Discourse 9: What's in your Head

Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie-ie, oh

“This song’s our cry against man’s inhumanity to man; and man’s inhumanity to child.”

-          Doloros O’Riordan

On September 19^th, 1994, the Irish Rock band led by their lead singer Dolores O’Riordan released their protest song Zombie, a hard-hitting visceral epic that landed on the top of the Billboard charts across the world. While the music was enough to make you bang your head and the lyrics were good enough to make you think, it was the emotion conveyed in the voice of O’Riordan that resonated in all social classes throughout the world, as it conjured deep within us ancient emotions that we all can comprehend. Pain. Agony. Anger. A desire for justice. Resolution. All arriving at once, embedded in the cry of Zombie, Zombie, Zombie-ie-ie, oh. If you do not know the song, or if it has been a while, give it another listen when you have finished reading this. It can be a case study in communication and just how inefficient words are at conveying meaning. A skillful artist such as O’Riordan can say more in her pitch than I can in an essay. We have all heard the old cliché that a picture is worth a thousand words. Music, like poetry and art, are attempts at a purer expression, reaching closer to truth than mere words.  But there Is the rub. Truth is real. Despite what many, perhaps most, of the modern consequentialist world believes, there is a right and there is a wrong. Good exists. Evil exists. That ancient emotion we feel is our morality.

For such alchemy to be produced through the art, making it capable of resonating on primal levels, requires the authenticity of its artist with the message they are attempting to convey. For O’Riordan to achieve such gravity in her yodel she would have needed an inspiration that could stimulate such powerful truths. So where did she get her inspiration and what is her message?

Eighteen months prior to the song’s release, a member of the IRA planted two bombs in trash bins along a busy shopping area on Bridge Street in Warrington, Cheshire, England. One exploded outside of a McDonalds and the other detonated outside of a clothing store. In total, two people were killed and 54 people were injured.

Three-year-old Johnathan Ball was in town with his babysitter shopping for a Mother’s Day card when the explosions began. He was killed instantly at the scene. Twelve-year-old Tim Parry ceased to have brain activity five days later and was taken off of life support in the presence of his family and was sent home to our Lord. His drawn-out death is the meaning of the line in the song “Child is slowly taken.”

At the time the Cranberries were on tour, but that did not distract them from the event. O’Riordan found herself deeply moved by the tragedy, inspiring her to write the song that became known as Zombie. Later she conveyed this during an interview with Vox. “I remember seeing one of the mothers on television, just devastated. I felt so sad for her, that she’d carried him for nine months, been through all the morning sickness, the whole thing and some… prick, some airhead who thought he was making a point, did that.” She was particularly upset that the IRA had claimed to carry out these attacks in the name of Ireland. “The IRA are not me. I’m not the IRA, the Cranberries are not the IRA. My family are not. When it says in the song, ‘its not me, its not my family’, that’s what I’m saying.”

She was called naïve by those who said she did not understand the conflict, and the song, as well as the music video was censored in various places, all in an attempt to control the narrative and temper the emotion fostered by the senseless act of violence. “I don’t care whether it’s Protestant or Catholic, I care about the fact that innocent people are being harmed.” That’s what provoked me to write the song.  It was nothing to do with writing a song about it because I’m Irish.” She continues: “…It doesn’t name terrorist groups or organizations; it doesn’t take sides. It’s a very human song.

When the father of Tim Parry, the twelve-year-old who was killed, first learned that Zombie had been inspired by his son he said “The words are both majestic and also very real. To read the words written by an Irish band in such a compelling way was very, very, powerful.  

O’Riordan once said “that if you feel really strongly about something and it really annoys you, then other young people will think the same as you and something can be done about it, but first, you have to be aware.”

Almost thirty years later, the song still resonates with those with ears to hear. Unfortunately, senseless violence throughout the world not only continues, but the number of walking dead has only increased as mass society has become even more desensitized to the sufferings of others. Worse still, it is one thing to be desensitized, or even indifferent, it is another thing all together for one to justify such killings as necessary. That is where we find ourselves once again, despite the cornucopia of warnings from history.  

Some may be inclined to think I am referring to the rise of terrorism, especially as it relates to our post 9/11 world, but that would be inaccurate. I do not condone the killing of any innocent regardless of who pulls the trigger or sympathize with why they did it, but most “terrorism” in the modern world is either directly or indirectly fostered by nation states as part of an agenda. These nation states operate managed democracies where consent of the governed is implied or manufactured, making the citizens of these governments complicit to their crimes to a particular degree. Although, many are either not aware or are captured by apathy, which enables such atrocities to become part of the standard operating procedure. This is not conspiracy; it is the way the world functions. Naturally for this to become part of the tool kit of a country like the United States, who is demonstrably the world’s largest supporter of terror both directly and via proxy, a significant deviation from its founding roots would need to have taken place. And it did.

Consider:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

The Declaration proclaims that it is “self-evident” that human rights exist and that they are endowed by the very nature of our creation. Just like the power found in the conjuring of ancient emotions by O’Riordan, at the time in the hearts of the men who professed it, sought no further justification in what amounts to be pure truth. It just was. And? This powerful assertion reverberates throughout history for that very reason, without a single footnote referring to material evidence to justify it. As another writer on Substack put it, the lack of “scientific” justification reflects the seriousness with which some of the American founders conceived of human rights. There are no qualifiers, they are innate.

I grew up believing wholeheartedly in this statement, but wrongly believing that what it stood for still manifested itself in the systems in which we live today. This belief, that America still stands on these first principles is an illusion conjured by the hyperreality, trapping its captives in a feedback look of righteousness where the actions of the government are always above board, based upon the spreading “freedom” and “democracy.” This is reinforced by significant engineering, mass social rituals, clever rhetoric, sophistry, and perpetual framing of thought architecture that supports the magic trick. Thus, creating an environment where we, as Americans, can never be perceived as the villain, particularly in our own minds. Therefore making us all indifferent, or at the worst, made malleable to justifying the killing of innocent people based off of ostensible reasons. We have become a civilization of zombies.

It would only be a society of the walking dead that would elect a former IDF solider to the United States Congress. I understand the legal structure that has been created that allows such things, but it is nevertheless mind boggling that a person would vote for someone who took an oath to a foreign country. Such individuals, if they have any measure of personal constitution, cannot serve two masters  at once. (Outside of the ONE King)

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Matthew 6:24

United States Representative Brian Mast, a republican from the state of Florida, cannot serve both the citizens of his district and the manufactured country of Israel at the same time. He has even worn his IDF uniform to the capital in a display of “solidarity.” Theoretically, an elected representative supports the US Constitution (which albeit is flawed and legally irrelevant in 2024) as well as the principles in the Declaration. Saying that a representative cannot support this idea of natural human rights fully, while simultaneously fulfilling an oath to an ethno-fascist state should be axiomatic. It makes no difference that they are an “ally”.

It is clear that Mast does not have such a measure, and he recently made it known that he is a perfect representative of a zombiefied nation who neither cares for standards nor the sufferings of others. In fact, it is a nation that has long since abandoned its very own first principles and will often cheer when a “leader” like Mast can justify such senseless violence on their behalf.

If the deaths of two children, Johnathan Ball and Tim Parry could elicit such strong primal reaction from O’Riordan that resonated in the hearts of millions, what would she think of the bodies of almost 13,000 children killed in Gaza since October 7^th? What would she call the man who defends such things? What would she call a nation that defends such things?

 I can feel the ancient calls for justice stir in my soul as I reflect upon this reality when I tuck my children into bed safely at night. I can feel the anger at the weak men who have the reins of our society. Can you?

A journalist by the name of Medea Benjamin recently asked Mast “You haven’t seen the pictures of all the babies being Killed?” To which Mast replied. “These are not innocent Palestinian civilians across the world.” When asked about the nearly one million Palestinians who are starving on the Gaza strip, he had this to say: “The half a million people starving to death are people that should go out there and put a government in place that doesn’t go out there and attack Israel on a daily basis.” Need I remind the reader that it is publicly known that Israel funded Hamas and helped placed them in power in Gaza with the stated intention of killing the “two state solution.” A truth that a US Representative undoubtedly knows, albeit the majority of the American population would decry this as disinformation when in reality it is just an inconvenient truth. So here is a man, who knows damned well what he is saying is an abject lie, a man who embodies C.S. Lewis’s men without chests and wholly lacking Shaftesbury’s moral sense, serving as a representative of a government that pretends to be in the vein of Washington and Jefferson. It would be comical if not so tragic, as we have become a demonic parody of our own democratic rhetoric.

The reader should be mindful that as it stands Israel has been accused of committing genocide in Gaza and is defending itself in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Among those accusations is the charge of ethnic cleansing, which is demonstrably occurring but adamantly denied. This reality can be clearly articulated during the next line of questioning with Representative Mast, his comments adding to the already substantial empirical evidence that the United States is again party to war crimes.

Benjamin asked about the sheer destruction caused by the Israeli bombing campaign, which is comparable to the Allied strategic bombing campaigns of World War II. “They’ve destroyed more infrastructure in Gaza than they did in Dresden.”  Mast quickly replied, “And there’s more infrastructure that needs to be destroyed.”  As it stands now there is not much left to be destroyed. Hospitals, universities, schools, mosques, even cemeteries… all have been mostly razed by the IDF.  

Previously, Mast invoked WWII to justify the slaughter in Gaza on the floor of the House of Representatives. “I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of innocent Palestinian civilians as frequently. I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term innocent Nazi Civilians during World War II.”

Here we have a sitting republican congressman calling for collective punishment, what should be, what was, a wholly un-American concept. If America was half the country she pretends to be, Mast would be removed from office and the carrier strike group in the eastern Mediterranean would have its guns now pointed at Israel.

This brings us back to O’Riordan’s lyrics, “Its not me, it’s not my family”.

I bet Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh who lost his wife, his 7-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son in October due to Israeli bombings can relate to her cry. If that wasn’t bad enough, his 27-year-old son who was also a journalist was killed in early January. His family is not Hamas. It’s not his family.

Mast and his ilk, including leadership from liberal democracies all over the world are supporting what Israel is doing, by blaming Jonathan Ball for shopping for a Mother’s Day card in England. They are blaming Tim Parry for existing in the wrong place. They are doing all of this with our implied consent.

With that being said. Truth is real.

This isn’t my country that is attacking you. These are not my ideas that are killing your family. I only live here. It’s not me, It is not my family. There is not one single populated continent that has not been affected by the worlds largest and most murderous empire to have ever existed. Our founders had some good ideas. Perhaps one day we could be better. For now, they do not represent me.

As O’Riordan said “But first, you have to be aware.”

Our society of zombies is out of excuses. What’s in your head, in your head? Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie-ie Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh,eh,eh oh, ya-ya