Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: Jim McLean
Date: 23 Feb 13 - 03:34 PM

Q.E.D.

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Feb 13 - 12:29 AM

Not so at all, I fear. There is more than one way of moving things on to a personal plain when you can't think of any rational responses to arguments adduced, which is what you are, entirely irrationally, accusing me of doing, JMcL. You didn't like the points I made, so you moved on to the personal, quite unjustly dismissing my manner of making them as unkind {'bitchy', 'patronising', 'mentally unstable' yet! ...} to poor little JimC, who, you thus implied [I repeat, who is 'patronising' whom?] would be helpless without you to champion his cause! Not worthy of you, Jim. Surprised and disappointed.

'Jesus!' & 'QED' right back to you.

~M~

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Feb 13 - 01:58 AM

... and there you are, Jim Carroll: now you have a Fairy Godmother too.

Enjoy!

☺〠☺~M~☺〠☺

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Feb 13 - 04:11 AM

☺〠☺~M~☺〠☺

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: GUEST,Nikkiwi
Date: 24 Feb 13 - 11:53 PM

I suspect you'd have better luck finding Anti-MONARCHY folk songs if you spoke/read french.....

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 06:51 AM

MTHEGM. "But Jim, Fred, et al, none of you has really answered my point, which I think I have demonstrated many instances to support:~ that the vast majority of the folk for the vast majority of the time actually liked being ruled by a monarch"

Whhhhaaaattttt!!!!!!!!! This crowd of uneducated thickos, sorry, peasants, sorry, feeling sensate human beings actually enjoyed paying rents and tithes and taxes to the richest entity in the land while they pesonally starved. Come off it. You'll be telling me next that they just couldn't wait to be press ganged, flogged and carted, and hauled off to be shot in foreign wars. What a splendid lot of noble unself-serving lot of chaps. A pity the ruers of our land couldn't have followed their example.

But that is to miss the point. I hate the monarchy and I will continue to sing anti-monarchist songs. And that is irrespective of whether the latest MtheGM revelation, sorry, opinion, has a shred of historical veracity. What's more, irrespective of whether I'm in a minority or not, I will continue to campaign for the abolition of the monarchy while I have breath to do so.

It's called democracy, doncha know. and there's precious little of it around these days.

Oh yes, and I note that you very quickly dropped the subject when I corrected your assertion that Alexander Somerville 'only' received 50 lashes of the whip. Yes, I know I got my own account wrong, but that just shows the importance of consulting an unimpeachable source, rather than relying on Wikipedia or memory.

In fact, Brian Behan's introduction to the MacGibbon & Kee edition of Somerville's memoirs claims that because Somerville was given 100 lashes of a cat of nine tails, and each tail had 6 strands, he was actually lashed 5,400 times.

"Here's a health to King George"? Not for me buddy.

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 07:44 AM

But that is to miss the point. I hate the monarchy and I will continue to sing anti-monarchist songs

I thought the point of this thread wasn't "Does Fred hate the monarchy?" - or "are there any anti-monarchist songs for Fred to sing?" - but "are there any traditional anti-monarchist songs?". Despite Steve's passing handwave at the top of the thread, the answer so far seems to be No, or "it depends what you mean by 'anti-monarchist'", or "it depends what you mean by 'traditional', and actually who cares if a song's traditional anyway?"

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 07:47 AM

Whhhhaaattttt!? right back to you, Fred. The Press Gang, the floggings, whevs, continued unabated as before under the Commonwealth,and would have done so whether the monarchy had been restored or not (but it WAS restored, because PEOPLE MISSED IT AND WANTED IT BACK. Why else?) & are part of a completely different discourse from attitudes to the Monarchy-as-such. If you can't distinguish the two discourses, it is your perceptions at fault. Remember the man who had had a right-hand amputated because it who had written a pamphlet which offended Queen Elizabeth waved the bloodied stump & cried a loyal blessing on the Queen. {Regret have forgotten his name tho the story well authenticated - anyone remind me of it?} I think he was as daft as you do; and that his treatment was iniquitous. But he recognised that the law was not made by the Queen herself, who represented a world-view which he shared in general if not in specific detail.

"You'll be telling me next that they just couldn't wait to be press ganged ... and hauled off to be shot in foreign wars". Never mind what I'll be telling you: look again at "On Board a 98", the pressed man looking back on his life of service and 'blessing his fate' in having been made to '[do] my duty, serve my King', collected by Vaughan Williams, and see that that tells you:- that, yes, some did.

This is not to say that royalty do not have their own contribution to make to the discourse, an are rightly despised if they don't ~~ as I myself despised the present Queen's late sister who wanted all the privileges and respect while doing all she could to prove herself unworthy of them.

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 07:58 AM

==I hate the monarchy and I will continue to sing anti-monarchist songs==
.,,.

Meant to add, tho the poster who cross-posted with me above has actually partly made the point, that you can sing all the anti-monarchist songs you like, & I hope you will have a ball doing so (just so long as I don't have to listen): but they won't be in any meaningful sense the "Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs" specified in the thread title, no matter how often and how vociferously you sing them. And do for crying out loud take in the point that your 'hatred' is a view to which you are perfectly entitled, but is not that of the generality of the people.

~M~

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 08:07 AM

Guest. Sorry but I wasn't responsible for the thread drift.

MTHEGM. (but it WAS restored, because PEOPLE MISSED IT AND WANTED IT BACK). How do we know? Nobody asked them.

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 08:45 AM

You were responsible for the drift, Fred, by saying that you would go on singing anti-monchst songs because you hated the monarchy, without engaging with the obvious intention of the OP, as to whether there were any folk-songs ~ which the ones you are so determined to go on performing manifestly aren't ~ which expressed the sentiments similar to these of yours.

If you object to my statement about what the people wanted, Fred, let's hear you respond with some examples to all the traditional songs and lore I have adduced above which clearly express the generality of the people's satisfaction and comfort with the institution of the monarchy. We know that you hate them, thank you; but now demonstrate that this is, in any sense, a popular or widely-held view. Otherwise I stick to my opinion that yours is an atypical minority position, entirely unworthy of the priggish, holier-than-thou self-satisfaction, entirely misplaced in one who lays claim to democratic views, with which you appear to urge your posture. Now show me different ~~ from tradition or from any other pov.

Put up or shut up.

~M~

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 09:24 AM

"I am looking for British songs and tunes from all ages which reflect ant-monarchist sentiments."

One can argue over what is and isn't a folk song but to be fair the original question, as shown above, wasn't only asking for older or traditional songs. Songs and tunes from all ages were his words! Later on in the thread people questioned whether there were many older songs of that said type.

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 09:32 AM

--How do we know? Nobody asked them...--
.,,.
Oh, come on, Fred. Don't pretend to be more stupid than you are with another so completely disingenuous point. All evidence, from broadsides like 'When The King Enjoys His Own Again' to the popularity of the reopening of the theatres and the astonishing flowering of new drama at the Restoration, one of the greatest and most productive periods in English drama, attests to the fact that the Restoration of the Monarchy was pretty nigh universally welcomed with enormous RELIEF, after nearly 20 years of misery under the tyranny of those of the 'we know what is best for everybody' persuasion so admirably summed up in the tone of the posts of the likes of you.

Have you ever read an essay by Kingsley Amis called "Why Lucky Jim turned right". I commend it to you ~~ he'd got your number, right enough.

~M~

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 09:32 AM

Sorry M. The thread drifted long before I said that.

As regards examples of anti-monarchist traditional songs, I have already explained why there are no great numbers of them.Tell you what. Why don't you read what I said instead of repeating what you think I said?

Regarding being a democrat and holding minority opinions, here's a few of the other things I'm opposed to:-

Capital punishment
Corporal punishment
Badger culling
Homophobia
Benefit cuts
Racism
Antisemitism
Travellerphobia
Sexism
Immigration quotas
Repatriation of ethnic minorities


Granted I'm not nowadays in a minority on all these issues. But I certainly was when I began campaigning. Thank God there are some people who are willing to change thir minds.

And oh yes. Regarding accepting the will of the majority. Where do you think I would have stood had I been in Germany in the 1930s? With the majority, or against it?

Sorry for the continuing thread drift. Can we get back to the topic which opened this thread in the first place?

Subject: RE: Anti-Monarchist Folk Songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 09:50 AM

As we cross-posted absolutely simultaneously, you might have missed my last post, which I therefore commend again to your attention.

Meanwhile, please demonstrate what the existence of a popular — indeed much-loved by many — royal family has in common with badger culling, homophobia, sexism... or indeed, all the items your list of indisputably OK·to·the·fully-paid-up·progressive·agenda with each other. I expect there are people who don't want to cull badgers but would welcome a reduction in immigration, or think that the restoration of some corporal punishment might protect a few old ladies from getting mugged and would rather not have a travellers' camp set up just outside their village, but regard ethnic minorities as welcome within the overall community (THESE ARE ONLY EXAMPLES, NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENTATIVE OF MY OWN VIEWS). So in what way is this list of OK causes embraced by Fred McCormick in any way relevant to the point at issue?

My last three posts have been entirely relevant to 'the topic which opened the thread in the first place'. It's yours which haven't, you know.

~M~