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Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Socialist Democracy.



I had been scheduled to speak at the RDS event organised by The Countess on a panel discussing prisons and the housing of males in the female estate, alongside Rhona Hotchkiss and Paddy O’Gorman, two very knowledgeable people on the issue and I was looking forward to it. There were other professionals in their field such as Stella O’ Malley who are due to speak on other aspects. Such events by their nature often include a wide variety of opinions, some of them not exactly complementary to each other. This conference was no exception. I decided to let the fact that the sole speaker on media censorship was from Gript. It is a right-wing Catholic media, but not that much further to the right on many issues than The Irish Times, despite its liberal reputation.

However, the last-minute decision to invite far right activist Jana Lunden to speak on education was a bridge too far. Lunden came to prominence during the protests over sexually inappropriate material being available in children’s libraries rather than adult libraries. These books were eventually relocated to the adult section thanks to back room lobbying by others. Lunden’s response was to gather a bunch of far-right males to storm libraries threatening staff. They didn’t just object to sexually inappropriate material for kids but anything that gave a positive image of gay people.

It was said to me that the presence of far-right thugs Andy Heasman and Fergus Power at rallies with her was accidental, they just turned up, but there are lots of photos of them together. There is even one rather bucolic photo of them all on a boat. They are anti-migrant, racists, homophobes and anti-working class, dividing us on the base of race or nationality and blaming the failings of the Irish state on those who had nothing to do with the mess FF and FG have us in i.e. they blamed migrants and the working class.

The issue shows the limitation of the Gender Critical movement in Ireland, which has failed to mark off a distance with such people and has included figures that are clearly homophobic and anti-feminist. There is a need for a GC movement that fights for women on all issues, including “older” issues such as abortion, divorce, contraception, sexuality and of course the modern invasion of women’s spaces, representation and sports. The invite to Jana Lunden, who presumably will turn up with the usual far-right thugs was the last straw. These people do not defend women, when the opportunity arises they will turn on women and lesbians in particular.

I will continue to advocate for prisons as a single sex space and write about it. But I can no longer associate with those who think that the broad church of a GC movement which includes liberals and even some standard right wingers from Fianna Fáil is in fact an elastic band that can be stretched to breaking point and beyond.

Unfortunately, most reformist leftists such as PBP, Rise and Rosa have all jumped on the bandwagon attacking women’s spaces and demanding that males have access to them and participate in women’s sports and this leaves little room for the building of a more progressive GC movement. However, I am not willing to tolerate Andy Heasman and his thugs.

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Withdraws From The Countess RDS Gender Critical Conference

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Eighty Two

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ I can remember as plain as yesterday back in the sixties when I was too young to attend games at Old Trafford if Man Utd were on television midweek in the League Cup or any FA Cup replay my mam would wake me from bed to watch the game.

I would go to bed early and be woken for the match, often against City. Bell, Lee and Summerbee played back then for City while we had the ‘Holy Trinity’ of Best, Charlton and Law. Great days. As I reached my teens, about thirteen, we would travel by train to Manchester. Running up the hill on a wet Saturday morning, nicking fags and jibbing the bus was all part of the day out. The girls who worked in the newsagents would often chuck us five Park Drive just to rob the shop owner who paid shit wages. But these days were for the seventies as can be seen below.

The nineteen sixties, on a positive note, also saw many overdue changes on the pitch regards the player terms and conditions. The PFA (Professional Footballers Association) was headed in those days by a certain Jimmy Hill. Many may remember Jimmy as the presenter of the BBC Match of the Day. He campaigned and succeeded in getting rid of the £20 maximum wage and, in 1961, made Johnny Haynes of Fulham the first £100 per week player, Haynes is still considered by Fulham fans their best all-time player. This was achieved without the parasite so-called Agents who live off todays very well-paid players, certainly at the top level, and todays stars have the PFA, not the agents, to thank for paving the way for their high salaries.

Are players paid too much? No, not in my view, they are workers selling their labour power for a short working life and will sell that labour, like any other worker, for the best monetary wage. Agents, on the other hand, taking huge percentages of any transfer fee ‘their player’ receives are a different matter. To me they are an unnecessary burden, similar to the pimp taking a high percentage of a woman’s earnings, except the agents are legal! Alex Ferguson did his best to bypass agents but, alas, these creeps have become too powerful. I it is another symptom of money, greed and corruption in modern football.

Another progressive introduction of the sixties was the substitute. In 1965 Keith Peacock of Charlton Athletic became the first substitute to come on to replace an injured player. Charlton’s Goalkeeper, Mick Rose, got injured after eleven minutes at an away game at Bolton Wanderers and even though Keith was an outfield player he could cover in goal. This rule later changed, partly to stop Leeds manager, Don Revie, cheating by making one of his players fane injury so he could change the game if it was not going Leeds way, and bring on his substitute. The change in the rules allowed a substitution whether a player was injured or not.

In 1987 the rule changed again and two substitutes were allowed, which then went to three and now in the so-called Premier League, it is up to five subs. Once again, they have gone overboard with the substitutions, almost allowing two different teams on each side. Two subs were sufficient, to be named before the game, not two from three or five, two and one could be a keeper if the manager wished. That was sensible and keeping with the spirit of the game. In the 1968 European Cup Final Manchester United Manager, Matt Busby, named Jimmy Rimmer as United’s substitute was a goalkeeper in case Alex Stepney got injured. United crushed Benfica that night 4-1 becoming the “first English team to win the European Cup” and a song was made up accordingly.

A typical day at Old Trafford, in the mid-seventies, eighties and into the nineties or anywhere else for that matter, would begin about 7am, sometimes much earlier or even the night before if we were playing away at say Southampton, as my mam bawled me out of my cot; “are you going to see Man Utd today”? Silly question, “its seven o’clock get your arse out of your pit.” Time to shine the DMs (Doc Martens) up using Oxblood boot polish, often listening to Tina Charles singing ‘Dance Little Lady Dance’ or Abba treating us to ‘Mama Mia’ on the Tranny (transiter Radio). Polish the boots then off to the game, after a quick remark to the lasses working in the newsagent where we would buy ten number six cigarettes. The girls working in the shop would often toss us a packet behind the shop owner's back. Raid the buffet on the train, the good old British Rail Buffet for Youngers, Tartan Bitter, for the short journey to Victoria Station. Then to the pub and off to the match, buying a Hotdog from “our kid's” (all hotdog sellers were called “our kid in those days) stall.

Midweek games we would often jump on a supporters club coach which dropped us off in the old then still in partial use Trafford Park industrial Estate and the Trafford Park Hotel pub. The shunters were still running back in the seventies moving goods from the sheds, those still in use, so there was a constant hazard of these trains. Back in its time the Trafford Park Industrial Estate was the largest in Europe but by the seventies it was a shadow of its former self.

It is hard to imagine in today’s boring environment at what passes for the modern game, but on the Stretford End when packed, which was usual, urinating was often done on the terraces and it was not unknown to strike lucky with a quick shag with an equally enthusiastic girl. The authorities did not like this control of the terraces by the fans, as well as the pitch invasions at the last game of the season. Everything was outside their control which they needed a reason to stop.

About eight minutes before the end of our last home game in 1974 against Man City the United fans invaded the pitch. This was an effort to get the game abandoned. It had, after all, worked for Newcastle United fans when they invaded the field of play a few weeks earlier in their FA Cup tie against Nottingham Forrest. It did not work for us and the Blues finished 1-0 winners. There were no celebrations as no City fans worthy of note turned up.

Everybody in Manchester knew something would go down if United lost, it was another nail in the coffin of relegation. We did get relegated that year. The chant; “we’ll support you evermore” rang out of Old Trafford on and off the pitch. United were in the Second Division and this launched a rebirth. Tommy Docherty brought in some exiting new players, perhaps most notably was our signing from Hull City, Stuart Pearson (we’d walk a million miles, for one of your goals, oh Stuart). As Man Utd shot to the top of the league our attendances were the highest average of all four divisions beating Liverpool who actually won the First Division that year, 1974/75 season.

Crowds of 55-60,000 were regular at Old Trafford that season and continued the following seasons. United were on the march again playing fast attacking and entertaining football. We gained promotion back to the First Division at our first attempt. The Doc then bought Jimmy Greenhoff from Stoke City, a snip at £120,000, to add to our attack. playing just behind Pearson. With Steve Coppell and Gordon Hill on the wings, we were playing some of the finest football in the league.

After the pitch invasion against Man City the authorities, Football League, FA, and Government’s answer was to erect nine-foot fences to keep fans off the field of play and created a disaster waiting to happen. It took fifteen years for this to happen and in 1989 in an FA Cup Semi-Final involving Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesdays Hillsborough stadium 97 Liverpool fans were, arguably, murdered by the authorities and their police force. The history of the Hillsborough Disaster is well documented. The net result of this terrible incident is the soulless all seater stadia we have today. Even though the Taylor Report into Hillsborough virtually exonerated standing of any blame - the police were culpable not the terraces for the crush - the authorities still went ahead with the cultureless all-seaters. This was a way of increasing profits, charging four times as much for a seat as the old terracing, getting rid of many working-class supporters who could no longer afford the entry price, and jibbing in was no longer an option. Oor many fans would not attend out of political principle. The entire culture of the game is now fucked, a culture which had lasted over 100 years just so these greedy bastards can amass even greater profits.

Late in the nineteen-seventies came the idea of crowd segregation for big games. Manchester United, the hooligan supporters of the decade according to the media. Away games from home were made all ticket affairs. This was an attempt by the authorities to keep the rival fans apart as United supporters had the habit of going on the home team's fans end; for example the Kop at Anfield a couple of times.

To counter this many Man Utd fans began traveling to the home team’s ground, weeks in advance, to purchase tickets for the home fans section of the ground. In London. For the “Cockney Reds” this was not hard. They all had London accents so those selling tickets at, say Arsenal, had no idea those who were purchasing the tickets were not Arsenal fans, but Manchester United supporters. This ploy worked for a few seasons till the authorities caught themselves on and the home clubs, in many instances, wanted proof of the supporter’s identity.

All that said it was a culture which has now gone, murdered by high finance and the money trick. It is unlikely those days will ever return as many of today’s younger supporters will not remember terracing. I feel sorry for them, they, through no fault of their own have missed out on great days irrespective of who your team was. I am speaking from a Man Utd view but I am sure the supporters of Liverpool, Newcastle, Sunderland, Spurs and many other clubs have their tales to tell. It made the world revolve on its axis.

Today I look at games and see greedy owners like the Glazers followed by daft rule changes like VAR. FA Cup ties decided on the day by penalties whereas previously a replay on a neutral ground was played. The game is a shadow of its former self, all seater stadia, fake scenes before the game and phoney atmospheres in many instances. The genuine article, football, has gone for ever and I consider myself lucky to have experienced those electric days.
 
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Death of a Culture 👥 Murder by High Finance 🎬 Act Ⅱ

Anthony McIntyre ⚽ There was only one team from the city of Liverpool that turned up for last night's Merseyside derby.

It played in blue and the inhabitants of the much deprived and maligned city can be proud of it.

As we sat down to watch the game, brandy perched at my side, I told my son Everton would take the three points. He did not demur. It was just a matter of time before the first goal was conceded. The moment came to pass making last night's game the 16th of the championship race in which Liverpool have conceded first.

I no longer roar at the television, having switched tack to merely laughing with derision at Liverpool's spurned chances and conceded goals. I had long given up on them as serious championship contenders. The moment of grim realisation came with that hapless Quansa pass at Old Trafford. That told us here was a team falling apart. They might yet end up finishing fourth in a three horse race. 

Contrast their challenge for the title with that of Arsenal who put five past Chelsea. The Gunners, serious about their title ambitions, upped their game when it mattered, their players not content to lift their pay check without delivering the goods.

At Goodison, Everton taught their city rivals a lesson in winning tackles, not giving the ball away needlessly, and coming out top in aerial clashes. The Toffees allowed Liverpool to have most of the possession, but crucially recapturing the ball in break up play when vital to do so. Sean Dyche's strategic approach seemed to be let Liverpool play keep-ball as long as they like. They will be unable to do anything with it.

Liverpool failed in every area of the park other than goalkeeping. Atrocious aerial defending compounded by a lacklustre midfield playing behind a toothless attack. If there is a more perfect recipe for soccer failure I can't think of it.

The logic that attackers need to hit the target has led to Darwin Nunez believing that the target is the keeper. His squandered opportunities in front of goal are the stuff of legend. Had he been capable of precision shooting Liverpool might have won the title. He lacks the surgical ability of Erling Haaland who looks before he lashes the ball goalward. Both came to the EPL at the same time. Only once, after the Community Shield clash when both players were a showpiece display by their respective teams, was there any debate about which team got the better value for money. Since then Nunes has not been in the running. 

Salah is simply not at the races. His mind seems to be elsewhere, the Saudi money mill perhaps. Better that he pursues his millionaire lifestyle draining the sheiks of their lolly rather than Liverpudlians of their much more meagre financial resources. Mo being an abbreviation of Money, not Mohammed, he should not be part of any Liverpool side for the remainder of the season.

Of the forward line, Diogo Jota alone has impressed but is too frequently injured to make an appreciable difference. Yet he contributes as much to Liverpool from the sidelines as Salah and Nunes do from the field. In seven games both have a combined total of three goals. 

A tired Klopp had simply ran out of fairy dust. The mojo and the magic is no longer there. The King vacates his throne at the season's end without his clothes. The life of the genius he once possessed has been pronounced extinct. Now they are talking about bringing in some plonker from the Dutch league to replace him. Has one baldy bastard from the Netherlands not proved useless enough in the EPL without Liverpool seeking another? As some wit suggested, he should secure Anfield a tenth position league finish. 

Both Merseyside teams needed the points last night. Everton to avoid the drop, Liverpool to continue with the deception that they were a serious contender in the title race. The authentic team won.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

The Team That Fell Apart

 

A Morning Thought @ 2131

Anthony McIntyre  ✒ reviews a political podcast for Being Human. 

A columnist with the British daily, The Guardian, and author of four books including best sellers, Chavs and The Establishment, Owen Jones also maintains an informative podcast. 

Since October 7 last year when the Qassam Brigades of Hamas launched their armed assault on Israel, Jones has sharply focused on what many believe is an ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Jones, once physically assaulted because of his gay lifestyle, is nothing short of a harsh critic of the Israeli government, forensically pulling together evidence to support his frequent assertions that the country’s far right government is responsible for the mass murder of Palestinian civilians. He trenchantly denounces what he asserts is a calculated policy of starvation.

He has also been forthright in his condemnation and repudiation of the October 7 attacks. Describing them as an unjustifiable sadistic atrocity. At the same time, he flags up the 248 deaths of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank at the hands of the IDF and Israeli settlers in the nine months of 2023 prior to the invasion. The point he makes is that context in the Occupied Territories is often ignored by much of the Western media.

Once described by the Financial Times as Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘most important media cheerleader’, it is hardly startling to find that he is so critical of Keir Starmer’s position on Gaza. Yet, he points not to Starmer’s hostility to Corbyn but to the recent endorsement by the current Labour Party leader of an Israeli plan to deprive the civilian population of Gaza of electricity and water – prohibited under international law.

In one of his more recent podcasts Jones takes a deep dive into the Flour massacre, leaving his listeners in no doubt that the 100 plus deaths were not the result of a stampede for food.

Harrowing but essential listening.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

The Owen Jones Podcast

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Eighty One

A Lawyer Writes ✒ Written by Joshua Rozenberg. Recommended by Christy Walsh.

A High Court judge has been accused of Islamophobia by an accredited human rights campaign group after ruling that a school could lawfully prohibit its pupils from performing prayer rituals on its premises.

Mr Justice Linden dismissed a challenge brought on behalf of an unnamed Muslim student at Michaela Community School in north-west London who wanted to perform one of her five daily prayers during what she regarded as her lunch break.

The school, which is heavily oversubscribed, is a secular secondary free school for girls and boys with exceptionally strict rules — required in part because it is located in an unsuitable seven-storey office block. Around half the 700 pupils are Muslims.

Katharine Birbalsingh, the school’s founder and head teacher, had told its governing body that the decision to ban prayer rituals last year was not taken lightly:

Unacceptable segregation or division, contrary to the whole ethos of the school, was taking place as a result of permitting prayer. An intimidatory atmosphere was developing. Our strict disciplinary policies, on which the ethos and great success of school is based, were at risk of being undermined.

Continye reading @ A Lawyer Writes.

Islamophobia?

Morning Star ☭ 40 years ago anti-racist demonstrator Blair Peach was killed by the police while protesting against a National Front rally. Balwinder Rana. the only surviving member of the five-member committee elected by the community to organise the protests, looks back on that horrific day. Recommended by Gary Robertson.

ON April 23 1979, police killed Blair Peach in Southall while he was protesting against the fascist National Front (NF) rally.

For those of us who were there, the memories of that day will be etched upon our minds forever.

It was a couple of weeks before that we heard that the NF was being allowed, by the then Tory-run Ealing Council, to hold its election meeting right in the heart of our town, the town hall.

The news spread like a wild fire and immediately the Indian Workers Association (Southall), under the leadership of the late Vishnu Sharma, called a meeting of all the local organisations in west London and asked them to send two delegates each.

The meeting was held in the Dominion Centre and there were about 80 people present, representing a multitude of religious, cultural, political as well as trade union organisations.

Continue reading @ Morning Star.

The Day Blair Peach Died 🔴 A Personal Account

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Eighty

 

A Morning Thought @ 2130

Fra Hughes 💣 The attack on the Iranian Consulate by the Zionist apartheid regime on April 01 2024 was a blatant act of war. 

Under international law every diplomatic embassy is protected under article 51 of the Geneva Convention 1961. The Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, is deemed to be Iranian national territory, therefore an attack on the embassy is seen to be an attack on the sovereignty of Iran. 

Now that we have that clarified, let us explore the reasons why the apartheid colonialist regime carried out this atrocious crime. There are in reality only two ways of exploring the rationale behind the Zionist attack. In scenario number one, the Israeli war criminal cabinet deliberate attack on the diplomatic mission in Damascus in order to assassinate the current leaders of the Iranian Republican Guard Corp and the Qassam Brigades was to disrupt the efforts of the Axis of Resistance to alleviate some of the inhumane suffering being experienced by the civilian population of Gaza and the occupied West Bank. 

In a further continuance of Israeli American and British targeted attacks on high ranking Iranian officials from scientists to military strategists, such as General Qassam Soleimani, these assassinations are used to inhibit the sovereign right of Iran to carry out its peaceful military and scientific programs in line with international norms. Israel may have destroyed 80 % of the infrastructure in Gaza, slaughtering 35,000 civilians and maiming 75,000 others in the process. It may have devastated hospitals, schools, water treatment plants, desalination plants, bakeries, livestock, agricultural lands and animal farms, But it has not freed one hostage nor defeated the resistance factions in Gaza, who I might remind you have the right under international law to resist foreign occupation by any and all means necessary including the right of armed resistance. 

The second scenario portrays the attack on the consulate in Syria as a trap, used to lure Iran into a regional war with Israel where the Americans, the British and others will attack Iran using the excuse of defending Israel. In 1953 Britain and America led a coup in Iran to oust the democratically elected leader Mohammad Mosaddegh who had recently nationalised the oil industry. The Anglo Iranian oil company, now BP, stood to lose millions. A coup followed, with the Shah installed and between 1953 and the Iranian peoples revolution of 1979, Western imperialism and its capitalist masters drank deeply from the trough of Iran’a natural resources. 

The day after the Iranian people's revolution succeeded, the Western backed counter revolution began and has been running in place ever since trying to destabilize Iran in the interests of Zionism and Western hegemony. If indeed the embassy was a trap, then where might we possibly go from here? The Zionist regime is already claiming that Iran will fit nuclear warheads to its long range hypersonic missiles and is trying to coalesce a regional coalition of the willing to stand against Iran. 

The leaders of Iran, recently returned to power in the country's elections, have vowed never to use nuclear weapons as they are an abomination before god, And the apartheid regime appears to be reusing the weapons of mass destruction narrative which we all know was the lie used by Blair and Bush to destroy Iraq, which they once used in a proxy war to attack Iran for over a decade in which saw 800,000 combatants on both sides perish, leaving Israel as the only winner in that conflict. The irony is that having disposed of Saddam Hussien an enemy of Iran, Iraq is now an ally of Iran, alongside Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. 

In conclusion either the IRGC has called Israel's bluff and a new era is dawning where the apartheid regime will have to reconsider its present policy of murdering anyone, anywhere, anytime, without being held to account; or Israel has manoeuvred the West, Britain, USA, Germany, France, Italy, the G7 and others into another Iraq-type conflict where Westerners and Iranians might die while Zionists hide in their bomb shelters letting the Christians and Muslims slug it out and then resurface as the victors in another war in West Asia, engaged by the West in order to save their surrogate colonial settler state by destroying all those who oppose the abomination of fascism that is found within supremacist Israeli society and its war criminal leaders whom they elect, reelect and endorse. 

Only time will tell.

Fra Hughes is a Belfast based writer and activist.

Iran Responds, What Comes Next?

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Seventy Nine

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