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What you want to say – 27th April 2016 April 27, 2016

Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.
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As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.

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1. Gewerkschaftler - April 27, 2016

Continuing on the “Making of Global Capitalism” theme – here’s an interview with Leo Panitch at the New Books Network about the book.

Interestingly he talks about the ‘Canadianisation’ of Europe in the 60s and 70s of the last century.

Was RoI ever ‘Canadianised’? Or something worse?

As far as I’m aware Canada wasn’t used to avoid corporate taxes by US firms to the extent the RoI was and is.

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2. EWI - April 27, 2016

The continuing sly efforts to reinterpret the defence of Mount Street Bridge as the scene of ‘massacre’ by the rebels (and in a year when there hasn’t been an official peep about North King Street) have just found another pony to ride to death; someone has nicked that (quite large and ornate) poppy wreath laid the other day on the Volunteers memorial.

(posed in the wrong place at first, apologies)

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gearoidfaolean - April 28, 2016

“The continuing sly efforts to reinterpret the defence of Mount Street Bridge as the scene of ‘massacre’ by the rebels…”

???

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3. Pasionario - April 27, 2016

There’s a fine interview with Bernadette Devlin in the current 1916-themed issue of Jacobin:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/04/bernadette-devlin-interview-derry-civil-rights-troubles-good-friday/

I was under the misconception that Devlin had sided with dissident republicans against the GFA but actually her critique of them and of Sinn Fein is altogether thoughtful. Her comments on loyalists are also unusually sensitive:

“Loyalism’s hallmark is that it represents the poor. Loyalists are working class or unemployed. As the American system disgracefully refers to some of its poorest people as “white trash,” loyalists are perceived within British nationalism as an underclass.

Many from loyalist communities have internalized that themselves. When I work with people from that background I’m often surprised that they will set on the table first, “Okay, so, we know we are no good.” I have talked to young loyalists who say, “We know we are scum.”

I don’t understand any human being starting a conversation saying that they are not human. I ask them why they start that way. There is a clear lack of self-esteem and also a loss of confidence.”

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Ed - April 28, 2016

I think there was a general assumption in the media at the time, without paying too much attention to what she was actually saying, that anyone who was strongly critical of the Adams peace strategy must favour a return to war, but this is what she was saying in 1996:

“I think that the Republicans have gotten themselves in an irreversible position. I don’t believe that a return to military operations is an effective option. I think that if they go back to military operations within the climate that they themselves were a party to creating, then military defeat, for the first time in 15 years, becomes a very real possibility …

“I think that the way forward is first of all to make an honest assessment of where we are. I think we should hang on to the cease-fire. The special repressive legislation is still on the books, but we can initiate mass action and continue campaigning against that. If we don’t go back to war, there’s less chance of everybody being slaughtered.

“I think Sinn Féin should get out of the “peace process”. Our presence in this process can do nothing to affect it. Our campaign should be based upon insuring that whatever mechanics they put on this country, we will demand equality of citizenship, as long as we are citizens here, we will demand equal opportunity, we will demand our national identity, we will demand our fundamental human rights, and begin to build a political campaign around that.”

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/11643

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4. EWI - April 27, 2016

Breaking News From The Tea Party View Online

National Pledge to STOP the Establishment

“The Washington Establishment is saying this about you: ‘Why should we fight with you when we can simply replace your sorry butt with a mindless minion from the 3rd world?’ That type of thinking is exactly what Cruz and Trump discovered a few years ago; this is why we are so dangerous to the establishment.” Steve Eichler – President Tea Party/TeaParty.org
Dear Patriot,

Get this, the Establishment has a secret plan to first replace your vote, and then to replace YOU if you won’t obey! If you refuse to be a bootlicker, then the Establishment will import someone who will conform!

Ever ask yourself WHY the Establishment hates Cruz and Trump? They learned a secret so shocking they can only mention it in private, but in public they are driven by it! Cruz and Trump are laying the groundwork for a full frontal attack on the Washington Establishment and putting the brakes of the New World Order’s secret plan.

In short, the dirty Establishment secret involves replacing tens of millions of hard working U.S. citizens with 3rd world makeshift counterfeit nationals. Imported foreign nationals who know nothing about American heritage, the Constitution or have even had a background check! By design their voices, demands and votes will extinguish yours and you will be replaced!

It’s time to fight back!

You are out of your mind! This is what some people have told me; there is no conspiracy to replace citizens! To them I say; tell me how a few days ago you thought your vote counted, but today you learned that it didn’t and it won’t! The Establishment demands obedience.

To be honest, if the Washington Establishment can’t control you using…

Oppressive taxation,
Government Benefit Dependency
Police and Cyber intimidation
Industry Killing Regulations
……then you will be replaced. This is nothing more than a scheme to replacement trouble makers like you and I!

This is why we have put together the STOP THE ESTABLISHMENT LETTER, to totally piss-off the Washington Establishment.

Think I’m kidding? What about this?

Your Vote – Replaced

How do you explain this:

Gary Emineth, delegate from North Dakota stated in a recent interview: “…..virtually all of the delegates can vote any way they want.
Curly Haugland a Republican National Committee member said: “The party, not the voters, chooses the nominee that’s the problem, the media has created the perception that the voters will decide the nomination,” Haugland continued: “Political parties choose their nominee, not the general public, contrary to popular belief.”
Get this, the Tea Party is not the only one to discover this dirty little secret but our Tea Party friends Ted Cruz and Donald Trump have learned about the Establishment’s diabolical plot, and now they are going public with the details and all hell is breaking loose! The Autocratic Establishment is demanding their silence. (some are calling for their heads)

Believe me, the Republicans and Democrats have clandestinely conspired to eliminate ALL citizen power, by hook or crook and then replace the citizenry of America with a generation of obedient serfs.

G*d Help Us! The last thing Congress is expecting is a STOP THE ESTABLISHMENT LETTER from the Tea Party!

The fact your primary votes are irrelevant sends a strong message that YOU are irrelevant! Years in the making and unfolding right before our eyes are the outright replacement of the citizens who are resisting the New World Order! What I am about to tell your will make you want to take the law into your own hands!

I am cautioning you:

PLEASE STAY CALM!

Citizen replacement is at full throttle and going into overdrive! Here’s the proof:

Your Voice – Replaced

Could that be true? You are being scheduled to be replaced. Not only you, but everyone that will not obey, will not sit down, and will not comply. The Establishment is telling you to “Step aside and make room for your replacement, get out of the way, your replacement is moving in.” This is being said by nothing more than the globalist elites stationed in Washington DC. Soon, citizen replacement will go into full power, and their demands will turn into orders from their new puppet president. If you don’t ‘make room for your replacement’, you will be deleted!

Understand this, your voice is silenced, your vote is being killed and America is moving out of your grasp!

But take heart, the Tea Party is doing something about it; we wrote the STOP THE ESTABLISHMENT LETTER and are ready to blast it out to Washington! That is why we need your help and need it now. The Establishment is terrified that America’s Tea Party conservatives are going to drive their lucrative gravy train right off the rails.

Why do you think countless political refugees are being ‘Fast-tracked’ and ushered in to the U.S. at lightning speed while tens of thousands of good, honest, legal immigrants are still patiently waiting? Some have even died from old age while waiting in line!

It’s not what you think! It’s all about the flooding the U.S. with government-dependent foreign nationals while flushing the hard working patriot. If the new U.S. population is filled with foreign nationals, some being terrorists, then the Establishment will have a golden opportunity to increase police power to bring a pseudo-peace to a war-torn America… War-torn by the very terrorists they imported on a wholesale basis! The more turmoil that’s created, the more the Establishment can tighten their grip on you and good patriots like you.

Let me repeat, citizen replacement will take your benefits and liberally give them to your replacement… but YOU are expected to pay for them!

Your replacement is in line with his hand out and ready to receive…….

Homes – Government housing and low interest rate homeowner loans
Meals – Free food stamps and State welfare programs
Educational – Free education from kindergarten to PhD
Votes – No citizenship classes, sworn in and vote instantly
Retirement – Qualify for Social Security without paying in anything
Healthcare – Free ObamaCare
Tax Refunds – Child tax credits without paying in anything
Unemployment – Free without ever holding a job
TSA Precheck benefits – Auto-approval because asylum migrants have no background
You had better get up to speed and fast. The Establishment demands you to be tolerant, nice, kind and sweet to those who bypassed background checks and citizenship classes, and of course if you don’t like it YOU WILL BE REPLACED WITH SOMEONE WHO WILL! Right under our noses, in plain sight, the Establishment is grooming your replacement. But I am ready to send STOP THE ESTABLISHMENT LETTER to Congress to throw a monkey wrench into their political works.

Think I’m crazy? Sharia law gives maximum power to the Establishment… all they have to do is shroud their power grab in a name of a deity. In the name of God, the Establishment takes your God-given rights away and replaces them with totalitarian authority spewing from the filthy lust of fallen man’s soul!

If the government can’t control you through taxation, benefit dependency or intimidation, then you will be replaced.

My heart is breaking for our America. The Establishment is using uncontrolled mass-importation of persons with unknown backgrounds not required to pass background checks, no medical checks or required to pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, so as to build a replacement block of voters and government-dependent counterfeit citizens.

···This is where you come in!

We need steel-hard Tea Party conservatives to do what’s right!

Well, I am trying to expose and fire the Washington Establishment! But I need your help! This is why we wrote the STOP THE ESTABLISHMENT LETTER to piss them off! (are you with me?)

Hello, my name is Steve Eichler, and I have spent the last twenty years building a formidable anti-Establishment, pro-Liberty war machine. I was a Tea Partier before there was even a name for us!

To be frank, we must be the bane of corrupt and stupid politicians, job-protecting, self-serving, rule-creating federal bureaucrats (I really hate what they’ve done to my country!), bribing lobbyists, job-destroying big labor unions, insider traders, and the whole festering heap of evil, greedy, un-American, spineless toadies who weasel their way into Washington and suck away our lifeblood like a tick on a dog.

Can you tell? I’m mad as hell!

The Tea Party is in all-out attack mode. We are watching every race, in every Congressional district, and we are gearing up to launch a full-scale attack on the Washington Establishment everywhere. We can no longer waste time hoping that the crony capitalists who control the top of the Republican Party will come around to our way of thinking.

But where do we start?

First of all…..

We will rise up against all enemies – Establishment and Liberals
We don’t get any government support
We have no billionaire benefactors
We depend upon the generosity of great Americans like you
We SHALL take back our America
We will flood Washington with STOP THE ESTABLISHMENT LETTERS
We need your help before you and I are replaced! We must get it done now…or I will be forced to abandon this project.

Here’s The Plan….

We are going to send every Congressional legislator a STOP THE ESTABLISHMENT LETTER explaining the impending danger of citizen replacement and demand they resist the Washington Establishment! That will definitely piss-off the Establishment gestapo.

One or two letters will do nothing, even a few hundred letters will do little, but can you imagine if Congress were to receive hundreds of thousands even millions of STOP THE ESTABLISHMENT LETTERS demanding backing of the American people and to stop the mass importation of Citizen replacement foreign nationals!

We have the power to stop the Establishment but we can’t do it alone. Help Us Now.

Please, sit down right now and sign our STOP THE ESTABLISHMENT LETTER going to all 435 Members of the House of Representatives and all 100 Senators demanding they stop the replacement of U.S. citizens with mind numb un-vetted interposers and save our America.

Thank you for your support. God Bless America,

Steve Eichler,

President, Tea Party

P.S. The GOP Establishment is full of entrenched, self-serving politicians who seek to feather their own nests at the expense of our country. What America needs is a shot of Reagan economics and an injection of common sense. Let’s identify the Establishment and kick them out. Please complete your STOP THE ESTABLISHMENT LETTER.

I’ll do the rest. Steve.

** Please forward this email to at least four of your friends and ask them to support our efforts. **

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you subscribed to it or someone forwarded it to you. To opt out, see the links below.

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EWI - April 27, 2016

Just in case anyone was wondering what ‘secret so shocking they can only mention it in private’ Donald Trump and Canadian Ted are driven by.

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Aonrud ⚘ - April 28, 2016

PLEASE STAY CALM!

Taking his own advice there…

A load of confused nonsense of course, but like a fool I read the lot to see the spurious proof. But no, it’s random assertions all the way down.

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5. Jolly Red Giant - April 28, 2016

Fox News interview with Darletta Scruggs, Socialist Alternative member and Million Student March organiser in the US about the campaign for affordable education in the USA.

The video has gone viral on Facebook as Darletta sticks it to that gobshite Cavuto.

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6. Starkadder - April 28, 2016

“Red Banner” magazine is ceasing publication. The current issue has an editorial stating that that will be the last issue published.

Given our country has some of the most brazenly pro-plutocratic newspaper, TV and Radio coverage in Europe, this is a great
shame. 😦

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Joe - April 28, 2016

It is a shame. I think it was always produced by a very small group of people. Hard work and hard slog involved. Presumably they’ve decided to do other things. Good luck to them.
Don’t mourn for it – organise!

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Donal Mac Carthaigh - April 28, 2016

Sorry to hear that Red Banner is going to end. I’ve been trying to get a copy for a long time now. I must get a copy of the current and final edition. It was a very interesting mag, not sectarian in any way. The articles and excerpts from Rosa Luxembourg and Alexandra Kollontai (when she was a leader and spokeswoman for the Workers
Opposition 1921) promote the principle
of revolutionary democracy, neither bourgeois ‘democracy’ nor bureaucratic dictatorship.The editorial in the first edition was brilliant. The book on the articles as gaeilge, An Bratach Dearg was for sale in the Gale Taca shop, a nice present to give to gaelgor friends.

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7. Starkadder - April 28, 2016

Following the ruckus of Naz Shah and Kevin Livingstone making
stupid remarks about Jews, the British media has begun aggressively
claiming the entire Uk Labour is riddling with anti-semitism. I turned on the BBC and Sky News today and there were interviewers solemnly claiming Labour were in “serious crisis”.

Jamie Stern-Weiner takes a look at this issue:


The common premise underlying this torrent of articles, think-pieces and polemics – that antisemitism is a growing problem within the Labour party – is rapidly congealing into conventional wisdom. Yet this basic claim is devoid of factual basis. The allegations against Corbyn and the Labour party are underpinned by an almost comical paucity of evidence, while what evidence does exist not only fails to justify the claims being made, but has itself been systematically misrepresented. There is no grounds for supposing either that antisemitism is significant within the Labour party, or that its prevalence is increasing.

https://opendemocracy.net/uk/jamie-stern-weiner/jeremy-corbyn-hasn-t-got-antisemitism-problem-his-opponents-do

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Liberius - April 28, 2016

Just on Livingston, I watched the daily politics today and found myself staggered by the sheer self-destructive idiocy of it all, who the fuck thinks it’s a good idea to spend twenty minutes creating problems for your party a week before elections by talking about some daft tac by Hitler in 1932? As soon as your talking Hitler you’re onto a losing argument, and exactly where your opponents want you. Complete lemming stuff.

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Aonrud ⚘ - April 28, 2016

From the quotes I saw of Livingston today, it looked like he was being politically reckless (as you say, bringing up Hitler was hardly going to help), but did he actually make any genuinely anti-semitic statements?

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Liberius - April 28, 2016

Not that I remember, though I did lose attention on it for a few minutes as I was doing something else whilst watching.

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Alibaba - April 29, 2016

For the record, Livingston said: “Let’s remember, when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism – this before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.” If you take this to equate Zionism with Hitler, it was political idiocy and insensitivity to say the least. Antisemitism it was not: it show no hatred, hostility or prejudice against Jews. Nor is he a ‘Nazi apologist’ as claimed by a Labour MP. But Levingston was rightly suspended pending an investigation. And by the way, think of the harried persons who mention the problems faced by the Palestinians from now on.

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Joe - April 29, 2016

It was indeed political idiocy. Jumped on by the right as a golden opportunity to attack Corbyn.

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Ed - April 29, 2016

You can read the full transcript of what he said here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-anti-semitism-row-full-transcript-of-ken-livingstones-interviews-a7005311.html

Nothing antisemitic about it, and the stuff about agreements between the Nazis and Zionist groups is entirely true. But it was completely unnecessary to go into it; he could and should have just stuck to the point that criticizing Israel is not antisemitic and concentrated on what the Israeli state is doing today. I’m surprised that Livingstone wouldn’t know better than to get side-tracked like that after all his years in politics. It just plays into the hands of a revoltingly cynical campaign by the Blairites, the Tory media and various pro-Israel groups to whip up a frenzy about antisemitism in the Labour Party. It’s the most nauseating thing I’ve seen in British politics for a very long time; the stench of bad faith and dishonesty is overpowering. Very good take-down of it here:

https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-lobby-manufactured-uk-labour-partys-anti-semitism-crisis/16481

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Brian Hanley - April 29, 2016

It is both quite possible for this issue to be used cynically to undermine Corbyn AND for Livingstone to be an idiot, who appears to be particularly tone-deaf about anti-Semitism. Plus the Nazis and Zionism argument is so convoluted and confusing to the average person that raising it all sounds mental.

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Michael Carley - April 29, 2016

Exactly that: in some sense, Livingstone was factually correct. He should have kept his mouth shut all the same.

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WorldbyStorm - April 29, 2016

Yep. That’s sounds about right (and I tend to like Livingstone usually but this is just knuckle headed both in terms of his inability to get why what he’s saying is at best inaccurate and at worst more than border line offensive and also utterly counterproductive politically). Tbh and on a complete tangent more or less I think the use of Zionism as a term is problematic from the get go. It seems to me extreme Israeli nationalist would be more accurate and feel less religiously loaded than the Z word.

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Brian Hanley - April 29, 2016
CL - April 30, 2016

-Ken Livingstone has stood by his recent comments about Hitler, saying he was “not sorry for telling the truth”….
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36177333

-Hitler was not a supporter of Zionism.-
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36165298

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Jim Monaghan - May 1, 2016

In think Ken is more of a fool than an anti-semite. Could he not just have apologised. There is a huge difference between anti-semitism and opposition to the Zionist project. Alas, a minority of pro Palestine people blur this distinction. I have unfriended about 20 f/b friends over this. And I usually warn some mutual friend who may not have seen the offending articles shared. I find this article fairly balanced. https://thecharnelhouse.org/2016/04/30/reflections-on-left-antisemitism/?fb_action_ids=10110683605321184&fb_action_types=news.publishes

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EWI - May 1, 2016

‘Likudniks’ is a term I’ve seen used. ‘Zionism’ is more like the early twentieth century term here of Sinn Féin – a catch-all term for a movement which was a coalition of individuals and parties with quite stark differences on many topics.

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CL - May 1, 2016

“Just last week, Counterpunch published a jaw-dropping piece of throwback antisemitism…in a since-deleted article…
https://thecharnelhouse.org/2016/04/30/reflections-on-left-antisemitism/?fb_action_ids=10110683605321184&fb_action_types=news.publishes

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CL - May 1, 2016

-Over the course of the last few days Livingstone has cited obscure Marxist author Lenni Brenner as the source for his remarks…
The 1983 book that Ken Livingstone citied was called ‘Zionism in the Age of the Dictators’ where Brenner claims there was Zionists collusion with Nazis in pursuit of their goal of establishing a Jewish homeland. But, according to social historian and author David Rosenberg, the book was “badly written and with poor scholarship – a piece of tabloid journalism glued together with selective facts and lots of conjecture”.

Rosenberg is an anti-Zionist Jew active in the Jewish Socialists’ Group,
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/benjamin-netanyahu-lenni-brenner-what-ken-livingstone-basing-his-hitler-zionist-comments-1557628

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oconnorlysaght - May 1, 2016

Livingstone’s statement was wrong temporarily and in form. He would have done better to have avoided Hitler and listed the far better recorded British Zionist Anti-Semites, such as Arthur ‘Bloody’ Balfour (yes, the author of the Declaration of that name), Hilaire Belloc and Anthony Eden (endorser of the notorious ‘Wailing Jews’ memorandum during the holocaust.)
From all accounts, American Zionism is peppered with such gentiles.

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8. sonofstan - April 28, 2016

Giles Fraser, in the Guardian:

“the Short Strand housing estate is a fiercely republican enclave in predominantly loyalist east Belfast. In these tightly packed streets, several thousand Catholics hunker down in an area of tens of thousands of Protestants. Close by one of the major routes of Orange Order marches, the Short Strand has long been a flashpoint. It was here that the IRA fought one of the first battles of the Troubles, resulting in three dead and 26 wounded”

Did they fight it all by themselves?

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sonofstan - April 29, 2016

In fact the whole article is a valuable reminder of how fortunate we are to have intelligent Englishmen willing to travel the world to tell us all how wrong our views about our own history and experience can be.

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Michael Carley - April 29, 2016
Michael Carley - April 29, 2016

Today’s New Statesman:

… it is still shocking to realise how rapidly post-Versailles Germany came to regard violent public conflict between heavily armed militias as almost routine, …

Thank you Rowan Williams.

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9. Michael Carley - April 28, 2016

Finally dug out a quote I knew was in there somewhere. From the Sunday Times Insight Team’s Ulster:

Certain points were becoming immediately apparent. The Army was behaving with incomparably greater restraint than, say, the French in Algeria or the Americans in Vietnam. Ulster had no My Lai nor yet, to summon ghosts from Britain’s past, an Amritsar incident.

The Acknowledgements section is dated 31 December 1971.

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10. CL - April 29, 2016

-Donald Trump will likely wind up winning the most primary votes of any GOP presidential candidate in modern history…
Trump on Wednesday night held a rally in Indianapolis, where former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight called him “the most prepared man in history to step in as president of the United States.-
http://nypost.com/2016/04/27/donald-trump-could-amass-most-primary-votes-in-gop-history/

“House and Senate Republicans are reluctantly coming to terms with the reality that the real estate mogul — a man many feared given his unpredictability, questionable policy positions and lack of discipline on the campaign trail — will likely be their party’s standard bearer. Rather than fight it, a number of Republicans say, it may be time to embrace it.”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/28/politics/gop-establishment-donald-trump/

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Starkadder - April 29, 2016

Hulu is doing a new series of “The Handmaid’s Tale” by
Margaret Atwood.
Prompting this amusing comment at the Onion AV Club:

Or they could just wait a few months until the Trump administration takes office, and
they can make it a reality series!

http://www.avclub.com/article/elisabeth-moss-star-horrifyingly-relevant-hulu-ser-236064

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CL - April 30, 2016

“The explicit endorsement of Trump by Aleksandr Dugin, the leading Russian fascist ideologue and a very important media presence in Russia, is particularly alarming.”
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/04/19/trumps-putin-fantasy/

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11. Alibaba - April 29, 2016

Ever wondered why government formation talks are taking place in Trinity College? I do. Why are they happening outside government offices? A lack of trust between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail perhaps. And no bugging in Trinity unless …. Or maybe that’s my hyperactive imagination.

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6to5against - April 29, 2016

I have wondered. Leinster house is full of meeting rooms surely?

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EWI - May 1, 2016

Neutral ground, I’d imagine. No being ushered into the offices of the ‘acting government’ like naughty schoolboys (and girls). Also helps emphasise how Serious they are?

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12. roddy - April 29, 2016

Up here it was deemed “sectarian” in some quarters to condemn political unionism and it’s militias ,the RUC and UDR. Similar logic applies to those who label condemnation of the Israeli state and it’s armed forces as “anti semetic”.

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WorldbyStorm - May 1, 2016

It is true that the Israeli government and some commentators attempt to make that charge, but I think it’s actually fairly easy to shape arguments that are clearly not anti-semitic but political – i.e. not directed at Jewish people, or makes incorrect assumptions that the Israeli government is the representative of all Jewish people or indeed all Israeli Jews, etc, etc. while still being directed against that government and its political decisions and approaches.

The Israeli state is a somewhat different thing though. Does one condemn the state in the sense of the government of the state – no problem with that I’d have thought, as distinct from the state as the state (above and beyond the government) which seems to me to be potentially more problematic.

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FergusD - May 1, 2016

So is it not permissible to question the creation off the state of Israel as an ethnic/confessional state? Is it the case that the argument for a unitary secular state in Israel/Palestine with equal rights and tolerance for all religions, which used to a be a policy of the far left, is no longer considered acceptable, even on the (far) left?

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WorldbyStorm - May 1, 2016

Some parts of the further left have backed a one state approach – others not so much. And the centre left out to further left has tended to a two state outcome. Personally my view has always been that the latter is more realisable and by a considerable margin (though ironically Likud et al could be building the foundations of the former by their very actions). As to questioning the creation of the state, at this point it seems almost moot. It’s been there long enough for generations to have been born and lived and died in it, the global consensus is that it is legitimate (that despite the actions of more recent governments). Would a binational state be better? Perhaps, but I just don’t see how it is achievable (or how it wouldn’t lead to essentially an Israeli identity swamping a Palestinian identity given disparities in economics etc).

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WorldbyStorm - May 1, 2016

By the way I want to stress, those are just my views. Others will differ.

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sonofstan - May 1, 2016

I don’t have to think very hard to guess how all this goes down with younger Muslims in this country. The merest hint of confusing Zionism with Judaism and suggesting that Jews, because of their background might automatically be apologists for the oppression in gaza and the West Bank, and it’s a full blown political crisis. Whereas every Muslim not in the Tory party is presumed soft on Isis till proven otherwise and there is no political damage whatsoever concomitant on saying so.

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WorldbyStorm - May 1, 2016

Absolutely true and that’s a point that should be thrown at those who do that at every chance. The hypocrisy is vile. The Tories in particular have played on this to a revolting degree in recent times but they’ve not been alone. It is also, and I’m hardly saying anything new here, an hypocrisy that potentially destabilises communities who have – and how many times does this have to be said, been marked by the lack of sway of Islamists of whatever stripe. I’m not saying for a moment that this will tip people towards them – it doesn’t seem to work that way, but it certainly won’t make them feel the states they live in have their back.

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sonofstan - May 1, 2016

Absolutely.
Everytime a Muslim anywhere does anything of which ‘we’ don’t approve, the Muslim mayor of Wycombe is required by the Bucks Free Press to condemn it in the name of the ‘vast majority’ of the community here. Even at the height of the troubles, I doubt if every Irish politician/ public figure here felt the necessity to engage in the ritual condemnation.

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WorldbyStorm - May 1, 2016

It’s fascinating to me how the spread – the actual spread of Islamism is exaggerated so hugely. The numbers engaged in violent actions in European states where they were born and brought up in are tiny – both numerically and in comparison to the numbers of Muslims in those states. Yet the media and social media etc make out and we’ve heard the line here too from some in comments that these are existential problems and that ‘all Muslims must do x y and z’ when to be honest it would be difficult for anyoneto find a lot of these people at the best of times because there’s so few of them.

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sonofstan - May 1, 2016

‘so few of them’
And yet,every now and then, I get the sotto voce confidence from white English people about Wycombe being ‘a hotbed’ of Isis.

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WorldbyStorm - May 1, 2016

Do they genuinely believe that or is it received ‘wisdom’ or just bigotry – or the chance to have a sort of ‘licensed’ (for want of a better word) bigotry against a group of people? They clearly know next to nothing about ISIS.

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sonofstan - May 1, 2016

I think they believe it.
Just as many Dublin people have no direct experience of the northside and believe Paul Reynold’s nonsense about ‘gangland’ and imagine Coolock must be the South Bronx (and the South Bronx is probably nothing like ‘the South Bronx’), so I’ve been told that the area where I live in Wycombe is a ‘no go’ area for white people. Good job I’m Irish so….

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WorldbyStorm - May 1, 2016

Desperate. Very depressing. Once those sort of attitudes become normalised it’s a hell of a challenge to shift them.

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Dr. X - May 2, 2016

Yes and no. It’s true that you can (and should) criticise Israel without being anti-semitic. But it’s also true that there’s a lot of anti-semitic shite floating around out there, and you have to practice clear political hygiene if you don’t want the charge of “secret anti-semitism” to stick.

Occupy Dublin had some anti-semtic conspiracy shitehawks rock up and muscle in on the scene – they should have been ejected from the protest site by any means necessary, up to and including physical force.

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13. sonofstan - May 1, 2016

Oh, and happy May Day everyone!

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WorldbyStorm - May 1, 2016

And likewise.

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Joe - May 1, 2016

Thanks. Woke up with a mild Phizzfest hangover. Went out into the garden and brought back into the house some nice greenery. The missus went out and washed her face in the dew. The boy did too. That’s the MayDay piseógs done.

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sonofstan - May 1, 2016

Missing my first Phizzfest on account of too much work (workers’ holiday, bah…), but saw Lynched in Dalston last night and wallowed in Dublin accents for a pleasant half-hour.
The fact that Daragh of that ilk had ‘End Direct Provision’ scrawled on his guitar made me feel confusingly proud and ashamed of being Irish all at the same time.

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14. botheredbarney - May 1, 2016

May Day! so goes the headline on today’s cover of the Sunday Times magazine. A sub headline states: Capitalists invade Cuba. The revolution is over. The cover is illustrated with a photoshopped Che Guevara wearing a yankee top hat. The article inside gives impressionistic instances of the developing entrepreneurial scene in Havana since Raoul Castro ‘opened up’ the economy in 2011.
Elsewhere a Frenchman’s photos of slum streets in Glasgow taken in 1980 are shocking.

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15. Tomboktu - May 1, 2016

1916 was an American inspiration, then.

(Though, in fairness, David Ruccio, on whose site I found the trailer for the US programme, does acknowledge that it is exaggerates the US involvement): https://anticap.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/1916-rising/)

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16. paulculloty82 - May 1, 2016
WorldbyStorm - May 1, 2016

Yes.

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17. Brian Hanley - May 1, 2016

They manage to the get the year wrong in their ‘apology’

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WorldbyStorm - May 1, 2016

Abysmal.

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18. CL - May 1, 2016

Death of Daniel Berrigan.

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