To protect yourself and your family from coronavirus, we suggest socialism, and also handwashing—the Centers for Disease Control recommends you scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds.
If you have nothing to think about, 20 seconds can feel like an eternity. Here are 20-second socialist and revolutionary songs, poems and quotes to get your fighting spirit up.
SONGS
Solidarity forever / 1915
Solidarity forever
Solidarity forever
Solidarity forever
For the union makes us strong
We shall overcome / Pete Seeger / 1963
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome, some day
Union Maid / 1941
Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the union,
I’m sticking to the union, I’m sticking to the union.
Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the union,
I’m sticking to the union ’til the day I die.
9 to 5 / Dolly Parton / 1980
Workin’ 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin’
Barely gettin’ by, it’s all takin’ and no givin’
They just use your mind and you never get the credit
It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it
This Land is Your Land / 1951
This land is your land, this land is my land
From the California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me
Internationale - American / 1900
Arise ye pris’ners of starvation
Arise ye wretched of the earth
For justice thunders condemnation
A better world’s in birth!
Bread and roses / 1988
As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life’s glories, bread and roses, bread and roses.
There Is Power In A Union / 1913
There is power in a factory, power in the land
Power in the hand of the worker
But it all amounts to nothing
If together we don’t stand
There is power in a Union
Not Ready to Make Nice / Dixie Chicks / 2006
I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell, and I don’t have time
To go ’round and ’round and ’round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is
You think I should
Running with the Wild things / Against the Current / 2016
We got too big for the cage, you locked us up in
Let’s mark this down as the day, that we started something
So open the gate, open the gate cause when we
Finally escape, finally escape we’ll be
Tearing through the streets
Running with the wild things
Aint done nothing if you ain’t been called a red / 1984
Well you ain’t done nothin’ if you ain’t been called a red
if you’ve marched or agitated, you’re bound to hear it said
so you might as well ignore it, or love the word instead
cause you ain’t been doin’ nothin’ if you ain’t been called a red
Worker’s Song / 1981
We’re the first ones to starve, we’re the first ones to die
The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky
And we’re always the last when the cream is shared out
For the worker is working when the fat cat’s about
Bella Ciao / 1906
Una mattina mi sono svegliato,
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
Una mattina mi sono svegliato,
e ho trovato l’invasor.
O partigiano, portami via,
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
O partigiano, portami via,
ché mi sento di morir.
I’ll Dance On Your Grave Mrs Thatcher / 2013
And we’ll dance
Yes we’ll dance
We’ll dance on your grave Mrs. Thatcher
We’ll dance
Yes, we’ll dance
We’ll dance on your grave Mrs. Thatcher
Joe Hill / 1940
I dreamed, I saw Joe Hill last night
Alive as you and me
Says I “But Joe, you’re ten years dead”
“I never died” says he
“I never died” says he
Ringing of Revolution / 1966
Oh, life was a game, and work was a shame,
And pain was prevented by pleasure.
The world, cold and grey, was so far away
In the distance only money could measure.
But their thoughts were broken by the ringing of revolution.
Do You Hear The People Sing? / 1980
Do you hear the people sing,
Singing a song of angry men?
Is the music of a people
who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums,
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
I’m a Socialist / Marcel Cartier / 2014
I’m a socialist, more than just a theorist
That means I keep it militant, the boss man’s nemesis
Rep the organizers, 9 to 5 grinders
Homeless and the downtrodden, true freedom fighters
I’m a socialist, more than just a theorist
That means I keep it militant, the boss man’s nemesis
Guantanamera / 1929
Con los pobres de la tierra
Quiero yo mi suerte echar
Con los pobres de la tierra
Quiero yo mi suerte echar
El arroyo de la sierra
Me complace mas que el mar
POEMS
The New Colossus / Emma Lazarus / 1883
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Yertle the Turtle / 1958
Then again, from below, in the great heavy stack,
Came a groan from that plain little turtle named Mack.
“Your Majesty, please… I don’t like to complain,
But down here below, we are feeling great pain.
I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,
But down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.
Let America Be America Again / 1935
O, let America be America again
The land that never has been yet
And yet must be the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plough in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
QUOTES
Socialism is a scareword they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
– Harry S. Truman / 1952
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/truman-socialism-scare-word
We are socialists because we believe that work must be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products, and not for the profit of the bosses. Material resources must be equally distributed among those who create these resources.
– The Combahee River Collective Statement / 1977
http://circuitous.org/scraps/combahee.html
All that socialism means to me, to be very frank with you, is democracy with a small ‘d.’ I believe in democracy, and by democracy, I mean that, to as great an extent as possible, human beings have the right to control their own lives. And that means that you cannot separate the political structure from the economic structure.
– Bernie Sanders / 1986
To me, what socialism means is to guarantee a basic level of dignity. It’s asserting the value of saying that the America we want and the America that we are proud of is one in which all children can access a dignified education. It’s one in which no person is too poor to have the medicines they need to live.
– Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez / 2018
With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order.
– Noam Chomsky / 1973
https://chomsky.info/state01/
Communist manifesto / 1847
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.
They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by
the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution.
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.
They have a world to win.
Workers of the world, unite!
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