Anthony McIntyre's Blog, page 1179
November 2, 2017
Thank You, Smotrich
The Uri Avnery Column discusses the views of a Jewish fascist.
Recently Smotrich gave a speech to his followers, which he intended to be a national event, the turning of a page in Jewish history. He was gracious enough to mention me in this monumental message.
He said that after the 1948 war, in which the State of Israel was founded, Uri Avnery and a small band of followers created the ideology of "two states for two peoples", and by patient work over many years succeeded in turning this idea into a national consensus, indeed into an axiom. Smotrich told his devotees that they, too, had to formulate their ideology, work patiently for many years until it became the national consensus instead of Avnery's.
A compliment from an enemy is always sweeter than one from a friend. The more so as I never received many compliments from friends. Indeed, the many politicians who profess now to fight for "two states for two peoples" try to obliterate the fact that I was the first to proclaim this idea, long before they themselves were converted to it.
So thank you, Smotrich. Coupled with my thanks, may I express the wish that you adopt a Hebrew name, as befits a man who aspires to become the Hebrew Duce?
After The compliment, Smotrich set out his plan for the future of Israel.
It is based on the demand that Arabs living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea choose between three alternatives:
First, they can accept a monetary payment and leave the country.
Second, they can become subjects of the Jewish State without becoming citizens and without attaining the right to vote.
Third, they can make war and be defeated.
This Is Fascism, pure and simple. Except that Benito Mussolini, who invented the term (from fasces fasces, a bundle of rods, the old Roman symbol of authority) did not preach mass emigration of anyone. Not even of the Italian Jews, many of whom were ardent Fascists.
Let's look into the plan itself. Can an entire people be induced peacefully to leave their motherland for money? I don't think that it has ever happened. Indeed, the very idea shows an abysmal contempt for the Palestinians.
Individuals can leave their homes in times of stress and emigrate to greener pastures. During the great famine, masses of Irishmen and Irishwomen emigrated from their emerald isle to America. In today's Israel, quite a number of Israelis are emigrating to Berlin or Los Angeles.
But can millions do so? Voluntarily? For gain? Quite apart from the fact that the price would invariably rise from emigrant to emigrant. There would not be enough money in the world.
I would advise Smotrich to read again a song written by the national poet, Natan Alterman, long before he was born. During the "Arab rebellion" in 1937, Alterman praised the units of the illegal Hebrew underground forces: "No people withdraws from the trenches of its life". No chance.
The second choice would be easier. The Arabs, who already constitute even now a slight majority between the river and the sea, will become a pariah people and serve their Israeli masters. The Arab majority will grow rapidly, owing to the much higher Palestinian birthrate. We would deliberately recreate the South African apartheid situation.
History, old and new, shows that such a situation invariably leads to rebellion and eventual liberation.
So there remains the third solution. It suits the Israeli temperament much better: War. Not the interminable wars that we have been engaged in since the beginning of Zionism, but a big, decisive war that puts an end to the whole mess. Inevitably, the Arabs will be vanquished and obliterated. End of story.
When I came to the conclusion in 1949 that the only way to end the conflict was to help the Palestinians to set up a state of their own, side by side with the new State of Israel, my train of thought started from a very original assumption: that there exists a Palestinian people.
To be honest, I was not the first to realize that. Before me, a wise left-wing Zionist scholar, Aharon Cohen, put forward this idea. All other Zionists always furiously denied this fact. Golda Meir once famously declared: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people!"
So who are all these Arabs we see with our own eyes? Simple: they are riffraff drawn to this country from neighboring areas after we came and made this country bloom. Easy come, easy go.
It was easy to think so as long as the West Bank was under Jordanian rule, and the Gaza Strip was an Egyptian protectorate. "Palestine" had disappeared from the map. Until a man called Yasser Arafat put it there again.
In the 1948 war, half the Palestinian people were driven out of the territory that became Israel. The Arabs call this the "naqba" - catastrophe. (By the way, they were not driven out of Palestine, as many believe. A large part found refuge in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip).
Since 1949, the simple fact is that two peoples live in this small country.
Neither of these two peoples will go away. Each of them believes fervently that this country is their homeland.
This simple fact led me to the logical conclusion that the only solution is peace based on the co-existence of two national states, Israel and Palestine, in close cooperation, perhaps in some kind of federal setup.
Another solution would be a unitary state in which the two peoples live peacefully together. As I have pointed out several times recently, I do not believe that this is possible. Both are fiercely nationalistic peoples. Moreover, the difference between their standards of living is huge. They are as different in character and outlook as two peoples can be.
Now comes Smotrich and proposes the third solution, a solution many believe in secretly: just kill them or drive them out altogether.
This is much worse than Mussolini's program. It reminds one of another recent historical figure. And it may be remembered that Mussolini was shot by his own people, who hung his body upside down from a meat hook.
Smotrich should be taken seriously, not because he is a political genius but because he expresses openly and honestly what many Israelis think secretly.
He is 37 years old, good-looking, with a cultivated beard. He was born in the occupied Golan heights, grew up in a West Bank settlement and now lives in a settlement in a house that was built illegally on Arab land. His father was a rabbi, he himself was educated in elite religious yeshivas and is a lawyer. Now he is also a Member of the Knesset.
Once he was arrested in a demonstration against homosexuals and detained for three weeks. However, after declaring that he was "proud to be a homophobe", he did apologize. When his wife gave birth to one of his six children, he objected to her having to share a maternity room with an Arab woman. He also objects to homes being sold to Arabs in Jewish neighborhoods, and proposes shooting Arab children who throw stones.
Another Zionist poet once wrote that we will not become a normal nation until we have Jewish criminals and Jewish whores. Thank God we now have plenty of both. And now we also have at least one bona fide Jewish fascist.
Uri Avnery is a veteran Israeli peace activist. He writes @ Gush Shalom
Recently Smotrich gave a speech to his followers, which he intended to be a national event, the turning of a page in Jewish history. He was gracious enough to mention me in this monumental message.
He said that after the 1948 war, in which the State of Israel was founded, Uri Avnery and a small band of followers created the ideology of "two states for two peoples", and by patient work over many years succeeded in turning this idea into a national consensus, indeed into an axiom. Smotrich told his devotees that they, too, had to formulate their ideology, work patiently for many years until it became the national consensus instead of Avnery's.
A compliment from an enemy is always sweeter than one from a friend. The more so as I never received many compliments from friends. Indeed, the many politicians who profess now to fight for "two states for two peoples" try to obliterate the fact that I was the first to proclaim this idea, long before they themselves were converted to it.
So thank you, Smotrich. Coupled with my thanks, may I express the wish that you adopt a Hebrew name, as befits a man who aspires to become the Hebrew Duce?
After The compliment, Smotrich set out his plan for the future of Israel.
It is based on the demand that Arabs living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea choose between three alternatives:
First, they can accept a monetary payment and leave the country.
Second, they can become subjects of the Jewish State without becoming citizens and without attaining the right to vote.
Third, they can make war and be defeated.
This Is Fascism, pure and simple. Except that Benito Mussolini, who invented the term (from fasces fasces, a bundle of rods, the old Roman symbol of authority) did not preach mass emigration of anyone. Not even of the Italian Jews, many of whom were ardent Fascists.
Let's look into the plan itself. Can an entire people be induced peacefully to leave their motherland for money? I don't think that it has ever happened. Indeed, the very idea shows an abysmal contempt for the Palestinians.
Individuals can leave their homes in times of stress and emigrate to greener pastures. During the great famine, masses of Irishmen and Irishwomen emigrated from their emerald isle to America. In today's Israel, quite a number of Israelis are emigrating to Berlin or Los Angeles.
But can millions do so? Voluntarily? For gain? Quite apart from the fact that the price would invariably rise from emigrant to emigrant. There would not be enough money in the world.
I would advise Smotrich to read again a song written by the national poet, Natan Alterman, long before he was born. During the "Arab rebellion" in 1937, Alterman praised the units of the illegal Hebrew underground forces: "No people withdraws from the trenches of its life". No chance.
The second choice would be easier. The Arabs, who already constitute even now a slight majority between the river and the sea, will become a pariah people and serve their Israeli masters. The Arab majority will grow rapidly, owing to the much higher Palestinian birthrate. We would deliberately recreate the South African apartheid situation.
History, old and new, shows that such a situation invariably leads to rebellion and eventual liberation.
So there remains the third solution. It suits the Israeli temperament much better: War. Not the interminable wars that we have been engaged in since the beginning of Zionism, but a big, decisive war that puts an end to the whole mess. Inevitably, the Arabs will be vanquished and obliterated. End of story.
When I came to the conclusion in 1949 that the only way to end the conflict was to help the Palestinians to set up a state of their own, side by side with the new State of Israel, my train of thought started from a very original assumption: that there exists a Palestinian people.
To be honest, I was not the first to realize that. Before me, a wise left-wing Zionist scholar, Aharon Cohen, put forward this idea. All other Zionists always furiously denied this fact. Golda Meir once famously declared: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people!"
So who are all these Arabs we see with our own eyes? Simple: they are riffraff drawn to this country from neighboring areas after we came and made this country bloom. Easy come, easy go.
It was easy to think so as long as the West Bank was under Jordanian rule, and the Gaza Strip was an Egyptian protectorate. "Palestine" had disappeared from the map. Until a man called Yasser Arafat put it there again.
In the 1948 war, half the Palestinian people were driven out of the territory that became Israel. The Arabs call this the "naqba" - catastrophe. (By the way, they were not driven out of Palestine, as many believe. A large part found refuge in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip).
Since 1949, the simple fact is that two peoples live in this small country.
Neither of these two peoples will go away. Each of them believes fervently that this country is their homeland.
This simple fact led me to the logical conclusion that the only solution is peace based on the co-existence of two national states, Israel and Palestine, in close cooperation, perhaps in some kind of federal setup.
Another solution would be a unitary state in which the two peoples live peacefully together. As I have pointed out several times recently, I do not believe that this is possible. Both are fiercely nationalistic peoples. Moreover, the difference between their standards of living is huge. They are as different in character and outlook as two peoples can be.
Now comes Smotrich and proposes the third solution, a solution many believe in secretly: just kill them or drive them out altogether.
This is much worse than Mussolini's program. It reminds one of another recent historical figure. And it may be remembered that Mussolini was shot by his own people, who hung his body upside down from a meat hook.
Smotrich should be taken seriously, not because he is a political genius but because he expresses openly and honestly what many Israelis think secretly.
He is 37 years old, good-looking, with a cultivated beard. He was born in the occupied Golan heights, grew up in a West Bank settlement and now lives in a settlement in a house that was built illegally on Arab land. His father was a rabbi, he himself was educated in elite religious yeshivas and is a lawyer. Now he is also a Member of the Knesset.
Once he was arrested in a demonstration against homosexuals and detained for three weeks. However, after declaring that he was "proud to be a homophobe", he did apologize. When his wife gave birth to one of his six children, he objected to her having to share a maternity room with an Arab woman. He also objects to homes being sold to Arabs in Jewish neighborhoods, and proposes shooting Arab children who throw stones.
Another Zionist poet once wrote that we will not become a normal nation until we have Jewish criminals and Jewish whores. Thank God we now have plenty of both. And now we also have at least one bona fide Jewish fascist.
Uri Avnery is a veteran Israeli peace activist. He writes @ Gush Shalom
Muslims And Nazis
Michael A. Sherlock disputes the authenticity of comparisons between Muslims and Nazis. 
I frequently see people on social media comparing Muslims to Nazis and Islam to Nazism. I think it is fair to say that if a person tries hard enough they can find parallels between any two belief systems, but don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself. One of the reasons for this is that we, as humans, are compulsive pattern-finding creatures. However, we must ask the question, is it logical to compare Muslims to Nazis? The short answer is no, it is illogical. If you really think about the comparison in an intellectually honest and logical manner, you will encounter many (obvious) flaws in the equivalence. Here are just a few for your consideration.
Is it possible to find a self-styled Nazi who believes, in contradiction to the teachings of Hitler and the narrow ideological precepts of Nazism, that all human beings, regardless of race, are inherently equal and entitled to equal respect and treatment? If you are being honest, you will answer in the negative. Okay, is it possible to find a self-styled Muslim who believes, in contradiction to the Qur’an and some of the core doctrines of Islam, that men and women are inherently equal and should be treated as such? The answer here is yes – which is why there exists a growing number of people who identify as Muslim feminists. Now, here I am not talking about Muslim “feminists” like Sarsour and other fake feminists, who place their patriarchal religion over the rights of women, but actual feminists who also happen to identify as Muslim, like Shireen Qudosi, for example. Your retort here might be to argue that Qudosi is a Sufi Muslim.
This retort, however, raises another flaw in the equivalence between Islam and Nazism, and this flaw concerns the broad range of interpretations of Islam, or the diversity among those who identify as Muslims. Does this diversity, and here I am only referring to diversity in terms of the interpretation of doctrines central to the belief system, exist among those who identify as Nazis?
Here again, the answer is no. Put simply, it is much easier to find a Muslim who believes in gender equality than it is to find a Nazi who believes in racial equality. The reason for this simple. Islam is a religion which has been around for approximately 1,400 years. It spans across many cultures and is influenced by a variety of social and political factors. Notwithstanding the fact that modern Islam, in my opinion, is generally far more rigid and regressive than modern Christianity, owing primarily to the anti-Christian Enlightenment which dragged Christians kicking and screaming into a superior secular morality that places human rights above religious beliefs – Islam, unlike Nazism, has been grounded and grown in the tumultuous soil of ambiguity.
This ambiguity can be found within the core texts of Islam itself. Compare, for example, the more peaceful Meccan surah with the misanthropic and malicious Medinan surah in the Qur’an. Seek out the contradictions between the Qur’an and the Sunnah (biography) of Muhammad. Observe the plethora of contradictions that exist in the expansive tomes of hadith. The natural result of such ambiguity is that Muslims are somewhat free to cherry-pick their own Islam. Can we say the same about Nazis and Nazism? Again, the short answer here is no, we cannot. I’ve yet to come across a self-styled Nazi who believes in racial equality, yet I have met and studied the works of many Muslims who express a wide range of opinions on precisely the same issues. Some Muslims believe in marriage equality, many don’t. Some Muslims are (actual) feminists, many aren’t. Some Muslims eat bacon and drink alcohol, many don’t. This diversity simply does not exist among those who label themselves as Nazis.
Anyway, those are just a few of the flaws in the equivalence between Muslims and Nazis. Just a final word to those who enjoy employing this false equivalence. It’s one thing to criticise the more misanthropic doctrines of Islam and express contempt for those who behave in accordance with such inhumane beliefs, and such doctrines and adherents are numerous enough to warrant criticism, but it is entirely another to employ unsophisticated and illogical argumentation to irrationally demonise Muslims. Sorry if this little piece strikes you as “Regressive Leftish”, but if you are going to argue, do so with intellectual honesty and integrity.
Michael A. Sherlock writes @ Atheist & Freethought Blog
Follow Michael A. Sherlock on Twitter @sherlockmichael
I frequently see people on social media comparing Muslims to Nazis and Islam to Nazism. I think it is fair to say that if a person tries hard enough they can find parallels between any two belief systems, but don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself. One of the reasons for this is that we, as humans, are compulsive pattern-finding creatures. However, we must ask the question, is it logical to compare Muslims to Nazis? The short answer is no, it is illogical. If you really think about the comparison in an intellectually honest and logical manner, you will encounter many (obvious) flaws in the equivalence. Here are just a few for your consideration.
Is it possible to find a self-styled Nazi who believes, in contradiction to the teachings of Hitler and the narrow ideological precepts of Nazism, that all human beings, regardless of race, are inherently equal and entitled to equal respect and treatment? If you are being honest, you will answer in the negative. Okay, is it possible to find a self-styled Muslim who believes, in contradiction to the Qur’an and some of the core doctrines of Islam, that men and women are inherently equal and should be treated as such? The answer here is yes – which is why there exists a growing number of people who identify as Muslim feminists. Now, here I am not talking about Muslim “feminists” like Sarsour and other fake feminists, who place their patriarchal religion over the rights of women, but actual feminists who also happen to identify as Muslim, like Shireen Qudosi, for example. Your retort here might be to argue that Qudosi is a Sufi Muslim.
This retort, however, raises another flaw in the equivalence between Islam and Nazism, and this flaw concerns the broad range of interpretations of Islam, or the diversity among those who identify as Muslims. Does this diversity, and here I am only referring to diversity in terms of the interpretation of doctrines central to the belief system, exist among those who identify as Nazis?
Here again, the answer is no. Put simply, it is much easier to find a Muslim who believes in gender equality than it is to find a Nazi who believes in racial equality. The reason for this simple. Islam is a religion which has been around for approximately 1,400 years. It spans across many cultures and is influenced by a variety of social and political factors. Notwithstanding the fact that modern Islam, in my opinion, is generally far more rigid and regressive than modern Christianity, owing primarily to the anti-Christian Enlightenment which dragged Christians kicking and screaming into a superior secular morality that places human rights above religious beliefs – Islam, unlike Nazism, has been grounded and grown in the tumultuous soil of ambiguity.
This ambiguity can be found within the core texts of Islam itself. Compare, for example, the more peaceful Meccan surah with the misanthropic and malicious Medinan surah in the Qur’an. Seek out the contradictions between the Qur’an and the Sunnah (biography) of Muhammad. Observe the plethora of contradictions that exist in the expansive tomes of hadith. The natural result of such ambiguity is that Muslims are somewhat free to cherry-pick their own Islam. Can we say the same about Nazis and Nazism? Again, the short answer here is no, we cannot. I’ve yet to come across a self-styled Nazi who believes in racial equality, yet I have met and studied the works of many Muslims who express a wide range of opinions on precisely the same issues. Some Muslims believe in marriage equality, many don’t. Some Muslims are (actual) feminists, many aren’t. Some Muslims eat bacon and drink alcohol, many don’t. This diversity simply does not exist among those who label themselves as Nazis.
Anyway, those are just a few of the flaws in the equivalence between Muslims and Nazis. Just a final word to those who enjoy employing this false equivalence. It’s one thing to criticise the more misanthropic doctrines of Islam and express contempt for those who behave in accordance with such inhumane beliefs, and such doctrines and adherents are numerous enough to warrant criticism, but it is entirely another to employ unsophisticated and illogical argumentation to irrationally demonise Muslims. Sorry if this little piece strikes you as “Regressive Leftish”, but if you are going to argue, do so with intellectual honesty and integrity.
Michael A. Sherlock writes @ Atheist & Freethought BlogFollow Michael A. Sherlock on Twitter @sherlockmichael
October 31, 2017
Freedom Of Information Appeal On Oireachtas Water Committee Secret Sessions Turned Down
James Quigley writes on the denial of a Freedom Of Information request.
Committee Chairman Senator Pádraig Ó Céidigh. Read Clouds of Suspicion over omission of 9.4 Exemption from Oireachtas reports.
The ironic thing about the refusal to allow public access to the secret records of this public body comprising 20 TDs and Senators is that they are all public representatives, in a public body, dealing with a public mater and supposedly representing the public and there was not one thing that they were discussing that was of a sensitive nature.
Part of their remit was to ensure the public are fully engaged in the process. Yet they conducted business in over 30 secret session thus refusing access to the public to the most important part of their business, the nitty-gritty of the deals and voting of the members.
According to the committee secretary, Thomas Sheridan, the Oireachtas Committee members themselves agree what was or wasn’t to go into committee reports.
In the end when the committee finally emerged from their last seven secret sessions in April 2017 the public had to endure the spectacle of claims and false claims from various committee members. We were subjected to various reports none of which included any mention of the February 15th session, Ireland's 9.4 Exemption, the River Basin Management Plan. Instead the reports included excessive charges, a pitiful water allowance, metering and acceptance of Irish Water. All couched in vague language and subject to the whims of future government interpretation.
To this day the claims and counter claims are still going on. Especially in the last two weeks when the Water Services Bill 2017 was being discussed in Dáil Éireann. This Bill apparently is basedon the controversial recommendations of the special Oireachtas Committee on Funding Domestic Water. It has now gone through it’s second stage in the Dáil.
Barry McCowen, Fianna Fail
What happened to the February 15th Session is like the Bermuda Triangle. It vanished into thin air sucked up into the vortex of Dáil Éireann. That full day of rhetoric, legal opinions from Senior Counsels, threats and claims from EU Commissioners, lofty arguments from questionable R2W representatives and Barry McCowen, that warrior of Fál, when he said in response to EU Commissioner Vella, "I rest my case"
Was it all hot air, a mirage perhaps?
And what happened to the responsibility of it’s chairman, Senator Pádraig Ó Céidigh? Should he have made sure that each session of the committee was included in all committee reports for consideration when voting. This was a question we put to him in an email. However, we have not yet received a reply.
Presumably all of the twenty members on the water committee, that is, if they were present at the time and not sleeping, know exactly what went on. Presumably all parties, that the twenty members represented were thoroughly kept up to date and know exactly what went on.
Yet the public who have by their opposition and mandate brought it about is kept out of the loop, not entitled to an explanation.
Once again we are, as we have always been the subject of political shenanigans.
As you can see from the FOI refusal (see below), the officials and by default the Government and all those committee members who have not been particularly honest, are hiding behind a bureaucratic loophole in section 127 of the House of the Oireachtas (Inquiries, Privileges and Procedures) Act 2013 that states that ″ Freedom of Information Act 1997 and 2003 does not apply to a record relating to a Part 2 inquiries and other committee business″.
In other words they will only divulge what they want you to know. Even though there was nothing of a sensitive nature in the Oireachtas Committee on Future Funding of Domestic Water other than the members themselves, what they agreed on and what they voted for.
We will of course appeal this decision and will relate the outcome in due course. Isn’t the public entitled to the truth?
James Quigley is an anti-water charge activist who writes @ Buncrana Together.
Follow Buncrana Together on Twitter @buncranatogethr
Committee Chairman Senator Pádraig Ó Céidigh. Read Clouds of Suspicion over omission of 9.4 Exemption from Oireachtas reports.The ironic thing about the refusal to allow public access to the secret records of this public body comprising 20 TDs and Senators is that they are all public representatives, in a public body, dealing with a public mater and supposedly representing the public and there was not one thing that they were discussing that was of a sensitive nature.
Part of their remit was to ensure the public are fully engaged in the process. Yet they conducted business in over 30 secret session thus refusing access to the public to the most important part of their business, the nitty-gritty of the deals and voting of the members.
According to the committee secretary, Thomas Sheridan, the Oireachtas Committee members themselves agree what was or wasn’t to go into committee reports.
In the end when the committee finally emerged from their last seven secret sessions in April 2017 the public had to endure the spectacle of claims and false claims from various committee members. We were subjected to various reports none of which included any mention of the February 15th session, Ireland's 9.4 Exemption, the River Basin Management Plan. Instead the reports included excessive charges, a pitiful water allowance, metering and acceptance of Irish Water. All couched in vague language and subject to the whims of future government interpretation.
To this day the claims and counter claims are still going on. Especially in the last two weeks when the Water Services Bill 2017 was being discussed in Dáil Éireann. This Bill apparently is basedon the controversial recommendations of the special Oireachtas Committee on Funding Domestic Water. It has now gone through it’s second stage in the Dáil.
Barry McCowen, Fianna FailWhat happened to the February 15th Session is like the Bermuda Triangle. It vanished into thin air sucked up into the vortex of Dáil Éireann. That full day of rhetoric, legal opinions from Senior Counsels, threats and claims from EU Commissioners, lofty arguments from questionable R2W representatives and Barry McCowen, that warrior of Fál, when he said in response to EU Commissioner Vella, "I rest my case"
Was it all hot air, a mirage perhaps?
And what happened to the responsibility of it’s chairman, Senator Pádraig Ó Céidigh? Should he have made sure that each session of the committee was included in all committee reports for consideration when voting. This was a question we put to him in an email. However, we have not yet received a reply.
Presumably all of the twenty members on the water committee, that is, if they were present at the time and not sleeping, know exactly what went on. Presumably all parties, that the twenty members represented were thoroughly kept up to date and know exactly what went on.
Yet the public who have by their opposition and mandate brought it about is kept out of the loop, not entitled to an explanation.
Once again we are, as we have always been the subject of political shenanigans.
As you can see from the FOI refusal (see below), the officials and by default the Government and all those committee members who have not been particularly honest, are hiding behind a bureaucratic loophole in section 127 of the House of the Oireachtas (Inquiries, Privileges and Procedures) Act 2013 that states that ″ Freedom of Information Act 1997 and 2003 does not apply to a record relating to a Part 2 inquiries and other committee business″.
In other words they will only divulge what they want you to know. Even though there was nothing of a sensitive nature in the Oireachtas Committee on Future Funding of Domestic Water other than the members themselves, what they agreed on and what they voted for.
We will of course appeal this decision and will relate the outcome in due course. Isn’t the public entitled to the truth?
James Quigley is an anti-water charge activist who writes @ Buncrana Together.
Follow Buncrana Together on Twitter @buncranatogethr
The Normalization Of Nazism
Writing for No Bones About It, anti-fascist activist Eva Sennesvik shares her realisations on the continuing rise of Nazism throughout Europe.
Being a political activist is very rewarding, but it can also be harrowing. Many burn themselves out over and over, some crash and become numbed for a time. For us, this last week has been one of the latter.
Last Monday we went to visit Auschwitz and Birkenau. No amount of previous knowledge can quite prepare you for what you see there. And no matter how strong you think you are, it will floor you.
When you stand face to face with the horrors, the evidence of systematic evil, systematic dehumanization of 'undesirables', of horrendous torture and experiments performed on people, the mass murder on oh so many thousands of innocents. It changes who you are and how you relate to the world.
We are currently trying to recoup, to change the devastation we feel inside to strength, because what is about to take place in Finland and most of all Gothenburg will need every one of us in good shape.
Shortly after the antifascist victory over NMR in Gothenburg a few weeks back, we heard the NMR was planning a major march again. Our contacts didn't know where or when, but now we know:
The Finnish branch of NMR will be marching through the town of Tammersfors in Finland on the 21st of October.
They are promising a large march. The Finnish police have been largely removed from marches there. They don't seem to mind the Nazis sadly. And so do little to stop it escalating. It could get nasty, as the NMR now are wounded and eager for revenge.
The fantastic Finish network TIL (nazi free Tammersfors) are rallying to get all their supporters to come show the Nazis just what we think of them. We wish them all the luck, strength and protection they need in their very important work! And on the 21st.
We see a normalization of Nazism nearly every day in our society around us all. Extreme right (nazis and fascists) are rapidly gaining support. Joining a Nazi / fascist group or political party is no longer something done in secrecy. They hold seats in our governments, in the EU parliament. They get funded through governments, the EU and large corporations. They use mass media to spread their hateful propaganda, with no one trying to hinder their access to it.
Youth today see it as examples of healthy free speech and applaud it. They are easy prey for the extreme right.
Several governments around the world has lead their respective countries into financial crisis like we have not seen the likes of for a very long time. But instead of doing anything to rectify the situation, they blame the weakest of our fellow beings. The refugees, the foreigners in general, the old, the sick, the homeless, the LGBT population, other faiths or political views. And thereby supporting and spreading Nazi /fascist propaganda. People are fed up, they start believing the propaganda and follow like sheep the hateful words and actions. They find release of their anger through groups of likeminded people, and more join in every day. None of us are really safe anymore. This is supported by many governments, governments control law. Simply by helping innocent fellow beings, we are seen as trouble-makers with dangerous minds.
And now to the very, very disturbing news from Gothenburg...
They are in for a wave of extreme Nazi and fascists, this time under the disguise of a conference.
On October 28th the fascist APF has called for a major conference in Gothenburg. Uniting all Nazi / fascist groups, organizations and political parties in Europe to join forces and to strengthen their cause. The heads of ultra-national socialistic movements will gather for what is in effect a brainstorming event to further their vile ideology!
APF has strong links to the militant fascist organization Europa Terra Nostra. Their leader, Roberto Fiore, has strong links to the group NAR. A militant fascist group who, among other things, blew up a railway station in Bologna, Italy in 1980, killing 100, injuring 200.
Europa Terra Nostra is again linked to the organization AFP (alliance for peace and freedom) ...and once again we see them hiding behind a relatively innocent name. Because this group is anything but innocent. They are an organization gathering All fascist and Nazi groups, as well as Holocaust deniers, in the whole of Europe and Russia. And of course follow the ideology of a pure white Europe and Russia, without people of colour, unwanted faiths or cultures, unwanted political views, LGBT or other unwanted behaviour.
At the conference in Gothenburg some very dangerous and well known figures will gather. Among them:
- Herve van Leathem. Arrested several times on racism charges.
- Udo Voigt. EU Parliament member for the German Nazi party NPD.
-Dan Eriksson. Prominent member of Europa Terra Nostra and leader of the Swedish Nazi group Motgift (antidote).
All lead by Daniel Höglund. Openly Nazi.
The eminent Swedish EXPO uncovered that the AFP had received 3.68 million in financial aid from EU, Europa Terra Nostra got 1.8 million.
So once again we have to ask ourselves:
Why are our governments so keen to support the normalization of Nazism?
Why is nothing done to stop them?
Why do our leaders fund them?
It is up to us now! We can't remain numbed and silenced.
The Nazis / fascists (nor our governments) can no longer get away with this.
We must rise and fight Now, harder than ever before. We cannot let dehumanization and mass murder of our fellow beings become reality again.
This is what our grandparents fought, and it is our turn to fight now, for our future and our kids future. We can't let this sick ideology spread and take control this time.
Picture is called «Gate to Hell» found online.
It is the main gate of Birkenau.
I do recommend a visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau. Auschwitz will floor most people stories, evidence, horrors and tangible remains of where thousands suffered and met their gruesome end.
Birkenau shatters you from before you enter by the sheer size of the camp, the horrors of what happened there and by the chilling, lingering feeling of «you are not leaving here alive.
The visit left us changed. Many of us feel altered completely. No more 'favours' will be given. This has to be fought back, and we have to start now before it's too late.
Source facts from EXPOs Daniel Wiklander
Eva Sennesvik has been an antifascist & human rights activist since the early 80’s, spent 10 years lobbying for a fairer society in Scandinavian countries and is currently involved in helping paperless refugees here in Bergen Norway. She writes speeches and pieces for public use on our escalating social problems and the extreme right's dangerous popularity.
Being a political activist is very rewarding, but it can also be harrowing. Many burn themselves out over and over, some crash and become numbed for a time. For us, this last week has been one of the latter.
Last Monday we went to visit Auschwitz and Birkenau. No amount of previous knowledge can quite prepare you for what you see there. And no matter how strong you think you are, it will floor you.
When you stand face to face with the horrors, the evidence of systematic evil, systematic dehumanization of 'undesirables', of horrendous torture and experiments performed on people, the mass murder on oh so many thousands of innocents. It changes who you are and how you relate to the world.
We are currently trying to recoup, to change the devastation we feel inside to strength, because what is about to take place in Finland and most of all Gothenburg will need every one of us in good shape.
Shortly after the antifascist victory over NMR in Gothenburg a few weeks back, we heard the NMR was planning a major march again. Our contacts didn't know where or when, but now we know:
The Finnish branch of NMR will be marching through the town of Tammersfors in Finland on the 21st of October.
They are promising a large march. The Finnish police have been largely removed from marches there. They don't seem to mind the Nazis sadly. And so do little to stop it escalating. It could get nasty, as the NMR now are wounded and eager for revenge.
The fantastic Finish network TIL (nazi free Tammersfors) are rallying to get all their supporters to come show the Nazis just what we think of them. We wish them all the luck, strength and protection they need in their very important work! And on the 21st.
We see a normalization of Nazism nearly every day in our society around us all. Extreme right (nazis and fascists) are rapidly gaining support. Joining a Nazi / fascist group or political party is no longer something done in secrecy. They hold seats in our governments, in the EU parliament. They get funded through governments, the EU and large corporations. They use mass media to spread their hateful propaganda, with no one trying to hinder their access to it.
Youth today see it as examples of healthy free speech and applaud it. They are easy prey for the extreme right.
Several governments around the world has lead their respective countries into financial crisis like we have not seen the likes of for a very long time. But instead of doing anything to rectify the situation, they blame the weakest of our fellow beings. The refugees, the foreigners in general, the old, the sick, the homeless, the LGBT population, other faiths or political views. And thereby supporting and spreading Nazi /fascist propaganda. People are fed up, they start believing the propaganda and follow like sheep the hateful words and actions. They find release of their anger through groups of likeminded people, and more join in every day. None of us are really safe anymore. This is supported by many governments, governments control law. Simply by helping innocent fellow beings, we are seen as trouble-makers with dangerous minds.
And now to the very, very disturbing news from Gothenburg...
They are in for a wave of extreme Nazi and fascists, this time under the disguise of a conference.
On October 28th the fascist APF has called for a major conference in Gothenburg. Uniting all Nazi / fascist groups, organizations and political parties in Europe to join forces and to strengthen their cause. The heads of ultra-national socialistic movements will gather for what is in effect a brainstorming event to further their vile ideology!
APF has strong links to the militant fascist organization Europa Terra Nostra. Their leader, Roberto Fiore, has strong links to the group NAR. A militant fascist group who, among other things, blew up a railway station in Bologna, Italy in 1980, killing 100, injuring 200.
Europa Terra Nostra is again linked to the organization AFP (alliance for peace and freedom) ...and once again we see them hiding behind a relatively innocent name. Because this group is anything but innocent. They are an organization gathering All fascist and Nazi groups, as well as Holocaust deniers, in the whole of Europe and Russia. And of course follow the ideology of a pure white Europe and Russia, without people of colour, unwanted faiths or cultures, unwanted political views, LGBT or other unwanted behaviour.
At the conference in Gothenburg some very dangerous and well known figures will gather. Among them:
- Herve van Leathem. Arrested several times on racism charges.
- Udo Voigt. EU Parliament member for the German Nazi party NPD.
-Dan Eriksson. Prominent member of Europa Terra Nostra and leader of the Swedish Nazi group Motgift (antidote).
All lead by Daniel Höglund. Openly Nazi.
The eminent Swedish EXPO uncovered that the AFP had received 3.68 million in financial aid from EU, Europa Terra Nostra got 1.8 million.
So once again we have to ask ourselves:
Why are our governments so keen to support the normalization of Nazism?
Why is nothing done to stop them?
Why do our leaders fund them?
It is up to us now! We can't remain numbed and silenced.
The Nazis / fascists (nor our governments) can no longer get away with this.
We must rise and fight Now, harder than ever before. We cannot let dehumanization and mass murder of our fellow beings become reality again.
This is what our grandparents fought, and it is our turn to fight now, for our future and our kids future. We can't let this sick ideology spread and take control this time.
Picture is called «Gate to Hell» found online.
It is the main gate of Birkenau.
I do recommend a visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau. Auschwitz will floor most people stories, evidence, horrors and tangible remains of where thousands suffered and met their gruesome end.
Birkenau shatters you from before you enter by the sheer size of the camp, the horrors of what happened there and by the chilling, lingering feeling of «you are not leaving here alive.
The visit left us changed. Many of us feel altered completely. No more 'favours' will be given. This has to be fought back, and we have to start now before it's too late.
Source facts from EXPOs Daniel Wiklander
Eva Sennesvik has been an antifascist & human rights activist since the early 80’s, spent 10 years lobbying for a fairer society in Scandinavian countries and is currently involved in helping paperless refugees here in Bergen Norway. She writes speeches and pieces for public use on our escalating social problems and the extreme right's dangerous popularity.
October 30, 2017
Despair Of Despair
The Uri Avnery Column discusses BDS.
My Optimism about the future of Israel irritates a lot of people. How can I be an optimist in view of what's happening here every day? The practical annexation of occupied territories? The mistreatment of the Arabs? The implantation of poisonous settlements?
But optimism is a state of mind. It does not falter in the face of evil. On the contrary, evil must be fought. And you cannot fight if you do not believe that you can win.
Some of my friends believe that the fight is already lost. That Israel can no longer be changed "from within". That the only way to change it is by pressure from outside.
Fortunately, they believe, there is an outside force, that is ready and able to do our job for us.
It is called BDS – short for "Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions".
One Of these friends is Ruchama Marton.
If anyone has the right to criticize and despair, it is she. Ruchama is a psychiatrist, the founder and now the honorary president of the Israeli association "Physicians for Human Rights". A splendid outfit.
The physicians go every week to an Arab village and dispense medical help (for free) to all who need it. Even the Israeli authorities respect it, and often accede to their demand to allow sick people from the occupied territories into Israel for hospitalization.
When we celebrated Ruchama's 80 birthday last week, she turned on me and accused me of fostering false hopes about the chance that present-day Israel will ever make peace and withdraw from the Palestinian territories. According to her, that chance has passed. What is left is the duty to support BDS.
BDS is a world-wide movement which propagates the total boycott of everything Israeli. It wants to convince corporations, and especially universities, to divest themselves of Israeli investments, and supports all kinds of sanctions against Israel.
In Israel, BDS is hated like the devil, if not more. You really need a lot of courage to stand up in Israel and support it publicly, as a few people do.
I promised Ruchama to provide an answer to her accusation. So here it is.
First of all, I have a profound moral objection to any argument that says that we can do nothing to save our own state, and that we must put our trust in foreigners to do our job.
Israel is our state. We are responsible for it. I belong to the few thousands who defended it on the battlefield when it was born. Now it is our duty to fight for it to become the state we wanted it to be.
First of all, I do not accept the belief that the battle is lost. No battle is lost as long as there are people who are ready to fight.
I Believe in peace. Peace means agreement between two (or more) sides to live in peace. Israeli-Palestinian peace means that the State of Israel and the Palestinian national movement come to terms with each other.
Peace between Israel and Palestine presupposes that the State of Israel does exist, side by side with the State of Palestine. I am not quite sure that this is the aim of the BDS movement. Much of what it does and says could lead to the conclusion that it wants a peace without Israel.
I believe that it is the duty of BDS to make this point absolutely clear. Peace with Israel or peace without Israel?
Some people believe that peace without the State of Israel is possible and desirable. Many of them subscribe to something called the "One-state Solution". This implies that Israelis and Palestinians will live happily together in one common state, as equal citizens.
That is a nice dream, but, unfortunately, historical experience testifies against it. The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Indochina and others have broken up, Belgium, Canada, the UK, and many others are in dire danger of breaking apart. At this very moment, genocide is being carried out in Burma under the auspices of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Are two fiercely nationalistic peoples, who claim the same homeland and have been at war for almost 150 years, now going to live together peacefully in one joint state? Not likely. Life in such a state would be hell.
(An Israeli joke: "Can the wolf and the sheep live together? No problem! But one has to provide a new sheep every day.")
People Who support BDS generally point to the experience of South Africa as the basis of their strategy.
The story goes like this: the black majority of South Africa were oppressed by the white minority. They turned to the enlightened (white) world, who proclaimed a world-wide boycott on the country. In the end the Whites gave in. Two wonderful men, Nelson Mandela and Frederick Willem de Klerk, fell into each others arms. Curtain.
This is the story seen through white eyes. It reflects typical self-centered white egotism. Black eyes see a slightly different story:
The blacks, who constituted the vast majority in South Africa, started a campaign of strikes and violence. Mandela, too, was a terrorist. The world-wide boycott movement certainly helped, but it was the indigenous struggle that was decisive.
(Israeli leaders told their white South African friends to partition the country, but there were no takers on either side.)
Circumstances here are totally different. Israel does not need Arab workers, it can do well without. It imports laborers from all over the world. The living standard of Israelis is more than 20 times (!) higher than that of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Both sides entertain a fierce nationalism. Because of the holocaust, the Jewish side enjoys the profound sympathy of the world. Anti-Semitism is out, and Israeli propaganda accuses BDS of being anti-Semitic.
In a moment of unusual wisdom, the United Nations decreed the partition of Palestine. In practice, there is no better solution.
In Principle, I am not against a boycott. Indeed, already in 1997, the Gush Shalom movement, to which I belong, was the first to proclaim a boycott of the settlements. We distributed many thousands of lists of the businesses operating there. As a result, quite a number of them were re-located to Israel proper. I can easily envision an even wider boycott of all enterprises which support the settlements.
But to my mind, a boycott of Israel proper is a mistake. It would drive all Israelis into the arms of the settlers, while our job is to isolate the settlers and separate them from ordinary Israelis.
Is this ever possible? Is this still possible? I believe it is.
The Present situation indicates that we have made mistakes. We must stop and think again, right from the beginning.
The organization founded by Ruchama Marton is not the only group doing its bit for peace and human rights. There are dozens of them, founded by splendid men and women, each active in its chosen niche. We need to find a way to combine their strengths without damaging their independence and special nature. We need to find a way to revitalize the political parties of the Left (the Labor Party, Meretz and the Arab United List) which are in a state of coma. Or form a new party.
I respect BDS and all their activists who are sincerely striving to liberate the Palestinians and make peace between them and us. The effort being made now in the US to enact a law forbidding their activity looks to me both ridiculous and anti-democratic.
Let them do their job over there. Our job here is to regroup, to reorganize and to redouble our efforts to overturn our present government and their allies and bring the forces of peace to power.
I believe that the majority of Jewish Israelis would want peace, if they thought peace possible. They are torn between an energetic right-wing minority, with a fascist edge, that declares peace both impossible and undesirable, and a weak and soft left-wing minority.
This is not a hopeless situation. The fight is far from over. We must do our job inside Israel, and let the outside forces do their job over there.
There is nothing to despair of but despair itself.
Uri Avnery is a veteran Israeli peace activist. He writes @ Gush Shalom.
My Optimism about the future of Israel irritates a lot of people. How can I be an optimist in view of what's happening here every day? The practical annexation of occupied territories? The mistreatment of the Arabs? The implantation of poisonous settlements?
But optimism is a state of mind. It does not falter in the face of evil. On the contrary, evil must be fought. And you cannot fight if you do not believe that you can win.
Some of my friends believe that the fight is already lost. That Israel can no longer be changed "from within". That the only way to change it is by pressure from outside.
Fortunately, they believe, there is an outside force, that is ready and able to do our job for us.
It is called BDS – short for "Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions".
One Of these friends is Ruchama Marton.
If anyone has the right to criticize and despair, it is she. Ruchama is a psychiatrist, the founder and now the honorary president of the Israeli association "Physicians for Human Rights". A splendid outfit.
The physicians go every week to an Arab village and dispense medical help (for free) to all who need it. Even the Israeli authorities respect it, and often accede to their demand to allow sick people from the occupied territories into Israel for hospitalization.
When we celebrated Ruchama's 80 birthday last week, she turned on me and accused me of fostering false hopes about the chance that present-day Israel will ever make peace and withdraw from the Palestinian territories. According to her, that chance has passed. What is left is the duty to support BDS.
BDS is a world-wide movement which propagates the total boycott of everything Israeli. It wants to convince corporations, and especially universities, to divest themselves of Israeli investments, and supports all kinds of sanctions against Israel.
In Israel, BDS is hated like the devil, if not more. You really need a lot of courage to stand up in Israel and support it publicly, as a few people do.
I promised Ruchama to provide an answer to her accusation. So here it is.
First of all, I have a profound moral objection to any argument that says that we can do nothing to save our own state, and that we must put our trust in foreigners to do our job.
Israel is our state. We are responsible for it. I belong to the few thousands who defended it on the battlefield when it was born. Now it is our duty to fight for it to become the state we wanted it to be.
First of all, I do not accept the belief that the battle is lost. No battle is lost as long as there are people who are ready to fight.
I Believe in peace. Peace means agreement between two (or more) sides to live in peace. Israeli-Palestinian peace means that the State of Israel and the Palestinian national movement come to terms with each other.
Peace between Israel and Palestine presupposes that the State of Israel does exist, side by side with the State of Palestine. I am not quite sure that this is the aim of the BDS movement. Much of what it does and says could lead to the conclusion that it wants a peace without Israel.
I believe that it is the duty of BDS to make this point absolutely clear. Peace with Israel or peace without Israel?
Some people believe that peace without the State of Israel is possible and desirable. Many of them subscribe to something called the "One-state Solution". This implies that Israelis and Palestinians will live happily together in one common state, as equal citizens.
That is a nice dream, but, unfortunately, historical experience testifies against it. The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Indochina and others have broken up, Belgium, Canada, the UK, and many others are in dire danger of breaking apart. At this very moment, genocide is being carried out in Burma under the auspices of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Are two fiercely nationalistic peoples, who claim the same homeland and have been at war for almost 150 years, now going to live together peacefully in one joint state? Not likely. Life in such a state would be hell.
(An Israeli joke: "Can the wolf and the sheep live together? No problem! But one has to provide a new sheep every day.")
People Who support BDS generally point to the experience of South Africa as the basis of their strategy.
The story goes like this: the black majority of South Africa were oppressed by the white minority. They turned to the enlightened (white) world, who proclaimed a world-wide boycott on the country. In the end the Whites gave in. Two wonderful men, Nelson Mandela and Frederick Willem de Klerk, fell into each others arms. Curtain.
This is the story seen through white eyes. It reflects typical self-centered white egotism. Black eyes see a slightly different story:
The blacks, who constituted the vast majority in South Africa, started a campaign of strikes and violence. Mandela, too, was a terrorist. The world-wide boycott movement certainly helped, but it was the indigenous struggle that was decisive.
(Israeli leaders told their white South African friends to partition the country, but there were no takers on either side.)
Circumstances here are totally different. Israel does not need Arab workers, it can do well without. It imports laborers from all over the world. The living standard of Israelis is more than 20 times (!) higher than that of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Both sides entertain a fierce nationalism. Because of the holocaust, the Jewish side enjoys the profound sympathy of the world. Anti-Semitism is out, and Israeli propaganda accuses BDS of being anti-Semitic.
In a moment of unusual wisdom, the United Nations decreed the partition of Palestine. In practice, there is no better solution.
In Principle, I am not against a boycott. Indeed, already in 1997, the Gush Shalom movement, to which I belong, was the first to proclaim a boycott of the settlements. We distributed many thousands of lists of the businesses operating there. As a result, quite a number of them were re-located to Israel proper. I can easily envision an even wider boycott of all enterprises which support the settlements.
But to my mind, a boycott of Israel proper is a mistake. It would drive all Israelis into the arms of the settlers, while our job is to isolate the settlers and separate them from ordinary Israelis.
Is this ever possible? Is this still possible? I believe it is.
The Present situation indicates that we have made mistakes. We must stop and think again, right from the beginning.
The organization founded by Ruchama Marton is not the only group doing its bit for peace and human rights. There are dozens of them, founded by splendid men and women, each active in its chosen niche. We need to find a way to combine their strengths without damaging their independence and special nature. We need to find a way to revitalize the political parties of the Left (the Labor Party, Meretz and the Arab United List) which are in a state of coma. Or form a new party.
I respect BDS and all their activists who are sincerely striving to liberate the Palestinians and make peace between them and us. The effort being made now in the US to enact a law forbidding their activity looks to me both ridiculous and anti-democratic.
Let them do their job over there. Our job here is to regroup, to reorganize and to redouble our efforts to overturn our present government and their allies and bring the forces of peace to power.
I believe that the majority of Jewish Israelis would want peace, if they thought peace possible. They are torn between an energetic right-wing minority, with a fascist edge, that declares peace both impossible and undesirable, and a weak and soft left-wing minority.
This is not a hopeless situation. The fight is far from over. We must do our job inside Israel, and let the outside forces do their job over there.
There is nothing to despair of but despair itself.
Uri Avnery is a veteran Israeli peace activist. He writes @ Gush Shalom.
Find The Disillusioned Unionists
Find the disillusioned Unionists! That’s the blunt message controversial commentator, Dr John Coulter, urges the Ulster Unionist Party in his Fearless Flying Column today.Ulster Unionists now need to focus mainly on persuading Protestants to back the party rather than pursing minority groups such as Catholic unionists and migrant workers. Sounds radical, but then the UUP’s New Unionism must appeal to Radical Moderates if the party is not to be swallowed alive politically by the DUP.
There can be no doubting that the liberal agenda of ‘Vote Mike, Get Colum’ has crashed and burned as the UUP’s attempt to steal the political clothes of the centrist Alliance Party hit the voters’ rocks harder than the ill-fated Titanic hit the iceberg.
I’m around Unionist politics long enough to recall a campaign by the UUP years ago to get real about Northern Ireland politics by appealing to Catholics, migrant workers and ethnic minorities.
That left many in the UUP at that time wondering - has the party which once championed the cause of a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people decided to finally mark its centenary by shifting lock, stock and its then single Commons seat to the position once occupied by the Liberal Home Rule movement in 1906?
Or was it more of a case Northern Protestants were so disillusioned with the seemingly rudderless Auld Unionist Party, its team would have to rely on a light green coalition of Catholics, eastern Europeans, and other ethnic minorities to get back into power? That didn’t work in 2006 because the DUP finally stole all the political clothes from the UUP.
Years later, the UUP also seemed to be abandoning its former Euro scepticism in favour of embracing the enlarged European Union. Then Brexit hit!
The bottom line is that the New Unionism of the Radical Moderates needs to win seats. In reality, the choice is simple for the UUP. For one of the longest periods in its history, it has party supremoes who are neither Northern Ireland Prime Minister nor a Commons MP. Its primary task is not to win back voters, but to get UUP candidates into Westminster.
The trouble is – which of the North’s constituencies can now be considered a safe UUP bet? Then again, given the DUP landslides in recent General Elections is there any such thing now as a safe UUP seat?
If the Northern Ireland Secretary of State called a snap Assembly election later this year, UUP insiders fear they could lose at least another four seats to the Foster camp. Is the jump, rather than slide to New Unionism, really a bid by the UUP to hijack what remains of the middle ground from the rapidly advancing Alliance Party.
Could North Down hold the key to any future UUP revival in its Commons fortunes, or is the DUP eyeing up yet another potential MP victory?
In the past, the retirement of Alliance’s North Down political ‘super gun’ Eileen Bell, the incredible demise of Bob McCartney’s UK Unionists, and the failure of former UUP dissident Peter Weir to repeat DUP victories in East and South Antrim by Sammy Wilson and Willy McCrea, supposedly meant the UUP was perfectly poised to regain a Commons stronghold. But that was then; what about now?
Some clever spin doctors will suggest Lady Sylvia will call it a day politically. Then in steps a UUP ‘big hitter’ and the UUP is back in business electorally (at this point, I awaken from my dream). Could the UUP do a deal with the DUP that it will stand aside in certain seats and allow the UUP a free run in North Down?
Is the UUP really telling us its once powerful radical Right faction has been laid to rest; that the tens of thousands of traditional rural Right-wing unionist grassroots voters have permanently been abandoned to the Foster camp?
Has the UUP ever considered the view the DUP’s massive Westminster election victories were a tactical anti-Sinn Fein vote? Or is it the case the pro-Union electorate has decided there’s only room for a single Unionist Party? David Trimble and others have gone and in the meantime, the Foster camp has sat silent regarding progress.
In fact, the 2017 DUP resembles a 2002 UUP without the public infighting. Mrs Foster cannot continue forever, and are we looking at another ex-UUP personality leading the DUP?
If the Foster camp can indeed cut a deal with Sinn Fein before Santa comes, the DUP modernisers will need the help of Robin Swann’s UUP to stay in power at Stormont. With no Big Ian to lead them, the so-called fundamentalist Paisleyite Right – and a significant section of Right-wing UUP opinion – could they combine and rally to a new evangelical Christian standard?
In trying to capture the Catholic and immigrant vote year ago, the UUP set itself a Mount Everest-style ascent. With hindsight, would it not have been better if the UUP looked to its core vote of traditional Right of Centre Protestants and embarked on a political gentle dander up Slemish mountain instead?
The recent annual conference of the ruling Ulster Unionist Council has placed Robin Swann more firmly in the driving seat of the party. The votes, too, for the officer team have equally clearly rooted the party on the Centre Right position.
But the UUP leadership needs to ensure they do not make the same mistake as Trimble by allowing senior party figures too much room to make political statements which are not in line with the Centre Right (read Radical Moderate!) agenda.
Former UUP leaders Sir Reg Empey and Lord Trimble were both members of the once mighty Right-wing Vanguard movement. Its success as a movement was to galvanize working class and middle class unionist opinion as well as give the Protestant population constructive Right-wing leadership with a positive agenda.
All this was washed down with a large dose of internal discipline. Perhaps the UUP needs to remember the Vanguard roots when it comes to maintaining internal discipline in the UUP.
If the leadership doesn’t crack the whip, by the 2018 UUC AGM, they’ll find themselves in the uncomfortable position of facing challengers from the party’s still highly vocal liberal wing.
The mistakes of former leading liberals Terence O’Neill, James Chichester-Clarke and Brian Faulkner are still haunting the corridors of power in the UUP. UUP 2017 has the chance to exorcise them once and for all time. The Radical Moderates’ New Unionism is certainly a step in the right direction. Just remember the heritage and history of Ireland’s Radical Presbyterians.
John Coulter is a unionist political commentator and former Blanket columnist. Follow John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
There can be no doubting that the liberal agenda of ‘Vote Mike, Get Colum’ has crashed and burned as the UUP’s attempt to steal the political clothes of the centrist Alliance Party hit the voters’ rocks harder than the ill-fated Titanic hit the iceberg.
I’m around Unionist politics long enough to recall a campaign by the UUP years ago to get real about Northern Ireland politics by appealing to Catholics, migrant workers and ethnic minorities.
That left many in the UUP at that time wondering - has the party which once championed the cause of a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people decided to finally mark its centenary by shifting lock, stock and its then single Commons seat to the position once occupied by the Liberal Home Rule movement in 1906?
Or was it more of a case Northern Protestants were so disillusioned with the seemingly rudderless Auld Unionist Party, its team would have to rely on a light green coalition of Catholics, eastern Europeans, and other ethnic minorities to get back into power? That didn’t work in 2006 because the DUP finally stole all the political clothes from the UUP.
Years later, the UUP also seemed to be abandoning its former Euro scepticism in favour of embracing the enlarged European Union. Then Brexit hit!
The bottom line is that the New Unionism of the Radical Moderates needs to win seats. In reality, the choice is simple for the UUP. For one of the longest periods in its history, it has party supremoes who are neither Northern Ireland Prime Minister nor a Commons MP. Its primary task is not to win back voters, but to get UUP candidates into Westminster.
The trouble is – which of the North’s constituencies can now be considered a safe UUP bet? Then again, given the DUP landslides in recent General Elections is there any such thing now as a safe UUP seat?
If the Northern Ireland Secretary of State called a snap Assembly election later this year, UUP insiders fear they could lose at least another four seats to the Foster camp. Is the jump, rather than slide to New Unionism, really a bid by the UUP to hijack what remains of the middle ground from the rapidly advancing Alliance Party.
Could North Down hold the key to any future UUP revival in its Commons fortunes, or is the DUP eyeing up yet another potential MP victory?
In the past, the retirement of Alliance’s North Down political ‘super gun’ Eileen Bell, the incredible demise of Bob McCartney’s UK Unionists, and the failure of former UUP dissident Peter Weir to repeat DUP victories in East and South Antrim by Sammy Wilson and Willy McCrea, supposedly meant the UUP was perfectly poised to regain a Commons stronghold. But that was then; what about now?
Some clever spin doctors will suggest Lady Sylvia will call it a day politically. Then in steps a UUP ‘big hitter’ and the UUP is back in business electorally (at this point, I awaken from my dream). Could the UUP do a deal with the DUP that it will stand aside in certain seats and allow the UUP a free run in North Down?
Is the UUP really telling us its once powerful radical Right faction has been laid to rest; that the tens of thousands of traditional rural Right-wing unionist grassroots voters have permanently been abandoned to the Foster camp?
Has the UUP ever considered the view the DUP’s massive Westminster election victories were a tactical anti-Sinn Fein vote? Or is it the case the pro-Union electorate has decided there’s only room for a single Unionist Party? David Trimble and others have gone and in the meantime, the Foster camp has sat silent regarding progress.
In fact, the 2017 DUP resembles a 2002 UUP without the public infighting. Mrs Foster cannot continue forever, and are we looking at another ex-UUP personality leading the DUP?
If the Foster camp can indeed cut a deal with Sinn Fein before Santa comes, the DUP modernisers will need the help of Robin Swann’s UUP to stay in power at Stormont. With no Big Ian to lead them, the so-called fundamentalist Paisleyite Right – and a significant section of Right-wing UUP opinion – could they combine and rally to a new evangelical Christian standard?
In trying to capture the Catholic and immigrant vote year ago, the UUP set itself a Mount Everest-style ascent. With hindsight, would it not have been better if the UUP looked to its core vote of traditional Right of Centre Protestants and embarked on a political gentle dander up Slemish mountain instead?
The recent annual conference of the ruling Ulster Unionist Council has placed Robin Swann more firmly in the driving seat of the party. The votes, too, for the officer team have equally clearly rooted the party on the Centre Right position.
But the UUP leadership needs to ensure they do not make the same mistake as Trimble by allowing senior party figures too much room to make political statements which are not in line with the Centre Right (read Radical Moderate!) agenda.
Former UUP leaders Sir Reg Empey and Lord Trimble were both members of the once mighty Right-wing Vanguard movement. Its success as a movement was to galvanize working class and middle class unionist opinion as well as give the Protestant population constructive Right-wing leadership with a positive agenda.
All this was washed down with a large dose of internal discipline. Perhaps the UUP needs to remember the Vanguard roots when it comes to maintaining internal discipline in the UUP.
If the leadership doesn’t crack the whip, by the 2018 UUC AGM, they’ll find themselves in the uncomfortable position of facing challengers from the party’s still highly vocal liberal wing.
The mistakes of former leading liberals Terence O’Neill, James Chichester-Clarke and Brian Faulkner are still haunting the corridors of power in the UUP. UUP 2017 has the chance to exorcise them once and for all time. The Radical Moderates’ New Unionism is certainly a step in the right direction. Just remember the heritage and history of Ireland’s Radical Presbyterians.
John Coulter is a unionist political commentator and former Blanket columnist. Follow John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
October 29, 2017
A Thousand Reasons For Living
Anthony McIntyre reviews a book of meditations by the late Archbishop of Olinda and Recife.
"I respect a lot priests with rifles on their shoulders; I never said that to use weapons against an oppressor is immoral or anti-Christian. But that's not my choice, not my road, not my way to apply the Gospels" – Dom Helder Camara
In the Introduction to this book, its editor Jose de Broucker referred to Dom Helder Camara’s “unrelenting struggle for men really to be able to live together as brothers.” It was a commitment I first became aware of during the 1981 hunger strikes when I fortuitously discovered The Desert Is Fertile . The work – a treatise against oppression and poverty - had a calming effect on me at a turbulent time and the bookshelves here retain a copy although not the same one from the prison: a Christmas gift from my wife.
Although I had yet to read the following verse during the blanket protest, its sagacity captured the spirit of the times:
Do not condemn usto be alonewhen togetherAllow us to be togetherwhen alone
Helder Camara was the archbishop of Olinda and Recife, described on the back cover as “the poorest and least developed” part of Brazil. Because of his commitment to the poorest in Brazilian society he was known as the "bishop of the slums." He also immortalised and has become inseparable from the phrase:
The military dictatorship in Brazil of course despised him and it was they who labelled him a subversive communist. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize four times but never won it. That it was once awarded to Henry Kissinger tells us more than we need to know about the politics behind the prize being anything but noble or peaceful.
In the opening pages Helder Camara writes, “Out in the open, near my home, sleeps one of God’s fools. A wonderful little madman.”
Although sent off for psychiatric evaluation, Camara has second thoughts about wanting him to be cured, feeling that:
Not so much an attack on reason as an appeal to empathy, it would be reflected in writers such as Derrida who would rail against the technological horrors that reason would let loose upon the world: the Holocaust of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not the result of chaos but the product of calculating, thinking minds.
The real substance of the book is a series of mediations written over four decades from April 1947 to February 1978. It is deeply spiritual: man is not a mere tree, the “creator” is omnipresent. Thirty years prior to the death of Bobby Sands, the 5th May 1951, Camara was seeing God in the faces of the poorest.
A spirituality that could so easily be a strong disincentive to continue reading, is anything but in the case of Camara. My favourite from the book is the meditation called Excessive Profit Making.
If the sun were as thirstyand greedy as younot one puddle of waternot one drop of dewwould be left on the face of the earth
This is the greed that pursues wealth not to survive and live comfortably but to amass it for the sheer malign joy of having it while denying others access to it.
There are so many insights in this book that it is hard to choose one over another. But a fitting one to end on is:
... woe to him who feeds on YouBut later has no eyes to see YouTo discern YouForaging for food among the garbageBeing evicted every other minuteLiving in sub-human conditionsUnder the signOf utter insecurity
Dom Helder Camara, 1981, A Thousand Reasons For Living. Publisher: Darton, Longman & Todd. ISBN 0 232 51521 2
Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.
Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre
"I respect a lot priests with rifles on their shoulders; I never said that to use weapons against an oppressor is immoral or anti-Christian. But that's not my choice, not my road, not my way to apply the Gospels" – Dom Helder Camara
In the Introduction to this book, its editor Jose de Broucker referred to Dom Helder Camara’s “unrelenting struggle for men really to be able to live together as brothers.” It was a commitment I first became aware of during the 1981 hunger strikes when I fortuitously discovered The Desert Is Fertile . The work – a treatise against oppression and poverty - had a calming effect on me at a turbulent time and the bookshelves here retain a copy although not the same one from the prison: a Christmas gift from my wife.
Although I had yet to read the following verse during the blanket protest, its sagacity captured the spirit of the times:
Do not condemn usto be alonewhen togetherAllow us to be togetherwhen alone
Helder Camara was the archbishop of Olinda and Recife, described on the back cover as “the poorest and least developed” part of Brazil. Because of his commitment to the poorest in Brazilian society he was known as the "bishop of the slums." He also immortalised and has become inseparable from the phrase:
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.
The military dictatorship in Brazil of course despised him and it was they who labelled him a subversive communist. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize four times but never won it. That it was once awarded to Henry Kissinger tells us more than we need to know about the politics behind the prize being anything but noble or peaceful.
In the opening pages Helder Camara writes, “Out in the open, near my home, sleeps one of God’s fools. A wonderful little madman.”
Although sent off for psychiatric evaluation, Camara has second thoughts about wanting him to be cured, feeling that:
we should all be losers by the change. There are all too many people with their rational and ultra-rational heads screwed on. Perhaps, this is why we keep misunderstanding one another and why the world is in such confusion.
Not so much an attack on reason as an appeal to empathy, it would be reflected in writers such as Derrida who would rail against the technological horrors that reason would let loose upon the world: the Holocaust of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not the result of chaos but the product of calculating, thinking minds.
The real substance of the book is a series of mediations written over four decades from April 1947 to February 1978. It is deeply spiritual: man is not a mere tree, the “creator” is omnipresent. Thirty years prior to the death of Bobby Sands, the 5th May 1951, Camara was seeing God in the faces of the poorest.
A spirituality that could so easily be a strong disincentive to continue reading, is anything but in the case of Camara. My favourite from the book is the meditation called Excessive Profit Making.
If the sun were as thirstyand greedy as younot one puddle of waternot one drop of dewwould be left on the face of the earth
This is the greed that pursues wealth not to survive and live comfortably but to amass it for the sheer malign joy of having it while denying others access to it.
There are so many insights in this book that it is hard to choose one over another. But a fitting one to end on is:
... woe to him who feeds on YouBut later has no eyes to see YouTo discern YouForaging for food among the garbageBeing evicted every other minuteLiving in sub-human conditionsUnder the signOf utter insecurity
Dom Helder Camara, 1981, A Thousand Reasons For Living. Publisher: Darton, Longman & Todd. ISBN 0 232 51521 2
Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre
Happy - Healthy - Heathen
The following Interview is from TheHumanist.com
Happy. Healthy. Heathen. An Interview with Recovering from Religion’s Gayle Jordan by Amy Couch • 25 September 2017
Gayle JordanGayle Jordan is the executive director of Recovering from Religion. She is a former Southern Baptist who left the faith ten years ago when her then-teenagers began asking questions she could not answer. Her research led her (and her children) into the light of reason and rationality. Years later, she still feels the effects, both positive and negative, of that dramatic shift in perspective and attitude. It is this sympathy and compassion that drives her to reach out to help others navigate the emotional and physical process involved in leaving one’s faith.
Jordan is an attorney and former personal trainer. She lives on Freethought Farm in Tennessee, where she spends her days amongst her longhorns, goats, donkeys, chickens, and dogs. She blogs about life on the farm, endurance event training, and secularism at “Happy. Healthy. Heathen.”
Amy Couch: Tell us about Recovering from Religion and how you became the executive director.
Gayle Jordan: Leaving an authoritative religion is an intense process that can involve longstanding social and emotional challenges for the apostate. Learning how to live after questions, doubts, and changing a belief system is a different journey for each of us. At Recovering from Religion (RfR), we are intimately familiar with this undertaking, and we support each person on his or her individual path. We provide transitional emotional support and tangible resources to people facing the myriad of issues that arise by disengaging from doctrinal belief. We create positive and encouraging networking opportunities for individuals seeking support within the secular and non-theistic community. We also educate religious and secular communities on both the process and negative impact of indoctrination in the lives of our target client base. We have two forms of support available: peer support and professional support, which include a hotline with trained agents; a secular therapist project, connecting clients with registered and vetted secular therapists; and support groups in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and South Africa.
Darrel Ray, one of the founders of RfR and author of The God Virus: How Religion Affects Our Lives and Cultures, was one of the first people I met when I attended my first secular conference in 2011. I was so impressed with his vision and drive, and his body of work was remarkable. He reached out to me in the fall of 2015 to see if I might be interested in the position of executive director. I jumped at the chance to not only work with Darrel, but for this incredibly vital and important organization.
Couch: Do you have a personal recovery story? How does that help you in your work with RfR?
Jordan: I do. I was raised Southern Baptist. I was fully integrated into the faith from birth, experienced personal salvation at age six, and participated in every aspect of Baptist education, from Sunday school on Sunday mornings, Training Union on Sunday nights, Acteens on Wednesdays, and worship every Sunday morning and Sunday evening. Lest you think my church experience was all busywork and no personal calling, allow me to assure you that I took every one of those responsibilities very seriously. I do not believe anyone with whom I served, or anyone I taught would dispute that. My faith was the driving force behind my work at church; my highest street cred of a genuine faith was that I committed to rearing my beloved children in that same faith. That is my Baptist pedigree.
After having raised my children in the church, when they became teenagers they began asking me questions I couldn’t answer. “Six million species, mom? On one boat?” and “6000-year-old Earth?” There were also the questions of scholarship: “Where are the original manuscripts?” “Three sets of Ten Commandments? And they’re not the same?” and “Divinely inspired writers didn’t know the earth moved around the sun?” And then came the questions of morality: “God did THAT with children who teased Elijah?” and “Lot gave his daughters up for rape?”
So, I set about finding answers for my children, and for myself. A point of irony here is that even as a believer I was considered a liberal and a radical because I was reluctant to accept the Baptist party line for all the above questions. I had to repress my own critical thinking skills to accept those party-line answers my whole life, and I was not about to allow my children to go without the information they asked me for.
This quest took me in a direction heavily weighted toward science. I found my church and its larger organization to be of little help in theory or application. I found earnestness and routine explanations, but no answers. I did, however, find tremendous amounts of information outside the walls of the church and greater institution. I found sound science. I found rationality and reason. I had moments of utter astonishment, seething anger, and sublime joy. I have this passage written by Robert G. Ingersoll committed to memory:
When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free—free to think, to express my thoughts—free to live my own ideal, free to live for myself and those I loved, free to use all my faculties, all my senses, free to spread imagination’s wings, free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope, free to judge and determine for myself . . . I was free! I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously faced all worlds.
Couch: In your experience, what are the biggest challenges people leaving authoritative religions in the US face?
Jordan: In the calls and chats we receive on the helpline, often our clients report a range of lingering symptoms: lack of community, a feeling of inadequate understanding of science, sexual frustrations, but by far the most common struggle is fractured relationships. Many authoritative religions embrace “disfellowship,” which means extremely limited communication with an individual who leaves the faith. Additionally, clients often report family members who will no longer accept and love them. It is not uncommon for a client to lose their entire family and social support. Some clients also experience what Marlene Winell, director of Journey Free coined, “religious trauma syndrome” (RTS). RTS symptoms include cognitive, emotional, social, and physical components and are often intense and intrusive. Dr. Winell partners with us here at RfR to help clients get the therapy and treatment they need.
Couch: If you could offer one statement of encouragement/comfort to someone beginning their journey of doubt, what would it be?
Jordan: You are not alone! As the world grows more secular each year, more and more of us are questioning, doubting, and leaving authoritative religions. RfR can connect you with support groups, counselors, podcasts, and many other resources to help you find your own community.
There is so much more light, air, and space on this side of the decision to leave religion. Rational thinking and the discarding of dogma and superstition gives one the opportunity to live a life full of wonder, and compassion, and maximized potential.
Amy Couch
Amy Couch is the communications manager for the American Humanist Association. Prior to working for the AHA she spent ten years creating therapeutic, recreational, and educational programs for individuals with special needs and their families.
Happy. Healthy. Heathen. An Interview with Recovering from Religion’s Gayle Jordan by Amy Couch • 25 September 2017
Gayle JordanGayle Jordan is the executive director of Recovering from Religion. She is a former Southern Baptist who left the faith ten years ago when her then-teenagers began asking questions she could not answer. Her research led her (and her children) into the light of reason and rationality. Years later, she still feels the effects, both positive and negative, of that dramatic shift in perspective and attitude. It is this sympathy and compassion that drives her to reach out to help others navigate the emotional and physical process involved in leaving one’s faith.Jordan is an attorney and former personal trainer. She lives on Freethought Farm in Tennessee, where she spends her days amongst her longhorns, goats, donkeys, chickens, and dogs. She blogs about life on the farm, endurance event training, and secularism at “Happy. Healthy. Heathen.”
Amy Couch: Tell us about Recovering from Religion and how you became the executive director.
Gayle Jordan: Leaving an authoritative religion is an intense process that can involve longstanding social and emotional challenges for the apostate. Learning how to live after questions, doubts, and changing a belief system is a different journey for each of us. At Recovering from Religion (RfR), we are intimately familiar with this undertaking, and we support each person on his or her individual path. We provide transitional emotional support and tangible resources to people facing the myriad of issues that arise by disengaging from doctrinal belief. We create positive and encouraging networking opportunities for individuals seeking support within the secular and non-theistic community. We also educate religious and secular communities on both the process and negative impact of indoctrination in the lives of our target client base. We have two forms of support available: peer support and professional support, which include a hotline with trained agents; a secular therapist project, connecting clients with registered and vetted secular therapists; and support groups in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and South Africa.
Darrel Ray, one of the founders of RfR and author of The God Virus: How Religion Affects Our Lives and Cultures, was one of the first people I met when I attended my first secular conference in 2011. I was so impressed with his vision and drive, and his body of work was remarkable. He reached out to me in the fall of 2015 to see if I might be interested in the position of executive director. I jumped at the chance to not only work with Darrel, but for this incredibly vital and important organization.
Couch: Do you have a personal recovery story? How does that help you in your work with RfR?
Jordan: I do. I was raised Southern Baptist. I was fully integrated into the faith from birth, experienced personal salvation at age six, and participated in every aspect of Baptist education, from Sunday school on Sunday mornings, Training Union on Sunday nights, Acteens on Wednesdays, and worship every Sunday morning and Sunday evening. Lest you think my church experience was all busywork and no personal calling, allow me to assure you that I took every one of those responsibilities very seriously. I do not believe anyone with whom I served, or anyone I taught would dispute that. My faith was the driving force behind my work at church; my highest street cred of a genuine faith was that I committed to rearing my beloved children in that same faith. That is my Baptist pedigree.
After having raised my children in the church, when they became teenagers they began asking me questions I couldn’t answer. “Six million species, mom? On one boat?” and “6000-year-old Earth?” There were also the questions of scholarship: “Where are the original manuscripts?” “Three sets of Ten Commandments? And they’re not the same?” and “Divinely inspired writers didn’t know the earth moved around the sun?” And then came the questions of morality: “God did THAT with children who teased Elijah?” and “Lot gave his daughters up for rape?”
So, I set about finding answers for my children, and for myself. A point of irony here is that even as a believer I was considered a liberal and a radical because I was reluctant to accept the Baptist party line for all the above questions. I had to repress my own critical thinking skills to accept those party-line answers my whole life, and I was not about to allow my children to go without the information they asked me for.
This quest took me in a direction heavily weighted toward science. I found my church and its larger organization to be of little help in theory or application. I found earnestness and routine explanations, but no answers. I did, however, find tremendous amounts of information outside the walls of the church and greater institution. I found sound science. I found rationality and reason. I had moments of utter astonishment, seething anger, and sublime joy. I have this passage written by Robert G. Ingersoll committed to memory:
When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free—free to think, to express my thoughts—free to live my own ideal, free to live for myself and those I loved, free to use all my faculties, all my senses, free to spread imagination’s wings, free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope, free to judge and determine for myself . . . I was free! I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously faced all worlds.
Couch: In your experience, what are the biggest challenges people leaving authoritative religions in the US face?
Jordan: In the calls and chats we receive on the helpline, often our clients report a range of lingering symptoms: lack of community, a feeling of inadequate understanding of science, sexual frustrations, but by far the most common struggle is fractured relationships. Many authoritative religions embrace “disfellowship,” which means extremely limited communication with an individual who leaves the faith. Additionally, clients often report family members who will no longer accept and love them. It is not uncommon for a client to lose their entire family and social support. Some clients also experience what Marlene Winell, director of Journey Free coined, “religious trauma syndrome” (RTS). RTS symptoms include cognitive, emotional, social, and physical components and are often intense and intrusive. Dr. Winell partners with us here at RfR to help clients get the therapy and treatment they need.
Couch: If you could offer one statement of encouragement/comfort to someone beginning their journey of doubt, what would it be?
Jordan: You are not alone! As the world grows more secular each year, more and more of us are questioning, doubting, and leaving authoritative religions. RfR can connect you with support groups, counselors, podcasts, and many other resources to help you find your own community.
There is so much more light, air, and space on this side of the decision to leave religion. Rational thinking and the discarding of dogma and superstition gives one the opportunity to live a life full of wonder, and compassion, and maximized potential.
Amy CouchAmy Couch is the communications manager for the American Humanist Association. Prior to working for the AHA she spent ten years creating therapeutic, recreational, and educational programs for individuals with special needs and their families.
October 28, 2017
Beyond The Political Party: A New Model
Michael Doherty of the Peadar O’Donnell 1916 Society Derry gives his critique of party politics based on the writing of Simone Wiel. This is the second of three instalments of which the author has written on the subject.
The party system has squeezed out independent political thought. Let’s be honest, while Independents do tend to ‘punch above their weight’, Independents have no place on the ideological spectrum and are generally seen are political lightweights who seem to survive on a fairly low-calorie ideological diet.
What might happen if all the politicians in, say, Westminster or the Dail, woke up one morning and became Independents? The implications would be staggering, especially the implication that they would now offer honest opinions on matters rather than line up like penguins. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it would be perceived by the Establishment as a ‘threat to national security’. Anyway, there are two conclusions we should draw from this: Independents are a step in the right direction and, secondly, let’s make it happen.
Weil, of course, is an anarchist. Another much misunderstood word with bogeyman connotations. One of the principal arguments against anarchism is that it might lead to, well, anarchy – Anarchy defined in terms of chaos, war and bloodshed. This is a theoretical argument that must stand alongside the reality of today’s modern and highly regulated world, characterised by unprecedented chaos, war and bloodshed. Therefore, this argument against anarchy is self-cancelling based simply on the basis of empirical observation.
So, how can we inject a bit of anarchy into the body politic? Weil has a simple suggestion for a practical start: Use the personal pronoun a bit more and keep it simple. Engage in political discussions using terms like “I think” or “I’ve thought about this and my opinion is X”. Challenge those who say “we want” or “we think” and those who speak for ideological blocks “as a socialist I would say…”, “as a republican I would say…”. These are based on collective thinking, poisoned by collective passion, and when organised as a party, inevitably lead to contradiction.
Independents’ main assets are honesty, diversity, and autonomy. Generally speaking, Independents tend to share a worldview of what constitutes progressive politics for society; however, openness about the diversity of political opinion among Independents is a strength when it comes to solving problems and tackling issues. Independents don’t line up like penguins to tow a party line, they don’t conceal their real opinions in a quagmire of party policy, don’t jump to a party whip or submit to the personality cult of a party leader. Their public opinion is the same as their private opinion. In other words, they’ve got nothing to hide behind.
The main outcome of electing Independents is not the implementation of a new ‘ism’ (socialism, capitalism, liberalism etc.) It’s much more ambitious than that. It is to return democratic decision making to ordinary people. It’s to strip away the conditions that allow corruption and deception to thrive in the most important public forums we have.
In modern politics, the party has become more important than any issue it claims to represent. The party is more important than the people, it serves only power. Parties have created a model of politics in which society accepts, as a matter of convention, that politicians will lie or evade telling the truth. This model is the result of our adversarial party system. The chief beneficiary is the Establishment which retains power regardless of which party enters government. We shrug off the systemic lies and propaganda of political parties as something normal, a necessary evil. The Independent model challenges these assumptions. If political parties can offer nothing of benefit to the public then there is no reason to preserve them. We simply do not need political parties. Elected representatives are capable of making decisions on issues without being commanded to vote along the party line. Global experience has shown parties to be magnets for corruption, especially on the corporate and multi-national levels.
The two states in Ireland are built on a corruption of fundamental democracy. If we start off by accepting this corruption what outcome should we expect? No silk purse out of a sow’s ear here!
Western democracy has become the prisoner of party politics. Not only do the politicians line up like penguins when the party whip is cracked, but they expect the electorate to do the same on polling day – turn up to vote and then take a seat as spectators as their health and education systems are privatised or run down by corruption and incompetence. If you object, you’ll soon find that you are speaking to a bureaucratic machine and not to a person, the party is deaf unless, of course, you carry a fat chequebook. Independents, however, tend to be local people who are passionate about making a difference. As elected representatives, Independents make up their own minds. Whether you agree or disagree with them, you’ll certainly be heard by your Independent elected representative and the conversation will be between two human beings who want the best for the local community.
In the next instalment, I’ll look at “Independents, Activism, and Representative Democracy”.
Michael's first instalment can be found by clicking on this link: The Abolition Of Political Parties.
Michael Doherty is a Derry political activist and member of the 1916 Societies.
The party system has squeezed out independent political thought. Let’s be honest, while Independents do tend to ‘punch above their weight’, Independents have no place on the ideological spectrum and are generally seen are political lightweights who seem to survive on a fairly low-calorie ideological diet.
What might happen if all the politicians in, say, Westminster or the Dail, woke up one morning and became Independents? The implications would be staggering, especially the implication that they would now offer honest opinions on matters rather than line up like penguins. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it would be perceived by the Establishment as a ‘threat to national security’. Anyway, there are two conclusions we should draw from this: Independents are a step in the right direction and, secondly, let’s make it happen.
Weil, of course, is an anarchist. Another much misunderstood word with bogeyman connotations. One of the principal arguments against anarchism is that it might lead to, well, anarchy – Anarchy defined in terms of chaos, war and bloodshed. This is a theoretical argument that must stand alongside the reality of today’s modern and highly regulated world, characterised by unprecedented chaos, war and bloodshed. Therefore, this argument against anarchy is self-cancelling based simply on the basis of empirical observation.
So, how can we inject a bit of anarchy into the body politic? Weil has a simple suggestion for a practical start: Use the personal pronoun a bit more and keep it simple. Engage in political discussions using terms like “I think” or “I’ve thought about this and my opinion is X”. Challenge those who say “we want” or “we think” and those who speak for ideological blocks “as a socialist I would say…”, “as a republican I would say…”. These are based on collective thinking, poisoned by collective passion, and when organised as a party, inevitably lead to contradiction.
Something is happening in Ireland. Ordinary people with no party-political affiliations are standing in elections and winning as ‘Independents’. Their shoestring budgets, home-made campaigns, and low-calorie ideological diets are trumping the slick, well-funded party machines. So what’s going on?
Independents’ main assets are honesty, diversity, and autonomy. Generally speaking, Independents tend to share a worldview of what constitutes progressive politics for society; however, openness about the diversity of political opinion among Independents is a strength when it comes to solving problems and tackling issues. Independents don’t line up like penguins to tow a party line, they don’t conceal their real opinions in a quagmire of party policy, don’t jump to a party whip or submit to the personality cult of a party leader. Their public opinion is the same as their private opinion. In other words, they’ve got nothing to hide behind.
The main outcome of electing Independents is not the implementation of a new ‘ism’ (socialism, capitalism, liberalism etc.) It’s much more ambitious than that. It is to return democratic decision making to ordinary people. It’s to strip away the conditions that allow corruption and deception to thrive in the most important public forums we have.
In modern politics, the party has become more important than any issue it claims to represent. The party is more important than the people, it serves only power. Parties have created a model of politics in which society accepts, as a matter of convention, that politicians will lie or evade telling the truth. This model is the result of our adversarial party system. The chief beneficiary is the Establishment which retains power regardless of which party enters government. We shrug off the systemic lies and propaganda of political parties as something normal, a necessary evil. The Independent model challenges these assumptions. If political parties can offer nothing of benefit to the public then there is no reason to preserve them. We simply do not need political parties. Elected representatives are capable of making decisions on issues without being commanded to vote along the party line. Global experience has shown parties to be magnets for corruption, especially on the corporate and multi-national levels.
The two states in Ireland are built on a corruption of fundamental democracy. If we start off by accepting this corruption what outcome should we expect? No silk purse out of a sow’s ear here!
Western democracy has become the prisoner of party politics. Not only do the politicians line up like penguins when the party whip is cracked, but they expect the electorate to do the same on polling day – turn up to vote and then take a seat as spectators as their health and education systems are privatised or run down by corruption and incompetence. If you object, you’ll soon find that you are speaking to a bureaucratic machine and not to a person, the party is deaf unless, of course, you carry a fat chequebook. Independents, however, tend to be local people who are passionate about making a difference. As elected representatives, Independents make up their own minds. Whether you agree or disagree with them, you’ll certainly be heard by your Independent elected representative and the conversation will be between two human beings who want the best for the local community.
In the next instalment, I’ll look at “Independents, Activism, and Representative Democracy”.
Michael's first instalment can be found by clicking on this link: The Abolition Of Political Parties.
Michael Doherty is a Derry political activist and member of the 1916 Societies.
Fighting Against Islam And Islamism
From Maryam Namazie in her ongoing battle to promote secularism.
Here is my speech at the 40th Freedom from Religion Foundation Convention in Madison, WI during 15-17 September whilst receiving the Henry H. Zumach Freedom From Religious Fundamentalism award:
Here is my speech at the 40th Freedom from Religion Foundation Convention in Madison, WI during 15-17 September whilst receiving the Henry H. Zumach Freedom From Religious Fundamentalism award:
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