighting the Proud Boys but nothing about them fighting Nazi skinheads. When I read stuff about Trump coddling the Proud Boys I thought it would be better if he were coddling Nazi skinheads because it would be easier to attack him over that.
I recently read a CNN article which said that they wear Fred Perry shirts. The thing is, skinheads, including Nazi skinheads, wear Fred Perry shirts. There seemed to be some connection between the Proud Boys and Nazi skinheads. When I brought this to the attention of several political friends, one of them (Dave Anderson, a columnist for the Boulder Weekly) responded and provided links to the following two stories:
1) Proud Boys and skinheads: MLS faces an incursion from the far-right.
2) Far-right skinheads join Proud Boys in assaulting protesters in New York City following Gavin McInnes event.
They indicate that there ARE connections between the Proud Boys and Nazi skinheads, something that I don’t think has been mentioned by the mainstream media in America.
Another aspect of this is, when did the GOP start believing that political differences should be settled with violence? In my experience they have believed that for a long time.
In 2005 when the Ward Churchill scandal broke, I went a protest at CU-Boulder in support of him. I was wearing an anti-Columbus shirt and a College Republican said that he loves Columbus. I explained about the genocide on Hispanola (when Columbus was governor of the island that is now made up of Haiti and the Dominican Republic at least 99% of the indigenous population was killed) and he said that when he moved into a new apartment he killed off the indigenous population of spiders. Instead of continuing to be patient and explaining how offensive that was, I called him a motherfucker. He asked if I wanted to fight and speculated that I don't believe fighting solves anything- he said it does solve things. I stood next to him but looked straight ahead silently until he was silent for 1-3 minutes and then I left.
Also, in 2003 right before a big anti-war rally I organized, I bumped into three college republicans who were going around covering up the flyers for the rally with their pro-war flyers. When I confronted them about that, one of them, who I think was Iraqi, said he wanted to beat me up. After a short confrontation we parted company.
Thursday, June 11, 2020
Don't Vote GOP: Three New Poems
Here are three more poems. They are all based on offensive lyrics, I explain that here.
For all the poems, you can click on the "lyrics" label the bottom.
1. Stop the Klan. What you think it's about.
2. Irish Citizen Army. The Irish workers' militia of 1913-1916.
3. Don't Vote SDLP. What's wrong with Northern Ireland's Social Democratic and Labour Party.
“Stop the Ku Klux Klan” based on “Stand Up and Be Counted” by either The Klansmen in the 1980s or the racist assholes who originally wrote it several decades ago. Original lyrics are here.
1. In 2017 or 2018 or 2019 there were reports that caravans of refugees from Central America were traveling through Mexico on their way to the US. Trump used this, probably successfully, to whip up anti-immigrant hatred. These were definitely refugees and they were traveling in caravan for security.
2. I believe that there is a spectrum between democratic and undemocratic and I believe that, politically, the US is closer to the democratic end of the spectrum. But my thoughts about how we can make it more democratic politically are here. I worry greatly that Trump is a fascist, literally, and my thoughts about that are in the middle of a post here.
3. Trump is a racist. See this and this. There’s also his comments on the murder of an anti-fascist by a fascist in Charlottesville in 2017. And there’s this, that I published elsewhere on my blog:
Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke. OK? I don't know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don't know. I don’t know, did he endorse me or what’s going on, because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you're asking me a question that I'm supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about.
4. The Torah is the main Jewish text.
5. My thoughts about religion are found here, although a lot of those posts are only partly relevant.
6. **58% of this version is me, 42% is the original.
7. I give this poem 3 stars out of 5.
8. UPDATE 6/1/22 I believe there's a spectrum between democratic and undemocratic and I USED to believe we were in the middle but closer to the democratic end of the spectrum. With what the GOP has done in the last couple years I think we might be closer to the UNdemocratic end of the spectrum.
Chorus:
Stand up and be counted, welcome the caravans
Stand up and be counted, and stop the Ku Klux Klan
We are anti-racists and love our democracy true
We always can be counted on, when there's a job to do
We educate our communities day and night, to keep them Klan-free
And proudly display anti-racist bumper-stickers, promoting diversity
Chorus
The Bible’s pretty cool, but so are the Torah and Koran
We believe in gay rights, so fuck the Ku Klux Klan
In search of peace and liberty, with the constitution in hand
We will defeat Trump to save our democratic land
“Irish Citizen Army” based on “Blackshirt and Roses” by Razor’s Edge. Original lyrics are here.
1. This is written from the perspective of an Irish Republican in the 1970s, or 1980s or 1990s in Ireland. The Irish Citizen Army was started in 1913 during a general lock-out (where, in response to labor activism, an employer throws their employees out of the factory, etc.) in Dublin. It was formed to protect workers from attacks by the police. In 1916, when the Easter Rising (an attempt at getting the British out) took place, while most of the moderate Irish Volunteers failed to participate the (admittedly much smaller) ICA participated fully and James Connolly, the leader of the ICA, was the de facto leader of the uprising. Connolly was a Marxist theoretician and union organizer and considered Ireland’s greatest socialist- there is a train station in Dublin named after him.
2. The Starry Plough is basically the flag of republican socialism, although some non-republican socialists use it. At one point about 10-15 years ago, and maybe still today, the youth wing of the Irish Labour Party used it.
3. Connolly was one of the few European socialists to oppose the nationalism of World War I. (The original refers to WWII)
4. Razor’s Edge were/are British and support(ed) the British and Unionist causes in N. Ireland.
5. **54% of this version is me, 46% is the original.
6. I give this poem 4 stars out of 5.
They created the Starry Plough, an emblem of the Irish working-class
And they spread Marxism, patriotic workers struggling en masse.
(Chorus)
Fuck the British Empire
Ireland still recalls
The Irish Citizen Army
Heroes one and all.
Opposed the nationalist war in Europe, they knew the real enemy.
With the European Working-Class, they were in solidarity.
The flame they lit was not extinguished, still burning in our hearts today.
We're carrying on the fight because the ICA led the way.
(Chorus)
Fuck the British Empire
Ireland still recalls
Connolly and the ICA
Heroes one and all.
“Don’t Vote SDLP” based on “Freedom” by Razor’s Edge. Original lyrics are here.
1. This is NOT written from my perspective, but the perspective of the type of person I probably could have collaborated with politically if I had lived in the Nationalist community of Northern Ireland in the 1970s, 80s or 90s (I’m American). It’s from the perspective of someone who lives in a working-class Nationalist area in the 1990s and is sort of pacifist and a left-wing social-dem and doesn’t like Sinn Fein very much because of the violence and doesn’t like the Social Democratic and Labour Party for the reasons I give here (there are some more thoughts about the SDLP here, while discussing the episode “Rising Star”).
The thing is, the British Labour Party hasn’t ever organized in the North and recently had to be taken to court to allow Northerners to join, but they refuse to let the Party run candidates there (which is more of a good thing than a bad thing). There are multiple tendencies in the BLP when it comes to N. Ireland and I think the dominant one is to support their official sister organization the SDLP. I don’t think they ever called for the IRISH Labour Party to organize there and it wasn’t until tension developed between the ILP and the SDLP in 2001, 2002, and 2003 that the ILP started a transitional process of organizing there that was supposed to result in them running candidates as rivals to those of their official sister party. I did an essay/article/post PARTLY about that here.
So, this person has little or no options for voting (even if the BLP had been running candidates there, this person wouldn’t have voted for them (unless they were comparable to Tony Benn or Ken Livingstone)).
2. The red, white, and blue are the colors of the British flag.
3. The SDLP encouraged their supporters to do little more than vote. They were more or less against marching and probably against rallies as well. It’s true that non-SDLP supporters could have become involved and the inevitable friction with the security forces may have been difficult for stewards to control and a riot could have developed. But they still should have tried it, maybe with double the usual number of stewards. If there weren’t enough good stewards in the SDLP, maybe, in the 1970s and 1980s, they could have acquired the help of members and former members of the Official IRA, whose movement the Provisionals (SF and the IRA) had split from, and which was committed to a relatively non-violent path (I just think it would have been great if they HAD organized marches and I wanted to explain that they could have found a way to do it with a low risk of them turning into riots). The failure to offer mass struggle as an alternative to armed struggle weakened the overall effort to advance the interests of the Nationalist population.
4. The SDLP was socially conservative and although they probably did a better job of attracting Protestants than the Provos did, they were also closer to the Catholic Church.
5. Critics sometimes call the SDLP the Stoop Down Low Party.
6. In the 70s and 80s and probably the 90s as swell, I can imagine SDLP canvassers at election time being uncomfortable when whoever they’re talking with informed them that they’re gay. That homophobia is largely gone now, and I don’t think it was all that hateful in the first place, but they were homophobes.
7. They’re in the Socialist International and today maybe the SI almost deserves them, but with their social conservatism and moderate, almost capitalist, economics, they certainly didn’t belong there in the 1990s and 2000s and probably not in the 70s and 80s.
8. My thoughts about what the Provos did are here.
9. Razor’s Edge were/are British and support(ed) the British and Unionist causes in N. Ireland.
10. **66% of this version is me, 34% is the original.
11. This poem gets 5 stars out of 5.
Sell-out politicians always seem confused
They can’t figure out how to eject the red, white and blue
the only time you matter is on Election Day
so they can grab your vote and then tell you to go pray
(Chorus)
Options, no options
For pacifist social-dems in this community
Options, no options
The Stoops offer no mass struggle opportunities
A community defended by heroes but who then go too far
There are too many problems with their repertoire
But the only time you matter to the Stoops is on Election Day
They really want your vote unless you’re lesbian, bi or gay
Chorus
With their moderate instincts, the community gets left behind
if you think they’re helping us, you must be f*cking blind
the only time you matter is on Election Day
They’re in the International, but they’re pro-life and anti-gay
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Irish Unity: Three New Poems
I have until recently been very unsure about whether or not “Sweet Home Alabama” is a racist song. But, if wikipedia is not totally full of shite, I lean very heavily towards saying that it’s racist. That’s based partly on the song’s wikipedia page. I looked at the interview with the back-up singer, and I looked at the page with the statement by Ed King. Also, although Neil Young says they were right to be angry about his song “Alabama,” “Sweet Home Alabama” refers to the Neil Young song “Southern Man,“ which he doesn’t apologize for and which is (lyrically) a fairly-very good anti-racist song. I also found an article in The Atlantic that makes it pretty clear they were racists when the song was written (the confederate flag has always been a symbol of racism).
You can find the rest of the lyrics, about ten pages of them, here.
1. "General Maurice Rose" About the Allies in WWII and specifically about Jewish-American soldiers who fought Nazi Germany.
2. "The North." N. Ireland. (A BLACK AND GREEN POEM)
3. "Skinhead Unity." Anti-racist skinheads.
“General Maurice Rose” based on “European Skinhead Army” by No Remorse. Original lyrics are here.
1. This is a little complicated. It started out as a poem about the US Army IN GENERAL in the European part of WWII. But then I needed something that rhymed with “Valhalla” (see below) and I found a kind of Jewish bread. Then I remembered about General Maurice Rose (see below) and made it PARTLY about Jewish-American soldiers in that theater (it's not from General Rose's perspective, and I imagine a lot of Jewish-American veterans might not know what to think about the part about Odin, but I explain that below (for whatever it's worth, the reference to Odin was already there)).
2. A medical center in Denver is named after the late General Maurice Rose. On their site they say the following about a point in 1945:
“It was around this time that news broke that General Maurice Rose, a Denver son and the highest-ranking Jewish officer in the U.S. Army during World War II, had been killed in combat. Rose was known for his aggressive style of leadership, directing his units from the front rather than a rear command post. When he and his staff, surrounded by German troops, were attempting to surrender, a panicked young German tank soldier fired one shot to Rose’s head, killing him instantly. His death caused an uproar: demands were made by congressmen for an investigation, and it was front-page news. Suddenly, the committee knew they could achieve two goals—create the new Jewish hospital and memorialize a fallen Jewish hometown hero.”
3. The Waffen-SS was the tactically-elite military, as opposed to paramilitary, part of the ideologically-based SS.
3. The Rhineland was a strategically important part of western Germany with a lot of industry.
4. FDR was the President of the US during almost all of WWII, until he died about a month before Nazi Germany was defeated.
5. Nazis made Jews wear a yellow star armband.
6. Although it’s true that the WESTERN Allies rarely carried out night assaults A) The Soviets frequently did, B) it rhymes, and C) sometimes they DID- see this and this.
7. The Wehrmacht was the German military, although it’s unclear if the Waffen-SS was part off the Wehrmacht.
8. The “sunwheel banner” is a term for the Swastika flag.
9. Odin is the god of Valhalla. Valhalla is part of Norse mythology, it's a place where warriors go after they die, although there seems to be some debate about exactly who gets in- only people who die in combat? Anyway, the fascists love it and have sort of taken over the concept, but a friend told me that he likes the idea of the left claiming it and specifically said that if such a place exists, Che and others like him are probably there. (Do I believe in Valhalla? You could say I’m sort of an agnostic on that question and am sort of solidly a Christian. The way I see it, this is pretty flexible, don't take it too seriously, and one way to think about it is that if you believe in Heaven and would rather these people went there instead of Valhalla, maybe they can do both, spend some time in Valhalla and some time in Heaven; but my friend and I do like the idea of reclaiming it from the fash). I MADE A POINT OF REFERRING TO ALL U.S. SOLDIERS IN THAT THEATER NOT JUST THE JEWISH ONES, TO LESSEN THE DEGREE TO WHICH I AM SAYING THAT GENERAL ROSE (SPECIFCALLLY) WENT TO VALHALLA. (also I’ve done six other poems where I imply that people who don’t believe in Valhalla go there, and one of them was about Allied soldiers in the Western European theater (the other five references to Valhalla were largely but not exclusively about Irish Republicans)
10. After Germany was defeated, a process was started that resulted in a democracy being created in what would be West Germany. Although some would point out that it was done through military occupation and an effort called “de-Nazification”, I think the entrenched nature of Nazism in Germany meant that there was no other way to create a democracy there. If it weren’t for a lot of Allied soldiers, de-Nazification would have been impossible to enforce, and the German Army would have reconstituted itself.
11. The second to last line. It’s meant to refer to members of the Waffen-SS. They were responsible for massacres of civilians (even in the West), the execution (in ONE incident) of American POWs, and some of them were concentration camp guards. Such people, IF soldiers in general go to Valhalla (see above), don’t go to Valhalla, in my opinion.
12. Hallah is a kind of Jewish bread.
13. You have to emphasize the “er”s in “banner” and “shatter” to make them rhyme.
14. **73% of this poem is me, 27% is the original.
On the Waffen-SS, we’re gonna go medieval
The Allies have teamed up and it's good against evil,
We've got the tanks, we’re heading for the Rhineland
We won’t lose, we’ll play the winning hand
Chorus:
United States Army,
We fight together, commanded by FDR
United States Army,
We fight for the people who wear the yellow star
We're advancing day and night,
Behind the front our air support takes flight
Smash the Wehrmacht, make it shatter
We raise our middle fingers to the sunwheel banner
many U.S. soldiers will meet Odin, unlike Hitler,
After we take Berlin, a democracy we’ll configure
When we kill Nazis in battle, they won’t go to Valhalla
After the war, we’ll celebrate with some Hallah
“The North” based on “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Original lyrics are here.
1. See my thoughts above about whether or not the original is a racist song.
2. This is set around 1990.
3. I assume that BA units were flown into the North instead of traveling by sea.
4. “The Six” is short for the Six-Counties, a republican term for N. Ireland (I say “the Six” not because republicans say that (they don't) but because it rhymes).
5. In 1983 the very popular British Nazi skinhead band Skrewdriver did a song called “Smash the IRA” and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of young, working-class, conservative and patriotic BA soldiers were fans. Skrewdriver’s vocalist and lyricist Ian Stuart Donaldosn started, in the late 1980s, a side project called The Klansmen, which was about the American South.
6. Margaret Thatcher’s constituency was Finchley.
7. “Tiocfaidh ar la” is a republican slogan coined by Bobby Sands and means “Our Day Will Come.”
8. There’s a theory, which must be embraced by N. Ireland anti-Catholic bigots, that Catholics aren’t real Christians.
9. Bangor is a medium-sized city (in the NI context, if Belfast is a large city, and Derry is also a medium-sized city) that’s almost entirely Unionist.
10. In my version the boos are coming from Nationalists and republicans.
11. The Provos is an earlier term for the movement made up of what we now call simply Sinn Fein and the IRA. I explain here how they had, 1981-1997 a comprehensive strategy for getting the British out and helping their community.
12. “The Falls Rd. Curfew” was a major turning point in the very first year of The Troubles. In Aug. 1969 there were massive anti-Catholic pogroms in Belfast which were destructively and lethally successful. Because of this, the British Army, who sort of saved the Catholics, was welcomed by a decreasing number of Catholics in the first several months after the BA came onto the streets of N. Ireland. On June 27th there was a major and partly armed, attack by loyalists on the isolated Catholic enclave of the Short Strand in East Belfast. The British Army wouldn’t help but about four members of the Provisional IRA successfully defended the area and killed five armed loyalists. 9 days earlier a British general election had been won by the Conservatives. The Unionists were furious about the PIRA action in the Short Strand and demanded action. The following is from the Conflict Archive on the InterNet:
Friday 3 July 1970 Falls Road Curfew
Beginning in the afternoon, the British Army carried out extensive house searches in the Falls Road area of Belfast for members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and IRA arms. A military curfew was imposed on the area for a period of 34 hours with movement of people heavily restricted. The house searches lasted for two days and involved considerable destruction to many houses and their contents. During the searches the army uncovered a lot of illegal arms and explosives. However the manner in which the searches were conducted broke any remaining goodwill between the Catholic community and the British Army. During the period of the curfew there were gun battles between both wings of the IRA and the Army. Two people were killed by the British Army during the violence; one of them deliberately run over by an Army vehicle. Another person was shot and mortally wounded by the Army and died on 10 July 1970.
Saturday 4 July 1970 The Falls Road curfew continued throughout the day. A man was killed by the British Army.
(I should clarify something- I don’t think there was any inter-republican fighting, but both the Provos and the Officials, separately, fought the British during the Curfew; also, although the official record doesn’t totally reflect this, a Polish-British photojournalist was killed by the BA, bringing the total to 4 civilians killed; one of the two local men shot was 62 years old)
13. The red, white, and blue are the colors of the British flag.
14. The Civil Rights Movement in N. Ireland in the late 1960s and the early 1970s was inspired by its counterpart in America, and at the very end, a delegation from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference attended the Bloody Sunday funerals.
15. **77% of this version is me, 23% is the original.
Jet turbines keep on turnin’
Carrying British soldiers to the Six
Singin' songs about the Southland
Occupying northeast Ireland because of Tory politics
Well I heard Mrs. Thatcher say the North is
as British as Finchley
Well, that’s nonsense and won’t stop us from
creating a border in the Irish sea
Chorus
Tiocfaidh ar la Derry
Where the skies are so blue
Tiocfaidh ar la West Belfast
Where Catholics believe in the Lord, too
In Bangor they love the Queen, (Boo! Boo! Boo!)
Now the Provos are doing all that they can do
The Falls Rd. Curfew angered me
An atrocity carried out under the red, white and blue
Now Southern Blacks had “We Shall Overcome”
And they overthrew segregation
They inspired us to march for our rights
And it turned into a struggle for liberation
“Skinhead Unity” based on “European Unity” by Brutal Attack. Original lyrics are here.
1. This is about anti-racist skinheads. Although there might not be any left in America, they used to exist, so I’m going to occasionally do poems about them.
2. I get the impression that when Nazi skinheads became part of the skinhead scene, non-racist and anti-racist skinheads initially didn’t do much to stop them.
3. D-Day was the Allied invasion of Europe during WWII.
4. Skinhead was started in connection with Jamaican immigrants in England. Nazi skinheads claim it isn’t true.
5. Most anti-racist skinheads are patriotic.
6. Anti-racist skinheads are frustrated by those skinheads who are more or less neutral.
7. Ska is a kind of Black music that a lot of non-racist and anti-racist skinheads (as well as others of course) listen to.
8. As far as I can tell in the 1980s and 1990s a LOT of anti-racist skinheads were homophobic, but I have reason to believe that, as homophobia became less common among youth in the last 20-30 years, it became less common among anti-racist skinheads.
9. Although anti-racist skinheads occasionally used guns, Nazis love guns. And there was a similar gap when it came to knives.
10. A mask is sometimes defined as a PROTECTIVE covering. So, they’re not hiding their reasons for being more or less neutral. I wouldn’t be surprised if they can’t handle the kind of beating that Nazis give anti-racists.
11. **50% of this is me, 50% is the original.
12. I just added "great" to the 4th line. It makes more sense, I forgot I'm not writing 10 years ago, when I wrote most of my poems.
13. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi skinhead.
14. UPDATE 4/14/20 I just changed "from" to "of" in the last line of the chorus.
You know our scene’s been taken over by fools
Mis-using their strength, inspired by the Nazi tools
Some of us are to blame for not stopping them right away
But now we’re fighting the fash like our great-grandfathers did on D-Day
Chorus
Skinhead unity
friendship, class pride, a diverse community
Skinhead unity
Our culture free of the Nazis
Our skinhead forefathers were Black English people you see
But that’s not what the boneheads would have you believe
So how come our scene’s been overrun?
By alien ideologies, the fascist atrocities, with the knife and the gun
So listen skinheads, listen very carefully
It’s time to wake up, time to make a stand you see
United we'll win, come here our call
If we stick together nothing’s gonna make us fall
It wont be easy it'll be a long hard task
And there are those fools who hide behind the neutrality mask
But we'll pull through, ‘cos ska wins in the end
To anti-Semitism and homophobia we will never bend
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Fox News Rejected an anti-Nazi ad
Racists and anti-semites in the GOP and on Fox News
Face it, some of you are fascists, democracy you abuse
I just found a article which indicates I wasn't being more than slightly obnoxious suggesting that Fox News is fascist.
Sunday, February 2, 2020
Trump, Evangelicals, Israel, and anti-semitism
When it comes to progressive supporters of the Palestinians, it’s more complicated. Yes, even as a supporter of the Palestinians, I readily admit there is some anti-Semitism. There is ignorance of the large minority of Jewish-Americans who support the Palestinians. There is a ridiculously flawed understanding of how much power Jewish-Americans have over foreign policy. There is tolerance for attacks aimed at intentionally killing civilians.
But in my experience most progressive supporters of the Palestinians are not anti-semitic. Many are Jewish.
What about American supporters of Israel? There’s some leftists and the liberal and moderate Democrats who support Israel, but their numbers are declining. A majority of people who support Israel are Republicans. As I’ll explaIn, the idea that these people are motivated by opposition to anti-Semitism is ridiculous.
All of them, including a small number who are atheists, support Israel because they were our ally during the Cold War and they mistakenly believe that Israel is a helpful ally in the War on Terror.
The ones who are evangelical Protestants (and according to the Pew research Center, in 2014 45% of registered voters who are republican or lean republican are evangelical) believe that Jewish control of that part of the middle-east will bring about the second coming of Christ. According to the PRC:
“In a July 2003 Pew survey, fully 44% of Americans expressed their belief that God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jewish people. In a Pew survey a year ago in August 2005, 22% of Americans said that their religious beliefs were the biggest influence in determining their support for the Jewish state.”
About half of evangelicals also believe in something called the rapture. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “The Rapture, in Christianity, the eschatological (concerned with the last things and Endtime) belief that both living and dead believers will ascend into heaven to meet Jesus Christ at the Second Coming (Parousia).” (I’m Catholic and not very familiar with such things). Jews will either become christians or will perish, according to about half of evangelicals.
UPDATE 2/9/20 there are polls indicating minorities (small and large) of evangelicals are liberal on some issues. I'd be surprised if they are among the ones who believe in the Rapture and I'd be surprised if these Evangelicals with liberal tendencies vote Republican all the time. It might be safe to say that the vast majority of Evangelicals who consistently vote republican believe in the Rapture.
As I said, I’m Catholic and not familiar with theology, but I believe that we all go to the same heaven (well, out of respect for the beliefs of people who are neither Christian, Muslim nor Jewish, maybe just Muslims, Jews and Christians (I'd probably add the Druze to this)). If the Rapture is going to happen, in my version the Jews will ascend as well.
Although I couldn’t find the poll I found 10 years ago on the PRC site about the idea that Jews killed Christ I wouldn’t be surprised if many Republicans believe that they did.
In N. Ireland in the last 20 years support for the Palestinians in the Nationalist (Catholic) community has blossomed so much that when the Irish flag is displayed it is often accompanied by Palestinian flags and some times it is temporarily replaced by the Palestinian flag. In response to this and perhaps in solidarity with fellow bigoted settlers, often Israeli flags have been seen the Unionist (Protestant) community. At least some of those Israeli flags were erected by the Ulster Defense Association, a group that has often welcomed visiting British Nazi skinheads. In fact at one point they had to temporarily take down the Israeli flags before such a visit (in all fairness they didn't replace them with the Nazi flag, but they WERE flying the Union Jack in British-occupied Ireland, which is almost as bad).
Although this might arguably have more to do with racism than anti-semitism, Trump has often been, at least averse to conflict with the far-right. Eve if it IS just racism, if he were the friend of the Jewish people some like to say he is, he would have immediately and forcefully disavowed David Duke's support when he first heard about it (in all fairness, Trump's response in an interview was:
As I said, he's not a passionate opponent of anti-Semitism unless it involves American foreign policy and fucking over a mostly Muslim population. He also displayed this lack of passion after the murder of an anti-fascist protester by fascists in Charlottesville- a woman was killed and he couldn't rouse enough passion to simply condemn those responsible (his first response failed to do that and in general his responses leaned towards favoring the fascists)- apparrently his racism is more important to him than his opposition to anti-Semitism.
UPDATE 2/24/20 In 2016 Trump gave a speech that was pretty easy to interpret as anti-semitic. There is an article about it here. As far as I can tell, JTA is a good source, not sure to what small or slight degree it's pro-Israel or how liberal it is. It seems pretty professional and only slightly pro-Israel and maybe a little liberal.
UPDATE 2/24/20 According to this, Trump gets along with the leader of Hungry, Victor Orban. This discusses Orban's treatment of Jews. The article says that Orban claims Jewish philanthropist George Soros is supporting illegal immigration into Hungry. A senior leader of the Jewish community in Hungry sort of defends Orban but crucially says that he doesn't believe the conspiracy theory against Soros. If this man is right and Soros is innocent, why does Orban (very publicly) make the accusation? I think it's because of anti-Semitsm. Also the organization of Orban's Jewish defender is heavily supported by the government- admittedly that might erode what I'm saying, but not necessarily. MANY bigots are simply not consisent (i.e. I've heard of Nazi skinheads eating Thai food, and when a Chinese politician in N. Ireland accused an element of the Orange Order of being racist towards the Chinese community there, those accused responded by claiming (probably honestly) that they love Chinese food) and it's not irrelevant that the Nazis used a small but significant number of Jews as collaborators just before and during the Final Solution). Lastly, at least some Jewish leaders in Hungry ARE greatly concerned about Orban. Orban probably IS an anti-Semite.
UPDATE 2/2/8/20 On a related note, a poll recently found that any of the Democratic presidential candidates would beat Trump 2-1 among Jewish-Americans and that includes anti-AIPAC Jew Sanders and anti-AIPAC non-Jew Warren. There is also information about how American Jews feel about Trump's Israel policy, which dents the idea that he is supporting Israel the extreme way he is because Jewish-Americans want him to.
UPDATE 3/9/20 There's an article about anti-Semitism at Fox News.
UPDATE 6/17/20 There's an article here about a senior GOP politician pushing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about liberal Jewish billionaire philanthropist George Soros controlling the Dems. UPDATE 2/4/21 An article here contains (towards the bottom) news about her promoting another anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
UPDATE 7/8/21 An article about Taylor Greene TWICE comparing anti-COVID-19 efforts with what Nazi Germany did.
UPDATE 9/18/20 Trump spoke to Jewish-Americans as if Israel and not America was their country.
UPDATE 7/8/21 An article here contains an accusation that Trump spoke positively about Hitler.
UPDATE 2/27/22 An article here about two GOP congresspeople attending an event organized by an anti-Semite.
UPDATE 11/26/22 An article about Trump associating with anti-Semites.
UPDATE 9/19/23 An article about Trump making anti-Semitic statements.
UPDATE 9/14/24 An article here is about an apparent dirty-tricks GOP operation aimed at discouraging critics of Israel from voting for Harris- partly because her husband is Jewish. Although I'm not sure they are necessarily anti-Semites, what they are doing can easily result in more anti-Semitism in this society.
UPDATE 9/18/24 There is an AMAZING article here suggesting that JD Vance is pretty soft on anti-Semitism in the GOP.
UPDATE 9/21/24 And article about Tucker Carlson and Holocaust revisionism ("revisionism" is the term used, and might be a little more accurate than "denial" but "denial" also works pretty well).
UPDATE 10/11/25 An article about Jewish-American groups moderately criticizing Trump for saying something anti-Semitic.
UPDATE 10/27/25 An article about how the Trump administration A) has nominated for an important government job a man widely seen as an anti-Semite and B) has, in pursuit of that effort, misrepresented the positions on the issue of between one and four powerful Jewish and/or Israeli organizations. Apparently if Jewish people might be involved, the Administration just says organizations support their likely-bigoted nominee even when that is not the case.
UPDATE 6/13/26 An article about anti-Semitism in the GOP- I feel safe assuming that most of these people are at least sort of pro-Israel.
UPDATE 2/28/20 The Austrian Parliament, including the far-right party I referred to above, passed a measure condemning Israel-related anti-Semitism. It briefly referred to anti-Semitism in general but was focused on the kind about Israel. I think this is similar to what I wrote about Trump and college campuses.
UPDATE 2/28/20 IF (and it might be a huge if) anyone says that the Jews are a race and therefore they have a right to self-determination, here's my response: A) No, races don't have a right to self-determination (does the white race have a right to self-determination?); B) The Nazis certainly thought Jews were a race, and C) are such hypothetical supporters of Israel saying that Israel is a racial state?
UPDATE 3/2/20 If the definition I discuss above is referring to Jewish-Israelis as having a right to self-determination, settlers and their descendants don't have that right- white people in America don't, Unionists in N. Ireland don't, Protestants there don't.
Who are the real anti-Semites?
Friday, April 22, 2016
The Irish, Slavery, and Racism Today
This is fairly embarrassing, but earlier there were three posts on this blog that claimed that Cromwell sent 10s of thousands of Irish people to the Caribbean to work as slaves. First of all, I never said or even thought, not even briefly, any of the offensive claims about slavery attributed to racists in that article (that is, the following: "that “Irish slaves” were treated far worse than black slaves; that there were more “Irish slaves” than black slaves; that “Irish slaves” were worth less than black slaves, that enslaved Irish women were forced to breed with enslaved African men, and that the Irish were slaves for much longer than black slaves;" or, "overtly racist statements, e.g. 'yet, when is the last time you heard an Irishman bitching and moaning about how the world owes them a living?' ”). But after discussing it with three knowledgeable people, I know now I was wrong to refer to the Irish in the Caribbean as slaves who were treated the same as African slaves. I'm not sure where I got that from. They were more or less forced into indentured servitude, although they would have worked in slave-like conditions and many or MOST died before earning their freedom (they lasted about 3-7 years). Their children did not become slaves (I somehow got the idea that 1-2 generations would have been born slaves and then that practice would have died out somehow (I could see the British doing that for 1-2 generations and then a majority of decision-makers deciding that the Irish were white enough that their forced labour shouldn't be hereditary- that that would apply only for Africans)). In fact, a friend knowledgeable about this told me that some of the Irish, after earning their freedom, became overseers of the slaves or even slave owners themselves.
One of the three references to this issue on this blog was in a poem and it made the most sense for me to remove the issue from that poem. The other two I fixed a bit and left them there.
Tom
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
"They’d be killed if they were black"
It's about the militia/Patriot take-over of a federal building in Oregon.
Tom
Saturday, August 8, 2015
British Fools: Three more poems
For more about my poems, see this. For the rest of the poems, click the "lyrics" label at the bottom of this post- there are several pages worth, so use the "older posts" link at the bottom.
1. Fash Are Fools. About fascists in America.
2. Troops Out. About dissent among British soldiers in N. Ireland.
3. Hitler's A Fool. About WWII.
“Fash Are Fools” based on “Reds Are Fools” by Kill, Baby, Kill original lyrics are here.
1. Brown is the color of fascism.
2. Partitioned basically means divided.
3. I give this poem 4 stars out of 5.
**4. 36% of this version is me, 64% is the original.
5. This is about the broad struggle against fascism and would be about 99% non-violent.
6. UPDATE 8/9/15 I made a HUGE mistake with the second line of the last verse but have now corrected it.
The struggle’s far from over, we’ve got a long, long way to go.
We haven’t won the fight yet, that's a fact that we all know.
Still too many people are supporting the brown lie,
but soon the truth will set 'em free and fascism will die.
The swastika’s a symbol for division and hate
A worthless, sick, corrupt nation is their ideal state
Like Apartheid, they want the working-class partitioned
And like Hitler, want the Left dead or imprisoned
We’ll never fly the swastika, no matter what they try
cause we all know that fash are fools, their ideology’s just a lie.
They hail the wrong ideals, a choice they will regret.
We’ll always keep on working till fascism is dead.
Nazism is genocidal, we’ve seen it once before.
The Jews were almost wiped out, a fact we can’t ignore.
Why are the Nazis still trying? They will never win
America belongs to the workers of all peoples, we are all each other’s kin
***********
“Troops Out” based on “Fools No More” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.
1. The first 2-4 lines are about an IRA bmb attack at Narrow Water that resulted in 18 British soldiers being killed.
2. The red white and blue refers to the British flag.
3. One example of the lying to British soldiers is that they were told while training for deployment to the Six-Counties that the IRA would attack Protestant funerals.
4. The reasons why it shouldn’t matter that there’s a pro-British majority are described towards the top of this post.
5. Another part is the question of imperialism. Along with what I refer to in #4, I would also add that in multiple ways, the population in the South has to one degree or another since partition claimed the north as politically part of the Irish nation. For example, two of the three most recent Presidential terms have been filled by a woman from the North- without changing her nationality or anything like that, she was voted in as President of Ireland.
6. The original first line of the 3rd verse actually says “always” instead of “rarely.” But I can imagine a LOT of chickenhawks (in general, not just in Britain) waving the flag and a lot of veterans being less enthusiastic about that.
7. I believe that one factor behind the British presence is that N. Ireland does offer a well-educated but low-paid and politically weak working-class which are more or less divided by sectarian bigotry (almost all of which is aimed at Catholics and those who identify as Irish). More evidence for this is found in the following facts taken from the book Northern Ireland: the Orange State by Michael Farrell:
“In 1974 45% of all firms in Northern Ireland employing 500 or more workers were controlled from Britain, as were 28 out of 51 firms employing between 250 and 500 workers” p. 326
(See the 4th note for the poem here)
*8. 58% of this version is me, 42% is the original. (after I changed the chorus)
9. I give this poem 3 out of 5 stars.
10. UPDATE 8/16/15 Skrewdriver were British and supporters of the British and unionist causes in N. Ireland.
10. UPDATE 3/20/20 I realized that the chorus was written in the first person, not the second person, so I almost completely changed it.
11. UPDATE 3/20/20 The Troops Out Movement was a British anti-Partition group.
12. UPDATE 3/29/20 When I say thousands, that's an estimate for people from Britian who were more or less in a military or paramilitary group, the last 220-250 years of the six-county area that is now N. Ireland, and it's probably about 1,200, no more, so maybe hundreds would have been more accurate, but not much more.
Fire fills the air, there’s smoke in the sky
you’re knocked down, and 18 die
You're looking around, with fear in your eyes
Looking for the enemy and you still wonder why
Obey all your orders, British pride aflame
But in truth you’re a pawn in their imperialistic game
And your leaders are not honest with you
they lie, as they fly, the red white and blue
(chorus)
Don't be a fool anymore
Talk to the Troops Out Movement and learn the score
Thousands of Brits have died in this land
And it's never been for the good of the British working-woman or man
Many died for profit and political greed
But it's always the soldiers not the leaders who bleed
Without exception the tories are scum
Who lie to the people whilst they beat on their drums
And they claim it’s because there’s a Unionist majority
But it’s imperialism, capitalism, and just plain bigotry
(chorus)
It's rarely been those with the flags in their hands
Who have fought and have died in N. Ireland
Yeah, while the leaders stay home with their massive cigars
you were lucky if you were traveling in armored cars
They take all the fame, the businesses take all the pounds
By exploiting labor in British factories on Irish ground
And if you dare to object and ask them to cease
You'll get a visit from their political police
********
“Hitler’s A Fool” based on “Reds are Fools” by Kill, Baby Kill, original lyrics are here.
1. This is about the period shortly after D-Day in WWII.
2. Obviously it wasn’t the Nazis that committed genocide against the Indians, but what happened was roughly as genocidal as what the Nazis planned for (and almost succeeded at) in Eastern Europe. That rhyming couplet was inspired by the title of a hardcore punk song called “John Wayne was a Nazi.”
3. The second to last line of the last verse kind of exaggerates what the Allies were doing to stop the Holocaust.
3. I give this poem four stars out of five.
**4. 51% of this version is me, 49% is the original.
5. UPDATE 8/9/15 As I was preparing this for publication, I knew there was some explanation I was forgetting to make. I exaggerate some how aware the Allies were about the Final Solution and A LOT how concerned white Americans were about American Indians and I probably exaggerate a little how concerned the Allies were about European Jews. But, having acknowledged that, I think it is a good poem.
6. UPDATE 1/24/16 I know that probably no more than half of the US military in WWII could have been called anti-fascist, but at the same time, as I say in another WWII poem, "although the Allied leaders are not consistent/Defeating the fascist states is important."
The war’s far from over, we got a long, long way to go.
We haven’t won the fight yet, that's a fact that we all know.
Still too many German soldiers are supporting the brown lie,
but soon our armor will take them down and the Nazi state will die.
The hammer and the sickle is a symbol of our allies
They beat back the nazis on land and in the skies
With bullshit propaganda Hitler pushes Germans to fight.
Fascism has taken Europe into a long night
We’ll never give them quarter, unless the white flag they fly
cause we all know that fash are fools, that their ideas are just a lie.
They started this fucking war, a choice they will regret.
‘cause we’ll always keep on fighting till they’re no longer a threat
Nazism is genocidal, we’ve seen it once before.
The American Indians are still recovering, a fact we can’t ignore.
Why is the SS still trying? We’re gonna smash those anti-Semites
Europe belongs to free peoples, and their democracy, and their human rights
Monday, May 20, 2013
Two New Poems: "Hundred Million Died" and "Smash the Klan"
“Hundred Million Died,” based on “Six Million Lies” by No Remorse, original lyrics are here.
1. I think 100 million is a pretty good figure from what I’ve read (for what happened in what is today the US). This is about what happened to American Indians, and sort of about what is continuing (it focuses on the first 2-4 centuries). I know that most deaths were probably the result of hunger and/or disease instead of bullets, but to a large degree that can be blamed on the imperialists as well. The fact is, the European presence resulted in epidemics; native communities were losing their land, being marched at gun-point to new lands, experiencing trauma of a sort that might be called national, or racial (one where their communities were turned upside down), etc.
2. The phrase “living space” is English for a term from Nazi Germany about what they were after in the East.
3. I give this poem five stars out of five.
4. **73% of this version is me, 27% is the original.
5. Occasionally I use words like"fight" and actually mean non-violent "fighting"; in this poem I was thinking of a response to genocide where the response is PROBABLY about 99% non-violent.
A hundred million really did die,
covered up by the racist lies
Killed by the settler state, we have the proof
Why did they try to cover up the truth?
They’re scared it would ruin American mythology
Pocahontas, Thanksgiving, manifest destiny
(chorus)
A hundred million of the human race
In order to get more “living space”
Death from the small-Pox blanket
Biological warfare we won’t forget
The worst genocide in history
They wanted the white man to be free
To take all the land that he could see
“From sea to shining sea”
But the Indian spirit didn’t die and they continue to fight
For their freedom, equality and human rights
(chorus)
So let's make America bigot free
If we keep working, we’ll make them agree
This society is rotten to the core
It's justice we’re out for in this long war
With honor and respect we'll surely win
And they know, we’ll finish what we begin
****
“Smash The Klan” based on “Smash The IRA” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.
1, The original is by a racist band.
2. Of course in some ways we didn’t completely defeat the fascists, but we did defeat almost all of their states (I sometimes forget about Spain and Portugal, we didn’t defeat them) and that’s a pretty big step towards defeating them completely.
3. The KKK did use bombs while attacking the civil rights movement and also in more recent decades.
4. I believe that a major factor that leads many white people to racism is economic insecurity among white working-class people.
5. I heard, about 12-13 years ago that a member of a good socialist group (the Young Democratic Socialists) was trying to organize workers, (I believe it was) in Indiana, and said that his competition was the Klan (UPDATE 1/26/22 That is, competition for the hearts and minds of the workers).
6. Overall I’m fairly okay with denying the Klan use of public streets (I have mixed feelings and would probably abstain on that question, unless it was something especially bad like marching through a residential area with a lot of people of color, in which case I would support blocking them) but that 2nd line of of the 3rd verse is a lot more general about stopping them, not just on the streets, but also in various media, via various political campaigns, etc.
7. “No Pasaran” is an anti-fascist slogan first used in Spain’s Civil War, and means “they shall not pass.”
8. I give this poem three stars.
9. **64% of this version is me, 36% is the original.
10. I am thinking of this anti-Klan stuff the poem is describing being almost 100% non-violent.
11. Update 5/31/13 In the last verse, I changed "nazi" to "racial.
In the cities and towns the battle rages on
American people fighting for their land
Defeated the South and the Nazis
Gonna stop ‘em, stop the Ku Klux Klan
Chorus:
Smash! Smash! The KKK!
Smash! Smash! The KKK!
Smash! Smash! The KKK
Remember the victims of their bombs
Gotta change government policies and dry up their base
Gain economic justice for every race
The Klan, the unions will displace
And racism, it will be erased
(Repeat Chorus)
The KKK are are marching on our streets demanding a racial state
Are we gonna stop them or let them spread their hate?
Are we gonna let them blame immigrants when workers ask why?
“No Pasaran” is what we cry!
(Repeat Chorus)
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
The KKK are Fools: Three more poems
1. Join The IRA. Guess what it's about.
2. No Surrender (to the KKK). Guess.
3. Orange Fools. About the broad Nationalist/Republican struggle in N. Ireland, only slightly pro-IRA.
For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least four pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).
“Join The IRA” based on, “Join The Klan” by The Klansmen, original lyrics are here.
1. The Klansmen was a project of Ian Stuart Donaldson, who was a supporter of the British and Unionist causes in N. Ireland.
2. Volunteers are members of republican paramilitaries.
3. This is about the Provisional IRA (in recent decades known simply as the IRA) and is basically set during the Troubles, prior to 1997, and probably AFTER the mid-1970s, since it includes a lot of socialist talk and I don’t think there was a socialist majority in the leadership of the PIRA until sometime around 1980. Something at least close to revolution was on their agenda for around 15 years after that point. (in general it seems safe to say that SF’s politics more or less mirrored those of a majority of IRA members). Also, there’s reason to believe that the armed struggle of republicans inspired other forms of resistance (the African National Congress said that about their armed struggle in S. Africa). It refers to "the People" at the end and that's basically a reference to people who are more or less IRA supporters as described below.
4. The BA is the British Army.
5. James Connolly was Ireland’s greatest republican/socialist. Michael Collins was a major leader of the IRA during the War of Independence and has been credited with developing urban guerrilla warfare. Che is Che Gueverra, who has been credited with developing rural guerrilla warfare.
6. “Óglaigh na hÉireann” is the official name of the IRA and means “Irish Volunteers.”
7. In the Irish-British context, orange is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry.
8. Geographically, N. Ireland could sort of be called the north-east of Ireland.
9. I give this poem two stars out of five.
10. **68% of this version is me, 32% is the original.
11. UPDATE 5/14/12 The "People" was basically just the nationalist population, but they were the ones being oppressed and were 1/3 of the population (I'm not saying that entire 1/3 was in support of the IRA, but 40% of that population supported the IRA and probably around 40% KIND OF supported the IRA, and to either a large or small degree there was mass struggle).
12. UPDATED 2/5/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
be a Volunteer, fight for what is right
Socialist revolution, we will ignite
Fighting for the day, when the BA’s gone away
In the tradition of Connolly, Collins, and Che
Óglaigh na hÉireann, the people's Army
Freeing the country from the Brits and bourgeoisie
The orange terror raised it's ugly head
With the Provos, resistance became widespread
The Irish flag is held up high
James Connolly’s spirit will never die
The People are rising in the north-east
In battle the IRA takes on the beast
*****
“No Surrender (to the KKK)” based on “No Surrender (to the IRA) by Strikeforce UK, original lyrics are here.
1. This is about non-violent opposition to the Ku Klux Klan. Uusally the original lyrics my poems are based on leave little room for writing a poem like this, but I wanted to a poem about non-violent opposition to the Klan and this seemed like the best chance.
2. The original is by a racist band.
3. Fighting the Klan would partly involve, directly and directly trying to change their minds in various ways and alternative events during klan rallies, etc..
4. The line about David Duke is, in the original (with Gerry Adams instead) a reference to death. But in this version, it would be either prison, and/or isolation and defeat as his followers leave him.
5. This version is **37% me, and 63% the original.
6. I give this poem four stars out of five.
7. I know Duke technically isn’t a Klansman.
No surrender!
No surrender to the KKK
Across the US, defeating them is our crusade
We stand by the multi-racial working-class
The Klan’s hate and division, workers will surpass
Chorus:
No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the KKK
No surrender, no surrender, we’ll fight them every day
No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the Ku Klux Klan
No surrender, no surrender, we’ll fight until they understand
Their terrorist attacks are going on still
And they don't give a fuck who they maim and kill
David Duke better wave bye bye
Cos the Ku Klux Klan’s defeat is nigh
Chorus
No surrender!
We will smash that racist scum
No time to lose cos the battle's begun
We're loyal to the working-class and we're gonna win
We will not back down and we'll never give in
Chorus
*****
“Orange Fools” based on “Reds Are Fools” by Kill, Baby, Kill. The original lyrics are here.
1. This is set pretty much in July 2002.
2. The original is by a Belgian band. I’m not sure, but since there is probably close to zero Irish diaspora in Belgium, they probably agree with the late Ian Stuart Donaldson and support the British and Unionist causes in N. Ireland.
3. Although the vast majority of republicans have, to some degree, put the push for a United Ireland on hold, I’m sure all of that vast majority agree that the GFA is kind of a stepping stone to their goal.
4. Some things that indicate a continuing inequality for Catholics (the first two indicators were worse in 2002):
A: In 2010 Catholics were 50% more likely to be unemployed than Protestants.
B: I discuss some recent figures relevant to reforming the police in N. Ireland in the first five or so paragraphs of this post.
C: In the year before July 2002, there had been three sectarian murders of Catholic civilians and one murder of a Protestant civilian socializing with Catholic friends, all by loyalist paramilitaries. (The Ulster Defense Association was blamed by pretty much everyone, but the British government said their cease-fire was intact)
D: During the Marching Season of 2002 at least three times Orange parades were forced through Catholic areas and there were at least three times when nationalists protesting this were attacked by the police and the Army. (For why those marches shouldn't be forced through catholic areas, see this)
5. The Union Jack is the British flag.
6. The Good Friday Agreement, when considering the context and related elements, such as the use or absence of internment, is better than the earlier efforts at creating peace. As far as the actual text of the Agreement, republicans got: Prisoner releases (which would have been at least sort of important for probably about 80% of the Nationalist community); a stronger committment to reforming the police; and in general their inclusion without prior decommissioning by the IRA. More of my thoughts relevant to the GFA are in the first 1/3 of this post.
7. The Orange Order is an anti-Catholic group. More on them here.
8. Besides being anti-Catholic to one degree or another, a lot of Unionists are also racist. There’s some more of that in the first 1/2 of this post (I also read an article by an African-American who visited the North and he said that in a Unionist area he saw lots of Confederate flags).
9. The UDA is a Unionist death squad that overwhelmingly just killed Catholic civilians.
10. Orange in the British-Irish context, is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry. That line is about the beginning of the Troubles.
11. The Short Strand is a Catholic enclave surrounded by Unionist areas (and a river to the west). For some number of weeks in early-mid 2002, it was under siege. Although I think this went too far, a senior member of the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party compared what was happening to the Short Strand with what happened to Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. That line doesn’t mean that the IRA should have gone back to war.
12. Overwhelmingly, the enemy in the N. Ireland conflict is/was not the “Nazi clowns”- that last 1/3 of that line is simply an anti-fascist statement.
13. **61% of this version is me, 39% is the original.
14. I give this poem four stars out of five.
15. This is more or less about the broad anti-Unionist/Nationalist/Republican struggle with the sort of exception of the line about going to war, which is more specifically about the IRA.
16. UPDATE 2/9/13 In the third line of the third verse, I replaced THEY with MANY.
The struggle’s not over, we’ve got a long way to go.
We haven’t won our freedom yet, that's a fact that we all know.
There are still too many ways equality is denied,
but soon the truth will break free and unionism will die.
The Union Jack in Belfast is a symbol of oppression.
But after decades of resistance, we extracted some concessions
With bullshit propaganda the Orange Order kept people divided.
The unionist rich are to blame, for decades hate they incited
We’ll always fly the Irish flag, no matter what they try
Cause Unionists are bigots, Confederate flags they fly.
Many supported the UDA, a choice filled with hate
We’ll keep on working, till their bigotry we negate.
Orange Democracy was a lie, we had to go to war.
Now the Short Strand is under siege, a fact we can’t ignore.
Why are they still trying? They can’t keep us down.
Ireland belongs to the workers, the people, and not the Nazi clowns