I've dreamed up some folk-song lyrics for lefties:
(strum a guitar and sing)
strum
When humankind is truly free/
everyone will agree with me.
(Beautiful!)
Brother, you can come around our commune and eat our food anytime you want to. Keep feeding each other, children!
Except then everyone complains
"I only eat organic WILD rice!"
"This is organic WHITE rice"
*continues singing*
"Everyone will believe as I do one day."
It's an authoritarian view, but an unconscious one. Mistaken for liberatory and peace-y justice-y.
And we all do it sometimes.
Social justice. I know better so you don't have to.
Let me set you free, people!
Why don't you let me set you free?
What's the matter with you?
Why are you opposing your own liberation?
And at this point, we sound exactly like US soldiers in Iraq
On the ground, Ahmed! We're liberating your country!
________
See, this is what we call a rationalization, children.
people believe in a concept called "free will"
Can you say Rationalization?
Sure! I knew you could.
But you notice that there's a word there next to "will"
"free"
as in, "you get to decide for yourself what to believe"
and the government can't make you believe otherwise.
now, they try, but
oh, you're a bit too young for THAT discussion.
remember, Rationalization.
good.
I knew you could.
(strum a guitar and sing)
strum
When humankind is truly free/
everyone will agree with me.
(Beautiful!)
Brother, you can come around our commune and eat our food anytime you want to. Keep feeding each other, children!
Except then everyone complains
"I only eat organic WILD rice!"
"This is organic WHITE rice"
*continues singing*
"Everyone will believe as I do one day."
It's an authoritarian view, but an unconscious one. Mistaken for liberatory and peace-y justice-y.
And we all do it sometimes.
Social justice. I know better so you don't have to.
Let me set you free, people!
Why don't you let me set you free?
What's the matter with you?
Why are you opposing your own liberation?
And at this point, we sound exactly like US soldiers in Iraq
On the ground, Ahmed! We're liberating your country!
________
See, this is what we call a rationalization, children.
people believe in a concept called "free will"
Can you say Rationalization?
Sure! I knew you could.
But you notice that there's a word there next to "will"
"free"
as in, "you get to decide for yourself what to believe"
and the government can't make you believe otherwise.
now, they try, but
oh, you're a bit too young for THAT discussion.
remember, Rationalization.
good.
I knew you could.
As Gerald Scarfe wrote of the 'liberation' of Grenada: 'The peacemakers are coming! RUN!!!'
Now, if you're after some great left-wing folk songs, I suggest you check out Roy Bailey on YouTube. He's been in the business fifty years, singing about levellers, conscientious objectors and so on. Makes you proud.
And if that fails, a quick round of Billy Bragg's 'There is Power in the Union' always makes you feel better.