[lbo-talk] "Cheer the Fuck Up"

[Doug Henwood]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

>The American men and women who had themselves photographed while 
>torturing Iraqis look to be . . . a very cheerful bunch, in a 
>mythical All-American sort of way, with big grins and thumbs up.  I 
>can imagine them telling the tortured Iraqis to "cheer the fuck up," 
>in a military version of the totalitarian command "enjoy!"

I can't believe I have to do this, but what the hell. I don't think 
people should be cheerful as a default temperament. I think they 
should take pleasure in past victories, and infuse the future with 
some degree of hope. There's a mood of "everything sucks and is 
getting worse" on much of the left today - if James Heartfield were 
still here he could talk about the embrace of limits of all sort - 
which is a betrayal of its past, which was about revolutionary 
possibility. Torturing Iraqis has nothing to do with it unless you're 
trying to make some cheap point, though calling it a point dignifies 
it, since the point of the point eludes me.

Doug

----

Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.