Anthony McIntyre's Blog, page 1169

Xmas 2017

Merry Xmas 2017 to all our readers @ The Pensive Quill. 

Christian Teaching And Preaching Disguised In School Books

Lena M on ongoing evangelical Christian efforts to displace authentic education with religious bunkum.

Photo Credits: Diario Judicial
The main textbook publishers used in private fundamentalist Christian schools around the country are certainly Abeka, Bob Jones University Press, and Accelerated Christian Education. As BJU Press states on the website, they use the biblical themes of Creation, Fall, and Redemption as lenses through which to view academic disciplines. Accelerated Christian Education offers a non-traditional approach to education with solid, Christian values based on the Bible. Abeka shapes not just what children know, but who they become with character-building content that reinforces biblical values. This means that anything that is incompatible with evangelical beliefs and Bible, including evolution, climate change, anything-but-abstinence-only sex education, etc. must be pushed back against.

HuffPost education reporter Rebecca Klein notes that many of the schools that use these textbooks aren’t private at all. The problem is that those schools use government funding and teach children from religion textbooks. Nearly 8,000 schools across the 25 of 27 states participate in private school choice programs around the country along with the District of Columbia.

President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made school choice to become something that many states want to embrace because ‘voucher programs give parents an alternative to low-performing public schools.’ But the prospect of giving kids more access to these schools with public money is deeply upsetting to Bishop, who was recently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of bullying and corporal punishment she experienced as a child. Bishop fell into depression as soon as she faced the real world. When she went to job interviews, she had no idea what to say about the education she had received.

Some say these curriculum sources left them woefully ill-equipped to thrive in a diverse society while instilling in them racist, sexist and intolerant views of the world. [Ashley] Bishop said her fundamentalist education made her wary of people from other religious groups whom her teachers and textbooks had demonized.

“Anything that wasn’t Christianity was a strange religion,” said Bishop, who made it a priority to study other religious practices after high school and even spent time with the Hare Krishna. “But even other denominations were evil. Catholicism especially.”

An Accelerated Christian Education textbook has interesting definition of slaves – The slaves were mostly blacks from Africa and were the only group of immigrants who never freely chose to come to America. Not only that those textbooks do children disservice by not preparing them for the real world, they also use racist and intolerant terms and lessons. For instance, a Bob Jones high school world history textbook portrays Islam as a violent religion and contains a title “Islam and Murder.”




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National Action’s Fate – Nazi Ideology, Anti-Fascism And The State

This article by Mark Hayes examines the emergence of a relatively new (and short-lived) Nazi organisation in Britain – National Action (NA).




A considered analysis of primary source materials reveals that NA articulated an uncompromising version of Nazi ideology, and the group engaged in high profile activities that captured the attention of the mainstream and social media. Moreover, NA had a propensity for violence which led, not only to street confrontation, but to the expression of certain paramilitary pretensions.
The rise of groups like National Action is indicative of the on-going threat posed by groups who refuse to relinquish their adherence to the Nazi creed. Such was the impact made by National Action it led to the organisation being proscribed under the terms of ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation in Britain. It is now a criminal offence to be a member of National Action, participate in its meetings or support the organisation in any way. This judicial intervention effectively ended the organisation in its chosen form, although it is highly likely that it will re-emerge elsewhere, in another guise.

In fact National Action claimed to be at the forefront of a ‘new wave’ of fascist activism in Britain and it is interesting to note that NA represented an explicit rejection of the recent ‘populist’ trend, identifiable in fascist politics across Europe in recent years. The attempt to achieve political success by toning down the fascist message, while complying with constitutional methods and adopting a radical right-wing agenda, has been the predominant modus operandi in the contemporary era. In Britain, for example the British National Party (BNP) expended some considerable energy trying to become ‘respectable’ and electorally viable whilst concealing its inner ideology, which was nevertheless still identifiably fascist. In this sense the fascists leading the BNP were deliberately trying to camouflage their ideological perspective with a more ‘populist’ discourse which focused on the issue of preserving British culture and identity. However, the BNP, despite making an initial electoral impact at a local level, was unable to sustain its success, and the far right in Britain today is disunited, consisting of a variety of much smaller disparate elements.

Indeed the origins of National Action lay in the spectacular collapse of the British National Party (BNP) which imploded after its electoral ambitions were forestalled in 2010. The dramatic demise of the BNP, which once held over 50 local council seats, effectively released a relatively large number of right-wing activists into the ideological ether, with some seeking a return to a more robust articulation of Nazi aspirations.
The immediate forerunner of National Action, it could be argued, was English National Resistance, led by former BNP activists Kieran Trent and Matthew Tait, but its origins might also be found in other micro-groups like Islands of the North Atlantic (IONA), the Traditional Britain Group and the Integralist Party. Internet discussion groups like ‘Western Springs’ were also significant in providing a forum where far right activists could gather to exchange ideas and examine how unreconstructed fascists might re-group and recalibrate their political praxis.
National Action was one outcome of this process of critical self-examination on the fringes of fascist politics in Britain. Significantly, at the outset, the ‘drunken yobs’ that appeared to coalesce around the ‘centrist’ English Defence League (EDL) were rejected by NA as a ‘charade’, and it also unambiguously dismissed the failed electoral strategy of the BNP as a ‘vanity project’. National Action therefore set itself the task of distancing itself from both single-issue protest politics and constitutional methods.

So National Action had no apparent interest in conventional politics or developing a ‘populist’ agenda, but constituted a straightforward, single-minded determination to return to the rigorous first principles of hard-line Nazism. As one of the more recent manifestations of fascism in Britain, NA certainly attracted some sustained attention from the media, which became fascinated by its unapologetic and uncompromising defence of Nazi ideology.
Of course, there is a tendency in the media to exaggerate their coverage of ‘extremism’ for its own purposes, however (moral panics notwithstanding) the media nevertheless identified some of the more extraordinary elements which characterised NA. What was considered new and threatening about NA as a phenomenon was the group’s unconcealed admiration for Hitler, its links to violent terrorists, and the new propaganda tactics deployed. Indeed, it might be argued that in some ways National Action represented a new style of fascist activism in Britain.

Origins

National Action was formed in 2013 as a semi-clandestine group advocating the neo-Nazi ideology of ‘revolutionary nationalism’. In fact, NA members saw themselves as the faithful soldiers of the original National Socialist credo. The emphasis within NA was on practical activism and ideological purity in order to produce what it called ‘an exciting new interpretation of nationalism’. Benjamin Raymond (Noyles) and Alex Davies (a former member of the BNP’s youth wing) became the most identifiable ‘leaders’ of the new group, which held its first conference in 2015. The unambiguous aim of the organisation was to return to a particular conception of national socialist ideology, as articulated originally by Adolf Hitler, whilst ostentatiously eschewing more conventional efforts at political activity, particularly elections. Electoral politics, according to NA, inevitably resulted in the dilution of long cherished political ideals. The objective was, in short, to precipitate a paradigmatic shift in neo-Nazi political values on the far right and in the process, as the NA website put it, produce ‘a cohesive nationalist youth culture’.

In essence National Action had a very particular political purpose, as the NA website proclaimed:

National Action is a National Socialist youth organisation which means our clientele are clean, intelligent, and ambitious people typically in their late teens or twenties. It is a scene for young Nationalists to network, engage socially, and be creative at a time when there is no prospect for a political success.

As the NA ‘Strategy and Promotion’ document explained: 'We have been presented with an opportunity for this project as our market exploits a doldrum period in nationalism where there is no clear nationalist party to get behind’. The overall objective was put, quite succinctly: ‘our whole strategy places value on the public expression of a hard line and determined ideology’. The timing was right, NA argued, to return to primary principles. Moreover nationalists, according to NA, should never compromise on their convictions because ‘the arrival of fascism in the 20th century was the greatest event in world history … It is not an empty task we now undertake in reviving it’.
The organisation itself only numbered in the hundreds, but it was growing rapidly and consisted of committed neo-Nazi activists from across Britain, although the biggest area of strength was considered to be the North West. National Action activists saw themselves as an organisation of elite ‘stormtroopers’, which was emphatically ‘not for plebs’. The emphasis was also on attracting younger recruits, and there was an informal age limit of 35. This emphasis on youth was self-evidently designed to facilitate a vibrant and creative cultural milieu. As NA documentation put it: ‘youth is more than just a demographic – it is the basis of having a “scene”’. The group emphasised the need to attract nationalist ‘heroes’ who have the vision, not only to construct a network of cadres but, as they put it, ‘build a war machine that can tear through the tired institutions and rip them into bloody shreds’. Moreover, NA was designed to purvey neo-Nazi nationalism, not just as a set of ideas, but as a ‘way of life’, a culture and a lived experience. National Action therefore aimed to provide a secure space for Neo-Nazi activists to exchange ideas and interact, in order to generate a vigorous and effective neo-fascist network.

In order to convey its message NA utilised the most evocative imagery, whilst professionally produced graphics were designed to create an immediate emotional impact which was focused primarily on alienated white youth in Britain. The NA Website, which started in September 2013, aimed to attract attention and antagonise political adversaries. Lurid images and provocative language featured prominently (‘we are going to gas sub-human communist scum’) and this was combined with heavily edited footage of their practical activities. Interventions on the website were invariably confrontational, racist and virulently anti-Semitic. Self-evidently NA traded in extravagant, theatrical bravado on the blogosphere, whilst attempting to offer explicit access to excitement and adventure via participation in their so-called ‘white jihad’. Internet forums and the ‘dark web’ were also used explicitly to attract potential recruits (NA had facebook, tumblr and twitter accounts) and, according to NA, it alone possessed the ‘courage’ to pioneer a very aggressive form of agitprop which was ‘irreverent’ and ‘extreme’ because ‘hardcore propaganda’ suited its purpose as an organisation. As NA confirmed: ‘whether we are pitching this idea to other Nationalists or to the public we need our words to come in hammer blows’.

Position

The objective of National Action was to build an organisation that was resilient and determined, and able to command respect. To achieve this NA required people who possessed not only ideological commitment but, crucially, the capacity to fight. National Action stressed the need for participants who were much more committed than mere ‘followers’. The members had to become the ‘fighting element’ which would ‘remain pure’ in their adherence to their ‘political religion’: ‘Only a movement of strength lives in appreciation for the task of survival and the victory that will come. Only when you establish a power relationship with your enemies do you exist in a state of struggle and have any bargaining power’. As Raymond put it: ‘one day there will be a time for civilised discussion maybe, but we can’t do that until we make them respect us – now they are going to get their heads kicked in’.
A scene from the 2015 Liverpool clashes

Certainly some of NA’s activities were designed, at the very least, to provoke a response, for example distributing pro-Nazi leaflets in major multicultural cities like Birmingham, Coventry and Liverpool. NA held their first ‘white man’ march in Newcastle in 2015 and aimed to repeat the activity elsewhere. Indeed, in Liverpool in 2015 NA threatened to start a ‘race riot’, claiming ‘only bullets will stop us’. Although, on the day NA activists were forced into an ignominious retreat, the NA website maintained that ‘by leafleting in the heart of a cosmopolitan metropolis, we have shown that no matter how radical the message or how multiracial the area, Nationalists have no reason to fear going out on the streets and spreading the message’. National Action also organised ‘flash-mobs’ on campuses and NA claimed to have a presence in some British Universities. This type of ‘propaganda of the deed’ afforded NA a significant tactical advantage because it effectively deprived the anti-fascist opposition of the opportunity to mobilise. Furthermore, the fact that NA was unconcerned about the reaction it received as a consequence of its activities, was most vividly illustrated when its members posted pictures of themselves on the internet giving Nazi salutes in the so-called ‘corpse cellar’ at Buchenwald concentration camp in May 2016. The mainstream media was used therefore, not in an attempt to seek approval or solicit wider support, but to instil fear and raise their political profile by shocking the sensibilities of the general public.
Clearly the emphasis in NA was on ‘boots’ not ‘suits’ with a consistent, if controversial, message and a relatively high level of organisational competence. There is also evidence that, if left to their own devices, their tactics may well have moved well beyond the macho posturing of street confrontation. For instance, there was some discussion in NA circles, of the ‘one-man cell’ as a ‘functioning instrument’ which reflected a need to convey the impression that NA was ‘a group of action not just words’ intent on making a tangible impact on the political landscape. As NA put it:

to achieve our objectives we must at first use tactics such as those established by Louis Beam’s model of Leaderless Resistance which encourages the adoption of a phantom cell structure rather than a tiered and hierarchical form of army. Beam’s strategy needs to inform our initial engagements with the hegemonic forces who seek to suppress us.

Hence ‘lone wolf’ attacks, which are notoriously difficult to prevent because the activist acts independently of leaders or movement, were explicitly encouraged in NA literature. In short, in the absence of popular support, the Nazi activist was encouraged to resort to the despairing bravado of the autonomous assassin in an effort to precipitate chaos and make a political point. As NA explained: ‘we want things to get worse so that the system burns its bridges…worse is better’.

If we look more specifically at the political ideas and concepts articulated by National Action we can see that it sought to position itself with reference to the ideological heritage of fascism – all the familiar Nazi ideological themes were evident in the NA credo. National Action’s ideology was self-evidently fascist and Nazi: romantic anti-rationalism, social Darwinism, aggressive nationalism (xenophobia), along with an emphasis on an authoritarian state and a disciplined society, the need for assertive dictatorial leadership, and the idea of a ‘third way’ beyond communism and capitalism, were combined with an adherence to cultural/sociobiological racism – with a heavy emphasis on anti-Semitism. All of these features appeared prominently in NA literature and the group were clearly fanatical exponents of the classical paradigm of Nazism, as outlined by Adolf Hitler. Occasionally the florid rhetoric afforded a glimpse of what might be in store, should NA ever have achieved a position of influence:

if it is possible for us to take power, as we believe, then the most desirable and effective way of dealing with the race problem is for it to be carried out through civil and legislative institutions – the arms of the state’ but ‘involuntary repatriation or “ethnic cleansing” is not without precedent.

The practical consequence of National Action’s blatantly anti-Semitic perspective was entirely predictable and articulated without obfuscation: ‘it is with glee that we will enact the final solution across Europe’. Such sentiments were bound to induce anxiety in anyone with the most cursory knowledge of contemporary European history.

However, although the ideological template was provided by classical forms of fascism (as expressed in practical terms in Germany between 1933-45) and therefore National Action can be legitimately described as an authentic organisational embodiment of Nazi ideology, its political praxis also clearly complied with the tradition of fascism in Britain. The infamous triptych of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), National Front (NF), and British National Party (BNP) were all manifestations of the fascist experience set in a specifically British context although they also acquired their ideological impetus from the ideas which animated the classical fascist movements and regimes on the continent between1922-45. Each of these organisations, in its own way, kept fascist ideas alive in Britain during onerous circumstances and in its own peculiar way, NA was attempting to perform precisely the same political task.

That NA is very much a part of the fascist tradition in Britain might be axiomatic, but it is also worth noting that they also had much broader influences as well, partly because they emphasised the need for a pan-European perspective. Hence NA had links with a variety of far-right organisations such as National Rebirth of Poland (NOP), Sigud and the Nordic Resistance Movement, White Rex and Wotan Jugend. There is also evidence of contact with the Ukrainian paramilitary group Azov Division. National Action was also inspired by the ‘success’ of the Jobbik movement in Hungary, and the impact made by Golden Dawn in Greece which ‘glitters tantalizingly on the horizon’, indeed NA admitted that ‘Golden Dawn in Greece are a perfect example of what we’d like to replicate’.

It is also possible to discern other, more esoteric, ideological inspirations from Europe, such as the authoritarian impulses of Primo de Rivera and the Spanish Falange, Codreanu’s Romanian Iron Guard, or the anti-rational mysticism of Julius Evola. Perhaps, given the fact that NA set itself a much wider cultural remit, a more pertinent and contemporary comparator might be Casa Pound in Italy, which began as a squatter organisation but developed into a social network in the Esquilino district of Rome and spread to other cities.
Furthermore, it is important to note that the increasingly globalised and interconnected nature of the world definitely helps groups like NA develop new relationships with like-minded individuals and organisations – this has precipitated dramatic changes in the scope and relevance of the broader ‘imagined’ community of fascist activists. Websites provide easy accessibility across national borders, and the internet facilitates direct contact between fascist ideologues in a way hardly imaginable to previous generations, therefore access to a plethora of explicitly Nazi ideas has never been easier.

Confrontation

Of course, active resistance to such organisations is imperative and fascism needs to be confronted both ideologically and physically. It is interesting to note that it was militant, street level anti-fascist activists who did most of the ‘heavy lifting’ when confronting the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s, the National Front in the 1970s and the BNP in the 1980s and 90s. Physical force, used as a tactic rather than a principle, was used effectively to confront and deter those organisations trying to intimidate and divide people in local communities. Indeed, this approach has been successful in the very recent past. A similar effort to ‘control the streets’ was attempted by Combat 18, which was formed by the BNP. Despite the pavement posturing reminiscent of contemporaneous ‘football firms’ C18 never actually fulfilled its pretentions. The BNP was, in effect, forced to ‘de-commission the boot’ (as Nick Griffin and Tony Lecomber put it) due to the assiduous attention of groups like Anti-Fascist Action.

Eventually C18 was jettisoned by the BNP as a state-infiltrated embarrassment in 1994. Combat 18 subsequently degenerated into a drinking club for drug dealers and Hitler-worshipping fantasists. In actual fact National Action effectively acknowledged that it was itself formed, at least in part, as a reaction to this failure to control public space in the face of sustained anti-fascist resistance: ‘National Action was formed in the face of adversity, in hate of the red terror that humbled and fell so many Nationalist groups before us’. Indeed, NA argued that ‘any group who is not working to actively combat these thugs is a non-starter because the group either gets suppressed, or they must self-marginalise their own activities to places where they have no effect’, therefore ‘we must first break the red terror’. So, NA itself was, in some ways, merely the latest effort to respond the success anti-fascist organisations have had in confronting fascists in Britain. Hence, despite its lofty ideological pretensions, NA were not so much the harbingers of a new national ‘revolution’, but the bitter bile produced after the fascist far right had digested the fact that they had been comprehensively defeated on the streets. This kind of resistance is entirely appropriate and necessary.

However, such a pro-active approach has been the subject of some considerable controversy recently with eminent intellectual Noam Chomsky questioning the utility of robust physical resistance against the (proto-fascist) Alt-Right in the USA. Of course, there are some powerful arguments which can be deployed against militant anti-fascist activists, and these tend to prioritise civil liberties and the right to freedom of speech. This is essentially the idea that fascist ideas can and should be exposed to the penetrating light of democratic debate. Rational people will, it is claimed, see through the lies and malevolent half-truths of fascist discourse and be convinced of the intellectual rigour of those advocating tolerance and freedom.

However, to prioritise liberal freedoms above political realities would be a fundamental mistake. We know, from historical experience, that fascists only use democracy in order to destroy it – although they are perfectly willing to milk the Parliamentary cow before it gets butchered. Fascists use freedom of speech in order to destroy it, and fascism in practice leads inexorably toward dictatorship, coercion and concentration camps. Moreover, freedom of speech is a contingent liberty, and cannot be construed as an absolute right in all circumstances, and much depends upon political circumstances and social consequences. We all accept constraints on our freedom of speech for the common good, and some of these restrictions happen to be enshrined in law. No-one would seriously support the right of paedophiles to argue in favour of sex with children.

Moreover, given the historical and theoretical context, ordinary people in working class communities, where fascists try to incubate their grotesque ideology, have every right to resist – indeed it becomes a moral obligation to do so, by all means necessary. A ‘no platform’ position with regard to overtly fascist organisations is, therefore entirely legitimate, and force is, in some very specific circumstances, a viable and necessary option. This fact has been confirmed by the British experience of anti-fascism, which has always been successful in challenging fascists for the control of public space. In fact, in many ways those on the liberal left are guilty of the most asinine hypocrisy because, unless they are pacifists, everyone accepts the utility of violence in certain circumstances. Of course, the conventional liberal mantra that ‘violence never solves anything’ would not survive a moment’s serious reflection and is only ever selectively applied by its protagonists – and it never seems to apply to those wielding the coercive power of the state.
Moreover, in terms of recent history, it has often been liberals who have cynically used violence on a massive scale, whilst perpetrating illegal wars and colonial expeditions. Those of us who aspire to becoming part of a relevant (rather than ‘liberal’) left cannot afford to be squeamish about confronting the issue of physical resistance. Indeed, the failure to confront fascism effectively may consign us all to irrelevance.

Attraction

Now there is an even more disturbing aspect to all of this, which will undoubtedly unsettle the liberal intellectuals who study such things. Nazi ideology is threatening and dangerous because, to certain sections of the white working class, it can offer a far more satisfying and convincing credo than the austere individualism that underpins neo-liberalism. This assertion requires careful elaboration. Fascism can be attractive because it is a form of collectivism, which aims to transcend a sterile economic orthodoxy which focuses on the instrumental value of the individual consumer in the free market. One of the fundamental insights of fascist ideology was (is) the emphasis on the social dimension and its acknowledgement that people need to feel a sense of belonging, and that there is more to existence than autonomous agents cast adrift in the free market wilderness.

During difficult periods desperate people will seize on anything to provide an ‘explanation’ for their predicament and a prospect of respite. In fact, given the recent trajectory of economic decline in capitalist societies, for a growing number of people the actual material benefits of market-based freedoms are becoming far less obvious. The sense of purpose, devotion and dedication inspired by fascist ideology should therefore not be underestimated. Hence the Nazi ideal, dystopian though it undoubtedly is, nevertheless reflects an impulse to accommodate a collective consciousness which transcends existential atomisation and gives human existence a greater meaning. The fascists claim to be able to take everyone, minus the ‘other’, to a better life, and this kind of rhetoric resonates in marginalised communities where progressive political aspirations have been seriously attenuated. It is therefore important to note that the dominant liberal orthodoxy, which had assumed that pluralistic, multicultural capitalism had ensured the permanent defeat of fascism, looks exceedingly threadbare in the context of fascist and right-wing populist successes across Europe and the USA.Trump’s success has energised the far right

However, the real threat of an authoritarian future may not come directly from the neo-fascist micro-groups, although they retain a clear capacity to damage the social fabric. The genuine danger may come from a creeping state authoritarianism and an erosion of human rights, which moves the body politic towards the ideological territory inhabited by the far right. When this occurs it makes it much easier for the noxious ideas of fascist micro-groups to gain traction. The state may be a complex (and sometimes contradictory) collection of institutions, organisations, processes and interactions (both repressive and ideological) but it is still possible to discern an overall strategic imperative or ‘direction of travel’ and an ostensibly liberal democratic state, which is unable to secure hegemony during a period of socio-economic and political crisis, may attempt to solve this dilemma by moving toward a more authoritarian, ‘exceptional’ dispensation. Here we must effectively acknowledge and assess the potential of this dynamic to exert much more coercive state power.

In fact we can discern this process now in the UK. The growth of officially sanctioned ‘Islamaphobia’ via counter-terrorism strategy, the expansion of the security agenda and the systematic erosion of civil liberties as a consequence of the so-called ‘war on terror’ (which has necessitated the militarisation of the police, mass surveillance, secret courts, suspension of habeas corpus, extraordinary rendition, ‘black site’ prisons, the use and justification of torture and extra-judicial assassination) all indicate unambiguously that the scope for a much more authoritarian version of liberal democracy is growing exponentially. All of this is, of course, underpinned by the sclerotic influence of secret state agencies which have honed their craft during the years of colonial subjugation, and which still remain largely unaccountable for their actions. This is why it is absolutely pointless to rely on the state to deal with fascism whilst it is itself moving in a proto-fascist direction.

Intervention

Thus, in such a context, the official ban imposed on National Action by the British government (which was wildly applauded by many liberals) may actually be counter-productive in terms of preventing fascism – it will have little tangible effect on actual activists, who will simply engage in more clandestine activity, whilst the measure itself reflects the power of a state which has dramatically (and seemingly inexorably) enhanced its discretionary authority and coercive capability. It is interesting to note that the UK’s Prevent strategy outlines a list of ‘British values’ to be adhered to whilst in the USA the department of Homeland Security has already formally classified Antifa protests as ‘domestic terrorist violence’. Here, with the state effectively intervening to decide what is a ‘legitimate’ political perspective, we seem to be heading into an exceedingly dangerous area of jurisprudence, the logic of which presages the emergence of an ‘exceptional state’ that formally dispenses with the constraints upon central executive authority.

National Action may have articulated a genuinely nasty Nazi ideology, but the idea that state legislation is the best way to deal with the threat is a categorical error. By allowing the state to, in effect, determine the realm of ‘responsible’ political discourse the ‘populist’ parties of the right make it much easier for fascist ideas to gain traction. So such a state ban, aiming to prevent a ‘vile ideology’ in the name of liberal tolerance, can produce (in the longer term) precisely the opposite effect. Hence the ballot box, or the size of fascist organisations are not the only matrix by which we might measure the success of fascist ideology. Its not that the liberal damns will be breached by a tidal wave of fascist votes or that Nazi-micro-groups might metastasize, but that democratic values, institutions and processes are effectively eroded from within, thereby creating the conditions for fascist success in the future. The elliptical slide into a qualitatively different type of regime may be gradual and incremental and in this sense the fascist lunatics on the fringes of the political spectrum do not need to do very much because the practical policy output of the state, which reflects and sustains asymmetrical power relationships, is moving the ideological centre of gravity in their direction.

Thus, the liberal democratic state, deploying the rhetoric of ‘security’, ‘safety’ and ‘stability’ moves inexorably toward an altogether more sinister proto-fascist formulation. It is always worth remembering that ultimately the state’s polycontextual function, despite its existence as a site of political struggle reflecting wider social contradictions, is to protect the material interests of the dominant class – to ensure, more specifically, social stability and the economic conditions conducive to continued capital accumulation. It is also worth noting that in global terms, where free market capitalism is dominant, the authoritarian conception of the state is far more prevalent than the liberal democratic model. Capitalism’s connection to democratic forms and structures is (and has always been) extremely tenuous and contingent upon a range of factors which are difficult to predict or control.
There is no impenetrable wall of liberal tolerance separating conventional politics from fascism, despite the comforting assurances of politicians. Certainly the neo-liberal political project which emphasises ‘austerity’ and ‘security’ has precipitated a dynamic which is driving democracy toward a more dictatorial form of state which attempts to (re)exert control by ossifying the balance of social forces in favour of capital.
Myths

Such an observation means that it is important to address explicitly the ‘failure of fascism’ thesis which asserts that fascism was comprehensively and permanently defeated in 1945. In fact in many ways the ‘failure of fascism’ hypothesis reflected the uncritical assimilation of a convenient cultural myth. The notion of fascist ‘failure’ tends to obscure the fact that fascism has made some significant progress, has set the political agenda and retains the capacity to do serious damage to the social fabric. The focus on the caricature villains of the fascist ‘other’, with their swastikas and overt anti-Semitism enables society to ignore some of its own imperfections, and obscures the real relationship between Conservatism and fascism which is far more ambiguous than conventional wisdom suggests. This point is worth developing because a kind of anti-fascist myth exists in Britain, as a consequence of the war. The uncomfortable fact is that the war against Hitler (and Mussolini) reflected a desire to protect certain long-held strategic, geo-political and economic interests, rather than a conflict over ideological principle or morality.

In short, the British ruling class was drawn into an anti-fascist position by the foreign policy of Hitler, which posed a real threat to Britain’s material interests. To put the point more bluntly, the war, from the British policy-making point of view, did not reflect any deeply held antipathy toward fascist ideology. Indeed, many members of the British ruling class expressed admiration for fascist ideas, and noted the various ‘achievements’ of fascist regimes. Certain sections of the British upper classes not only flirted shamelessly with fascism before the war, many Conservatives saw fascism as simply a more virile and robust expression of their own ideas. Even the Conservative party’s own ‘anti-fascist’ warlord, Winston Churchill, is on record as expressing his admiration for both Hitler and Mussolini, and the dullards in the royal family would have undoubtedly supplied their very own Quisling or Petain, if the war had gone badly. The collaborators would undoubtedly have come from the Conservative elites and the Establishment.

So, in effect, the war in the West represented a conflict of interests rather than ideas (in contrast to the ideological war of annihilation in the East) – it was a conflict conducted primarily against fascists rather than fascism. This dimension of the conflagration has, of course, been distorted by post-war reaction to the Holocaust, which revealed the evil essence of Nazism and precipitated a retrospective rationalisation by Conservative elements in Britain. This revision may have been an understandable reflex in response to Genocide, but it should not be allowed to obfuscate the real nature of the relationship between Conservatism, the ruling class and fascism. The reality is that it is the Conservative classes, the people with power and privilege, who are most likely to succumb to the fatal allure of fascism during a period of crisis, and the state itself may be seduced by solutions that have much more in common with fascism than liberal democracy.

Conclusion

The fact is that unrestrained capitalism makes it much more difficult to solve the problem of violent right-wing micro-groups because the economic system, which produces dramatic levels of social inequality, and which is systemically prone to intermittent cyclical crises, actually incubates the fascist contagion. In such an economic context there is an inevitable populist impulse to blame ‘immigrants’ and ‘refugees’ for resource scarcity. In such a conducive situation, the fascist far right offers seductively simplistic solutions to complex socio-economic problems. In response to this the liberal-left response has been worse than useless. Indeed, the stubborn liberal-left commitment to ‘identity politics’, which re-configures the ‘white’ working class as an ethnic category, actually plays into the hands of those stressing the significance of ethnicity. Fashionable post-modern cynicism about the utility of meta-narratives and collective action have not only hampered the left, they have underscored the preconceptions of the far right by prioritizing ethnicity. In effect, the contours of the ideological territory mapped out by some on the ‘politically correct’ liberal left are familiar to fascists and easy to navigate. The separatism of ‘special interests’ therefore needs to be replaced by an analysis based primarily on ‘class’, which actually means challenging the ‘sacred cow’ of ‘multiculturalism’.

Hence, those activists who focus entirely on the stubborn persistence of the pathological misfits and morons who inhabit the Nazi micro-groups, whilst ignoring the nature of the state and the socio-economic and political context within which such activity takes place, not only diminish our chance of understanding why these groups emerge, it effectively exonerates those who have been complicit in creating an environment within which such ideas and groups can flourish. There is an entirely understandable urge to recoil at the message conveyed by groups like National Action – but they are unlikely to disappear completely unless the socio-political and economic environment which keeps producing such micro-groups is adequately addressed.

Indeed, disregarding the deeper contextual dimensions of fascist activity is not only an impediment to effective analysis, it is a pusillanimous dereliction of duty. Anti-fascists need to focus their strategy on the fascist organisations themselves, but also on the state/society which provides the context within which this conflict is being played out. In the ‘age of austerity’, where the attempt to re-impose neo-liberalism after the financial crisis has exposed the naked class interests which underpin the capitalist economic system, nothing is more important than understanding the precise nature of the threat posed by the far right because, as Bertold Brecht once remarked ‘the bitch that gave birth to fascism is on heat again’!

No Pasaran!

Mark Hayes started as an industrial labourer for British Shipbuilders in Woolston, Southampton in 1978. Whilst studying for a degree, he was given a short-term contract as a lecturer. Mark obtained a first class honours degree in politics from Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1984. He completed his PhD at the University of Southampton on the topic of the extreme right in British politics. Mark has published widely, including books, book chapters, journal articles, book reviews and commentary.

Bombs, Bullets and the Border

Christopher Owens reviews a book on the Northern conflict.





It's strange that I find myself reading this book as the arguments/lack of knowledge about the border surface in mainstream media.
And, after reading this, it seems that both governments both overestimated and underestimated the importance of the border in the 1970's as well. Whenever Marx made his infamous claim about history repeating itself, it's hard to escape the notion that he had this island in mind when writing that!
Patrick Mulroe deserves credit for the research and craft that has gone into this book. What could have been a dry, academic exercise in statistics is brought to life by the various tales, antics and perspectives from contemporary and retrospective reports.
What is evident throughout is that the approach taken by the various incarnations of the Dail in this time could be described as 'haphazard', made worse by the underfunded, overstretched Gardai and Irish Army. Not only does that give a comical underlying to Jack Lynch's infamous "we cannot stand by" speech, but it also sets the tone for the rest of the book. 
Mulroe examines the various claims of IRA/Garda collusion that have been levelled over the years by various parties and concludes that, while there was undoubted collusion in certain circumstances (he quotes one IRA Director of Intelligence who claims that meetings were abandoned due to a tip off about Special Branch raiding the meeting), most of the time it seems that mixed messages from the Garda's political masters (destroy the IRA, but be circumspect in dealings with the RUC/UDR/Army) led to the average Garda adopting their own take on how to deal with such matters.
Interestingly, he deals with the Garda McArdle affair in one paragraph (and without mentioning his name). Considering Ed Moloney has written an extensive blog post dealing with the case, it's disappointing that Mulroe didn't use this as a starting point to delve further.
Obviously, with the book stopping in 1978, he doesn't go into the allegations about Mountbatten and the Smithwick Tribunal, so a follow up with extensive research would be necessary.
Throughout, there are moments of unintentional hilarity: Mulroe offers the reader excerpts from a discussion between a British commander and a Garda. It ends with the following lines:

"Patrol commander: If I came under fire and I needed assistance how long would it take you to arrive?
Sergeant Newell: If you were under fire we would not come anywhere near you until the firing had stopped."
The image of Blackadder Goes Forth and the quip about General Melchett being 35 miles behind the troops springs to mind!
Another example is a report which compares and contrasts reported events (such as shootings) from both the British and Irish perspective. This section is magical:


"Date/Location      British version                             Irish version


18 April,                60-70 high velocity shots            Irish forces on scene promptly but
Lisnaskea               fired at UDR from two               confused IRA members in full
                               firing positions in south              battle dress for UDR patrol. IRA
                                                                                   members made their escape due to
                                                                                   this confusion"


Aside from the comical material, what this demonstrates is that the perceptions that the British had of the Irish Army and Gardai as being a) armed and equipped to deal with republicans but b) sympathetic and more often working with them were far removed from reality. Mulroe repeatedly cites internal reports from the Department of Justice and the Gardai oral history project as evidence that both were undermanned and overworked, with too much emphasis on dealing with republicans instead of focusing on ordinary crime.
As a result, and already demonstrated by others, this diversion of attention leading to an explosion of crime that gave birth to the professional criminal underground. Families like the Dunnes and the Cahills prospered in these circumstances, and to the detriment of their own communities, neglected by the local councils. 
It seems the threat of loyalist attacks were swept under the carpet by the Dail. Once again, Mulroe doesn't spend a lot of time on the issue, but it seems that the idea of attacks from a section of the North's community that TD's knew nothing about seemed to fill them with existentialist dread, leading them to almost lie to themselves about the stark realities of Dublin and Monaghan. Whether this is gross incompetence on the part of the Dail, or a lasting legacy of partition is up for interpretation. Either way, it's a disturbing facet of the Dail's collective psyche in this period. 
As part of a welcome spate of books dealing with the conflict, all with their origins in academia, Bombs, Bullets... does an excellent job of focusing on an aspect of the conflict that is often verbalised, but rarely analysed. Although certain aspects could have been explored in more depth, Mulroe has done an excellent job here.
Patrick Mulroe 2017 Bombs, Bullets and the Border - Policing Ireland's Frontier: Irish Security Policy, 1969-78 Irish Academic Press ISBN-13: 978-1911024491/



Christopher Owens reviews for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland.

Follow Christopher Owens on Twitter @MrOwens212

The Beginning Of The Dublin/Kerry Rivalry

More from Matt Treacy on the world of GAA.
The Beginning of the Dublin Kerry rivalry in the 1920s

Before 1976, the last time Dublin had defeated Kerry in an All Ireland final was in 1923 (Dublin team photographed above). However, that year’s final was not held in 1923, and the reason that it was not almost overshadowed the final itself. Although it has become the main rivalry in gaelic football, prior to 1923 they had only met on three occasions; Dublin won the 1892 final, Kerry were victors in 1904, and Dublin beat them in the 1909 home final. The frisson in the 1920s was as much political as sporting.

Dublin had beaten Kerry in the 1892 final, but Laune Rangers, who represented Kerry, were not happy about the result. They claimed that the hoots and groans from the Dublin supporters had demoralised the poor lads from Killorglin. The Kerry captain P.J Sullivan referred to the Dublin Young Irelands as dogs.

The years of revolutionary turmoil that followed 1916 had a profound effect on the GAA. Not least because of the fact that so many GAA members were involved as IRA Volunteers, often as prominent leaders including Harry Boland from Dublin, who was county chairman between 1913 and 1918, and honorary President in 1919, and Austin Stack from Kerry. It is clear from the minutes of the Dublin county board that Dublin GAA was overwhelmingly on the side of the revolution. Not only that but in September 1913 it had approved the organisation of a monster tournament for the benefit of the men on strike or locked out, many of whom are either members or supporters of the GAA (p.51).

Even though games activity was severely curtailed in parts of the country where resistance was most intense, Dublin and Kerry being a good case in point, the revolutionary years without doubt boosted the popularity of gaelic games. Dublin resisted the attempts of the British to close down the GAA through various methods, and in August 1918 the county board organised Gaelic Sunday, a mass act of defiance of the Crown. So much for the Jackeens.

It was impossible to organise the 1920 championship under the conditions of martial law in Munster and the Black and Tan terror that prevailed in Dublin. The final could not be held until June 11, 1922 and was contested by Dublin and Tipperary, the two teams that had been in Croke Park to raise funds for republican prisoners on Bloody Sunday, November 21, 1920 when Michael Hogan of Tipp and 13 spectators were murdered by the British army.

The delayed 1920 final, which was won by Tipperary, took place just weeks before the outbreak of the Civil War which was to have an even more disruptive impact on the GAA than the previous six years. Dublin won the 1921 and 1922 finals, against Mayo and Galway, both of which were played in 1923 following the end of the Civil War, and were in pursuit of their third three-in-a-row.

A number of counties had refused to participate in 1923 because of the continued detention of anti-Treaty prisoners in jails and internment camps after hostilities came to an end in May 1923. That was complicated by the fact that a number of former or current county players were IRA prisoners.

There is a myth that the GAA in Dublin was largely sympathetic at official level to the Free State. It is true that the leading club OTooles had as members former Dublin Brigade Volunteers who had been close to Collins and who not only took the Treaty side but some of whom were officers in the Free State Army. A number of them had been in Kerry, where the Civil War was particularly vicious, and that gave an extra edge to the dispute over the final. O’Tooles had in fact taken part in a tournament to raise funds for released anti Treaty prisoners. The Dublin county board also approved a match between Dublin and Wexford in aid of ex-internees in July 1924.

Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. When long time County Chairman Harry Boland was killed during the civil war, the county board passed a resolution that all Dublin GAA members (are) requested to assemble at Earlsfort Terrace on 3 August 1922 to accompany Boland’s remains from St Vincent’s Hospital to Carmelite Church, Whitefriar Street. (p.304). When Collins was killed not long afterwards, the county board meeting was suspended as a mark of respect. The GAA was walking a tightrope and was possibly the only unifying force in the country during those dark days.

Joe Stynes was an anti-Treaty IRA Volunteer and a former member of O’Tooles. He had left them and joined another club, McCrackens, which was based in Ballsbridge. Stynes was imprisoned during the Civil War but O’Tooles, as county champions, selected Stynes to play for Dublin. Stynes later emigrated to the United States where he became a prominent figure in Noraid. One of his grand-nephews Brian won an All Ireland with Dublin in 1995. Another, Jim who died of cancer in 2012, became one of the stars of Aussie Rules with Melbourne.

Kerry GAA was not universally supportive of the republican side, again in contradiction to some peoples mythology. Kerry was as much divided as any other part of the country which had been to the forefront of the revolution. While on the one hand that led to tensions, it is also acknowledged that the association played a major role in making it possible for former enemies to come to some accommodation. One step towards this took place when a match was arranged between former Kerry republican prisoners and the actual Kerry team. That took place in July 1923 after the last republicans had been released. The “Curragh” won by 0 – 4 to 0 – 2. The Kerryman of July 5, 1924 published a letter from the Erskine Childers Sinn Féin cumann in Dublin hailing “the splendid action of the Kerry team in refusing to play the Dublin team until the prisoners were all released.”

With all that resolved, Kerry were confident of fielding a better side than the one which had defeated Cavan by a point in the semi-final in April. The Kerryman was looking forward to the match with keen anticipation, declaring it to be the event of the season. It generously declared that Dublin were “no fools” and would be fielding their strongest team in order to beat Kerry. The match was seen as a clash between Kerry’s “high fielding and punting” combination against the Dubs “short low combination, in which palming of the ball so characteristic of Leinster football in recent years, will predominate.”

Two weeks after August GAA Congress had ironed out the remaining hangovers from the dispute over the prison releases, Kerry and Dublin met in a challenge match in Tralee, something that would be have been unthinkable in later years. Both teams were reported by the Kerryman to be about to start training, which again appears strange to modern eyes, and the challenge was advertised as “The Great Who Shall.”  Admission would be one shilling and the referee was to be Jim Byrne, star of the Wexford four-in-a-row team. He was also to referee the All Ireland final. As it happened Byrne was unable to attend the match which was refereed instead by Tom Costelloe of Tralee.

P.J O C, the Kerryman GAA correspondent, looked forward to the match and warned: “When Dublin sends its best men to represent it goes without saying that they will take some beating.” He dismissed rumours that Dublin only intended to field a “scrap team.” Kerry also would be putting out its intended All Ireland team.

On the day a crowd of around 6,000 packed into the Sports Field, yielding a gate of £285. It was reported that the conduct of the crowd had been good and this was regarded by the Kerryman as “a happy augury for the future good relations that we all hope will exist between the youths of the county.” But the Civil War was not far away. General Richard Mulcahy, who was Commander of the Free State Army, attended as did Kerry pro-Treaty TD Fionán Lynch. Austin Stack was also there. The Kerryman, perhaps allowing its enthusiasm for reconciliation get the better of it, declared that Mulcahy, who was hated by republicans, had been seen in “friendly conversation” with Humphrey “Free” Murphy, O/C of the 1st Kerry Brigade, who had been released from the Curragh and who had been on the Kerry team that lost the 1915 final to Wexford. P.J O C elsewhere admitted that this report was in error.

The Dublin team was greeted with extravagant hospitality, being put up at the Kerry County Board’s expense in the Ashbourne Hotel, and brought on a visit to Casement’s Fort on the morning of the match. They did not, however, reciprocate on the field of play where P.J O C claimed that they beat Kerry “pulling up.” Kerry did lead at half-time but Dublin’s hand-passing game exposed Kerry’s lack of fitness despite the efforts of a few players like Con Brosnan.

P.J did not like the Dublin style and claimed that the old Kerry team would not have stood for it. “Any one of the old Kerry team would burst that combination in five minutes, and have no talk about it either.” He also complained about the lack of discipline by some Kerry players who would not stay in their allotted positions, thus allowing the wily Dubs the opportunity to roam about, hand-passing and all that Fancy Dan sort of thing.

John Joe Sheehy had a goal for Kerry after 20 minutes and Joe Stynes, who was adjudged Dublin’s best player, forced a number of saves from the Kerry goalkeeper Denis Hurley. Exchanges were pretty tough but there were no complaints. A Dublin man was knocked out “but soon resumed amid applause.” Stout fellow. Kerry led by 1 – 1 to 0 – 2 at half time.

Despite playing into the wind, Dublin had a goal scored by Frank Burke of UCD Collegians early in the second period. Another passing movement that involved all of the Dublin forwards led to Stynes crashing the ball into the net. Kerry, despite tiring, rallied but Dublin’s defence held out for a 2 – 3 to 1 – 4 victory which was sportingly acclaimed by the home crowd.

The O’Tooles players had not travelled, possibly for political reasons, so the Dublin team only bore a slight resemblance to that which contested the final in September and which had six of the county champions in its starting line-up. Of those who played in Tralee, only five togged out for the final. One of those who was in Tralee but who missed out on the big day was Frank Shouldice who had won Dublin championships in 1914 and 1915 with the Geraldines. He was more famous for having escaped from Usk Prison in Wales in January 1919. The Kerry team featured eight of those who would play in the final.



Matt Treacy’s book on Dublin’s quest to win the All Ireland in 2013, The Year of the Dubs, is available on

Matt Treacy blogs @ Brocaire Books. 
Follow Matt Treacy on Twitter @MattTreacy2
amazon.com/Year-The-Dub-Matt-Treacy/d...

A History Of Idiocy

A piece on idiocy from the Uri Avnery Column. 

I was going to write an article about a subject I have been thinking about for a long time.

This week I opened the New York Times and lo, my yet unwritten article appeared on its opinion pages in full, argument after argument.

How come? I have only one explanation: the author – I have forgotten the name – has stolen the ideas from my head by some magical means, which surely must be branded as criminal. A person once tried to kill me for doing the same thing to him.

So I have decided to write this article in spite of everything.

The Subject is idiocy. Particularly, the role of idiocy in history.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that sheer stupidity plays a major role in the history of nations.

Great Thinkers, compared to whom I am a mere intellectual dwarf, have pursued other factors to explain what has turned history into a mess. Karl Marx blamed the economy. The economy has directed humankind from its earliest beginnings.

Others blame God. Religion has caused awful wars, and still does. Look at the Crusades, which for almost two hundred years raged in my country. Look at the 30-year War which devastated Germany. No end in sight.

Some accuse Race. Whites against Red Indians. Aryans against Untermenschen. Nazis against Jews. Terrible.

Or geopolitics. The White Man’s Burden. The Drang-nach-Osten.

For many generations, Great Thinkers have been searching for some deep explanation for war. There must be such an explanation. After all, terrible historical events cannot just happen. There must be something profound, something sinister, which is causing all this untold misery. Something that has accompanied the human race from its very beginnings, and that still directs our destiny.

I Have adopted most of these theories in my time. Many of them impressed me very much. Great thinkers. Deep thoughts. I have read many thick volumes. But in the end, they left me unsatisfied.

In the end it hit me. There is indeed one factor common to all these historical events: foolishness.

I know that this sounds incredible. Foolishness? All these thousands of wars? All these hundreds of millions of casualties? All these emperors, kings, statesmen, strategists? All fools?

Recently I was asked for an example. "Show me how it works," an incredulous listener demanded.

I mentioned the outbreak of World War I, an event that changed the face of Europe and the world forever, and which ended just five years before I was born, My earliest childhood was spent in the shadow of this cataclysm.

It happened like this:

An Austrian archduke was killed in the town of Sarajevo by a Serbian anarchist. It happened almost by accident: the planned attempt failed, but later the terrorist happened upon the duke and killed him.

So what? The duke was a quite unimportant person. Thousands of such acts have happened before and since. But this time the Austrian statesmen thought that this was a good opportunity to teach the Serbs a lesson. It took the form of an ultimatum.

No big deal. Such things happen all the time. But the powerful Russian empire was allied with Serbia, so the Czar issued a warning: he ordered the mobilization of his army, just to make his point.

In Germany, all the red lights went on. Germany is situated in the middle of Europe and has no impregnable natural borders, no oceans, no high mountains. It was trapped between two great military powers, Russia and France. For years the German generals had been pondering how to save the Fatherland if attacked from the two sides simultaneously.

A master-plan evolved. Russia was a huge country, and it would take several weeks to mobilize the Russian army. These weeks must be used to smash France, turn the army around and stop the Russians.

It was a brilliant plan, worked out to the finest detail by brilliant military minds. But the German army was stopped at the gates of Paris. The British intervened to help France. The result was a static war of four long years, where nothing really happened except that millions upon millions of human beings were slaughtered or maimed.

In the end a peace was made, a peace so stupid that it virtually made a Second World War inevitable. This broke out a mere 21 years later, with even larger numbers of casualties.

Many Books have been written about "July 1914", the crucial month in which World War I became inevitable.

How many people were involved in decision-making in Europe? How many emperors, kings, ministers, parliamentarians, generals; not to mention academicians, journalists, poets and what not?

Were they all stupid? Were they all blind to what was happening in their countries and throughout their continent?

Impossible, one is tempted to cry out. Many of them were highly competent, intelligent people, people versed in history. They knew everything about the earlier wars that had ravaged Europe throughout the centuries.

Yet there you are. All these people played their part in causing the most terrible war (up to then) in the annals of history. An act of sheer idiocy.

The human mind cannot accept such a truth. There must be other reasons. Profound reasons. So they wrote innumerable books explaining why this was logical, why it had to happen, what were the "underlying" causes.

Most of these theories are certainly plausible. But compared to the effects, they are puny. Millions of human beings marched out to be slaughtered, singing and almost dancing, trusting their emperor, king, president, commander-in-chief. Never to return.

Could all these leaders be idiots? They certainly could. And were.

I Don't need the examples of the thousands of foreign wars and conflicts, because I live in the middle of one right now.

Never mind how it came about, the present situation is that in the land that used to be called Palestine there live two peoples of different origin, culture, history, religion, language, standard of living and much more. They are now of more or less equal size.

Between these two peoples, a conflict has now been going on for more than a century.

In theory, there are only two reasonable solutions: either the two peoples shall live together as equal citizens in one state, or they shall live side by side in two states.

The third possibility is no solution – eternal conflict, eternal war.

This is so obvious, so simple, that denying it is sheer idiocy.

Living together in one state sounds logical, but is not. It is a recipe for constant conflict and internal war. So there remains only what is called "two states for two peoples".

When I pointed this out, right after the 1948 war, the war in which Israel was founded, I was more or less alone. Now this is a world-wide consensus, everywhere except in Israel.

What is the alternative? There is none. Just going on with the present situation: a colonial state in which 7 million Israeli Jews oppress 7 million Palestinian Arabs. Logic says that this is a situation that cannot go on forever. Sooner or later it will break down.

So what do our leaders say? Nothing. They pretend to be oblivious to this truth.

At the top of the pyramid we have a leader who looks intelligent, who speaks well, who seems competent. In fact, Binyamin Netanyahu is a mediocre politician, without vision, without depth. He does not even pretend that he has another solution. Nor do his colleagues and possible heirs.

So what is this? I am sorry to have to say it, but there is no other definition than the rule of idiocy.

Remember The Biggest Ever Revolt Against War

Last Month, Gabriel Levy wore a white poppy.




I am wearing the white poppy, that commemorates all the victims of all wars. It’s a socialist, anti-militarist tradition that I think should be spread more widely.
The horrible destruction in Syria, unleashed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad to protect his power from a popular uprising and generalised into a multi-sided war, is reason enough to wear the white poppy.
And this year it can also serve as a reminder of the greatest popular anti-military uprising in history – in Russia in the summer of 1917.
The women workers of Petrograd (now St Petersburg) began the 1917 revolution in February, by striking and demonstrating against the first world war (in which Russia was allied with Britain and France) and the hardships it brought.
Soldiers of the Petrograd garrison, by refusing to fire on the protesters and pledging their allegiance to the soviet (workers’ council) in the city, assured the collapse of the 300-year-old tsarist dynasty.
The new provisional government that took over after the February revolution promised the restive army that it would end the war … but not immediately. In June 1917 it tried to launch an offensive against the German and Austro-Hungarian forces on the eastern front.
Whole units, battalions and regiments refused to fight. Some of them met, adopted a formal resolution, and in some cases arrested or lynched their officers. Others simply abandoned the battlefield and streamed home, guns in hand. They figured it was better to deal with the authorities at home – if there were any – than to die trying to kill equally innocent soldiers on the “other” side.
There had already been cases of fraternisation, such as the “Christmas truce” between British and German soldiers, and of desertion. But nothing on this scale. A whole army simply refused to obey orders.
No wonder president Putin, who has built his reputation on bloody, murderous interventions in Chechnya in 2000-01 and Ukraine in 2014-15, recalled 1917 as a “betrayal of Russia from within”.
Nothing could be scarier to the governments of today than the prospect of people, once again, refusing to kill each other for mythical nationalist ends.
In 1917, the unprecedented military mutiny combined with the seizure of land by peasants and the political revolt of urban workers. The provisional government collapsed.
The result was the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, the first party that claimed to rule in the name of working people – although they failed to do so, which is another story – and the centenary of that takeover is on Tuesday (7 November).
One of the new government’s first acts was to issue a Decree on Peace. They ordered the head of the army to negotiate a ceasefire on the eastern front and, when he refused, encouraged front-line regiments to agree ceasefires with the German and Austro-Hungarian troops in the trenches opposite – effectively, an endorsement of the rebellious soldiers’ actions in the summer.
These measures did not bring peace. Within months, Russia was plunged into a bloody civil war which killed more of its people than the first world war did. Nevertheless its withdrawal from the first world war showed what mass anti-war action could do.
Here is a declaration by the Smolensk Initiative Group of Women and Mothers – one of the thousands of grass-roots organisations that sprung up during the Russian revolution – published on 5 May 1917 by the independent socialist newspaper Novaya Zhizn. I think it gives a good idea of what working-class people thought about the war and how to stop it.

To all Russian Women and mothers. We, a group of Russian women and mothers, are joining the protest of the working people against the war. We are also extending our hand to women and mothers the world over.We are deeply convinced that our extended hand will meet the extended hands of mothers the world over. No annexations or indemnities can compensate a mother for a murdered son. [They were referring to the moderate socialists’ slogan, “peace without annexations and indemnities”].Enough blood. Enough of this horrible bloodshed, which is utterly pointless for the working people. Enough of sacrificing our sons to the capitalists’ inflamed greed. We don’t need any annexations or indemnities. Instead, let us safeguard our sons for the good of all the working people the world over. Let them apply their efforts not to a fratricidal war but to the cause of peace and the brotherhood of all peoples. And let us, Russian women and mothers, be proud knowing that we were the first to extend our brotherly hand to all the mothers the world over.Smolensk Initiative Group of Women and Mothers.

That’s from a wonderful collection of the documents of the rank-and-file movement, Voices of Revolution 1917, edited by Mark Steinberg (Yale University Press, 2001), p. 98. GL, 6 November 2017.
Gabriel Levy blogs @ People And Nature

CPAG Claim Huge Numbers Of British Families With Children Pushed Into Poverty

Mick Hall slams Tory welfare cuts.
The people who have pushed families with children into poverty due to their Welfare benefit cuts.




The Tory government's promises that the new Welfare benefits systems they have introduced since 2010 would benefit families for taking on more work had effectively been broken because of the cuts, according to the report by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) and the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank.
The study 'Austerity Generation,' details what it says are the huge numbers of families with children pushed into poverty due to cuts and freezes to benefits, as well as measures such as the new two-child limit for payments.
It calls for the chancellor, Philip Hammond, to tackle the issue in next month’s budget by restoring previous levels of universal credit work allowances, the amount of monthly income that can be earned without penalty. These were cut in April 2016.
According to a Guardian article:

It also seeks a pension-style triple lock of the child benefit and child credit element of universal credit, ensuring it kept pace with prices and earnings. This alone, the report argues, would keep 600,000 children out of poverty.
Introduced in 2003, working tax credits are intended to top up low earnings. It is among a series of benefits replaced by universal credit, which is gradually being rolled out nationally and is intended to incentivise working.
But, according to the report, cuts have eroded much of this effect for families. It calculates that a couple with two young children, one working full-time and the other part-time on the national living wage, will lose more than £1,200 a year due to universal credit cuts.
Another example given is that of a single parent with two young children who starts work at 12 hours a week on the national living wage and will have an effective hourly wage of £4.18, as opposed to £5.01 before the cuts.
The authors detail the wider penalties for families due to the benefit cuts and other changes, saying those with four or more children will lose more than £4,000 a year overall, or £5,000 if they move to universal credit.
Single parents will be especially badly hit, the report said, with changes to universal credit leaving them on average £710 a year worse off. Parents of children with disabilities will also be disproportionately affected, it adds.
The report said: “The losses are alarming, and will damage the life chances of hundreds of thousands of children growing up under austerity.”
Overall, the study said, cuts to the existing benefit system since 2010 will push 700,000 children into poverty, after accounting for housing costs. The two-child limit for benefit payments alone will put 200,000 children in poverty once the system has been fully extended nationwide, the calculations suggested.

Alison Garnham, the chief executive of CPAG, said the report detailed a generation:

Whose childhoods and life chances will be scarred by a decade of political decisions to stop protecting their living standards.
This is the choice that’s being made in our names. The promise of increased rewards from work made to families with children under the new universal credit benefit has been broken. The universal credit we see today is not the universal credit that was sold to everyone a few years ago.
Given separate and much-reported problems with universal credit, such as the six-week delay for payments, the budget would be an opportunity for the chancellor to mount a full-scale rescue mission for the system.
If the government’s flagship anti-poverty measure ends up rolling out poverty then it’s hard not to see that as a colossal failure of public policy.

The report is yet another example of how Austerity measures and welfare benefit cut are far from necessary but a deliberate attempt to use failed neo-liberal dogma to smash the Welfare State and to hell with the harmful consequences to millions of families living in the UK.


Mick Hall blogs @ Organized Rage.

The Truth Will Out

From the 1916 Societies, a review of the prison memoir of Paul McGlinchey.



Paul McGlinchey, since publishing his book The Truth Will Out up until recently, has launched it in several venues across the country.



I had the pleasure of hearing one such launch in the Éalú office in Dungannon. Paul began to introduce his book by explaining how it came about in the first place, that it started out as a personal journal, that after his brother Dominic was murdered, that made him think about life and experiences that he and his family endured. Just in case anything were to happen him, he wanted to leave behind an explanation of his life, to his children from his perspective. He explained that had decided to take on a creative writing class during his time in Portlaoise jail.
One of the writers Philomena Gallagher that had come into to take the class asked him had he done any writing before, to which he produced the journal. Philomena found his story as intriguing and thought that he should think about writing a book about it, though Paul didn’t think it was appropriate at the time and had forgotten about until recently when she had contacted him again.

In the book, it begins with a bit of history about the civil rights movement and the beginning of the Troubles. What family life was like in the McGlinchey household and the impact internment had on their family way of life. Paul takes up the story with after being arrested in South Derry in 1976 how he ended up on the Blanket Protest. Originally Paul had Political Status but because he refused to recognise the courts and was sentenced after the 1st March, he lost it. At 18 years old he had sentenced to 14 years in jail. At this stage, he had no idea that there was a blanket protest underway.
When he got to Long Kesh the prison officers asked him what size of boots he wore and handed him the prison uniform, which he unequivocally refused to wear declaring he was ‘a political prisoner and not a criminal’. He was thrown into the back of the prison van naked and transported to the H-Blocks, where he was then forced to walk to his cell naked in front of all the other prison staff as well as other prisoners. It was the next morning before he realised that there were five others like him that refused to wear a prison uniform including Kieran Nugent who was first to start the blanket protest.

Philomena Gallagher And Paul McGlinchey, 2017. Truth Will Out. Calton Books. ISBN: 9780956417271.

Copies can be obtained via:  philomena1.gallagher@googlemail.com or pmcglinchey123@outlook.com


Paul goes on to describe the different trials and tribulations that the prisoners faced on a daily basis, from a draconian and extremely harsh prison regime. In the beatings they faced will naked and mirror searches. How they overcame it with coming up with ingenious methods of communication and being able to in smuggle in tobacco, material to create their own radios and so on. He also describes how conditions with the prison deteriorated and the harrowing tale of how the Blanket Protest escalated onto the Dirty Protest then the Hunger Strike.

The Crisis In Republicanism

Deaglán Ó Donghaile looks at the hopelessness of the Irish republican project in the hands of its most vociferous advocates. 

Unfortunately, these patterns are now so well established and familiar to us that they could be described as long-term phenomena due to their manifestation over the two decades that have passed since the reimposition of Stormont,

The persistent problems that have become so established now that they appear like permanent hindrances to progress include the manipulation of republicanism by those who want to make a living from it, including collaboration with criminals towards this end. We also have the never-ending factional rushes for numbers with which everybody is familiar. Varying with regional and national intensity, they always conclude with the disturbing appearance of very malign and dangerous people at republican events and platforms as if they had never threatened or attacked republicans in the first place. There is also the admission of proven criminals, along with the politically suspect, because, nowadays, it really isn’t a problem if somebody sells heroin, fences stolen property, burgles houses, tortures people who owed them money, or called for people to give information to the police when they were in Sinn Féin. Apparently, these are essential skill sets for some organisations.

Egos, Spectacles and Inconsistency

More than once, the mindlessness of self-appointed leaders has culminated in a number of dreadfully embarrassing and, frankly, sinister spectacles. These include the acceptance of Sinn Féin murder gang members onto prison wings, the already-mentioned collusion with criminals and the provision of political send-offs for people killed in drug feuds (because some people really would do anything to be seen pinning a Tricolour on a coffin, no matter whose remains lie within). The sinking of reality under the weight of lies and distortion has also seen the diversion of supporters’ attentions toward the simulation of radicalism that was Dublin’s profit-driven “war on dealers”, itself a wholly disproven fantasy that now has its sequel in the ongoing, inhumane attacks on young people in the six counties for which there is little genuine support. These are all reflections of how those who want to be in control inhabit a permanent, unmoving present moment that is centred on satisfying their desire for power and servicing them with financial gratification, and of their doing so without thought for the future before us or for the lessons of the past.

On a more theoretical but equally opportunistic level, we also have the temporary abandonment of abstentionism at election time by people who then, suddenly, oppose partitionist assemblies all over again when they can’t get into them. This was neatly illustrated in 2016 by the rush of “independent” councillors and their hangers-on in Derry to secure a seat in Stormont, a prize that would have come along with privately longed-for bonuses, such as the lucrative advisory positions, salaried support roles and generous expenses payments that are draining public finances. Accompanying this duplicity we have the fake community groups and phoney “mediation” fronts that are all bidding for profitable slices of counter insurgency funding.

The all-too familiar spectacle of the deliberate collapsing and “rebooting” (as it has been described by one group) of various political campaigns has also become a permanent fixture of the republican experience. From the Free Tony Taylor campaign, to the IRPWA and the sabotaging of popular efforts to free the Craigavon Two, prisoners must look on as their campaigns limp from one control bid to the next. The evidence of this consists of the ill-conceived and often badly written statements that blight social media (the most recent one was, simply, unreadable), trying to tell people what they can’t do, what they can’t think about, what they can’t say and who they must exclusively obey. These sad expressions of assumed authority are released whenever it is believed that enthusiastic campaigners capable of making a difference must be subordinated to the interests of a particular faction (the unaligned are always deemed to be particularly threatening and untrustworthy). They also appear when people are perceived as being too independent in the eyes of cliques more interested in controlling and even hindering objectives than in achieving them. Profoundly disastrous events in themselves, these attempts at control are further, very clear symptoms of the political rot that is eroding interest in and support for republicanism.

Established Patterns of Chaos

But is all of this as chaotic as it appears? Or are there deeper patterns at work, influences that, strangely, have consistent and specific logics, dynamics and energies of their own? Even a cursory examination of these examples will reveal the truth to anybody who really wants to know why things are going wrong. Of course, some will remain in denial and it can be difficult to persuade someone who wants to deny reality about the material facts that influence our place in history. The resulting, heavy cost paid for wilful failure is a price that is too often met in full by others. When the thoughtless acceptance of such impositions keeps people in prison, facilitates the application of state-driven coercion, silences debate and makes Irish republicans look as obedient and thoughtless as your average neoliberal consumer, then affairs have well and truly reached a spectacular peak of self-inflicted political failure.

All of these groups have inherited the old doublethink that has ravaged the minds of Sinn Féiners, and they now mimic and perpetuate the familiar practice of saying one thing publicly while doing the complete opposite in private. Then, within very short periods, they often announce a completely polar stance all over again – advocating taking seats in Stormont, for example, and then calling for it to be burned down as soon as an election has been lost, as happened in Derry. This is because inconsistency is fundamental for those who serve themselves rather than an ideal: deluded egos thrive on forcing the acceptance of their own inconsistencies, while parties and campaign groups are worn down or depopulated until they exist in name only. This is more than straightforward lying and from a structurally-focussed position it is easy to see how harmful such mendacity is, because political self-destruction can never be reversed by pressing imaginary organisational “reboot” buttons. Instead, what remains is the wreckage of intentionally disabled groups through the rejection of the successful and popular efforts of motivated and initiative-driven activists and people capable of creative and constructive thought.

Neoliberalism in Miniature

Aligned with all of this are the very explicit imitations of late capitalism in miniaturised but no less harmful forms by all of these organisations. Their assimilation of capitalist practice mirrors neoliberalism’s infliction of the very same strategies on entire populations in order to hobble popular political will and erode the individual’s grasp of his or her own consciousness, situation and potential. The objective behind this is purely destructive, and little of any use remains when discourse, policy and practice cease to make sense. However, once people’s ability to reason is sufficiently corroded, rendering them permanently compliant, they become very useful to manipulative organisations and their apparatuses. The problem for those who sit on these silent cliques is that their own weak-mindedness is very infectious, something that we see so very often in the thoughtless and carelessly composed control statements mentioned above – bad thinking is, after all, very contagious among the egocentric. It is also symptomatic the old-fashioned totalitarian moulding of thought and diminishment of language that George Orwell identified in his essay, “Politics and the English Language”, updated for the corporate-totalitarian, technically fascistic environment that pertains today.

There is no doubt that some people won’t want to accept or even acknowledge that these problems exist. For them, it’s probably too late, anyway. But if people trust their own judgment and believe in themselves and not in the flawed, Orwellian positions of those who want to think and speak on their behalf, then they will remain capable of recognising the problems that have eroded these organisations from within. Only when enough people start to think for themselves can a new, genuine and reality-focussed republican politics be developed, as distinct from the fraudulent simulations of it that are now so widespread.