Social Items

TPQ
Irish Border Poll 🚩Written by Paul Breen

John Hume once famously said that “you can’t eat a flag.” What he meant was simple. Real politics is about living standards, about social and economic development. It is not about waving bits of cloth at one another. 

It was a typically understated way of cutting through decades of symbolism, ritual and identity politics to get to the substance of people’s lives. And yet, here we are again, arguing about flags.

The immediate context is the renewed controversy around the Ulster Banner and whether it should continue to represent Northern Ireland at sporting events such as the Commonwealth Games. Unionist anger has been predictable and, in many cases, tone deaf to the arguments of the other side. Some reactions have been framed almost entirely in terms of loss and cultural erosion, with little realisation why others might experience this symbol differently.

For many within unionism, the Ulster Banner is simply “our flag.” It is wrapped in memory and continuity. What, they ask, could possibly be wrong with that. The problem is not that the flag exists. The problem is that it can’t represent a whole, equal society.

Continue @ IBP,

We Need A New Recipe For Flags

Christopher Owens 🔖 Political paranoia is all the rage these days.

From Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar nominated ‘One Battle After Another’ through real life examples such as the Epstein files and Freddie Scappaticci, people do not trust their governments, their corporate elites and even their own revolutionaries.

Although this is not unique to the 2020’s, such levels of justified paranoia haven’t been seen on such a scale, arguably, since the 1970’s. Then, scandals like Watergate, divisive wars like Vietnam and the legacies of political assassinations demonstrated that the times were indeed a changing. Revolution was in the air, but the radicals knew their governments weren’t going to stand for it.

Of course, some of the most important works of art were (directly or indirectly) influenced by the upheaval in that period and Holy Smoke is no exception. In fact, it revels in the thick aura of that era and gives us an astonishing read.

According to the publisher:

Republished for the first time since its 1979 release, in a new revised edition, Holy Smoke is an account of the frenzy and paranoia of United States politics refracted through one individual’s psyche. With her theme of a child disappeared – and all that that phrase carries with it – Howe captures the chaos of reality in her salient mix of poetry and prose. Readers will find it hard to believe that this book, which gives fresh sense to the demand for universal human rights, was written in the last century.

Ostensibly a tale about a mother travelling to the ends of the country to free her kidnapped daughter, it’s also an exploration of a fractured psyche trying to make sense of the United States as the post-war consensus is about to give way for Reaganomics, portrayed via a mix of drawings, poetry and cut-up paragraphs.

Not only does this brilliantly depict the amphetamine driven paranoia of a particular type but it also adds further tension to the narrative as characters drop in and out with little to no fanfare, as if the reader is being constantly monitored and upended by external forces beyond their control.

Take this as an example:

There was a person on board I didn’t notice at first, but now I believe he is the one sent after me. Young, in an inappropriate Army jacket, big hood hiding a smooth face. I catch glimpses of girlish hips...he is always hidden. Hood. Could be a college drop-out on his way to the cane fields, but he keeps glimpsing at me as I turn aside...I don’t like it. I don’t like the way he keeps muttering. Who let him on the plane, unless he is serving a function? He is staying at my hotel, but then we all are, the journalists, the tourists. He follows me around the hotel lobby like a dog, whining and muttering, and only I seem to care.

Of course, there is the distinct possibility that this whole tale is merely LSD induced paranoia from a 60’s burnout who still believes that Castro and Stalin were doing what they had to do for the good of the revolution and who has heard promising words about an upcoming revolutionary in Zimbabwe called Robert Mugabe.

Regardless, I was utterly fascinated and gripped reading this 116-page novel. Although something of a time capsule as the sense of suffocating conformity that permeates the current socio-political discussions is largely absent here, you can walk away with a mild sense of hope that things can be overcome.

Paul Thomas Anderson should have filmed this instead.

Fanny Howe, Holy Smoke, Divided Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1068439513

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

Holy Smoke

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Seventy Three

 

A Morning Thought @ 3050

Maryam Namazie ✊ Writing in The Freethinker.

The landscape of modern political activism has become a moral minefield, where universal values are routinely sacrificed on the altar of narrow, identity-driven loyalties. Multiplicity is treated as betrayal, and simplicity is weaponised. What should be a principled commitment to universal women’s rights is increasingly overwhelmed by rigid binaries that demand allegiance to one power bloc over another.

Nowhere is this tension more evident than in debates around women’s rights and the question of Palestine. The essential opposition to Israel’s occupation and genocide is conflated with a defence of Hamas and anti-Semitism. Conversely, opposing Hamas and Islamism is recast as defending the Israeli state and Islamophobia. It’s a false binary that ignores the lived experiences of women.

Acknowledging multiple forms and fronts of harm, or recognising that rights can and are violated across opposing sides, is seen as an affront to group loyalty. A commitment to universal women’s rights is treated as treachery by both sides, suffocating our movements, our solidarities, and the possibility of liberation itself.

The fringe ‘Palestine Liberation is a Feminist Issue’ event and the grassroots feminist group FiLia’s October conference, at both of which I was a speaker, perfectly encapsulate this moral incoherence.

At the fringe event, organised by the Anti-Imperialist Feminist Network to coincide with the FiLia conference, my contribution on the necessity of liberation from Hamas as well as Israeli occupation was denounced with cries of ‘shame’. Per Kay Green in the Morning Star, apparently only another speaker was able to ‘soothe tensions’ by reminding the audience that I was in no way ‘a genocide apologist’. (Organisers are not releasing the video footage under the bogus claim of security concerns.)

That a principled critique of Hamas could trigger such hostility is not surprising. I have seen this played out for many decades now: defend apostates and you are ‘Islamophobic’. Oppose anti-Muslim racism and you’re an undercover Jihadi. Condemn the Islamic regime of Iran and you’re accused of legitimising US militarism. Oppose Israeli attacks on Iran and you become pro-regime. (I have previously discussed identity politics as a breeding ground for division and dehumanisation here.) The script is always the same: refuse the binary and you are automatically placed into the ‘enemy’ camp.

You are either for us or against us. And depending on who us is, you will either excuse Israeli rape, occupation, and genocide as self-defence or you will defend Hamas’ rape and terrorism as resistance, even though it is well established that rape has always been used as a weapon of war. (See the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict’s conclusion of reasonable grounds to believe that rape and gang rape occurred during the 7 October attacks and the allegations of sexual torture and abuse of Palestinian detainees by Israeli security forces documented by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.)

Even if you have made a career of opposing violence against women, you will magic away the rape and sexual assaults of Hamas or IDF forces depending on your politics. Those who oppose the Christian right in their own country, will defend Islam, the veil, Sharia law, and theocracy in ours or a Jewish fundamentalist state in Israel. Political violence, rape, fundamentalism, and misogyny become acceptable as long as it is carried out by one’s own ‘side’. Feminism is conditional, depending on which tribe of women is being sacrificed.

This is not only because of a refusal to engage with nuance and multiplicity or due to a false sense of tribal loyalty. Fundamentally, this is because many people everywhere have bought into the oldest political con: the myth that those in power and the ruling class somehow embody ‘their’ people, and that opposition to one system of domination obliges allegiance to another. Tribal or identity politics homogenises societies so completely that elites become the ‘authentic representatives’ of the people through this manufacturing of acquiescence and consent.

The political swindle ensures that real solidarity is substituted with allegiance to power.

Certainly, there are those who are not merely accused of supporting a power bloc but openly and unapologetically do so. Some defend the Israeli state, the machinery of occupation, dispossession, starvation, and mass killing behind the language of protecting ‘Jewish women’ or ensuring ‘Jewish safety’. By collapsing the distinction between a people and a state, they treat any criticism of Israeli policy as a threat to Jewish existence itself. Likewise, there are those who have a real ideological affinity with Islamism and hide behind Palestinian suffering to defend a misogynistic, theocratic, authoritarian force. They invoke the language of liberation while shielding a movement that would deny women, LGBT people, ex-Muslims, secular Palestinians, and dissenters their most basic rights. In both cases, the suffering of women becomes a political alibi used to whitewash the power of states and fundamentalists.

This selective solidarity is not confined to Palestine. On parts of the Western left, white nationalism is rightly condemned, yet Islamist fundamentalism in power is romanticised as anti-imperialist. Meanwhile, the Western right warns obsessively of Sharia law while championing their own Christian nationalism that attacks abortion rights, LGBT rights, and women’s rights.

Clearly, liberation cannot be built on the backs of competing ruling classes. If our politics cannot condemn both the Israeli state and Hamas, if we cannot stand with women rather than their tyrants, then our frameworks do not merely fall short; they reproduce the very harm we claim to resist.

Of course, the Israeli state and Hamas are not equal in power. Israel is an occupying force, with huge military and economic might backed by Western states. Yet, the crimes of the Israeli state do not erase the crimes of Hamas, a misogynistic, theocratic force that emerged to undermine the Palestinian struggle and is supported by powerful regional and international regimes such as Iran, Russia, and Qatar.

It is important to note that critiquing Hamas does not mean collapsing the Palestinian struggle into Hamas. Palestinians have long resisted occupation through feminist, secular, labour, and grassroots movements that Hamas actively suppresses. Likewise, there is a rich history of resistance by Israelis and Jews against occupation and the atrocities committed in their name.

A feminist position on Palestine must oppose Israeli occupation and genocide and oppose Hamas’s misogynistic, theocratic rule. This is not contradictory. These are inseparable, principled stands.

A principled approach must target all authoritarian forces that oppress women, not side with one over another. My enemy’s enemy is not my friend. The fight for liberation has always meant fighting on many fronts.

In their 2024 Statement on the Genocide in Gaza, Feminist Dissent did exactly that by condemning Israel’s genocidal campaign while also naming Hamas as a fundamentalist, anti-democratic force whose repression of women and minorities cannot be excused in the name of liberation.

As Palestinian academic Nahla Abdo argues, Palestinian women’s struggle necessarily combines ‘gender issues with the national and anti-colonial struggle’, showing that liberation must confront both internal patriarchy and external colonial domination.

This is a lesson we have learnt in Iran. Women were told to wait ‘until after liberation’ from the Shah’s dictatorship to demand their rights. That time never came. Women’s liberation postponed is liberation denied. Also, liberation without women’s liberation is meaningless.

Militarism, colonialism, and fundamentalism are not separate systems. They feed off of and mirror each other, always at the expense of women. During the Cold War, the US empowered fundamentalist movements as a bulwark against communism. Israel itself enabled the rise of Hamas to weaken the secular Palestine Liberation Organization.

The same pattern of tribalism appeared in attacks on Rahila Gupta of Southall Black Sisters, whose speech at FiLiA’s plenary condemned Israeli genocide as well as fundamentalism. Uproar ensued, and she was instantly labelled anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas.

Across the ideological divide, accusations of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia serve the same function: to silence criticism of power. Both hatreds are real (though I prefer the term ‘anti-Muslim hate’ to ‘Islamophobia’) and must be confronted. But when they are used to shut down criticism of the powerful, they protect the ruling class, not women.

When solidarity is replaced by tribal loyalty, feminism ceases to challenge power and begins to mirror it. The task before us is not to choose the lesser of two authoritarianisms (the lesser always being subjective), but to refuse the terms on which the powerful demand our allegiance.

A universalist women’s liberation movement recognises that liberation can be undermined from within as well as attacked from without; that anti-colonial struggle without women’s rights doesn’t bring about fundamental change; and that the fight against religious oppression is inseparable from the fight against military and state violence. The Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran (drawing on the Kurdish slogan first developed within the Kurdish women’s freedom movement and popularised in Rojava) embodies this principle: liberation without women’s liberation is meaningless.

To truly defend women’s rights is to hold every power—state or fundamentalist, local or foreign—to the same standard. The strength of internationalism lies precisely here: in refusing the false binary between rival oppressors and standing instead with the women who are refusing and resisting every day.



Maryam Namazie is a political activist, campaigner and blogger

On Israel, Hamas, And Refusing The Binary

Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières ★ Written by 
George Monbiot.

There are many excuses for failing to tax the ultra-wealthy. The truth is that governments don’t tackle the problem because they don’t want to.

There is one political problem from which all others follow. It is the major cause of Donald Trump, of Nigel Farage, of the shocking weakness of their opponents, of the polarisation tearing societies apart, of the devastation of the living world. It is simply stated: the extreme wealth of a small number of people.

It can also be quantified. The World Inequality Report (WIR) 2026 shows that about 56,000 people – 0.001% of the global population – corral three times more wealth than the poorest half of humanity. They afflict almost every country. In the UK, for example, 50 families hold more wealth than 50% of the population combined.

You can watch their fortunes grow. In 2024, Oxfam’s figures show, the wealth of the world’s 2,769 billionaires grew by $2tn, or $2,000bn. The total global spending on international aid last year was projected to be, at most, $186bn, less than a tenth of the increment in their wealth. Governments tell us they “can’t afford” more. In the UK, billionaires, on average, have become more than 1,000% richer since 1990.

Continue @ ESSF.

At The Root Of All Our Problems Stands One Travesty 🪶 Politicians’ Surrender To The Super-Rich

Caoimhin O’Muraile 🏴 Tomorrow, Friday the sixth of February, marks the sixty-eighth anniversary of the Munich Air Disaster. 

On that fateful day twenty-three people lost their lives including eight of Manchester United’s finest who were returning from Belgrade after a European Cup Quarter Final Tie against Red Star Belgrade. 

United had qualified for the Semi Final of the competition and were fancied to win the cup, toppling the Mighty Real Madrid. Due to playing a makeshift side United lost 5-2 on aggregate to Milan in the semi-final. With a full side having won 2-1 at Old Trafford that score would in all probability been much higher to the Reds putting Milan out of sight to the rear. Without the following players it was hopeless but a brave effort was put up by United. 

The players who died at Munich were; Geoff Bent aged 25, Full Back making his first trip to European Football, Roger Byrne, Club Captain aged twenty-eight and England left back, Eddie Colman aged twenty-one the youngest to perish, Duncan Edwards aged twenty-one renowned England international who died 15 days later from his injuries, Mark Jones aged twenty-four, Centre Half, David Pegg, aged twenty-two, Outside-left, Tommy Taylor aged twenty-six Centre Forward, and Irelands Liam Whelan aged twenty two, Inside Forward. In addition to these eight players, three members of the coaching staff, trainer Tom Curry, Coach Bert Whalley, and Secretary and former temporary Manager, Walter Crickmer also perished. Several other people tragically lost their lives including journalists, one being the former Manchester City Goalkeeper, Frank Swift, then a journalist for the News of the World, Crew member and Co-Pilot, Kenneth Rayment, Bela Miklos, Travel Agent, Willie Satinoff, supporter and friend of Matt Busby’s. 

Other journalists who lost their lives were Alf Clarke of the Manchester Evening News, Don Davies, Manchester Guardian, George Follows, Daily Herald, Tom Jackson, Manchester Evening News, Henry Rose, Daily Express, Eric Thompson, Daily Sketch, Archie Ledbroook, Daily Mirror. Cabin Steward, Tom Cable, also lost his life that day. 

Other crew members who survived were George Rogers, Radio Officer, and stewardesses Rosemary Cheverton and Margaret Bellis. Manager Matt Busby received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church twice while in the Rechts der Isar Hospital so critical were his injuries. The last words uttered by Duncan Edwards were; “come on mum, get me home, I can’t miss Wolves on Saturday,” so much was his enthusiasm for the game. 

United goalkeeper, Harry Gregg, and defender Bill Foulkes both re-entered the dangerous fuselage for survivors. Bobby Charlton, who along with Foulkes, would play in the European Cup Final ten years later when United destroyed Benfica was saved by Gregg and Foulkes. Manchester United was the first English team to enter the competition defying the Football League and without whose exploits who knows, the achievements of Nottingham Forrest, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Chelsea and Man City might never have happened!!! United were the first English team to win the European Cup, the first to win the treble in fact the first at everything. The question I ask is what would the ‘Babes’ have made of today’s exploits both at Manchester United and the game in general?

Firstly Matt Busby:

expressed strong concerns regarding the commercialisation of football famously warning against prioritising financial gain over the sports core principles. His emphasis that football should be about passion, fans, and entertainment, rather than purely profit-driven business interests.

The Altar of Big Business Warning.

Matt Busby warned back in 1970 “I hope we shall never sacrifice our sporting principles on the altar of big business.” Football is Nothing Without Fans. Busby believed “the games true value lies with its supporters, rather that purely economic, commercial, or television interests”. As can be gleaned at Old Trafford today supporters, who Matt believed, rightly, so much in, are called “customers” at the insistence of the club owners, the hated Glazers. The interests of big business today much to the disgust of many do take preference over the game of football. Kick off times are altered to suit television companies irrespective of any consideration given to the supporters. The traditional 3pm on Saturday is no longer the case as TV companies demand ridiculous times like 12 noon on Sundays to fit in with their programme. The modern game could be described as a game of Monopoly involving football teams and players. 

Busby’s approach to the game and management was fundamentally based on “youth development, community, and making players rather than simply buying them to chase commercial success”. Most of these principles laid down by their greatest manager ever – sorry Sir Alex – have long been forgotten by the bastards who run Man Utd today. Could Busby have worked with these people, the Glazers and Ratcliffe? I doubt that very much. The Babes must be turning in their graves at what is happening at Old Trafford. Since Sir Alex Ferguson, United’s most successful manager, retired back in 2013 United have struggled to find a replacement manager. David Moyes came from Everton and, in my view, was not given time by the clueless Glazers to do the job. They sacked him after nine months, had nobody told them it took Ferguson four years to win a trophy!

What would the Babes have made of the game in general today? An outfield player cannot pass back to the Goalkeeper and if such a back pass is made the Keeper cannot pick the ball up. Referees, once the trusted timekeeper of any game, has had this responsibility taken away from him and the result is ridiculous numbers of minutes are added on to the end of the game by the so-called fourth official. Sometimes games are played for over 100 minutes due to time added on. 

Another addition to the modern game is Video Assisted Refereeing (VAR) which in reality is probably the first step to getting rid of referees? VAR is in reality nine times out of ten ‘Video Overruling Refereeing’ as most referees do not have the backbone to say No. there are rare exceptions and one such referee was Farai Hallam who refereed ,his first top flight game, the match against Manchester City and Wolves. City claimed they had a penalty due to a Wolves player handballing which the Referee disagreed with. He looked at the VAR and ignored its advice much to the fury of Man City who threw tantrums with their Manager, Pep Guardiola, making all kinds of accusations about the referee! I admire the young official telling VAR to fuck off and stuck to his guns. How long before the rules change making VAR decisions compulsory? Duncan Edwards was a very skilful talented player with a certain amount of aggression. How would he react to this ridiculous VAR? Duncan has been hailed by many, including Bobby Charlton, as the ‘finest player to grace a football pitch’. Tommy Taylor, United’s Centre Forward who perished at Munich, how would he react to being ruled offside because his laces on his boots are in front of the defender? Defender Roger Byrne, team captain, was an aggressive though fair player, a wall to get passed. Eddie Colman flying down the wing only to be called up by the referee over an incident which occurred five minutes ago. Players like Roger Byrne would be blown up every five minutes in todays ‘Monty Pythons’ game which passes for football.

What would have been the reaction to the managerial fiasco still engulfing Old Trafford since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013? What a joke. Firstly they employed David Moyes then, after just nine months, sacked him. Moyes got a raw deal and was treated very shoddily. Then in came Ryan Giggs as a caretaker manager until the appointment of Louis Van Gall who, despite winning the FA Cup, was sacked. Enter Jose Mourinho, who won the League Cup and UEFA Cup, and was sacked for his troubles. He was followed by Ole Gunnar Solksaer. Despite promising starts when he was in charge temporarily, once he was given the job permanently things fell apart and he was sacked. Michael Carrick took the reins on a temporary basis to be replaced by unknown Ralf Rangnick who was replaced by Erik Ten Hag who, again despite winning the League Cup and FA Cup was sacked. In came on a temporary basis Ruud Van Nistelrooy who was succeeded by Ruben Amorim who was sacked by the Glazers, whom he had criticised along with others above him and not before time in my view. He was succeeded temporarily, for two games, by Darren Fletcher. Now we have Michael Carrick back at the helm for the second time and things look promising with victories over Man City and league leaders Arsenal. On Sunday 1st February United had a tricky game at home to Fulham which we won 3-2 giving interim manager Michael Carrick three games from three. If this success continues, he should get the job but remember, this is the Glazers we are talking of!

What would the Babes have made of the managerial turmoil at Old Trafford since Sir Alex Fergusons retirement? They played in an atmosphere of stability, excellent management in Matt Busby, who all had faith in. They never had to worry who would be in charge the following week. The people at Man United back then including Harold Hardman who was Chairman and had the club at heart. He oversaw the club both on and off the field post Munich and was a stable influence who supported Busby in all managerial matters. All the babes had to worry about was going out and playing football while enjoying themselves at the same time. It is not the fact Alex Ferguson retired, this happens, but the turmoil which followed. Man United have had at the helm eleven managers, including Michael Carrick this time round, and it is this instability and uncertainty which would no doubt have bothered the ‘Busby Babes’ and why wouldn’t it? If United have any sense in appointing a new permanent manager and if Carrick’s record continues in this successful vein then it is a no brainer. Don’t’ believe it, these wankers, the Glazers and Ratcliffe, are no Harold Hardman or even Louis Edwards. These people stand for everything Sir Matt Busby opposed to the point of hating.

It would not be fair to finish on the Munich theme without mentioning the sterling work carried out by Matt Busby’s assistant, Jimmy Murphy. Jimmy took the reins in Matts absence and led United out that day against Bolton Wanderers in the 1958 FA Cup Final. A depleted United side were, according to reports, the better team showing more ‘imagination’ but still lost to two goals from Nat Lofthouse. The team was makeshift with only four Munich survivors playing, the rest were reserves and players loaned out by other sympathetic clubs. Nevertheless Jimmy Murphy instilled a belief in this makeshift team which, after Munich, may have been thought impossible. RIP Jimmy Murphy who died on 14th November 1989.

In memory of all those players, supporters, ground staff and airline crews who have died in various football tragedies around the globe. RIP.
 
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Munich-Sixty-Eight Years On ⚽ What Would The Babes Have Made Of This?

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Seventy Two

 

A Morning Thought @ 3049

Jim Duffy ✍ There have been hundreds of plagues and pandemics throughout history. 

The Plague of Justinian was caused by the Bubonic plague. It ran from 541–549 and may have killed one hundred million. It killed 25–60% of European population.
 
In terms of death toll, it is akin to the Spanish Flu (1918-20), which also killed up to 100 million (albeit of a larger world population).
 
In terms of death toll, the third placed pandemic is the HIV-AIDS pandemic. It reached 45 million in 2026, but with Trump's destruction of USAID, the body critical to providing treatment in Africa, the number is likely to increase sharply again after years in decline.
 
In fourth place was the Black Death which is believed to have killed 25–50 million - again from a smaller world population. It ran from 1346–1353.
 
In fifth place is the covid pandemic, with an estimated 38 million to date. Vaccines thankfully prevented it reaching numbers akin to the Spanish Flu - something it had the potential to do. However it is by no means over, and there remains the risk of a variant appearing that current vaccines cannot control.
 
The Cocoliztli epidemic of 1545–1548 was limited to Mexico, but is thought to have killed up to 80% of the population.
 
Knowing how many died is not always easy. Sometimes a person technically died of something else, but would have survived but for being ill with the pandemic. Other times record-keeping collapses due to mass deaths so the total number who died is unknown. That is the case in some US cities in the Spanish Flu. Death certification, burial records, church records, etc all broke down as those who had kept them died or were too ill. Bodies in Philadelphia were buried in mass graves without counting numbers as there were so many rotting bodies needing burial they had not time to count the dead. Some people died in their homes, but the collapse in the collection of corpses forced families to dump the bodies of the dead in back lanes as the smell of the decaying corpse in the house was unbearable. It would disappear but they would not know had it been picked up for burial in mass graves, or simply eaten by rats, dogs and cats. So in pandemics often all that can be made are estimates. 

When research is done afterwards, it always turns out that the estimates were a considerable under-estimate. Bodies buried in the Spanish Flu in Greenland and the Artic were exhumed some years ago. They had remained undecayed in the frozen earth. When autopsies were done, it was found that many people whose deaths were originally thought to have been caused by something else had been caused by the Spanish Flu. Detailed exhumations over the decades has led to the conclusion that the original presumption that 50 million died was a considerable under-estimation, and the number was potentially one hundred million.

Overall, pandemics are a constant regular occurrence. The best way to stop its spread is use lockdowns - something learned in the 14th century. Most pandemics are spread by person-to-person. Therefore to break the transmission, lockdowns have to happen to stop people becoming in contact with someone with it. Thankfully, we can develop vaccines, and once a vaccine achieves the right number, lockdowns can be eased and ended. Lockdowns feature in plays, poems and art from the Middle Ages. A lockdown is critical in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It is why a vital message to Romeo cannot be passed on - the city he is in is in lockdown and the gates are locked, so no-one can enter.
 
We even know throughout history that churches and ale-houses/pubs are the most dangerous places. People remain in the same spot and get infected in churches. In pubs, alcohol dims awareness of distancing. So right back to the middle ages, both have to be shut. It is nothing new. In contrast, modern supermarkets are not dangerous. Everyone is on the move. They have air-conditioning and aisles are wide. So people may only come close to an infected person for a split second. In a church, with everyone sitting, standing and kneeling at the same spot for half an hour or more, they are likely to get the infection if they are near someone carrying the virus.
 
Pandemics are as certain as night and day. The only thing we don't know is when they will hit. One might not hit for fifty years, or it could hit next month. The usual cause is the same - some animal virus jumps species into a human, then spreads. The Spanish Flu is suspected of moving from a pig to the farm worker looking after it. He had arranged to join the army as the US was in WWI, went to the local army fort and unbeknown to him spread it to soldiers, who spread it through the army and brought it to Europe. They infected workers at the port of Brest. They infected crew on merchant ships who brought it to their own countries. And all from an apparent farm worker on a farm in Kansas nursing a sick pig.

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

The Plague

Anthony McIntyre ☠ The brutal repression by Iran's theocratic regime of protestors, resulting in the mass murder of Iranian civilians, is to be viewed with the same opprobrium as Israeli mass murder in Gaza. 

But it isn't. It is treated as something worse. The inexcusable behaviour of the murderous mullahs and their men has been occurring since the end of December. According to some sources, over 6000 people have lost their lives to the repression.

The response of the European Union in listing Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation has been rapid. Yet the same institution has dragged its heels on the genocide in Gaza, never remotely approaching a position where it might consider designating the IDF a terrorist organisation.

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, announced that there was unanimity amongst EU foreign ministers for the designation, arguing that:

any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise . . . This will put them on the same footing with al Qeida, Hamas, Daesh. 

The suggestion is that if you keep killing thousands of other people you can escape the designation 'terrorist' but you need to avoid killing your own. So much for the universality of human rights: killing thousands in your own society is a no-no but ok when they live in an another society. 

The crackdown by the mullahs has supposedly pricked the sensibilities of the Western political class. Experiencing the worst division within its ranks since the end of World War 2, it has found something its internecine battlers can unite on: confronting Iran. But it is not concern about human rights abuses that sits at the heart of Western sensibilities. Not when by the time the protests had erupted in Iran, the genocide in Gaza had already been going on for almost twenty seven months, enabled not condemned by the West. 

With some sources predicting a US military strike against Iran as early as Sunday the European action directed towards the Revolutionary Guard feeds the suspicion that it is the opening shot in the war of position. The aim of the primary military actor, the US, is regime change. Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, is - in the words of a former US Intelligence official and current Trump advisor - “hoping for an attack . . . and assuring Trump that Israel can help put in place a new government that is friendly with the West.” Talk of protecting Iranian protestors is simply hot air as was evident from the list of demands put to Iran: The New York Times pointed out:

Notably absent from those demands — and from Mr. Trump’s post on Truth Social on Wednesday morning — was any reference to protecting the protesters who took to the streets in Iran in December, convulsing the country and creating the latest crisis for its government. Mr. Trump had promised, in past social media posts, to come to their aid, but has barely mentioned them in recent weeks.

It is not the characterisation of the brutal Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist force that sticks in the craw but the sheer hypocrisy involved in the failure to treat the IDF in similar fashion. Western leaders are still deaf deaf to the IDF. They are also deaf to the wails of the children of Gaza, so brutally butchered during the infanticide. 
 
Iranian citizens have the same right to be free from the mullahs as we in Ireland have to be free from the priests. The citizens of Gaza have the same right to be free from genocide and Israeli occupation. Arguably, the rights of Gazans should be pursued by the international community with even greater urgency and vigour than is applicable to Iran given the severity of the crimes being inflicted on them.

Not a position likely to prevail in the Western chambers of power which have become little more than echo chambers for genocide. 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Echo Chambers For Genocide

Seamus Kearney 🎤 Vincent Robinson had been arrested on Wednesday, 17th June 1981 and taken to Castlereagh Interrogation Centre but released the following day to have a suspected fracture to his arm treated at the Ulster hospital, Dundonald.


He had fallen off a coal lorry the day before his arrest and had sustained the injury as a result of the accident.

On the 24th June 1981 Vincent was abducted in the Lenadoon area of West Belfast by 3 IRA personnel not connected to Internal Security and bundled into a black taxi. He was driven into the Divis flats complex and handed over to the IRA's Internal Security Unit, or the 'Security team' as they were more commonly known within IRA circles.

On this occasion the head of the ISU, the former Marine from the Special Boat Service (SBS), was not present nor was Freddie Scappatticci. Instead two other British agents within the ISU, known within the IRA as 'Burke and Hare', after the notorious 19th century Scottish body snatchers, were waiting for Vincent Robinson.

They proceeded to torture Robinson in a grotesque fashion for 2 days, finally smashing his skull in with a hammer, shooting him in the head, and then sending his body down a bin chute within Divis flats. Vincent Robinson died on 26th June 1981 at the age of 29, a married man with 2 young children.
However, as both men vacated the area in a vehicle they were stopped at an RUC /British Army checkpoint. As they were being checked an RUC officer noticed blood on the boots of one of the men and ordered both out of the car. Once out of the vehicle 'Burke' tried to explain that he worked in an abattoir ( slaughter house), hence the blood on his boots, but the RUC officer wasn't convinced. The cornered man then demanded to speak to the Commanding officer of the checkpoint and walked off with him. A few minutes later both men returned to the vehicle and were allowed to proceed from the murder scene.

'Burke' had a habit of pulling this trick and applied it before in late August 1979 when he accidentally drove into the scene of the ambush of 18 paratroopers at Narrow water, near Warrenpoint. An irate British paratrooper ordered him and another man out of their vehicle but 'Burke' demanded to speak to the Commanding officer and both men were allowed to proceed after the brief conversation. It would seem a quick call to the handler cleared up the mess.

'Burke', three months after the execution of Vincent Robinson was involved in the execution of Anthony Braniff, as it was 'Burke' and Freddie Scappatticci who went to get permission from Belfast Brigade to have Braniff executed.

In July 1986 an IRA Volunteer was abducted by the ISU in Belfast and driven across the border into County Roscommon. The ISU, which included ', Burke and Hare' and the former Marine from the SBS, tortured the Volunteer for 3 days in a house in Charlestown, burning him with cigarettes, beating him severely, water boarding him in a bath and hanging him upside down in a sleeping bag. For 3 days he wasn't allowed to go to the toilet, but had to shit in the sleeping bag, but he refused to admit anything that would incriminate him and was eventually dumped on a border road near Sligo. He was fortunate to have escaped with his life, while others weren't so fortunate.
 
In a stroke of luck for him, Brendan Hughes (The Dark) was released from Long Kesh in November 1986 and reported back to the IRA, and gained a senior position within GHQ Intelligence, which overseen the Internal Security Unit. Even prior to his release Brendan Hughes suspected that the British had targeted and successfully penetrated the ISU, so he had a jaundiced view of the unit, especially its head, the former Marine.
The following year he had successfully identified that the ISU was infiltrated by enemy agents posing as IRA personnel, and voiced his concern to a leadership figure, but was told he was 'paranoid' and ignored.

Nonetheless, after he was approached by the IRA Volunteer who had been tortured in County Roscommon Brendan convened a Court-martial and had both ' Burke and Hare' dismissed from the IRA with ignominy in 1987. The charges may have been 'brutality, cruelty, torture and disobeying Army orders', but a more sinister element to his thinking was ever present. However, both men were dismissed on a technicality rather than treachery. Despite Brendan's best efforts to clean out the rat infested Internal Security Unit, both men returned but in a lower capacity.

Seamus Kearney is a former Blanketman and author of  
No Greater Love - The Memoirs of Seamus Kearney.

Stakeknife 🕵 The Rise And Fall 🕵 Act Ⅳ

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Seventy One

Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)