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Found this while looking (at commentor Lysana‘s instigation) for clips appropriate to Burns Night next Tuesday. Robert Burns has been diminished in modern American memory to a sort of prototypical John Denver, composer of whimsies for elderly folkies and sentimental drunks, but he also wrote the words to Parcel O’Rogues. Even “Auld Lang Syne” was considered mildly dangerous, potentially rabble-rousing, when it first appeared as a lament for townships and families torn apart by forced emigration.
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The war between Money and Liberty is not new, and the desire of the few to prosper from the suffering of the many is never quiescent. The only novelty is that we’ve had the luxury of forgetting our history to the point where we believe the eagerness of a comparatively few Very Serious People to hand our mutual future over to the malefactors of great wealth is somehow novel.
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To the rhythm of Tom Paine’s bones…
Just Some Fuckhead
Your post was beautiful prose.
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Seconded.
Whatup JSF?
Ruckus
Nothing is new in human culture. We are still the animals that Darwin discussed. The “fittest” will always try to maintain that distinction and the only way to win is to band together so that the whole is stronger than the individual. We need a union that works for the majority. Oh wait. We formed a more perfect union for that purpose but it has been distorted to the point that it no longer represents the majority. We got fat and lazy and dumb. We forgot to watch out for those who only have their selfish interests at dead center. Many/most forgot that politics is supposed to be personal. We just wanted it to be easier. But it never is.
Platonicspoof
For those of us whose slow internet connection
“. . . leave us nought but grief and pain, . . .”,
this site has the text, and with the more obscure dialect hyperlinked to a glossary.
kdaug
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Can’t take it with you.
Just Some Fuckhead
cbear!
WTF, dude. You just can’t show up every 6 months and say wassup. What’s yet story?
Lysana
Wow, my first front-page call-out. I feel all honored and stuff.
And what a neat tune as well as post.
lllphd
and i hope none of the libertarians forget – when they attempt to conscript tom paine’s bones to buttress their ‘liberty’ calls – that paine was deeply influenced by the Long House government of the Six Nations, the oldest full democracy on earth.
such notions inflamed such elitists as john adams, who referred to tom paine’s writings as “a crapulous mess.”
which is about what i’d call the very elitist government we suffer today.
Turgid Jacobian
Burns loved a bawdy
Smedley
The Kilt’s laid out and so
we’ll be toastin’ the Haggis this Saturday.
Here’s tae ye
Svensker
Neat post. And thanks for the music.
apikoros
Much as I love Maddy Prior and the boys, If you are looking to evoke the spirit of Burns, you would wish to search Youtube for “The Corries”. Their version of Rogues will bring tear to your eyes!
Citizen_X
Burns also gave us Ye Jacobites by Name, which furiously denounces those who would gin up a war for nothing. Lyrics here.
Thought of that song a lot these last few years.
Dan
Mobile site test.
Batocchio
Brava, Anne Laurie.
Ken J.
I’ve mostly been listening to The Shee’s version of “Tom Paine’s Bones.” I distantly recall that the band got the song through Gaughan.
I keep hoping Dick Gaughan will come back for a USA tour. He has some difficulties getting into the USA when Republicans hold the presidency. I was only able to see him once in the Carter years and twice in the Clinton years. (Gaughan on stage in the 1990s: “The only time I’m a threat to America is when I forget what side of the road I’m driving on!”)
And, as long as I am rambling about Dick Gaughan — a certain number of readers should pick up the 2-CD reissue of Gaughan’s work with the Scottish folk-rock band Five Hand Reel. Amazon USA still lists it.
losingtehplot
So good to see Dick Gaughan cited here!! Another lyric of his:
My name is Thomas Muir as a lawyer I was trained
Remember Thomas Muir of Huntershill
But you’ve branded me an outlaw, for sedition I’m arraigned
Remember Thomas Muir of Huntershill
But I never preached sedition in any shape or form
And against the constitution I have never raised a storm
It’s the scoundrels who’ve corrupted it that I want to reform
Remember Thomas Muir of Huntershill
M’lord, you found me guilty before the trial began
Remember …
And the jury that you’ve picked are Tory placemen to a man
Remember …
Yet here I stand for judgement unafraid what may befall
Though your spies were in my parish Kirk and in my father’s hall
Not one of them can testify I ever broke a law
Remember …
Yes, I spoke to Paisley weavers and addressed the city’s youth
For neither age nor class should be a barrier to the truth
M’lord, you may chastise them with your vitriolic tongue
You say that books are dangerous to those I moved among
But the future of our land is with the workers and the young
Members of the jury, it’s not me who’s being tried
200 years in future they will mind what you decide
You may send me to Van Dieman’s Land or clap me in the jail
Grant me death or grant me liberty my spirit will not fail
For my cause it is a just one and my cause it will prevail
With quiet words and dignity Muir led his own defence
He appeared completely blameless to those with common sense
When he had finished speaking the courtroom rang with cheers
Lord Braxfield said, “This outburst just confirms our greatest fears”
And he sentenced Thomas Muir to be transported 14 years
Gerrard, Palmer, Skirving, Thomas Muir and Margarot
These are names that every Scottish man and woman ought to know
When you’re called for jury service, when your name is drawn by lot
When you vote in an election when you freely voice your thought
Don’t take these things for granted, for dearly were they bought
Thomas Muir was a Scottish republican and revolutionary.
losingtehplot
(Sorry, I didn’t realise the lyrics would look so long as a post)
Platonicspoof
@losingtehplot:
I didn’t notice the length of it, and now that you mention it, it’s just one more reason to appreciate the new width of the middle column. Also appreciated the dissing of the rabble along with the rabble-rouser with
“This outburst just confirms our greatest fears”.
And a Muir link.