OCCUPIED COUNTRY

Coward of the County

I've just returned from watching the most spineless City display since the last most spineless City display. I'm getting extremely pissed off with the bottle-less bunch of overpaid tossers. THIS IS MANCHESTER UNITED YOU'RE PLAYING ! Show some frigging passion. They were down to 10 men. Did Kevin change our tactics to take care of this? Y'know maybe play to our strengths and their weaknesses? Did he bollox. He is inept. I truly despair.

I won't be comforted by talk of 'concentrating on the league' either.

Furthermore when I go out tonight I am going to be wound up unmercifully by all the Reds I know.

Pissed off!

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When I frequented folk clubs, the songs of Woody Guthrie were frequently heard. One in particular - Deportees - I particularly enjoyed. It told the story of the illegal migrant workers who flocked to California to pick fruit in the 1930s. Periodically these workers were rounded up and sent back to their countries of origin (mainly Mexico) by air.

Woody wrote Deportees about one of the aircraft crashing killing many illegals and the response of the American public whose attitude was "hell, they were just deportees".

I was reminded of this attitude when I heard of the awful deaths of the 19 Chinese cocklers. The first response of many seems to have been jokes about the tragedy and an air of "hell, they were just illegal immigrants". Human life disregarded because they were trying to better themselves and believed all the bullshit that the Gangmasters told them about streets paved with gold.

Freezing cold, lonely and frightened to death in the pitch black night. Many of their bodies recovered clothes-less in their pitiful attempts to try and swim against some of the strongest tides in the country. That's how they were found - miles from where they drowned and many miles from home.

I had a drink with a bloke who used to sing Deportees the other night. I mentioned that I felt that this was a similar situation to Woody's song and he more or less blanked me with a sneer. He didn't exactly say who gives a shit, but his response wasn't far off. Hell they were just illegal immigrants.

Deportees

Woody Guthrie

The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again

CHORUS:
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"

My father's own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They are just deportees"

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?