(The red is a reference to the liberal-progressive politics of ST (red's not very accurate, but there are no "pink alerts"))
There's not a bad chance that "In The Spirit of Malcolm X" will be the last large post on N. Ireland that I do, although you can expect small ones something like once a month in response to events, plus I'll probably continue bringing Ireland into almost everything else I talk about (the tourist people there pay me to : )). Although I didn't intend for it to be like this, the "blog" resembles more a web-site, and I think I'm done providing all the large chunks of information about N. Ireland. From now on the posts will probably be about 1,000 words and will be responses to current events, often in the form of comments I make on some other blog, more lyrics and maybe some other stuff as it comes up.
This will be the first of at least two, at some point about seven posts on what is a passion of mine. Although it's accurate to say I'm just short of being a Trekkie/Trekker (there's debate about which is what, and I don't care), I am certainly a Star Trek fan. And there are three Irish connections (YAY!!).
1. At the bottom of my four favorites of the main characters is Miles O'Brien, primarily on DS9, although he was cool on TNG. It's probably true that part of why I like him is that he's Irish. Although in the ST universe this is no biggie, in the 1990s it was still very uncommon for there to be interracial marriages, and he and Keiko make a good couple. In general he's a good guy, but among the main characters in all the series who are Starfleet, I think he might be the most flawed, which I like. Towards the beginning of DS9, he's kind of a jerk to Bashir. Also, although it's mild and the show makes it clear the other characters and Starfleet disapprove, he's kind of an anti-Cardassian bigot.
2. In a TNG episode about what they refer to as "terrorism," it's stated that such struggle resulted in Ireland being united at some point (2024). Although I can't remember how well they discussed the issue of "terrorism" and they probably didn't define it well if at all, they did seem to lean towards approving of how Ireland was united. So much so that the British channel showing ST didn't show that episode originally.
3. I'm adding this because I might, over the course of the next two years or something, do many posts on this (of course in that situation, a second blog might be better, but if I keep it all on the same blog, everyone will see both, and they are connected). As I'll describe further below, there's a lot stuff in ST compatible with the progressive-left politics of this blog. And as far as the republicanism, well, a major theme in DS9 is the Bajoran resistance to Cardassian Occupation (which ends just before that series begins), and there's other things in ST about resistance to national oppression comparable to what has happened in N. Ireland.
This post will be a more general intro to my thoughts about ST, in later posts, maybe MUCH later, I'll go into some more details.
THE ORIGINAL SERIES MOVIES I like, although I'm not so sure about the very first, and "The Voyage Home." My favorite would probably be "The Undiscovered Country."
THE TNG MOVIES "Insurrection" and "First Contact" were good-great, "Generations" was okay-good, "Nemesis" was okay, although I'm not sure how I feel about Data dying.
The latest movie. My timing on wanting to do posts about ST could be better. Probably won't be seeing it anytime soon for various reasons.
UPDATE 3/2/11 I have since seen the new movie. In general I liked it, except for the part where it deviated from ST canon by destroying Vulcan years or decades before events in The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager.
THE ORIGINAL SERIES Probably seen each episode an average of once, probably 1/3 of the episodes I haven't seen at all, and most of the total number of viewings (probably about 80) would have been in the 1980s. As you might guess, my least favorite of the series. Not sure why. It's not meant as an attack on Roddenberry, who I give a lot of credit to for starting the thing and for the role he played with making the original movies and TNG and laying the basis for my two favorite series, DS9 and Voyager.
I've also heard that TOS had the nation's first TV inter-racial kiss, and that the first woman of color in space, Dr. Mae Jemison, was inspired to apply to NASA by Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura on TOS.
ENTERPRISE My second least favorite series, although it is ST and therefore I'm bummed that it was canceled. Not quite sure why I didn't like it. It was interesting after the three 90s series which focused on one period of the ST universe, to see a very different period- they barely ever used transporters! And the characters were pretty cool.
But the politics were either relatively absent compared to the 90s series, or sometimes not what you would expect from ST. The third season was inspired by 9/11 and although the details are mixed and we can debate, it leaned towards a "Crusade" type response to a terrorist attack on Earth. Also, there was one scene where Archer basically endorses torture. Now, this came up once before, in Voyager, where Janeway uses torture, but in that scene, Chakotay intervenes and later, when she re-instates Chakotay (he was suspended or something for intervening) she acknowledges that he was right and she was wrong. That didn't happen with Archer.
UPDATE 5/2/10
1. I have watched all the ENT episodes since I typed this (it was the 2nd time I'd gone through them, the first being about seven years ago) and I found almost as many bits of progressive politics per episode as I found with Voyager and The Next Generation.
2. I also have become a bigger fan of ENT partly because it shows a technologically different period in Starfleet history (i.e. where they use shuttles more than the transporter) (and it's also before the Federation was formed and when there was tension between humans and vulcans).
I've only seen each episode an average of 2 times, so I think I'll skip some of the details that I'll be going into with the next three series.
UPDATE 3/2/11
I will now look at the main characters on Enterprise as I did with most of the other series. I'll look at the political themes of the series soon, after I have finished watching the series this time around.
Archer- Sometimes he kind of annoyed me, but I pretty much liked him
T'pol- For some reason I didn't like her very much, but it was a good idea to have a woman as 2nd in command. I think my sort of low opinion about her is probably just that I don't like Vulcans that much.
Trip- I like him a lot. He's laid back, has a good sense of humor, etc. Although I sort of like T'pol as 2nd in command, considering that Trip is a Commander in StarFleet, I really like it when he has to take command of the ship.
Malcolm- I don't like him much.
Phlox- I like him. He has a positive, friendly attitude except when something else is called for. for some reason I think he fits in well as an alien.
Hoshi- Sometimes I feel like she is simply the operator, answering the phone- if that were the case, that would be pretty messed up. Although I wish she had more often gone beyond that, she did have the language skills, and often helped with other stuff. I liked her a lot.
Travis- I have feelings about him comparable to those for Hoshi. I think he really could have had some more scenes where he contributes beyond just piloting the ship or the shuttles.
UPDATE 5/23/11 One last component about ENT. The following political issues came up (this is not an exhaustive list) :
Internment, overwhelmingly based on race (Detained)
AIDS and homophobia (Stigma)
Bigotry and racial oppression (North Star)
Genetic engineering (Borderlands, Cold Station 12, and The Augments)
Religious discrimination (The Forge, Awakening, and Kir'Shara)
Xenophobia (Demons and Terra Prime)
THE NEXT GENERATION In second place as far as series go. The first 2-3 seasons sucked, but after that it got pretty good, although, as I'll explain shortly, the remaining two series would still be ahead even if the first 2-3 seasons were better. I've seen each episode probably about three times on average
A fair amount of liberal-progressive politics- anti-homophobia, political witch-hunts, sexism, refugees, others (it's been about four years since I've watched and currently don't have the money to go through the series, so I'm looking at the one sentence descriptions on startrek.com and using my memory, and am probably forgetting about seven issues that came up as MINOR themes in episodes).
Anti-homophobia- see below.
Political witch-hunts- "Drumhead" is about that.
Sexism- "Angel One" is about a matriarchal society- good idea ladies, give us a taste of our own medicine.
Refugees- "Ensign Ro" The Bajorans, still under Cardassian occupation, are introduced.
Although they were okay-good, Picard and Riker were not my favorites compared to their counter-parts in the other 90s series- in fact, I might almost like Archer and T'Pol from Enterprise more. There was just something annoying about them.
Characters (besides Picard and Riker)
Data- Very good character, although not so much at first, but I think that after a bit I started to really like him.
Geordi LaForge- Basically the same as with Data.
Worf- My feelings about characters towards the beginning of the series might reflect what I said about first 2-3 seasons. But I think I like Worf more than most of the rest. The first Klingon in Starfleet.
Dr. Beverly Crusher- More or less average.
Deanna Troi- I liked her a lot more when they got her out of the civilian, sort of sexy outfit (I've read she was supposed to look sexy, but it more or less didn't work on me, which tells me it was pathetic- I mean, Sirtis is good-looking, but that outfit did nothing but annoy me) and into something more formal, usually her uniform (she was an officer and a counselor). After that, she was pretty cool.
Natasha Yar- since I had almost no choice but to bring this up with Sirtis, Crosby is very good looking (basically all the ST women are, more or less, my favorites are the two Daxes (de Boer and Farrell) and of course Jeri Ryan). I've got mixed feelings about her dying, she was okay, probably would have been better but she died before the show improved.
Dr. Katherine Pulaski- I'd be happier if she hadn't been on the show at all, thank god it was only one season.
Wesley Crusher- In general, I didn't like him.
DEEP SPACE NINE Tied with Voyager as my favorite series. In general, it's possible that independent of anything else, the stories in this series were the best of all the series. It doesn't hurt that since they are partly limited to the area of Bajor and Cardassia, events in one episode frequently come up later, which somehow makes it an even better series- it's neat when some thing or someone pops up again after a season or two, and when the actions in one season have consequences later. Also, it had probably most of the darkest episodes of all the series, and also probably more humor than any other series (usually the dark episodes didn't have much humor, and there were about seven episodes that were mostly light-hearted/funny, and in any case it worked very well). I've seen each episode an average of three times.
Sisko is tied with Janeway as my favorite Captain (although he starts out as a Commander, which is weird). It might be partly because of everything else that I like about the series, and partly because he's black, but he's a pretty cool character in general.
Kira Nerys, although not Starfleet, is second in command, and she's pretty cool, but not my favorite among her counter-parts, she's probably in 2nd place. But she is a very interesting, good character. Her background as a freedom fighter and her religion/spirituality contribute to what an interesting character she is.
(I say that partly because I'm a little annoyed that among the Federation humans, religion seems to have disappeared, suggesting that that's part of the development of humanity just like world unity and some kind of socialism. I'm mildly religious and fairly spiritual, and am glad that such themes were prominent with such an important and well liked character)
Some political themes from this series (quite possibly the most political and progressive of all of them) (I'm skipping some for various reasons):
Palestinians- Although at the beginning of the series the Bajorans are newly liberated from the Cardassians, they are basically representing the Palestinians.
Poverty and Homelessness- A two-parter ("Past Tense") looking at the early part of this century on Earth explores how corporate decision-making leads to homelessness, and shows how to NOT deal with the issue of homelessness.
Freedoms- There's one two-parter ("Homefront" and "Paradise Lost") that focuses on maintaining a free society while combating a dangerous enemy.
Unions- "Bar Association" expresses a fair amount of support for labor unions.
Characters
Odo- Very cool. It's interesting to follow his journey of trying to get a better grip on his origin, and how he adjusts to being human, how he relates to the Founders, etc.
Ezri Dax- Very cool. It's cool to see her adjust to being joined, considering she wasn't planning on being joined and it just happened.
Wof- I like him even better on this show.
Jadzia Dax- Great character, especially her relationship with Sisko, and how her relationships/friendships with Bashir and Worf evolve. I guess I'm okay with her dying, especially considering who replaced her.
Jake Sisko- Not sure I liked him so much when he was very young, although even then his friendship with Nog was interesting and something like the last four seasons he was pretty cool.
Quark- Although I obviously often had a lot of problems with what you might call his political views and some ethical stuff, he was not more than 3/4 bad politically and 1/2 bad ethically, and had his moments where he definitely did the right thing. As far as being entertaining, without Quark the show would have been 3/4 as funny as it was.
Dr. Julian Bashir- Great character. His friendship with O'Brien was pretty cool.
VOYAGER Tied with DS9 as my favorite series. In general, the stories were well written, roughly as well as those on DS9. The general story really got to me- stranded so far from home that it might take somewhere around 75 years to get back, people back home don't know what happened, they have a crew much smaller than what they needed. Also, the aspect where the Maquis were integrated into the crew was very interesting. Although it possibly had less darkness than DS9, it had a similar amount of humor, significantly thanks to the Doctor. I saw each episode an average of three times.
Another part of it is that Janeway is tied with Sisko as my favorite Captain. It's more or less the same reasons as with Sisko, although she's a woman, not black.
One more part is that my favorite second in command is Commander Chakotay. Yes, it's partly because he's Native American (as far as I could tell, it wasn't clear what part of the western hemisphere), and the series in general, and he's a cool guy, plus some more. I find the whole thing about the Maquis being integrated into the crew fascinating, and the relationship between him and Janeway is made more interesting because of that. Also, his spirituality, see above about Kira.
Some political themes:
Nuclear power- "Time and Again" is about an accident at what is the alien equivalent of a nuclear power plant.
Bi-racial identity- Torres is half human, half Klingon, and often struggles with those two parts. Obviously it's not completely comparable to being bi-racial, but it's often talked about in a way that is comparable (her human relatives weren't always nice to her).
Genocide- "Remember" looks at how a people who were not culturally fitting in as society changed were simply exterminated and the genocide covered up.
Environmental racism- "Night" looks at environmental racism.
War Crimes- "Memorial" is about war crimes carried out on an alien planet a long time earlier.
Health-Care- "Critical Care" is about the need for health-care to be available based on need not one's position in society.
Characters
B'Elanna Torres- Her personality is a little rough for me, although I'm not complaining, there should be a good diversity of personalities in ST, and hers might be influenced by A) dealing with being half-human, half-klingon, and B) spending a lot of time as a Maquis. Overall, I like her, somewhere towards the top.
Tom Paris- I like how he evolves from not really caring much about Starfleet to being a good officer, he was a good character.
Neelix- Intermittently annoying, although not as bad as, for example, Jar-Jar Binks in Star Wars I. Overall a good character.
The Doctor- GREAT character, behind Sisko, Janeway, Chakotay and O'brien, possibly my 5th favorite of all the series. Very funny, and the Hologram thing was pretty neat.
Tuvok- Pretty good character.
Seven of Nine- The transformation from Borg to something almost human is awesome.
Harry Kim- Good character, very committed to doing a good job for Starfleet.
Kes- Didn't like her so much, not unhappy that she left, especially considering who replaced her.
ST IN GENERAL
1. It's not clear, probably because of some degree of political diversity on the subject among the creative staff (they're probably mostly liberals and some progressives, maybe 1-2 socialists and aren't committed to articulating a socialist vision) and because of the commercial aspect of their industry and their desire to not be consigned to the wilderness, but the Federation is more or less socialist. Enrichment is described as no longer a goal, here and there there are other things indicating this (i.e. the way health-care is dealt with). The specifics are not gone into, but it still points in the right direction.
2. Homophobia. There's a good wikipedia article on this (my thoughts on wikipedia can be found in the 3rd note of the "notes" post), I think I'll summarize some of what I know and assume that article is in pretty good shape, I have reason to believe it is) (if the article denounces ST as homophobic or claims that Rodenberry was gay, a better source is here (I haven't read that yet, but what I read in the wiki article about seven months ago provoked my memory and seemed something like 99.9% accurate (the only flaw is what I mention below))).
On one hand, ST has been criticized for not having a single non-heterosexual character, but that's unfortunately not true- I say unfortunately because the two clearly non-hetero-sexual characters they had were the mirror universe Kira and the mirror universe Ezri Dax on DS9- the Kira character was a villain, and the Dax character was sort of a villain. So, anti-homophobic critics of ST, we should be happy, there WERE two LGBT characters... and they were more or less villains. : (
One thing I can say for certain is that the episode "The Outcast" made a pretty powerful anti-homophobic statement. It was about an alien race that was androgynous and didn't like the gender-specific romantic relationship that developed between one of them and Riker. When the alien, Soren is scheduled for some kind of brain-washing as a "cure" for what's "wrong," Soren makes a small speech about how she should be able to love who she wants regardless of sex or gender. It was a very powerful statement.
(I just read the Salon piece. It criticises the episode "The Outcast" because Soren's society is basically the religious right's idea of what feminists and the LGBT movement want, but that society is portrayed negatively in the sense that they persecute people who do have gender (and in Soren's case, are also heterosexual))
There's also a bit of anti-homophobia on DS9 when a female Ferengi who Dax thinks is male tells Dax that she's in love with Quark, and, before Dax learns that the Ferengi is female, she reacts in such a way that it indicates she doesn't think it noteworthy that a man would be in love with a man.
3. Racism. TOS featured the first inter-racial kiss on TV. Racism is completely or almost completely eliminated among humans in the Federation and bigotry among member species of the federation seems very close to non-existent (there's probably a few exceptions that I'm forgetting). Racism between species when at least one is not Federation is common, but always portrayed negatively, for example, the anti-Cardassian bigotry of O'Brien on DS9. There are also lots of inter-species couples and their children.
If you look at the characters who are at least half human and are also main characters, somewhere around 40% are people of color. If you consider that while humans throughout the cultural/racial diversity of humanity would have been in Starfleet (all but two of the people I'm counting were Starfleet), and that ST was primarily an American show, and take the average between the % of the world's population that is people of color, and the same for the US, 40% is only something like 10-15% below what it should be, which is sort of acceptable, when combined with the rest of ST's anti-racism. Also, there's Sisko (20% of Captains) and Chakotay (33% of human/part human second-in-commands) (obviously those two figures kind of drag down the over-all picture).
4. Sexism. Pretty good in some ways, although looking at main characters, it was somewhere around 25% women. 20% of Captains were women. 40% of second-in-commands were women. If you adjust for the way that TODAY women are less likely to join the military (almost all the main characters are Starfleet), it looks okay, or maybe good.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Victory or Valhalla
(that's a Nazi saying. Coming from them, I hope it's Valhalla)
Two more songs. Both songs are "Those Lyrics." They're both pretty good but I might only memorize the second one. The second is part of a new trend on this blog.
As I mentioned in the notes for the song "James Connolly," a friend of mine turned me on to the idea of the left re-claiming Valhalla, which is part of Norse mythology and is a place where warriors go after they die. It's basically been claimed by the far-right as their own. I'm probably going to do more songs that work at re-claiming Valhalla. (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)
For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).
Anyway, here are the songs.
"Easter Lillies" based on "Boots and Braces" by Skrewdriver original lyrics are here.
1. This is about republicans in 1981 in the Republic.
2. I've heard that in Dublin marches in support of the hunger-strikers had a chief stewrard who was an ex-POW and who was gay (actually he wasn't out at the time, I have just learned, but he has since become a leading figure in the Dublin LGBT community).
3.The Easter Lilly is a republican symbol, in commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising.
4. That's the British House of Lords.
5. James Connolly was the main leader of the 1916 Easter Rising (the Easter Lilly is a symbol of that rebellion).
6. There's been a LOT of hostility between republicans and the police in the Republic and often it has gotten physical, although probably not much as various events have passed (SF deciding, in 1986, to take their seats if elected to the Dail; the IRA going on cease-fire). Republicans weren't shy about fighting back (I wouldn't be surprised if SF members restrain themselves some in recent years as SF has become more and more mainstream). (UPDATE 2/3/11 What I'm talking about here is fighting WITHOUT firearms or similarly lethal weapons.
7. The Tri-Color is the Irish flag.
8. People with either republican paramilitaries or parties associated with republican paramilitaries were banned from the air-waves in the Republic starting in 1971 (strengthened in '77) and this was only ended in 1994.
9. The "Northern KKK" is the Orange Order.
10. The term "West Brit" has multiple meanings- indigenous/relatively indigenous Irish people sympathetic to the unionists/British in relation to Ireland, friendly to the British monarchy, hostile to Irish culture, friendly to British culture (that last one isn't neccessarily so bad, in this song it refers to the others, especially the support for unionism/the British in relation to Ireland).
11. Green Tories are basically centre-right nationalists, in the South that refers to a political instead of community identity.
**12. 66% of this song is me, 34% is the original.
13. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
15. UPDATE 5/3/12 In the 2nd to last line of the entire poem, I took out the word Northern and replaced it with the word Orange. For more on that, see this. I had a rhyming problem and kind of tossed chronology out the window, since the reference is mostly inspired by the attempt at a "Love Ulster" parade through Dublin about 5 years ago, when the main parties felt that the parade should be seen as acceptable, despite the fact that it was offensive in multiple ways.
Trying to figure out how to end the Northern occupation
Wonder what the future holds for your nation
Being a republican is part of anti-imperialism today
marching on the streets, guided by an ex-POW who's gay,
with your...
(chorus)
Easter Lillies, anti-imperialist hoardes
Easter Lillies, fuck the House of Lords
Easter Lillies, 65 years since the republic was proclaimed
Easter Lillies, we'll keep alive the republican flame
We're determined to finish what Connolly begun
The cops should know that when they attack us we won't run
Berets, Tri-Colors, and just hear the republican roar - (Brits Out!)
No one stands against us, 'cause we've beat 'em all before
(chorus)
Try and get you banned from the air-waves
'Cos you wear the Easter Lilly and stand by those who are brave
They would rather see you smile at the Orange Ku Klux Klan
If you were a West Brit or Green Tory you won't face no ban
Chorus
****
"D-Day" based on "A New Day Arises" by Final War, original lyrics are here.
1. It's basically about D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe in 1944.
3. Initially I changed ridicuously little besides the name, but decided to go further, making changes that were not completely neccessary.
4. 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)
5. It's a serious departure from the approach to thinking about WWII that some would, with some reason, push. I remember Michael Parenti saying that the first part of "Saving Private Ryan" was great, and the rest should have been called "Saving Private Ridiculous." He was referring to how the first part showed how horrible war was. I sort of agree, but would have supported the Allies (I believe that even though it was still horrible as all wars are, it was overall more or less a good war (the allied effort was justified, helpful, an d neccessary, and they more or less (less) conducted themselves honorably)) (I'd be surprised if Parenti didn't agree). And as far as it giving a positive spin on war, the original is fash, so what do you expect?
6. I'm not certain the original lyrics I found are 100% accurate, which is not uncommon with these things, but they're close.
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. I imagine that only something like 1/2 of the American and British forces were motivated by anti-fascism (probably some minority were totally non-political and probably someminority 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.
9. Strand is a word common in Ireland and Britain for beach.
10. I felt weird referring to occupations, considering that this is meant to also refer to the British forces as well. Maybe sometime I'll do some songs about the occupation of N. Ireland (you could say something similar about America).
**11. 40% of this version is me, 60% is the original.
12. Back then, the moonlight was seen as very helpful for airborne operations. The airborne part of D-Day took place the night before (the word "moon" was already there).
13. I give this song/poem five stars out of five.
14. A: I just changed the 2nd line of the 2nd verse- instead of "occupation" it now says "fascist states."
B: I changed it because it wasn't enough to liberate those countries occupied by fascists- it was necessary to invade Italy and Germany.
C: I know that the Allies at various times didn't always do what should have been done to the fascist states (i.e. the US not entering the war earlier).
D: In this note I'm ignoring Spain as a fascist state.
As the sun sets down, on the occupied lands
When the time comes, we will hit the strand
Dreams of freedom live on in the night
Dreams of glorious victory in the anti-fascist fight
Chorus:
When a new day arises, another chance to live
Valhalla echoes, calling us to give
When a new day arises, a voyage - we set sail
Our victory awaits us, we can not fail
Beating the fash is our duty for these lands are yours
The fallen cities and fascist states we cannot ignore
The Airborne have gone in, helped by the moon
And as the new day arises, our victory will be soon
Chorus
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?).
Two more songs. Both songs are "Those Lyrics." They're both pretty good but I might only memorize the second one. The second is part of a new trend on this blog.
As I mentioned in the notes for the song "James Connolly," a friend of mine turned me on to the idea of the left re-claiming Valhalla, which is part of Norse mythology and is a place where warriors go after they die. It's basically been claimed by the far-right as their own. I'm probably going to do more songs that work at re-claiming Valhalla. (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)
For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).
Anyway, here are the songs.
"Easter Lillies" based on "Boots and Braces" by Skrewdriver original lyrics are here.
1. This is about republicans in 1981 in the Republic.
2. I've heard that in Dublin marches in support of the hunger-strikers had a chief stewrard who was an ex-POW and who was gay (actually he wasn't out at the time, I have just learned, but he has since become a leading figure in the Dublin LGBT community).
3.The Easter Lilly is a republican symbol, in commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising.
4. That's the British House of Lords.
5. James Connolly was the main leader of the 1916 Easter Rising (the Easter Lilly is a symbol of that rebellion).
6. There's been a LOT of hostility between republicans and the police in the Republic and often it has gotten physical, although probably not much as various events have passed (SF deciding, in 1986, to take their seats if elected to the Dail; the IRA going on cease-fire). Republicans weren't shy about fighting back (I wouldn't be surprised if SF members restrain themselves some in recent years as SF has become more and more mainstream). (UPDATE 2/3/11 What I'm talking about here is fighting WITHOUT firearms or similarly lethal weapons.
7. The Tri-Color is the Irish flag.
8. People with either republican paramilitaries or parties associated with republican paramilitaries were banned from the air-waves in the Republic starting in 1971 (strengthened in '77) and this was only ended in 1994.
9. The "Northern KKK" is the Orange Order.
10. The term "West Brit" has multiple meanings- indigenous/relatively indigenous Irish people sympathetic to the unionists/British in relation to Ireland, friendly to the British monarchy, hostile to Irish culture, friendly to British culture (that last one isn't neccessarily so bad, in this song it refers to the others, especially the support for unionism/the British in relation to Ireland).
11. Green Tories are basically centre-right nationalists, in the South that refers to a political instead of community identity.
**12. 66% of this song is me, 34% is the original.
13. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
15. UPDATE 5/3/12 In the 2nd to last line of the entire poem, I took out the word Northern and replaced it with the word Orange. For more on that, see this. I had a rhyming problem and kind of tossed chronology out the window, since the reference is mostly inspired by the attempt at a "Love Ulster" parade through Dublin about 5 years ago, when the main parties felt that the parade should be seen as acceptable, despite the fact that it was offensive in multiple ways.
Trying to figure out how to end the Northern occupation
Wonder what the future holds for your nation
Being a republican is part of anti-imperialism today
marching on the streets, guided by an ex-POW who's gay,
with your...
(chorus)
Easter Lillies, anti-imperialist hoardes
Easter Lillies, fuck the House of Lords
Easter Lillies, 65 years since the republic was proclaimed
Easter Lillies, we'll keep alive the republican flame
We're determined to finish what Connolly begun
The cops should know that when they attack us we won't run
Berets, Tri-Colors, and just hear the republican roar - (Brits Out!)
No one stands against us, 'cause we've beat 'em all before
(chorus)
Try and get you banned from the air-waves
'Cos you wear the Easter Lilly and stand by those who are brave
They would rather see you smile at the Orange Ku Klux Klan
If you were a West Brit or Green Tory you won't face no ban
Chorus
****
"D-Day" based on "A New Day Arises" by Final War, original lyrics are here.
1. It's basically about D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe in 1944.
3. Initially I changed ridicuously little besides the name, but decided to go further, making changes that were not completely neccessary.
4. 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)
5. It's a serious departure from the approach to thinking about WWII that some would, with some reason, push. I remember Michael Parenti saying that the first part of "Saving Private Ryan" was great, and the rest should have been called "Saving Private Ridiculous." He was referring to how the first part showed how horrible war was. I sort of agree, but would have supported the Allies (I believe that even though it was still horrible as all wars are, it was overall more or less a good war (the allied effort was justified, helpful, an d neccessary, and they more or less (less) conducted themselves honorably)) (I'd be surprised if Parenti didn't agree). And as far as it giving a positive spin on war, the original is fash, so what do you expect?
6. I'm not certain the original lyrics I found are 100% accurate, which is not uncommon with these things, but they're close.
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. I imagine that only something like 1/2 of the American and British forces were motivated by anti-fascism (probably some minority were totally non-political and probably someminority 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.
9. Strand is a word common in Ireland and Britain for beach.
10. I felt weird referring to occupations, considering that this is meant to also refer to the British forces as well. Maybe sometime I'll do some songs about the occupation of N. Ireland (you could say something similar about America).
**11. 40% of this version is me, 60% is the original.
12. Back then, the moonlight was seen as very helpful for airborne operations. The airborne part of D-Day took place the night before (the word "moon" was already there).
13. I give this song/poem five stars out of five.
14. A: I just changed the 2nd line of the 2nd verse- instead of "occupation" it now says "fascist states."
B: I changed it because it wasn't enough to liberate those countries occupied by fascists- it was necessary to invade Italy and Germany.
C: I know that the Allies at various times didn't always do what should have been done to the fascist states (i.e. the US not entering the war earlier).
D: In this note I'm ignoring Spain as a fascist state.
As the sun sets down, on the occupied lands
When the time comes, we will hit the strand
Dreams of freedom live on in the night
Dreams of glorious victory in the anti-fascist fight
Chorus:
When a new day arises, another chance to live
Valhalla echoes, calling us to give
When a new day arises, a voyage - we set sail
Our victory awaits us, we can not fail
Beating the fash is our duty for these lands are yours
The fallen cities and fascist states we cannot ignore
The Airborne have gone in, helped by the moon
And as the new day arises, our victory will be soon
Chorus
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?).
Friday, May 22, 2009
Patsy O'Hara
It occured to me that the song I wrote earlier about Bobby Sands could and should apply to all the hunger-strikers who died in 1981 (as well as other republicans who died on hunger-strike). I'm not going to do this for all of them on or around the anniversary their deaths, but I think I'll compromise and do it for some. The first member of the Irish National Liberation Army to die on hunger-strike in 1981 was Patsy O'Hara.
This song is "Those Lyrics." It's also one the top 10 out of about 60.
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).
"Son of Ireland" based on "Son of Britain" by Saga, original lyrics are here.
1. Patsy O'Hara was the fourth of 10 republican prisoners to die on hunger-strike in 1981, demanding to be treated as prisoners of war instead of as criminals. See most of the second half of this for how much support they had) (also this for more of the background)
2. Considering the original, I should explain what is probably obvious, that Irish pride is almost always very different from white pride. (I just heard something making me think that it's probably a small minority of northern nationalists that would talk about "Irish pride"; I still feel odd completely re-writing that line, so I'm going to keep it)
3. James Connolly was Ireland's greatest socialist/republican.
4. There are 32-counties in Ireland.
5. Unfortunately, the line about preasuring the enemy is more or less an endorsement of Sinn Fein's strategy, and O'Hara's movement, the RSM, is not very impressed by that, but I can't think of anything to do about this and am reluctant to not mark his death.
**5. 46% of this version is me, 54% is the original.
6. My thoughts on the Republican Socialist Movement are here.
7. I give this song/poem five out of five stars.
UPDATE 2/3/11 8. When I say he was an anti-fascist soldier, I don't mean that the enemy he was fighting was fascist, because overwhelmingly they weren't. But he was anti-fascist and he was a soldier.
UPDATE 2/3/11 9. Derry is N. Ireland's second largest city.
8. There's some anti-fascist stuff, and although the original is by a scandanavian not British Nazi, it's about a british nazi who was a major supporter of the British and Unionist causes.
From the great city of Derry, a warrior came to us.
He inspired courage and bravery in a struggle that's so just
Patsy O'Hara has fallen, but his memory still lives on.
So it will continue, when the British presence has gone.
Chorus:
Our ranks are filled with comrades, marching down the street.
We are preassuring the enemy, let's force them to retreat!
Patsy O'Hara is still marching, walking by our side.
His words are still clear and loud, his spirit full of pride!
Patsy O'Hara's weapon, was the life he was willing to give
His spirit fills my backbone, and there it will always live.
An anti-fascist soldier a man who made Thatcher see
that she could not break those inspired by James Connolly
Chorus
When the 32-County republic rises, we wont forget this man,
who bravely fought and suffered and gave his life for Ireland
Fulfilment of his mission is now our destiny -
To free our nation, and to set our people free.
Chorus
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?).
This song is "Those Lyrics." It's also one the top 10 out of about 60.
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).
"Son of Ireland" based on "Son of Britain" by Saga, original lyrics are here.
1. Patsy O'Hara was the fourth of 10 republican prisoners to die on hunger-strike in 1981, demanding to be treated as prisoners of war instead of as criminals. See most of the second half of this for how much support they had) (also this for more of the background)
2. Considering the original, I should explain what is probably obvious, that Irish pride is almost always very different from white pride. (I just heard something making me think that it's probably a small minority of northern nationalists that would talk about "Irish pride"; I still feel odd completely re-writing that line, so I'm going to keep it)
3. James Connolly was Ireland's greatest socialist/republican.
4. There are 32-counties in Ireland.
5. Unfortunately, the line about preasuring the enemy is more or less an endorsement of Sinn Fein's strategy, and O'Hara's movement, the RSM, is not very impressed by that, but I can't think of anything to do about this and am reluctant to not mark his death.
**5. 46% of this version is me, 54% is the original.
6. My thoughts on the Republican Socialist Movement are here.
7. I give this song/poem five out of five stars.
UPDATE 2/3/11 8. When I say he was an anti-fascist soldier, I don't mean that the enemy he was fighting was fascist, because overwhelmingly they weren't. But he was anti-fascist and he was a soldier.
UPDATE 2/3/11 9. Derry is N. Ireland's second largest city.
8. There's some anti-fascist stuff, and although the original is by a scandanavian not British Nazi, it's about a british nazi who was a major supporter of the British and Unionist causes.
From the great city of Derry, a warrior came to us.
He inspired courage and bravery in a struggle that's so just
Patsy O'Hara has fallen, but his memory still lives on.
So it will continue, when the British presence has gone.
Chorus:
Our ranks are filled with comrades, marching down the street.
We are preassuring the enemy, let's force them to retreat!
Patsy O'Hara is still marching, walking by our side.
His words are still clear and loud, his spirit full of pride!
Patsy O'Hara's weapon, was the life he was willing to give
His spirit fills my backbone, and there it will always live.
An anti-fascist soldier a man who made Thatcher see
that she could not break those inspired by James Connolly
Chorus
When the 32-County republic rises, we wont forget this man,
who bravely fought and suffered and gave his life for Ireland
Fulfilment of his mission is now our destiny -
To free our nation, and to set our people free.
Chorus
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?).
Thursday, May 21, 2009
More on Israel and Anti-Semitism
In this case, I think for now I'll just provide a link to the discussion I've been part of on another blog. It's about a formerly left-wing group in Eugene OR which, through anti-semitism over Israel, has become more right-wing than left-wing. It's here.
For the rest of my stuff on this issue see two posts, one of which is linked to from the first, here.
Actually, although reading the discussion is probably worth your time, I guess I WILL post most of my comments here.
UPDATE 7/20/09 I just realized something. When the bigot talks about how atheist, non-/anti-zionist Jews shouldn't identify as Jewish, I think he was trying to accomplish something else in addition to genocide by decreasing the number of people who identify as Jewish. If non-/anti-zionist Jews stop identifying as Jews, it'll be even easier for people like these bigots to say that supporting Israel is characteristic of all Jews, and that will fuel anti-semitism on the left, and there will be more people susceptible to being recruited by the far-right.
"#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 13th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I am sort of reluctant to tell people this, although I probably should when this comes up, and I have now told three people before this.
In my sophmore year of college, I was mildly anti-semitic. First, it was mild, I never used the K-word, I never thought “those f—ing jews,” I certainly as f— never bought in to Holocaust Denial, but I had some kind of negative attitude towards Jews.
It was largely about Israel. Although it wouldn’t matter if my estimate was right, I had an exaggerated sense of how uncritical J-As are. Same thing with how upper-middle-class they are. I also had two Jewish room-mates, one that year and one the year before, I didn’t get along with, one I even got in a fight with. And to a large degree I didn’t know many Jews till my freshman year of college (although my Mom’s best friend was Jewish).
I did basically nothing about it, I don’t know if it was connected to me organizing an event in support of the Palestinians (no one showed, there was another event on that issue, the same night). I’ve continued supporting the Palestinians, and the speaker I got, I have since learned is very much against anti-semitism, although possibly a little soft on Hamas, and I don’t think I was thinking at the time that he was anti-semitic.
About 3 years later I was organizing Students for Justice in N. Ireland at CU-Boulder with a Jewish woman as a fellow co-chair. Obviously it was not a great leap for me, my problem was pretty mild. I think what did it was that when I spent some time doing an AFL-CIO internship called Union Summer, the assistant site coordinator was Jewish (later on we were kind of friends at college) and there was an Irish-Catholic guy and they did this Catholic/Jewish rivalry thing for laughs, I’m not sure how to describe it, but about 5 years ago on Comedy Central Jon Stewart and Colin Quinn did it.
Not exactly the Angela King story, but I thought I’d mention it.
tom"
****
and
****
"#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 21st, 2009 at 4:28 pm
(apparently the comment I’ve been trying to post is too long. It’s been suggested that I edit it down, but I don’t know what the limit is, and I kind of hate doing that anyway, so I’m doing it in two parts, hope that’s okay)
I actually found the Pacifica Forum web-site, and found some things that contradict what I thought and some things that support what I thought, so I’m basically where I was earlier. Some things that contradict what I thought (or with the last one, makes them look okay, I mean, how many groups do that?):
1) Several links to progressive sources.
2) A link to jewishvoiceforpeace.org (of course for all I know they ARE self-hating, but I doubt it)
3) Fondness for United for Peace and Justice (if they’ve gone bad I probably would have heard about it unless it was the last 6 months)
4) probably 2-3 other minor things.
5) A willingness to feature links to articles critical of them and statements by former members who are critics.
stuff that supports the charges:
2) They had a speaker talk about his passion for the swastika. As far as I can tell it was the traditional swastika, but you do things like have David Irving speak and then have a pro-swastika event, you can’t complain if people connect the dots.
3) Attacks on Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, and Amy Goodman. Must be a coincidence that they’re all Jews. They support the Palestinians, but they’re attacked anyway. With Chomsky it’s specifically because he believes it’s possible that Israel can be preassured to change, but he doesn’t get it that Zionist hate is in the genes (or the talmud, or whatever these sick people at Pacifica think) (as I’m sure those three would agree, the point is that it’s possible to convince Jewish Israelis and their Jewish supporters elsewhere that Israel must dramatically transform how it relates to the Palestinians, and that is very possible- sort of likely, and will be more likely when those supporting the Palestinians make it more clear that anti-semitism is not tolaterated in their ranks). (I’m actually not a big Chomsky fan, Klein seriously annoys me, but I used to love Democracy Now, my not listening recently isn’t a protest).
4. The following is from a page on their site: “‘It is an inconvenient truth that for a section of the Western public, an increase in anti-semitism would lead to a decrease in support for Israel, so Zionism and anti-semitism are sometimes on opposite sides of the fence, rather than two sides of the same coin. It follows that it is impossible to be equally opposed to Zionism and to anti-semitism.’” This is clearly aimed at getting supporters of the Palestinians to be anti-semitic, and could easily be interpreted as hoping for an upsurge in incidents.
to be continued
#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 21st, 2009 at 4:30 pm
part 2 of my comments above
5. I don’t feel like throwing myself into this, but will make a few comments on the page https://pacificaforum.org/posts/10
A: “Real fascists are against Zionism. Their genuine opposition to Jewish supremacy should be openly discussed, not slandered and suppressed.” Sounds like they’re friendly to fascists to me, although elsewhere the author claims to be against fascism, while at the same time making a major attack on anti-fascism (https://pacificaforum.org/mass).
B: “Britain’s main extreme right-wing party, the BNP, embraced Zionism at the same time it abandoned the last trace of anti-semitism - yet the left still calls it ‘Nazi’” This contradicts his claim that anti-fascism is pro-Jewish. I’m not sure how far the BNP has moved on anti-semitism and Israel, I mean, American Renaisance conferences had Jewish speakers as racist allies and anti-semitic speakers at the same time, but events have shown that they liked the anti-semites more than the racist jews, so they were basically anti-semites while providing kosher meals for their racist Jewish friends. Anyway, it does contradict the idea, ridiculous to begin with, that anti-fascism is pro-Jewish- it’s anti-hate, it’s pro-democracy, it’s pro-diversity etc. Also, his statement sounds like he’s complaining about people criticizing the BNP, like he’s still sort of fond of them even after they (to one degree or another) stopped being anti-semitic. It’s possible that without the anti-semitism, fascist is a more appropriate term for the BNP than Nazi, but who cares? The difference is so small that I’m not going to care when someone on the far-right uses that to criticise anti-fascists.
#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 21st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
part 3
6. In a post at https://pacificaforum.org/posts/23 the pacifica writer writes: “I remember the folk singer Leon Rosselson once making a comment at one of his gigs along the lines of
“if you’re of Jewish origin but you’re not religious and you’re not a Zionist there’s not really much point in calling yourself a Jew”.
Unfortunately, he then fudged the issue by claiming to believe in some kind of ‘Jewish spirit’ and then sang a song about it.”
In general the post seems aimed at a method of genocide similar to what happened with American Indians and boarding schools, turning Indians into white people. And it’s stupid. As far as I can tell, (I got this largely from a Jewish-American who was a fellow Ethnic Studies major) being Jewish is also an ethnic/cultural identity, at least for some majority- some are atheists and identify that way solely. There are some others I’m iffy on, but I know of one Jewish person who is an atheist, identifies as Jewish, and supports the Palestinians. Of course she had to throw a wrench into this by telling me she identifies as a religious Jew, but that’s stupid and the facts are the facts: A) she doesn’t believe in God (this is all based on when we were friends about 7 years ago) B) she changed her first name to a traditional Jewish one, C) she talks about Israel by using the word Apartheid. So as far as I can tell, you can be a secular Jew who supports the Palestinians (I suppose to some tiny degree she might call herself a Zionist, but probably not and she does talk about Israeli Apartheid).
7. In that piece on anti-fascism, he makes all sorts of excuses for the killing of Seraw, the Ethiopian killed in Portland OR by boneheads in the late 1980s. More generally he suggests that hate crimes are often something other than hate crimes.
I think that’s about it. I might read more. Like I said, I’m still where I was before, although it was interesting to get some more details. There are basically two Pacifica sites which link to each other. https://pacificaforum.org/ and
http://www.geocities.com/pacificaforum/
Tom"
For the rest of my stuff on this issue see two posts, one of which is linked to from the first, here.
Actually, although reading the discussion is probably worth your time, I guess I WILL post most of my comments here.
UPDATE 7/20/09 I just realized something. When the bigot talks about how atheist, non-/anti-zionist Jews shouldn't identify as Jewish, I think he was trying to accomplish something else in addition to genocide by decreasing the number of people who identify as Jewish. If non-/anti-zionist Jews stop identifying as Jews, it'll be even easier for people like these bigots to say that supporting Israel is characteristic of all Jews, and that will fuel anti-semitism on the left, and there will be more people susceptible to being recruited by the far-right.
"#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 13th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I am sort of reluctant to tell people this, although I probably should when this comes up, and I have now told three people before this.
In my sophmore year of college, I was mildly anti-semitic. First, it was mild, I never used the K-word, I never thought “those f—ing jews,” I certainly as f— never bought in to Holocaust Denial, but I had some kind of negative attitude towards Jews.
It was largely about Israel. Although it wouldn’t matter if my estimate was right, I had an exaggerated sense of how uncritical J-As are. Same thing with how upper-middle-class they are. I also had two Jewish room-mates, one that year and one the year before, I didn’t get along with, one I even got in a fight with. And to a large degree I didn’t know many Jews till my freshman year of college (although my Mom’s best friend was Jewish).
I did basically nothing about it, I don’t know if it was connected to me organizing an event in support of the Palestinians (no one showed, there was another event on that issue, the same night). I’ve continued supporting the Palestinians, and the speaker I got, I have since learned is very much against anti-semitism, although possibly a little soft on Hamas, and I don’t think I was thinking at the time that he was anti-semitic.
About 3 years later I was organizing Students for Justice in N. Ireland at CU-Boulder with a Jewish woman as a fellow co-chair. Obviously it was not a great leap for me, my problem was pretty mild. I think what did it was that when I spent some time doing an AFL-CIO internship called Union Summer, the assistant site coordinator was Jewish (later on we were kind of friends at college) and there was an Irish-Catholic guy and they did this Catholic/Jewish rivalry thing for laughs, I’m not sure how to describe it, but about 5 years ago on Comedy Central Jon Stewart and Colin Quinn did it.
Not exactly the Angela King story, but I thought I’d mention it.
tom"
****
and
****
"#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 21st, 2009 at 4:28 pm
(apparently the comment I’ve been trying to post is too long. It’s been suggested that I edit it down, but I don’t know what the limit is, and I kind of hate doing that anyway, so I’m doing it in two parts, hope that’s okay)
I actually found the Pacifica Forum web-site, and found some things that contradict what I thought and some things that support what I thought, so I’m basically where I was earlier. Some things that contradict what I thought (or with the last one, makes them look okay, I mean, how many groups do that?):
1) Several links to progressive sources.
2) A link to jewishvoiceforpeace.org (of course for all I know they ARE self-hating, but I doubt it)
3) Fondness for United for Peace and Justice (if they’ve gone bad I probably would have heard about it unless it was the last 6 months)
4) probably 2-3 other minor things.
5) A willingness to feature links to articles critical of them and statements by former members who are critics.
stuff that supports the charges:
2) They had a speaker talk about his passion for the swastika. As far as I can tell it was the traditional swastika, but you do things like have David Irving speak and then have a pro-swastika event, you can’t complain if people connect the dots.
3) Attacks on Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, and Amy Goodman. Must be a coincidence that they’re all Jews. They support the Palestinians, but they’re attacked anyway. With Chomsky it’s specifically because he believes it’s possible that Israel can be preassured to change, but he doesn’t get it that Zionist hate is in the genes (or the talmud, or whatever these sick people at Pacifica think) (as I’m sure those three would agree, the point is that it’s possible to convince Jewish Israelis and their Jewish supporters elsewhere that Israel must dramatically transform how it relates to the Palestinians, and that is very possible- sort of likely, and will be more likely when those supporting the Palestinians make it more clear that anti-semitism is not tolaterated in their ranks). (I’m actually not a big Chomsky fan, Klein seriously annoys me, but I used to love Democracy Now, my not listening recently isn’t a protest).
4. The following is from a page on their site: “‘It is an inconvenient truth that for a section of the Western public, an increase in anti-semitism would lead to a decrease in support for Israel, so Zionism and anti-semitism are sometimes on opposite sides of the fence, rather than two sides of the same coin. It follows that it is impossible to be equally opposed to Zionism and to anti-semitism.’” This is clearly aimed at getting supporters of the Palestinians to be anti-semitic, and could easily be interpreted as hoping for an upsurge in incidents.
to be continued
#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 21st, 2009 at 4:30 pm
part 2 of my comments above
5. I don’t feel like throwing myself into this, but will make a few comments on the page https://pacificaforum.org/posts/10
A: “Real fascists are against Zionism. Their genuine opposition to Jewish supremacy should be openly discussed, not slandered and suppressed.” Sounds like they’re friendly to fascists to me, although elsewhere the author claims to be against fascism, while at the same time making a major attack on anti-fascism (https://pacificaforum.org/mass).
B: “Britain’s main extreme right-wing party, the BNP, embraced Zionism at the same time it abandoned the last trace of anti-semitism - yet the left still calls it ‘Nazi’” This contradicts his claim that anti-fascism is pro-Jewish. I’m not sure how far the BNP has moved on anti-semitism and Israel, I mean, American Renaisance conferences had Jewish speakers as racist allies and anti-semitic speakers at the same time, but events have shown that they liked the anti-semites more than the racist jews, so they were basically anti-semites while providing kosher meals for their racist Jewish friends. Anyway, it does contradict the idea, ridiculous to begin with, that anti-fascism is pro-Jewish- it’s anti-hate, it’s pro-democracy, it’s pro-diversity etc. Also, his statement sounds like he’s complaining about people criticizing the BNP, like he’s still sort of fond of them even after they (to one degree or another) stopped being anti-semitic. It’s possible that without the anti-semitism, fascist is a more appropriate term for the BNP than Nazi, but who cares? The difference is so small that I’m not going to care when someone on the far-right uses that to criticise anti-fascists.
#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 21st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
part 3
6. In a post at https://pacificaforum.org/posts/23 the pacifica writer writes: “I remember the folk singer Leon Rosselson once making a comment at one of his gigs along the lines of
“if you’re of Jewish origin but you’re not religious and you’re not a Zionist there’s not really much point in calling yourself a Jew”.
Unfortunately, he then fudged the issue by claiming to believe in some kind of ‘Jewish spirit’ and then sang a song about it.”
In general the post seems aimed at a method of genocide similar to what happened with American Indians and boarding schools, turning Indians into white people. And it’s stupid. As far as I can tell, (I got this largely from a Jewish-American who was a fellow Ethnic Studies major) being Jewish is also an ethnic/cultural identity, at least for some majority- some are atheists and identify that way solely. There are some others I’m iffy on, but I know of one Jewish person who is an atheist, identifies as Jewish, and supports the Palestinians. Of course she had to throw a wrench into this by telling me she identifies as a religious Jew, but that’s stupid and the facts are the facts: A) she doesn’t believe in God (this is all based on when we were friends about 7 years ago) B) she changed her first name to a traditional Jewish one, C) she talks about Israel by using the word Apartheid. So as far as I can tell, you can be a secular Jew who supports the Palestinians (I suppose to some tiny degree she might call herself a Zionist, but probably not and she does talk about Israeli Apartheid).
7. In that piece on anti-fascism, he makes all sorts of excuses for the killing of Seraw, the Ethiopian killed in Portland OR by boneheads in the late 1980s. More generally he suggests that hate crimes are often something other than hate crimes.
I think that’s about it. I might read more. Like I said, I’m still where I was before, although it was interesting to get some more details. There are basically two Pacifica sites which link to each other. https://pacificaforum.org/ and
http://www.geocities.com/pacificaforum/
Tom"
Monday, May 11, 2009
Anti-Muslim Bigotry
(this is an old post, originally done 4/15/09. On one hand, I am concerned about changing the URL for the post by changing the title; on the other hand, the more I thought about it, the title was not just something people might slander me with, but was offensive enough that I should change it, even if that meant starting over)
(As far as the anti-bigotry part of this blog, I decided at some point early on that I wanted to work around the edges of battling bigotry, offering ideas and information that most people are unaware of but which might help them here and there with anti-bigotry work. So that’s why there are a lot of posts that seem a little weird, including this one)
******
UPDATE 4/24/09 As I said, I had trouble coming up with a good name. Although not as good as what I was hoping for, what would have been better than "Muslims" would be "Anti-Muslim Bigotry." But considering that the URL is connected, I don't like changing post titles, and if anyone gets the wrong idea from the title, when they read the post they'll see where I'm coming from.
There is one significant gap in what my blog has been talking about, in fact I even left it out of the thing at the top of the blog which describes the blog. And that's anti-Muslim bigotry. I am opposed to that, and have sort of done a little bit of work on it, and you could almost count the expressions of support I've made for the Palestinians in this blog and other work I've done on Palestine (half of which was actually in connection with Ireland) as opposition to that bigotry. But there isn't much of a connection to Ireland (until very recently, the muslim population was basically non-existent, and today it's probably something like .5-1% of the entire population, so there's not as much material to work with (unlike, for example, Jews, who have much more of a history there). UPDATE 4/16/09 I forgot that although Muslims are a tiny part of the population, there has been some incidents of bigotry (two of which I did mention here) and also republicans and nationalists are pretty good at opposing that stuff.
But addressing anti-Muslim bigotry is important. It's a serious problem and can also lead people to embrace other bad ideas as well. In that sense my blog's focus on other bigotries is also aimed at rolling back anti-Muslim bigotry, since if we stop people from becoming racist, they'll be less likely to believe what a significant chunk of anti-muslim bigots say- if they become racist and think the Nazis have got a point about that, they'll probably also be more likely to give serious consideration to what the Nazis say about Muslims. So, to one degree or another, possibly a small one, this blog has been addressing that bigotry.
(I'm also concerned about all other forms of religious bigotry, and the comments below are meant to include them too, I focused on Islam because there doesn't seem to be much anti-Buddhist sentiment and Hindus are a smaller part of the US population then Muslims)
I think that's about it for an introduction. Below are some comments I left for a post on David Corn's blog, here.
"A couple more thoughts on calling America a Christian nation:
1. When people say it's a Christian nation, that seriously undermines the idea that all are treated equally regardless of their religion. I mean, something similar was said about how N. Ireland was Protestant, and things, even today with lots of progress, are still not very good for Catholics, and they used to be horrible for catholics.
It's a stretch to say that Muslims in America are treated like Catholics in the North were for decades until recently, but they are treated pretty poorly and Jews have had a rough time to.
It's just one more reason to not call this a Christian nation, since some people get the message that non-Christians don't belong here or can be discriminated against, that sort of thing. Even when the statement is accompanied by saying we welcome all religions, that's a contradictory message and a lot of people go with the bulk of what's being said, that it's a Christian nation.
2. Although Wall didn't say this, I think some of these people point to the Founding Fathers, and those people can be shut up or exposed by explaining the following. Considering how some of the founding fathers were not Christians (or Jewish, since these people sometimes say "Judeo-Christian") but were more or less agnostics, it seems like it would make as much sense to call America a white male nation, and only the white supremacists say that.
Tom"
(As far as the anti-bigotry part of this blog, I decided at some point early on that I wanted to work around the edges of battling bigotry, offering ideas and information that most people are unaware of but which might help them here and there with anti-bigotry work. So that’s why there are a lot of posts that seem a little weird, including this one)
******
UPDATE 4/24/09 As I said, I had trouble coming up with a good name. Although not as good as what I was hoping for, what would have been better than "Muslims" would be "Anti-Muslim Bigotry." But considering that the URL is connected, I don't like changing post titles, and if anyone gets the wrong idea from the title, when they read the post they'll see where I'm coming from.
There is one significant gap in what my blog has been talking about, in fact I even left it out of the thing at the top of the blog which describes the blog. And that's anti-Muslim bigotry. I am opposed to that, and have sort of done a little bit of work on it, and you could almost count the expressions of support I've made for the Palestinians in this blog and other work I've done on Palestine (half of which was actually in connection with Ireland) as opposition to that bigotry. But there isn't much of a connection to Ireland (until very recently, the muslim population was basically non-existent, and today it's probably something like .5-1% of the entire population, so there's not as much material to work with (unlike, for example, Jews, who have much more of a history there). UPDATE 4/16/09 I forgot that although Muslims are a tiny part of the population, there has been some incidents of bigotry (two of which I did mention here) and also republicans and nationalists are pretty good at opposing that stuff.
But addressing anti-Muslim bigotry is important. It's a serious problem and can also lead people to embrace other bad ideas as well. In that sense my blog's focus on other bigotries is also aimed at rolling back anti-Muslim bigotry, since if we stop people from becoming racist, they'll be less likely to believe what a significant chunk of anti-muslim bigots say- if they become racist and think the Nazis have got a point about that, they'll probably also be more likely to give serious consideration to what the Nazis say about Muslims. So, to one degree or another, possibly a small one, this blog has been addressing that bigotry.
(I'm also concerned about all other forms of religious bigotry, and the comments below are meant to include them too, I focused on Islam because there doesn't seem to be much anti-Buddhist sentiment and Hindus are a smaller part of the US population then Muslims)
I think that's about it for an introduction. Below are some comments I left for a post on David Corn's blog, here.
"A couple more thoughts on calling America a Christian nation:
1. When people say it's a Christian nation, that seriously undermines the idea that all are treated equally regardless of their religion. I mean, something similar was said about how N. Ireland was Protestant, and things, even today with lots of progress, are still not very good for Catholics, and they used to be horrible for catholics.
It's a stretch to say that Muslims in America are treated like Catholics in the North were for decades until recently, but they are treated pretty poorly and Jews have had a rough time to.
It's just one more reason to not call this a Christian nation, since some people get the message that non-Christians don't belong here or can be discriminated against, that sort of thing. Even when the statement is accompanied by saying we welcome all religions, that's a contradictory message and a lot of people go with the bulk of what's being said, that it's a Christian nation.
2. Although Wall didn't say this, I think some of these people point to the Founding Fathers, and those people can be shut up or exposed by explaining the following. Considering how some of the founding fathers were not Christians (or Jewish, since these people sometimes say "Judeo-Christian") but were more or less agnostics, it seems like it would make as much sense to call America a white male nation, and only the white supremacists say that.
Tom"
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
In The Spirit of Malcolm X
"I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation... It is incorrect to classify the revolt of the Negro as simply a racial conflict of Black against white, or as a purely American problem. Rather we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter."
(Malcolm X Speaks, pp. 232-233) January, 1965.
(when typing this, for various reasons I often said "to-the-right-of-center." I might change that, but earlier I got in the habit of, when thinking about this topic, thinking of it pretty much that way)
(I forgot to mention this, but I should say I'm fairly familiar with this subject 1997-2005; 2006 to 2009 I was slightly familiar with this subject; Before and since I wrote this I have found some additional things which confirm my thoughts about this subject; If I have somehow missed some stuff and SF and their American allies are doing more or less what I suggest in this post, then this is meant to encourage them to continue with that)
I've complained on this blog before about Sinn Fein's approach to America. They focus too much on Irish-America and partly leave behind their left-wing beliefs when they travel from Ireland to America. I imagine this is because A) the focus on Irish-Americans comes somewhat naturally and B) they don't want to scare off people with money and/or power. The first part is not even that offensive, but is, as I'll explain, very stupid. The second part, depending on what issue SF is compromising on, is either very offensive or slightly offensive. The former would be cases involving bigotry, the latter, getting too chummy with corporate America and to-the-right-of-center politicians.
First, SF is a party whose political center is center-left. Based on large amounts of research (I was reading about 100 articles a week on average from Irish news sources 1997-2005), I would say that four years ago SF membership looked something like the figures below. I have enough information about the last four years to more or less confirm my belief that it's very unlikely SF has shifted more than a tiny bit, if at all, in the wrong direction. These figures would be pretty much the same, unless noted otherwise, the last 30-40 years. You can find more details at the posts I link to, below.
*SF is pretty consistentent in standing up for economic justice. Probably somewhere around 50% of SF are socialist, and the rest are probably mostly progressive and a small minority are conservative. (Since some will say that yes, SF is socialist, NATIONAL socialist, you should read "The Brown and the Green"). They have frequently raised issues of health-care, unions, etc. In the 2002 General Election in the Republic, about 1/3-2/3 of their candidates were either, members, staff or leaders of trade-unions. In the European Parliament SF is a member of the European Parliamentary Group “European United Left/Nordic Green Left.” In elections to the South’s Senate in 2007, SF and Labour had a voting pact.
*SF is pretty consistent in standing up against racism. (see "Anti-Racism and Republicans")
*SF is pretty consistent in standing up against homophobia. (see the post "Invisible Comrades") (30 years ago it was nowhere near as good as this)
As far as the kind of anti-semtism that generally are associated with the Right, SF is very consistent in standing up against it. There is a problem with probably some small majority having the wrong attitude about the IRA and the Nazis ("Fuck Fascism Before It Fucks You"). Probably some small minority support the Palestinians with the wrong attitude towards Jews (SF overwhelmingly supports the Palestinians, so this a small minority of such people). You might want to read "The Spirit Of Robert Briscoe".
*Overall SF is very feminist. As far as I can tell, looking over the last 12 years back to the 1998 Assembly elections and giving weight to the more senior positions and offices, some very large minority of SF officers and elected politicians are women, and probably no more than a very large minority of the membership is female. (UPDATE 10/18/11 two years later and I'm looking at the results of the 2011 General Election in the South, and I have to report that out of 14 MPs (in the Dail, in Dublin) only two are women, which negatively affects what I wrote about woman among the officials and elected representatives)
Probably the best way to defend the statement that they're feminists is to describe their record on abortion and explain that there's got to be some large minority of SF members who are pro-life but besides that, feminist. I mention this because it would help attract American feminists who might otherwise have no desire to help SF and/or won't listen to what SF has to say.
The following is evidence that there is probably a large minority that is pro-choice.
1) In 1985, although it was apparently a very unrepresentative vote, it did, for one year, adopt a pro-choice position.
2) The paper I was responding to in the post "The Brown and the Green" refers to SF supporting a DUP motion in the Assembly in 2000, which opposed the extension of the Abortion Act to N. Ireland (abortion is something like 95% illegal there). What the paper ignored is that a member of the Women's Coalition proposed an amendment that would have radically changed the resolution so that it simply referred the issue to the Health-Care Committee for further research, discussion, and debate. SF members spoke (starts half-way through, you'll want to look at this to see who's who) and voted in favor of this, and when they spoke, they made it clear their party is not fully committed to the pro-life position.
3) In 2004 (possibly 2003, but I'm pretty sure 2004) SF Youth came within one vote of adopting a pro-choice position.
4) SF's current abortion position is that they believe in choice when the life or health of the mother is at risk, in cases of rape or incest (in the 2002 Abortion referendum in the South, SF also supported choice when the woman is suicidal). They also feel very strongly about not criminalizing women who have abortions. UPDATE 3/8/15 they now also support allowing terminations in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.
5) UPDATE 10/20/11) 5) They support “comprehensive sex education, full access to child-care and comprehensive support services, including financial support for single parents.”
UPDATE 6/9/13 6) SF also blocked a pro-life measure in the N. Ireland Assembly in March 2013. See this.
UPDATE 8/23/13 7) In July 2013 Sinn Fein's significant parliamentary party in the Republic voted in favor of a law that would legalize abortion in more situations than had been the case (the law was passed) (I believe SF had 14 TDs, one voted against and was suspended and is no longer an SF TD). See this. (UPDATE 2/9/14 the 14th SF TD is no longer suspended)
Those are the most relevant issues, although I should say that on issues outside the U.S. and Ireland, SF is generally very good (for example, on the Palestinians).
But when SF comes to America and their allies do work in America, they play down these left-wing/progressive/liberal politics. They also focus almost exclusively on Irish-America. There's almost no talk about people concerned about social justice, human rights, or anti-imperialism in a broader way than just looking at N. Ireland. So they are not reaching out to people who would be motivated to work on that issue out of a concern for social justice- that is, it's not explained to people that, adjusting for the fact that Catholics/Nationalists went through a nightmare 1968-2007 (well, it was less bad towards the end) (about 1/4 of the evidence for that statement is that about 825+ Catholic civilians were killed by either the security forces or the loyalist paramilitaries when each year of the period the average for the Catholic population would have been about 600,000) and adjusting for geographic proximity, that if they're concerned about racism and homophobia and religious bigotry in America, they should be concerned about sectarianism in the North. And they're also not appealing to people who are concerned about imperialism and would be motivated to work on N. Ireland from that perspective. Although this is less of an issue (this raises the spectre of socialism, and I'm more or less okay with SF keeping that under wraps in America), they also don't say much about the economic and class aspects of the conflict. I've heard that some people become interested in it when the class part of it is explained- how the Nationalist community is overwhelmingly working-class and the republican movement even more so. The fact that the political center of the unionist community is center-right and that of the nationalist community is centre-left is left out of SF's pitch. Crucially, the way that ending partition will strengthen liberal, progressive, left, and working-class movements (as I explain towards the bottom of the post "Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter") should be explained as it will mobilize the left.
In combination with that, I should explain something about the demographics and politics of America. But first an update on SF's approach to this. One of the posts that I will be updating with a link to this post is "The Black and Green," you might want to read that. I have nailed down more on how much Irish Northern Aid, SF's support group in America (not counting Friends of SF and groups that are significantly less officially in support) has been focusing on Irish-America. I looked closer at their web-site and I-As get a lot of mentions, didn't notice any talk about people of color, LGBT, the Left; nothing about advocates of social justice, advocates of economic justice, opponents of imperialism (that is, in general, without adding the word "British"). There used to be a links page in the 1990s which included two links to American Indian sites and one to a site called "Radical History And Politics." There seems to be no links page on the national site, thus no links to such sites. I've also surveyed the sites of local units of INA and found nothing to change my mind about this problem, the focus on Irish-America.
Irish-Americans are about 12% of the population (UPDATE 5/05/09 I have left out Scotch-Irish, who are another 1.5%, but that barely affects what I'm saying). Some people might think that if they keep up with focusing on this, they'll get such a large chunk of Irish-America that it'll make up for that. That won't happen. Irish-Americans are roughly as political as the average American. Many/most of those counted do not identify as Irish-American strongly. Also, many Irish-Americans who are progressive or leftist, and probably many who are liberal, have bought into the exaggerated estimates many have of how conservative and/or bigoted the average American interested in N. Ireland from a republican and/or nationalist and/or human rights perspective is.
The remaining 88% of the population is unlikely to be motivated to care about this simply by talking constantly about Irish-America. Some, probably a small minority of those interested, might even feel unwelcome, especially people of color. But the more political and liberal/progressive/left people will be motivated if you talk about social justice, economic justice, and imperialism (in a way that clearly places the struggle in the context of a global reballion which has included in recent decades the Palestinians, East Timor, Apartheid S. Africa, and Chiapas). Although it's kind of stupid for liberal-left people to think that all Americans interested in this are white and it's very stupid of them to then abandon the nationalist community based on that, it would help if SF and their American allies would reach out to people of color more- even if the response were only a small increase in the diversity of the political community we're talking about, reaching out more (it happens some, but not much) would erode the idea that it's just for white people.
(my estimate, based on my activism in Boulder, CO; some stuff in Denver, CO and elsewhere; and giving a little weight to the Internet, is that a very large majority of that political community (people interested from a republican and/or nationalist and/or human right perspective) is I-A, a tiny minority is white but not I-A (probably about 1/5 of that part is Jewish) and a tiny minority are people of color) (that's probably roughly the same if you look at SF supporters, although the % that is non-I-A would probably be a little higher and the I-A part smaller)
The thing is, taking a more progressive approach will probably only result in a small number of the to-the-right-of-center I-As with-holding support from SF, as SF is the largest party in the nationalist community (for many, the fact that SF still enjoys a relationship with the IRA is also relevant) and they support the Peace Process and most will hold their nose and continue to support SF. Those that leave SF will probably still do some stuff to support the nationalist community on human rights and equality stuff and call for British withdrawal and might support some other group- possibly the Social Democratic and Labour Party, which is actually to the right of SF, or some new grouping, possibly a splinter from SF that doesn't support the more progressive approach. So, although SF will lose some support, they'll gain probably even more from elsewhere and the cause in general won't lose hardly any support.
I'd estimate that about 20% (I found a survey indicating that around of 20% of Americans write letters to the editor) of teen and adult Irish-Americans are part of that community (those who are interested in NI from a republican/nationalist/human rights perspective) (not just SF supporters, who are probably only something like 2/5 of that community) (I'm including people who do nothing more than signing a petition or going to an event once a year and people who don't do that but would if given the opportunity and write letters to the media or politicians instead). That might be a little high, but I get the impression that in recent decades on average, voter turn-out among I-As has been something like 65% in recent years, plus there's probably another 5% of adults not voting but still interested in politics (anarchists, certain types of socialists, felons), so assuming that almost 1/3 of these at least slightly political I-As are interested enough to be counted seems pretty reasonable and more or less matches my experience. So, that's 20% of 12%, which is about 2% (of the 13+ the general population). Looking at the remaining 88% (all of this is about teens and adults), I'll assume that the percentage who are at least slightly political is the same (70%), although I wouldn't be surprised if it's a little higher. Almost half would be liberal-left (adjusting for the fact that the mostly centrist/to-the-right-of-center Irish-Americans are not being counted and the fact I'm not counting the centrists and Clintonites and libertarians who would be less likely to respond positively to this approach than most liberal and almost all progressives and leftists), so that would be about 30%. Probably something like 1/4 are potential or current (overwhelmingly potential) members of that community. That would be about 7% (of the 13+ the general population).
(when I say "political" I mean at least slightly political, and the lower figures (7% and 20% instead of 70%) is partly based on the fact that lots of people who vote do nothing else political at all)
So, the nationalist/republican/human rights cause could have 9% instead of 2% (obviously these figures are not super solid and might be high but they're probably accurate and the gap of about five times is almost certain to be accurate). As far as SF's support, if SF were approaching this the way I'm suggesting, they would probably get almost all of the increase and only lose a tiny amount of their current support.
Some SF members/supporters will say that a more progressive approach will alienate people to the right of center. As I explained, the I-A ones will almost universally stick around for the cause and probably most that are SF supporters will stick with SF. But what about the non-I-A ones who will be scared off and won't stick around for "Old Ireland?" WHAT non-I-A ones? As far as I can tell, very few of them are interested in this from the right perspective. For one thing they don't have their family tree compensating for their knowledge that the IRA tried to kill their hero Margaret Thatcher and the occasional talk about the IRA being commie scum (most of them ARE "commie scum" : )), and they probably read too much into the name of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and are turned off- I mean, apparently the entire nationalist community is to the left of center (only some very large majority are) (non-I-A people to the right of center are more likely to be influenced by talk of SF being left-wing than anyone else). Some will suggest that they can be won over, but this ignores the fact that to the right of center you don't find much support for anti-imperialist efforts. Members of the GOP were more likely to support the Apartheid regime than the ANC; to the right of center, something like 95% of people who support the Palestinians are anti-semites and/or Arab- and/or Muslim-Americans. Some will say, "but what about the Nicaraguan Contras and the Afghan resistance to the Soviets?" I wouldn't be expecting them to make a movie called "Peter King's War" (Peter King is the most prominent GOPer to support republicanism). Even if left-winger Ken Livingstone becomes Prime Minister of the UK, there's at least two reasons (which work in combination) why the right won't support the republican and/or nationalist and/or human rights cause. First, few people to the right of center will become more than slightly hostile to the country that has been America's most important ally in the world for about 70 years. Second, there's too much information out there indicating that the political center of the republican family and to a lesser degree that of the nationalist community is center-left. I realize that's not well known in America, and there's some information going the other way, but there's enough information indicating center-left to greatly undermine any effort to describe the IRA as Irish Contras. As far as human rights, in general these people are inclined to dismiss talk of human rights unless it is solidly associated with an official enemy of the U.S. which they perceive to be left-wing or which they have some bigotry against.
So, there will be very few non-I-A people to the right of center who are anywhere near likely to get involved. SF should stop worrying about keeping on board the I-A ones when there is so much room for growth on the left.
(I've been neglecting the Clintonites and others who are neither liberal/progressive/left nor to the right of center, but most of what I've said about people to the right of center more or less (in some ways, definitely less) applies to those people as well)
Another aspect of this is that, even if SF continues to downplay the economics, if they get closer to 100% in terms of talking about social justice and anti-imperialism, odds are more and more people will learn that SF is much closer to socialist than capitalist. When that happens, SF might see some of their bigger donors walk away, and even if the economy turns around, that loss might not be made up for by a larger number of smaller donations. I imagine SF would be worried about their ability to conduct elections without the money that would be lost. But if they successfully mobilize a much larger number of Americans to put pressure on the British government and unionist politicians (directly or via the US government), the Nationalist community and a lot of people in the South would probably reward them with votes. And as far as the influence that Americans with money have on the US government, SF might be exaggerating how much America is one-dollar-one-vote instead of one-person-one-vote. Going from 2% to 9% in terms of people should more than compensate for the loss of support from CEOs. There's also some rich people who, adjusting for everything, will find SF more attractive in terms of the anti-racism and gay rights.
Which raises two good and very important examples of how SF needs to change it's approach. The first is the NY City St. Patrick's Day Parade. I'm tempted to give a summary, but I'll instead just point you to the post "Invisible Comrades" (reading the whole thing is a good idea, but the most relevant part is about half-way through where I start talking about the parade).
There's a similar thing with racism, although it's probably safe to say that SF stick to their anti-racist guns while in America more so than their anti-homophobic ones. The thing is a significant part of SF's support network in America is the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a fraternal, male, Irish-Catholic organization. Irish Northern Aid frequently works closely with them. The thing is, it seems accurate to call this organization slightly-significantly racist. That's based on the following, plus one huge thing I'll save for last.
1. Statements by credible sources, including Eamonn McCann.
2. If we accept that the different degrees of racism are overwhelmingly found to the right of center (you have to give extra weight to the white supremacists to say overwhelmingly, but that makes sense), and AOH's political center is center-right (in all fairness I wouldn't be surprised if something like half are friendly to labor, but they're not socialists, and that's only one issue, and only half), it raises a red flag that they have this idea of having an organization which people of color can't join.
3. I feel safe assuming that they support the McBride Principles (they do) in the North but not Affirmative Action in America (odds are they don't), and on discrimination the situation facing people of color in America and that facing Catholics in the North has been roughly the same in recent decades.
On the other hand, I knew an AOHer who was married to American Indian woman and who, as a grad student, was working for one of America's top scholars in American Indian studies, Vine Deloria Jr. I'd say, there's probably some very large minority of the AOH that is racist, the next very large minority would probably be more accurately called non-racist, and probably some very small minority have pretty good anti-racist credentials.
Going back to evidence of racism, there's one big thing. The AOH, as they should, feel strongly that Orange Order marches through Catholic areas of the North should not happen, so strongly that many/all of them more or less support rioting as an appropriate response (it more or less is) (in the last few years they may have changed their opinion about the rioting as the situation has improved fro nationalists). Contrast that with the attitude of Bill Fetherston, Colorado State President of the AOH who marched in the 2003 Denver, CO Columbus Day Parade and defended the parade and attacked the group protesting it- a group which also makes an effort to stop the parade by blocking it's route. The last 9 years (00-08) the protests have been something like 99-100% non-violent. That's not really the case with nationalists in the North- one night, this young boy asked me if I was "up for a riot?" But that response to a parade similar to the Columbus one doesn't seem to bother the AOH as much as the non-violent opposition of people in Denver does (can you imagine what they would say if the Denver protesters did riot?). There are two things that make this even worse:
1. What the Columbus Day Parade stands for is significantly or much worse than what the Orange marches stand for. Info on the latter is here, and here, and roughly the middle 1/5 of this (not all of that post is directly relevant to this issue, but about half of it is and the rest is relevant to this post). Info on the former is available here, and here (lots of links to good sources). American Indians experience very high levels of poverty (lowest per capita income among racial groups in America) and unemployment (50-90%) , per Wikipedia, which is in line with what I've read from better sources in the past 10 years (UPDATE 8/4/11 Apparently the figures I found on Wikipedia are a bit off- the % of American Indians who were EMPLOYED in the first half of 2007 was 58.3% according to the Economic Policy Institute). As far as I can tell, from 1968 to 2007, American Indians have had it something like two times as bad as Northern Catholics have had it during that time (that's based on a sort of scientific comparison I made involving all people of color, and then making a lazy adjustment for the fact that American Indians seem to have had it worse during that time than all other people of color; the figure of two is probably fairly accurate). And according to Ward Churchill in "From A Native Son: Selected Essays On Indigenism 1985-1995" the population of American Indians inside the current boundaries of the United States in 1890 might have been as low as around 2% of what it was in 1492. With the Famine in Ireland, at the worst the population of Ireland was, at the end, around 70% of what it had been at the beginning. Depending on what you adjust for, that's either nowhere near as bad or roughly no worse than the experience that American Indians had the first 400 years of "contact" with Europeans. Than there's the genocide of the Tainos that Columbus was overwhelmingly directly responsible for, as described in the first Columbus day link just above.
Overall, the Columbus Day parade stands for something significantly or much worse than what the Orange Order parade stands for.
2. There's been a fair amount of support for Irish republicanism among the leaders of those protesting the parade.
A: Glenn Morris, the main leader of the protests, spoke at an event I organized with Students for Justice in N. Ireland in 1998.
B: Ward Churchill, another senior figure associated with the protests, has expressed support for the IRA.
(In 2000 I was arrested for blocking the parade with about 141 other protesters)
I bring this up because if SF is to alter their approach, their close relationship with the AOH might make it difficult to attract people of color and anti-racists. I'm not sure exactly what I would advise them to do, probably telling the AOH to fuck off isn't an option. Maybe SF' could indicate that they are different from the AOH by expressing support for the protests of the Columbus Day parade (considering the similarity with Orange parades, it would be appropriate, especially considering what I wrote about some of those centrally involved in the protests). There might be other things on an anti-racist theme that would be appropriate for SF to do to distinguish themselves from the AOH to increase the odds of them attracting people of color and anti-racists (that is, beyond the small amount of work they've already done on that).
I'd say something similar about the NY City St. Patrick's Day parade and also acknowledging that the IRA were wrong to accept aid from Nazi Germany, something I discuss in the January 2009 post "Fuck Fascism Before It Fucks You."
Briefly, this shift in approach will in different ways have an effect on the political opinions of a segment of Irish-Americans, over time, and especially on future generations who will be receiving a much better political signal than is the case now. That will be the case, crucially, with regards to homophobia (reaching out and the NY City St. Patrick's Day Parades), and racism (reaching out and the Columbus Day parade). Something similar will happen with fascism and anti-semitism (accepting aid from Nazi Germany), possibly sexism (obviously women are already involved, but more could be done to involve organizations and more individuals that are explicitly feminist) and possibly other issues if they become relevant (I decide on a case-by-case basis which ones I believe are, but here are some that I will probably NEVER consider relevant- abortion, taxes, regulation, military spending).
This shift will, at least temporarily until the GOP adjusts (for example, on homophobia) result in some people not voting for the GOP when they normally would. Considering it's history and it's admiration for Thatcher and informal relationship with the British Conservatives, the GOP is not as good on the North as the Dems are. Bush was very harsh on SF over policing and decommissioning, and his Immigration people had Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey deported. Reagan was best buddies with Thatcher. On the other hand, Clinton, as disapointing as he was on this and everything else, was the first one to allow Gerry Adams into the US after about 10 years of excluding the leader of a party representing something like 60% of the poorest, most oppressed half of the Nationalist community.
A few notes:
1) Although I have firmed up my understanding of the focus on Irish-America, it's possible that to some degree in the last four years things have improved (compared to the period 1997-2005 when I was very familiar with this and there was definitely a problem) as far as how SF and their allies are trying to drum up support. In which case this is to encourage them to not go back and to instead go further.
2) Some people, most outside that political community, possibly some on it's fringes and possibly some well inside, will say it doesn't matter at this point. This would have been better 10-20-30-40 years ago, but getting Americans to work on this is still needed today. There are still human rights and equality issues there involving sectarianism, Nationalists wouldn't complain if London were persuaded to start the process of ending partition sooner instead of waiting for a majority in a referendum, more pressure starting now will make it less likely that the British will refuse to leave when they're supposed to, more pressure will get the British to be honest about what happened to the Nationalist population (and their role in it) (which will erode sectarianism among Protestants), etc.
3) As I've described elsewhere there are things that are beyond SF's control that are about 2/3 of the explanation for why progressives and the left in America didn't do what they should have done on N. Ireland in recent decades. Those might still be there, although there are some things that might have eroded them in recent years. The candidacy of Catholic John Kerry, and the fact that our current Vice President is a Catholic liberal Democrat, might have had some effect on anti-Catholicism among progressives and on the Left. It's possible that Obama having a good relationship with things Irish (he's part himself, he declared March Irish-American Heritage Month, and so far he seems to have a good attitude on N. Ireland in general and SF specifically) will erode the idea that there's a whiff of racism about this issue. Also, Stephen Colbert is a Catholic and that might also erode hostility towards Catholics among liberals, progressives, and leftists.
On the other hand, the remaining 1/3 of why progressives and the left didn't do what they should have done is mostly made up of SF's approach, and that of it's allies, to generating support in America. So, bearing in mind what I wrote above about the changed situation (Kerry, Biden, Obama, Colbert), if SF changes it's approach (and as I explained, they will need to back up their words with actions like doing the right things on the NY City St. Patrick's Day parades) the progressives and the leftists will probably respond.
UPDATE 10/4/11 SF members and many of their American supporters will say that factors affecting the liberals, progressives, and leftists mean that such an effort will simply alienate the Irish-American moderates and conservatives without attracting anyone. I believe that what would happen would be that the first efforts by the mostly I-A groups supporting SF will attract some of the former group, those who don't need much convincing. That will result in the left of SF supporters being more visible than they are now. THAT, in different ways, will attract MORE of the former group, and that change in the membership of SF support groups will have a similar effect on many of the remaining sceptical liberals/progressives/leftists. This will be repeated probably several times, as the republican/nationalist/human rights efforts become more and more attractive to those members of the broad left who have resisted being won over to this cause. (I should also make clear that, for the foreseeable future, I don't expect the liberals, leftists, and progressives to do much on the issue at all, and of course I would welcome the large number who who spend not their organizing time on this issue, but will help in other ways (attending events, wearing shirts, signing petitions, etc.))
Also, if SF visibly takes this approach in America, that will have an effect on liberal/progressive/left forces in other countries and those people will be more likely to do stuff.
UPDATE 10/13/10 One last benefit of SF adopting the approach I've suggested is that it will lessen the attacks on SF from the Irish Left. At some point in the late 1990s Joe Higgins (who was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2009) of the Socialist Party said that SF is left-wing in the South, right-wing in America, and in-between in the North.
So, if SF and it's allies change their approach to America, they and their cause will benefit greatly in many ways.
(Although I am not very familiar with what's going on right now with SF and America, I know, as I explain in the post "The Black and Green" that there was a serious problem 10 years ago which I think has gotten worse (I did a lot of activism on this 1997-2004); more recently I have looked at much of the content of the links pages of Irish Northern Aid web-sites (and some other pages of those sites) and was disapointed by what I found. I also know two senior American leftsts, one very senior, who are SF supporters, have recently given me the impression that there is still a problem. Lastly, if there wasn't a problem anymore, I have been reading a fair amount of liberal-progressive media recently, and the change would have been reflected there, and it hasn't)
(one new note on the current situation. There's a report on the SF web-site about the second of two conferences that were held to discuss how to advance the United Ireland agenda. It indicates that a strong focus on Irish-America remains, although there is vague talk of "community organizations" and one conference participant talked about the need to reach out to other ethnic groups) (I also read a recent article by a senior member of Irish Northern Aid talking about generating support for SF's agenda in America and overall it didn't change my opinion about this problem)
UPDATE 2/2/15 More on the race aspect of this issue here.
UPDATE 6/22/16 One last note (at some point I might re-do this post and better integrate all the notes and updates). The African National Congress embraced the American progressive community (sort of the left but a lot more than that) and THEY WON. I'd say the goal of a united Ireland is comparable to the goal of dismantling Apratheid- I'm not saying that REFORMING the North isn't a good thing and as a result of the peace process, to a small degree N. Ireland has been transformed- to a small degree. But the main goal was unity with the South, and that hasn't happened. Maybe SF should learn something from the ANC. Also, the ANC didn't embrace the black community here like SF embraces the (99% white) Irish-American community (and if they did it would be less offensive than what SF is doing)
UPDATE 5/12/17 I AM going to clean up this post and integrate these updates into the correct paragraphs, etc. but for now I'll just do this as an update. In Jan. or early Feb 2003 my independent CU-Boulder student group Students for Justice in N. Ireland organized an event to mark the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. We showed a movie about the conflict and myself and a (locally) fairly well-known progressive activist named Steve Nash both talked for about 15 min. each and then we had a discussion. There was supposed to be a third speaker. Ward Churchill has expressed some interest in N. Ireland and is very familiar with struggles for national self-determination and agreed to speak when I asked him. He didn't show. For some reason I didn't remind him before the event and I didn't ask afterwards what happened, but his name was on the publicity materials. There were probably about 50-75 people in the audience, and normally at events with a similar publicity budget we had an average of about 25-30 people in the audience.
And one more update for 5/12/17. When SF focuses on making moderate appeals to Irish-America, they turn off a lot of the most left-wing 1/3 of that community. One guy responded to me raising the subject by saying he was sick of rich and racist Irish-Americans.
(Malcolm X Speaks, pp. 232-233) January, 1965.
(when typing this, for various reasons I often said "to-the-right-of-center." I might change that, but earlier I got in the habit of, when thinking about this topic, thinking of it pretty much that way)
(I forgot to mention this, but I should say I'm fairly familiar with this subject 1997-2005; 2006 to 2009 I was slightly familiar with this subject; Before and since I wrote this I have found some additional things which confirm my thoughts about this subject; If I have somehow missed some stuff and SF and their American allies are doing more or less what I suggest in this post, then this is meant to encourage them to continue with that)
I've complained on this blog before about Sinn Fein's approach to America. They focus too much on Irish-America and partly leave behind their left-wing beliefs when they travel from Ireland to America. I imagine this is because A) the focus on Irish-Americans comes somewhat naturally and B) they don't want to scare off people with money and/or power. The first part is not even that offensive, but is, as I'll explain, very stupid. The second part, depending on what issue SF is compromising on, is either very offensive or slightly offensive. The former would be cases involving bigotry, the latter, getting too chummy with corporate America and to-the-right-of-center politicians.
First, SF is a party whose political center is center-left. Based on large amounts of research (I was reading about 100 articles a week on average from Irish news sources 1997-2005), I would say that four years ago SF membership looked something like the figures below. I have enough information about the last four years to more or less confirm my belief that it's very unlikely SF has shifted more than a tiny bit, if at all, in the wrong direction. These figures would be pretty much the same, unless noted otherwise, the last 30-40 years. You can find more details at the posts I link to, below.
*SF is pretty consistentent in standing up for economic justice. Probably somewhere around 50% of SF are socialist, and the rest are probably mostly progressive and a small minority are conservative. (Since some will say that yes, SF is socialist, NATIONAL socialist, you should read "The Brown and the Green"). They have frequently raised issues of health-care, unions, etc. In the 2002 General Election in the Republic, about 1/3-2/3 of their candidates were either, members, staff or leaders of trade-unions. In the European Parliament SF is a member of the European Parliamentary Group “European United Left/Nordic Green Left.” In elections to the South’s Senate in 2007, SF and Labour had a voting pact.
*SF is pretty consistent in standing up against racism. (see "Anti-Racism and Republicans")
*SF is pretty consistent in standing up against homophobia. (see the post "Invisible Comrades") (30 years ago it was nowhere near as good as this)
As far as the kind of anti-semtism that generally are associated with the Right, SF is very consistent in standing up against it. There is a problem with probably some small majority having the wrong attitude about the IRA and the Nazis ("Fuck Fascism Before It Fucks You"). Probably some small minority support the Palestinians with the wrong attitude towards Jews (SF overwhelmingly supports the Palestinians, so this a small minority of such people). You might want to read "The Spirit Of Robert Briscoe".
*Overall SF is very feminist. As far as I can tell, looking over the last 12 years back to the 1998 Assembly elections and giving weight to the more senior positions and offices, some very large minority of SF officers and elected politicians are women, and probably no more than a very large minority of the membership is female. (UPDATE 10/18/11 two years later and I'm looking at the results of the 2011 General Election in the South, and I have to report that out of 14 MPs (in the Dail, in Dublin) only two are women, which negatively affects what I wrote about woman among the officials and elected representatives)
Probably the best way to defend the statement that they're feminists is to describe their record on abortion and explain that there's got to be some large minority of SF members who are pro-life but besides that, feminist. I mention this because it would help attract American feminists who might otherwise have no desire to help SF and/or won't listen to what SF has to say.
The following is evidence that there is probably a large minority that is pro-choice.
1) In 1985, although it was apparently a very unrepresentative vote, it did, for one year, adopt a pro-choice position.
2) The paper I was responding to in the post "The Brown and the Green" refers to SF supporting a DUP motion in the Assembly in 2000, which opposed the extension of the Abortion Act to N. Ireland (abortion is something like 95% illegal there). What the paper ignored is that a member of the Women's Coalition proposed an amendment that would have radically changed the resolution so that it simply referred the issue to the Health-Care Committee for further research, discussion, and debate. SF members spoke (starts half-way through, you'll want to look at this to see who's who) and voted in favor of this, and when they spoke, they made it clear their party is not fully committed to the pro-life position.
3) In 2004 (possibly 2003, but I'm pretty sure 2004) SF Youth came within one vote of adopting a pro-choice position.
4) SF's current abortion position is that they believe in choice when the life or health of the mother is at risk, in cases of rape or incest (in the 2002 Abortion referendum in the South, SF also supported choice when the woman is suicidal). They also feel very strongly about not criminalizing women who have abortions. UPDATE 3/8/15 they now also support allowing terminations in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.
5) UPDATE 10/20/11) 5) They support “comprehensive sex education, full access to child-care and comprehensive support services, including financial support for single parents.”
UPDATE 6/9/13 6) SF also blocked a pro-life measure in the N. Ireland Assembly in March 2013. See this.
UPDATE 8/23/13 7) In July 2013 Sinn Fein's significant parliamentary party in the Republic voted in favor of a law that would legalize abortion in more situations than had been the case (the law was passed) (I believe SF had 14 TDs, one voted against and was suspended and is no longer an SF TD). See this. (UPDATE 2/9/14 the 14th SF TD is no longer suspended)
Those are the most relevant issues, although I should say that on issues outside the U.S. and Ireland, SF is generally very good (for example, on the Palestinians).
But when SF comes to America and their allies do work in America, they play down these left-wing/progressive/liberal politics. They also focus almost exclusively on Irish-America. There's almost no talk about people concerned about social justice, human rights, or anti-imperialism in a broader way than just looking at N. Ireland. So they are not reaching out to people who would be motivated to work on that issue out of a concern for social justice- that is, it's not explained to people that, adjusting for the fact that Catholics/Nationalists went through a nightmare 1968-2007 (well, it was less bad towards the end) (about 1/4 of the evidence for that statement is that about 825+ Catholic civilians were killed by either the security forces or the loyalist paramilitaries when each year of the period the average for the Catholic population would have been about 600,000) and adjusting for geographic proximity, that if they're concerned about racism and homophobia and religious bigotry in America, they should be concerned about sectarianism in the North. And they're also not appealing to people who are concerned about imperialism and would be motivated to work on N. Ireland from that perspective. Although this is less of an issue (this raises the spectre of socialism, and I'm more or less okay with SF keeping that under wraps in America), they also don't say much about the economic and class aspects of the conflict. I've heard that some people become interested in it when the class part of it is explained- how the Nationalist community is overwhelmingly working-class and the republican movement even more so. The fact that the political center of the unionist community is center-right and that of the nationalist community is centre-left is left out of SF's pitch. Crucially, the way that ending partition will strengthen liberal, progressive, left, and working-class movements (as I explain towards the bottom of the post "Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter") should be explained as it will mobilize the left.
In combination with that, I should explain something about the demographics and politics of America. But first an update on SF's approach to this. One of the posts that I will be updating with a link to this post is "The Black and Green," you might want to read that. I have nailed down more on how much Irish Northern Aid, SF's support group in America (not counting Friends of SF and groups that are significantly less officially in support) has been focusing on Irish-America. I looked closer at their web-site and I-As get a lot of mentions, didn't notice any talk about people of color, LGBT, the Left; nothing about advocates of social justice, advocates of economic justice, opponents of imperialism (that is, in general, without adding the word "British"). There used to be a links page in the 1990s which included two links to American Indian sites and one to a site called "Radical History And Politics." There seems to be no links page on the national site, thus no links to such sites. I've also surveyed the sites of local units of INA and found nothing to change my mind about this problem, the focus on Irish-America.
Irish-Americans are about 12% of the population (UPDATE 5/05/09 I have left out Scotch-Irish, who are another 1.5%, but that barely affects what I'm saying). Some people might think that if they keep up with focusing on this, they'll get such a large chunk of Irish-America that it'll make up for that. That won't happen. Irish-Americans are roughly as political as the average American. Many/most of those counted do not identify as Irish-American strongly. Also, many Irish-Americans who are progressive or leftist, and probably many who are liberal, have bought into the exaggerated estimates many have of how conservative and/or bigoted the average American interested in N. Ireland from a republican and/or nationalist and/or human rights perspective is.
The remaining 88% of the population is unlikely to be motivated to care about this simply by talking constantly about Irish-America. Some, probably a small minority of those interested, might even feel unwelcome, especially people of color. But the more political and liberal/progressive/left people will be motivated if you talk about social justice, economic justice, and imperialism (in a way that clearly places the struggle in the context of a global reballion which has included in recent decades the Palestinians, East Timor, Apartheid S. Africa, and Chiapas). Although it's kind of stupid for liberal-left people to think that all Americans interested in this are white and it's very stupid of them to then abandon the nationalist community based on that, it would help if SF and their American allies would reach out to people of color more- even if the response were only a small increase in the diversity of the political community we're talking about, reaching out more (it happens some, but not much) would erode the idea that it's just for white people.
(my estimate, based on my activism in Boulder, CO; some stuff in Denver, CO and elsewhere; and giving a little weight to the Internet, is that a very large majority of that political community (people interested from a republican and/or nationalist and/or human right perspective) is I-A, a tiny minority is white but not I-A (probably about 1/5 of that part is Jewish) and a tiny minority are people of color) (that's probably roughly the same if you look at SF supporters, although the % that is non-I-A would probably be a little higher and the I-A part smaller)
The thing is, taking a more progressive approach will probably only result in a small number of the to-the-right-of-center I-As with-holding support from SF, as SF is the largest party in the nationalist community (for many, the fact that SF still enjoys a relationship with the IRA is also relevant) and they support the Peace Process and most will hold their nose and continue to support SF. Those that leave SF will probably still do some stuff to support the nationalist community on human rights and equality stuff and call for British withdrawal and might support some other group- possibly the Social Democratic and Labour Party, which is actually to the right of SF, or some new grouping, possibly a splinter from SF that doesn't support the more progressive approach. So, although SF will lose some support, they'll gain probably even more from elsewhere and the cause in general won't lose hardly any support.
I'd estimate that about 20% (I found a survey indicating that around of 20% of Americans write letters to the editor) of teen and adult Irish-Americans are part of that community (those who are interested in NI from a republican/nationalist/human rights perspective) (not just SF supporters, who are probably only something like 2/5 of that community) (I'm including people who do nothing more than signing a petition or going to an event once a year and people who don't do that but would if given the opportunity and write letters to the media or politicians instead). That might be a little high, but I get the impression that in recent decades on average, voter turn-out among I-As has been something like 65% in recent years, plus there's probably another 5% of adults not voting but still interested in politics (anarchists, certain types of socialists, felons), so assuming that almost 1/3 of these at least slightly political I-As are interested enough to be counted seems pretty reasonable and more or less matches my experience. So, that's 20% of 12%, which is about 2% (of the 13+ the general population). Looking at the remaining 88% (all of this is about teens and adults), I'll assume that the percentage who are at least slightly political is the same (70%), although I wouldn't be surprised if it's a little higher. Almost half would be liberal-left (adjusting for the fact that the mostly centrist/to-the-right-of-center Irish-Americans are not being counted and the fact I'm not counting the centrists and Clintonites and libertarians who would be less likely to respond positively to this approach than most liberal and almost all progressives and leftists), so that would be about 30%. Probably something like 1/4 are potential or current (overwhelmingly potential) members of that community. That would be about 7% (of the 13+ the general population).
(when I say "political" I mean at least slightly political, and the lower figures (7% and 20% instead of 70%) is partly based on the fact that lots of people who vote do nothing else political at all)
So, the nationalist/republican/human rights cause could have 9% instead of 2% (obviously these figures are not super solid and might be high but they're probably accurate and the gap of about five times is almost certain to be accurate). As far as SF's support, if SF were approaching this the way I'm suggesting, they would probably get almost all of the increase and only lose a tiny amount of their current support.
Some SF members/supporters will say that a more progressive approach will alienate people to the right of center. As I explained, the I-A ones will almost universally stick around for the cause and probably most that are SF supporters will stick with SF. But what about the non-I-A ones who will be scared off and won't stick around for "Old Ireland?" WHAT non-I-A ones? As far as I can tell, very few of them are interested in this from the right perspective. For one thing they don't have their family tree compensating for their knowledge that the IRA tried to kill their hero Margaret Thatcher and the occasional talk about the IRA being commie scum (most of them ARE "commie scum" : )), and they probably read too much into the name of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and are turned off- I mean, apparently the entire nationalist community is to the left of center (only some very large majority are) (non-I-A people to the right of center are more likely to be influenced by talk of SF being left-wing than anyone else). Some will suggest that they can be won over, but this ignores the fact that to the right of center you don't find much support for anti-imperialist efforts. Members of the GOP were more likely to support the Apartheid regime than the ANC; to the right of center, something like 95% of people who support the Palestinians are anti-semites and/or Arab- and/or Muslim-Americans. Some will say, "but what about the Nicaraguan Contras and the Afghan resistance to the Soviets?" I wouldn't be expecting them to make a movie called "Peter King's War" (Peter King is the most prominent GOPer to support republicanism). Even if left-winger Ken Livingstone becomes Prime Minister of the UK, there's at least two reasons (which work in combination) why the right won't support the republican and/or nationalist and/or human rights cause. First, few people to the right of center will become more than slightly hostile to the country that has been America's most important ally in the world for about 70 years. Second, there's too much information out there indicating that the political center of the republican family and to a lesser degree that of the nationalist community is center-left. I realize that's not well known in America, and there's some information going the other way, but there's enough information indicating center-left to greatly undermine any effort to describe the IRA as Irish Contras. As far as human rights, in general these people are inclined to dismiss talk of human rights unless it is solidly associated with an official enemy of the U.S. which they perceive to be left-wing or which they have some bigotry against.
So, there will be very few non-I-A people to the right of center who are anywhere near likely to get involved. SF should stop worrying about keeping on board the I-A ones when there is so much room for growth on the left.
(I've been neglecting the Clintonites and others who are neither liberal/progressive/left nor to the right of center, but most of what I've said about people to the right of center more or less (in some ways, definitely less) applies to those people as well)
Another aspect of this is that, even if SF continues to downplay the economics, if they get closer to 100% in terms of talking about social justice and anti-imperialism, odds are more and more people will learn that SF is much closer to socialist than capitalist. When that happens, SF might see some of their bigger donors walk away, and even if the economy turns around, that loss might not be made up for by a larger number of smaller donations. I imagine SF would be worried about their ability to conduct elections without the money that would be lost. But if they successfully mobilize a much larger number of Americans to put pressure on the British government and unionist politicians (directly or via the US government), the Nationalist community and a lot of people in the South would probably reward them with votes. And as far as the influence that Americans with money have on the US government, SF might be exaggerating how much America is one-dollar-one-vote instead of one-person-one-vote. Going from 2% to 9% in terms of people should more than compensate for the loss of support from CEOs. There's also some rich people who, adjusting for everything, will find SF more attractive in terms of the anti-racism and gay rights.
Which raises two good and very important examples of how SF needs to change it's approach. The first is the NY City St. Patrick's Day Parade. I'm tempted to give a summary, but I'll instead just point you to the post "Invisible Comrades" (reading the whole thing is a good idea, but the most relevant part is about half-way through where I start talking about the parade).
There's a similar thing with racism, although it's probably safe to say that SF stick to their anti-racist guns while in America more so than their anti-homophobic ones. The thing is a significant part of SF's support network in America is the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a fraternal, male, Irish-Catholic organization. Irish Northern Aid frequently works closely with them. The thing is, it seems accurate to call this organization slightly-significantly racist. That's based on the following, plus one huge thing I'll save for last.
1. Statements by credible sources, including Eamonn McCann.
2. If we accept that the different degrees of racism are overwhelmingly found to the right of center (you have to give extra weight to the white supremacists to say overwhelmingly, but that makes sense), and AOH's political center is center-right (in all fairness I wouldn't be surprised if something like half are friendly to labor, but they're not socialists, and that's only one issue, and only half), it raises a red flag that they have this idea of having an organization which people of color can't join.
3. I feel safe assuming that they support the McBride Principles (they do) in the North but not Affirmative Action in America (odds are they don't), and on discrimination the situation facing people of color in America and that facing Catholics in the North has been roughly the same in recent decades.
On the other hand, I knew an AOHer who was married to American Indian woman and who, as a grad student, was working for one of America's top scholars in American Indian studies, Vine Deloria Jr. I'd say, there's probably some very large minority of the AOH that is racist, the next very large minority would probably be more accurately called non-racist, and probably some very small minority have pretty good anti-racist credentials.
Going back to evidence of racism, there's one big thing. The AOH, as they should, feel strongly that Orange Order marches through Catholic areas of the North should not happen, so strongly that many/all of them more or less support rioting as an appropriate response (it more or less is) (in the last few years they may have changed their opinion about the rioting as the situation has improved fro nationalists). Contrast that with the attitude of Bill Fetherston, Colorado State President of the AOH who marched in the 2003 Denver, CO Columbus Day Parade and defended the parade and attacked the group protesting it- a group which also makes an effort to stop the parade by blocking it's route. The last 9 years (00-08) the protests have been something like 99-100% non-violent. That's not really the case with nationalists in the North- one night, this young boy asked me if I was "up for a riot?" But that response to a parade similar to the Columbus one doesn't seem to bother the AOH as much as the non-violent opposition of people in Denver does (can you imagine what they would say if the Denver protesters did riot?). There are two things that make this even worse:
1. What the Columbus Day Parade stands for is significantly or much worse than what the Orange marches stand for. Info on the latter is here, and here, and roughly the middle 1/5 of this (not all of that post is directly relevant to this issue, but about half of it is and the rest is relevant to this post). Info on the former is available here, and here (lots of links to good sources). American Indians experience very high levels of poverty (lowest per capita income among racial groups in America) and unemployment (50-90%) , per Wikipedia, which is in line with what I've read from better sources in the past 10 years (UPDATE 8/4/11 Apparently the figures I found on Wikipedia are a bit off- the % of American Indians who were EMPLOYED in the first half of 2007 was 58.3% according to the Economic Policy Institute). As far as I can tell, from 1968 to 2007, American Indians have had it something like two times as bad as Northern Catholics have had it during that time (that's based on a sort of scientific comparison I made involving all people of color, and then making a lazy adjustment for the fact that American Indians seem to have had it worse during that time than all other people of color; the figure of two is probably fairly accurate). And according to Ward Churchill in "From A Native Son: Selected Essays On Indigenism 1985-1995" the population of American Indians inside the current boundaries of the United States in 1890 might have been as low as around 2% of what it was in 1492. With the Famine in Ireland, at the worst the population of Ireland was, at the end, around 70% of what it had been at the beginning. Depending on what you adjust for, that's either nowhere near as bad or roughly no worse than the experience that American Indians had the first 400 years of "contact" with Europeans. Than there's the genocide of the Tainos that Columbus was overwhelmingly directly responsible for, as described in the first Columbus day link just above.
Overall, the Columbus Day parade stands for something significantly or much worse than what the Orange Order parade stands for.
2. There's been a fair amount of support for Irish republicanism among the leaders of those protesting the parade.
A: Glenn Morris, the main leader of the protests, spoke at an event I organized with Students for Justice in N. Ireland in 1998.
B: Ward Churchill, another senior figure associated with the protests, has expressed support for the IRA.
(In 2000 I was arrested for blocking the parade with about 141 other protesters)
I bring this up because if SF is to alter their approach, their close relationship with the AOH might make it difficult to attract people of color and anti-racists. I'm not sure exactly what I would advise them to do, probably telling the AOH to fuck off isn't an option. Maybe SF' could indicate that they are different from the AOH by expressing support for the protests of the Columbus Day parade (considering the similarity with Orange parades, it would be appropriate, especially considering what I wrote about some of those centrally involved in the protests). There might be other things on an anti-racist theme that would be appropriate for SF to do to distinguish themselves from the AOH to increase the odds of them attracting people of color and anti-racists (that is, beyond the small amount of work they've already done on that).
I'd say something similar about the NY City St. Patrick's Day parade and also acknowledging that the IRA were wrong to accept aid from Nazi Germany, something I discuss in the January 2009 post "Fuck Fascism Before It Fucks You."
Briefly, this shift in approach will in different ways have an effect on the political opinions of a segment of Irish-Americans, over time, and especially on future generations who will be receiving a much better political signal than is the case now. That will be the case, crucially, with regards to homophobia (reaching out and the NY City St. Patrick's Day Parades), and racism (reaching out and the Columbus Day parade). Something similar will happen with fascism and anti-semitism (accepting aid from Nazi Germany), possibly sexism (obviously women are already involved, but more could be done to involve organizations and more individuals that are explicitly feminist) and possibly other issues if they become relevant (I decide on a case-by-case basis which ones I believe are, but here are some that I will probably NEVER consider relevant- abortion, taxes, regulation, military spending).
This shift will, at least temporarily until the GOP adjusts (for example, on homophobia) result in some people not voting for the GOP when they normally would. Considering it's history and it's admiration for Thatcher and informal relationship with the British Conservatives, the GOP is not as good on the North as the Dems are. Bush was very harsh on SF over policing and decommissioning, and his Immigration people had Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey deported. Reagan was best buddies with Thatcher. On the other hand, Clinton, as disapointing as he was on this and everything else, was the first one to allow Gerry Adams into the US after about 10 years of excluding the leader of a party representing something like 60% of the poorest, most oppressed half of the Nationalist community.
A few notes:
1) Although I have firmed up my understanding of the focus on Irish-America, it's possible that to some degree in the last four years things have improved (compared to the period 1997-2005 when I was very familiar with this and there was definitely a problem) as far as how SF and their allies are trying to drum up support. In which case this is to encourage them to not go back and to instead go further.
2) Some people, most outside that political community, possibly some on it's fringes and possibly some well inside, will say it doesn't matter at this point. This would have been better 10-20-30-40 years ago, but getting Americans to work on this is still needed today. There are still human rights and equality issues there involving sectarianism, Nationalists wouldn't complain if London were persuaded to start the process of ending partition sooner instead of waiting for a majority in a referendum, more pressure starting now will make it less likely that the British will refuse to leave when they're supposed to, more pressure will get the British to be honest about what happened to the Nationalist population (and their role in it) (which will erode sectarianism among Protestants), etc.
3) As I've described elsewhere there are things that are beyond SF's control that are about 2/3 of the explanation for why progressives and the left in America didn't do what they should have done on N. Ireland in recent decades. Those might still be there, although there are some things that might have eroded them in recent years. The candidacy of Catholic John Kerry, and the fact that our current Vice President is a Catholic liberal Democrat, might have had some effect on anti-Catholicism among progressives and on the Left. It's possible that Obama having a good relationship with things Irish (he's part himself, he declared March Irish-American Heritage Month, and so far he seems to have a good attitude on N. Ireland in general and SF specifically) will erode the idea that there's a whiff of racism about this issue. Also, Stephen Colbert is a Catholic and that might also erode hostility towards Catholics among liberals, progressives, and leftists.
On the other hand, the remaining 1/3 of why progressives and the left didn't do what they should have done is mostly made up of SF's approach, and that of it's allies, to generating support in America. So, bearing in mind what I wrote above about the changed situation (Kerry, Biden, Obama, Colbert), if SF changes it's approach (and as I explained, they will need to back up their words with actions like doing the right things on the NY City St. Patrick's Day parades) the progressives and the leftists will probably respond.
UPDATE 10/4/11 SF members and many of their American supporters will say that factors affecting the liberals, progressives, and leftists mean that such an effort will simply alienate the Irish-American moderates and conservatives without attracting anyone. I believe that what would happen would be that the first efforts by the mostly I-A groups supporting SF will attract some of the former group, those who don't need much convincing. That will result in the left of SF supporters being more visible than they are now. THAT, in different ways, will attract MORE of the former group, and that change in the membership of SF support groups will have a similar effect on many of the remaining sceptical liberals/progressives/leftists. This will be repeated probably several times, as the republican/nationalist/human rights efforts become more and more attractive to those members of the broad left who have resisted being won over to this cause. (I should also make clear that, for the foreseeable future, I don't expect the liberals, leftists, and progressives to do much on the issue at all, and of course I would welcome the large number who who spend not their organizing time on this issue, but will help in other ways (attending events, wearing shirts, signing petitions, etc.))
Also, if SF visibly takes this approach in America, that will have an effect on liberal/progressive/left forces in other countries and those people will be more likely to do stuff.
UPDATE 10/13/10 One last benefit of SF adopting the approach I've suggested is that it will lessen the attacks on SF from the Irish Left. At some point in the late 1990s Joe Higgins (who was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2009) of the Socialist Party said that SF is left-wing in the South, right-wing in America, and in-between in the North.
So, if SF and it's allies change their approach to America, they and their cause will benefit greatly in many ways.
(Although I am not very familiar with what's going on right now with SF and America, I know, as I explain in the post "The Black and Green" that there was a serious problem 10 years ago which I think has gotten worse (I did a lot of activism on this 1997-2004); more recently I have looked at much of the content of the links pages of Irish Northern Aid web-sites (and some other pages of those sites) and was disapointed by what I found. I also know two senior American leftsts, one very senior, who are SF supporters, have recently given me the impression that there is still a problem. Lastly, if there wasn't a problem anymore, I have been reading a fair amount of liberal-progressive media recently, and the change would have been reflected there, and it hasn't)
(one new note on the current situation. There's a report on the SF web-site about the second of two conferences that were held to discuss how to advance the United Ireland agenda. It indicates that a strong focus on Irish-America remains, although there is vague talk of "community organizations" and one conference participant talked about the need to reach out to other ethnic groups) (I also read a recent article by a senior member of Irish Northern Aid talking about generating support for SF's agenda in America and overall it didn't change my opinion about this problem)
UPDATE 2/2/15 More on the race aspect of this issue here.
UPDATE 6/22/16 One last note (at some point I might re-do this post and better integrate all the notes and updates). The African National Congress embraced the American progressive community (sort of the left but a lot more than that) and THEY WON. I'd say the goal of a united Ireland is comparable to the goal of dismantling Apratheid- I'm not saying that REFORMING the North isn't a good thing and as a result of the peace process, to a small degree N. Ireland has been transformed- to a small degree. But the main goal was unity with the South, and that hasn't happened. Maybe SF should learn something from the ANC. Also, the ANC didn't embrace the black community here like SF embraces the (99% white) Irish-American community (and if they did it would be less offensive than what SF is doing)
UPDATE 5/12/17 I AM going to clean up this post and integrate these updates into the correct paragraphs, etc. but for now I'll just do this as an update. In Jan. or early Feb 2003 my independent CU-Boulder student group Students for Justice in N. Ireland organized an event to mark the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. We showed a movie about the conflict and myself and a (locally) fairly well-known progressive activist named Steve Nash both talked for about 15 min. each and then we had a discussion. There was supposed to be a third speaker. Ward Churchill has expressed some interest in N. Ireland and is very familiar with struggles for national self-determination and agreed to speak when I asked him. He didn't show. For some reason I didn't remind him before the event and I didn't ask afterwards what happened, but his name was on the publicity materials. There were probably about 50-75 people in the audience, and normally at events with a similar publicity budget we had an average of about 25-30 people in the audience.
And one more update for 5/12/17. When SF focuses on making moderate appeals to Irish-America, they turn off a lot of the most left-wing 1/3 of that community. One guy responded to me raising the subject by saying he was sick of rich and racist Irish-Americans.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Battles: of the Bogside and of Hayes Pond
Four new songs. The first three are "Those Lyrics," see this for an explanation. The first two are not my favorites, the last two are really good. The 3rd is a new kind of "Those Lyrics," it's based on a N. Ireland loyalist song.
1. Defenders of the Republic. The IRA in N. Ireland.
2. John McGuffin's Song. Anarchist republicanism in N. Ireland.
3. Battle of Hayes Pond. An armed showdown between American Indians and the KKK in 1958.
4. Battle of the Bogside. The successful repulsion of a massive police attack on a Catholic ghetto in Derry (N. Ireland) in 1969.
I think that's it. The rest of the songs/poems can be found by clicking on the "lyrics" label (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).
"Defenders of the Republic" based on "Defenders Of The Reich" by Final War, original lyrics are here.
1. Of course, in general Volunteers (members of republican paramilitaries) didn't walk around looking like Volunteers, but I have seen footage in a documentary of them walking around during riots, and they would sometimes patrol their neighborhoods during times of calm; there are also other times, possibly including times when they're en route to attacking the British security forces, that they would appear as Volunteers (in the early 70s with the no-go areas it was very common for this to be the case). The line makes enough sense that I'm keeping it.
2. The reference to a phase is a little odd,but it sort of works and I like to change as little as possible.
3. The last brick refers to their willingness to fight (if all they had was a brick , they would throw it at the Brits).
4. Belfast is the capital of N. Ireland.
5. The 3rd line of the 2nd verse is not available on the Internet, and I could barely understand it, so that's not based on the original at all.
**6. 58% of this version is me, 42% is the original.
7. This is not an endorsement of continuing armed struggle after the IRA cease-fire of 1997.
8. I give this song/poem two out of five stars.
9. Considering the original, I should explain what is probably obvious, that Irish pride within N. Ireland is almost always very different from white pride. (I just heard something making me think that it's probably a small minority of northern nationalists that would talk about "Irish pride"; I still feel odd completely re-writing that line, so I'm going to keep it)
10. This is exclusively about the IRA.
11. UPDATE 12/13/10 I just changed the second line of the last verse- I replaced "republican-socialist" with "anti-fascist." The thing is, the original is American, see this for more.
12. 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.
Walking down the street with your head held high
People know you're a Volunteer as you pass by
Army jacket and mask, you're prepared
Brits Fuck with us if they dare
Volunteer's not a phase, it's a national calling
We'll give the British occupiers a real mauling
Our flags fly high and our banners are unfurled
Anti-Imperialist Volunteers a tradition across the world!
Chorus:
Volunteers-Defenders of the republic
Volunteers- We fight to the last brick
Volunteers-Standing proud and fast
Volunteers-We fight to free Belfast
When we see the Brits commin, we attack without fear
We fight with honor, We're anti-fascist Volunteers
We've been marching and fighting since 1968
Won't be long until the Brits capitulate
Fighting for our class and nation, fighting for our land
And we fight with the winning hand
A glorious battle it will be
A shining bright, republican victory
*****
"John McGuffin's Song" based on "War Machine" by Final War, original lyrics are here.
1. I barely changed this one, but what got my attention was the most important part. The line about flags (colors) was originally "red, white and blue and the red, white and black" the first flag being the American one, the second being the Nazi flag. The line below that required that if I kept with the flag theme, I had to keep the word black, and then it hit me, the red and black of the anarchist flag.
2. John McGuffin was a well known and well-liked Irish anarchist who took part in what I consider the most inspirational event in the Troubles, the Belfast-Derry march by People's Democracy (see this). For more on him, see this (he died in 2002). This is basically about anarchist republicanism, the references to fighting are certainly NOT neccessarily meant to involve arms, and would be mostly non-violent.
3. I give this song/poem four out of five stars.
*4. 5% of this version is me, 95% is the original.
5. Although there are a small hand-full of "National Anarchists," anarchism is very anti-Nazi (I say that because that's the only thing that twists the lyrics, and I wanted to make sure people knew that).
6. UPDATE 3/14/20 I THINK McGuffin was a republican or sorts- an anarchist republican friend of mine didn't say anything critical when I showed him this poem.
Another step forward, no steps back
we're fully motivated goin' in for the attack
our goals set high, we're prepared to die
success or death is our battle cry
pickin' up the pace, goin' face to face
moving forward fast let's cut to the chase
starring straight ahead, never lookin' behind
we're geared for gain one thing on our minds
Chorus
Like a War Machine into battle we ride
fighting together side by side
unified our strengths become one
like a War Machine- we'll fight 'till we've won
Our minds are focused, our minds are clear
we've got our sight set we have nothing to fear
we're pushing forth, growing strong
keeping motivated, moving right along
we're in this to win to lose would be a sin
our destiny awaits us let the battle begin
all for one and one for all
as a unified movement we can never fall
We're the Green, White and Orange and the Red and Black
these colors don't run they stand and fight back
they're a collaboration of our Nation and our Class
We educate, organize and struggle en masse
let's take another step forward, no steps back
we're fully motivated, goin in for the attack
our goals set high, we're prepared to die
success or death is our battle cry
*****
"Battle of Hayes Pond" based on "Gibraltar" author unknown, version very similar to what I used is here.
1. The Battle of Hayes Pond was in 1958. The Ku Klux Klan had been harrasing an American Indian community in North Carolina. One night the Klan held a rally. All of a sudden they were surrounded by 500 armed Indians, who opened fire. Some of the Klan were wounded, the rest took off. After that the State clamped down on the Klan, and between that and I think the battle itself, until 1984 there was no more white supremacist activity in that area.
2. The battle is sometimes referred to as the Battle of Maxton Field.
3. Strom Thurmond ran for President in 1948 as a segregationist.It's possible I'm slightly exaggerating his position on the Klan, but even if I am, that's reflecting the original lyrics.
4. Robeson is the county the battle took place in.
5. It's not too likely they were going to leave MANY for dead, but it's possible, and they were certainly going to harrass and assault people and destroy property.
6. James W. "Catfish" Cole was the leader of the Klan in South Carolina, which had crossed the state line into NC.
7. Four Klan were wounded, but not seriously.
8. The captured flag was a prized trophy.
9. There were about 50 Klan, 350-500 Lumbee.
**10. 64% of this version is me, 36% is the original.
11. The original is about the Ulster Defense Association (a loyalist paramilitary), which to one degree or another has been connected with British Nazis and racist violence in N. Ireland. Also, my experience has been that there's a fair number of American Indians who have shown a lot of solidarity with the Irish struggle, so this is twisting the original lyrics.
12. "The Blood and the Soil" is a racist phrase.
13. The chronology is off a little, because the original refers to first one event and then a second one, but it seems to work pretty well anyway.
14. I give this song/poem four out of five stars.
There's a place called Maxton Field, well-known as Hayes Pond
The Klan were rallying for hatred and their false racial bond
When along came some warriors, they are America's best
Oppressed people the whole world over were very impressed
Chorus:
And the KKK, were scared away
The Klan didn't return for 25 years after that day
Well, Thurmond, he was angry, for "the Blood and the Soil"
The Klan terror in Robeson, the warriors did foil
For the Klan planned to terorrize and leave many for dead,
But the brave warriors made them run in panic instead
Chorus
That wanker "Catfish" Cole, what a wonderfull sight,
He left his wife and ran away completely in fright,
The mad yellow bigot didn't know what to do,
When faced with native warriors, all so brave and so true.
Chorus
The nation of these anti-racist warriors, it's called the Lumbee,
Right to Hayes Pond they went to bring the Klan to it's knees
Three hundred fifty guns they were fired and four Klan they got nipped
The Klan's flag was captured and the Invisible Empire was whipped
Chorus
*****
"Battle of the Bogside" based on "Battle of Maxton Field" by Malvina Reynolds (and changed a bit by Pete Seeger) The web-page where I first found this is gone and I can't find the right lyrics on-line. below my version is most of the original, except for the last 1-2 verses which I didn't feel like I could do anything with. (I typed the original lyrics based on the audio of Seeger, not the very original version by Reynolds)
1. For more on the Battle of the Bogside, see this.
2. There are various things indicating racism among the Apprentice Boys (a group comparable to the Orange Order), see the first half of this (the AB members would be largely members of the UUP and the DUP) It's also probably safe to say that they were not sure Irish Catholics are members of the Aryan Race (no thanks, we'll pass).
3. For more on Loyal Orders in N. Ireland, including the Apprentice Boys, see this. That will also explain why it was acceptable for kids to stone the AB parade.
4. Fenian is a derogatory term for republican, although it has been adopted by republicans. It's also a derogatory term for Catholic.
5. In the original 3rd verse about coke and pie, it says girls. I went with men, because there was a very popular civil rights/nationalist/labor politician in the late 1960s and then during the 1970s named Ivan Cooper who was a Protestant and according to the movie "Bloody Sunday" (he's the main character) his girlfriend was Catholic (my version doesn't work pefectly, but it's close).
6. The RUC was the Royal Ulster Constabluary, the police until 2001.
7. The MP was Bernadette Devlin, who is celebtated for her role in encouraging the Bogsiders. There's an amazing mural of her in the Bogside, you can see it here. More information on her is available here.
8. I almost always use the voice of someone I'm not with my songs. In the original, the voice switches from Klan to anti-Klan and back, and in mine, it's the same thing with an Orange or anti-Orange perspective, and since the original anti-klan voice is that of a white ally, I'm also using the voice of a Protestant throughout. (and I guess it's a female in the 3rd verse)
9. The Starry Plough is the flag of republican socialism.
10. Stormont was the sectarian devolved government of N. Ireland.
11. The BA is the British Army. Although they intervened at the end (and in Belfast where something similar but much worse for the Nationalist population was happening, the BA SORT of saved the Nationalists) they did so when the RUC were being beaten, they hadn't stopped the RUC from attacking the Bogside, and there's plenty of reason to think that they were not bothered by the police attacking the Bogside.
12. Interestingly, right before I "wrote" this song, I took a Loyalist song and twisted it into a song about the "Battle of Hayes Pond," the subject of the original of this song (audio for the song "Battle of Maxton Field" can be found here.
**13. 46% of this version is me, 54% is the original, and I ignored 2 verses that it seemed like I couldn't do anything with.
14. With the exception of the vague reference to the IRA of the future, this is not about them, but about a popular act of resistance.
15. UPDATE 5/18/09 Considering this is an addition and not a change in what's already there, I'm not really breaking my rule of only changing lyrics after I publish with a good reason. The last chorus about the BA is new.
When I suggest they're bigots, bear in mind I didn't have a good reason to change the original, and consider this- although poverty was probably a much bigger factor than bigotry in people joining the BA during The Troubles, that line could be meant as referring to those, and there must have been some, who joined BECAUSE of the conflict, and maybe also sort of those who joined, very comfortable with the possibility-liklihood that they would be sent to the North. Also, since I still don't think I can do anything with the last verse (you never know, I might do that at some point), this kind of ruins it for singing along with the original, but if some performer wants to do it, that's not an issue.
16. I give this song/poem four out of five stars.
17. UPDATE 5/8/11 When I finished this years ago, I sent it to a community group called The Museum of Free Derry (I link to them above). I didn't hear back. I asked a friend of mine if he thought any of this poem was offensive, he said "no." I think I figured out what might have offended them. The line where I end with the word "spine." I used that word because it was already RIGHT THERE in the original, and it was pretty close to what I needed to say. I'll see if I can come up with something more appropriate. (UPDATE 7/27/12 I just added the word "more;" does that make it less offensive?)
Oh, have you seen the Apprentice Boys- sectarianism they incite
they marched here in Derry just looking for a fight
"rally 'round you Boys bold In hatred's cold embrace
we'll march on Derry's wall's and save the aryan race"
Chorus
oh the Boys,
oh the Boys
It's only Protestants that they employ
if you are free and Protestant and bigot
and get your courage from a spigot
they be needing reinforcements for to fight the fenian
"Now the Catholics, the Catholics- They are our natural foe
they lure our men with beer and steak and take them to a show"
"they worship the Father and the Son but anyone can see
they are not real Christians- the likes of you and me"
now some kids threw rocks and the police stood in circle brave and fine
as the kids resisted, one MP gave them encouragement and more spine
an Irish youth with steely eyes, as the Starry Plough was flown
she stood fast and encouraged resistance with the megaphone
chorus:
oh the RUC,
oh the RUC
They serve the Protestant bourgeoisie
if you are free and Protestant and bigot
and get your courage from a spigot
they be needing reinforcements, for to fight the fenian
The Battle continued for three days- there was not a moment's rest
As a hundred thousand Bogside kids took on Stormont's best
well maybe not a million quite but surely more than eight
the RUC were retreating- The bogside had won against the state
now the BA they were down the road- they did not lift a gun
they heard the noise, they said the boys, were having a little fun
But when they saw the RUC lads streaming down the road
they knew that something went amiss- the wrong switch had been throwed
Oh the BA
Oh the BA
They thought they would defeat the IRA
If you are free and British and Bigot
And get your courage from a spigot
They'll be needing reinforcements, for to fight the fenian
Original lyrics:
Oh, have you seen the bed-sheet boys the terors of the night
they rallied here at maxton just honin' for a fight
rally around you klansmen bold but do not show your face
we'll burn the fiety cross tonight and save the nordic race
Chorus
oh the Klan,
oh the klan
it calls on every red-blood fighting man
if your are free and white and bigot
and get your courage from a spigot
they be needing reinforcements for to fight the indian
Now the Indians, the Indians They are our natural foe
they lure our girls with coke and pie and take them to a show
they wear blue jeans and leather coats but anyone can see
they are not reall americans the likes of you and me
now the head-lights shone the klansmen stood in circle brave and fine
when suddenly a whoop was heard that curdled every spine
an Indian youth with steely eyes he sauntered in alone
he calmly drew his shooting iron and conked the microphone
chorus
now another shot the lights went out there was a moment's hush
then a hundred thousand lumbee boys came screaming from the brush
well maybe not a million quite but surely more than four
the klansmen shook from head to foot and headed for the door
now the troopers they were down the road they did not lift a gun
they heard the noise, they said the boys were having a little fun
But when they saw the nigh-shirt lads streaming down the road
they knew that something went amiss the wrong switch had been throwed
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?).
1. Defenders of the Republic. The IRA in N. Ireland.
2. John McGuffin's Song. Anarchist republicanism in N. Ireland.
3. Battle of Hayes Pond. An armed showdown between American Indians and the KKK in 1958.
4. Battle of the Bogside. The successful repulsion of a massive police attack on a Catholic ghetto in Derry (N. Ireland) in 1969.
I think that's it. The rest of the songs/poems can be found by clicking on the "lyrics" label (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).
"Defenders of the Republic" based on "Defenders Of The Reich" by Final War, original lyrics are here.
1. Of course, in general Volunteers (members of republican paramilitaries) didn't walk around looking like Volunteers, but I have seen footage in a documentary of them walking around during riots, and they would sometimes patrol their neighborhoods during times of calm; there are also other times, possibly including times when they're en route to attacking the British security forces, that they would appear as Volunteers (in the early 70s with the no-go areas it was very common for this to be the case). The line makes enough sense that I'm keeping it.
2. The reference to a phase is a little odd,but it sort of works and I like to change as little as possible.
3. The last brick refers to their willingness to fight (if all they had was a brick , they would throw it at the Brits).
4. Belfast is the capital of N. Ireland.
5. The 3rd line of the 2nd verse is not available on the Internet, and I could barely understand it, so that's not based on the original at all.
**6. 58% of this version is me, 42% is the original.
7. This is not an endorsement of continuing armed struggle after the IRA cease-fire of 1997.
8. I give this song/poem two out of five stars.
9. Considering the original, I should explain what is probably obvious, that Irish pride within N. Ireland is almost always very different from white pride. (I just heard something making me think that it's probably a small minority of northern nationalists that would talk about "Irish pride"; I still feel odd completely re-writing that line, so I'm going to keep it)
10. This is exclusively about the IRA.
11. UPDATE 12/13/10 I just changed the second line of the last verse- I replaced "republican-socialist" with "anti-fascist." The thing is, the original is American, see this for more.
12. 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.
Walking down the street with your head held high
People know you're a Volunteer as you pass by
Army jacket and mask, you're prepared
Brits Fuck with us if they dare
Volunteer's not a phase, it's a national calling
We'll give the British occupiers a real mauling
Our flags fly high and our banners are unfurled
Anti-Imperialist Volunteers a tradition across the world!
Chorus:
Volunteers-Defenders of the republic
Volunteers- We fight to the last brick
Volunteers-Standing proud and fast
Volunteers-We fight to free Belfast
When we see the Brits commin, we attack without fear
We fight with honor, We're anti-fascist Volunteers
We've been marching and fighting since 1968
Won't be long until the Brits capitulate
Fighting for our class and nation, fighting for our land
And we fight with the winning hand
A glorious battle it will be
A shining bright, republican victory
*****
"John McGuffin's Song" based on "War Machine" by Final War, original lyrics are here.
1. I barely changed this one, but what got my attention was the most important part. The line about flags (colors) was originally "red, white and blue and the red, white and black" the first flag being the American one, the second being the Nazi flag. The line below that required that if I kept with the flag theme, I had to keep the word black, and then it hit me, the red and black of the anarchist flag.
2. John McGuffin was a well known and well-liked Irish anarchist who took part in what I consider the most inspirational event in the Troubles, the Belfast-Derry march by People's Democracy (see this). For more on him, see this (he died in 2002). This is basically about anarchist republicanism, the references to fighting are certainly NOT neccessarily meant to involve arms, and would be mostly non-violent.
3. I give this song/poem four out of five stars.
*4. 5% of this version is me, 95% is the original.
5. Although there are a small hand-full of "National Anarchists," anarchism is very anti-Nazi (I say that because that's the only thing that twists the lyrics, and I wanted to make sure people knew that).
6. UPDATE 3/14/20 I THINK McGuffin was a republican or sorts- an anarchist republican friend of mine didn't say anything critical when I showed him this poem.
Another step forward, no steps back
we're fully motivated goin' in for the attack
our goals set high, we're prepared to die
success or death is our battle cry
pickin' up the pace, goin' face to face
moving forward fast let's cut to the chase
starring straight ahead, never lookin' behind
we're geared for gain one thing on our minds
Chorus
Like a War Machine into battle we ride
fighting together side by side
unified our strengths become one
like a War Machine- we'll fight 'till we've won
Our minds are focused, our minds are clear
we've got our sight set we have nothing to fear
we're pushing forth, growing strong
keeping motivated, moving right along
we're in this to win to lose would be a sin
our destiny awaits us let the battle begin
all for one and one for all
as a unified movement we can never fall
We're the Green, White and Orange and the Red and Black
these colors don't run they stand and fight back
they're a collaboration of our Nation and our Class
We educate, organize and struggle en masse
let's take another step forward, no steps back
we're fully motivated, goin in for the attack
our goals set high, we're prepared to die
success or death is our battle cry
*****
"Battle of Hayes Pond" based on "Gibraltar" author unknown, version very similar to what I used is here.
1. The Battle of Hayes Pond was in 1958. The Ku Klux Klan had been harrasing an American Indian community in North Carolina. One night the Klan held a rally. All of a sudden they were surrounded by 500 armed Indians, who opened fire. Some of the Klan were wounded, the rest took off. After that the State clamped down on the Klan, and between that and I think the battle itself, until 1984 there was no more white supremacist activity in that area.
2. The battle is sometimes referred to as the Battle of Maxton Field.
3. Strom Thurmond ran for President in 1948 as a segregationist.It's possible I'm slightly exaggerating his position on the Klan, but even if I am, that's reflecting the original lyrics.
4. Robeson is the county the battle took place in.
5. It's not too likely they were going to leave MANY for dead, but it's possible, and they were certainly going to harrass and assault people and destroy property.
6. James W. "Catfish" Cole was the leader of the Klan in South Carolina, which had crossed the state line into NC.
7. Four Klan were wounded, but not seriously.
8. The captured flag was a prized trophy.
9. There were about 50 Klan, 350-500 Lumbee.
**10. 64% of this version is me, 36% is the original.
11. The original is about the Ulster Defense Association (a loyalist paramilitary), which to one degree or another has been connected with British Nazis and racist violence in N. Ireland. Also, my experience has been that there's a fair number of American Indians who have shown a lot of solidarity with the Irish struggle, so this is twisting the original lyrics.
12. "The Blood and the Soil" is a racist phrase.
13. The chronology is off a little, because the original refers to first one event and then a second one, but it seems to work pretty well anyway.
14. I give this song/poem four out of five stars.
There's a place called Maxton Field, well-known as Hayes Pond
The Klan were rallying for hatred and their false racial bond
When along came some warriors, they are America's best
Oppressed people the whole world over were very impressed
Chorus:
And the KKK, were scared away
The Klan didn't return for 25 years after that day
Well, Thurmond, he was angry, for "the Blood and the Soil"
The Klan terror in Robeson, the warriors did foil
For the Klan planned to terorrize and leave many for dead,
But the brave warriors made them run in panic instead
Chorus
That wanker "Catfish" Cole, what a wonderfull sight,
He left his wife and ran away completely in fright,
The mad yellow bigot didn't know what to do,
When faced with native warriors, all so brave and so true.
Chorus
The nation of these anti-racist warriors, it's called the Lumbee,
Right to Hayes Pond they went to bring the Klan to it's knees
Three hundred fifty guns they were fired and four Klan they got nipped
The Klan's flag was captured and the Invisible Empire was whipped
Chorus
*****
"Battle of the Bogside" based on "Battle of Maxton Field" by Malvina Reynolds (and changed a bit by Pete Seeger) The web-page where I first found this is gone and I can't find the right lyrics on-line. below my version is most of the original, except for the last 1-2 verses which I didn't feel like I could do anything with. (I typed the original lyrics based on the audio of Seeger, not the very original version by Reynolds)
1. For more on the Battle of the Bogside, see this.
2. There are various things indicating racism among the Apprentice Boys (a group comparable to the Orange Order), see the first half of this (the AB members would be largely members of the UUP and the DUP) It's also probably safe to say that they were not sure Irish Catholics are members of the Aryan Race (no thanks, we'll pass).
3. For more on Loyal Orders in N. Ireland, including the Apprentice Boys, see this. That will also explain why it was acceptable for kids to stone the AB parade.
4. Fenian is a derogatory term for republican, although it has been adopted by republicans. It's also a derogatory term for Catholic.
5. In the original 3rd verse about coke and pie, it says girls. I went with men, because there was a very popular civil rights/nationalist/labor politician in the late 1960s and then during the 1970s named Ivan Cooper who was a Protestant and according to the movie "Bloody Sunday" (he's the main character) his girlfriend was Catholic (my version doesn't work pefectly, but it's close).
6. The RUC was the Royal Ulster Constabluary, the police until 2001.
7. The MP was Bernadette Devlin, who is celebtated for her role in encouraging the Bogsiders. There's an amazing mural of her in the Bogside, you can see it here. More information on her is available here.
8. I almost always use the voice of someone I'm not with my songs. In the original, the voice switches from Klan to anti-Klan and back, and in mine, it's the same thing with an Orange or anti-Orange perspective, and since the original anti-klan voice is that of a white ally, I'm also using the voice of a Protestant throughout. (and I guess it's a female in the 3rd verse)
9. The Starry Plough is the flag of republican socialism.
10. Stormont was the sectarian devolved government of N. Ireland.
11. The BA is the British Army. Although they intervened at the end (and in Belfast where something similar but much worse for the Nationalist population was happening, the BA SORT of saved the Nationalists) they did so when the RUC were being beaten, they hadn't stopped the RUC from attacking the Bogside, and there's plenty of reason to think that they were not bothered by the police attacking the Bogside.
12. Interestingly, right before I "wrote" this song, I took a Loyalist song and twisted it into a song about the "Battle of Hayes Pond," the subject of the original of this song (audio for the song "Battle of Maxton Field" can be found here.
**13. 46% of this version is me, 54% is the original, and I ignored 2 verses that it seemed like I couldn't do anything with.
14. With the exception of the vague reference to the IRA of the future, this is not about them, but about a popular act of resistance.
15. UPDATE 5/18/09 Considering this is an addition and not a change in what's already there, I'm not really breaking my rule of only changing lyrics after I publish with a good reason. The last chorus about the BA is new.
When I suggest they're bigots, bear in mind I didn't have a good reason to change the original, and consider this- although poverty was probably a much bigger factor than bigotry in people joining the BA during The Troubles, that line could be meant as referring to those, and there must have been some, who joined BECAUSE of the conflict, and maybe also sort of those who joined, very comfortable with the possibility-liklihood that they would be sent to the North. Also, since I still don't think I can do anything with the last verse (you never know, I might do that at some point), this kind of ruins it for singing along with the original, but if some performer wants to do it, that's not an issue.
16. I give this song/poem four out of five stars.
17. UPDATE 5/8/11 When I finished this years ago, I sent it to a community group called The Museum of Free Derry (I link to them above). I didn't hear back. I asked a friend of mine if he thought any of this poem was offensive, he said "no." I think I figured out what might have offended them. The line where I end with the word "spine." I used that word because it was already RIGHT THERE in the original, and it was pretty close to what I needed to say. I'll see if I can come up with something more appropriate. (UPDATE 7/27/12 I just added the word "more;" does that make it less offensive?)
Oh, have you seen the Apprentice Boys- sectarianism they incite
they marched here in Derry just looking for a fight
"rally 'round you Boys bold In hatred's cold embrace
we'll march on Derry's wall's and save the aryan race"
Chorus
oh the Boys,
oh the Boys
It's only Protestants that they employ
if you are free and Protestant and bigot
and get your courage from a spigot
they be needing reinforcements for to fight the fenian
"Now the Catholics, the Catholics- They are our natural foe
they lure our men with beer and steak and take them to a show"
"they worship the Father and the Son but anyone can see
they are not real Christians- the likes of you and me"
now some kids threw rocks and the police stood in circle brave and fine
as the kids resisted, one MP gave them encouragement and more spine
an Irish youth with steely eyes, as the Starry Plough was flown
she stood fast and encouraged resistance with the megaphone
chorus:
oh the RUC,
oh the RUC
They serve the Protestant bourgeoisie
if you are free and Protestant and bigot
and get your courage from a spigot
they be needing reinforcements, for to fight the fenian
The Battle continued for three days- there was not a moment's rest
As a hundred thousand Bogside kids took on Stormont's best
well maybe not a million quite but surely more than eight
the RUC were retreating- The bogside had won against the state
now the BA they were down the road- they did not lift a gun
they heard the noise, they said the boys, were having a little fun
But when they saw the RUC lads streaming down the road
they knew that something went amiss- the wrong switch had been throwed
Oh the BA
Oh the BA
They thought they would defeat the IRA
If you are free and British and Bigot
And get your courage from a spigot
They'll be needing reinforcements, for to fight the fenian
Original lyrics:
Oh, have you seen the bed-sheet boys the terors of the night
they rallied here at maxton just honin' for a fight
rally around you klansmen bold but do not show your face
we'll burn the fiety cross tonight and save the nordic race
Chorus
oh the Klan,
oh the klan
it calls on every red-blood fighting man
if your are free and white and bigot
and get your courage from a spigot
they be needing reinforcements for to fight the indian
Now the Indians, the Indians They are our natural foe
they lure our girls with coke and pie and take them to a show
they wear blue jeans and leather coats but anyone can see
they are not reall americans the likes of you and me
now the head-lights shone the klansmen stood in circle brave and fine
when suddenly a whoop was heard that curdled every spine
an Indian youth with steely eyes he sauntered in alone
he calmly drew his shooting iron and conked the microphone
chorus
now another shot the lights went out there was a moment's hush
then a hundred thousand lumbee boys came screaming from the brush
well maybe not a million quite but surely more than four
the klansmen shook from head to foot and headed for the door
now the troopers they were down the road they did not lift a gun
they heard the noise, they said the boys were having a little fun
But when they saw the nigh-shirt lads streaming down the road
they knew that something went amiss the wrong switch had been throwed
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?).
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