Category: USA

AMERICAN FOOTBALL INVASION MEETS PALESTINE SOLIDARITY RESISTANCE

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Ireland, Massacres, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, USA, Zionism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

For a few days it has seemed a little like an invasion around Dublin city centre by Vikings and Steelers. Not Scandinavians as of old with some others1 but fans of two competing teams of the American National Football League.

One of the banners at the Drumcondra/ Clonliffe junction around 2.45pm. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

There is little social following for the game called ‘American Football’ in Ireland, where we have a massive following for Gaelic football and soccer through their respective associations, the Gaelic Athletic Association and the League of Ireland (the latter in particular much underfunded).

Years ago, in his capacity as Minister of Arts at the time, Michael D. Higgins, presiding at an event, criticised what he called “US imperialist cultural penetration” of Europe. This has been ongoing for decades mainly through cultural products of films and soap operas, cartoon films and comics.

Prior to that, we were subjected mainly to British cultural products in magazines, comics, films and soap operas. And of course the Irish state only set up its own TV broadcaster in the 1960s.

For years these products have been impacting on our consciousness and subconsciousness, including on some of our speech patterns in English. But attempts to promote NFL have failed; however, never before has such a big effort been made and with such financial backing.

The small group at the Drumcondra/ Dorset St junction and Canal/ Railway bridge as I approached it just after 1pm. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

For this one game, the Irish Government has awarded just short of 10 million euro in funding – i.e. one third of their funding for the entire sports sector in Ireland last year. While of course this is being promoted as a revenue opportunity for business, there are stronger reasons.

The NFL is a strong supporter of the imperialist US military and the US itself shows signs of gearing up for another war – against whom is unclear but Venezuela, Iran or China are likely targets. In addition, the US is the main supplier of arms and political backing to Israel.

One of the banners at the Drumcondra/ Clonliffe junction around 2.45pm. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

And where does the Irish ruling class want us? Why, with the USA of course! No more of this skulking around! Make Shannon officially a US military airport, have the RAF and UK Navy officially patrolling our seas and airspace, where arms for Israel can also fly through officially!

The often discussed ‘Triple Lock’ is all that appears to be holding back the Irish ruling class from dumping the state’s tattered neutrality2 — and they are working on that. But meanwhile, they seek to orientate us towards the leader of the western imperialist pack – through US sport.

The NFL will be doing their part, apparently going to make sure every child in the Irish school system will receive an NFL pack. Hey! USA! Leave our kids alone!

This weekend, the Irish Gombeen3 ruling class, through their State, supplied extra police to keep the US visitors safe around the city and on Saturday around Croke Park, while police helicopters kept eyes in the skies. And there was extra Garda tolerance also for UStater illegal street-drinking.4

At the Clonliffe/ Drumcondra Road junction at 1.00pm, announced rallying time. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

THE PROTESTERS

Many – including I – only learned on Saturday of the protest called by the IPSC5-allied Sports for Palestine campaign group against the NFL game programmed for Croke Park on Sunday between the Vikings and Steelers teams. A call-out to attend with flags and placards.

That seems a bit unfriendly towards visitors, sports enthusiasts, right? Fans just happy to support their teams and visit lovely Ireland at the same time, right?

Apart from the considerations of imperialism and war-orientation listed earlier, the USA is openly backing politically and supplying militarily a daily genocide against Palestinians. NFL is a significant cultural representation of the US and as such must be prepared to suffer for it.

Small group of protesters further down Clonliffe Road at junction of road leading up to Croke Park entrance, approached by an NFL fan (Steelers?) who wants his photograph taken with them. (Photo source: Participant)

While most of the Palestine solidarity protesters, maybe 60 at its highest point congregated at the junction of Clonliffe and Drumcondra roads, a small group of four took up position at the road leading to the Croke Park Stadium entrance and stood there with Palestine flags.

I headed for the railway and canal bridge at the Dorset Street junction, where I could see a Palestinian national flag and a placard calling to “Free America from AIPAC control.”6 On the way I passed NFL merchandise sales and young women handing out free canned energy drinks.

Greeting the other two at the Bridge, I extended my flagpole bearing the Starry Plough flag and took up station with them. Some passing traffic beeped our flags in solidarity.7 My standard litany to the passing NFL fans was: “Shame on the USA, supporting genocide! Shame, shame, shame!”

A comrade near me denounced “The United States of Israel”, alternating with attacking US responsibility for and complicity with genocide, while the other shouted about how wrong it is to be killing children. After awhile another comrade joined us but we never had more than four there.

Two of the Special Branch of the Gardaí, ‘spotting’ for the State. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

REACTIONS OF NFL FANS

The reactions of the passing fans to what we were saying varied considerably.

By far the majority of them attempted to ignore us while some looked at us with seeming curiosity but no other reaction. Some seemed embarrassed, covering the feeling with a smile. A small minority said they agreed with us, some even saying they were ashamed of the USA.

A tinier minority still exhibited hostility and outrage towards us, as in waving us away or giving the hand gesture for “blah, blah” (which a few verbalised also). A few laughed but that was their mistake, as I then shouted “Laughing about genocide? LAUGHING about GENOCIDE!”

One big man insulted us in an Irish accent but received as good from us, while an NFL fan who spoke in support of ‘Israel’ wilted under a barrage of “Genocider!” shouts. Another who mentioned “the hostages” was asked whether he was referring to “the 9,000 Palestinian prisoners?”8

Yet another accused us of generalising but received a response about arming Israel, to which he responded that we (Ireland, presumably) are feeding Israel. Another still wanted to avoid responsibility by saying that he’s “a Democrat” but was asked what that had to do with anything.

One other said he was from Belfast and yet another from England but the latter in particular got nowhere with that, considering Starmer’s support for the Zionazis. An older US man supported by two women claimed that we were being fooled by Hamas propaganda – there is no genocide!!!

It seems likely that those UStaters who encountered protesters and who are already opposed to what the US leadership is doing will return home at least a little strengthened in their position but also with some stories to tell people there about how the US is being viewed in a part of Europe.

Those who are unsure about what they think will probably doubt the leaders of the USA and dominant rhetoric even more. Some will be mostly unaffected and some may even harden their hostility to all critics of the USA. On the whole, I think the effects will be of a positive nature.

But even if so, of course nothing we did will be stopping the genocide for even one minute. Only states have the power to do that and were the Irish Government to ban all imports from ‘Israel’ outright, that would have a huge and immediate impact on the genocider’s economy.9

Another of the banners at the Drumcondra/ Clonliffe junction around 2.45pm. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Sunday’s was a useful but minor action in the propaganda part of the liberation war – Palestinian national liberation, of course but also part of our own. However it could have had much greater visual impact. Drumcondra Road is on a much-travelled road including for Airport traffic.

The road also carries bus public transport routes from and to various Dublin destinations. There are three possible routes off it for access to Croke Park. We only covered two, one with a minimum presence. The size of the concentration at Clonliffe junction was understandable but unnecessary.

The source of much of this weakness appears to be the very late call-out to the protest – only the day prior for many, possibly most. Yet the NFL game must have been planned for many months.

end.

Note: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will be notified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish.

Footnotes

Sources & Useful Links:

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2025/0928/1535663-is-it-good-economics-to-pay-10-million-for-an-nfl-match

https://www.gameoverisrael.com/en

https://www.facebook.com/IrishSportForPalestine/

1Ireland was raided by Vikings from Scandinavia from 795 CE, they later establishing settlements in Dublin and along the south-east coast, also along the Shannon river and in Cork. Viking power in Ireland was broken by the 1040 CE victory of Brian Boru’s coalition (which included some Vikings, probably Norse) over the Leinster-Dublin coalition of mostly Dublin Danes, Leinster Irish and Viking mercenaries from Manx and Orkneys. The battle lasted 12 hours not far from the Croke Park stadium and part of the Viking mercenaries were caught and killed on their retreat to their ships nearby.

2Three requirements to be met before the Irish Government can send a military mission consisting of more than 12 personnel from Ireland to any part of the world.

3A pejorative term from the Irish language Gaimbín equivalent in meaning to ‘carpet-bagger’, huckster, etc. applied to the Irish neo-colonial (and neo-liberal) capitalist ruling class.

4City regulations forbid drinking of alcohol in any public place.

5Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

6The mostly Christian Zionist alliance that plays a heavy financial role in promotion of candidates for election in the USA.

7Yet in one hour outside the US Embassy or standing at Annesley Bridge the normal count of solidarity car-horn sounds would be in the fifties – among the tide of NFL fans, we just weren’t that visible to approaching traffic.

8There may be more but of those, around a third are now held under ‘administrative detention’ orders, without even the farce of an Israeli military court trial.

9The Irish state, at $3,263.345m is the second-biggest single importer of Israeli goods with only the USA exceeding it. See https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/22/which-countries-trade-the-most-with-israel-and-what-do-they-buy-and-sell

“WHEN MY COUNTRY TAKES ITS PLACE AMONG THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH”

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, History, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Prisoners, Song, Torture, Uncategorized, USALeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Dublin Political History Tours Facebook page reminds us of the 20th September anniversary of the public execution on of “Bold Robert Emmet, the darling of Erin”, leader of the unsuccessful Republican insurrection in Dublin on 23rd July 1803.

Coloured drawing: The executioner holds up Robert Emmet’s head to the crowd, sections of which demonstrate their repugnance of the act and are repressed English soldiers on horseback. (Sourced: Internet)

I reproduce the Dublin Political History Tours text (reformatted for R. Breeze):

On Saturday we passed by the anniversary of the execution by the English occupation forces of Robert Emmet, United Irishman. Emmet had been condemned to death for planning an insurrection for Irish self-determination which the English Occupation called ‘treason’.

Leaving behind in Kilmainham Gaol his comrade Anne Devlin, who had endured torture and death of family members without giving the authorities any information, Emmet was taken to the front of St. Catherine’s Church.2

(This building is) on Thomas Street in Dublin’s Liberties area on the west side of the city centre. The site chosen was sending a message to the populace of the area that had nationalist and republican sympathies.

There, in front of a huge crowd and many soldiers, Emmet was hanged and then beheaded, the executioner holding up the dripping head to the crowd. His body was later returned to the Gaol before being later buried in Bully’s Acres in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.

Emmet’s corpse was later disinterred in secret and reburied elsewhere by friends or family and, despite a number of sites being speculated, its current location is unknown.

There is a monument to the execution inside the grounds of the St. Catherine’s building and a stone plaque on the wall outside it.

The monument inside the ground at the front of St. Catherine’s Church, Thomas Street, Dublin. (Source: Kilmainham Tales)

Robert Emmet was very popular in Ireland at the time and his memory is still. A statue in his honour stands in Dublin’s Stephens Green, a replica of another two at locations in the United States.

Anne Devlin endured three years in Kilmainham Gaol and according to Richard Madden (1798 – 5 February 1886), chronicler of the United Irishmen who sought her out, was followed everywhere in public by police.

(who were) observing anyone who she spoke to, as a result of which many were afraid to speak to her. Her body lies in Glasnevin Cemetery.

“Bold Robert Emmet” is a traditional ballad in the martyr’s honour and “Anne Devlin” also has a much more recent song in hers by Pete St.John.

(quoted passages end)

In the 1916 Proclamation of Independence, “the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland” is proclaimed and that “six times in the past 300 years they have asserted it in arms”, probably referring to insurrections of 1641, 1689, 1798, 1803, 1848 and 1867.3

Historians have mostly dismissed the 1803 uprising as never likely to succeed but a minority have rated the preparations highly, including the innovations of signal rockets and folding pike handle for concealed personal carrying.

RH Madden, the first historian of the United Irishmen was of the opinion that the insurrection attempt was engineered by the English Occupation’s administration in Dublin Castle in order to justify continued repression of Irish republicanism and to eliminate some leaders.

Generally historians have tended not to give much credence to Madden on that issue but it is certain that the Occupation had a network of spies in operation in Ireland and that some had penetrated Emmet’s conspiracy.

Emmet on the scaffold with St. Catherine’s Church behind, the executioner beside him, the crowd in the street and many English soldiers, on foot and on horseback. The illustration was employed by Dublin Political History Tours but easily sourced on the Internet.

However it is not for the manner of the 1803 insurrection that Emmett has been fondly remembered in Ireland to this day 123 years later – and abroad for decades after his death4 – but for the calm manner in which he faced his enemies, including his executioner and for his eloquence at his trial.

Past insurrections contain lessons for us today and a serious evaluation should be attempted, perhaps with a number of submissions from historians of different opinions on the matter, to deal with questions around Emmet’s return from France and the planning of the insurrection in Ireland,.

For us today however, whether Republicans or more generally anti-colonialists and anti-imperialists, it is also necessary to revere the memory of revolutionary action for a democratic Irish Republican and to uphold his and Anne Devlin’s spirit of defiance in resistance.

End.

Note: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will be notified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish.

Statue monument of Robert Emmet in Washington DC, a copy of which stands in St. Stephens Green, looking across the road to his erstwhile home and other copies stand in Emmetsburg, Iowa and Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California. Those in the USA were all cast by the artist Jerome Connor between 1916 and 1919. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Statue monument in Rathfarnham dedicated to Anne Devlin from Wicklow, a member of the United Irishmen conspiracy, tortured and jailed but never gave her captors any information. Sculptor: Clodagh Emoe (Gracies, Maria, for bringing this to my attention).

FOOTNOTES

1From Emmet’s famous speech from the dock of the courthouse in Green Street that not until then should his epitaph be written. I have no doubt that Emmet meant “nation-states of the world” because Ireland was in his time more than what we would understand today from the vague term of “country” – it was clearly, though under foreign occupation, already a nation with its own unique culture and a long history. She has yet to take that place to which Emmet referred and aspired for her.

2Note that was the Anglican St. Catherine’s Church, as a Catholic St. Catherine’s is also located not far away on Meath St. The Anglican church was closed in the 1960s but later reopened and reconsecrated as an Anglican Church. The interior seems very untypical of Anglican churches. Emmet was raised in the Anglican faith.

3Believed to refer to, in sequence: the Irish and Norman Irish clans in the Confederation’s uprising, the Williamite War’s, United Irishmen’s, Robert Emmets’, Young Irelanders’, the Fenians’. Coincidentally, the large monument to uprisings in Ireland erected by the National Graves Association in the St. Paul’s section of Glasnevin Cemetery also includes only six dates but they are of Republican risings only, beginning with 1798 and ending with 1916.

4I read somewhere that even in England Radicals would read Emmet’s speech as a high point of their events including formal dinners.

SOURCES

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php

The Palestine Struggle in Cartoons – April/ May

On By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon, Current Affairs Comment, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Massacres, NATO, Palestine, Political Analysis, USA, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

Like many others through much of the genocidal attack on Gaza since October last 2022, I’ve been attending pickets, demonstrations and vigils organised by others. I’ve also written some reports on those events and analyses of the solidarity movement.

But in addition, I’ve been drawing cartoon comments in a sketch book, most unpublished and I thought I would publish a selection here.


One of the poorest states in the world, Ansarallah is the only one to uphold its duty to prevent genocide, which it does by putting heavy pressure on the Zionist state’s economy through maritime blockade. For this, the UK and USA rain missiles and bombs down upon it. But it does not yield.
This one is at least as much placard as it is cartoon but I never got around to making the placard.
Ansarallah escalates to attack the ‘Israeli’ state directly, then again in response to Zionist airforce bombing of Yemen.
The USA Navy sends two aircraft carriers to assist the genocidal state by attacking Yemen. Ansarallah attacks the US Navy, forcing the retreat first of one aircraft carrier followed by capitulation of the US which offers Ansarallah to end attacks on Yemen if they end attacks on US Navy. The deal makes no provision for defence of the Zionist state and is accepted by Ansarallah.
Facing some of the most heavily armed forces in the world but somehow, it’s always the national liberation forces that must disarm. For the sake of peace, of course.
The physical war against the Palestinians by the Zionist State was armed by a number of western imperialist states but also ideologically by the whole western media. In the face of real and ongoing genocide the WMM reported propaganda, repeated lies and framed its reports in the Zionists’ terms of reference – while courageous journalists reporting from the actual killing grounds were picked off by the IOF.
The western imperialists promote the two-states solution (sic) and a Palestine colony of Israel as a ‘Palestinian State’. This would be run by Zionist proxies such as the Palestinian Authority with its Fatah boss, Mahmoud Abbas, who recently publicly insulted the national resistance fighters of Hamas, calling them ‘sons of dogs’.

A LOAD OF ROWLOCKS ABOUT NO SHAMROCKS

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Ireland, irish history, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, USA, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Both Sinn Féin party leaders, Michelle O’Neill (First Minister of the British colony) and Mary-Lou Mac Donald, TD and party President, have publicly declared that they will not attend the White House on St. Patrick’s Day this year.

What made Michelle O’Neill decide not to to go to the White House shamrock fest, she tells us, were President Trump’s words about turning Gaza into a desirable beach-front property development once the Palestinians had been removed. This, she told us, was a question of principle.

“The decision not to travel to the White House has not been taken lightly, but it is taken conscious of the responsibility each of us as individuals have to call out injustice. We are all heartbroken as we witness the suffering of the Palestinian people and the recent comments of the US President around the mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from Gaza, something I cannot ignore.1

“… At moments like this, whenever our grandchildren ask us what do we do, whenever the Palestinian people were suffering in the way in which they are, I want to be able to say that I stood on the side of humanity so this decision for me is very much the position of principle and I think it’s the right thing to do.”2

In January, Trump made those statements about the intention of ethnically cleansing Gaza of its population and the relocation of Gazans to Jordan and Egypt (the regimes of both have clearly stated their opposition to such plans) for the creation of “a Middle Eastern Riviera”.3

Prior to that, Joe Biden’s US Presidency was not only backing Israel’s accelerated genocide for 15 months financially and politically but supplying the IOF with the very weapons to carry out that genocide. Without SF feeling the need to break with him. But a few words from Trump …!

According to Brown University’s “Costs of War” project, the U.S. has spent at least 17.9 billion dollars in military assistance to Israel since October 7 2023, which is more than U.S. military assistance to Israel in any year since the U.S. began to assist Israel militarily. 4

And it vetoed a ceasefire resolution three times at the UN Security Council, against the will of a majority of member states. 5

In mid-March 2023 when O’Neill and MacDonald attended the White House shamrock fest, in spite of many calls not to go, including that of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Biden had been feeding the IOF’s accelerated genocide for over five months.

O’Neill’s reason for her intention not to attend this year (if indeed she were invited)6 clearly had nothing to do with opposition to genocide, solidarity with the Palestinian people, common humanity nor anything of the sort and we must look elsewhere to explore her possible motivation.

Mary-Lou Mac Donald also indicated she wouldn’t be going to browse the blood-soaked shamrock, including an acknowledgement of the degree of US imperialist penetration of the Irish state’s economy:

“I have followed with growing concern what is happening on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank and like many other Irish people have listened in horror to calls from the President of the United States for the mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes and the permanent seizure of Palestinian land. Such an approach is a fundamental breach of international law, is deeply destabilising in the Middle East and a dangerous departure from the UN position of peace and security for Palestine and Israel and the right of Palestinians to self determination.

“… The US is a valued friend to Ireland.  Their work in helping to achieve the Good Friday Agreement stands as a clear example of successful U.S. foreign policy. They are an important partner for peace and play a strong role in Ireland’s economy.7

For genuine anti-imperialists, Irish Republicans and socialists, the correct attitude is clear. Indeed it should be so for any democratic people or even for people just opposed to genocide.

‘Israel’ is only able to commit genocide through the assistance of US Imperialism and therefore we should endeavour to isolate any of its governmental expressions and most of all any that lay claim to our special support, on one of our national days and with one of our national symbols.

The kind of action in the USA real Palestine supporters should be backing instead of backing the ruling class support for the Zionist genocide: Palestine Action activists taking action against Elbit arms manufacturer in Cambridge, Massachusetts USA. (Photo sourced: Internet)

“CAN’T WIN”?

There may well be a ‘damned if we do, damned if we don’t’ response from the SF faithful to the type of criticism in this article. They won’t actually analyse the reasons upon which the criticisms are based – no, of course not.

This party likes to claim credit for events that seem favourable, dodge criticism over errors or just nasty actions while at the same time whingeing that they can never win, that they will be criticised whatever they do, an eternal victim attitude from a party aspiring to government rule.

So, could SF have done anything in this regard of which their critics would have approved? Yes, they could. They could have admitted their error of last year, apologised for it and called for a St. Patrick’s Day White House boycott at least until the USA stops supporting genocide.

No need to worry about my sanity, they won’t, of course nor did I imagine for one minute that they would.

IMPERIALISM AND SF SUPPORT

The USA is a world imperialist power and still the one dominating the world, though it is under serious challenge and its days appear numbered. The ruling class of the USA, a European settler state, practised genocide and exploitation on the indigenous people and on imported slaves.

It also ruthlessly exploited the immigrant working class and its descendants, along with the emancipated slaves. It fought attempts to organise labour and legal trade unions with billy clubs, pistols, machine guns, arson, laws and regulations, jail and the hangman’s noose.

The fact that a section of the immigrant Irish in the US support Sinn Féin is in part due to the socially conservative background of both groups of people and also to SF’s never seriously challenging the imperialist nature of the USA.

And how does this obeisance supposedly benefit Ireland? Will the US support an Irish revolution against British colonial occupation? It refused to do so even at the time of its greatest hostility with the British, when the latter actively supported the Confederate states in the Civil War.8

No, for the major imperialists of the US, the lesser imperialists of the UK are occasional competition but much more fundamentally, allies and it is not going to undermine its fundamental external power base.

Mary-Lou Mac Donald stated very clearly that Mícheál Martin should attend the shamrock fest. What was that about? Possibly she was indicating to Ireland’s Tánaiste (Prime Minister), that she would not be taking political advantage of his attendance at the White House to denounce him.

But she was also clearly indicating that the Sinn Féin leadership are ‘responsible’ potential representatives of an imperialist-dependent Gombeen ruling class, who understand how there are times to put aside any principle in order to attend at the Court of King US Imperialism.9

Through her statement Mary-Lou MacDonald represented her party as a safe pair of hands to run the State for the Gombeen class in the future.

Should the current representatives of the Irish neo-colonial ruling class be invited, they will of course attend, bearing the shamrock tribute, knowing that they are safe at least from the criticism of SF, the largest opposition party in Leinster House (the parliament of the Irish State).

US and Zionist military flights can continue to stop over at Shannon and otherwise fly through Irish airspace. On the international stage, the Irish State will continue to align itself with the western imperialist bloc and continue to open its markets, resources and networks to imperialist plunder.

If O’Neill does indeed say what she claimed she would to her grandchildren about her reasons for not going, she will be lying to them. But then, at least the grandchildren will come to know they were not alone – the party’s supporters and the whole country were being lied to also.

If there was anything other than rank opportunism behind the statements of the SF (Stoop Further) party leaders, such as solidarity, it certainly wasn’t with the Palestinians; solidarity with EU imperialist elites and with the genocidal Democratic Party elite, perhaps.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/michelle-oneill-boycott-white-house-31050982

2https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy870w30q6qo

3https://www.reuters.com/world/palestinians-have-no-alternative-leaving-gaza-trump-says-2025-02-04/

4https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/israel-is-stepping-up-its-military-aggression-across-the-region-but-is-it-out-of-strength-or-weakness/

5Ibid.

6There is every likelihood that she would not have been; SF is in government only in a colony of the UK and furthermore in the USA is strongly connected to Trump’s political rivals, the Democratic Party – and he is not known for kindness towards his political enemies.

7https://vote.sinnfein.ie/sinn-fein-leaders-announce-they-will-not-attend-white-house-events-this-year/

8The USA under General Ulysses Grant, who was of part Irish descent, arrested Fenians and in 1866 prevented the support forces from crossing the St. Lawrence River to support the advance invasion forces which had emerged victorious from two engagements against British forces in Canada.

9And O’Neill displayed her responsible credentials in managing the colonial occupation also, stating that she would not criticise the colony’s Second Minister, Unionist Emma Little-Pengelly, if she were to attend.

LUIGI MANGIONE, UNDERSTANDING HIS POPULARITY

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Police Violence, Political Analysis, USALeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 30 December

(Reading time: 6 mins.)
NB: Edited by RB from original article for formatting purposes

Luigi Mangione’s killing of Brian Thompson has resulted in a plethora of memes on Facebook celebrating to some degree the demise of the unlamented CEO.

Some of them are very funny, full of wit, others express outrage at the nature of the US health system and others openly call for more such killings and Facebook has not suppressed them, which says a lot.

Facebook is run and owned by a right-wing extremist, Mark Zuckerberg. But he is no idiot and probably hopes to ride out this particular storm, rather than suppress it. But he is mistaken as Mangione has struck a nerve. This is not going away.

Some so-called progressives have also sought to soften the impact of Mangione’s actions.

There are of course criticisms from the Left about how such actions don’t solve problems, the CEO is replaced and the machinery rolls on, and these are valid, but there are others who seek to wrest any agency or legitimacy from him.

Munya Chawawa, the British comedian and rapper released a musical video questioning how he was treated by the Police and saying he would have got different treatment if he were black.[1] 

Yes, generally the cops are quick to kill blacks, especially those they think have actually killed someone, though they did in fact arrest the black DC Snipers (also known as the Beltway Snipers) who had murdered ten innocent civilians.[2] 

In fact, it is not that US cops don’t kill whites, they do, it is just that not at the same rate as blacks. Half of those killed by US cops are white, but blacks are killed at more than double the rate of whites despite making up only 14% of the population.[3] 

And yes, he is handsome and it helps, and again the memes have gone into overdrive. His arrest and mugshots have been compared to even scenes from one of the innumerable Superman films. Though I prefer the Che Guevara comparison.

He is no Che, as Che set out to overthrow a state and had a programme for change and is the main person behind the remarkable success story that still is, despite everything, the Cuban health system, but the striking mugshot images do help.

Photos (internet) Mugshot of Luigi Mangione and bottom Che Guevara mugshot in Mexican jail.

However, Chawawa missed the point altogether and questioning police violence is not something you would automatilaccly associate him with.

But the idea that the cops act with benevolence towards those who shoot CEOs if they are white is nothing short of identitarian rubbish. He is not the only one though.

There are many others from all sorts of liberal backgrounds who recoil in horror that someone might lash out, but shrug their shoulders every day when people die having been refused medical care.

Most people in the US have understood and identify with Mangione’s actions, not out of some idea that he might change the system, but out of their own frustration at how the system works. The plethora of memes on Facebook bears testament to this fact.

The killing of the CEO is extremely popular regardless of how effective a strategy it is.

Another comedian, this time from the US Josh Johnson, understood something that many liberals and chic rappers like Chawawa could not is that Mangione struck a chord.

Though Johnson unlike Chawawa is from the US and understands the US healthcare system. He mentioned the fact that many CEOs are eliminating their Linkedin accounts and that the media went into overdrive on how devastating it all was.

“I’m not gonna lie, this is how you can tell the news is owned by billionaires because the news was like, uh, ‘this devastating, terrifying, harrowing attack in New York’, and I’m not saying… look a murder did take place… I’m not saying it couldn’t have been listed as those things, I’m just saying ‘you’re the news!’ 

You play horrific stuff all the time. You’re the same news that when those pagers were going off in the Middle East, exploding, you were like ‘check this out!’”[4]

The same media pundits who were horrified, express no such horror as Israel carries out its genocide, they don’t even question it and yet we are expected to take their statements on Thompson and the sanctity of life at face value.

Johnson then made a point about the system and how it didn’t care about anything other than money, not even about Brian Thompson. The meeting Brian Thompson was going to when he was shot went ahead as planned, and on time.

Capitalism doesn’t miss a heartbeat when there is money at stake. All the fake outpouring of grief from the corporate world and the media is to be measured against that fact. Nothing stopped their ruthless pursuit of profit, not even the killing of one of their own.

It has brought to mind the film John Q starring Denzel Washington. It is a bit late to review a film some 22 years after its release, but it is more relevant now than when it was released.

The film deals with the father of a child who is taken to hospital only to find that the surgeons can’t operate on him as his insurance doesn’t cover what is needed.

It also turns out that the child’s condition could have been detected earlier, but the US health system missed it. Never was the film John Q so relevant. In his manifesto, he could just have said, Do you want to know why? Watch John Q. That would have been enough.

Films don’t exist in a void. When you see lots of films where the government is corrupt, or the CIA and FBI is in cahoots with big business, it indicates that a lot of people accept the basic premise of the film.

The same goes for dramas like John Q which was the highest grossing film for the President’s Day weekend release and took a total of US $71 million in the US and US $ 102.2 million world-wide.

Though it was not based on the real incident, in Canada (not the US), where Henry Masuka took the ER staff hostage in 1999 demanding immediate treatment for his son and was later killed by the cops exiting from the hospital, carrying an unloaded pellet gun.

In the film most of the public are sympathetic to John Q as are most sympathetic to Luigi Mangione in real life. The difference of course is that John Q managed to force them to operate on his son, making one small change at an individual level.

Mangione has made no changes at all, but he has reignited a debate on the issue and once again put not only the nature of the health system in the spotlight, but also the police and judicial system.

With various social media posts pointing out the huge effort put into finding him as opposed to arresting the billionaires who raped underage girls on Epstein’s island.

One of capitalism’s greatest successes in the late 20th and early 21st century is not how high the Dow Jones Index is at, or any of the other roulette tables known as stock exchanges.

Rather it isthat it has destroyed many collective organisations, co-opted others or through social partnership brought on board to one degree or another all the potential opposition movements and organisations.

Trade unions frequently fall into all three categories, social and environmental movements also and of course the huge deluge of NGOs that abound in all areas of social and economic life.

The organisations a Luigi Mangione type figure would have turned to decades ago are now part of the problem, implementing government policy, refusing to challenge the state as their salaries depend on government largesse and patronage and making sure their “clients” i.e. the poor, don’t step outside of the structures.

So, it is no surprise that Mangione would lash out the way he did, nor is it a surprise that he is so popular. The success of capitalism in convincing people there is no possibility of organised opposition is such that individual acts go viral.

Those liberals who wail against his actions are the same ones who make sure there is no collective response.

What is needed is not so much more killings but more people with Mangione’s resolve organising to brush not only the Thompsons of the world aside but also the co-opted organisations paid to keep them in check.

It is as Leon Trotsky once said “Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a manoeuvre, a blow with an agreement.”[5] 

More relevant to Mangione is the killing of a Nazi diplomat in Paris by Herschel Grynszpan,[6] whose actions were used by the Nazis as a pretext for Kristallnacht.

Trotsky commented “A single isolated hero cannot replace the masses. But we understand only too clearly the inevitability of such convulsive acts of despair and vengeance. All our emotions, all our sympathies are with the self-sacrificing avengers…”[7] 

So let us wish Mangione well in his trial.

End.
NB: For more articles by Gearóid see https://gearoidloingsigh.substack.com
NOTES

[1] See https://www.instagram.com/munyachawawa/reel/DDwz9k5I78i/

[2] Washington Post (01/10/2022) D.C. sniper attacks: A timeline of the violence and victims https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/10/01/timeline-dc-sniper-attacks/

[3] Washington Post (18/12/2024) Police shootings database 2015-2024 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/

[4] See

[5] Leon Trotsky (1932) What Next? Part III. https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1932-ger/next03.htm

[6] Jacobin (09/11/2021) The Boy Who Shot a Nazi: An Interview with Joseph Matthews. https://jacobin.com/2021/11/herschel-grynszpan-kristallnacht-jewish-nazi-germany-joseph-matthews-interview

[7] Leon Trotsky (1939) For Grynszpan. https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/xx/grnszpan.htm

The Public Health of a Nation and a Private Vengeance

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Political Analysis, Public Health, social commentary, USALeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 10 December 2024

(Reading time: 6 mins.)
NB: Edited by RB from original article for formatting purposes

The murder of Brian Thompson the CEO of United Healthcare has sent shock waves throughout the US, if the media are to be believed.

There is consternation in some quarters that the motive for the murder may be that he was the CEO of a health insurance company.

United Healthcare logo and late CEO Brian Thompson (Photo sourced: Internet)

This was evidenced by the message left behind of Delay, Defend, Depose on the shell casings, a reference to the tactics employed by insurance companies so as not to pay out on medical claims.

The right-wing media are understandably concerned that it is not a one-off and that others may take similar action against high-ranking insurance employees.

Some have even used the occasion to question, to a degree, the US private health care system, a system the Irish one is a pale copy of but intent on emulating as much as possible.

The company Thompson headed up is worth around US $550 billion, which is no small change. In the first nine months of 2024 it paid out US $9.6 billion to shareholders on total revenues of US $100.8 billion.[1] 

Despite the company’s name alluding to health care, that is not how it makes its money. Its money is the result of people paying for a private health care plan and then either not claiming or being denied coverage for medical procedures from the routine to vital lifesaving procedures.

Health insurance companies are not in the business of curing, they don’t even provide health care, they are merely intermediaries between the surgeon’s scalpel and the patient, capable of inflicting a deeper cut than the sharpest instrument in the hands of the most skilled medical professional.

With all the finesse of a drunken mugger with a blunt pen knife. It is in the sickness and death business through non-payment.

Every year almost 650,000 people in the US are forced into bankruptcy by medical bills, representing over 60% of all personal bankruptcies. Nearly 80% of those who go bankrupt had medical insurance![2] 

A recent report found that over 20 million people in the US owe at least US $220 billion in medical debt with the majority of that comprising of debts in excess of US $ 10,000 amongst just 2.9 million people.[3] 

Some of the debt arises from the so-called deductibles, the point at which insurance kicks in, which has been on the rise for years, with in some cases people having to pay US $3,700 before the insurance company pays a penny.[4] 

And then 20% of claims are denied, though depending on the company that may range from as low as 2% to 49%.[5]

United Healthcare logo (Photo sourced: Internet)

There is no way of looking at this, other than to conclude that health insurance companies are leeches, sucking the blood of the aged, the infirm and those who fall ill, for whatever reason.

In order to force people to pay health insurance the human cost of not doing so must be dramatic, traumatic, life threatening and unbearable. The threat of death or ill health is the whip with which they force people into line.

Thompson’s murder has touched a number of nerves. His company, the media and politicians expressed their sorrow and even rage at the killing. But as the BBC reported unofficial USA had a different reaction.

But online many people, including United Healthcare customers and users of other insurance services, reacted differently.

Those reactions ranged from acerbic jokes (one common quip was “thoughts and prior authorisations”, a play on the phrase “thoughts and prayers”) to commentary on the number of insurance claims rejected by UnitedHealthcare and other firms.

At the extreme end, critics of the industry pointedly said they had no pity for Thompson. Some even celebrated his death.

The online anger seemed to bridge the political divide.

Animosity was expressed from avowed socialists to right-wing activists suspicious of the so-called “deep state” and corporate power. It also came from ordinary people sharing stories about insurance firms denying their claims for medical treatments.[6]

Facebook is full of memes, celebrating, joking or otherwise supporting the killing. More than a reflection of some well thought out support for the murder, this is people lashing out at a system that condemns them to misery. It is a weapon of mass destruction.

Whilst many people with health insurance are frequently denied coverage for medically necessary interventions, there are others who have no health insurance at all. They simply can’t afford it or are not eligible.

Another report finds that as “many as 44,789 Americans of working age die each year because they lack health insurance, more than the number who die annually from kidney disease.”[7] That is nearly the same amount as soldiers who died throughout the entire Vietnam war.

So, given the nature of the system and the US $10 million that Thompson, vampire like, earned per year, it is very easy to have no sympathy for him. He was one of those grey men, that moved pieces of paper. He was like Eichmann, the banality of evil.

A man who never deliberately shot anyone or even gave an order to kill anyone, but nevertheless was responsible for a system that saw thousands die every year. The insurance companies are not idle bystanders simply taking advantage of a broken system.

The system is not broken, it works the way they intend it to work. Every year insurance companies spend millions on lobbying. In 2023, US $ 159 million was spent and in the first three quarters of 2024, US $117 million was spent on lobbying. [8]

US $10.7 million of that came from United Healthcare in 2023[9] and a further US $5.8 million reported in the first three quarters of 2024.[10] In the 2019-2020 election cycle, Thompson’s company donated US $ 4,285,464 to the Democrats and the Republicans. [11]

So, neither Thompson nor his fellow CEOs are innocent bystanders just doing a job, or making a buck as they like to say in the US. They are active participants in a system that relies on people falling ill and not being covered by their companies.

Death and disease are the lifeblood of the insurance industry, but only when people like Thompson do not pay out. Were they to payout for everyone and everything that US $9.8 billion dividend would be quickly whittled down.

It is easy not to feel any sympathy for Thompson, it is even easier perhaps to feel some sympathy and even empathy with the killer, if indeed his motive was related to a denial of coverage.

But knocking off CEOs of insurance companies won’t solve the problem; $9.8 billion dividends can take a hit and pay for increased security. The CEO will be replaced and at 10 million per year, there will be no shortage of candidates.

All it does is give some personal satisfaction to the killer and perhaps a sense of schadenfreude to the rest of us, as desperate times produce desperate reactions in many, reactions that in other times we might not have had.

Voting for the Democrats won’t solve it either. The insurance industry remained profitable and continued to not pay out under Obamacare as it did not challenge the private health industry or the insurance industry.

Turning your back on such politicians would be a first step and that includes Bernie Sanders who despite all his bluster would also fudge the issue.

Desperate times, desperate situations, desperate individual solutions that ultimately do not solve the problem, but give some people a sense that at least one of them got a taste of their own medicine. As The Guardian reported:

Though his survivors include a widow and two sons aged 16 and 19, Thompson’s death elicited a grim schadenfreude from many in the US who had been mistreated by the country’s rapacious health insurance industry. A private funeral for Thompson was planned for Monday.[12]

A private funeral, as there is unlikely to be some mass outpouring of public grief, but rather the unsightly spectacle of public anger was always a possibility at what in the end will be a moment of deep despair and grief for the family.

Though it should never be forgotten that deep despair and grief was the cut and thrust of how he made his money, his bread and butter. He and his family became rich through the deliberate inflicted anguish and misery on others.

But the only thing that will really give insurance companies a taste of their own medicine is the abolition of private health care and private insurance in all its forms, not just in medicine. And then putting the CEOs on trial for crimes against humanity.

Those thousands who die every year without insurance, those who suffer or die due to denial of coverage are not simple administrative situations. They are like the acts of Eichmann, the bureaucratic acts of grey men, who though never pulling a trigger, cause the deaths of millions.

Thompson’s epithet on his tombstone should read, Here Lies a Depraved Criminal. Loved by the Shareholders, Not Missed or Mourned by Many Others.

Thanks for reading Gearóid’s Substack! This post is public so feel free to share it. NB: For more articles by Gearóid see https://gearoidloingsigh.substack.com

Share

[1] See United Health Group Third Quarter Reports 2024 https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/content/dam/UHG/PDF/investors/2024/UNH-Q3-2024-Release.pdf

[2] Public Citizen (n/d) Medicare-for-All Prevents Medical Bankruptcies. https://www.citizen.org/article/medicare-for-all-prevents-medical-bankruptcies/

[3] Rakshit, S. et al. (2024) The burden of medical debt in the United States. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/the-burden-of-medical-debt-in-the-united-states/#Share%20of%20adults%20who%20have%20medical%20debt,%20by%20health%20status%20and%20disability%20status,%202021

[4] CBS News (09/12/2024) Americans are paying more than ever for health insurance. Denials add to their pain. Aimee Pichi. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/health-insurance-costs-inflation-denials-luigi-mangione-united-healthcare/

[5] Ibíd.,

[6] BBC (07/12/2024) Killing of insurance CEO reveals simmering anger at US health system. Mike Wendling & Madeline Halpert. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2eeeep0npo

[7] PNHP (17/09/2024) Lack of Insurance to Blame for Almost 45,000 Deaths: Study. https://pnhp.org/news/lack-of-insurance-to-blame-for-almost-45000-deaths-study/#:~:text=As%20many%20as%2044%2C789%20Americans,to%20expand%20health%20insurance%20coverage.

[8] See https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/lobbying?cycle=2024&ind=F09

[9] See https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2023&id=D000000348

[10] See https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2024&id=D000000348

[11] See https://www.opensecrets.org/industries//indus?ind=H&cycle=2020

[12] The Guardian (10/12/2024) Suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting charged with murder by New York prosecutors. Edward Helmore. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/09/brian-thompson-shooting-suspect-mayor

BARMBRACK, HALLOWEEN PARTY – AND NO ‘TRICK OR TREAT’!

On By rebelbreezeIn Folk Custom, Indigenous or Original People, Ireland, Irish Diaspora, Traditions & Folk Custom, USALeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Years ago we did not have the USA import of ‘trick or treat’ – but we did have Halloween. In fact, the UStaters got their Halloween originally from – us. Yes, us.

And it was based on the ancient Gaelic feast of Samhain (which is also the name of the month in Irish).

“Happy Halloween” as a wish would seem an oxymoron since it is a feast of the dead or at least for the dead and to propitiate pagan gods. It is recorded in Ireland as far back as the 9th Century, one of the four great feast days of the Gaelic year.

While the festival is often described as Celtic, a number of neolithic passage graves in Ireland and in Britain, predating the arrival of the Celts, are aligned to face sunrise at the time of Samhain.

In the Celtic world it seems to have been a particularly Gaelic festival, being also our name for November, with strong survivals in Ireland, parts of Scotland and Manx, though there are also some echoes of customs in Wales and Brittany.

However, some researchers believe that the word Samhain is related to the month of Samon, in an ancient calendar of the Gauls, the main body of Continental Celts.

No ancient feast of Samhain could have involved pumpkins, unless it was something thought up by a deviant among St. Brendan’s followers when they got to America in the mid-6th Century. Of which there are a number of sound reasons for believing they did.

But no plant we know of came back from that voyage.

Some varieties of pumpkin squash (Photo cred: The Garden Museum)

Pumpkins of course and many other squashes come from Turtle Island/ America, where they were cultivated by the indigenous people as an important source of food or dried to make containers, utensils and even musical instruments — and they taught the settlers how to cultivate them.

Pumpkin pie is a traditional USA settler culture dish, particularly in the annual Thanksgiving feast, where the arrival of the original English settlers is celebrated along with their survival (thanks to help from the Indigenous, against whom they later committed genocide in gratitude).

Although most people in the US will not be conscious of this aspect of the Thanksgiving celebration there is a pushback against it gathering in the US of late, as there is also in many parts of the world against the celebration of the ‘discovery’ of America for European colonisation by Columbus.

IN DUBLIN, IRELAND

The traditional Irish Halloween cake is the báirín (boyreen) breac, the báirín being Irish for a cake, according to Dineen’s Dictionary and breac meaning piebald or speckled (i.e. from the dried fruit), becoming mispronounced as ‘barmbrack’.

Quite when it became traditional Halloween fare I’m not sure but the basic ingredients would have been available centuries ago – except for the tea, which came from China originally and only became widespread in Ireland through our colonisers in the early 1800s.

Now of course, we’re marbh le tae agus marbh gan é (‘killed by tea but dead without it’) and still pronounce our name for the beverage in Irish as apparently they did in English in Shakespeare’s time. Many cultures call it ‘chai’ from which the English soldiers in India brought back ‘char’.

This one was apparently made with whiskey which is not the original. The one produced by a number of baker companies was round and more yellow inside.

Anyway, to get back to the báirín breac, it was soaking the dried fruits in tea that gave a yellow tint to the dough when it was baked. We children all looked forward to eating the báirín when we got back home after going from door to door collecting donations of apples or nuts or sweets.

Taste apart, it had a ring hidden in it and, though we had no interest in the prospect of marriage symbolism, we each wanted to be the lucky one to get the slice with the ring. Our Da cut up the slices carefully so we couldn’t tell which had the ring and we had to eat them in sequence.

Earlier on the Halloween evening we had been out in costumes knocking from door to door and of course, other children had knocked on our door too. Many of those would have been known to us but it was surprisingly difficult to identify them, even if only face-painted and without a mask.

It was for us a kind of thrill to knock at a neighbour’s door in costume and be unrecognised. All the houses except a very few welcomed callers at Halloween and kept a supply of fresh fruit, nuts and sweets on hand for the callers.

“Any apples or nuts?” we called as they opened the door or, later “Help the Halloween party?” None of that imported “trick or treat” nonsense!

Three types of nuts that were available and traditionally eaten in Ireland on Halloween at least from the 1950s: hazel nuts, walnuts and Brazil nuts (this one not so commonly seen more recently, apparently due to bad harvests attributed to El Nino). Also available would have been almonds, peanuts, and pieces of broken coconut.

In an amusing piece about that contrast between earlier days and now, a social mores commentator in song at the monthly 1916 Performing Arts Club commented on how pleased he was to see children at his door in costumes made from ‘traditional’ black bin-liners.

Until they spoiled it all by chanting “trick or treat”. “Get outa the garden!” was his response.

You can listen to the song on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k-JmfVZ2lw

Kids still go out (usually escorted by adults now) from door to door at Halloween in Ireland, often with elaborate costumes and chanting the UStater-borrowed “trick or treat”.

A gaggle of kids in what was for many in areas of Dublin a ‘traditional’ Halloween costume but some of course were more elaborate. (Photo sourced: Hill Sixteen FB page)

In clubs or pubs the festival seems to have been taken over by late teens and young (and not-so-young) adults in costumes depicting horror and death and, for mostly women it must be said, also sexual allure.

And strange though it might seem, the festival was originally primarily for adults and was an occasion of blessing of kine, divination and at least in recorded history, of “mummers” and “guising” going door to door, performing and begging for donations.

‘BARMBRACK’ IN LONDON

In SE London, I was for some years involved in organising an annual Irish Children’s Halloween Party as part of the annual activities of the Lewisham branch of the Irish in Britain Representation Group.

The event was primarily for the benefit of children of the Irish diaspora but children of any other background were welcome to attend.

A local shop selling fresh fruit and vegetables was approached for a donation of fruit and nuts to which they agreed and of course were thanked publicly by word and in print. The local print media were invited to take photos.

The program for the day included street games (but indoors), Halloween activities including apple-bobbing, face-painting and food that would have been traditional for Irish Halloween parties.

Funds raised by the branch through the year bought Irish brand biscuits, Cidona and red lemonade from a shop supplying Irish food items in South London and of course included the ‘barmbrack’.

The children on the day were largely from Irish, Caribbean or mixed background.

As I doled out slices of ‘barmbrack’ to children sitting at the long table, recommending it as traditionally Irish, one Caribbean-seeming child turned to the other and began: “It’s like …” “bun-and-cheese!” finished the other.

This turned out to be a traditional Jamaican food at the other end of the year, at Easter, two slices of a spiced moist ‘brack’ (the “bun”) with a slice of cheese between. They are not as fond of butter in the Caribbean as are the Irish (not many people are) and so that is absent.

One day I decided to try a slice of buttered (of course) ‘barmbrack’ with a slice of cheese on top. The sweetness and slightly spicy taste of the ‘brack’ contrasted with the tart taste of the cheese. And do you know? It’s not at all bad.

End.

STEP FORWARD, YOUTH!

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, France, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Palestine, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, US Imperialism, USALeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 8mins.)

University students in the USA protesting, setting up encampments, occupying university buildings; threats from administrators; police invasions, assaults on students, resistance, arrests …

Step forward, Youth and shake the towers

Those ivory towers stand on sweat and blood

Make those lies fall in showers —

Become the earthquake and the rushing flood.

Step forward youth

For solidarity and truth!

Academic freedom and investigation

and principles too of democracy

Have taken now academic vacation

Revealing true base in hypocrisy.

Step forward youth

For solidarity and truth!

Look down below your feet

Reach out to workplace and street

Stretch out solidarity’s hand

to the struggling in another land.

Step forward youth

For solidarity and truth!

only thus can you also be

in a better world, at peace and free.

(Dublin, May 2023)

It seems as though we’ve been here before, a sense of dejá vu … Ah, yes! During the Vietnam War (1955-1975). University students in the US were in conflict with the authorities about lifestyle, content and style of the curriculum, racism, sexism, sexuality and .. yes, the US’s war in Indochina.

Students lost their study and work plans, got hit by truncheons, were sickened by teargas and some were shot dead, as in Kent State University, Ohio by the National Guard and in Jackson, Mississippi 11 days later.1

Which is why the suggestion of House Speaker Mike Johnson to send that same body in against the students last week was a vicious act of intimidation.

In the 1960s Trinity College Dublin, the academic bastion of the British-unionist Ascendancy, was a hotbed of protest and even revolutionary organisation along many fronts – including gay rights, contraception rights, Irish socialism and national liberation.2

The Ulster University in Belfast, in the British Six-County colony saw protests for Catholic civil equality, a struggle that faced armed repression and developed into a responding armed struggle of three decades.

In the USA those years coincided too with marches for black civil rights and also the rise of militant revolutionary groups such as the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, Weathermen, SLA and later the American Indian Movement.

Women’s liberation and Gay & Lesbian liberation movements3 also moved more to the fore.

The responses of the US State to many of those movements were even more vicious than they had been against the students, with trials, jailings,4 shootings5 and downright unofficial executions.6 As the campus protests now draw in wider communities, are we heading for something similar?

In the USA, the authorities seem terrified of that conjunction — or how else can we understand the violence of their reaction which has even horrified some university senates?

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THEN AND NOW

When the students in the USA fought the institutional authorities, it was partly in solidarity with the people of Vietnam (and later of Laos and Cambodia). Yes, but many also feared being sent to the Vietnamese War meat grinder and being airlifted home from there in body bags.

The draft had been introduced in 19647 and though middle-class students had a better chance of avoiding conscription, they were far from immune.8 Being an officer might make one safer from the enemy than being a grunt but not from the grunts themselves as “fragging” incidents soared.9

The students now protesting in US Universities are doing so in solidarity with Palestinians, in horror at their state’s support of Israeli genocide. They may have other issues with their universities’ management and society at large but in general we can rule out the motive of self-preservation.

Encampment Palestine solidarity Vera Cruz University California Thursday (Photo cred: Aric Sleeper Santa Cruz Sentinel)

The drug culture was very much seen as part of the protest movement back then, though opposed by some such as Panthers and viewed with suspicion by other revolutionaries. Pacifist trends were strong and Timothy Leary’s “turn on, tune in and drop out” mantra attracted many.

Much of the revolutionary potential of the movement was lost under that influence, nowhere near as powerful now and revolutionaries who know their history will be aware that such arch-opponents of the system as Leary became an FBI informant to get out of jail.10

Many may argue as to degree but the power of patriarchy and oppression of LBG sexuality, though certainly present, are nowhere near as strong today in the “western world” as they were in the 1960s.

The power of the Catholic Church hierarchy in Irish society has been greatly weakened by struggles, Church scandals and society’s evolution. Discrimination against Catholics in the Six Counties is also less than it was in the previous era.

The armed struggle is not currently being waged.

However, Ireland remains divided between a 26-County neo-colony and a Six-County colonial statelet. The economies are hugely penetrated by foreign multinationals, the health services tottering and a huge housing crisis due to turning housing over to big landlords and property speculators.

The main parties of the ruling classes have been exposed to such degree that they no longer act in the charade of opposition: Sinn Féin and the DUP share political administration of the British colony while Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil share it for the neo-colony, prepared to admit SF there too.

Fascists gather some of the disenchanted, marginalised and disinherited to try to mould them into a fascist movement against migrants and refugees, against LGBT rights, against socialism. The State facilitates that development while it grows more repressive in both the administrations.

The ruling class will be aware of the potential of a rise in student protest coinciding with a feeling of Palestine solidarity and frustration at Irish state complicity very widely spread throughout Ireland. But then the Irish state is not imperialist, it’s just complicit in imperialism.

UNIVERSITY PROTESTS NOW

Students in universities across the USA have staged occupations or built encampments in explicit solidarity with Palestine against their own government and against the collusion of their academic institutions with zionist genocide of Palestinians and the destruction of every university in Gaza.

The response of the academic authorities has been denunciation, threat, eviction and false characterisation of the high motives of the students as “anti-semitism”.11

Municipal, county and state police forces have responded violently to peaceful protest, including bodily assault, pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets and arrests. The Government has drafted a change of the legal meaning of anti-semitism to include opposition to the Israeli zionist State.12

Rutgers students tents 29 April 2024 (Photo cred: Sophie Nieto-Munoz/ New Jersey Monitor)

The violence of the authorities has not been confined to the protesting youth but has been extended to staff who stood with them. During the week Dr. Steve Tamari, professor at the University of Southern Illinois got nine ribs fractured by cops – for filming what was going on.

Chair of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth University, New Hampshire, Annelise Orleck (senior citizen) was violently arrested and banned from campus for six months.

In some cases not only have the protesters resisted valiantly but actually drove the cops into retreat and in Portland, Oregon, police cars were set alight. Also a fascist who drove at protestors and pepper-sprayed them was, according to reports, identified and his car destroyed.

On the other hand, Zionists (and suspected fascists) have mobilised against the students in many universities, with the tired old propaganda of “anti-semitism” and in one case attacked an encampment with sticks and fireworks, also playing a “crying child” Israeli drone recording.13

Irish Republicans and other anti-fascists will not be surprised to learn that a) the police disappeared shortly before the violent attack and b) none of the attackers were arrested when the cops returned.

More than 2,100 people have been arrested at US campuses since April 1814 and students have been barred from their own campuses which, for many, means also their own accommodation.

Police Attack Palestine solidarity UCLA campus Thursday 2 May 2024 LA (Photo cred: Ethan Swope/ AP)

The university protests have spread beyond the USA and have broken out in Canada (McGill), Australia (Brisbane and Sydney) and even Humbold in Germany, main Israel arms supplying country after the US, where state repression of Palestine solidarity has been particularly heavy.15

In France, where there has also been much repression of Palestinian solidarity activity, there have been occupations at the Sorbonne and Sciences Po in Paris) and in England, Newcastle and London, while an encampment was set up in Edinburgh in front of the Scottish Parliament.16

“SHAMEFUL SILENCE”

In Ireland, the universities have been relatively quiet until now but the Trinity College Dublin administration fined their Students Union €214k for a one-day Palestine solidarity picket outside the building housing the Book of Kells exhibition, citing loss of visitor revenue in justification.

“The People’s University” banner hanging from windows in Trinity College Saturday (Photo: D.Breatnach)

But repression leads to resistance; now there is a Palestine solidarity encampment on the green in front of the Kells exhibition. People are mobilising to support the student resistance in Trinity and today saw a march there from the Spire with the administration locking the gates shut.

“We plan on staying here indefinitely, our message is there is no ‘business as usual’ during a genocide,” outgoing students’ union president Laszlo Molnarfi said.17

(Photo: Social Rights Ireland)

“When our academic institution, Trinity College Dublin, has ties to Israeli companies, entities and universities that are complicit in the war industry, we must speak up. That is why we are doing this.

“And we must speak up in this disruptive, powerful way. Because when we tried to engage with the authorities, with petitions and letters and meetings, we were met with shameful silence.”18

Inside Trinity College grounds Friday night/ Saturday morning (Photo: Social Rights Ireland)

In the wider ‘global South’, Palestine solidarity protests have been seen in India at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi against a visit from the US Ambassador to the country, Eric Garcett, which had to be cancelled.

More dangerous by far to the US ruling class and Israeli-colluding King of Lebanon, so geographically close to Palestine and with a strong Hizbollah guerrilla presence, are the student demonstrations at the university of Beirut.

Students at American University in Cairo (AUC) Demonstrating Monday in Solidarity Palestinians (Photo source: X Twitter)

Whether overall these actions of students, who comprise a large and influential section of youth, will significantly deepen, widen and energise the growing Palestine solidarity movement, and simultaneously the wider anti-imperialist movement, remains to be seen.

End.

“Victory to the Palestinian Resistance” banner on Trinity College railings Saturday (Photo: D.Breatnach)

FOOTNOTES

14th May 1970, killed by the Ohio Kent National Guard during a protest against the Vietnam War. The Jackson killings occurred 11 days later on Friday, May 15, 1970, at Jackson State College (now Jackson State University) in Jackson, Mississippi. On May 14, 1970, city and state police confronted a group of students outside a campus dormitory. Shortly after midnight, the police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_State_killings

2Ironically, precisely because it was free of the major socially controlling agency in Ireland at the time, the Catholic Church hierarchy.

3See the Stonewall Riots of 1969 in the US against homophobic police harassment.

4Including many frame-ups, some of which were only exposed decades later. Leonard Peltier was jailed on dubious evidence in 1977 which had already collapsed against a co-accused but is still in jail, 79 years of age with diabetes and other health problems.

5See MOVE organisation in the late 1970s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE_(Philadelphia_organization)#1978_shoot-out

6Fred Hampton and Mark Clarke were assassinated by police and other Black Panthers wounded in 1969 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_HamptonS and Black Panther George Jackson, shot dead by prison guards in 1971 allegedly while participating in a prison escape. https://www.freedomarchives.org/George%20Jackson.html

7Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. military drafted 2.2 million American men out of an eligible pool of 27 million https://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/exhibits/show/exhibit/draft_protests/the-military-draft-during-the-

855% working class, 25% poor and 20% middle class, according to one study https://www.studentsofhistory.com/vietnam-war-draft

9Attack from lower ranks by fragmentation grenade rolled into a toilet being used by an officer or his tent. Between 800 to 1,000 such incidents are thought to have occurred among US Marines during the Vietnam War https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/geier/1999/xx/vietnam.htm

10https://www.independent.co.uk/news/timothy-leary-was-an-fbi-informer-1103070.html

11Thereby also devaluing the meaning of that particular form of racism which was a basic ideological aspect of Nazism and Fascism and continues to be a strong trend in European fascism today.

12Ditto.

13One of the latest horrors from the Israeli Zionist cabinet, killer drones playing sounds of a crying baby or a woman needing help in order to bring would-be helpers out where they can then be shot dead, being played in this case mockingly.

14https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/03/world/pro-palestinian-university-protests-worldwide-intl-hnk/index.html

15https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/german-police-break-up-pro-palestinian-protest-at-humboldt-university/

16A semi-autonomous legislative assembly but part of the United Kingdom.

17https://www.itv.com/news/2024-05-04/students-at-protest-camp-inside-trinity-college-vow-to-stay-indefinitely

18Ibid.

SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_State_killings

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/03/world/pro-palestinian-university-protests-worldwide-intl-hnk/index.html

Trinity College protest: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0wzgp7q0do?

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-05-04/students-at-protest-camp-inside-trinity-college-vow-to-stay-indefinitely

The Trinity occupation: https://www.instagram.com/tcd_bds

Beyoncé, Irish Dancing and the Nonsense of Cultural Appropriation

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Folk Custom, Racism, Song, Traditions & Folk Custom, USALeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

2 April 2024 (Reading time: 11 mins.)

Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter (2024) (Image sourced: Internet)

Beyoncé was back in the news once again for a spot of cultural appropriation. It was not her first brush with cultural Neanderthals, she has been here before for apparently “stealing” Egyptian culture by dressing as Nefertiti.

Added into the mix was a lesser-known black artist, Kaitlyn Sardin, who excels at Irish dancing and dared produce some fusion dance routines.

I have dealt with Beyoncé and Rihanna wading into the murky cesspit of the cultural appropriation debate in the past when they were accused of appropriating Egyptian culture(1) and won’t deal with it here.

This time though, the debate is clearly about music, produced by people who are still around and not the attire of long dead Egyptians with little connection to the modern country.

The fact that white country music fans are still around to complain, doesn’t make the debate any less sterile or ridiculous.

Beyoncé’s faux pas was apparently to record a country & western album titled Cowboy Carter. Apparently, some were of the view that a black artist shouldn’t record a “white” song or perform in a “white” musical genre.

Her first release from the album was a song she composed, Texas Hold ‘Em.(2) And the hounds of hell were let loose to howl and drown out the music.

Some radio stations refused to play the song, though that didn’t stop it going to No.1 in the country music charts and the debate, though debate might be too fine a word to put on it, erupted.

She is not white, she is not part of the country music scene and she should stay in her lane, is a crude but accurate summary of most of those criticising her. She is actually from Houston, Texas, not that it matters.

One person interviewed by The Guardian responded that “It doesn’t matter that you came from Texas. It matters if you’re actually living a country lifestyle. It bothers me that her song is being called country.”(3) These words might be familiar to some.

They are normally advanced by identitarians when talking about whites playing genres considered “black” and in some cases other non-whites have levelled this accusation against a whole array of non-white artists including Beyoncé.

It is reactionary rubbish with the racism, in this case, hiding just under the surface, behind a veil of cultural purity. One even went as far as to say that he would bet that Beyoncé had never been in the country saloon he was being interviewed in.

Well, many black women would steer clear of such venues, for more than obvious reasons.

Cultures are not pure, ever. None. Not now, not ever, not even going back to the stone age.

I am very sure, no stone age hunter armed with a flintstone hatchet ever shouted “You’re appropriating my culture” when he realised some other village had come up with the same invention, or even just “stole” the idea.

Country music is not pure either and to the shock and horror of many a man yearning for the days he ran around in his white bedsheets, it isn’t even that white. Blacks have made significant contributions to country music, not least the musical instrument known as the Banjo.

What would country be without the banjo? Rhiannon Giddens, the black musician has dedicated her time to reviving the banjo as a black instrument and recording some excellent music, though unsurprisingly she doesn’t quite stick to genres either.(4)

Her site describes her thus:
Singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and impresario, Rhiannon draws from many musical traditions including blues, jazz, folk, hiphop, African, Celtic, classical, and jug band. She bridges contemporary and traditional forms, and few musicians have done more to revitalize old-time influences in current music.(5)

Rhiannon Giddens with banjo (Image sourced: Extra.ie)

She composes her own songs, covers others, even ones such as Wayfaring Stranger, recorded by many white country artists, though actually written and composed by two Germans in the 1660s.

As far removed from her as from the whites who might like to claim the song as their own (Links below to Gidden’s version,(6) Johnny Cash’s(7) the Mormon Tabernacle Choir(8) and even Ed Sheeran’s(9) very uncountry version.

I have included links to all songs and routines mentioned in this article). The song belongs to whoever wants to sing it, however they wish to, though I personally think Sheeran murders the song with a flintstone hatchet, but each to their own.

So, Beyoncé is quite entitled to record in whatever style she wants. Part of what rankles some is that she went straight to No.1 and will make a fortune from the album and this is part of the ‘stay in your lane’ slogan applied to blacks and whites.

Elvis made a fortune singing what was essentially considered, at least initially, to be a black musical form and other white artists who have done this have been criticised by a black bourgeoisie who want that slice of the cake for themselves.

Some of the whites criticising Beyoncé are undoubtedly racist, some might just be musical purists, though music is one art form that just doesn’t lend itself to purity. Others, like identitarians everywhere, think that the money is theirs. Flip sides of the same coin.

Beyoncé is not the only black artist to venture into the world of country,(10) Charley Pride and Ray Charles did so back in the 1960s at times of heightened tensions in the midst of the racial violence meted out against those demanding civil rights for blacks.

When Charley Pride released his first country album, his image was not put on the record sleeve and they initially hid the fact he was black as part of their marketing strategy. He would eventually make it to the Grand Ole Opry in 1967.

He had a total of 52 top ten hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.(11) No mean feat and not a once-off foray into country music either, he was a country artist.

Linda Martell fared worse as she never hid that she was black and though she would also perform at the Grand Ole Opry in 1970, her album Color Me Country(12) never had the same success.

Ray Charles also dipped his fingers into the pond producing Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music(13) in 1962. It was a best seller, topping the charts. So, Beyoncé is by no means the only or even the first black artist to find success in the genre.

Black artists have always ventured into genres that were not considered to be black.

Others have gone the other way and identitarians tend to criticise white artists doing “black” music, though when Gene Autry, the white country and western singer, nicknamed The Singing Cowboy recorded a blues album, nobody accused him of cultural appropriation.

Though even non-whites get accused by the black bourgeoisie closely aligned to the US Democratic Party of cultural appropriation, Jews, Asians, even Africans get in the neck.

Samuel Jackson infamously accused black British actors of stealing their jobs because they were cheaper and questioned the cultural bonafides of British-Nigerian actor David Oyelowo when he was cast as Martin Luther King in the film Selma.(14)

He never criticised the decision to cast the black Yank, Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in the film Invictus or Matt Damon as the white South African rugby captain in the same film.

Given the backlash against his comments he decided to keep his mouth shut when the British-Ugandan actor Daniel Kaluuya was chosen to play the black revolutionary leader of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton. No one is safe from the accusation.

It is a bit like the MacCarthy trials. “Are you now or have you ever been a homosexual? No, but I slept with a man who was. Have you ever appropriated a culture? No, but I hummed a tune by a man who had.”

Which brings us now to Kaitlyn Sardin, the US black Irish dancer. She has recently gone viral, though not for the first time, with her dance routines and not being as powerful as Beyoncé has come in for some vile racist abuse.(15)

She produced a new video which is what is now termed fusion i.e. Irish dance with some developments.

This is now quite common and there is a host of Irish groups producing fusion.  My favourite is a routine called Freedom with the voice of Charles Chaplin and images from Belfast in the early seventies.(16)

Though the first person to do this was Michael Flatley with River Dance which not only broke many of the “rules” of Irish dancing, it even went as far as to incorporate the Lambeg War Drums in a much more positive sense than the annual announcement of Protestant supremacy for which they are used every July 12th.

Of course, Flatley, unlike Sardin is white and of Irish descent.

Kaitlyn Sardin (Image sourced: Internet)

As I said there are many fusion groups in Ireland, the one I previously mentioned and even one which is danced to classical music titled Fusion Fighters Perform Fusion Orchestra.(17) Again, all as white as the driven snow in Siberia.

There is even an all-female Fusion Fighters group from the USA that does a tap dance routine to William Tell.(18)

The particular group started off with Irish dance and moved into other styles over time, so much so that even their website acknowledges it has less to do with Irish dance than they used to.(19) It is what happens with culture. It evolves, all the time.

Again, they are white and no one said fusion is not Irish dancing and no one said anything about not being Irish, even though their Irish connections may be as tenuous as Darby O’Gill.

The term fusion is one of those designed to assuage musical purists more than racists. In reality there is no such thing as fusion music. ALL music and dance are fusion till it becomes accepted as the standard, when new deviations or fusions arrive. 

Though dancing has existed in Ireland for centuries it has not been immune to outside influences such as French Quadrilles in the 1800s or other forms.

The clues are in the names, hornpipes and polkas for example are two types of music that you will find in other parts of Europe and indeed in the case of polkas they clearly originated in Eastern Europe, though most forms including reels and jigs are not exclusively Irish either.

All cultures borrow.

Most instruments used in Irish music are not Irish in origin. Some, like the flute have arisen in most cultures around the world and archaeological remains have thrown up examples everywhere of flutes and whistles made from everything, including animal bones.

Fiddles arose over a long process around the world and it is a bit difficult to pinpoint them to one country. Uillean pipes are Irish, though they too were part of a wider process in Europe with different types of pipes arising.

Though Scottish bag pipes are perhaps the most famous type of pipe, there are in fact lots of pipes throughout Europe and parts of Africa, Iran, Azerbaijan and even India.

Other instruments such as the banjo are African in origin, though the modern banjo has developed over time since it was first brought to the western world by slaves.

The piano accordion is a relatively recent European invention from the mid 1800s, a further development of the accordion, which was also a European instrument.

If we rejected all outside influences and demanded purity, we would have little in the way of Irish music or dance, were we to have any at all.

So, Kaitlyn Sardin should be celebrated. She is from the US, is black and more importantly is very good at what she does: dancing. The fact that she is not Irish or she recently produced a fusion routine is neither here nor there.

Any liberal who got lost on the internet and accidentally read this article will probably have nodded most of the way down: until now. The ridiculous statements made about Beyoncé and Sardin are generally rejected by liberals.

But when the cultural capitalists hiding behind identity politics make similar claims against white artists or indeed between other non-white artists this rubbish is taken seriously.

Culture does not belong to anyone, you don’t have to be white, black, Asian or Latin to perform in a particular style. Culture is a gently flowing river you bathe in, swimming ashore where you please along its route or letting it sweep you out into the sea.

It has always been thus and always will be, despite the attempts of cultural capitalists to appropriate culture for their own grubby money-making ends, or racists imagining some non-existent purity. It doesn’t mean that some of the commercial outings by Beyoncé and other artists do it well.

They don’t.

Beyoncé was criticised for her depiction of India as a white paradise and other artists such as Gwen Stefani, Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea have been accused of engaging in crass portrayals of the cultures they seek to borrow from(20) and in Ireland we know a thing or two about how crass Hollywood can be when it comes to depicting Irish music.

But that is another matter, many artists in particular genres have come up with really crass portrayals of their own cultures. The point is whether culture is pure, has lanes and you stick to them due to an accident or birth.

The legendary US folk singer Pete Seeger would joke that plagiarism was the basis of all culture and he was a wonderful plagiarist who introduced musical forms from around the world to a US audience at a time when there was no internet and it was not an easy feat.

He introduced the song Wimoweh to the world, which has gone through multiple adaptations,(21) some of them very good and others absolutely dire, such as that recorded by the English pop group Tight Fit in the 1980s.(22)

The original song however was quite different in style and written and recorded by the South African musician Solomon Linda(23) who was swindled out of the royalties on the song.

Had Seeger stayed in his lane, most of us would never have ever heard of Linda or the story behind his song.

Demands for cultural purity are inherently reactionary, as are demands to ‘stay in your lane’, be they levelled by whites, blacks or Asians. Culture is to be celebrated and expanded.

The accusation of appropriation would only make sense if someone like Seeger had said he wrote Wimoweh, that would be straightforward dishonesty, something he could never be accused of in his multiple adaptations of songs from Ireland, Japan, China, Indonesia, Scotland, Chile, Nicaragua amongst other places.

Beyoncé’s foray into country is perfectly fine, though personally, I don’t like her music, including her country. But that is my personal taste and has nothing to do with appropriation or other rubbish from cultural capitalists.

The Irish radio on Saturdays used to broadcast an Irish music show from the musical company Walton’s. It always finished off saying “If you do feel like singing a song, do sing an Irish one.” The exhortation was for all, not some; the point was to celebrate and enjoy music.

Let’s leave the cultural capitalists, purists, identitarians and racists to the handful of songs they mistakenly believe to be pure.

Notes

(1) See Ó Loingsigh, G. (02/05/2020) Cultural Appropriation: A Reactionary Debate.  https://socialistdemocracy.org/RecentArticles/RecentCulturalAppropriationAReactionaryDebate.html

(2) See Beyoncé’s version here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=238Z4YaAr1g

(3) The Guardian (04/03/2024) I can guarantee Beyoncé has never stepped foot in here: Houston’s country saloons review Texas Hold ‘Em. Diana Gachman https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/04/beyonce-houston-country-saloons-review-texas-hold-em

(4) See for example Another Wasted Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ2_2A4vP4I

(5) See https://www.mymusicrg.org/about

(6) Rhiannon Giddens Wayfaring stranger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Z4PAZX9Bs

(7) Johnny Cash Wayfaring Stranger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIlbZAP8ASQ

(8) Tabernacle Choir Wayfaring Stranger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtgKoJ5hoZw

(9) Ed Sheeran Wayfaring Stranger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buAzVkcH4YI

(10)  Vox (26/05/2024) Beyoncé’s country roots. Avishay Artsy.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2uWqRZpt50&list=OLAK5uy_nOFFn9idV9uhYSC9__4r4FNW_xNb-aZK0

(11)  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJQdR0ciwYg

(12)  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2uWqRZpt50&list=OLAK5uy_nOFFn9idV9uhYSC9__4r4FNW_xNb-aZK0

(13)  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbrvtGta1lk&list=PLgWmP-F0RTPOl1OjguwDkKwjFFiMmQZs5

(14)  The Guardian (08/03/2017) Samuel L Jackson criticises casting of black British actors in American films. Gwilym Mumford. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/08/samuel-l-jackson-criticises-casting-of-black-british-actors-in-american-films

(15)  Irish Central (25/03/2024) Irish dancer’s fusion choreography goes viral, triggers racists. Kerry O’Shea https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/kaitlyn-sardin-irish-dance

(16)  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thjctEd7O_Y

(17)  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ85iotuEso

(18)  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK77a_XVzJY

(19)  See http://www.fusionfightersdance.com

(20)  Business Insider (14/01/2023) Gwen Stefani is only the latest glaring example of cultural appropriation in pop music. Callie Ahlgrim. https://www.businessinsider.com/gwen-stefani-cultural-appropriation-pop-music-problem-2023-1#:

(21)  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y_TJ6Oht8k

(22)  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRv4cdZxTdQ

(23)  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrrQT4WkbNE

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH – FASCISTS GO PLEADING

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Political Analysis, USALeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Despite the big talk and ‘revolutionary’ posturing of fascists and other far-Rightists, once confronted with painful consequence the tendency is for all their bravado to collapse without dignity, as evidenced in many trials of the Capitol invaders of 2021.

On 6th January fascists, far-Rightists and other misguided followers of Republican Party Trump, who had lost the US Presidential elections to Joe Biden of the Democratic Party, broke through police lines, many invading the USA’s Capitol building and strutting around inside.

The incident had been fueled by Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud to deny him victory, then repeated and disseminated by far-Right conspirationist ideologues, in particular along social media networks and the invasion was allegedly to prevent confirmation of Biden’s election.

The invasion of the Capitol surprised many around the world and seemed to shock the USA’s public, while most of the fascists and far-Rightists reveled in it. The Capitol building is the seat of the US Congress, the legislative branch of the US State, i.e of its parliament.

Of course, the attack on the Capitol, despite the undemocratic nature of the participants, does not actually represent an “attack on US democracy” as claimed by many supporters of the US State. This is because the democracy of that state is entirely a fallacy.

The US State is run by a military-industrial-financial oligarchy, resulting in most State decisions and laws directly or indirectly benefiting that ruling class. In addition, the supposed ultimate decision-making bodies are composed of mostly rich people,1 some of them billionaires.

Campaigns for the Presidency itself are enormously expensive and paid for by contributions, the ‘pipers’ of course later ‘calling the tunes’. Judges of the Supreme Court are political appointees.

FASCIST MOBILISATIONS

Although many were taken by surprise by the invasion, the social and political stage had been under construction for some time.

In January 2017 in a clash between Proud Boys and antifascists ostensibly around the issue of the covid epidemic and mandatory mask-wearing, an antifascist shot and wounded in the leg one of the ‘Boys, surrendered to the police and was charged.2

Nearly 3,000 miles away in Charlottesville in August the “Unite the Right” rally was held, ostensibly to protest the removal of the monument to Robert E Lee, Civil War Confederate Army commander but also an attempt to build fascist unity against antifascist, antiracist resistance.3

Fascists and other far-Rightists after their earlier “Unite the Right” march through the campus of Virginia University surrounding counter-protesters in Charlottesville shortly before they attacked the antifascists. (NurPhoto via Getty images).

There were numerous clashes in Charlottesville with the cops standing by until one of the fascists drove his car into the crowd, killing an antifascist. In Oregon, over 2,600 miles away in 2020, an antifascist killed a fascist and was hunted down by police and shot dead in disputed circumstances.4

Before, between and after those events there were many clashes across the USA and at one time Trump declared that “Antifa” were a terrorist group and would be made illegal! Antifascism is of course an ideological position shared by otherwise disparate forces and not an organisation.

There was at least one Nazi swastika among the Unite the Right marchers and a number of fascist salutes. (Photo sourced: Internet)

TRUMP’S FOLLOWERS

While Trump himself has been undergoing trials and legal manoeuvres with regard to a number of issues, including allegations of financial fraud and unauthorised removal of documents from the White House, he is currently running for the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party.

As is usually the case with fascist leaders, it is their followers who carry the most severe consequences5 and a great many have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment in the huge number of trials following6 and, without any great evidence of protests in solidarity with them.7

On the two-year anniversary of the event, 978 had been arrested and charged with multiple crimes in relation to the attack, according to a Department of Justice database. According to research, the median age of the defendants is 39, with over 86% identifying as male.

A more recent report quoted more than 1,200 defendants having been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 900 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a judge or jury.

Approximately 750 rioters have been sentenced, with nearly two-thirds getting some term of imprisonment.8

Many of these racist, right-wing and fascist warriors have buckled under to their allegedly sworn enemy, the Federal and State police and informed against their erstwhile comrades or plea-bargained with their prosecutors.

How many? By January 2023, over half of the charged, according to the Department of Justice.

One of the most recent was Charles Donohoe, not-so-proud-now Proud Boys president of a chapter in North Carolina. He was a lieutenant of former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison — the longest prison term so far in a Capitol riot case.

Last May, Tarrio and three other former Proud Boys leader, along with Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and other members were convicted of seditious conspiracy charges for plotting to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Biden.

Rhodes was sentenced last year to 18 years in prison.

A fine example of UStater manhood posing for a photo publicising their militia. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Donohoe agreed to co-operate with federal authorities and pleaded guilty in April 2020 to two felony counts: ‘conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding’ and ‘assaulting, resisting or impeding police’ but was not called to testify at the trial of Tarrio and other Proud Boys earlier this year.

Another who pleaded, Ray Epps, was sentenced recently but only to community service. Some of his former associates accused him being an undercover agent for the State and he is suing Fox News for feeding that view. True or not, his soft sentence is unlikely to dispel suspicions.9

It will hardly help either that Federal prosecutors have backed up Epps’ vehement denials that he was a government plant or FBI operative. They say Epps has never been a government employee or agent beyond serving in the US Marines from 1979 to 1983.10 Of course, they’d tell us if he was.

The Prosecutor asked for six months jail and a non-custodial sentence certainly seems unusual considering the verbal and video evidence they had against him. On the other hand the State might have been painting a target on him to distract from real undercover agents.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of fascist and far-Right preparation for the riot and invasion some still believe that “Antifa” or the State started the whole thing in order to make the far-Right look bad (this kind of fantasy frequently features in aftermaths of fascist actions).

A more likely conspiracy is police tolerance and perhaps membership of fascist groups which, after all, are often on a similar ideological page to a lot of cops who, at the same time, tend to dislike the kind of political, ethnic or LGBT groups who most likely to be actively antifascist.

One can only imagine the response of the State if the Capitol invaders had been socialists, an ethnic minority or antifascists.

USA FAR-RIGHT & FASCIST ORGANISATIONS

Most people would be familiar with at least the name of Ku Klux Klan but there are a large number of other far-Right, fascist and racist organisations spread widely across the US State, such as the Three Percenters, Oath Keepers and Proud Boys,11 who consider themselves USA “Patriots”.12

Their activity may be on line, spreading racist and fascist ideology, along with unsound conspiracy theories but they can also be active on the street, parading their beliefs and trying to recruit members, or in seeking to intimidate or attack Left or minority groups.

According to researchers, more than a dozen different such groups participated in the Capitol riots and among those who stormed the Capitol there were participants in the fascist 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of a counter-protester.

One of those veterans was Tim Gionet, a fascist activist who goes by the online pseudonym of “Baked Alaska” and live-streamed a video of himself on DLive from inside the capitol.13 Anti-Jewishness used to be a common trend then more often replaced today by anti-Muslim.

Racism is very much part of their ideology which is why they reacted with such hostility to the Black Live Matter protests. In addition they tend to be anti-feminist and against LGBT people, often enough being full of anti-immigration and imperialist rhetoric.

Remember the guy with the horned fur hat, glorifying in the riot and occupation? Jacob Chasely is his name — he pleaded guilty and for mercy too. He was sentenced to 41 months. (Photo sourced: Internet)

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/majority-of-lawmakers-millionaires/

2https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/01/23/alt-right-event-seattle-devolves-chaos-and-violence-outside-truth-twisting-inside

3https://www.npr.org/2022/08/12/1116942725/the-charlottesville-rally-5-years-later-its-what-youre-still-trying-to-forget

4https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_of_Aaron_Danielson_and_Michael_Reinoehl

5 One of them, sadly misguided 35-year old Ashley Babbit, ex US Military of 14 years, was shot dead by police guard during the attack as she was boosted up to get through a window.

6 Though relatively short, it is true, when compared to what would befall Left revolutionaries under similar circumstances.

7 Which must seem like a sad reflection on one of their mottoes: “Where we go one we go all”, often abbreviated as “WWG1WGA!” being one of the most popular QAnon slogans.

8https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/man-branded-undercover-agent-in-capitol-attack-conspiracy-theories-spared-jail-1573595.html

9Ibid.

10Quite a few of the rioters have past military records but it is difficult to decide whether these are disproportionate in for the militarised society which is the USA.

11These three are militias and usually turn up at events with assault rifles and wearing bullet-proof vests.

12https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/10/13/explained-alt-right-alt-light-and-militias-in-the-us

13 The fact that so many did so or posted on line of having been involved testifies to the psychological need for recognition and feeling of invulnerability of many of them.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Clashes between fascists and antifascists in the USA: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/12/1116942725/the-charlottesville-rally-5-years-later-its-what-youre-still-trying-to-forget

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/01/23/alt-right-event-seattle-devolves-chaos-and-violence-outside-truth-twisting-inside

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_of_Aaron_Danielson_and_Michael_Reinoehl

Ashley Babbit, shot dead during the invasion: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/us/who-was-ashli-babbitt.html

Trials and sentencing of Capitol rioters: https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/ex-proud-boys-leader-sentenced-to-three-years-in-prison-for-capitol-riot-plot-1566697.html

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/man-branded-undercover-agent-in-capitol-attack-conspiracy-theories-spared-jail-1573595.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/01/05/jan-6-insurrection-2-years-later-how-many-arrested-convicted-and-what-price-donald-trump-may-still-pay/

https://apnews.com/article/prisons-arizona-capitol-siege-5c9ebf384bf936403d42e1a453c89153

Trump electoral bid: https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/colorado-supreme-court-bans-donald-trump-from-ballot-under-insurrection-clause-1566708.html

Fascist groups in the USA: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/10/13/explained-alt-right-alt-light-and-militias-in-the-us

QAnon: https://www.bbc.com/news/53498434

USA fascist and racist code terminology: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/10/8/a-brief-dictionary-to-help-understand-the-us-far-right