In the time it took him to close the three yards of separation between us, a well-dressed young man with a Saints ballcap pulled down low was holding a Glock 19 semi-automatic to my head. I’d been hypervigilant for three weeks after a New Orleans tarot card reader at the Golden Leaves Bookstore divined bad … Read more
Nowhere that I have visited has quite the charm of Umbria, Italy’s throbbing green heart, and only land-locked province apart from the Alpine region. Along its horizon, verdant hills culminate in fortified settlements that act as sentinels over fecund valleys, where wheat fields and vineyards have long sustained a saturnine populace. The lumbering waters of … Read more
Fact is a poor story-teller. It starts a story at haphazard, generally long before the beginning, rambles on inconsequentially and tails off, leaving loose ends hanging about, without a conclusion. It works up an interesting situation, and then leaves it in the air to follow an issue that has nothing to do with the point; … Read more
Just a few years ago the prospect of Irish unity seemed remote. However, things are changing. Power-sharing has broken down and the Northern Assembly has been suspended for over two years. On top of that, a combination of a demographic shift in favour of Catholics, and the Brexit-influenced warming of some Protestant voters towards Irish … Read more
Bull Moose is a monthly bulletin discussing the politics and society of the United States. A Gift to Dems – should they take it… The news that Donald Trump had not been adjudged to have colluded with the Russians prior to the 2016 election was greeted with elation on the Right and disappointment and annoyance … Read more
The use of xenophobic language by Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, known as the ‘Trump of the tropics’, reinforces a dangerous narrative in which refugees and migrants are portrayed as threats to national security, writes humanitarian worker Bruna Kadletz. FLORIANÓPOLIS, Brazil – In his first official visit to the White House, Brazil’s new Far Right President … Read more
After working for the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice at global conferences, Sean McCabe is now relishing the chance to represent the local concerns of his Phibsborough community. He intends to bring meaningful improvements to people’s lives, and help build community-owned initiative to tackle threats posed by climate change and inequality. Cassandra Voices interviews … Read more
I have previously warned that austerity economics and moral relativism are giving rise to a new fascism, last seen between the World Wars. First published in English in 1926, perhaps the most influential text of that period was Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of The West, which blamed Slavic and other ‘degenerate’ races for Europe’s impoverishment. … Read more
Last January 25th a dam burst over the town of Brumandinho from a height of eighty-six metres. It unleashed a tsunami of approximately twelve million cubic metres of toxic red sludge over the valley below, eviscerating all in its path. The structure had been built as part of an iron-ore-mining operation in Minais Gerais, Brazil’s … Read more
It was flattering to read Fintan O’Toole respond, however oblique, to my criticism of his generally hysterical book on Brexit. In an Irish Times article on February 19th he claims the English eccentricity I praised has morphed into sinister idiosyncrasies, personified by what he impolitely refers to as the ‘swivel-eyed-loon’ Brexiteers. The association of physical … Read more
The year began darkly in Brazil. On January 1st, 2019, Jair Messias Bolsonaro was sworn in as President of the largest and richest nation in South America. In his inauguration speech, Bolsonaro stressed his commitment to liberate Brazil, ‘from socialism, inverted values, the bloated state and political correctness’, and called for ‘Brazil above everything, and … Read more
As a freshly UK-embedded Irish barrister I am adjusting from confronting Ireland’s problems to addressing those of my new home. Worlds’apart, in a global village. In terms of Brexit, as far as the Irish media is concerned the Backstop, and a recrudescence of the ‘Irish Question’, is the only story, but from my perspective the … Read more
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. (‘The … Read more
Up to my retirement several years ago I taught spoken English at an agricultural university in North-East China. The routine was relieved by an assignment to deliver an elective course that I called ‘Western Art and Culture’. I was given carte blanche to draw up a curriculum to fill the ten weeks allotted. From my … Read more
I raise myself into the UNHCR’s prefrabricated 10×20 ft unit; directly in front of me is the 5×4 latrine I was looking for. Occupied. I’ll have to wait, glad, in fact, just to be cool. I turn my attention left to the man whose workplace is this metal container, a stocky Afghan, with thick, combed, … Read more
THE LONG READ: In the last edition ‘How Irish Propaganda Operates’ explored how political and media duopolies uphold a dominant consensus of steady economic growth and rising rents, to the benefit of a shrinking, propertied elite. The Irish media sector is commented upon in a 2018 survey of press freedoms by Reporters Without Borders which found … Read more
Following an account of a New York banquet in a recent biography of Leo Varadkar[i], we submitted a Freedom of Information Request (FOI) to the Department of the Taoiseach. We are seriously concerned at the close proximity between the Taoiseach and leading Irish journalists, including one of the authors of Leo: A Very Modern Taoiseach, … Read more
THE LONG READ: Ireland is neither a totalitarian state, nor even a dictatorship. Nonetheless, the propaganda of an economic elite has forged a dominant consensus, in which two centre-right parties compete for power. Across a print media duopoly and national broadcaster well-honed techniques of social control divert attention and sow confusion, while subtly instilling dogmas. … Read more
On a recent visit to Athens I chanced upon the supposed tomb of Socrates near the Acropolis. Socrates chose to remain in the city after being found guilty on trumped up charges of corrupting youth. For this he was handed the ultimate sanction of a death sentence, to be self-inflicted with hemlock. By receiving his … Read more
I am sitting on a Frontier flight, a low-cost U.S. airline – basically the American Ryanair – my girlfriend beside me and Tiziano Terzani’s book, Lettere contro la guerra (Letters against the war, 2002) in my hands. We are flying to Seattle. I capture her attention by nudging her with my elbow to read and … Read more
