Archive for the ‘Catholic Church’ Category
Trump To Appoint Right-Wing Catholic Sect Member To Supreme Court – Handmaid’s Tale Fiction to Become an American Reality?
As expected, it looks as if Trump is going to choose as his Supreme Court nominee, an anti-abortionist disciple of a cult that could have come …
Trump To Appoint Right-Wing Catholic Sect Member To Supreme Court
US President Donald Trump plans to nominate a woman, Amy Coney Barrett, to his country’s Supreme Court. Ms Barrett is a member of a very creepy Catholic Church cult called “People of Praise”. Amy Goodman, host of “Democracy Now”, investigates.
Read the rest of this entry »We’re looking at Amy Barrett’s membership in a secretive Catholic group with rigid gender roles and a lifelong loyalty oath. We’re now joined by a former member of People of Praise who’s now speaking out against the group. Coral Anika Theill was a People of Praise member for five years, from 1979 to 1984, after being forced to join the organization by her then-husband. She documented her experience in her memoir titled Bonsheá: Making Light of the Dark.
Electoralism: a real and present danger for the radical left everywhere – in Ireland the Dáil SPBP bloc avoids the trap : unconditional opposition to coalition with the FFFG et al right
A publication in India, the Radical Socialist, offers a timely warning to radical socialists in every part of the globe :
Unless the lessons of the repeated political collapses in Sri Lanka are learnt, not only Sri Lankan Marxists, but those elsewhere in South Asia, who have learned also from the achievements of the Sri Lankan Marxists, may suffer politically. There is a need to examine, not merely in terms of mid 20th century history, but in terms of today’s class struggle, why the politics of electoralism, and of alliances with bourgeois parties (under the disguise that they are petty bourgeois parties, or ‘democratic’ parties, etc) can only lead to damages for the Trotskyist forces. We urge the Fourth International leadership to take it up as a burning political and educational issue, and take firm action. Collaborating with bourgeois oppositions is hardly restricted to Sri Lanka, and serious political discussions will benefit revolutionaries in India, at least. http://www.radicalsocialist.in/articles/statement-radical-socialist/899-radical-socialist-statement-on-sri-lankan-elections
What is the story in Ireland?
Gaining significant electoral victories is a key achievement of the radical left in Ireland since 1997, when Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party won a Dublin West Dáil seat. This electoral victory significantly helped to defeat government water charges plans promoted by the then main capitalist parties Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which were aided by their serial coalition partners, the Labour Party.
Ups and downs in Irish radical left electoral fortunes have occurred from 1997 to 2020. This was an open question in 1997 : could the Dublin West victory of Joe Higgins be a minor Trotskyist blip on a stable bourgeois election landscape dominated by FFFG? It turned out this was not a blip. Higgins was the first TD who openly promoted a “Women’s Right to Choose” Abortion policy. He himself and members of his party actively promoted various pro-choice campaigns. The election of numerous radical left pro-choice deputies in 2011 and 2016 eventually forced the main right wing parties to allow a referendum repealing the anti-abortion 8th constitutional amendment. The result : a landslide victory for the pro-choice movement in Ireland and abroad. Here is one report written by USA activist Sarah Jaffe : http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article5823
Today there is a 5 TD SPBP radical left bloc in Dáil Éireann. Three other deputies – Joan Collins, Catherine Connolly and Thomas Pringle – adopted the same anti-FFFGGG governmental policy as the SPBP bloc. This scenario was historic – it had never happened before, since the foundation of two partitioned states in Ireland nearly 100 years ago.
The policy of the Irish radical left on coalition with right wing parties is clearly explained here by RISE Dublin South-West TD Paul Murphy :
Read the rest of this entry »“John Charles McQuaid Made Me a Socialist” – Mary Muldowney
I first met Mary Muldowney in the early 1990’s in pro-choice radical left circles, discovering both of us attended Sandymount High School around the same time – we did not personally meet then – we moved in different circles and (school) classes! We attended the same Dublin marches against the Vietnam War and the Apartheid South Africa Rugby Tour of 1970. https://comeheretome.com/2015/02/03/45-years-ago-the-controversial-visit-of-the-springbok-team-to-dublin/
Mary, a Dublin City Council Historian, vividly describes the late 1960’s and 1970’s – events which also made me a socialist, feminist, and pro-choice activist.
Muldowney’s talk offers the unlikely suggestion that arch-bigot John Charles McQuaid, then boss of the Dublin Archdiocese and the Catholic Church in Ireland, turned a teenage Sandymount High School pupil into a socialist. Recommended listening
Dublin Archbishop, Catholic Primate of Ireland, 1940-1972 John Charles McQuaid
Dublin City Historian Mary Muldowney – Socialist and Feminist
Mary Muldowney’s talk is part of the Sarah Lundberg Summer School 2020, an online event.
http://eastwallforall.ie/?p=4712
Here’s a good description of Sandymount High School, which Read the rest of this entry »
Tarlach Mac Niallais Radio Broadcast from 1984 – Gay Liberation Politics, the Partition of Ireland, Fighting Against a Carnival of Reaction
Previous Readers of this blog know about the New York Death of Belfast Gay Liberation and Socialist Activist Tarlach Mac Niallais. Thanks to an old friend and comrade of Tarlach, Cathal Ó Ciorragáin, we can listen to a New York Radio Interview with Tarlach dated October 9 1984
The interview concludes with a ballad sung by Tarlach.
Covid-19 Vampire screams as water burns his skin – but he hangs on and continues hissing
Grim Tough Covid-19 Virus News lurks. Let’s start Easter Monday 2020 with a Mike Finn Limerick. Did you enjoy Good Friday Hot Cross Buns?
Two holy nuns, big Sister Mary Agnes and small Sister Mary Vincent, are traveling through eastern Europe in their car, bring the word of God to Transylvania. As they were stopped at a traffic light, out of nowhere, a small vampire jumps onto the hood of the car and hisses at them through the windshield.
“Quick, quick!” shouts big Sister Mary Agnes, “What should we do?”
“Turn the windshield wipers on. That will get rid of the abomination,” says small Sister Mary Vincent. Big Sister Mary Agnes switches on the wipers, which knock the mini-Dracula around. But, the little vampire hangs on and continues hissing at the two nuns. “What shall I do now?” shouts big Sister Mary Agnes.
“Try the windshield washer. I filled it with holy water before we left the Vatican,” replies small Sister Mary Vincent.
Sister Mary Agnes turns on the windshield washer. The vampire screams as the water burns his skin, but he hangs on and continues hissing at the nuns.
“Now what?” shouts big Sister Mary Agnes.
“Show him your cross,” says small Sister Mary Vincent.
“Now you’re talking,” says big Sister Mary Agnes. She then puts down her window and shouts, “Get the hell off our car you blood sucking fool!”
https://halloweenjokes.com/two-nuns-versus-a-vampire-joke.html
Restrictions in Protection of Life Bill demeaning to women – Social Affairs & News from Ireland & Abroad | The Irish Times -…
This is a brilliant article on Ireland’s Abortion Vatiban.
Against Hitler (if nothing else): the curious anti-fascism of Alan Shatter and Fine Gael | Cunning Hired Knaves
A very useful history lesson for Irish Justice & Defence Minister Alan Shatter; regrettably Fine Gael was not the only political or social organization in 1930’s Ireland that endorsed continental European fascism.
Clare Daly Questions Taoiseach Enda Kenny on Abortion
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=b-gyBoO7KcM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Db-gyBoO7KcM
No comment necessary
Pope Francis’s critics in Argentina say document suggests he betrayed priests
http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/17/pope-francis-first-sunday-prayer A New Pope Francis; A Younger Father Bergoglio got his hands dirty; he was a collaborator with the bloody Argentine Generals’ Dictatorship of Videla in the 1970’s.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 