Slam Poetry of Scottish Socialist Eamonn Coyle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkUXfvwNaP0


In the Video linked above Eamonn Coyle, of the Scottish Socialist Party Youth section - recites his Slam Poetry
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Here are three written poems by Eamonn Coyle. Eammon is a Glaswegian working-class original who has offered his voice and considerable poetic gifts in the service of the Scottish Socialist Party and the revolutionary socialist movement.


We're In Control

Everywhere I look round here it's always the same
From the lighted street corners
To the darkest of lanes.
A society, no variety
Stagnated by chains
That only seems to breed contempt
Despite it's magnitude of brains.
These attitudes and plattitudes
They make me feel restrained
And then I stop and ask myself
Just who is to blame?

But then we all know whose to blame
For the shame that is poverty
But from that poverty
Can come the social harmony
As people unite
Within their own community
To take on the hypocrisy
The stain on our democracy.
Sometimes I'd rather live
In a Stalinist beuraucracy
Than put up with the bullshit
You're tryin to throw at me!

Now I wish this world was a notebook
So I could fill it up with poetry
Let words and verses reverse the inequality
So we could live in rhyme
And pen a future of real quality
Where 9 to 5 would take a dive
And everyday's a holiday!

Cause from this planet's first year
We've all been stuck in first gear
And the people who were first hear
Probably couldn't have imagined in their worst fears
That after the settling of the dust here
There would be so few people you could actually trust here.

But fuck it, at least we're here!
Every single one of us
Every daughter and son of us
Has the power and the knowldege
To change all that's in front of us
And face down the clowns
Who'll always try and make a cunt of us
Now they'll be runnin' scared
When they have to feel the brunt of us!

So in the darkness of the night time
Don't curl up and shiver
In the heat of the moment
Don't procrastinate or dither
Cause from on high no God shall deliver
It's only us who control the direction of the river.

Now I know we're all different
But we share the same goal
We share the same fire
And the same fearless soul
So whatever your conditions
And whatever you've been told
Never forget it
We're in control!

Eamonn Coyle
29th February 2008


Life In The Faslane

It’s so clear what we’ve got here
Now there’s new fear for nuclear
Look at these monstrosities
And how large they loom
But they’re not just on our doorstep
They’re inside our living room
Sittin’ on our fireplace
Sendin’ us to cyberspace
I’m sittin’ thinking what a waste
What a disgrace
How it’s the politicians, not the weapons
That need to be replaced!

Only half an hour’s drive from Scotland’s biggest city
Where 33% of people live a life so shitty
Let’s dismantle all the bullshit
And get to the nitty gritty
Now you’re makin' us a target
And we’re far from sittin’ pretty.

Cause you can’t always live your life in the Faslane
When people feel real pain
And we could make real gains
We could feed, cloth and train
Every single starvin’ wean
With all the cash you gonnie splash
That's flowin’ down that nuclear drain
Now I know you must be insane
But anyway I’ll say this again
This is human life you’re dealin’ with
It’s not a computer game!

So you can't blame the gangs of neds
Who take away the silence
When you produce these warheads
That threaten so much violence.
You say that they’ll protect us
From all those mad and crazy
Try tellin’ that to single mothers
Strugglin’ in Ruchazie!

Eamonn Coyle

Sunkist Socialist

Whether you're a sunkist socialist
Or a bourgeois nationalist
You're never gonna make the top ay ma list
Cause whether I'm stone-cold sober
Or totally pissed
I'll revolt, rebel and resist
Untill you get my gist
Untill the people's needs
Are at the top ay your list!
But amongst all this
Harrasin' and chasin'
I know one day you're gonna need replacin'
Cause the situation we're facin'
Is gettin' pretty dire
So red stars please don't hide your fires
Let the world see your deepest desires
Cause we can use those pliers
To tear down those liars
And drag this planet Earth from the mire
The work involved might make us tire
But we'll be classless and free
And we can still get higher.
So whether you can sing like Ian Brown
Or play guitar like John Squire
You've got a role to play
And every right to enquire
So come on everybody let's gather round the fire
Cause the revolution's underway so
LET'S GET WIRED!

Eamonn Coyle
8th August 2007

Jesus, our Brother, Compassionate Priest

by: Andrew W Taylor

Jesus, our Brother,
compassionate Priest,
welcomed to your table
as friends at your feast.

In the midst of the struggle
we recall it is yours:
your tears in the chalice,
your bread of the poor.

There's no human flag redder
than your banner unfurled:
your way of the cross crimson
through a suffering world.

Recalling that path
of death into life:
we make your memorial
in this our sacrifice.

Be known to us Jesus
in the breaking of bread:
renew dreams and visions
by your blood here shed.

By the Spirit of Justice
give us good news for the poor:
of a world without weapons,
of the Year of the Lord.

"It Can't Happen Here" ? Fascism USA Style?

By Andrew W Taylor
Sinclair Lewis the progressive US novelist wrote a book entitled _It Can't Happen Here_ in the 1930s. In
his novel Lewis configured the elements he saw in a near-future US gone-wrong that were conducive to a fascist movement taking state power.

What are the elements in contemporary America which may be laying the groundwork for the creation of an encroaching fascism? (This question does not imply that fascism is inevitable in the USA, and, certainly, other forms of state-capitalist polity are possible.)

1 Systemic Economic Crisis
2 The handing over of partial ownership of Hi-Finance to the State
3 Widespread Civil unrest
4 A militarized society prepared to use Martial Law with its suspension of habeas corpus etc.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/
5 A weak Labour movement
6 A conservative social-democratic party which opposes socialist elements gaining power

In his last pamplet Leon Trotsky spoke to American workers stressing that fascism was not an inevitable development.
"...Especially Important to US Workers:
In every discussion of political topics the question invariably flares up: Shall we succeed in creating a strong party for the moment when the crisis comes? Might not fascism anticipate us? Isn’t a fascist stage of development inevitable? The successes of fascism easily make people lose all perspective, lead them to forget the actual conditions which made the strengthening and the victory of fascism possible. Yet a clear understanding of these conditions is of special importance to the workers of the United States. We may set it down as an historical law: Fascism was able to conquer only in those countries where the conservative labor parties prevented the proletariat from utilizing the revolutionary situation and seizing power..." From TROTSKY's LAST ARTICLE, "BONAPARTISM, FASCISM, AND WAR"

GETTING OBAMA RIGHT

By Andrew W Taylor
The campaign of Barack Obama has been treated by the Candidate and by the world's corporate media sources as a Novum in global history, the emergence of the historic nodal moment in US and international history. This interpretation of the rise to power of the junior Senator from Illinois is both a masterful political spin-job and a dangerously deluded fable. Mythic profiles of change, hope and newness have been spun around US presidential campaigns in past changings of the guard. Progressives must keep their heads and recall the sort of media power-system they are dealing with. We are in the hands of marketing gurus who have turned image-crafting into a polled science. Technology hypes, refines, and selectively spins loops of tape. Only the heroes of and for the Corporate capitalist system can vie for the big prizes, and only the fiercely ambitious company-men win .

Getting Obama's candidacy as president of America is only possible for those who get the fact that he is a centrist US imperialist who accepts the ideological and economic trade arrangements of LBJ, Nixon,Clinton and the Bush pere et fils . Those on the US Left who belief Barack is a latter day Eugene Debs should watch tapes of Obama's speech at the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the Zionist advocacy organ. Obama had already presented his Zionist bona fides, but on 4 June of this year went the second mile. He told the power-brokers attending that he would recognise an "undivided Jerusalem" as Israel's capital. Nevermind that the Israeli annexation of all Jerusalem is deemed illicit by all other nations and by the Bush Whitehouse. What do the Lefties south of the border make of the Change candidates' snotting of the UN resolution designating Jerusalem an international city? What do they make of his knee-capping of Alice Palmer's candidacy (http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=bZnlKC5vpyY), his support for FISA, NAFTA, or the plan "B" Wall Street Bailout?

It is probably a good thing that progressives in swing-states vote for Barack Obama as the lesser of two evils. But the Left must re-think their investment in the messianic ideal of Obama the Just. Such hopes belong to swooning adolescents and True Believers. The US Presidency is not a suitable structure for current levels of progressive self-investment. The main fight remains the rents, lay-offs, hiring freezes, and repossessions in the economic and social plight of the streets of the cities and towns.

Corporate earnings, tumbling oil prices send stock markets sharply down

A SPECTRE IS HAUNTING CAPITALISM
Oct 22/08
TORONTO — Stock markets were in retreat for a second straight day Wednesday as disappointing earnings reports and deteriorating economic outlooks sparked another selloff.

"There's a tremendous amount of anxiety out there," said Andrew Martyn at Davis Rea Ltd. in Toronto.

"The good news is nobody is being caught by surprise by a new 500-point decline in the stock market - (they're) almost battle-hardened to it."

However people are "just a bit amazed" that the downturn is continuing, he said.

The Toronto S&P/TSX composite index tumbled 397 points or four per cent in afternoon trading to 9398.9 after losing 456-points on Tuesday.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 410.3 points to 8,623.39, after losing 232 points in the previous session...

The exemplary figures of evil today...

“The exemplary figures of evil today are not ordinary consumers who pollute the environment and live in a violent world of disintegrating social links, but those (i.e. the liberal communists) who, while fully engaged in creating conditions for such universal devastation and pollution, buy their way out of their own activity, living in gated communities, eating organic food, taking holidays in wildlife preserves, and so on"

- Slavoj Zizek