Sinn Fein, Irish-Americans, and People of Color in America

Below is a letter I would have submitted to AP/RN (SF's old paper) in the past, but AP (their new one) doesn’t publish letters so I’m doing it here and also on a politics discussion board here (UPDATE 10/17/23 That discussion forum seems to be dead). It is addressed to SF but I would love to see everyone else also take part in the discussion. The web-site for Friends of SF in the US is here. A few very relevant posts are here. And one more where I talk about the bigger picture of SF and America is here.



Although I infrequently express some criticism of SF, I am mostly a supporter and since 1997 I have occasionally had a small to moderate degree of success supporting SF and/or the nationalist community in general. For example in 1999 I was fairly involved with bringing Rita O’Hare to speak on the CU-Boulder campus.

I have a suggestion about your work in America. On one hand, I am partly motivated to support republicanism because I’m Irish-American. However I know or know of a LOT of Americans who aren’t Irish and have done a fair amount or a lot to support SF and/or the nationalist community in general (for example, Bill Fletcher Jr. who has held senior positions in the labor movement and is the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum; or, the well-known professor, Angela Davis). With that in mind, I was disappointed to see that on the “About Us” page of the Friends of SF USA site, you refer only to Irish-America and the links page only links to SF or Irish-American groups. Because of this and some other similar things about your allies here in America I’m concerned it will deter at least some, probably most and maybe all, interested people of color from getting involved in one way or another (i.e. joining Irish Northern Aid) or even from just educating themselves about the conflict and the Peace Process. This focus I believe unintentionally denies the contributions made by people of color in the past and present and implies that in the present and future Irish-American contributions are more important than those of people of color.

I do know that in Ireland SF is INCREDIBLY anti-racist and that you and your American supporters have occasionally done things to reach out to people of color here, but on that you need to do more, or at least use more inclusive language.

Besides being the right thing to do, it will help in some other important ways:
1) With a good response from people of color, this may have an impact on racism among Irish-Americans. It might also work like that with nationalists and republicans in Ireland.
2) Greater diversity in, for example, INA will also probably attract more white allies, further affecting Irish-American racism.
3) There will be more supporters of SF and/or the nationalist community in general.

Although I believe that I’ve covered a fair amount of this subject, I’d be interested in discussing these issues further.

Sincerely,

Tom Shelley
Boulder, Colorado USA

P.S. I have a true story about this. In the late 1990s I was circulating a petition addressed to the US Government about the former Volunteers facing extradition or deportation. I took it one day to an anti-prisons protest and at one point went up to two men, one white, one black. I told them what the petition was about and the white guy said “I’m Irish-American, but I don’t support the IRA” and declined to sign it. The black guy said “I’ll sign it.”

"IRA Terrorists?"

A lot of people believe in the phrase “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” It’s a useful phrase here and there. For example, (racist and hypocritical) Irish-Americans who supported the IRA but not the ANC’s military wing. But I believe “terrorism” should be loosely defined as an armed campaign that targets civilian life an unacceptable percentage of the time. There will be disagreements and shades of gray:

1) what’s unacceptable? I’d say that starts at 5% of the time, if not much closer to about 2% of the time (depending on which, if any, civilians are being killed intentionally; and operations that target civilian property but are planned to avoid civilian deaths are kind of relevant (i.e. 2% for the intentional deaths and about 40% for the bombings just described, would be VERY close to deserving the label of terrorism, considering that such bombings can have a mildly terroristic impact)) and gets more offensive as it goes up.

2) As I explain below, there are some shades of gray when it comes to which people are legitimate targets.

3) Are bombings that are planned to spare civilian life but which nonetheless risk loss of civilian life terrorism?

Some people on the Left seem comfortable using the word "terrorist" to refer to groups that they like. But I have difficulty seeing former members of the ANC’s military wing or of the IRA describing themselves as terrorists. And I believe there are groups out there that should be labeled as terrorist, to one degree or another.

The IRA was not one of those groups. (I am speaking of the IRA which has been on cease-fire for about 16 years now). Only a very tiny percent of their operations intentionally resulted in civilian death (I'm defining "operations" as attacks on the security forces, bombings of civilian property, attacks on civilians not suspected of crime or informing to the security forces; but NOT feuding with other republicans, or defending their communities from what might be called incursions by loyalists or the security forces (these incidents would largely be found in the first three years of the conflict when there were no-go areas) or intelligence gathering, etc.). I would say the same thing about unintentionally killing civilians.

As I more or less prove below, .2% of the time their operations intentionally resulted in civilian death, .1% of the time they unintentionally resulted in civilian death, and .1% of the time they tried unsuccessfully to kill civilians. I then explain that many of the civilians they intentionally killed were less than totally innocent or were in very close proximity to legitimate or semi-legitimate targets.

In typing this up I am relying heavily on Malcolm Sutton’s Index of deaths which is a database of all the people who were killed in connection with the conflict that filled most of the last 45 years. It’s part of the CAIN web-site, which is part of the University of Ulster and part of INCORE and ARK. CAIN gets it’s funding from various sources listed here.

I took official figures from the Police Service of N. Ireland (which I found on the CAIN site here) made some adjustments (below) based partly on the Sutton database and partly on many, many hours studying the conflict. Throughout this post the numbers that are marked with * are at least approximately what I found in the Sutton Database but might be off a little (probably no more than about 1% if at all). First, the total number of gun incidents in N. Ireland during the conflict (1969-1998) was 35,458. I deducted the following numbers of such incidents because they weren't offensive operations of the Provisional IRA (these are not meant to be absolutely precise, they are estimates, probably pretty good estimates but I don't think they need to be absolutely precise- we're not entering them into a computer of a spaceship that will take people to Mars and back (for better or worse that's how I was thinking of it- the only significant apparent flaw I have found is that my figures might imply that the OIRA and INLA had a higher rate of success than the IRA but that's probably not true, and my estimates below might say that to a very small degree but NOT to a large degree (the figure for the OIRA and INLA includes shooting civilians and loyalist paramiltaries in addition to attacks on the security forces, while the estimate about the IRA succeeding once out of 51 attempts at killing soldiers or police in attacks on the security forces is about only ATTACKS ON THE SECURITY FORCES)).

-950 loyalist sectarian attacks (Loyalists killed about *692 Catholic civilians; sometimes they killed more than one Catholic civilian at a time, and I’m sure that sometimes they failed to kill any (and some of those Catholic civilians were killed by bombs))

-190 republican feuding. (although this is only partly about feuding (the rest would be premature bomb explosions) there were *187 deaths that were republican-on-republican, so maybe about 65 were successful gun attacks, and then another 125 for unsuccessful attempts)

-165 loyalist feuding (there were *94 loyalist-on-loyalist deaths, and probably no more than 14 were from premature bomb explosions; adding some for unsuccessful attempts, probably about 165)

- 400 republican punishment attacks (although it’s not solid, as far as I can tell, about *10 alleged criminals were killed by republicans and I would be very surprised if there were more than about 390 non-lethal gun attacks on alleged criminals).

-160 loyalist punishments (I can only find one entry in the Sutton database that is an alleged criminal killed by loyalist paramilitaries in a punishment attack. Between that and the fact that probably around 2/3 of the unionist population completely supported the police during the conflict I doubt the total was higher than 160)

-900 other republican gun-attacks (there were about *150 (total) civilians, security force members and loyalist paramilitary members killed by the INLA and the OIRA, organizations that were, towards the beginning of the conflict, waging armed campaigns of some significance. Those deaths probably are the result of about 75 gun attacks and a very small number of bomb attacks that are separate from this) (probably about 825 gun attacks that didn’t kill anyone)

-1,500 republican and loyalists interface incidents (found a very small number of deaths resulting from these, but probably about 1,500 incidents total)

-1,000 The IRA defending nationalist areas from security forces (mostly, for example, manning barricades for no-go areas) (a similarly weak estimate like the one right above, but probably pretty accurate)

-8,500 Incidents where the security forces fired at someone and arrested someone, but it was not a result of a republican or loyalist attack (there are vague and incomplete stats on the number of people charged with terrorist and other serious offenses. For the period of 1969-1998 there were something like 19,000 arrests. I’m sure about 2,000 (1/4 of that with gunfire) involved loyalists instead of republicans, and about 9,000 would have involved nationalists and republicans but not weapons being fired, so I think it might be as low as 8,000 arrests of nationalists and republicans with shots fired)

-100 Incidents where the security forces killed someone but there was no arrest.

-155 Loyalist operations against republican paramilitaries and the security forces (Loyalists killed a combined total of *55 republican paramilitaries and British security forces; probably about 40 gun attacks and about 5 bombings accomplished that plus a lot of unsuccessful attacks)

-35 shootings of suspected  and probably actual informers in the nationalist community (there were about *30 such shootings that resulted in death, probably only about 5 that didn’t)

-20 informers in the loyalist community (there were *16 informers killed by loyalists).

The total deducted is 14,075, which leaves about 20,483 being IRA operations. I couldn’t find figures for the first two right below, but I think I make a pretty good estimate for them:

+150 mortars or RPG attacks in N. Ireland.
+ 350 attacks outside of N. Ireland.

 I did find good figures for bombings.
+15,000 bombs (there were 9,873 bombs that went off and 6,337 that were “neutralized.” the “neutralized” ones count because clearly the area was evacuated before the bomb was set to go off; and probably about 1.000 were the work of other parties) (those figures are from here)

The total for IRA operations is then estimated at about 36,883. The IRA was responsible for *512 civilian deaths (according to the Sutton database at- http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/ ) (in one way it might be closer to 550, as some deaths attributed to other republican forces (or republicans in general) might have been caused by the IRA; on the other hand the #512 included about 40 deaths that were not what I counting as "operations," and I think those two cancel each other out so I just went with 512)). I have made some effort towards finding the exact number of IRA operations resulting in civilian death but I have seen many clusters of such deaths where more than one civilian was killed in an IRA operation, and I believe there were about 110 IRA operations where at least one civilian died (that would be an average of 4.65 civilian deaths per operation which caused at least one civilian death) . Using the #110  for operations that resulted in civilian death, I found that about .3% of the IRA’s operations resulted in civilian death. I am not close to nailing this down soon, but I think it breaks down to roughly .2% of their operations intentionally resulted in civilian death, and about .1% resulted unintentionally in civilian death. I imagine that about .1% of the time they tried to kill civilians and failed- that's based on the reasonable assumption that 2/3 of the time they tried to kill civilians, they succeeded, which seems likely.

Of the 15,000 IRA bombs, I would imagine about half would have been aimed at the security forces (if any more than half had been used for destroying civilian property there would be many more references to their bombing campaign in books and conversations, etc.; also IRA mines, only one kind of bomb, killed around *90 members of the security forces). And of the more than 21,000 gun attack operations, almost all of them were attacks on the security forces. You might think that and what I said about half the bombs doesn’t make sense since the IRA killed only 1009 members of the security forces and only 39 members of loyalist paramilitaries. First, I would say something about their attacks on loyalists being similar to their attacks on civilians- I doubt that the former was much more difficult than the latter, and the former would have been much easier than attacking the security forces. While reading this paragraph and the rest of this post, remember that the security forces were always or almost always wearing some kind of body armor (at least flak jackets) and (for soldiers) helmets, which would have given them some degree of protection from bullets or at least bomb fragments, and they were often traveling in armored vehicles. For every IRA operation that successfully killed at least one member of the security forces, there probably were about 50 that were aimed at the security forces but didn’t result in such deaths.



Two other aspects of this to consider when discussing whether or not the IRA deserved the label “terrorist” are how many of their civilian victims were killed more or less unintentionally, and how many of their intended civilian victims were not completely innocent. There were *512 civilian deaths attributed to the IRA by the Sutton database.

The first category is about unintentional killings. There were  about 104 civilian deaths where there is no doubt in my mind that they were unintentional. About *31 were premature explosions (this often involved those transporting the bomb being killed as well, which is pretty solid evidence that it was not intentional) and about *73 involved “inadequate warnings” that were given (from what I’ve read this often involved nervous and inexperienced IRA members making phone calls hurriedly and I’m sure there also would have been some times when the SECURITY FORCES simply screwed up). (when the IRA bombed civilian property, the plan about 99% of the time was to place the explosives, leave, call in a warning so the place would be evacuated- which is exactly what happened about 99% of the time that that was the plan)

There are also a few subcategories where it’s sort of accurate to say it was unintentional (but are part of the .2% of overall operations that intentionally resulted in civilian death). The first one contains about *35 victims and is overwhelmingly about the IRA targeting locally recruited members of the security forces when they weren’t on duty. For example many innocent victims were killed when they were covering for a part-time security force member at their civilian job. People were also often killed driving a security force member relative’s vehicle or at a security force member relative’s home.

The second subcategory is when people were more or less caught in the crossfire, almost always involving gun-battles where the IRA were fighting the security forces. There were about *34 people in this category. Besides people killed in gun battles, this included people driving past targets of intentional IRA bombings. And the third is that there were about 5 people in a miscellaneous batch of similar scenarios.

********

There is also a category for those intended IRA civilian victims who were less than completely innocent. I have two subcategories and a few divisions of those two at the next level down. With the first subcategory, although the IRA, most of the time, was wrong to kill them (the informers and criminals were probably legitimate targets, but to a very large degree no one else), they were definitely targeted for things they either did or were seriously suspected of doing- they were not randomly chosen civilians.

The first division of the first subcategory is made up of suspected, and probably actual, criminals. I have yet to do a post about this but basically the entire nationalist community, and certainly people in republican areas, rejected the police (until sometime around 7-12 years ago) and turned to the IRA to deal with crime. There are about *10 people in this category.

The second division is suspected and probably actual informers. There were  about *30.

The 3rd division is civilian employees of the security forces. There were about *31.

The 4th division is people killed in street disturbances. All but one of the *6 that I found happened during a night of anti-Catholic pogroms, and after a 11-month period that saw several such pogroms.

The 5th division is miscellaneous. Below each set of information (which is in the format used in the Sutton database) my comments will be between asterisks.

"18 December 1972    William Johnston (48) Protestant
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Ulster Unionist Party Councilor and member of Police Authority. Abducted from a house, Drumarg estate, Armagh. Found shot a short time later, Knockbane, near Middletown, County Armagh."

**His elected position, in my opinion could either help justify his death or lead me to criticize it more, depending on how extreme he was (was he saying things that were going to encourage anti-Catholic murderers?) His membership of the Police Authority I believe is very relevant to his death**

"25 January 1973    William Staunton (46) Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Resident magistrate. Died three months after being shot outside St Dominic's School, Falls Road, Belfast. He was injured on 11 October 1972."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland**

"16 September 1974    Martin McBirney (55) Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Resident Magistrate. Shot at his home, Belmont Road, Belmont, Belfast."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland**

"16 September 1974  Rory Conaghan (54) Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Judge. Shot at his home, Beechlands, off Malone Road, Belfast."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland**

"21 July 1976    Christopher Ewart-Biggs (54) nfNIRI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
British Ambassador to Ireland. Killed in land mine attack on his official car, Sandyford, County Dublin."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland. UPDATE 5/3/14 He was involved with MI6, part of Britain's intelligence community **

"04 March 1977    Rory O'Kelly (59) Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Senior Department of Public Prosecutions official. Shot while in Little's Bar, Coalisland, County Tyrone."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland**

"22 March 1979    Richard Sykes (58) nfNIE
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
British Ambassador to the Netherlands. Shot outside his official residence, Den Haag, Netherlands."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state (not in Ireland of course, so this is a little more questionable than the killing of the Ambassador to Ireland) **

"27 August 1979    Lord Mountbatten (79) nfNIRI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed by remote controlled bomb on his boat, detonated when leaving Mullaghmore Harbour, County Sligo."

**Very much a representative of the British state (for example, he had been the last British Viceroy of India)**

"21 January 1981    Norman Stronge (86) Protestant
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) member, and former Speaker at Stormont. Shot together with his son at their mansion, Tynan Abbey, near Middletown, County Armagh."

**His elected position, in my opinion could either help justify his death or lead me to criticize it more, depending on how extreme he was (was he saying things that were going to encourage anti-Catholic murderers?) (UPDATE 5/1/14 he was killed after an assassination attempt on Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey, who was targeted after 3-4 other civilian leaders of those supporting Republican POWs were killed (for how much popular support the hunger-strikers had in the Nationalist community see the middle third of this (beginning with "For about 5 years")); There is reason to believe he was killed as a warning to the Unionist upper-class that they would be held responsible for such killings)**

"14 November 1981    Robert Bradford (40) Protestant
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Ulster Unionist Party Member of Parliament. Shot at Community Centre, Finaghy, Belfast."

**His elected position, in my opinion could either help justify his death or lead me to criticize it more, depending on how extreme he was (was he saying things that were going to encourage anti-Catholic murderers?)(UPDATE 5/1/14 He was connected to a loyalist paramilitary, the UVF)**

"16 January 1983    William Doyle (55) Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Judge. Shot outside St Brigid's Roman Catholic Church, Derryvolgie Avenue, Malone, Belfast."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland**

"12 October 1984    Anthony Berry (59) nfNIB
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Member of Parliament. Killed in time bomb attack at Conservative Party Conference, Grand Hotel, Brighton, Sussex, England."

**His elected position, in my opinion could either help justify his death or lead me to criticize it more, depending on how extreme he was. And I think that since he was a BRITISH MP voting on legislation at least partly for part of Ireland it’s less questionable than the IRA killings of NI politicians**

"25 April 1987    Maurice Gibson (74) Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Chief Justice, together with his wife, killed by remote controlled bomb hidden in parked car detonated when they drove past, Killeen, County Armagh."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland**

"18 October 1989    Robert Metcalfe (40) Protestant
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Member of Ulster Resistance. Shot at his home, Drumnabreeze Road, Magheralin, near Lurgan, County Down."

**Ulster  Resistance was a militant and armed political organization (calling them a paramilitary would be going too far) especially in the late 80s when he was killed**

"30 July 1990    Ian Gow (53) nfNIB
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Conservative Member of Parliament. Killed by booby trap bomb attached to his car outside his home, Hankham, Pevensey, Sussex, England.."

**His elected position, in my opinion could either help justify his death or lead me to criticize it more, depending on how extreme he was. And I think that since he was a BRITISH MP voting on legislation at least partly for part of Ireland it’s less questionable than the IRA killings of NI politicians**


The second subcategory is similar to the last one The people killed are much more innocent (most completely innocent but with someone who was at least a slightly legitimate target) than the first subcategory, but were still not randomly chosen civilians killed just to terrorize people.

"Houghton, Linda    04 February 1974 (23) nfNIB
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed in time bomb attack on British Army (BA) coach travelling along M62 motorway, Yorkshire, England."
AND
"Houghton, Lee    04 February 1974 (5) nfNIB
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed in time bomb attack on British Army (BA) coach travelling along M62 motorway, Yorkshire, England."
AND
"Houghton, Robert    04 February 1974 (2) nfNIB
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed in time bomb attack on British Army (BA) coach travelling along M62 motorway, Yorkshire, England."

**Were on a British Army bus with their husband or father**

"05 October 1974    Paul Craig (22) nfNIB
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed in bomb attack on Horse and Groom public house, Guildford, Surrey, England"

**Was in a pub apparently full of off-duty British soldiers (the other four people killed were in the British Army)**

"21 July 1976    Judith Cook (25) nfNIRI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
British Ambassador to Ireland's secretary. Killed in land mine attack on his official car, Sandyford, County Dublin."

**Was with a fairly legitimate target when both were killed**

"02 February 1977    Jeffrey Agate (59) nfNI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Originally from England. Manager of Du Pont factory. Shot outside his home, Talbot Park, Derry."

**Probably, depending on the details, one of the three most questionable killings in this subcategory**

"02 March 1977    Donald Robinson (56) nfNI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
English businessman. Shot at his workplace, Lawrence Street, off University Street, Belfast."

**Probably, depending on the details, one of the three most questionable killings in this subcategory**

"14 March 1977    James Nicholson (44) nfNI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
English businessman. Shot while in chauffeur-driven car, just after leaving Strathearn Audio factory, Stockman's Lane, Belfast."

**Probably, depending on the details, one of the three most questionable killings in this subcategory**

"03 March 1978    Norma Spence (25) Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Civilian searcher. Shot while at British Army (BA) pedestrian check point, Donegall Street, Belfast"
AND
"28 September 1978    Brian Russell (30) Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Civilian searcher. Shot during sniper attack on British Army (BA) patrol, Waterloo Place, Derry."

**I don’t know exactly what “civilian searchers” are, but they had something to do with security force checkpoints**

"27 August 1979    Dowager Lady Brabourne (82) nfNIRI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed by remote controlled bomb on Lord Mountbatten's boat, detonated when leaving Mullaghmore Harbour, County Sligo."
AND
"27 August 1979    Nicholas Knatchbull (14) nfNIRI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed by remote controlled bomb on Lord Mountbatten's boat, detonated when leaving Mullaghmore Harbour, County Sligo."
AND
"27 August 1979    Paul Maxwell (15) Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
From Northern Ireland. Killed by remote controlled bomb on Lord Mountbatten's boat, detonated when leaving Mullaghmore Harbour, County Sligo."

**Were with a fairly legitimate target when they were all killed. A friend believes the IRA should have killed Mountbatten with a gun, to lessen the odds of anyone else being killed**

"25 April 1987    Cecily Gibson (67) Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed together with her Chief Justice husband, by remote controlled bomb hidden in parked car detonated when they drove past, Killeen, County Armagh."

**Was with a fairly legitimate target when both were killed. A friend believes the IRA should have killed the Chief Justice with a gun, to lessen the odds of anyone else being killed**

********

I am going to be lazy and not redo the math and such, but I need to add something I forgot about. There were 57 former members of the security forces killed by the IRA. Even if we categorize them all as civilians, it would have little effect on what I’m saying in this post, and I think there’s a good chance that many of them were targeted for their membership in the security forces and the IRA just didn’t know they had become civilians. The Sutton database puts them in the security forces category.

Same thing with the use of incendiaries (not bombs). based partly on the CAIN web-page Security and Defense there was possibly around 500 such operations by the Provisional IRA, but for various reasons I’m not including that in the calculations above because the information is far from complete and is unclear. Adding 500 to the calculations above would simply make the IRA look better.

When the IRA were bombing civilian property it was (at least about 99% of the time) non-military government property and commercial property. The idea with the former was to make it difficult for the British to govern nationalist parts of N. Ireland. The idea with the latter was to indirectly pressure London via the British business community and to also pressure the Unionist business community. Both would have also been about reminding people outside N. Ireland that resistance was continuing.

*********

In conclusion, very little of what the IRA did could be called terrorism, although there’s about 20% of their operations that could SORT OF be called terrorism in that they involved significant risk of civilian casualties (that is, their campaign of bombing civilian buildings). Around 79% of their operations were against the security forces or loyalist paramilitaries. And pretty much all of their activities that I’m not calling operations were at least sort of morally inoffensive (some of those are in the list of subtracted figures (defending against loyalist mobs and (at least with no-go areas in the early 1970s) keeping the security forces out), and others are, for example, intelligence, acquiring guns, etc.).

Two New Poems: "Hundred Million Died" and "Smash the Klan"

I have two new poems to offer. For an explanation about my poems, see this. For the rest of the poems, click the "Lyrics" label at the bottom.

“Hundred Million Died,” based on “Six Million Lies” by No Remorse, original lyrics are here.

1. I think 100 million is a pretty good figure from what I’ve read (for what happened in what is today the US). This is about what happened to American Indians, and sort of about what is continuing (it focuses on the first 2-4 centuries). I know that most deaths were probably the result of hunger and/or disease instead of bullets, but to a large degree that can be blamed on the imperialists as well. The fact is, the European presence resulted in epidemics; native communities were losing their land, being marched at gun-point to new lands, experiencing trauma of a sort that might be called national, or racial (one where their communities were turned upside down), etc.
2. The phrase “living space” is English for a term from Nazi Germany about what they were after in the East.
3. I give this poem five stars out of five.
4. **73% of this version is me, 27% is the original.
5. Occasionally I use words like"fight" and actually mean non-violent "fighting"; in this poem I was thinking of a response to genocide where the response is PROBABLY about 99% non-violent.

A hundred million really did die,
covered up by the racist lies
Killed by the settler state, we have the proof
Why did they try to cover up the truth?
They’re scared it would ruin American mythology
Pocahontas, Thanksgiving, manifest destiny

(chorus)
A hundred million of the human race
In order to get more “living space”
Death from the small-Pox blanket
Biological warfare we won’t forget

The worst genocide in history
They wanted the white man to be free
To take all the land that he could see
“From sea to shining sea”
But the Indian spirit didn’t die and they continue to fight
For their freedom, equality and human rights

(chorus)

So let's make America bigot free
If we keep working, we’ll make them agree
This society is rotten to the core
It's justice we’re out for in this long war
With honor and respect we'll surely win
And they know, we’ll finish what we begin

****

“Smash The Klan” based on “Smash The IRA” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1, The original is by a racist band.
2. Of course in some ways we didn’t completely defeat the fascists, but we did defeat almost all of their states (I sometimes forget about Spain and Portugal, we didn’t defeat them) and that’s a pretty big step towards defeating them completely.
3. The KKK did use bombs while attacking the civil rights movement and also in more recent decades.
4. I believe that a major factor that leads many white people to racism is economic insecurity among white working-class people.
5. I heard, about 12-13 years ago that a member of a good socialist group (the Young Democratic Socialists) was trying to organize workers, (I believe it was) in Indiana, and said that his competition was the Klan (UPDATE 1/26/22 That is, competition for the hearts and minds of the workers).
6. Overall I’m fairly okay with denying the Klan use of public streets (I have mixed feelings and would probably abstain on that question, unless it was something especially bad like marching through a residential area with a lot of people of color, in which case I would support blocking them) but that 2nd line of of the 3rd verse is a lot more general about stopping them, not just on the streets, but also in various media, via various political campaigns, etc.
7. “No Pasaran” is an anti-fascist slogan first used in Spain’s Civil War, and means “they shall not pass.”
8. I give this poem three stars.
9. **64% of this version is me, 36% is the original.
10. I am thinking of this anti-Klan stuff the poem is describing being almost 100% non-violent.
11. Update 5/31/13 In the last verse, I changed "nazi" to "racial.


In the cities and towns the battle rages on
American people fighting for their land
Defeated the South and the Nazis
Gonna stop ‘em, stop the Ku Klux Klan

Chorus:
Smash! Smash! The KKK!
Smash! Smash! The KKK!
Smash! Smash! The KKK
Remember the victims of their bombs

Gotta change government policies and dry up their base
Gain economic justice for every race
The Klan, the unions will displace
And racism, it will be erased

(Repeat Chorus)

The KKK are are marching on our streets demanding a racial state
Are we gonna stop them or let them spread their hate?
Are we gonna let them blame immigrants when workers ask why?
“No Pasaran” is what we cry!

(Repeat Chorus)

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.