TPQ welcomes the return of Matt Treacy to blogging @ Brocaire Books where he argues that the push back against political correctness more than anything else led to the high vote for Peter Casey in last week's Irish Presidential election. 

To listen to some of the liberal bien pensants who dominate the leaderships of every party represented in Leinster House, and the vast majority of media punditry, you might be forgiven for believing that the Condor Legion had just dropped a payload on a workshop on transgender abortion rights.

I am of course referring to the reaction to the scale of the vote won by Presidential candidate Peter Casey. The irony of course is that he would have remained a pretty much dead cert for last place had not the Care Bear NKVD spuriously rounded on him for being a racist.

The only thing I knew about him was that he was part of the Dragon’s Den TV show, which I confess to having never watched, and that he had once been nominated to the Senate by the employers organisation IBEC. Neither of which were calculated to entice yours truly and the dogs to the local polling station.

Ironically, said cabal of liberals fully share the IBEC/Varadkar/Project 2040 “vision” of a state based on mass immigration. While that triumvirate’s objective is the creation of a low wage economy with Dublin transformed into a high rise Parisian banlieue for pretty basic reasons, the liberal left either sees this as the harbinger of the workers being united and back to the rice paddies and the logging camps; or, on the right wing of the Care Bears, the chance to eat exotic foods and generally wallow in diversity.

The substantial vote for Casey was in large part a running kick in the arse for all of that. Nothing to do with racism, or indeed immigration as Casey himself by all accounts shares in the above vision, the IBEC one as opposed to its left faction.

It was a reaction to the cloying hectoring lecturing attempt, largely successful, to silence any form of dissent from the agenda for a “lovely new Ireland,” to borrow a phrase from one of our Commissars. Not so much a vote for Casey then. More a vote against all of the above.

In a curious way Casey did, however, echo an older republican left belief that travellers are Irish people, and not a separate group, Something travellers always contended themselves in the face of real bigots. Nor did the demand for ethnicity emerge from within the travelling community. It is part of the agenda of a disappointed left which has abandoned economic socialism for identity politics.

The other interesting aspect of the election was the dismal performance of Sinn Féin. Part of that was to do with having picked a remarkably poor candidate, but it was mostly to do in campaign terms with her remarks on wearing the British Legion poppy, but perhaps more so as being the latest of the carpetbagging careerists to be caught telling porkies about the mythical “party wage.” As she well knows that was only ever deployed against elected representatives and staffers who were not part of the golden – and it is an apt phrase – circle. She hardly abandoned her media career to sink into the same social morass as the eijits who kept her seat warm through prison cells, active service, hunger strikes and when being a shinner was to place one’s name on a death squad list.

From an ideological and republican cultural perspective the collapse of the Shinner vote does raise some interesting questions. They have clearly pinned their flag to the mast of social democratic liberalism which, as the scale of the Higgins vote proved, might be prepared to pat the Shinners on the head for jettisoning all the backward nationalist stuff, but certainly would not have them around for dinner, or god forbid vote for them.

The gamble was that in abandoning any pretence of being republican in any meaningful sense of the word and replacing social radicalism with Clintonesque virtue signalling, that they would not only entice the liberals, but could continue to rely on the lads in the “Undefeated Army” tee shirts to stuff letter boxes and vote under the illusion that this has anything whatsoever to do with what the republican movement once stood for.

The flaw in that gamble and the reasoning that underlay it, was that the apparat believed that by Adams fading into the background, publicly at least, that his replacement at the helm by people with none of the baggage of the IRA – “what IRA” as Liadh, who might be forgiven as she only joined the Shinners ten years after the IRA had been swapped for a place in running the British controlled part of Ireland, asked during the election campaign.

25% of Sinn Féin voters opted for Casey rather than the party candidate. Other polls have indicated a significant gap between the views of SF supporters on a range of liberal causes celebre and the apparatchiks who as usual prefer to deal with “dissent” through expulsions and threats rather than debate.

The last time the claustrophobic liberal agenda championed by the apparat cost Sinn Féin electorally – in the 2007 southern general election – there was a prolonged post mortem. It concluded that the public noise on various issues had damaged them, and the liberals were briefly reigned in.

Not that the people who really control the party give a somersaulting fart about travellers or abortion or jailed Islamists who support female genital mutilation, or abortion or whatever. If it wins votes then it is all to the good. If not, then perhaps it is not so good. It seriously does not go beyond that.

So it will be interesting to see what the fall out from this disaster will be. The bosses might try and clamp down on the Care Bears, but the danger is – as the Official IRA/Workers Party discovered – that when you create a monster the monster sometimes has the annoying habit of ignoring the old men and wandering off into the liberal forest.


Republican Army is also available @ Amazon. 



Matt Treacy blogs @ Brocaire Books. 



Follow Matt Treacy on Twitter @MattTreacy2




“So, You’re A Racist Now Father?”

TPQ welcomes the return of Matt Treacy to blogging @ Brocaire Books where he argues that the push back against political correctness more than anything else led to the high vote for Peter Casey in last week's Irish Presidential election. 

To listen to some of the liberal bien pensants who dominate the leaderships of every party represented in Leinster House, and the vast majority of media punditry, you might be forgiven for believing that the Condor Legion had just dropped a payload on a workshop on transgender abortion rights.

I am of course referring to the reaction to the scale of the vote won by Presidential candidate Peter Casey. The irony of course is that he would have remained a pretty much dead cert for last place had not the Care Bear NKVD spuriously rounded on him for being a racist.

The only thing I knew about him was that he was part of the Dragon’s Den TV show, which I confess to having never watched, and that he had once been nominated to the Senate by the employers organisation IBEC. Neither of which were calculated to entice yours truly and the dogs to the local polling station.

Ironically, said cabal of liberals fully share the IBEC/Varadkar/Project 2040 “vision” of a state based on mass immigration. While that triumvirate’s objective is the creation of a low wage economy with Dublin transformed into a high rise Parisian banlieue for pretty basic reasons, the liberal left either sees this as the harbinger of the workers being united and back to the rice paddies and the logging camps; or, on the right wing of the Care Bears, the chance to eat exotic foods and generally wallow in diversity.

The substantial vote for Casey was in large part a running kick in the arse for all of that. Nothing to do with racism, or indeed immigration as Casey himself by all accounts shares in the above vision, the IBEC one as opposed to its left faction.

It was a reaction to the cloying hectoring lecturing attempt, largely successful, to silence any form of dissent from the agenda for a “lovely new Ireland,” to borrow a phrase from one of our Commissars. Not so much a vote for Casey then. More a vote against all of the above.

In a curious way Casey did, however, echo an older republican left belief that travellers are Irish people, and not a separate group, Something travellers always contended themselves in the face of real bigots. Nor did the demand for ethnicity emerge from within the travelling community. It is part of the agenda of a disappointed left which has abandoned economic socialism for identity politics.

The other interesting aspect of the election was the dismal performance of Sinn Féin. Part of that was to do with having picked a remarkably poor candidate, but it was mostly to do in campaign terms with her remarks on wearing the British Legion poppy, but perhaps more so as being the latest of the carpetbagging careerists to be caught telling porkies about the mythical “party wage.” As she well knows that was only ever deployed against elected representatives and staffers who were not part of the golden – and it is an apt phrase – circle. She hardly abandoned her media career to sink into the same social morass as the eijits who kept her seat warm through prison cells, active service, hunger strikes and when being a shinner was to place one’s name on a death squad list.

From an ideological and republican cultural perspective the collapse of the Shinner vote does raise some interesting questions. They have clearly pinned their flag to the mast of social democratic liberalism which, as the scale of the Higgins vote proved, might be prepared to pat the Shinners on the head for jettisoning all the backward nationalist stuff, but certainly would not have them around for dinner, or god forbid vote for them.

The gamble was that in abandoning any pretence of being republican in any meaningful sense of the word and replacing social radicalism with Clintonesque virtue signalling, that they would not only entice the liberals, but could continue to rely on the lads in the “Undefeated Army” tee shirts to stuff letter boxes and vote under the illusion that this has anything whatsoever to do with what the republican movement once stood for.

The flaw in that gamble and the reasoning that underlay it, was that the apparat believed that by Adams fading into the background, publicly at least, that his replacement at the helm by people with none of the baggage of the IRA – “what IRA” as Liadh, who might be forgiven as she only joined the Shinners ten years after the IRA had been swapped for a place in running the British controlled part of Ireland, asked during the election campaign.

25% of Sinn Féin voters opted for Casey rather than the party candidate. Other polls have indicated a significant gap between the views of SF supporters on a range of liberal causes celebre and the apparatchiks who as usual prefer to deal with “dissent” through expulsions and threats rather than debate.

The last time the claustrophobic liberal agenda championed by the apparat cost Sinn Féin electorally – in the 2007 southern general election – there was a prolonged post mortem. It concluded that the public noise on various issues had damaged them, and the liberals were briefly reigned in.

Not that the people who really control the party give a somersaulting fart about travellers or abortion or jailed Islamists who support female genital mutilation, or abortion or whatever. If it wins votes then it is all to the good. If not, then perhaps it is not so good. It seriously does not go beyond that.

So it will be interesting to see what the fall out from this disaster will be. The bosses might try and clamp down on the Care Bears, but the danger is – as the Official IRA/Workers Party discovered – that when you create a monster the monster sometimes has the annoying habit of ignoring the old men and wandering off into the liberal forest.


Republican Army is also available @ Amazon. 



Matt Treacy blogs @ Brocaire Books. 



Follow Matt Treacy on Twitter @MattTreacy2




34 comments:

  1. I gave Casey my No.1 with the firm belief that Higgins' position was unassailable. Yes it was a protest vote; a protest against an ever increasing anodyne drift into political correctness and an excessive over indulgence of entitlement driven identity politics ... a politics which often comes at the expense of more pluralistic, socially democratic and responsible policies and interventions.

    Its not today or yesterday Matt that it was predicted that Sinn Féin, having abandoned principles to follow personalities, would, with time, totally succumb to electoral populism.

    Not, I suppose, that it matters much since those principles were forever unrealistic, forever unachievable and thereby essentially flawed. And though now woven into the foundation myth and still given lip-service, those principles are now broadly, albeit privately or unconsciously, accepted as futile by a vast,vast majority North and South.

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  2. Henry Joy,

    I think it was a large protest vote against the PC bollix that people have been subjected to. People are unable to express a view without the PC crowd calling them a racist. PC helps bring about that which it is supposed to oppose. There is a very dangerous trend developing globally - Brazil is the latest manifestation of it. And I think a lot of it is down to the lack of discussion on matters of concern. Yeah, we have fascists and religious maniacs, but not every body who adopts positions we don't agree with can be dismissed just so easily.

    If people are to have the society they want then they need to be able to talk about what they think wrong with the present set up and what needs done to change it. Matt caught the mood of a lot of people in this piece by taking up a concerned stance not a reactionary one. What might detract from the piece is language like care bear but if that is how he feels it is and believes there is a case for calling it how it is, then he needs to be free to express it in the language that he chooses and not the language that the PC approve.


    I think many people like you will be taking up positions they don't actually believe in as a protest. Peter Casey is not the type of person you would consider endorsing in normal circumstances.

    I put one strike down for Michael D - gave the rest of them a blank. I definitely believe there should also be a "fuck the lot of them" option for voters or "fuck the rest".

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  3. It's not true that Travellers didn't pursue recognition of ethnicity. They have been fighting for it for over 30 years. RCSI DNA research demonstrated that Travellers and settled Irish people became distinct twelve generations ago.

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  4. I do not want to come across as a PC ideological commissar (to me PC is just good manners in matters of language and a willingness to listen to the lived experiences of distinct and marginalised groups in society and i am conscious that I am neither a resident or elector in the Republic of Ireland but Peter Casey's comments about that Traveller's site is exactly the sort of dog-whistle gesture which right-wing populists have always used to garner voters, Think of Maggie Thatcher's "Britain being swamped" in 1978 which helped to put the National Front out of electoral business. Think of Norman Tebbit's cricket test. Think of Lee Attwater's ugly representation of African-American criminality in the Willie Horton imagery which helped to deliver the White House to Daddy Bush in 1988. You get the gist of how Lynton Crosby's playbook operates.

    And yes, Jane Buggle having confirmed the distinct ethnicity of Travelling people. what Peter Casey did was a low-down, despicable Trumpian stunt in a society where not so long ago (and probably still does) where the word "Tinker" would casually trip of the tongue as the words "Paki" and "Darkie" did in Britain less than a generation ago.

    Let's not forget that Brexit and the election of Trump gave permission to bigots and racists to say things that PC did not permit. Let us hope that the Republic of Ireland having acted as a beacon to the civilised world in its legalisation of gay marriage and repeal of the Eighth Amendment is not going to face another period of cultural darkness.

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  5. What political party seeking power does not change it's policies to suit what it senses the people want?
    What political party in power does not jettison policies if they think they may cost them power?

    The Shinners are little different from the rest. But the notion of them being a 'Republican' party died when they accepted partition, saying that they somehow just recently cast off these ideals is wide of the mark.

    And as for feint whiff of socialism they may espouse, where is the colossal financial portfolio the Provisionals had established and utilized to fund their war, and who is benefiting from it still to this day? I'll wager it's not the people as a whole.

    The Shinners are a weather vane party with a huge amount of baggage it is desperately trying to jettison in it's attempts to reinvent itself free from the IRA.

    Nobodies fooled north or south it seems.

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  6. Barry - civil discourse is good manners. PC is a mixture of arrogance/self righteousness/virtue signalling/snobbery/bullying/censoring/marginalising.

    Since Peter Casey took that 20% plus I am amazed he did so poorly. Going by the people I have had conversation with it is surprising he was not elected president. Virtually everybody I have spoken to has said he is right. Now the PC response is to shout "heresy - burn him at the stake." The civil discourse response is to say he has it wrong on so many things but he reflects a concern that runs much deeper than society is willing to admit. That concern has to be discussed not suppressed nor marginalised to the fringe of political debate.

    That Casey might be a right wing populist using a dog whistle should be secondary to the fact that he is blowing a whistle that so many dogs can hear. Those that hear it are not all right wing, not all racist, not all xenophobic - there are many with fears. PC does not want to discuss people's fears - it wants to label them a phobia. That is not good enough. Casey needs to be heard clearly if for no other reason that when we respond we need to be able to say clearly "you are wrong and here is why" rather than "shut up racist - nothing to see here. Move along". That attitude is getting him the vote.

    We want society being able to say more, not a society where PC has us so stifled that all we can do is mumble under our breath for fear of offending somebody. And when people mumble under their breaths they can go into the privacy of the ballot box and have their say - and we claim to be horrified. If we are horrified it is because we live in cloud cuckoo PC land. My own feeling is one of relief he got no higher a vote. I dread to think what he might have got had Michael D not have been the sitting president. That crowd of dullards and dunces he trounced were never going to best him.

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  7. AM

    Was it civil discourse or hectoring/arrogance for me to object the former landlord of my local talking about "Paki Shops" in the pub? Was I being censoring when I objected to a golliwog momento to the landlord of a pub I was having lunch in during a ramble? Ditto when I took umbrage to a fellow Leeds United supporter for calling Michael Duberry a (n....r) at Charlton. Ditto when I heard comments in the waiting room in my local surgery on the day of the Brexit referendum that "this country has been a soft touch for far too long" (I did not react on that occasion).

    There are times when I am genuinely not sure of the suitable etiquette to use on such occasions. You are not wrong in the adjectives you use to describe much behaviour; the cranks and obsessives in control of the higher echelons of the British Labour Party (including my local CLP) are prime examples of such IMHO.

    Always willing to be challenged and to learn on this weblog,

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  8. AM,

    if Casey had been a contender he'd have got no vote from me ... my concerns are that he's a 'John the Baptist' for what could come. Giving him the vote was my way of drawing attention to the ineffectiveness of what passes for leadership and governance and the probable consequences.
    (Without trying to whip a dead horse I felt, and I think if I understood correctly some of your comments on previous threads you acknowledge, without diminishing its importance, that the referendum could be interpreted legitimately too as yet another avoidance, of sorts, of more pressing concerns.)

    In your reply to Barry I feel you've summarised accurately my frustrations, as well as probably those of many other plain-speaking voters, towards the PC elitists and their humbug platitudes and self-righteous claptrap.

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  9. Henry Joy - I was never in any doubt about your attitude to Casey. The PC would jump down your throat for casting a vote his way whereas I would see an entirely different reason for doing it.

    PC I think is useless when it comes to making the really difficult choice - what is to be done if the there are only two parties left to vote for - both are Nazi?

    Nazi One will gas 6 million Jews.

    Nazi Two will gas 3 Million Jews.

    If the voter disengages 6 million die.

    If the voter throws their vote to Nazi Two, 3 million die.

    PC will accuse the voter of Nazi 2 of having been responsible for gassing three million Jews.

    The voter of course will see their vote less for Nazi Two but against Nazi One.

    Any discussion of the need to consider voting Nazi Two to minimise harm to Jews, will see PC labelling it as Nazism and racism.


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  10. Barry - the Paki thing never concerns me but more the intonation or inflection when it is used. Unlike nigger it is not a word created specifically to degrade a person and diminish their worth. It is shorthand, much like Argie, Jap or Brit. My ears never prick up when I hear the word Paki unless it is Paki bastard. They prick up very much when they hear the word nigger. The PC like to police language so tell people to refrain from using terms like Paki. East Is East is interesting when the son of the English mother/Pakistani father says he will not be married off to a girl - his objection: she is a Paki.


    If people think the country has been a soft touch for too long, it is their right to think it. It is also your right to disagree but not label the person for having that opinion. If I was to challenge every person who said Peter Casey is wrong I wouldn't have time to eat or sleep. I don't restrict myself to a small group of people in terms of opinion forming. Casey has touched a chord in this society that the PC can pretend is not there. One reason he has been successful is that the PC brigade hounded Kevin Myers a few years back when he expressed a similar view on Travellers. If Myers is wrong, deconstruct his perspective rather than stick a Verboten notice above his head.

    We don't have to accept the views of Casey on Travellers: how we are expected to believe that the Travelling community is a gang that always sets up on somebody else's land escapes me. How he can so easily generalise from a particular phenomenon and label an entire group of people is horrendous. That he has tapped into a fear is something society needs to reflect on. If society pretends that fear is groundless, decides to ignore the fearful, then it creates a rising latent animosity that become blatant at the ballot box. The people most at risk from that are the Travellers.

    The PC insistence on people not being able to say a gang of Travellers or a gang of Asians or a gang of black youths is fuelling suspicion. It allows the rumour mill to go full throttle. Many people feel that PC is not driven by a need to protect but a need to police.

    There is something to be learned from Henry Joy's vote. He did not cast it Casey's way because he approved Casey in the slightest. He rolled his ballot paper up in a tight roll so he could poke the PC mob in the eye and tell them to get real. He is far from alone.

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  11. My last ever vote many, many, years ago, must have been the local elections, was to vote Jim Allister of the TUV....the Shinners I told this too would gasp in complete shock and ask what the hell was I thinking off... even when I explained to them that Allister is best kept in the public domain as he has a knack for publicly hanging Unionism when he opens his mouth....not quite a protest vote but more of a vote for clarity so to speak....

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  12. Niall - which suggests we operate with more tactical nous than the PC mob grant us.

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  13. AM

    I agree with much of what you say but I must respectfully disagree with you over the use of the word "Paki". In Britain certainly it is understood and recognised by the affected communities as a derogatory term used to describe anyone of South Asian origin, It is not an affectionate shorthand for "Pakistani" as some might contend and as those with memories of "Paki bashing" in the East End will frecall. It is for that reason that it is illegal to shout the P word at football matches and use of the word in a criminal assault makes the crime a racially aggravated one. Trust me, when you hear the ditty "I'd rather be a Paki than a Turk" at a football match or a description of Leicester (so sorry for their grievous losses) as "a town full of Pakis" (actually more Indian Hindus which proves my point) you will know that they are not terms of endearment.

    In all this I am guided by the perspective and lived experiences of the groups affected not by PC thought police (I trust I am not one of them! The example you quote from East is East is an example of groups taking ownership through humour of racist language as with NWA and the affectionate use of "Yiddoes" by Spurs fans.

    You are right; choosing to close down debate over, for example the uncomfortable reality that, for example, the vast majority of perpetrators in the grooming trials in Britain have been of Pakistani heritage by screaming "racism" achieves nothing and drives people into the hands of the BNP and EDL. Whaf is needed is cool headed analysis.

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  14. Barry - meaning is positional more often than fixed. Terms can be reworked, disarticulated from the original discursive or analytical framework of which they were a component part. Look at how dissident has come to be reworked and reinvented in terms of what it describes. Who has the power of veto over language? I don't believe that a groups should be able to describe something as offensive and then demand that every body else follows suit. Paki is used as a racist put down - I have no doubt about that but it is also used as shorthand. If it wee Pakistani bashing rather than Paki bashing would society be obliged to ban the use of that word too? I would rather see torture by Pakistani security services outlawed than the term Paki.

    This is the difference between us - I am not guided by the perspective and lived experience of the groups who claim offence. I think that it a PC approach. I try to live by what is factually correct not politically correct.

    As for what is sang at football matches - I think Kevin Rooney has addressed this in a good way in his writing on the so called desectarianisation of soccer culture. In The Netherlands at Feyenoord matches against Amsterdam the Feyenoord fans hiss at the Amsterdam fans - meant to convey the hiss of gas going into the gas chambers. Are they racist or just being soccer louts? Does it reinforce anti Semitic sentiment in Holland? Much of this is soccer fan culture - understood as such and without wider significance.

    That said I would not stand on a terrace and scream abuse no matter what the culture. But try travelling into Glasgow on a bus with Celtic supporters from Belfast - for a woman it is worse than walking past a building site.

    PC went so far up its own jaxy recently that there were marches and rallies organised against a jury trial on the I Stand With Her platform. I firmly believe that we should stand with rape victims for factual reasons not with those deemed by a jury not to have proven their case, out of no reason other than PC.

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  15. AM'

    One of the most sickening and shaming things I have ever seen was the sight in 1988 of supporters of Leeds United, the club that I love, followed all my life and have been a season-ticket holder of, hurling bananas at black players of Aston Villa to the tune of "Trigger, trigger shoot that nigger". The fans had been extensively infiltrated at the time by the BNP and NF whose disgusting rags were frequently outside Elland Road. I am equally proud to say that thanks to campaigns by Leeds Trades Council and anti-racist supporter groups these low lives have been driven from the club. It helped that the club began to sign and train up black players. So in answer to your question, hissing and banana are acts of racially motivated soccer louts.

    Football terrace behaviour in many ways of is a reflection of society. Racist behaviour that was normal 30, 40 years is now verboten because it is now socially unacceptable. But prejudice mutates so consequently players of Middle Eastern origin and Muslim faith can be the targets of "suicide bomber" jibes. (Liverpool's Muslim song in tribute Mo Salah is such a welcome antidote The prevalence of homophobic chants at some grounds is evidence of work to be done still to tackle homophobia. It would help enormously if a gay Premier or even lower League player could "come out".

    I know I am being idealistic but soccer grounds should be shared spaces for club supporters regardless of background. For far too long, they have been cold houses for people of BAME backgrounds because of the banana throwers, Sieg Hielers and hissers.


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  16. The Politically Correct Mob down here call Sudanese gangs in Melbourne...."Of African Appearance".

    Must not offended those whose delicate little ears may hear racism.

    A small point on free speech, Hitchens rightly pointed out that if you are in favour of banning any section of society from saying anything at all, you are handing control over what is said to those who may have nefarious intent. Censorship plain and simple. And the older I get the more I realize that Governments the world over are full of self-interested narcissists with little more interest in the voter than what will extract a vote from them.

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  17. Barry - targeting black players is focused and racist.

    Hissing may be something entirely different given the numbers involved and the history, the culture. People might simply do it much as they do a Mexican wave. Hard to imagine the Feyenoord fans being die hard Nazis. The politically correct will label it as racist - the factually correct will go much further in a bid to find out what exactly drives it. Every foolish act is not the work of a fool. But if a pattern of foolish acts is identified we can then start presuming the existence of fools. Same with what we regard as a racist remark. When Ron Atkinson made his laze nigger comment it was black players from WBA who were first out to defend him. Ruud Gullit said that people who call players a black bastard during a game are not necessarily racist - they would call you a red bastard if they thought it would put you off your game.

    Racism is hardly socially unacceptable in England. Driving racism from the terraces has merely caused it to reappear elsewhere. England may be a much more racist society now than it was 30 or 40 years ago. I think there was a large racist sentiment behind the Brexit vote. Would that vote have been carried 30 or 40 years ago? I doubt it very much.

    PC thinks because it has silenced something that it has eradicated it. Far from it.

    Liverpool always had a much more comfortable relationship with people from other countries - Paddy Hoey wrote a good piece on this which featured on TPQ a while back.

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  18. Steve,

    "And the older I get the more I realize that Governments the world over are full of self-interested narcissists with little more interest in the voter than what will extract a vote from them."

    I wouldn't discount the triangualised theory of human motivation which suggests that we're all probably always motivated by either ego, fear or greed, or some permutation of same. Sure we disguise it or even successfully hide it from ourselves, yet I wouldn't rule it out. When we mine right down into it we're probably all, always operating this way. Of course we'd prefer to tell ourselves otherwise. We all love a story, do we not?

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  19. Henry Joy - thank no god for that. Imagine living in a world of perfection. Like Heaven: there would be nothing to do, nothing to strive for. Imagine no greed, no glory seekers, nobody afraid of anything, no selfishness, no egotists.

    We would not recognise our world or see the human condition in it. It would be bland.

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  20. AM

    We will have to agree to disagree on the hissing. I know that Tottenham have always been a target for racist hooligans because of its Jewish links hence the "Spurs are on their way to Auschwitz Hitler is going to gas them again" taunt from opposing so-called supporters. I do not know what Ajax's presumably Jewish connections are.

    One point about calling players black bastards John Terry style on the pitch; the football match is a workplace and professional footballers are entitled to the same employment rights and protections as workers on civvy street: health & safety, protection against discriminatory behaviour etc.

    Without wishing to sweep the broad brush of racism accusations ovder all Brexit voters, a large segment of the vote was motivated by racist, nativist and xenophobic prejudice because of the salience of immigration/freedom of movement in the referendum debate - an awakening of English nationalism something which the liberal left has been reluctant to engage with. Brexit (and Trump) undoubtedly gave people permission to say things in public and to people of EU countries (one T-shirt worn in Romford the day after the vote proudly proclaimed "We Voted Out So Get Them Out"). As I have said before race produce now largely focuses on Muslims and immigrants.

    We actually are not that far apart on PC. Some of the most nauseous PC enforcers are at the heart of the Corbyn project in the Labour Party; they who forced the resignation from her shadow equalities spokesperson Sarah Campion from her brief for the stating the obvious but uncomfortable tact that Pakistani are/were raping white girls in her Rotherham constituency (did not help her cause in the eyes of the PC Sanhedron that she wrote this in the Sun). But they who cannot see their mote of antisemitism in their own eye.

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  21. Barry - for some reason BLP politics have passed me by. I am not that au fait with the Corbyn dispute around anti-Semitism. But I have no doubt the PC mob are well entrenched in the party.

    The hissing I would never dismiss as sheer boisterousness and I think it would be seriously dishonest to think there was not a large racist current in the midst of it all. I just wonder to what extent. I always prefer more pluralist explanations of matters - those that see a variety of issues at play and which seek to explain the interaction between them and the conjuncture.

    My experience from prison is that those who were overtly PC on racist and sexist matters drew down more ridicule than respect. They were seen as not promoting anti-sexism or anti-racism but using either to promote their own virtue signalling. I am sure that depiction of them was not always accurate or genuine. People would always find ways to undermine them, even for the hell of it. People are suspicious of those with a fixation or fetish and respond accordingly.

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  22. Anthony

    I think my sensitivity to racist or perceived racist/sexist language is part of how I felt as a dyspraxic and high functioning autistic spectrum person and therefore as someone who does not 'get' the common sense of popular discourse at any given time. (Don't worry the neurodiversity world has its high priests of PC orthodoxy)

    It may also be down to too long being spent in the company of nice 'right on' middle class lefties. But there is a dilemma in how to negotiate around casual racist or sexist conversation in the pub or on the way to a football match without coming across as condescending or priggish. Your prison experience is interesting in that regard.

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  23. Good man AM,

    only a wholly man could articulate with such clarity, as you have throughout this thread. ^_^

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  24. Henry JoY

    "I wouldn't discount the triangualised theory of human motivation which suggests that we're all probably always motivated by either ego, fear or greed, or some permutation of same"

    A touch cynical for my tastes, being a parent has opened up a whole plethora of mixed emotions from unconditional love for them to psychopathic anger against those who would sleight them! 3 issues seem finite.

    Fear keeps us safe usually, greed is a by-product of our genes quest for immortality and ego is the cognitive dissonance betwixt them all!

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  25. Some Liverpool fans make aeroplane gestures at the Man Utd fans in reference to the Munich disaster...doesn't mean they are disrespectful to the victims or that they hate aeroplanes!!! I found it very funny when i first heard it...

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  26. AM

    As somebody who got suspended from my Corbyn dominated CLP online discussion forum for being my contrarian self I can assure you of the hegemony of the PC mob!

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  27. Steve,

    active cynicism often draws attention to the gaps between ideals and practices; to that degree I happily own my cynicism.

    As George Bernard Shaw succinctly put it "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who don't have it".

    Of course, we all exercise and experience a wide range of emotions. The triangulised theory legitimately points to an underpinning of inherent self-interest. To be wholly human surely its more useful to own all that, rather than remain unconscious of it?

    Barry G,

    if AM is the Will Riker of the Starship PQ ... are you our Data? ^_^

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  28. Niall

    I have personal experience of the Munich 58 chants which Leeds fans which used to regularly taunt Man Utd with (I have sung it myself to my shame because I thought it funny) and also of Galatasary shirts and cut-throat gestures by Millwall fans (Man Utd fans also unfurled an Istanbul Reds banner at Elland Road) towards us in mockery of our two murdered supporters who met their end in Taksim Square before a UEFA Cup semi-final in 2000. Some Man Utd fans are also known to mock the Hillsborough dead.

    Bottom line is that is is never cool or funny to disrespect the dead particularly if there are living and grieving relatives around. This applies as much to the memories of Bloody Sunday and Kingsmill etc as it does to terrace "banter".

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  29. Never funny to disrespect the dead....that would be wholly dependent on the dead or how you define respect otherwise no more Hitler jokes!

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  30. It's football chants, they're supposed to irritate. If all we've got to moan about is disrespectful chants, we're doing ok. P.c is only affective if you acknowledge it. Barry, if you're not happy with Corbyn, don't vote for him. The campaign against him will backfire. Personally i believe if Corbyn was prime minister he'd tow the line, they're all snakes. Barry you made a valid point when you asked where are the bds campaign against the saudis, but at the same time if you criticise the saudis there isn't a structured agitation to justify them. You highlight the disproportionate analysis on Israel but the truth be told if there wasn't such blatant bias in favour of Israel the opposition wouldn't be as strong. It's not love of Palestine rather aversion to in your face propagabda

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  31. Barry - context is often alibi

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  32. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/04/sparta-prague-football-derby-slavia-czech-republic-nazi-antisemitism-chants-pavel-stingl-exhibition

    The above link to an Observer article on racist chanting in Czech football and its historical context adds another dimension to the debate, David, as to whether football chants are mderely "supposed to irritate"

    In a week that has seen yet another physical attack on Neil Lennon from anti-Irish racists in Scotland with their repertoire of "Famine Songs" and Billy Boy chants; I think that certain chants have more than irritant effects.

    On Saudi Arabia and Israel (though not sure it relates to this thread), the Campaign Against the Arms Trade would provide just such a structured campaign for a boycott Saudi cm campaign.

    It is not so much disproportionate analysis of Israel but the antisemitic tropes used by the anti-Israel set especially in the context of Labour's antisemitism disgrace. You need to evidence the "blatant bias" and "in your face propaganda" in favour or Israel. I have read much reportage on Israeli repression on the West Bank and the suffering of the Gazan people in the Guardian, Observer etc. If you do not like the so-called MSM coverage there are plenty of online sources to look up if only for confirmation bias purposes.

    Lastly on Corbyn, I never wanted his name to appear on the leadership ballot paper but he was elected Leader and as a Party member I have no choice but to vote in elections for a Corbyn led Labour Party.

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  33. With all the PC and equal rights crap....Does that mean the menopause will become womenopause?

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