"The winner of Election 2016 is social democracy"

Last Friday the 26th there was a general election for the parliament in the South of Ireland. Below are the election results:

Fine Gael   50 seats. FG is economically moderate or conservative and socially moderate or liberal. They're descended from the pro-Teaty side of the Irish Civil War (which took place in the early 1920s).

Labour 7 seats. Centre-Left

Fianna Fail 44 seats. FF is economically moderate or conservative and socially moderate or conservative. They're descended from the anti-Treaty side of the Civil War (what you might call the side that wanted to continue fighting the Britsh).

Sinn Fein 23 seats

Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit 6 seats. Hard left.

Social Democrats 3 seats

Green Party 2 seats

Independent Alliance 6 seats. Progressives.

Independents 17 seats. I imagine mostly progressives.

The article I link to below says something I think I need to respond to now:  SF is not a right-wing party at all, although I have heard before that some of their voters in the south might vote right-wing if SF wasn't around (in America, where they visit, SF is less left-wing than they are in Ireland where they live and work, etc.). I explain why it's not accurate to call them right-wing here.

I used to be a member of the Irish Labour Party's American sister organization, the Democratic Socialists of America and my understanding of socialism and how to achieve it has not changed. My thoughts on the ILP and the meltdown of the ILP's vote (in the previous election they got 37 seats):

1) I have felt comfortable calling myself a supporter of both SF and the ILP because almost every election on that island involves Proportional Representation and/or the ability of voters to transfer their votes from one candidate to another (so IF I lived there I could more or less vote for both of them). 

2) I support SF a bit more  because they have a huge mandate from the nationalist community in the North. I would love to see the ILP running candidates in the North, where they have been organizing for around 10 years now.

3) It sucks that this happened to the ILP, but as far as I can tell, the gov't they were a part of pursued an agenda of austerity. I believe that is not what the ILP wanted to do (I am not real familiar with them but I have never heard anyone say they're Third Way (the politics of Tony Blair in seemingly socialist organizations)  and I heard something making me think they're as anti-Third Way as DSA is), but for decades now they have been kind of stuck with going into gov't with FG, and FG is, unfortunately, overall no better economically in my opinion than FF and even after their best elections, the ILP was not able to lead a gov't (something I blame on the fact that the conflict around the North hasn't been resolved yet). 

4) There have been some instances of SF and the ILP getting along, but not many. One example would be that in the 2007 elections to the Irish Senate, they had a voting pact.
5) UPDATE 3/6/16 An Irish leftist friend of mine who seems non-hostile to the Socialist International, painted a far less rosy picture of Irish Labour for me. It also made me attach greater value to what the Irish Times opinion piece said about the governing coalition Labour was a part of. On the other hand, he did say that in opposition, Labour is good. I still think that if Labour were LEADING a coalition gov't and/or had a partner closer to them ideologically than FG is, they would probably act more like social-dems.

There's an opinion piece in the Irish Times (Ireland's largest paper) that I wanted to mention. To whatever degree it's head-line is accurate, and I think it largely is, that's great. I don't follow Southern politics as much as I follow stuff in the North, and RECENTLY I've only been reading an average of about 50 articles a week about that. But this article seems pretty accurate and I thought it was an important one to highlight. The article is written by the IT's literary editor.

Tom

3 New Poems: Irish Tet, We Are All Republicans, and Six Million Died

Below are three new poems. For an explanation of how I do these poems, see this. The last poem, "We Are All Republicans," is based on a non-political skinhead song by an anti-fascist skinhead band, so that's different than most of my poems.

1. Six Million Died. About Holocaust Denial.
2. Irish Tet. About the IRA
3. We Are All Republicans. About the IRA.

The rest of the poems can be found by clicking on the "lyrics" label at the bottom. There are about five pages worth so click on the "older posts" link at the bottom of each page.

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

1. This is about the Holocaust. About six million Jews died.
2. With the last line of the first verse, I don’t mean to say there aren’t large differences between anti-Semitic extremism/violence and anti-fascist extremism/violence.
3. “Living Space” is English for a Nazi German term for what they wanted in central and eastern Europe- space for German settlers. I think this was largely but not totally separate from the Final Solution, since that part of Europe had a lot of Jewish people. I think it makes enough sense.
4. Zyklon B was the gas they used.
5. In EUROPE (and kind of in the Pacific), the Allies or at least the US, waged a fairly honorable war against the Axis.
**6. 60% of this version is me, 40% is the original.
7. I give this poem three stars out of five.
8. Occasionally I use words like"fight" and actually mean non-violent "fighting"; in this poem I was thinking of a response to to holocaust denial and fascism generally where the response is PROBABLY about 99% non-violent.
9. UPDATE 2/17/16 I replaced "in case" with "that" in the 5th line of the first verse.

Six million lies?
No, that’s how many died
Torture by the Nazis, we have the proof
Why did they try to cover up the truth?
Scared that they would all hang
yeah, their extremism and violence would boomerang

Chorus:
Six million of the human race
Partly to get more “living space”
Genocidal use of Zyklon B
By the fucking Nazis, of Germany

One of the worst genocides in history
They wanted Europe Jewish free
A cover-up is what nazis have tried
To hide the lies of their white pride
Well anti-fascism didn't die
The truth will break through all the Nazi lies

Chorus

So let's make the world Nazi free
We all want a diverse society
Nazism is rotten to the core
We’re fighting for truth and justice in this war
With honour and respect we'll surely win
Just like we did when we took on Berlin

*********

"Irish Tet" based on "Final Attack" by Final War, original lyrics are here.

1. In the 1980s the IRA had planned and partly armed themselves for what might be called an Irish version of the Tet offensive of the Vietnam War. Partly because some of their arms were lost or intercepted, they called it off. This poem is sort of a “what-if” about those plans.
2. I deleted the chorus and the last two lines of the last verse.
3. The BA is the British Army.
4. In such a situation I’m not sure if their mission would have been to maintain that level of activity until the British agreed to leave- it probably would have been to do that for as long as possible (and liberate as much territory as they could for as long as they could). Such a campaign would have contributed to a later agreement by the British to leave, especially as it would have drawn a LOT of global attention to their cause.
5. The 3rd line of the second verse is a reference to historical events centuries ago.
6. With the last line of the 3rd verse I probably greatly exaggerate how much revenge motivated them. But the British Army and the RUC did horrible things to the nationalist community.
7. The last line refers to the WWII (brown is the color of fascism). I just learned that apparently sometimes the French Resistance DID take and hold objectives for a short period of time. (this creates the necessary minimum conflict between my poem and the beliefs of the (AMERICAN and possibly Irish-American) authors of the original lyrics (more here))
**8. 58% of this version is me, 42% is the original.
9. I give this poem four stars out of five.
10. UPDATE 2/17/16  Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
11. UPDATE 7/5/16 I replaced "unleash" with "release."


The day is approaching, the day we release
All hell on the BA and the RUC police
gonna fight back, gonna knock em dead
Like fire the revolution will be spread

gonna use RPGs and heavy machine guns
won't stop till our mission is done
they invaded and took our land
now we’re gonna smash them with an iron hand

we've got our sights set on BA choppers and watch towers
corporate buildings, we’ll show them this country is ours
we're on a rampage, we just let loose
We’re gonna make them pay for all their abuse

we’re seizing mills, bridges and towns
We’re inspired by those French that fought against the brown


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

“We Are All Republicans” based on “We’re The Oppressed” by The Oppressed original lyrics here.

1. This is basically about the IRA although some of it could apply to other mainstream republicans as well depending on how we define words like "fight" for this poem. It’s set sometime before the 1997 cease-fire, I guess at least about 4 years before.
2. Orange is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry in the Irish-British context.
3. The BA is the British Army.
4. They were forcing the British elite to move towards a united Ireland, and to some small degree they succeeded (my thoughts about the compromise of the Good Friday Agreement are here).
5. At some point in the past for at least a year or two and probably a decade or two, Sinn Fein called for a constitutional convention to be part of a future unification of Ireland. I think it’s a great idea that should be revived for two reasons: 1) it would probably shift Ireland towards the left and even more importantly, 2) it would give the northern Protestants a very big say in what kind of Ireland they’re being added to (they’d be on the same level as everyone else). (more of my thoughts on how to ease Protestants and unionists into a united Ireland are found here)
7. The second half of the first line of the second verse is a little strange, but that was already there and for the time being I have decided to keep it (and I wouldn’t be surprised if BA soldiers saw the Nationalist community as being the “other”).
**8. 79% of this version is me, 21% is the original.
9. I give this poem five stars out of five.
10. The second line of the last verse refers to the NORTHERN Catholic working-class.
11. Armalites are rifles, RPGs are Rocket Propelled Grenades.

Born to fight, born to win
We are all republicans.
Born into this sectarian Orange state
Fighting for Irish freedom, we won’t wait

The BA fears us, thinks we're strange
Armalites and RPGs, we fight for change
We will never, ever be beat
As we force the British elite

We are Volunteers, of the Irish masses
Fighting for the Catholic working-classes
Advancing freedom and revolution
A new Ireland and a new constitution

"They’d be killed if they were black"

There's an important article on the Salon web-site titled: "They’d be killed if they were black: The racial double standard at the heart of the new Bundy family standoff." It's here.

It's about the militia/Patriot take-over of a federal building in Oregon.

Tom

Black Lives Matter

There is an article on the BBC about Tamir Rice, one the several black people who were killed by police in a brief period of time about a year ago and whose deaths were held up as undeniable examples of racist police violence.

After reading the article above about Tamir, consider this- Ohio is an "Open Carry" state. Below are some notes from a comment I made elsewhere on the Web about this.


***

There’s a widely read progressive comic strip called “This Modern World,” at- http://thismodernworld.com/comic-archive . A recent one is at- http://images.dailykos.com/images/118035/lightbox/TMW2014-12-03color.png?1417371188 that you should read.

The last part refers to a recent initiative by gun-rights advocates called “Open Carry.” There is more info at- http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2014/0...n-for-the-nra/ (please note that in the end, the NRA was officially okay with open-carry Texas. One of the sites for the movement is at- http://www.opencarry.org/ .

As far as I can tell, it IS overwhelmingly about white people with a racist double standard.

Some quotes from the front page of http://www.opencarry.org/ :

“I have to admit, initially I was a bit nervous about … the [open carry] law,
[b]ut to my surprise, we have not had one single incident as it relates to open-carry.”
Vicksburg, MS P
Police Chief Walter Armstrong, September 16, 2014

“We don’t suggest that people panic,
because there hasn’t been a problem with open-carry demonstrations in other cities.”
Palo Alto, CA police Lt. Sandra Brown, Mercury News, March 5, 2010


An article on this theme is at- http://www.salon.com/2014/12/15/gun_...dment_crusade/


ANOTHER ITEM THAT I DIDN'T KNOW EARLIER: Tamir Rice and John Crawford were killed in Ohio. Ohio IS AN OPEN-CARRY STATE!!!!!!!!!!!!

British Fools: Three more poems

I have three new poems ready to publish, and might have another 2-3 ready in about a week.

For more about my poems, see this. For the rest of the poems, click the "lyrics" label at the bottom of this post- there are several pages worth, so use the "older posts" link at the bottom.

1. Fash Are Fools. About fascists in America.
2. Troops Out. About dissent among British soldiers in N. Ireland.
3. Hitler's A Fool. About WWII.

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

1. Brown is the color of fascism.
2. Partitioned basically means divided.
3. I give this poem 4 stars out of 5.
**4. 36% of this version is me, 64% is the original.
5. This is about the broad struggle against fascism and would be about 99% non-violent.
6. UPDATE 8/9/15 I made a HUGE mistake with the second line of the last verse but have now corrected it.

The struggle’s far from over, we’ve got a long, long way to go.
We haven’t won the fight yet, that's a fact that we all know.
Still too many people are supporting the brown lie,
but soon the truth will set 'em free and fascism will die.

The swastika’s a symbol for division and hate
A worthless, sick, corrupt nation is their ideal state
Like Apartheid, they want the working-class partitioned
And like Hitler, want the Left  dead or imprisoned

We’ll never fly the swastika, no matter what they try
cause we all know that fash are fools, their ideology’s just a lie.
They hail the wrong ideals, a choice they will regret.
We’ll always keep on working till fascism is dead.

Nazism is genocidal, we’ve seen it once before.
The Jews were almost wiped out, a fact we can’t ignore.
Why are the Nazis still trying? They will never win
America belongs to the workers of all peoples, we are all each other’s kin


***********

“Troops Out” based on “Fools No More” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. The first 2-4 lines are about an IRA bmb attack at Narrow Water that resulted in 18 British soldiers being killed.
2. The red white and blue refers to the British flag.
3. One example of the lying to British soldiers is that  they were told while training for deployment to the Six-Counties that the IRA would attack Protestant funerals.
4. The reasons why it shouldn’t matter that there’s a pro-British majority are described towards the top of this post.
5. Another part is the question of imperialism. Along with what I refer to in #4, I would also add that in multiple ways, the population in the South has to one degree or another since partition claimed the north as politically part of the Irish nation. For example, two of the three most recent Presidential terms have been filled by a woman from the North- without changing her nationality or anything like that, she was voted in as President of Ireland.
6. The original first line of the 3rd verse actually says “always” instead of “rarely.” But I can imagine a LOT of chickenhawks (in general, not just in Britain) waving the flag and a lot of veterans being less enthusiastic about that.
7. I believe that one factor behind the British presence is that N. Ireland does offer a well-educated but low-paid and politically weak working-class which are more or less divided by sectarian bigotry (almost all of which is aimed at Catholics and those who identify as Irish). More evidence for this is found in the following facts taken from the book Northern Ireland: the Orange State by Michael Farrell:

“In 1974 45% of all firms in Northern Ireland employing 500 or more workers were controlled from Britain, as were 28 out of 51 firms employing between 250 and 500 workers” p. 326

(See the 4th note for the poem here)

*8. 58% of this version is me, 42% is the original. (after I changed the chorus)
9. I give this poem 3 out of 5 stars.
10. UPDATE 8/16/15 Skrewdriver were British and supporters of the British and unionist causes in N. Ireland.
10. UPDATE 3/20/20 I realized that the chorus was written in the first person, not the second person, so I almost completely changed it.
11. UPDATE 3/20/20 The Troops Out Movement was a British anti-Partition group.
12. UPDATE 3/29/20 When I say thousands, that's an estimate for people from Britian who were more or less in a military or paramilitary group, the last 220-250 years of the six-county area that is now N. Ireland, and it's probably about 1,200, no more, so maybe hundreds would have been more accurate, but not much more.


Fire fills the air, there’s smoke in the sky
you’re knocked down, and 18 die
You're looking around, with fear in your eyes
Looking for the enemy and you still wonder why
Obey all your orders, British pride aflame
But in truth you’re a pawn in their imperialistic game
And your leaders are not honest with you
they lie, as they fly, the red white and blue

(chorus)
Don't  be a fool anymore
Talk to the Troops Out Movement and learn the score

Thousands of Brits have died in this land
And it's never been for the good of the British working-woman or man
Many died for profit and political greed
But it's always the soldiers not the leaders who bleed
Without exception the tories are scum
Who lie to the people whilst they beat on their drums
And they claim it’s because there’s a Unionist majority
But it’s imperialism, capitalism, and just plain bigotry

(chorus)

It's rarely been those with the flags in their hands
Who have fought and have died in N. Ireland
Yeah, while the leaders stay home with their massive cigars
you were lucky if you were traveling in armored cars
They take all the fame, the businesses take all the pounds
By exploiting labor in British factories on Irish ground
And if you dare to object and ask them to cease
You'll get a visit from their political police

********

“Hitler’s A Fool” based on “Reds are Fools” by Kill, Baby Kill, original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the period shortly after D-Day in WWII.
2. Obviously it wasn’t the Nazis that committed genocide against the Indians, but what happened was roughly as genocidal as what the Nazis planned for (and almost succeeded at) in Eastern Europe. That rhyming couplet was inspired by the title of a hardcore punk song called “John Wayne was a Nazi.”
3. The second to last line of the last verse kind of exaggerates what the Allies were doing to stop the Holocaust.
3. I give this poem four stars out of five.
**4. 51% of this version is me, 49% is the original.
5. UPDATE 8/9/15 As I was preparing this for publication, I knew there was some explanation I was forgetting to make. I exaggerate some how aware the Allies were about the Final Solution and A LOT how concerned white Americans were about American Indians and I probably exaggerate a little how concerned the Allies were about European Jews. But, having acknowledged that, I think it is a good poem.
6. UPDATE 1/24/16 I know that probably no more than half of the US military in WWII could have been called anti-fascist, but at the same time, as I say in another WWII poem, "although the Allied leaders are not consistent/Defeating the fascist states is important."

The war’s far from over, we got a long, long way to go.
We haven’t won the fight yet, that's a fact that we all know.
Still too many German soldiers are supporting the brown lie,
but soon our armor will take them down and the Nazi state will die.

The hammer and the sickle is a symbol of our allies
They beat back the nazis on land and in the skies
With bullshit propaganda Hitler pushes Germans to fight.
Fascism has taken Europe into a long night

We’ll never give them quarter, unless the white flag they fly
cause we all know that fash are fools, that their ideas are just a lie.
They started this fucking war, a choice they will regret.
‘cause we’ll always keep on fighting till they’re no longer a threat

Nazism is genocidal, we’ve seen it once before.
The American Indians are still recovering, a fact we can’t ignore.
Why is the SS still trying? We’re gonna smash those anti-Semites
Europe belongs to free peoples, and their democracy, and their human rights

Irish History, Today's World, and Our Education System

Just a quick link to a great article on another blog. I had no idea our education system was so bad in this area. The article touches on part of a theory I have, that to whatever degree our educational system and our media ignore Irish history and the situation in N. Ireland, it's partly or very much because of the potential of such material to get some Irish-Americans (almost all of whom are white) to think more critically about how people of color are treated in this world and in this country.

Anyway, there's a great article here.

Tom

No Surrender!!

Below are two new poems (for more on my poetry see this). They're both based on the same original and are both about the same thing.

For the rest of the poems, click the "Lyrics" label at the bottom.

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

1. This is basically set in the 80s, or the late 70s. and is about the IRA (it could be about other mainstream republicans also but I prefer to limit it to the IRA).
2. The BA is the British Army.
3. Westmacott was the highest-ranking British officer killed by the IRA and was with the elite SAS.
4. I give this poem four stars out of five.
**5. 43% of this version is me, 57% is the original.
6. UPDATED 1/15/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.

No surrender!

No surrender to the BA
Those evil bastards had better not stay
We stand within the nationalist community
We show the scum they cannot act with impunity

chorus
No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the BA
No surrender, no surrender, no longer will they keep our freedom at bay
No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the the British Army
No surrender, no surrender, we will drive them into the sea

loyalist terror attacks are going on still
And London don't give a fuck who they maim and kill
Herbert Westmacott went bye bye
And all you SAS fuckers are gonna die

chorus

No surrender!

We will smash that imperialist scum
No time to lose cos the battle's begun
We are of the global working-class
We won't back down and we’ll always kick ass

***********

“No Surrender (to the British Army)” based on “No Surrender (to the IRA)” by Strikeforce UK, original lyrics are here. (that gets the first line of the second verse wrong- it's what I have below)

1. This is basically set in the 80s, or the late 70s. and is about the IRA. (it could be about other mainstream republicans also but I prefer to limit it to the IRA).
2. The Rand was and is the currency of of South Africa.
3. During that 1.3 decade period, they were definitely pursuing revolution (ignoring conflict with the British state, I think what they probably had in mind was almost totally bloodless compared to most revolutions).
4. The Dail is the Irish Parliament. The second one was the first after the War of Independence. During it’s life there was the split which lead to the civil war and for decades until recently most (or almost all) republicans looked to it‘s surviving republican members for legitimacy. (It was only gradually, considering the violence and bitterness of the civil war, that many and then most and now almost all republicans recognize(d) the legitimacy of the Parliament and Government in Dublin in the last seven decades). (I think that mainstream republicans were a little slow to mostly and now totally or almost totally recognize the legitimacy of the state in the South)
5. I give this poem 4 stars out of five.
**6. 32% of this version is me, 68% is the original.
7. UPDATED 1/15/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
8. Che is Che Gueverra, who has been credited with developing rural guerrilla warfare.

No surrender!

No surrender to the BA
We battle those bastards in the spirit of Che
Inspired by those who fight against the rand
We show the British scum that it's our land

No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the BA
No surrender, no surrender, our revolution is underway
No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the Brits
No surrender, no surrender, hit them with the blitz

Their terrorist attacks are going on still
And they don’t give a fuck who they maim and kill
Margaret Thatcher better wave bye bye
Cos Brit imperialists are gonna die

chorus
No surrender!

We will smash that British scum
No time to lose as the battle’s begun
We're loyal,to the second dail
We won't back down and we will never run

chorus

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)