New Paul O'Toole Music Video

by Diarmuid Breatnach Mon Dec 01, 2008 23:38

Great lyrics, great force in the song. Backing group a bit wooden but good to see anti-imperialist war song creative energy. Togha fir -- keep doing it.

by Seán Ryan Mon Dec 01, 2008 23:38

Very catchy.

Keep up the great work!

Regards.

by redjade Tue Dec 02, 2008 00:16

Paul,

this is the song i miss from ireland - thanks for being able to hear it again.
cynical, yet hopeful - thats are hard hard combo to pull off! :-)

I'll be posting this youtube on my blog and other sites i am involved in in the weeks to come.

blogishness here: http://LMV.hu/redjade

by Pissed Off Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:01 paul at peacecycle dot mobi

Hi There
Nice one. Its hard for the virtuous to comprehend the motives of the worldly - by the time they do they've been closed down both emotionally and economically. But money and power are the motives that guide the personality types that seek control and dumbing down is an inevitable byproduct of control such that systems tend to stupify in their own juices till inevitably they fall due to their inability to check their own excesses or respond to change.
Meanwhile the radical edge fragments around its own series of personality types, badge carrying guardsmen and rarified intellectual headboard games and everyone mistrusts the motives of the other especially the conspicuously bourgeois who must - as a matter of principle - be denegrated by the 'Lefties', as though some ongoing sacrificial offering was required by the ghosts of Lenin and Marx - the rescrambling of the omlette all over again. And where motives can't be established they are imputed - enter the spooks and the stassiesque shadow men who concoct the disabling blow - a label to unsuit every suiter.
Hurray for profiling! A little bit like witch-hunting: if she doesn't drown she was a witch so axe her if not declared innocent, and the balladeer is sent for.
This song says it all and yet still succeeds in being a catchy and compelling number.
Wot to do... Maybe web activist and the arts are the way forward kind of cyber education but politics remains a cesspit. Its hard to imagine that it can be anything other than a game. Perhaps niche parties are the way forward: the fragmenting of power and politics. We have have SF on the radical left (Health Housing, Education and the National issue, being their niche) and then the Greens (Environment, Energy, Resources - perhaps)... so what of an Peace Party or anti-imperialist party, who hopefully would also recognise the imperialism of China, would be able respond to the likes of Zimbabwe and resist the temptation to take hit out on the Pope...
(Atheists demand so much talk time on the God issue their like kids and they accuse those wit faith of being evangelists they'd bore you into submission - I'd rather baby sit a diarrhoettic hippo then listen to the tortured disclaimers of these folks).
Anyway its impossible politics is for politicios and their political by nature which is why its called politics...
the song works though.
..... I've depressed meself now
Good luck
Paul

by Justin Morahan Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:05

Long life to you and your powerful voice of protest against War and its brother Exploitation.

by Paul O'Toole Tue Dec 02, 2008 12:03 pauljotoole at eircom dot net 0863512469

I have a son the same age as Ali (Abbas).
Ali wanted to grow up to be a surgeon and heal people after his experiences of the butchery he witnessed through 'Opperation Desert Storm'.
After 'Shock And Awe' he lost his mother , father, and siblings including one unborn sibling, his home , community, security and most obviously his arms which were burned through to the bone. There is a picture which depicts his despair which was the inspiration for this song and to this day I find impossible to look at without welling up in a raging anger.
Sky news reported...'this is how we will win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people' ...as a british field medic bandaged him up

Ive heard Ali interviewed and it would seem that he is very aware that his answers to media questions are being mis-interpreted in the english vernacular. He makes gestures and sounds like barking dogs and clucking chickens - the Internationally recognised language depicting cowards - when the interpreter says that ....'Ali bears no grudge against his liberators'.......and wants to thank them.

Manchester United gave him a T-shirt at a press/pr stunt to 'normalise' the event, and one of the players offered to give up a weeks wages to go to medical aid in Iraq......that inititiave never materilaised into anything much...to much to ask Im sure.

The hospital in London treating Ali actually charged him for the prostetic arms that the British military burned off him and killed his family at the same time.

I want to thank Dave Donnellan for the time and effort in making this video. It wasnt a celebration, to make a video like this, it is hopefully an affirmation that bridges can be built rather than burned and everyone along with it,

Im getting a website and hopefully through music and poetry can raise funds to send to 'Iraqi Medical Aid. Through a CD i made.... 'From Shannon With Love' ...copies were sold as copyleft and went to help with costs arising out of activists facing court for 'disarming' US warplanes illegally parked and refuelled at Shannon and also to 'Iraqi Medical Aid' which hopefully went to some poor kids needing Morphine while they under went emergency surgery from bomb blasts during their 'Liberation'
Thank you all .

by Michael - Human League Thu Dec 04, 2008 08:43

Brilliant Song and well done to Paul .
''When Will We Ever Learn '' is always a subject we find comes back to BITE every single human being.
We have become selfish to the point of Stupitidy and this is where we fall down time after time etc.
Unite from life experience and make our experiences available to persons who are pawns in Commercial Immoral Activities .
Some Day we will regret our non activities ,Of That We Can Be Certain.
Wake Up And Smell The Decaf

by pot Thu Dec 04, 2008 16:22

heres the lyrics

The world is going up in smoke around our ears
The ghosts from all the other wars are screaming in our ears
Are we to afraid to listen, are we paranoid with fear
The ignorant are saying 'it's been going on for years'
While the guilty are dining on caviar and wine
As there blowing up their victims in the bread lines

I can't sit and listen to these voices of decent
Who can't make up their minds sitting on their barbed-wire fence
The yes men I'm meeting, keeps telling me 'no'
But when he votes in secret I know which way he goes
He says it's a pity so many will be killed
But don't stop us now cos there's barrels to be filled

Chorus
If you'r ever wondering what it's all about
It's crooked politicians with their tongues hanging out
Taking money every time someone else is handing out
So the rich are getting richer and the poor can do without

2
The Pentagon decided they need to kick some ass
The war is in the East and they need to stop for gas
There's an island over there it's all covered in grass
And a hundred thousand welcomes for the soldiers who pass
The Catholics are praying, they hope it's over fast
And the pope just says a rosary and offers up a Mass

Every ones a winner when the children start to die
The boys in the Pentagon cant contain their smiles
Every time they shake hands someone's gonna die
And Tony's got a taste for American Pie
So why is it always the innocent who die??
When money is the answer…you never ask why

Chorus
If you'r ever wondering what it's all about
It's crooked politicians you couldn't have a doubt
Taking money every time the corporations are handing out
So the rich are getting richer and the poor can do without

3
The prisoners of poverty are dying like fleas
The preachers in their pulpits say we should be on our knees
And pray for St. Luke to truly intercede
Our leader's only hope is that the slaughter can succeed
But we'd rather not watch you while you lie there and bleed
So turn off the TV were going out to eat

Watch out children the wolf is at the door
He's wearing his pearl necklace and his chain is on the floor
His friends have just finished, dining on Gore
There satisfied now but they'll be back for more
There just bringing freedom everywhere they need
All along those pipelines to the Caspian Sea

Chorus
If your ever wondering what it's all about
It's crooked politicians with their tongues hanging out
Taking money every time the corporations handing out
So the rich are getting richer and the poor can do without

4
A fireman takes an axe to save the people inside
Mary does the same now they've charged her with a crime
And remember those plough-shares put their lives on the line
They've planted potatoes, they'll harvest them in time
They'll send them to the victims as a token of mankind
From the runways of hell, they've erected a shrine

And remember little Ali, he's liberated too
When they blew his little arms away and his Mam and Daddy too
When the liberators came with their Tamohawks and Cruise
With no invitation they knew they coulden't loose
He's got a Man U t-shirt he's going out in style
With a lethal dose of morphine-anyone could smile

Chorus
If you'r ever wondering what it's all about
It's crooked politicians you coulden't have a doubt
Taking money every time the corporations handing out
So the rich are getting richer and the poor can do without

Chorus
If your ever wondering what it's all about
It's crooked politicians with their tongues hanging out
Taking money every time the corporations handing out
So the rich are getting richer and the poor can do with out.