Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘Queen Elizabeth II’ Category

Noam Chomsky, Left Icon, Crashes – “What Chomsky’s Friendship With Jeffrey Epstein Says About Progressive Politics”

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A left icon crashes. Chris Zeller reports

“He Should have Crashed a Lot Earlier”

I take this opportunity to recommend this excellent article from Kavita Krishnan which she published in early December. (see below).

Noam Chomsky could afford terrible statements about the systematic mass murders and genocidal wars in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Syria. Even during the Russian mass terror against the Ukrainian people, he raised more understanding of the aggressor than the attacked population.

His support for Epstein reveals the same pattern. The Indian feminist Marxist Kavita Krishnan puts his behaviour into the broader context.


This email from Chomsky to Epstein proves that he wasn’t just giving his friend the benefit of doubt, not knowing the full nature and extent of his crimes. He was actively colluding with Epstein, strategising about how to deal with the revelations about those crimes in the press.

It’s not that Chomsky was incapable of empathy – he was, but he had empathy only for the unfortunate predator, victimised by a journalist who was nuisance enough to put faces and voices to a gaggle of female accusers generating a ‘hysteria’ of solidarity.

What Chomsky calls ‘horrible’ treatment of Epstein by the press, was the November 2018 piece in the Miami Herald, ‘Perversion of Justice’ – Julie Brown’s stellar investigative journalism exposing the secret deal struck a decade ago that betrayed scores of children trafficked and abused by him, who had found the courage to help police build a cast iron case.

This email must go on his tombstone, it must feature in every obituary when he passes, it is not just a stain on his political legacy, it IS integral to his legacy. His collusion with Epstein is a result of the same abstract geopolitical doctrine that passed for his politics, one that allowed him to deny the humanity of victims of horrific mass crimes against humanity – in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Syria, Ukraine, China.

(Edited the post for accuracy, people pointed out he was calling his accusers hysterical, not the girls. He does use hysteria again, to refer to the public response to accusations of abuse of women.)

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Senator George Mitchell’s Links to Convicted Criminals Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein – Belfast University Removes a Bust

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Organisations linked to former USA Senator George Mitchell are removing the man’s name from their projects :

US-IRELAND ALLIANCE TO REMOVE NAME OF SENATOR GEORGE J. MITCHELL FROM ITS PRESTIGIOUS SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

February 1, 2026. The board of directors of the US-Ireland Alliance has unanimously agreed that its George J. Michell Scholarship program should no longer bear the former Senator’s name. The decision was made due to new information that has come to light as part of the release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein by the Department of Justice on Friday, according to Trina Vargo, founder and president of the US-Ireland Alliance.  

A bust of Mitchell on the grounds of Queen’s University Belfast is gone – from February 2 2026.

The bust of George J Mitchell on the grounds of Queen’s University Belfast has been removed. PICTURE: MAL MCCANN

Credible accusations detailing Mitchell’s alleged Epstein links have been on the public record for more than four years – but the former Senator’s Irish establishment supporters took no action.

Here is an extract from a story published on this blog in January 2022.

John Meehan February 3 2026

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English Soccer Manager, an Irish citizen, won’t sing “God Save the King” – Daily Mail leads racist tabloid mob – English FA should sack Lee Carsley!

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Lee Carsley solidarity campaign starts now!

The former Irish international might accept an offer to co-manage Ireland with the Icelander Heimir Hallgrímsson.

Has far-right racist poison infected English sporting journalism again?

That’s like asking if the Pope is a Catholic.

From the Irish Times, September 7 2024

Irish Citizen Lee Carsley Will Not Sing “God Save the King”

Lee Carsley might have thought that an inquiry about anthem-singing at his pre-match press conference on Friday was harmless enough. “I fully respect both anthems and understand how much they mean to both countries,” he said. But he has never joined in on the crooning either as a player for Ireland or as manager of the England under-21s because he is “in a zone at that point”, he wants to focus on the match ahead, being “wary” of his mind “wandering off”.

Grand. Moving along … ooooooh, hold it.

Never mind asking God to save the King, it’s Carsley who needs saving from that section of the English press that lost its tiny mind on hearing his comments. It was the lead story – the lead! – on the front page – the front! – of the Telegraph and the Daily Mail, there was a deluge of incandescent opinion pieces, it featured on the news on BBC Radio and LBC and … you get the drift.

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‘Lost Boys’ Film Adds Fuel To Kincora Fire And One Question: ‘Why Did The BBC Drop This Film?’ – Re- Blogged Posts which originally appeared on Ed Moloney’s site, The Broken Elbow

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Introduction :

On Wednesday September 27 a world premiere takes place in Dublin’s Irish Film Institute

World Premiere

During the winter of 1969, young boys started to disappear from the streets of Belfast, never to be seen again. By 1974, as the Troubles were reaching a bloody and vicious peak, five boys in total had vanished within a five-mile radius. Fifty years later, as the disappearances remain unsolved and families continue to search for answers, filmmaker Des Henderson (How to Diffuse a Bomb) reopens these largely forgotten cold-cases, unearthing disturbing revelations in secret state documents to tell an extraordinary tale of abuse, trauma and potential cover-up.

Notes by Sunniva O’Flynn

Ed Moloney offers the recommendation below. Chris Moore, a journalist who has researched the subject thoroughly for many decades, wrote a fascinating (and chilling) background story about state collusion and child abuse on Ed Moloney’s blog in June 2023. it is reprinted below.


‘Lost Boys’ Film Adds Fuel To Kincora Fire And One Question: ‘Why Did The BBC Drop This Film?’

I had the opportunity yesterday to watch the new Kincora film made by Belfast’s own film company Alleycats. Called ‘Lost Boys’ it asks a simple but necessary question: was the disappearance and murder of four Belfast schoolboys in the 1970’s linked to the subsequent Kincora scandal, which broke some few years afterwards, revealing that all the employees at the home for wayward boys had been abusing inmates for years?

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Doctor Matt Barrett saves a little of Ireland’s honour at the absurd coronation of a British King called Charles III

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The French socialist Jean-Luc Melenchon spoke for many when he branded the coronation of the new English king Charles III “nauseating”.

A Dublin cardiologist, Matt Barrett, is the partner of an Irish politician Leo Varadkar (currently the Fine Gael Taoiseach, Prime Minister). Matt had to attend the recent coronation of an English king called Charles. While Varadkar and other attending Irish forelock-tuggers (such as President Michael D Higgins and the Sinn Féin leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill) dutifully swallowed the nauseating royal guff, Matt broke ranks.

Ten out of Ten to Matt Barrett! :

“Varadkar’s partner, Matt Barrett, however, did not get the memo. In the VIP motorcade and in Westminster Abbey, he posted a series of irreverent comments on Instagram to his private group of more than 350 followers.

“Holy shit I think I’m accidentally crowned king of England,” he posted from the taoiseach’s car as they approached the abbey on 6 May.

The posts, reported in the Irish Times on Saturday, have embarrassed the government and landed Varadkar in a fresh diplomatic blunder.

Once inside the abbey, Barrett, a consultant cardiologist, ignored an injunction in the order-of-service booklet to switch off his phone and posted jokes and observations on the ceremony.

A paragraph from page 38 in the booklet caught his eye. “The queen’s sceptre and rod are brought from the altar by the Right Rev and Right Hon the Lord Chartres GCVO and the Right Rev Rose Hudson Wilkin CD MBE, Bishop of Dover. The queen touches them in turn,” it said.

Barrett posted a photo of it with a green line around the last sentence. “Sounds like the script to a good night out, tbh,” he said.

In the list of participants, he noted the Right Rev James Newcome, who has the title Clerk of the Closet. Barrett highlighted this, saying: “Had this job until my early 20s.”

Later he posted a photograph of Charles wearing his crown and compared it to the sorting hat in the Harry Potter books. “Was genuinely half expecting it to shout ‘GRYFFINDOR,’” he wrote.”

The source is the Guardian, a British newspaper.

In Ireland, beside the famous “You Are Now Entering Free Derry Wall”, the English king is not welcome :

Dozens of British Police Confiscate Anti-Monarchy Banners in London, May 6 2023

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The site “Leeds for Europe” reports :

Yesterday Suella Braverman’s new, draconian anti-protest laws were used to their full extent to surpress anti-monarchy protestors.
The rest of the world was watching, this is how the English service on France 24 reported it – “While many criticise the price tag of the Coronation as ordinary Britons struggle to put food on the table.. The police arrests of peaceful protesters are scenes you’d expect to see in Russia, not in the UK.”

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230506-anti-monarchists-among-uk-protesters-arrested-before-king-s-coronation

Leader of Britain’s anti-monarchy group Republic arrested at coronation protest

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Gopal Priyamavda Observes :

From a plundered economy to a police force ready to crush protests, Britain today looks like its colonies once did. It had to happen.

https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article66450

Priyamavda published her article on the Al Jazeera website on May 5 2023; One day later her prediction concerning “a police force ready to crush protests” came true.

Meanwhile several leading Irish politicians are tugging the forelock to the British Monarch : Shame on the leaders of Sinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill and President Michael D Higgins – their behaviour is politically unprincipled. Leaders of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil – Messrs Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin are not betraying their principles – they believe in celebrating the crimes of the British Empire.

Source : https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article66449

Republic’s Graham Smith held at protest on King Charles III’s procession route in central London

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The British Royal Family is “unequal, outdated, and should be consigned to the dustbin of history” – Agree or Disagree?

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Read the news items below and decide for yourself if the statement above – written by West Belfast Stormont Assembly member Gerry Carroll (People Before Profit) – should be supported by everyone on the anti-imperialist left in Ireland.

I think the answer is Yes – and this should not be a controversial opinion, especially in Ireland. Unfortunately, some prominent public figures disagree. Lies about the British Royal Family resemble a mountain of dead dogs, and fresh stinking corpses are added daily.

Reliable news reports tell us that the English Prince Andrew, brother of British King Charles, is getting support from a convicted child abuse criminal.

A courageous woman, Virginia Giuffre, successfully won substantial damages in a USA court from the British Prince, who was a close associate of the convicted child abuse criminals Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

“Maxwell, who paid out millions to Giuffre herself in a separate lawsuit in 2017, was jailed for child sex trafficking in connection with Epstein.

But she claimed in an interview with CBS that Ms Giuffre’s claims are unfounded, and that she did not introduce her “dear friend” Prince Andrew to the teenager as had been claimed.

Ms Giuffre said: “My goal has been to show the rich and powerful are not above the law and should be held accountable.” Source : https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/prince-andrew-overturn-claim-by-sex-accuser-virginia-giuffre/

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Readers might assume that no self-respecting Irish political leader would risk getting close to the sinister Buckingham House royal parasites.

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Snow Black – A Modern Fairy Tale – English Monarchy Dissected by Irish Feminist Rosita Sweetman

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Meghan Markle as Snow Black; England’s Wicked Queen as England’s Wicked Queen and so on – all are present in this dark fairy tale.

Snow Black – A Modern Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a beautiful Queen. One day she pricked her finger. Three drops of blood fell on her black windowsill. Looking out at the winter snow the Queen said, I wish for a son with golden red hair, a black daughter in law, both with hearts as white as snow.

The Queen gave birth to a baby boy with golden red hair.

Then the Queen died. Everyone thought it was an accident but actually the Queen was desperately unhappy. The King was not a good man. He had deceived the Queen into marrying him while all the time he was having sex with another married woman. As soon as the beautiful Queen was out of the way he and the other woman got married.

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Changing of the Guard 💂‍♀️ in London’s 10 Downing Street – British Prime Ministers 2022

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Brilliant Satirists are superb political analysts – getting the message across, injecting lethal poison into the heart of a terminally ill body. Examples :

Jeremy Hunt, current finance minister (chancellor) in Britain, brings misery to the masses https://www.belltoons.co.uk/hotoffpress
Rishi Sunak , the latest British Prime Minister, married a billionaire, Akshata Murthy. https://www.belltoons.co.uk/hotoffpress
The story is true – Liz Truss, British PM for 50 days, is guaranteed £115,000 a year for life.
The tweet is a humorous fake – John Truss, father of former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, is a socialist
A prediction of doom https://www.belltoons.co.uk/hotoffpress
Rishi Sunak, Leader of the Pack
Brexit Britain – the view from the other side of the Irish Sea – Martyn Turner, The Irish Times

Solutions? Smashing Brexit would be an excellent start!