Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Posts Tagged ‘Israel

Biden in the Bardo – Jeffrey St. Clair, Counterpunch

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Jeffrey St. Clair writes a fact-stuffed polemic in the online magazine Counterpunch, which is relentless – like witnessing the last hours of an exhausted punch-drunk emperor surrounded by grovelling flunkies.

Till now, I did not know the concept Bardo :

Bardo “is an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between

death and rebirth. The concept arose soon after Gautama Buddha‘s death, with a number of

earlier Buddhist schools accepting the existence of such an intermediate state, while other schools rejected it”

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

Thanks to Joan McKiernan for the link.

While we can not be sure which mechanism will be used to remove Joe Biden from his White House job, we can be sure his days as a power-wielding President are over. Expect a shit show next week; Democrats praising new President Kamala Harris; Trump’s coronation at his republican party gets little media attention : and plenty of gruesome gaffes from old man Donald are likely to surface.

July 12 mass media reports showing the world Joe Biden’s mistakes are only the tip of the iceberg :
Biden makes ‘VP Trump’ gaffe amid calls to end campaign

Here is the Jeffrey St. Clair article :


Biden in the Bardo

by Jeffrey St. Clair

Seymour Hersh said Biden isn’t all there. Thomas Friedman and Jane Fonda were reduced to tears. Rob Reiner, who watched the debate with Fonda in LA in the company of Doug Emhoff, the husband of Biden’s VP Kamala Harris, screamed at the TV: “We’ve lost.” One of the party’s top money-bundlers told Politico: “Our only hope is that he bows out, we have a brokered convention or he dies. Otherwise, we are fucking dead.” These were just some of the shock reactions to Joe Biden’s somnambulant performance in his debate against Trump last week in Atlanta. 

Biden’s decrepit appearance, death-rattle voice and baffling answers shouldn’t have been a surprise. He’s 81-years-old and he’s been descending into senescence for years. But most people, including many of his most ardent supporters, hadn’t seen this diminished version of Biden before on extended display. 

Biden doesn’t make many prolonged public appearances anymore. He hasn’t given a full-press conference in nearly a year. He’s been kept on a tight public leash by his staff, restricted to short interactions with the White House press gaggle or prepared remarks fed to him by a teleprompter. Even then he’s seemed halting, confused, and mentally frail.

Carl Bernstein – the Watergate Journalist – describes Biden’s “horror shows”

During an interview with CNN, Carl Bernstein said multiple sources told him there have been at least 15 occasions in the last year and a half “where the president has appeared like he did at that horror show (his debate performance).”

Bernstein said that in the last six months, sources have told him there has been a marked rate in Biden’s cognitive decline.  He says that some of his sources have taken their concerns to Ron Klain in the last year, worried that the President is losing his train of thought and didn’t have the capacity to pick up where he left off.  Bernstein described a fundraiser at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York in June of 2023, where the President became “Very stiff…almost like a kind of rigor mortis.” 

Biden’s staff and family are charged with protecting him. The media isn’t. Most other courtier reporters surely knew what Bernstein had heard. Yet, they’ve largely been complicit in covering up Biden’s accelerating cognitive decline, presumably because of their deep hatred of Trump, whose faculties, such as they are, also seem to be in an advanced state of decay.

As Jill Abramson, former executive editor of the New York Times, wrote in Semafor: “It’s clear the best news reporters in Washington have failed in the first duty of journalism: to hold power accountable. It is our duty to poke through White House smoke screens and find out the truth. The Biden White House clearly succeeded in a massive cover-up of the degree of the President’s feebleness and his serious physical decline, which may be simply the result of old age. Shame on the White House press corps for not to have pierced the veil of secrecy surrounding the President.”

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British General Election 2024 – Highlights and Lowlights – Loveless Landslide, Sandcastle Majority. Far-Right Hiding in Plain Sight, House of Paisley Falls in Antrim – and a Message of Hope from new MP Shockat Adam, Leicester South

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Let’s start with positive news :

Shockat Adam MP, Leicester South – “This is for the people of Gaza”.

When you listen to this June 25 car-crash interview with former Leicester South Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth, you would be forgiven for thinking he was a member of the far-right racist party, Reform.

Shockat Adam was not alone. Five pro-Gaza independent candidates (including former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North) are members of the new Westminster parliament :

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Written by tomasoflatharta

Jul 6, 2024 at 3:22 pm

Posted in 26 County State (Ireland), Alliance Party, Anti War Movements, Anti-Capitalist Resistance (Britain), Apartheid, “A Carnival of Reaction” - James Connolly’s Warning About the Partition of Ireland, Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister, Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS), Brexit - Britain Leaves the EU, Britain, British Empire, British Labour Party, British Tory Party, Channel 4 (Britain), Colum Eastwood MP (Derry), Conservative Party (Tories), Britain, Democratic Unionist Party, Derry, Dublin Governments, England, Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (ESSF), European Union, FFFGGG Coalition, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Fourth International, Green Party, History of Ireland, Ian Paisley Junior MP, International Political Analysis, Ireland, Irish News Newspaper (Belfast), Israel, Israel Assault on Gaza, October 2023, Ivana Bacik TD, Labour Party Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Joe Brolly, John Swinney, Labour Party (Ireland), Left Wing Organisations, Liz Truss, ex British Prime Minister, Migration in Europe, Nigel Farage, Orange Order, Racism, Reform, Reverend Ian Paisley, Rishi Sunak - 3rd 2022 British Prime Minister, Russia, Sammy Wilson MP, Scotland, Scottish Independence, Scottish National party (SNP), Sinn Féin, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP, Sir Keir Starmer, Six County State, Sorcha Eastwood MP, Stormont, Lord Carson’s Tomb

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Birds of a Feather Flock Together – Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Sammy Wilson MP (DUP, East Antrim)

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There is more to this story than initially meets the eye. Much capitalist development is based on Ethnic Cleansing of original populations and the plantation of new non-indigenous populations – it happened in the United States of America (USA) and Australia – naming just two. It did not happen so brutally in Ireland – but British imperialism made a significant effort.

Links :
Plantation of Ulster
Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland – Wikipedia

The Northern province of Ulster was “planted” in the 1600’s, but the native Irish were not completely exterminated. Waves of native Irish emigrated – especially in the 19th century after a misnamed Famine (in reality a “Great Hunger” caused by British Imperialist Policy) drove millions of the native Irish to the four corners of the globe. These emigrants kept alive the idea of Irish freedom, and played a significant role in every attempt to rid Ireland of British rule.

The stubborn Irish “national question” remains on today’s agenda because of the 1922 Anglo-Irish Treaty which divided Ireland into 2 sectarian states. A key feature of extreme Irish Unionism is identification with plantation/ethnic cleansing forms of capitalism – and that goes a long way towards explaining Irish far-right Unionist sympathy for the present day attempted ethnic cleansing of Palestine and Ukraine. We should situate recent pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine statements by the British far-right politician Nigel Farage and Sammy Wilson within this framework :

Nigel Farage Endorses DUP Antrim MP’s Wilson and Paisley, Dumping a different extreme unionist, Jim Allister

Link :


The Russian imperialist occupation of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk is ethnic cleansing capitalism in action – accompanied by child stealing and abuse similar to the behaviour of the Catholic Church in the 26 county bit of Ireland from the 1930’s to the 1990’s.

An excellent Ukrainian blog, Ukr-Taz, covers the story of Putin’s ethnic cleansing dreams in Ukraine, and Donald Trump’s enthusiastic support :

Trump on Putin’s “dream”

29 06 2024

For all that can be said about Thursday’s debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — including about the former’s dismal performance and about the boundless creativity of Trump’s fabrications on almost every topic under the sun — Trump’s curious note about Putin’s “dream” stood out to me:

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“Clare Daly needs to withdraw claim that media ghosted her” – Justine McCarthy criticises ex Dublin MEP who gave ammo to the “shoot the messenger brigades”

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This Justine McCarthy article is a damning critique of the “shoot the messenger” technique regularly used by the former Dublin Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Clare Daly, and the ex Ireland South MEP Mick Wallace.

Justine McCarthy, Irish Times, January 21 2024

Link :
Clare Daly’s Dog-Whistle to haters of the media wasn’t just hypocritical – it was reckless

It wasn’t just the ungraciousness of Clare Daly’s departure from the election count centre after losing her European Parliament seat that left the air disturbed in her wake. It wasn’t even the falsehood in her valediction as she flounced out of the RDS, telling an RTÉ reporter who had requested a comment from her: “Ye’d no interest in talking to me for five years, so I’ve no interest in talking to ye.” What shattered the air was her dog whistle to haters of the so-called “mainstream media”. The salivating in the trenches of the dark web was almost audible.

First, the truth – Daly and her Independents 4 Change colleague Mick Wallace have a usual practice of not responding to attempts by professional journalists to contact them. They prefer to appear live on air where their words cannot be edited. I know this because they told me so when they were both still TDs. Their confession tumbled out when, innocently, I had asked if I could check their contact details as I had repeatedly failed to get any response from either of them. Since that day, I have tried in vain to contact Daly and Wallace numerous times in attempts to obtain comments for news stories, as required by professional ethics and by the Press Council’s code of conduct. Many other journalists have had the same experience.

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“5 Takeaways from the Elections” by Paul Murphy and Diarmaid Flood, Rupture Magazine

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This is a recommended article. It is part of a very important discussion.

Link :
5 takeaways from the elections

With the final tallies counted and remaining seats filled, People Before Profits (PBP) Dublin South West and RISE members Diarmuid Flood and Paul Murphy review the deeply polarised Local and European Elections and outline five key takeaways.

For the second election in a row, dramatic political changes took place in the course of the local and European elections. Sinn Féin started the year polling around 30% and yet ended up with less than 12% nationally in the local Elections. Independents and Others started the year with around 15%, but won close to 25% on June 6th. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael both hit 23%, coming from the high teens and around 20% respectively. In many ways, these appear to be the opposite political trends to what we saw in the General Election of 2020. Back then, Sinn Féin grew dramatically as hope for an end to 100 years of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael rule propelled them to be the biggest party in vote share for the first time ever. Volatility is clearly in the air.

However, what we saw in the five weeks of the election campaign did not come from nowhere. The election catalysed and accelerated existing processes. In the absence of major progressive social struggles, with the exception of the Palestine solidarity movement, the political terrain has undoubtedly shifted rightwards. Ireland has caught up with most of the rest of Europe and the Global North, with the emergence of a reactionary social movement in opposition to asylum seekers and the growth of a racist, climate denialist, anti-LGBTQ, and sexist far-right.

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Struggles for Self-Determination: Ukraine and Palestine Solidarity Discussion

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Link :

Ukraine and Palestine: building real solidarity is hard work

A guest post by JOHN LAWRENCE, from the People and Nature Blog hosted by Simon Pirani.

This article is relevant to the European Parliament Election campaign in Ireland and other parts of Europe.

“Genocide is genocide, a mass grave is a mass grave. We are with the people who are in there, and against the people who put them there”, journalist Ed Vulliamy told a discussion meeting in London on Monday.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Israel’s war on Gaza – both of which have settler colonial and genocidal dimensions – had thrown an unusually clear light on the hypocrisy of people who oppose one, but not the other, Vulliamy said.

Marching in London, March 2024. Photos from United Action UK on instagram

In the United Nations, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky abstains over Gaza, and South Africa abstains over Ukraine, Vulliamy said.

“Large sections of the left wonderfully support Gaza but, having denied and justified [the massacre in 1995 of Bosnians by Serb troops at] Srebrenica, at best indulge, or support, Vladimir Putin and his imperial endeavour,” he continued.

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USA President Genocide Joe Biden

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What public figure do you disagree with the most?

Genocide Joe Biden has the blood of thousands of innocent Gazans on his hands.

Massive Public Support for Pro-Palestine Encampment at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) – Book of Kells Closed Indefinitely

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Palestine Solidarity at the centre of Dublin City – May 5 2024



#DivestNow #AcademicBoycott

Irish Times Report, May 5 2024; Ronan McGreevy, Fiachra Gallagher

Trinity College Dublin closed ‘until further notice’ as protest against Israel ties continues

Several dozen students who have set up camp on the university’s grounds, blockading entrance to Book of Kells, say they will remain ‘indefinitely’ until demands are met

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Stormont 1st Minister O’Neill (Sinn Féin) and Deputy 1st Minister Little-Pengelly (DUP) met US firm supplying Israeli military in Washington DC

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Gerry Carroll, a People Before Profit member of the Stormont Assembly in Belfast, raises very disturbing questions.

This is a Suzanne Breen Belfast Telegraph Report, April 18 2024


People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll has slammed Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly for meeting a US engineering company which supplies the Israeli military with machinery to use in Gaza.

During their visit to Washington last month, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister met with Caterpillar, which provides its huge D9R armoured bulldozers to Israel.

The machines have a highly controversial history.

They were also used in the 2008-09 Gaza War, which left up to 1,400 people dead.

In 2003, American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a D9R as she tried to stop a bulldozer demolishing Palestinian homes in southern Gaza.

Rachel Corrie, crushed to death by Caterpillar armoured bulldozer in 2009

Mr Carroll lambasted Ms O’Neill and Ms Little-Pengelly for also meeting Israeli-founded cybersecurity firm Forescout, which has a contract with the US Department of Defense.

He said: “It is deplorable for the First and Deputy First Minister to meet these firms during Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“Caterpillar is complicit in the Israeli occupation, enabling the illegal bulldozing of Palestinian homes. This is not reflective of Caterpillar workers, but of the horrific profiteering of Caterpillar bosses.

“Israeli-founded Forescout continues to do business with Israel’s chief military backer, and should never have been at that meeting.”

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Reports : Israel “interntionally kills” United Nations employees : Polish, Australian, Irish, and British

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Reports state that Israeli military forces have “intentionally killed” United Nations employees : Polish, Australian, Irish, and British.

Labour Party TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North) states :

Israel have just killed an Irish citizen working for the UN. 30,000 murdered Palestinians should have been reason enough. But immediate sanctions including expulsion of ambassador must be the reaction of govt. And if Dáil needs to be recalled to sanction it then so be it.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD

For sure, many other TD’s will make the same call.

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