Pat Finucane and British Collusion With Loyalists

An official report into the murder of Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane was released Wednesday and was, for a while, towards the very top of the BBC’s main news page.
You can find a brief summary here, more background/summary here and a LOT more material here.

There is one thing I want to highlight from the BBC News story:

** Sir Desmond found that "in 1985 the security service assessed that 85% of the UDA's 'intelligence' originated from sources within the security forces". And he was "satisfied that this proportion would have remained largely unchanged" by the time of Mr Finucane's murder."**

(he was killed in 1989)

Lastly, I want to post here a statement from the Pat Finucane Center. You can also find it on their web-site here. (emphasis is in the original) (The rest of this post is their statement)

Pat Finucane Centre Press Release

12 December 2012

The British prime minister, David Cameron, has today described loyalist/ state collusion revealed in the de Silva review relating to the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane as "unbelievably ghastly".

The Pat Finucane Centre, however, believes those words would be better applied to the British government’s continuing refusal to establish a full, public, independent inquiry.

Cameron is pushing the line that there was no "over-arching" state conspiracy into Pat Finucane’s murder, yet:

1. The UDA, whose gunmen (including RUC agent Ken Barrett) murdered Pat, whose "intelligence" unit was headed by a British military agent (Brian Nelson) and whose "quarter-master" (Billy Stobie) provided the weapon used (stolen from a British Army barracks in Holywood, County Down) was a legal organisation at the time of the murder.

It took a further three years before the UDA was banned. The Pat Finucane Centre has uncovered documents[1] showing that, as far back as the early 1970’s, the UDA was viewed as a "release valve" for "Protestant extremists".

2.  In January 1992, the then Department of Public Prosecutions reached a deal (effectively a cover-up), allowing Nelson to plead guilty to five counts of conspiracy to murder. This prevented the courts examining his activities as a British military agent. Nelson was given a derisory ten year prison term.

3.  The man who acted as Nelson’s "handler" and who gave him a glowing character reference during the 1992 court hearing was Brigadier Gordon Kerr who became head of the Force Research Unit in 1987, two years before Pat Finucane’s murder.

In 1997 (eight years after Pat Finucane’s murder), Kerr was promoted and became Britain’s military attaché in Beijing, where he was awarded an OBE. He also holds the Queen’s Medal for Gallantry. Two weeks after he was identified in the Stevens Report into collusion in the murder of Pat Finucane, Tony Blair sent him to Iraq. He has never been charged with a single offence.

Pat Finucane was stalked by a British military agent who was then given effective immunity by the office of the DPP. The gun used to murder him was of British military origin. It was supplied by one RUC agent and fired by another RUC agent.

        Pat Finucane’s murder was authorised and carried out by state agents. What more evidence is needed before London grants the public inquiry demanded by the Finucane family?


[1] Photocopy of document retrieved from British National Archives available from our offices on request

Two New Poems: "Neutral No More" and "Brits Out II"

I usually wait till I have about four poems before I do a post of them, but the last couple days I have tried to alter two songs that I thought I'd really like altering, but I feel defeated just looking at the original. So I'm not sure when I will do more and I'd like to get these two published now.
For some info on how I "write" these poem, see this.

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

“Neutral No More” based on “Fools No More” by Skrewdriver Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about a large number (around 5,000) of men and women who were members of the Irish military in the years before World War II that deserted in order to fight with the Allies (to a very large degree, Ireland was neutral).When they came home after the war, they were black-listed and treated just the same as people who deserted for other reasons. Just in the last month or two has the Irish governemnt acknowledged the importance of their contribution to the defeat of the Axis Powers. There is more information here and here.
2. “They shall not pass” is an anti-fascist slogan first used (in Spanish) in Spain’s Civil War.
3. The “loyalist Red Hand” isn’t really a BRITISH thing, but is a symbol used by many-most people in the North of Ireland who support Britain’s presence.
4. Deporting Jews to the East was one of the last steps towards genocide.
5. **72% of this version is mine, 28% is the original.
6. I give this poem three stars out of five.
7. This poem is related to a post about Ireland, the IRA, and Nazi Germany.
8. UPDATE 3/16/15 i added "and women" to the second verse, first line.
9. Many would say that it was reasonable for the vast majority of the Irish to refuse to fight alongside the British because of what the Brits have done to Ireland. I’d respond by pointing out that the 442nd Regimental Combat Team saw more combat than any other similarly sized unit of the US Army in Europe during WWII. After the war, they were the most decorated Army unit of that size in US military history up to that point. They were entirely Japanese-American (I think some of the officers were white) at a time when about half of Japanese-America was in internment camps.
10. The line that ends with "begun." I know it's not the Queen's English, but I'm an Irish Republican, so fuck the Queen (seriously, it rhymed).

Gloom in the trenches, fire in the sky
You wait for the signal, the order to die
You're scrambling forward, with fear in your eyes
Charging the enemy to tear down their lies
Obey all your orders, and you do what they say
You fight to stop fascism, you won’t go astray
And although the Allied leaders are not consistent
Defeating the fascist states is important

(chorus)
We’re neutral no more and they shall not pass
We’re going to help kick some Nazi ass

Millions of men and women are taking a stand
They fight the fascists for the good of their lands
The Brits have done horrible things in Ireland
But Hitler is a bigger threat than the loyalist Red Hand
Without exception the Nazis are scum
Who lie to their people since the 3rd Reich begun
They tell the Germans, the Jews must go East
And that just makes you even more displeased

(chorus)

War should be avoided, but not at any cost
If Germany wins, freedom is lost
While the Irish Army stay home to maintain neutrality
You fight to stop Nazi Germany’s brutality
They remained on the side-lines as Europe clashed
They were neutral as the Jews were gassed
And if you expect medals or a parade
You'll be lucky to get a job, lucky to get paid

****

“Brits Out II” based on “Muslims Out” by Kill, Baby Kill, original lyrics are here.

1. This is set more or less anytime 1973-1997, but probably makes the most sense sometime in the late 1970s or the 1980s, whenever the British were building watchtowers in South Armagh (and 2-3 others in county Fermanagh).
2. Estates are more or less neighborhoods in urban and suburban areas.
3.The Union is (in this context) the connection between N. Ireland and Great Britain.
4. Squaddies is a word for British soldiers.
5. I don’t know how theologically anti-Catholic the British Army is, but there’s at least a little bit of that and generally the BA in the North was certainly anti-Catholic. Also, I realize there are plenty of atheists and some protestants and some others in the nationalist community. Also, I'm pretty secular when it comes to politics.
6. The watchtowers were constructed where the security forces were very vulnerable to IRA attacks. 

7. British Nazis overwhelmingly supported the unionist and British causes in the North. 

8. As far as them being very one-sided, some proof of that is found here, in the three paragraphs starting with the one that starts- “Looking at the 825+...” 

9. **61% of this version is me, 39% is the original.

10. I give this poem four stars out of five.
11. I could almost describe this as a rare N. Ireland poem of mine that has nothing to do with republican paramilitaries but I guess it refers to the IRA at the end and more generally is about how the Nationalist community is attacked by the British Army. Much of it could come from a Nationalist.

Fucking British battalions they come over here.
They try to keep us down, keep us down with fear.
They attack our estates, trying to control.
Maintaining the Union is their only goal.

Chorus:
Brits out! Brits out!
Hear the people scream, hear the people shout.
Brits out! Brits out!
Squaddies go home, no more pushing us about.

Their religion they think is superior to yours and mine
They disrespect our culture, and our language they malign
Watchtowers are rising on every hill,
Fascists always celebrating whenever they kill

They claim they’re peace-keepers and don’t take sides
But the brits are running the North, the Six-Counties are occupied.
When I think of what they’ve done here it makes me so pissed
We don’t like war, but we will resist

Rand Paul's hypocrisy

A few days ago there was an amazing editorial in the Washington Post. You should read it. Two things I would add:

1) Washington D.C. has a non-White majority.

and

2) When Paul's spokesperson says of D.C.'s status- “Efforts to change that have failed, and until it is changed it is not only the prerogative but the duty of Congress to have jurisdiction over the Federal District,” I think it's important to ask if Paul supports state-hood for D.C.

Tom

The KKK are Fools: Three more poems

I have three more poems. for a description of how and why I do these poems, see this.

1. Join The IRA. Guess what it's about.
2. No Surrender (to the KKK). Guess.
3. Orange Fools. About the broad Nationalist/Republican struggle in N. Ireland, only slightly pro-IRA.

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

“Join The IRA” based on, “Join The Klan” by The Klansmen, original lyrics are here.

1. The Klansmen was a project of Ian Stuart Donaldson, who was a supporter of the British and Unionist causes in N. Ireland.
2. Volunteers are members of republican paramilitaries.
3. This is about the Provisional IRA (in recent decades known simply as the IRA) and is basically set during the Troubles, prior to 1997, and probably AFTER the mid-1970s, since it includes a lot of socialist talk and I don’t think there was a socialist majority in the leadership of the PIRA until sometime around 1980. Something at least close to revolution was on their agenda for around 15 years after that point. (in general it seems safe to say that SF’s politics more or less mirrored those of a majority of IRA members). Also, there’s reason to believe that the armed struggle of republicans inspired other forms of resistance (the African National Congress said that about their armed struggle in S. Africa). It refers to "the People" at the end and that's basically a reference to people who are more or less IRA supporters as described below.
4. The BA is the British Army.
5. James Connolly was Ireland’s greatest republican/socialist. Michael Collins was a major leader of the IRA during the War of Independence and has been credited with developing urban guerrilla warfare. Che is Che Gueverra, who has been credited with developing rural guerrilla warfare.
6. “Óglaigh na hÉireann” is the official name of the IRA and means “Irish Volunteers.”
7. In the Irish-British context, orange is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry.
8. Geographically, N. Ireland could sort of be called the north-east of Ireland.
9. I give this poem two stars out of five.
10. **68% of this version is me, 32% is the original.
11. UPDATE 5/14/12 The "People" was basically just the nationalist population, but they were the ones being oppressed and were 1/3 of the population (I'm not saying that entire 1/3 was in support of the IRA, but 40% of that population supported the IRA and probably around 40% KIND OF supported the IRA, and to either a large or small degree there was mass struggle).
12.  UPDATED 2/5/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.


be a Volunteer, fight for what is right
Socialist revolution, we will ignite
Fighting for the day, when the BA’s gone away
In the tradition of Connolly, Collins, and Che

Óglaigh na hÉireann, the people's Army
Freeing the country from the Brits and bourgeoisie
The orange terror raised it's ugly head
With the Provos, resistance became widespread

The Irish flag is held up high
James Connolly’s spirit will never die
The People are rising in the north-east
In battle the IRA takes on the beast

*****

“No Surrender (to the KKK)” based on “No Surrender (to the IRA) by Strikeforce UK, original lyrics are here.

1. This is about non-violent opposition to the Ku Klux Klan. Uusally the original lyrics my poems are based on leave little room for writing a poem like this, but I wanted to a poem about non-violent opposition to the Klan and this seemed like the best chance.
2. The original is by a racist band.
3. Fighting the Klan would partly involve, directly and directly trying to change their minds in various ways and alternative events during klan rallies, etc..
4. The line about David Duke is, in the original (with Gerry Adams instead) a reference to death. But in this version, it would be either prison, and/or isolation and defeat as his followers leave him.
5. This version is **37% me, and 63% the original.
6. I give this poem four stars out of five.
7. I know Duke technically isn’t a Klansman.

No surrender!

No surrender to the KKK
Across the US, defeating them is our crusade
We stand by the multi-racial working-class
The Klan’s hate and division, workers will surpass

Chorus:
No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the KKK
No surrender, no surrender, we’ll fight them every day
No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the Ku Klux Klan
No surrender, no surrender, we’ll fight until they understand

Their terrorist attacks are going on still
And they don't give a fuck who they maim and kill
David Duke better wave bye bye
Cos the Ku Klux Klan’s defeat is nigh

Chorus

No surrender!

We will smash that racist scum
No time to lose cos the battle's begun
We're loyal to the working-class and we're gonna win
We will not back down and we'll never give in

Chorus

*****

“Orange Fools” based on “Reds Are Fools” by Kill, Baby, Kill. The original lyrics are here.

1. This is set pretty much in July 2002.
2. The original is by a Belgian band. I’m not sure, but since there is probably close to zero Irish diaspora in Belgium, they probably agree with the late Ian Stuart Donaldson and support the British and Unionist causes in N. Ireland.
3. Although the vast majority of republicans have, to some degree, put the push for a United Ireland on hold, I’m sure all of that vast majority agree that the GFA is kind of a stepping stone to their goal.
4. Some things that indicate a continuing inequality for Catholics (the first two indicators were worse in 2002):
A: In 2010 Catholics were 50% more likely to be unemployed than Protestants.
B: I discuss some recent figures relevant to reforming the police in N. Ireland in the first five or so paragraphs of this post.
C: In the year before July 2002, there had been three sectarian murders of Catholic civilians and one murder of a Protestant civilian socializing with Catholic friends, all by loyalist paramilitaries. (The Ulster Defense Association was blamed by pretty much everyone, but the British government said their cease-fire was intact)
D: During the Marching Season of 2002 at least three times Orange parades were forced through Catholic areas and there were at least three times when nationalists protesting this were attacked by the police and the Army. (For why those marches shouldn't be forced through catholic areas, see this)

5. The Union Jack is the British flag.
6. The Good Friday Agreement, when considering the context and related elements, such as the use or absence of internment, is better than the earlier efforts at creating peace. As far as the actual text of the Agreement, republicans got: Prisoner releases (which would have been at least sort of important for probably about 80% of the Nationalist community); a stronger committment to reforming the police; and in general their inclusion without prior decommissioning by the IRA. More of my thoughts relevant to the GFA are in the first 1/3 of this post.
7. The Orange Order is an anti-Catholic group. More on them here.
8. Besides being anti-Catholic to one degree or another, a lot of Unionists are also racist. There’s some more of that in the first 1/2 of this post (I also read an article by an African-American who visited the North and he said that in a Unionist area he saw lots of Confederate flags).
9. The UDA is a Unionist death squad that overwhelmingly just killed Catholic civilians.
10. Orange in the British-Irish context, is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry. That line is about the beginning of the Troubles.
11. The Short Strand is a Catholic enclave surrounded by Unionist areas (and a river to the west). For some number of weeks in early-mid 2002, it was under siege. Although I think this went too far, a senior member of the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party compared what was happening to the Short Strand with what happened to Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. That line doesn’t mean that the IRA should have gone back to war.
12. Overwhelmingly, the enemy in the N. Ireland conflict is/was not the “Nazi clowns”- that last 1/3 of that line is simply an anti-fascist statement.
13. **61% of this version is me, 39% is the original.
14. I give this poem four stars out of five.
15. This is more or less about the broad anti-Unionist/Nationalist/Republican struggle with the sort of exception of the line about going to war, which is more specifically about the IRA.
16. UPDATE 2/9/13 In the third line of the third verse, I replaced THEY with MANY.

The struggle’s not over, we’ve got a long way to go.
We haven’t won our freedom yet, that's a fact that we all know.
There are still too many ways equality is denied,
but soon the truth will break free and unionism will die.

The Union Jack in Belfast is a symbol of oppression.
But after decades of resistance, we extracted some concessions
With bullshit propaganda the Orange Order kept people divided.
The unionist rich are to blame, for decades hate they incited

We’ll always fly the Irish flag, no matter what they try
Cause Unionists are bigots, Confederate flags they fly.
Many supported the UDA, a choice filled with hate
We’ll keep on working, till their bigotry we negate.

Orange Democracy was a lie, we had to go to war.
Now the Short Strand is under siege, a fact we can’t ignore.
Why are they still trying? They can’t keep us down.
Ireland belongs to the workers, the people, and not the Nazi clowns

Nazis Were and Are on the Right

There are a lot of people who believe that the Nazis were on the Left or that they were half on the Left and half on the Right. This is because the other way to refer to fascists is: “national socialist.” Here are some reasons why the Nazis were much more on the Right than on the Left:

* That Hitler guy was a total ass-hole- NO WAY was he on the Left : ).

(seriously though, here are some reasons)

* I can’t remember exactly what the details were, but Hitler’s regime had a mixed attitude towards capital- some good, some bad (for capital). I believe it was lower taxes on business, but more government intervention (overwhelmingly not for the workers or consumers or for other progressive goals, but for things like the re-arming of Germany). UPDATE 6/18/12 The Nazis also provided some companies with slave and/or conscripted labor.

A: One very good source says that Hjalmar Schacht, "was a staunch defender of capitalism." Although never a member of the Nazi Party, Hitler appointed him head of the Reichsbank in 1933. ++ p. 90

B: Hitler's first economic plan (the Reinhardt Plan) included tax breaks for businesses. ++ p. 91



* They simply got rid of the unions.

* They killed some communists and social-democrats and sent many to concentration camps.

* They elevated race and nation above class and tried to cover up class conflict without doing anything to erase or minimize income inequality.

A: In power the Nazis destroyed the trade-unions on May 2nd 1933. They were replaced by a Nazi employee organization which by the Fall of 1933 included “all working people regardless of economic or social position” including employers. It did two things which were sort of pro-worker: A) they improved some of the conditions that workers labored under- this included things like the playing of music, plants, good lighting, etc.; and B) made it easier for workers to go on relatively cheap vacations or attend concerts, etc.. ++ pp. 96-97
(But, it didn’t do anything to empower workers in labor conflict and did very little or nothing to narrow the financial gap between rich and poor)

* Probably the most important thing is to look at who allowed the Nazis into government. They were centrists and mostly conservatives (i.e. President Paul von Hinderburg). Even after Hitler created a dictatorship, many such politicians continued to be part of Hitler’s government.

* They got a lot of financial support from very successful, mainstream businessmen, especially in the last 2-3 years before they took power.

* A major leader of the Nazi’s left-wing, Otto Strasser left the party in 1930. His brother, Gregor, who had similar beliefs and was also a major leader of the Nazi left, was killed by Hitler’s men in 1934.

*They supported the right-wing side in the Spanish Civil War.

* Today’s neo-Nazis generally place themselves on the Right and in conflict with the left. This is found in the lyrics of Nazi Skinhead bands, and while they occasionally say something anti-capitalist, they much more frequently make anti-communist and anti-Left statements and pro-Right statements. American white supremacists spend much more time trying to work within the GOP than they do trying to work within the Democratic Party.


++ Jackson J. Spielvogel Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History Prentice Hall, 1996


In a blog discussion here another poster named "Ian" added three more facts:

* “They were ferociously anti-gay, imprisoning and killing thousands of gay men.”

* “They reintroduced Christian prayer into schools.”

* “They were anti-abortion, at least when it came to gentile Germans.”


UPDATE 8/9/12 The Southern Poverty Law Center published a good article about this, here.

Eyes On The Prize: Three More Poems

Below are three more poems. For an explanation of how and why I "write" the poems, see this.

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

“Internment Night” based on “Fiery Cross” by Hate Society, original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the annual rioting on “Internment Night” in N. Ireland during the earlier years of the conflict (I'm not sure how much that has happened in the last 1-2 decades) (the rioting for some number of years was accompanied by creating bonfires (at least in 1988) in republican areas). I read that at some point, probably 15-20 years ago, a community festival in west Belfast was started partly to give teenagers something else to do instead of rioting. Is this poem meant as a criticism of the organizers of that festival? NOT AT ALL- as far as I can tell, that festival was/is a great idea, and of course it is/was anti-Unionist and anti-Imperialist and was therefore a form of resistance (considering the progress made so far with the Peace Process, I’m not sure if “resistance” is the right word for today). But I also believe that during the conflict, rioting was generally a good thing- it was closer to mass struggle than the IRA’s campaign. It was just one more way of resisting along with rallies, marches, the IRA, elections, etc.
2. The phrase, referring to POWs is usually “men behind the wire” but “fence” rhymed and made sense. 1971 was the first year of internment. There’s a good, academic summary about internment here.
3. Squaddies is a word for British soldier, peeler is a word for the police.
4. Provos are the Sinn Fein and the IRA that in recent decades have been called simply Sinn Fein and the IRA. I haven’t really nailed down when this takes place, so I’m not sure what to say about them being “on the rise.” It’s a bad line in what is a bad poem.
5. BA is the British Army, and they didn’t defeat the IRA.
6. The phrase “freedom’s seeds” is based on a republican song called “Your Daughters and Your Sons” (it's my favorite song). The idea is that the children of (for example) Catholics in N. Ireland were the seeds of freedom in the future.
7. The idea behind the 2nd line of the 2nd verse is that the rioting of youth could possibly be seen as a small taste of what the security forces would get from the IRA (there’s more than that, the rioting also was to some degree mass struggle).
8. Normalization was a part of Thatcher’s N. Ireland policy where they tried to convince people the war wasn’t having much of an effect on N. Ireland society. Although they were rioting very frequently for years before that, nationalist youth rioting could be seen as doing a pretty good job of undermining normalization.
9. I deleted the last verse for various reasons.
10. I give this poem two stars of five.
11. **71% of this version is me, 29% is the original.
12. The reference to fascism towards the very end. For the most part, you’re right- their enemy was not fascist. But they were anti-fascist youth.
13. The original is by an American band, and so I made a point of including some anti-fascist/right/bigot or pro-left (I explain that a bit more here). With this one, it’s the term “anti-fascist” (Overwhelmingly, the enemy in the N. Ireland conflict is/was not fascists- that part of that line is simply an anti-fascist statement).

They’ve been lighting their bon-fires for years as resistance
And remembering those in ‘71 taken behind the fence
Already rioted a hundred times and never were arrested,
the squaddies and peelers presence would not go uncontested

Chorus:
Fiery resistance still burning - lighting up the land!
Better watch out squaddie - the ‘RA will shoot you where you stand!
Fiery resistance still burning - lighting up the skies!
Better watch out peeler - the Provos are on the rise!

Another army the BA couldn’t defeat, they are freedom’s seeds
They will let the crown forces know, a warning they should heed
Anti-fascist youth in one struggle - an army of the poor
Rejecting normalization, it’s their battle in a people’s war

chorus

****

“We Are Standing” based on “They Stand Alone” by No Remorse, lyrics are here (not exactly what I used, but close).

1. The first verse is about “Operation Motorman,” a British offensive against no-go areas (Nationalist areas where the security forces couldn’t easily enter because of barricades and armed Volunteers (members of republican paramilitaries)) For more info, see this. At that point, in 1972, the British Army (BA) were in complete conflict with the nationalist community. I’m not sure if that means they were there to support the status quo since the regional government in Belfast had been suspended, and the BA wasn’t in complete lock-step with the Unionists. But they were continuing the oppression of the nationalist community. And a year earlier, they had carried out the internment operations demanded by the Unionists. And in 1974 they allowed the Unionists to bring down the power-sharing government. So it largely makes sense.
2. “Orange Jim Crow” is my way of referring to the anti-Catholic environment of N. Ireland back then (orange is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry in N. Ireland). In the period around 1972, there were still some Jim Crow-type laws, and certainly four years earlier they had them. You could also say that in some ways it continued up until somewhere around 10 years ago.
3. The second verse is about the formation of the state of Northern Ireland. The USC was the Ulster Special Constabulary, a kind of state militia to help the police, but they were worse than the police in terms of sectarianism. Britain paid a lot for the various efforts of establishing and securing N. Ireland- they turned the Six Counties (a republican term for N. Ireland) into an armed camp.
4. As I have explained in the last 1/3 of this, I believe the Left in many countries dropped the ball in terms of doing work on N. Ireland. The media didn’t help with that problem.
5. The line about Soldiers of Empire refers to the build up in the early 1970s.
6. I give this poem three stars out of five.
7. The Ulster Unionist Party was the main unionist political force in N. Ireland for decades until about 7 years ago. It’s leadership was overwhelmingly upper-class and the rich benefited greatly from UUP governments.
8. No Remorse was British and supported the unionist and/or British causes in N. Ireland.
9. **70% of this version is me, 30% is the original.
10. UPDATE 5/15/12 The last line of the first verse could be seen as conflating those who supported the IRA with the nationalist population in general. That's not my intent, although I could almost do that without it being more than sort of inaccurate- beyond the 40% who definitely supported the IRA, there's evidence that something like another 40% sort of supported the IRA. You could say it's a look at N. Ireland that could be shared with non-IRA supporters, but in this poem it's coming form IRA supporters.

A tank rolls up the Creggan Rd.
The BA’s here to support the status quo
The Volunteers escaped, to fight another day
Our day will come- victory to the IRA

Chorus
British Army man, you must go.
We’ll defeat you and Orange Jim Crow.
Northern Catholics, now we are standing
Freedom and justice, we are demanding

A State built on sectarian violence of the USC
An Orange system for the rich of the UUP
Propped up by pillars, of British pounds
Thousands of guns, to occupy Irish ground

Chorus

Oh! Northern Catholics, No-one on your side
Hopes are nearly fading. Freedom’s nearly died
come on

Chorus

Silence from the Left, while Nationalists die.
World-wide news media won’t ask why.
Soldiers of the Empire, build up in Six Counties.
It's an imperialist creation, they want us on our knees

Chorus

Take back your land...

*****

“Eyes On The Prize” based on “Final Attack” by Final War, original lyrics are here.

1. This is about Ireland, close to the day when Ireland is unified. UPDATE 4/27/12 I just realized, I was a little lazy with part of writing this poem- I'm kind of conflating the northern Catholic population with the Irish population in general; in the next week or so, I'll fix that (same thing with supporters of the armed struggle and those who didn't support it).
UPDATE 4/29/12 It’s overwhelmingly about the nationalist population in the North. I don’t know if this is really a good idea, this will probably be the only poem I do this with, but I am going to use asterisks to indicate which lines mean this or that. * Just nationalists; ** Nationalists and the South; *** Largely pre-N. Ireland and more general; **** Northern Protestants. And there is only one line that refers to the use of force as part of a wide variety of efforts to unite the island and/or work for equality for the nationalist and Catholic populations; that doesn't mean that it was supported by the entire nationalist community (about 40% strongly supported the IRA and somewhere around 40% sort of supported the IRA).

2. The Dail is the parliament in Dublin. There’s a good chance that unification will begin shifting Ireland towards the Left. There’s some more about that towards the bottom of this post.
4. As far as I can tell, with Ireland united and free, there would be very little left of British imperialism.
5. As far as dialogue and reconciliation and helping the unionist bigots move beyond the end of N. Ireland, there is some info about that here and (as far as my record on supporting dialogue and reconciliation), here. You might also want to read this.
6. The red, white and blue are the colors of the British flag.
7. The Republic is already much more secular than it was decades ago (gay rights are fairly advanced) and even decades ago, Catholic fundamentalism rarely took the form of anti-Protestantism.
8. Anti-Catholic bigotry in Ireland was largely encouraged by the British.
9. It’s difficult to say when The Troubles ended. It was a gradual process, probably beginning with the Good Friday Agreement, and ending with Sinn Fein accepting the new police force.
10. “Eyes on the prize” was the name of a documentary made in the 1980s about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States (and the years between that era and 1985). I’m not sure if it’s a perfect fit, but the last line in this poem, I believe, works very well.
11. In the last line, “we’ve all” refers to about 90% of the Northern Catholic population and what would be a growing minority of Northern Protestsants.
12. I give this poem four stars out of five.
13. **80% this version is mine, 20% is the original.
14. The original is by an American band, and so I made a point of including some anti-fascist/right/bigot or pro-left (I explain that a bit more here). With this one it’s the title of the poem.
15. Orange is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry in the Irish-British context.
16. UPDATE 4/21/16 I replaced the word "enslaved" with "killed" in the 3rd line of the 2nd verse.
17. UPDATE 11/8/16 In the 3rd line of the last verse, I changed "many" to "hundreds of thousands" because "many" would probably be interpreted as MUCH less than "hundreds of thousands." At this point there's about 1.1 million Protestants in the North and although "hundreds of thousands" is kind of a mouthful, I think that TODAY there might be about 75,000-100,000 adult anti-sectarian Protestants there and this poem is about a possible near future where a lot more progress has been made.

The day is approaching, the day of unity n/a
for you and your family, will finally be free *
gonna celebrate, and remember the dead **
gonna paint the Dail a light shade of red **

We’ll have equality and justice, with our liberation *
we’re also gonna have truth and reconciliation *
the Brits took our land, and killed many of us ***
Now British imperialism has been turned to dust n/a

Chorus:
Oh no, what are the bigots gonna do ****
when the Brits lower the red, white and blue n/a
We need to talk with them, make them understand- **
We’re all gonna share this island **

the Brits introduced sectarianism and kept the Nationalists down ***
Occupied all our cities and all our towns ***
explosions and gunfire had been part of our struggle *
As well as voting and marching, during and after the Troubles *

Chorus

We've got our sights set on a new democracy **
We guarantee, it won’t be, a Catholic theocracy **
Hundreds of thousands have broken free from the orange lies ****
And we’ve all got our eyes, yeah, eyes on the prize **

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews Q

This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST. 

I have been more or less ignoring this- the need for me to become familiar with The Original Series. In general I don’t like much of what I’ve seen. In any case, I am now watching it and will be doing reviews of those episodes. I will be giving pretty low scores, probably no higher than three stars out of five- I just don’t like TOS.

Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).

“The Cloud Minders” See this for a plot summary.

This episode is basically about privilege. You could also mention national oppression, but privilege seems more appropriate (“elitism” is also very accurate). At one point Spock says: “this troubled planet is a place of the most violent contrasts. Those who receive the rewards are totally separated from those who shoulder the burdens. It is not a wise leadership.” You could also use the phrase “environmental racism.”

There is a scene where torture is being used. Although Kirk and Spock make it very clear they and the Federation won’t stand for that, the planet which is witnessing the use of torture by the government is IN the Federation. The torture is stopped and Kirk ends up leaving the planet when he is ordered to.

So, it is largely about inequality. At the end it appears that progress is being made, and there are moves towards equality.

I give it one star out of five.

"The Savage Curtain” See this for a plot summary.

This episode contained a lot of political or at least sort of political stuff.

At the end, there is the question, from an alien culture’s point of view (without these concepts)- which is stronger, Good or Evil?

The alien concludes that both use the same methods, and achieve the same results. In the battle that the alien had just watched, as far as I could tell, the methods were largely the same, although one fourth of Kirk’s team tried to resolve the conflict non-violently and was killed by the other side. There’s a large amount of truth that in war, most methods are used by both sides. The majority of the time, I’d say there’s no problem with that- the problems arise with things like torture and intentionally killing innocent civilians. In response to a series of sectarian murders of Catholics in south Armagh, some republicans (likely the PIRA (now known simply as the IRA)) killed 10 innocent (and possibly ANTI-sectarian) Protestant civilians. That (the "Kingsmill Massacre") was incredibly wrong (it was also the sort of thing the IRA absolutely or almost absolutely never did (there may have been about 5 times when a much smaller number of people were killed in resprisals for the sectarian murders of Catholics, but even with that, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death)). As far as results go, there’s always or usually some (at the very least) large differences (I think you have a good idea of what I consider “Good” and what I consider “Evil,” so I won’t explain that here).

Some other items worth mentioning:

1) Lincoln. In general I have pretty good thoughts about Lincoln. I’m reading an article about how he was friendly to labor and got along via letters with Karl Marx. Although he wasn’t an abolitionist, he leaned in that direction for years before the Emancipation Proclamation- he often was critical of slavery and as President took some earlier steps in the direction of ending slavery.

2) There is one conversation involving Lincoln and Uhura which at first I thought was problematic in a racist way, but a friend convinced me it was was basically saying that the 23rd Century was more enlightened than the 19th Century.


I give it three stars out of five.

“All Our Yesterdays” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.

“Turnabout Intruder” See this for a plot summary.

There are a few things I wanted to note in this review.

First, it’s said that there are no female Captains. Kirk doesn’t disagree with her on this, although we know that in ENT there was a female Captain. It seems likely that even though she was kind of wrong, there WAS a big problem with equality for women in StarFleet (looking at the main characters of all the series also suggests that problem, although it’s only a very serious problem if we assume that in the future women will be half of the military instead of a minority of it (I've been meaning to ask several women what they think about that, I might change my mind about that and assume that they WILL be about half))

There is one line that stands out- a woman says something about the “indignity of being a woman.” After looking at the definitions of the word “dignity,” I’m still not sure what she meant. It almost sounds as if she’s saying that women don’t deserve esteem or respect. I’ll be honest, I’m not as familiar with gender studies and feminist theory as I should be, but if that is what she’s saying, that’s obviously untrue, but beyond that statement I’m not sure what else to say.

We also are reminded that with one crime as an exception, the death penalty is abolished in the Federation. Connected with that, we see something sort of close to a mutiny by some officers, including Chekov and Sulu. That’s fairly inspirational.

This is the last episode of the series, and apparently they didn’t feel like doing something special. Anyway, I give it three stars out of five.

Racism

This is amazing! (UPDATE 12/26/11 maybe not "amazing," but something close to that- as I mention below, their talk about re-writing the law will almost certainly make it even easier to prove they're racists, and I'm a bit surprised because I thought they would be smarter than that)

UPDATE 12/10/11
What will be really important is to see HOW the authors of that law will re-write it. I can't imagine them re-writing it in a way that won't be easy to condemn as even more racist than the original bill. Anyway, here is another article worth reading.

UPDATE 12/16/11 A news item from the Southern Law Poverty Center has some more important info.

Israeli Apartheid and Palestinian Civil Disobediance

Yesterday I found a very interesting and encouraging article on the BBC web-site. It's about a civil disobedience action by Palestinians, which highlights the fact that Apartheid IS an appropriate term for Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

Tom  

UPDATE 11/17/11
I forgot to mention a few other things about using the term "Apartheid" when referring to Israel. I don't remember the details, but there are laws that make it very difficult for married couples to live in Israel if one of them is from certain parts of the Middle-East (including the Occupied Territories) and the other one is an Israeli citizen. (UPDATE 1/12/12 More on that here)

And it's not just buses that are basically segregated, there are also roads that are segregated, too. (UPDATE 12/3/12 More on segregation here (In all fairness, they canceled that policy, see this)) UPDATE 3/9/20 An article about this is here, and here are some more of my thoughts on this. I'm not saying there aren't legitimate security concerns among settlers, but A) the hostility from Palestinians is largely because of their treatment by Israel, and this is just one more reason that needs to end; B) if they don't want to be around Palestinians, maybe they should live somewhere else, besides what used to be called Palestine, and C) these policies of segregation only reinforce the anti-Arab bigotry that, to one degree or another, most Jewish Israelis are afflicted by.

And then there is the fact that the State is officially defined by a Jewish identity. People who support that should be asked if they think there will ever be an Palestinian-Israeli Muslim or Christian or Druze President or Prime Minister in Israel (according to the Israeli government at some point in recent years around 17% of Israel's population is Muslim). More generally, the Palestinian-Israeli population does experience a fair amount of inequality.

UPDATE 11/27/11
As the article I link to above says, Israel says that keeping Palestinians without permission outside Jerusalem is for security reasons. But instead of banning the small minority of Palestinians who Israel could credibly consider security risks, the burden is placed on all Palestinians to get permission. In a similar situation (both areas include natives and a settler populations of one sort or another) even the British didn’t go that far in relation to N. Ireland (they only banned a small number of nationalists from Britain, which was bad enough). The policy that Israel has is very similar to the S. African Apartheid laws about controlling the movements of Blacks and generally keeping them out of white cities unless they had permission to be there.

(UPDATE 12/5/12 I forgot to mention that, whether they're going to Jerusalem or somewhere else in Israel, Occupied Territories Palestinians have to pass through some number (probably around five) of security checkpoints)

If security is the motivation, I’d also have to ask, what about extremist settlers? MANY of them FREQUENTLY clash with the Israeli security forces (in both the West Bank and in Israel), and it was a supporter of settlers who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Are any of them, for security reasons, not allowed into Jerusalem? I didn’t think so. (UPDATE 12/15/11 here's a recent article about this sort of thing) (UPDATE 8/7/15 After a Palestinian baby was killed by settlers Israel has announced that  measures usually reserved for Palestinian suspects will be used against suspects in this case; see this) UPDATE 2/12/20 A relavent article is here. See another article about hate crimes against Palestinians and the response of the police.

So, security is not the reason. Bigotry is. (UPDATE 12/4/12 Another article about anti-Palestinian racism (I believe the idea behind the loyalty oath is to discourage Palestinians from trying to get citizenship and to encourage Palestinians who are currently in Israel to leave; The thing is, in a self-defined Jewish State, the Palestinians are 2nd Class citizens and would likely and reasonably feel uncomfortable swearing loyalty to such a state)

UPDATE 2/5/12 To be fair, SOME action is NOW taking place against the settlers, but it's new and seems pretty limited- there is still a huge gap between how specific Israelis suspected of militancy are treated, and how pretty much the entire Palestinian population of the Occupied Territories is treated. The article is here.

UPDATE  1/23/16 An update from the US Ambassador on (among other things Israel is doing wrong) how the Israeli criminal justice and security systems are treating Palestinian  and Jewish settler militants differently.

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UPDATE 12/11/11 Juan Cole wrote a great essay about the Palestinians, largely aimed at the idea that their identity is invented and therefore they have no claim to Palestine.

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UPDATE 12/5/12 There is also something Apartheid-esque about the withdrawal of settlers and soldiers from Gaza- the South Africans created several ostensibly independent states for blacks, but they weren't really independent.

UPDATE 3/2/14 I need to nail this down, but an Israeli leftist said that when she visits her Palestinian friends in the Occupied Teritories, she is breaking the law.

UPDATE 3/17/14 An article about why the Palestinians won't recognize Israel AS A JEWISH STATE.

UPDATE 4/29/14 An article that goes into some detail about the Apartheid comparison (That article includes a link to another important one here).

UPDATE 11/13/14 A post at Informed Comment about talk by the Israeli PM suggesting that Palestinian-Israelis should be stripped of their citizenship. UPDATE 3/5/20 Articles here and here explain that Israel's longtime and current and maybe future PM believes, essentially, that Palestinian-Israeli MKs (MPs) shouldn't be counted when it comes to forming a government. An opinion column here is also worth reading (the author is described here).
 

UPDATE 3/28/15 Another relevant article about the treatment of Palestinian-Israelis.

UPDATE 5/27/18 A couple days ago I was at an event about Palestine when a member of the audience said that it's illegal for Palestinians to convert to Judaism. I did a search and might do more and found an article here (I've been told the site is both conservative and pro-Israel). If this is true, to any degree, that is sickening and completely racist.

UPDATE 8/3/18 The biggest piece of evidence in favor of using the word Apartheid- see this. This also has some important things to say.

 UPDATE Feb. 2020 One more article, this one about suppressing the Palestinian vote inside Israel.

UPDATE Feb 2020 An article about efforts to reduce the % of the Israeli population that is Palestinian. Although it doesn't change my opinion of Netanyahu, here is an important update.

UPDATE 2/9/20 An article touching on the fact (or at leat that people including Palestinian-Israelis, can be blocked from running for office if they feel so strongly about supporting the Palestinians that they support attacks on Israeli soldiers. A very senior politician also says she should be in the Palestinian parliament, not the Israeli one (she's an Palestinian-ISRAELI). It also mentions that inciting racism can get you disqualified, but I as far as I can tell it has only been applied to members of one ridiculously small and ridiculously bigoted Zionist party.

UPDATE 2/12/20 Although this isn't news I just confirmed something I was pretty sure of anyway. Read this article about Israel demolishing the homes of Palestinian terrorists, especially the following part:

"A similar "standard" was never applied to a Jewish terrorist. For instance when a Jewish settler, Baruch Goldstein, slayed 29 Muslim worshipers in the Cave of Patriarchs, no one suggested to demolish his home as a deterrence."

UPDATE 2/27/20 An article here about how the Israeli government is helping settlers break the law in the West Bank by not destroying illegal settlements, and at the same time destroying Palestinian structures.

UPDATE An article describing a poll showing a lack of support in Israel for key elements of a democratic society and political system. That's a reference to such things in Israel and although those who are unconcerned about, for example, civil liberties probably are anti-Arab, if they're so unconcerned about democracy for the Israeli population in general (which is 80%) Jewish, I can only imagine what they would say if they were asked about these things exclusively in relation to the Palestinian-Israeli population or the Palestinians in the West Bank.

UPDATE 2/29/20 I wish it were more explicitly about anti-Arab racism and anti-Muslim bigotry, but a senior figure in the Likud party says "hate is what unites our camp," and although it appears to be hatred on several topics, I have no doubt that part of it is about Muslims and Arabs.

UPDATE 3/6/20 An article about Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza normally allowed into Israel to work, are barred on and around national and Jewish holidays, while Jewish settlers in the West Bank can continue to enter Israel.

UPDATE 3/7/20 An article about how a government minister apparently wants to expel the Palestinian-Israeli population (I am transitioning to use that term instead of the apparently inappropriate term "Arab-Israeli").

UPDATE 3/13/20 An article more or less about the Nation State Law.

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UPDATE 3/14/20

From an article about a US State Department report on Jerusalem:

The human rights report, however, did express criticism of the Jerusalem Municipality for not providing adequate services to Palestinians living in the eastern half of the city.

“The Jerusalem municipality failed to provide sufficient social services, education, infrastructure, and emergency planning for neighborhoods where the majority of residents were not Israelis, especially in the areas between the security barrier and the municipal boundary,” it said.

Even though Palestinians in East Jerusalem make up 38% of the city’s more than 900,000 residents, the Jerusalem Municipality only invests 10-12% of its budget in their neighborhoods, according to Daniel Seidemann, an expert on Jerusalem affairs.

I think that when the PA complains about using the word "Arab" instead of "Palestinian" that is largely just about resident of Jerusalem. On the other hand, I am probably going to get off my butt and change "Arab-Israeli" on my blog to "Palestinian-Israeli" which I know is to one degree or another preferred.

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UPDATE 3/1/4/20 Even the US State Department accused Likud of anti-Arab racism.

UPDATE 3/14/20 An article about an effort to change two things about how the leader of the opposition is treated by the State. The idea is to deny them intelligence briefings the usually get, and, even worse, deny them a security detail from the domestic security/intelligence agency Shin Bet and this is explicitly because that position might soon be held by a Palestinian-Israeli MK (MP). The part about intelligence briefings is just basic racism, but the part about a security detail takes it to a new level. That can't be construed in any way as a threat to national security, they just like the idea of a high-profile Palestinan-Israeli MK being killed by right-wing Zionists.

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My best post in support of the Palestinians is here.

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UPDATE 3/29/16
As you might know there is a lot of controversy about using the word "Apartheid" in relation to Israel's relationship with the Palestinians. Some part of the European Union even said it's anti-Semitic to do that. I think I do a pretty good job here of proving that it's accurate enough that it's definitely not anti-Semitic. But since I have kind of stepped up my criticism of Israel with this post, I thought I should repeat here something I've said twice elsewhere on this blog, something that might be the most important thing to explain if you want to defeat the actual anti-Semites among us Palestine supporters. And that is that Jewish-Americans are only a tiny minority of those Americans who strongly support Israel, and the rest have their own interests/agendas and not some kind of allegiance or compliance to a majority of the Jewish community as their reason(s) for supporting Israel. There are tons of Christians motivated by obscure Biblical reasons to support Israel and there are tons of people (both atheists and Christians) who support Israel for foreign policy reasons (their views of Israel's role in the Cold War and more recently the "War on Terror"). And on a related note, there is a growing minority of Jewish-Americans who are critical of Israel in support of the Palestinians.

(At the risk of being silly and patting myself on the back too much for being a good Christian ally, I want to high-light that I did a post here that you might want to note. A) in general it shows that I go to extraordinairy lengths to oppose anti-Semitism, and B) I describe the NUREMBERG LAWS (specifically and not Nazi anti-semitism in general or the Final Solution) as creating "a kind of Apartheid for German Jews")

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews P

This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST. 

I have been more or less ignoring this- the need for me to become familiar with The Original Series. In general I don’t like much of what I’ve seen. In any case, I am now watching it and will be doing reviews of those episodes. I will be giving pretty low scores, probably no higher than three stars out of five- I just don’t like TOS.

Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).

“That Which Survives” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it one star out of five.

“The Lights of Zetar” See this for a plot summary.

Overall a non-political episode, but there are a few things to mention:

1) More sexism than usual. A female StarFleet officer is frequently referred to as either a girl or a lass. Sulu makes a joke which seems to endorse thinking of women as brainless.

UPDATE 11/9/11 I think that with this post and maybe a couple others where I accused ST *TOS* of being sexist I went a little too far. I mean, there ARE two statements by kirk that are sexist, and I think the whole thing with women crewmembers wearing skirts (or dresses?) thing is sexist. But when it comes to Kirk and in this case also Scotty, referring to adult female crewmembers as "girl" or "lass" I have to wonder, how often has kirk called adult male crewmembers "boy?" I think probably rarely or never, but I'm not going to re-watch the series anytime soon, so I don't know. It is possible I'm being too harsh with the characters and writers over the use of "lass" and "girl." And I could be wrong about the skirts.

2) The idea of an electronic repository for all the knowledge in the Federation, which is open to anyone, sounds like a good idea.

3) The last members of an alien race (less than a hundred of them) whose planet died a long time ago is eliminated in order to save a StarFleet offcier from being inhabited by them, which seems reasonable.

“Requiem for Methuselah” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. But I liked the idea that Flint was immortal and had actually been many historical figures (such as da Vinci).

I give it two stars out of five.

“The Way to Eden” See this for a plot summary.

You could possibly call this episode “StarFleet versus the Hippie.” Although Spock likes them, it’s fairly negative towards the hippies.

I give it three stars out of five.