On 14 July 1889, socialist delegates from across the world gathered in Paris to form the Second International. Their principle was simple: “The worker’s struggle has no borders.” because capital crossed them too.
Modern liberals have spent decades twisting that principle into an argument for the unrestricted movement of cheap labour. They are wrong.
Ask them what internationalism means today and you will hear about open borders, labour mobility and the free movement of people as an unquestionable good. What you will rarely hear is the word that mattered most to the socialists who met in Paris: capital.
Nearly 400 delegates from around 20 countries attended the founding congress. They did not meet to abolish nations. They met to stop capital using nations, and the workers within them, as weapons against one another.
That distinction has been buried. The left has paid dearly for it.
Modern internationalism asks workers to celebrate a system in which corporations move money, factories and labour wherever wages are lowest. When that movement drives down pay and weakens unions, we are told the resulting competition is solidarity.
The game was due to be part of the scheduled fixtures in yet another European international competition, the European Nations League. Due to the genocide being committed by the Israeli state against Palestinian civilians, including women and children, to say nothing of purposely targeting hospitals for missile attacks, this game is surrounded in controversies. There have been countless calls for a boycott of both fixtures, the game deeming Israel to be the home side is to be played in Hungary, while the game scheduled initially for Dublin has been transferred to Serbia at the Backa Topola which is a cop out by the Football Association of Ireland (IFA).
The FAI have shown an unwillingness, inability, or a combination of both to organise a boycott of these fixtures. They have said such a boycott would cause “long lasting damage” to football under their jurisdiction. It could incur a €10.3 million fine on the association plus €5.3 million loss of revenue through gate takings. This revenue will be lost anyway because the games are due to be played behind closed doors in the so-called neutral venues Hungary and Serbia. It would almost certainly result in points being deducted and relegation for the team but so what? So, it comes down to the possible loss of €10 million in financial penalties and fines against taking a principled stance in support of the women and children in Palestine. Good to see the IFA have their priorities right!!
Given the FAI consider this fudge, moving the game to Serbia, as fulfilling their responsibilities towards the Palestinian people it may now come down to those players selected to play taking action themselves. This would be a last resort but it is the players who hold the ultimate card to have the matches played or not. Arguably footballers should not have these decisions, essentially administrative determinations, forced upon them but alas, like anything else in life, sometimes we have to do things not liked. I believe such a move would be popular among the footballing public and would have the desired effect. The Professional Footballers Association Ireland, the players trade union, would support such a boycott and are bound to defend any player who refuses to play against the Israeli national side should they suffer any repercussions related to their actions. I would strongly recommend the players keep in contact with their trade union if they decide on this course of action.
Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
They were no accidental arrivals. At one stage Irish-controlled airspace was targeted twice in two days. Each time, as Ireland's chronically underfunded defence means its air corps cannot intercept planes it had to call out the RAF to intercept the bears and force them out.
Russia was sending a deliberate message to Ireland - you are a target for Russia. This was nothing to do with Irish support for Ukraine, the standard spin of the neutrality hardliners. This was before Russia's second invasion of Ukraine. All countries are Russian targets. Every one. Neutrals and NATO alike. Every country had the bear bomber message. Russia sent the message to neutrals 'Neutrality is irrelevant. You are a target.'
It is well known why Irish airspace and waters are a target. Russia in any war intends to use Irish airspace and waters to launch ballistic missiles, and potentially nuclear missiles. That is why potentially nuclear-armed nuclear submarines frequently are in Irish waters, as with the submarine in Cork harbour some years ago.
Knowing the Irish, through chronic underfunding, is unable to do basic defence, Russia knows Ireland is dependent on the RAF and Royal Navy. However they need to be acting on an Irish request or with Irish permission. That takes time. Russia needs to know how quickly can its bear bombers or submarines intercept and evict its bear bombers and submarines. That would tell it how much time it has to launch missiles, whether ballistic or nuclear, from Ireland.
So, Irish negligence is not a threat to itself. It puts every potential target, including major cities in Europe, at risk.
People like Richard Boyd Barrett work themselves into a frenzy thinking Ireland is under pressure to join NATO. It is a figment of his paranoia and overactive imagination. I worked in politics in the area of defence. I know the private views of politicians on defence. I did not come across any TD who wants to join NATO. Not one. No party has any intention of joining NATO. Nor has NATO invited Ireland to join or even raised the issue. Neither Ireland, not Austria, not Malta nor Switzerland has any intention of joining NATO.
The pressure on defence is not to join NATO. It is simply "fix your goddamned defence. You are putting everyone at risk by your negligence."
They simply want Ireland to have standard defence neutrals like Austria, Cyprus and Switzerland have. Unlike Ireland they take defence as a neutral seriously. Austria has reached 1% of GDP on defence, and will reach 1.3% by 2032 - funded by an extra tax. Switzerland will reach 1% by 2030. Cyprus currently spends 1.8% on defence, excluding pensions. Even tiny Malta, more akin to the Aran Islands times six, spends 0.38% of GDP. Ireland spends a minuscule 0.27% of GDP - the third lowest in the world as a percentage of GDP. Only Mauritius and Haiti spend lower.
The pressure is simply on Ireland to have the sort of defence proper neutrals have. It has nothing to do with joining NATO. It is the sort of spending Ireland should be doing as a sovereign neutral state anyway. If you cannot properly secure your waters and airspace, and after one hundred years of independence still rely on your former colonial master to do your defence for you, are you really independent at all?
Half standing pissing against a tree
To hear lovers pass a stoney wall
And have breakfast tomorrow
With forgotten sorrow
♞♜♝
Oh the bar man had got sick
Two weeks maybe three
Bean an Tí
(Bean an Tí)
♞♜♝
So as the lovers passed the ancient script
And secured their sacred crypt
To fluff it out with beaten pillows
On the Willow branch
♞♜♝
Oh the bar man had got sick
Two weeks maybe three
(Bean an Tí)
♞♜♝
Bean an Tí.

2020Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
The majority of my readers will be Irish, hardly a genius moment, no bathtubs and cries of Eureka!! However I’m blathering on about teams from the lower leagues in Scotland and many will be wondering “who and where”?
Obviously some are more than obvious but we do have our fair share of oddly named outfits so bear with me, take my hand, or grab me by the throat and I’ll guide you through the oddities.
Let’s start right at the bottom and Scottish League Two
Spartans FC
Having risen through the ranks from Lowland league they have now established themselves in the Second Division. A club based in the Pilton area of Edinburgh formed in 1951 by two university pals their ground holds a little over 3,600 and is called Ainslie Park.
Next up Kelty Hearts
Formed in 1975 they were until last season a First Division club but suffered relegation and now find themselves in the bottom tier. I think personally they’ll do well. For me they’re one of those “twilight clubs” that aren’t quite good enough for Division One but much too good for League Two. They are based in the small town of Kelty in Fife with a population of roughly 6000. Their home ground is called New Central Park with a capacity of just over 2000.
Scottish League One
Queen of the South. The only football club mentioned in the Bible (Matthew 12 v 42), Based in Dumfries in the south west of Scotland and formed in 1919 they play their home matches at Palmerston Park, a ground with a capacity of just over 8500. They have flirted with Premiership status but seem to me to be a club whose ambition is mid table mediocrity in the Championship. Of course they’ll need to get there first and a return to that league will be on the agenda of the Doonhamers (club and fans' nickname) this season.
Ross County
In my opinion a club that’s too big to find itself in the position it is but football's a results game and you reap what you sow etc etc so . . .
East Fife
In the Championship rather like the Premier Division most are self explanatory but we still have a couple to go
Queens Park
There was much rejoicing in Robertson Towers that afternoon.
Rangers did however manage to regain revenge in style with an 8-0 victory almost a year to the day on February 8th 2026.
And finally the Premier League and St Mirren
So I hope you enjoyed this little tour of some of Scotland's oddly named clubs. I’m certain there will be others as Highland and Lowland clubs appear in cup matches so I’ll add the place of origin to all so as to give the reader a more “interactive” experience? No more wondering where these oddly named outfits play their matches. I’ve got you covered.
Russian recruits arriving on the front lines in Ukraine survive an estimated 20 to 30 minutes before they are killed or wounded, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe said Wednesday, marking the first time a senior American intelligence official has confirmed how deadly the war has become for Moscow.
The assessment comes as Ukraine’s battlefield technology has stalled Russia’s advance along the front and drawn foreign partners ready to spend billions of dollars in deals with its defense industry.
European and Ukrainian officials have said for months that Russian casualty rates have climbed to record levels, with Ukraine’s top general telling NATO allies in May that Russia loses at least 1,000 soldiers a day.
“Our intelligence is consistent with some of the open-source reporting you may have seen in Ukraine,” Ratcliffe said at the Defense and Innovation Summit in Pennsylvania. “The average life expectancy of a Russian recruit right now, arriving on the battlefield in Ukraine, is estimated to be between 20 and 30 minutes.”
“That’s because AI-powered drones have gotten to be such specialized, low-cost killing machines,” he added.
Ratcliffe’s confirmation shows how decisively emerging technology can shape a war — and why the U.S. cannot afford to fall behind.
All (non-Argentine) devotees of the beautiful game breathed a collective, global sigh of relief when Ferren Torres of Spain scored the only goal of 120 minutes of exceptionally turgid fare to prevent the possible obscenity of a team who had precisely zero on target attempts at goal lifting the trophy due to the cruel arbitrariness of a penalty shoot-out. The tragedy for football purists is that Argentina en route to the final featured in some of the most memorable games of the tournament from their dicing with the mothers of all humiliation in their 3-2 wins over Cape Verde and Egypt and their semi-final comeback after Thomas Tuchel decided to retreat to his version of the Maginot Line when Anthony Gordon gave them the lead. But controversy was never far away with dubious refereeing decisions in the Egypt game fuelling hardly paranoid conspiracy theories that FIFA needed the golden calves of Messi and Mbappe in the Final and, in a Clausewitzian dictum that football is an extension of war by other means, came the players’ on pitch articulation of the irredentist nationalist claim to the Falklands/|Malvinas Islands after their triumph over England.
However, apart from the (grievous) noises off such as the overturning of the ban on the US forward Balogun on the direct intervention by Donald Trump; the vindictive treatment of the Iranian squad and backroom staff by the US authorities and the hostile environments created for the supporters of certain countries by ICE, the World Cup was largely a glorious global moment as it was in 2018 and 2022 despite the distinctly anti-global hosts: Putin’s Russia, Quatar and Trump’s USA (notwithstanding the more amenable co-hosts; Mark Carney’s Canada and Claudia Schenbaum’s Mexico). Fans of all participant countries mingled freely in the stadiums and the various fan zones. The exploits of debutants Cape Verde will live long in the memory, and I was delighted that Canada, under Bielsa’s successor at Leeds Jessie Marsch, achieved their first World Cup victory and got out of their qualifying group. I reckon that Wisconsin born Jesse might have to seek permanent asylum in Canada due to the enthusiasm with which he sang their national anthem! The race for the Golden Boot was enthralling with the eventual winner Mbappe in the hunt with Kane, Dembele, Messi and Bellingham almost to the death.
The expansion of the tournament to 48 teams didn’t have the bloating effect that many feared and, with the possible exception of Curacao, did not produce any “punching bags”. While hydration access was an absolute priority, the mandatory breaks for this purpose proved a major irritant for coaches, players and especially non-American TV viewers who rightly saw this as the bowdlerisation of the game into quarters to suit an American football audience.
Once again, England and Scotland did not fail to disappoint; with the Scots’ pathological inability to advance beyond qualifying groups again painfully obvious. We were not even left with the heartwarming memories of an Archie Gemmill or David Narey glorious goals or how Scotland’s 1974 vintage with the spine of Europe’s top two clubs at the time, Leeds United and Glasgow Celtic, came so agonisingly close to beating Brazil and departed West Germany unbeaten. Ok, so achieving third place is incremental progress of sorts for England and the manner of that crazy 6-4 victory gave some fanfare to the common man but, given their proven experience in winning tournaments, it is much more likely that England’s Women will bring home the bacon, next year maybe, than the perennially nearly men.
But there is an elephantine presence in the room that cannot be ignored – FIFA’s stewardship of the global game and the World Cup cannot go unchallenged for otherwise schisms in the game will be inevitable. So much outrage has been caused by the prostitution of the game’s ethics such as the obscenity of the awarding of the inaugural FIFA “Peace Prize” to Donald Trump, to the stroking of other powerful egos and the awarding of the 2034 World Cup, uncontested to Saudi Arabia with yet more disruption to domestic league seasons due to it having to be a winter event and the flagrant disregard for human rights consideration. The USA could be in line to host the 2038 tournament as the transcontinental nature of 2030 held in Spain, Portugal (Europe) Morocco(Africa) and Uruguay and Paraguay (South America) makes it part of an eligible region.
Go Giovanni, in the name of football, Go!


















