Last Chants?

[gordonzola]

In response to my 4/23 post, a reader writes that the chant "Bums, bums, we're all bums / Keep the rich on the run!" would never have been uttered because it doesn't rhyme with 1-2-3-4 or hey hey, ho ho. Now I'm not much of a chanter. It feels oddly lik e going to church to me, so I usually keep my mouth shut or make cynical comments. But there have been a number of fun chants over the years at demos I've attended that have been worth yelling.

(serious looks-fists raised) Smash the state!
(smiling-waving to any onlookers) and have a nice day!
(1988 Anarchist Unconvention war chest tour-Toronto)

1-2-3-4 Let's Boogie!
5-6-7-8 Organize to smash the state!
(spontaneous chant on the anarchist samba line at the 1988 DC abortion rights demo)

Bush, you liar,
We'll set your ass on fire!
(many Gulf War protests)

Bad cop, no donut!
Bad cop, no donut!
(after a police raid on a peaceful Castro demo/street party. I think that's when the Chief of Police's loafer got liberated by an angry, and fashion-conscious, c rowd.)

Admittedly, this is a very small number for 18 years of demo going.

And it seems like a good time to remember my favorite all-time funniest chant. I never heard this actually said out loud, but it was printed on a chant sheet handed out at a smal l sectarian demo. One can only hope that it was placed there only to encourage a new member of the organization and never repeated aloud. On the positive side, it doesn't rhyme with "ho ho".

It's illegal and immoral /
to burn down tiny countries /
just because you can!

Anyone have any other good ones to add?



a

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm extremely fond of "we're tired/we're cranky/we don't like the government", though I'm not sure I ever chanted it at a demo. Maybe I just gazed at the sticker on a long-ish workday and chanted it in my mind...

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

no, no, I remember chanting that near the end of the two-demos-a-day first week of the Gulf War. It summed up the mood perfectly.

I also remember chanting "Sex party cops!" over and over again at the 1984 Democratic Convention. A whole bunch were being disciplined at the time for a common rookie hazing practice. They pulled a sex worker off the street and had her give a rookie cop a blow job while he was handcuffed to a chair. Evidently it had been a common rite of passage for a certain district's detective squad until someone told the press.s

[reddawn.livejournal.com]

well, there were some pretty fun ones we did as radical cheerleaders, but the one that takes the cake for most ridiculous was one we chanted at an impromptu parade after a "youth liberation conference" in gainesville last winter. it was generally an excuse for us to run around in the streets downtown, but to make it look more issue oriented we started chanting

We eat candy!
And explore our genitals!

this seemed harmless and goofy enough to us until the gainesville police threatened to arrest us all on obscenity charges because apparently the word "genitals" isn't clinical enough. too suggestive.

then we took our rally over to hooters and actually got some waitresses and customers to come out and rally with us. fun.

Proof that things have changed!

[(Anonymous)]

See, Gordon: fantasy politics make real politics better! (And I'm going to chant that at my next demo, regardless of what it is.) (Okay, maybe I won't chant it really loud at a candelight march about some new attrocity commited by Israel.) (Well, who knows, I just might.)

xxooOldGirl)

Bad chants, no donut

[walktheplank.livejournal.com]

Ugh! I hate chanting.
Especially when its the same three chants over, and over, and over.

However... I got a big kick out of it at Active Resistance in 1996 when the anarchists started chanting "What do we want? - 'SAME OLD THING!- Why do we want it? -WHAT ELSE IS THERE?"