Social Items

TPQ

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

 

Pastords @ 14

 

A Morning Thought @ 2962

Anthony McIntyre  ☠ Today there will be two vigils, back to back at the same West Street location.


Drogheda Stands With Palestine will gather at 1200 which will be followed by a vigil in solidarity with the victims of last week's racist murder attempt on defenceless people a few hundred yards from where we gather.  Along with my daughter I plan to attend both. 

It has not gone unnoticed that the self proclaimed warriors for women chose not to confront the so called men of miliary age they incessantly fulminate against. Instead, they targeted women and children. Something of the Zionist about them. These people claim to be promoting the tradition of Irish republicanism but it seems if they are motivated by the national flag at all it is only for the purpose of being Irish drug dealers rather than British ones.

If there are foreign nationals coming to this country only to cause strife and inflict violence then the Garda arrest of a foreign suspect in Portlaoise on charges pertaining to intent to destroy mosques and IPAS centres is a positive step. We still await the query from the hatemongers about the vetting procedure undergone by this man of military age.

While the focus of the Drogheda Stands With Palestine vigil is always on the genocide Israel is carrying out in Gaza, the ripple effect is against all forms of hatred, racism and every attempt to place people in queues for the purpose of separating out the chosen people from the Untermensch.

This is what makes our weekly vigil symbolically and ideationally beneficial. We value our right to assemble in defence of the targets of racist hatred and in opposition to those who hate them. It is a right won by earlier generations of concerned citizens, both nationally and further afield, many of whom were battered into the ground by the cops, military or fascists eager to ensure that the voices from below never emerged to be heard. In this sense when we stand here, we do so on the shoulders of the giants who have trodden this path before.

In valuing the right to protest we should never take it for granted or assume it is a right that cannot be eroded or denied altogether. In Britain, the government led by the anti-human rights lawyer, Der Starmer, seems intent on smothering the right to assemble against atrocity. Armed with new draconian powers the Labour government hopes to suppress opposition to genocide. It claims that the powers are needed because protests against genocide are frightening the Jewish community. The fright effect, if any, is nowhere near as intense or nerve wrecking for UK Jews as it is for the Gazans who experience the horrific effects of the military hardware Der Starmer's government has provided throughout the genocide to Israel's murderous regime. Terrified Palestinian children dreading the bomb that will end their lives or maim them seem not to matter to Der Starmer. He has chosen people to promote and others to abandon.

The Guardian Columnist, Owen Jones, perhaps expressed it best:

In today’s upside-down world, here’s what is actually going on. Israel – a foreign state – is committing genocide. Its war crimes have led the international criminal court to issue arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister. Public opinion in the west has turned sharply against Israel’s violence. In Britain, a large majority of people believe Israel has likely committed war crimes. Most people would back a total ban on arms sales to the state, and support the arrest of Netanyahu.
Having long since lost the argument, Israel’s cheerleaders are now seizing on a vile antisemitic crime to try to silence a mass movement against a moral catastrophe. The British government are included in this. Ministers have failed to impose large-scale sanctions on Israel, and have allowed arms exports to continue. As the US author Ta-Nehisi Coates recently said of the Democrats, “if you can’t draw the line at genocide, you probably can’t draw the line at democracy”. The same applies to the Labour government.

People like ourselves who gather weekly to protest should remain vigilant against this creeping authoritarianism. Our instinct tells us that our own government, given half a chance, would implement an open borders policy that would welcome repressive tactics from abroad to be used on our streets against people of conscience.

So whether at one vigil or both in West Street today, appreciate the right to gather in protest while being be prepared to mobilise if politicians start suggesting a Great Replacement Theory that is real and not mere conspiracy fiction; one that would see our more lax right to assembly laws replaced with those of Der Starmer and his modern version of the Brown shirts. In the words of Owen Jones:

Our ancestors struggled, suffered and died to secure our freedoms. We will come to rue how casually we let them go.
⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Assemble Against Atrocity

Belfast Telegraph ★ Tom Hartley speaks to James McNaney, reflecting on his decades of research, tours of Belfast’s cemeteries and how the secrets that they hold help in telling its amazing story.


Tom Hartley has held many roles in his life: republican activist, political advisor, city councillor, Lord Mayor and, in recent decades, local historian and tour guide to Belfast’s cemeteries.

Entering his ninth decade, Tom decided to finish up with the last of these positions, giving his last tour of the Belfast City Cemetery to a packed crowd during Féile an Phobail last month.

Speaking a few days after that tour, on a warm afternoon in Cultúrann on the Falls Road, he explains that he’s relieved to finish a “long journey.”

“It had to come to an end”, he says, “it’s over now for me, that part of my life. Old age, bad feet: there’s some things you can’t avoid, but that’s okay.”

Guiding groups around the cemetery was certainly physical work. His final tour took over two and a half hours, during which time he walked around the whole of the large cemetery, up and down a hill, on a very hot summer’s day.

Tour Guide On Final Cemetery Walk

Church And State ★ Written by David Madison.

Once upon a time—a very long time ago—four guys who had written stories about Jesus submitted their works to the Bible Screening Committee. 

They each received a notice to be near the screening committee’s headquarters on a certain day. By unhappy coincidence, they all chose to wait at the same bar, about a block away. They really didn’t like each other, but managed to be polite as they waited for word from the BS Committee. They each got a text message on their phones at the same time: “Congratulations! Your story has been approved for inclusion in the New Testament we’re putting together.” Each author was about to gloat—until they realized that all four versions had been given the okay, and even worse than that: the BS Committee was planning to print the four versions of the Jesus story together. They all knew that would be a disaster. At least there was potential for disaster. They had no clue that many centuries later, when lay people finally had access to the New Testament, reading the gospels carefully—comparing them carefully—would not become a habit.

Which Gospel Is the Worst Of The Four?

Right Wing Watch 👀 Written by Peter Montgomery,


Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts released a remarkable video Thursday defending Tucker Carlson’s friendly two-hour interview with far-right personality Nick Fuentes.

Carlson has been drawing some harsh criticism from right-wing political figures for platforming Fuentes, who has declared his love for Adolf Hitler and told Carlson that he has always been an admirer of Josef Stalin. Fuentes responded to those critics with an antisemitic rant saying his Jewish critics should “get the fuck out of America and go to Israel.” That makes Robertson’s decision to ride to Carlson’s rescue even more notable.

Fuentes is using his recent tour of right-wing podcasts to simultaneously downplay his bigotry and anti-democratic extremism while establishing that his racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and Christian nationalist fascism deserve a place at the conservative movement’s table.

Carlson’s interview was Fuentes’s biggest success in that effort – until Roberts gave it the endorsement of the enormously influential Heritage Foundation. No wonder Fuentes is grateful.

“I disagree with, and even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer, either,” Roberts said in his video.

Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts 🪶 Conservatives Shouldn’t Cancel Nick Fuentes

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

 

Pastords @ 13

 

A Morning Thought @ 2961

Cam Ogie ✍ By June 2025, Israel had already been at war in Gaza for months. 

Facing international outrage over civilian casualties, a landmark International Court of Justice ruling found a plausible risk of genocide and ordered restraint. Yet, instead of scaling back, the Israeli government chose to expand the battlefield.

In mid-June, Israeli aircraft struck deep inside Iran, hitting nuclear and military facilities hundreds of kilometres from its own borders. Iran had not attacked Israel. There was no UN mandate, no claim of an imminent threat—only a self-proclaimed “pre-emptive defence.” The strikes violated the clearest rule in the UN Charter: states may not use force against the territorial integrity of another state except in self-defence.

Rather than condemning the action, Israel’s Western allies moved to protect and, in some cases, participate in it. France confirmed that its Rafale jets shot down Iranian drones heading toward Israel during Tehran’s retaliation. The United States went further still, launching its own bombing raids on Iranian nuclear sites, saying they were meant to “degrade Iran’s capacity” to build a weapon. Britain, while insisting it took no direct role, deployed fighter jets and refuelling tankers to the region and contributed surveillance data through allied command centres.

Each of these moves may have been framed as “defensive,” but together they formed a shield around an illegal war of aggression.

A Double Standard Laid Bare

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Western leaders rightly invoked sovereignty, proportionality, and the UN Charter. When Israel violated those same principles, the same capitals fell silent—or worse, lent their power to the aggressor.

This is not a matter of nuance or realpolitik; it is a collapse of credibility. Law cannot be selective without becoming meaningless. The message to much of the world is now unmistakable: rules are for enemies; impunity is for friends. 

The Global South’s Reaction

The outrage has been especially strong across the Global South — the broad coalition of nations in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East that were once colonized or marginalized by Western powers. These states, from South Africa and Brazil to Indonesia, Egypt, and Iran’s regional neighbours, see the June 2025 events as yet another example of Western hypocrisy.

Governments in the BRICS bloc — which now includes countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — issued coordinated statements condemning Israel’s actions and urging respect for Iran’s sovereignty. South Africa, already leading the genocide case against Israel at the ICJ, accused the West of “abetting illegality while preaching democracy.” In the African Union, leaders argued that the same powers demanding accountability for Russia’s actions in Ukraine were now violating the UN Charter themselves.

For the Global South, this double standard isn’t an abstraction — it confirms decades of suspicion that international law is enforced selectively, protecting Western allies while punishing everyone else. The result is a widening moral and diplomatic gulf between the West and much of the developing world — one that no amount of rhetoric about “shared values” can close.

Gaza and the Moral Void

The hypocrisy is amplified by timing. The June 2025 attacks unfolded while Gaza remained under siege and humanitarian agencies warned of famine and epidemic. Western states that had pledged “never again” to mass atrocity continued arming, funding, and now militarily assisting a government accused at The Hague of possible genocide.

Acting on Israel’s behalf under these circumstances isn’t just geopolitics—it is moral bankruptcy. It tells the world that democratic ideals can be suspended when the violator is an ally, and that international law bends to power.

Why This Matters Beyond the Middle East

The erosion of principle is contagious. If the West can reinterpret international law to excuse its own allies, why should any other state respect those same norms? Every missile fired “in support of Israel” weakens the global prohibition on aggression that has, however imperfectly, restrained wars since 1945.

It also corrodes the very foundation of Western diplomacy: the claim to stand for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. One cannot preach those values while enabling their destruction in Gaza and Tehran.

Conclusion

Israel’s unprovoked strikes on Iran took place even as Israel faced global condemnation for its ongoing assault on Gaza.  The subsequent involvement of the United States, France and the United Kingdom acting on behalf of a state accused of genocide while bombing another sovereign nation undermines every principle of legality, morality, and ethics that Western powers claim to defend. By providing offensive strikes, drone interceptions and logistical backing, these Western allies blurred the line between defence and complicity. This alignment exposes the hollowness of Western claims to uphold international law and human rights.  Words like democracy and human rights ring hollow. They are slogans mouthed by governments that have traded principle for alliance, and law for convenience.

And the rest of the world — the Global South in particular — has stopped listening.


⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast. 

The West’s Moral Unravelling 🪶 Israel’s Unprovoked Strike On Iran And The Death Of Credibility

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

Maryam Namazie ✊ My action against the far-Right protest in London.


Maryam Namazie is a political activist, campaigner and blogger

National Flags Divide, Our Future Is Shared

Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)