Sinn Fein and anti-Semitism

Recently I spent a day typing a lot of updates on this blog relevant to Sinn Fein and anti-semitism. Then, about 8 hours later when I woke up, one of the first things I saw on the Web was a story about a SF TD (MP in the South) being accused of anti-Semitism. I couldn’t fucking believe it. First, there are two more stories you might want to read (if you feel like subbing to the Irish-Times) here and here.

I was of course curious what exactly the tweets had said. Even though SF (and possibly Cronin as an individual) seems to be admitting that they were anti-semitic, I wanted to know because supporters of the Palestinians are often falsely accused of being anti-Semitic but even some of the progressive ones ARE anti-Semitic. So I found the Irish news site that broke the story. An update to their original story is here. The story that has the details of the controversial tweets is here.

First, the first article linked to says:


“She had previously made the news this past weekend when the Sunday Times reported that she had accused Israeli intelligence of interfering in the recent UK election to prevent the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister. Mr. Corbyn himself had been accused of anti-semitism in the run-in to that election.”

I haven’t followed the anti-Semitism controversy in the Labour Party very much. I DO know that one of the most outspoken critics (in terms of how big they think the problem is) of anti-Semitism in the party is also VERY supportive of the Palestinians. On the other hand, a friend who is a very solid opponent of anti-Semitism says that the accusations are pro-Israel nonsense. I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel IS involved, but at the same time the allegation about the Mossad mentioned above comes from someone who I think IS or WAS an anti-Semite.

Why do I think she is or was an anti-Semite? Let me quote and discuss each of the actually or allegedly anti-Semitic tweets.


“Israel have taken Nazism to a new level, by showing they can get away with it.”

This is the most solidly anti-Semitic of the tweets. Calling Israel Nazi is anti-Semitic. First, a friend points out that some Jews do that. That’s different. It’s fairly comparable to black people in America using the n-word. Here are my thoughts about this:

1. It's not too different from calling people of color in America racist.
2. You can call Jewish people fascists, but not Nazis.
3. If you want to say that Israeli policy towards the Palestinians could shift towards the genocidal, fine, but don't call them Nazis (for info about how horrible Israeli policy towards the Palestinians is, see this and many of the articles you’ll find here).
4. If you absolutely insist on comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, write a detailed, argumentative, well-documented 10,000 word essay, not a tweet.

From the Gript story: “Deputy Cronin once responded to a message containing an image of a large number of monkeys sitting at computers by saying that she had thought it was an image of the inside of the Israeli embassy.”

The Israeli embassy represents a fairly democratic state and the tweet was four years before the controversial “Jewish Nation State” law was adopted. Although this fairly democratic state is also engaged in something colonial, it, for better or worse is defined as the Jewish State. Many would say that’s the problem and I kind of agree (I will soon do a post about that and related matters (UPDATE 3/8/20 That post is here) and for those of you who think I am a hypocrite because I’m an Irish republican, see the brief essay at the bottom of this post), but it is 80% Jewish and although, yes this is also a problem, the State is politically even more Jewish in terms of who has power. The Jewish population in Israel is roughly between 35% and 44% of the world’s Jewish population and probably another 30%-38% (that is, a large majority of Jewish-Americans) identify with Israel (and probably 50-75% of the rest of the world’s Jewish population identify with Israel). And the best Cronin can do is the tweet described above. It shows a complete lack of willingness to take the Jewish population seriously and treat their representatives with some respect. An embassy is more a representative of a State (in the European sense) than a Government. So it’s not Netanyahu she’s making fun of. I am saying something similar to what I said in item #4 when I discussed calling Israel Nazi, but I certainly find substantive criticism of Israel much more acceptable than calling it Nazi, it's just that this tweet was not substantive criticism.

The next example of anti-Semitism is something she  re-tweeted that I almost dismissed as misunderstood by her critics- I thought it couldn’t have been anti-Semitic because it criticized Hitler. It said, according to Gript, that Hitler was a pawn of the Jewish-founded Rothschild bank. Not only was the bank owned by a Jewish family, it is frequently referred to by people who are definitely anti-semites. The thing is, this claim is saying that Jews were responsible for the Holocaust or POSSIBLY is saying that the Holocaust didn’t happen.

According to Gript.ie and some of the screen shots they show in their article, she believes strongly that banks control the world and at least once mentions a bank owned by the Rothschild family. She also tweeted that “those wars were instigated and funded by banks.” There is an anti-Semitic stereotype of bankers as Jewish and Jews as bankers. I don’t know what the stats are about religion and bankers, but if you look at a 2016 Pew Research Center poll, only 44% of Jewish-American households had a yearly income of $100,000 or more. Yes, that is higher than other religious groups, but how many bankers don’t earn A LOT more than that? I mean, if a banker’s household is earning $100,000 a year, they must be a a horrible banker. And even if we focus on those Jews earning as much as successful bankers earn, what about all of them who get rich from various other businesses such as retail, manufacturing, real estate, Hollywood, the media, etc? Also, you need a college degree to be a banker, and to one extent or another (depending on the bank and how senior the position is) you need a graduate degree, and I’m sure many people at the very top have a Ph.D. According to the PRC, in 2016, 59% of Jewish-Americans had a college degree. Ahead of them were Hindus at 77%, and Unitarian Universalists at 67%; tied with Jews were Anglicans at 59% and right below them were Episcopalians at 56%, and of course all the other religious groups and Atheists were below that. First, like I said, to one extent or another you need a graduate degree to be a banker. Second, finance is only one of roughly 100-150 degrees available in America. Anti-Semites would say that there is some kind of strong integration among Jewish people that connects the bankers and the non-banker (ridicuously vast) majority. Even during the Nazi era there was division among Jews. A minority wanted to fight, another minority collaborated or supported collaboration or advocated for it, and most were passive. Look at voting in America. In recent decades about 2/3 of those who vote vote Democratic, about 1/3 vote Republican, and although Jewish voter turnout is a little higher than it is with the general population, that still leaves a lot of Jews staying home. And on Israel there are similar divisions. In 2013 (according to the PRC), only 70% said they feel “very” or “somewhat” attached to Israel. According to a 2020 poll of Jewish-Americans (described in an article here (the Times of Israel is only slightly pro-Israel and publishes so many articles that expose what I call Israeli Apartheid that about half the articles I link to from my post about that are in the TI)) commissioned by the Jewish Electoral Institute:

Only 32% of Jewish voters characterized Israel as “one of the most important” issues to them in the upcoming election. Of far greater concern to Jews are healthcare, medicare and social security, and gun safety.

Although 91% said they were generally pro-Israel, 56% identified themselves as “critical” of the Netanyahu government, a government which had the support until recently of a majority of MKs (MPs) and which might possibly be returned to power with a similar majority of MKs.

The article describes some more results of the poll, in reference to Trump:

Fifty-one percent said they supported his Israel policies; 39% said they didn’t. A slightly larger majority (52%) said they approved of his decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty of the Golan Heights.

The US Jewish community appeared much more divided on Trump’s decision to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which roiled the White House’s relations with the Palestinians. Whereas 45% approved of the move, 42% said they were opposed to it.

American Jews are similarly split on a dimension of the president’s peace plan that would allow Israel to annex the existing West Bank settlements: 44% approve of that policy and 40% disapprove of it.

Although this is anecdotal, I’d like to address the idea that Jews with a lower income somehow benefit from the wealth of those bankers who ARE Jewish. I have lived in Boulder, CO my entire life. As you may know, Boulder is an expensive place to live, it has always been more expensive than the county that surrounds it, and recently it has gotten very expensive and the supply of affordable housing is insufficient. I think that most of the Jewish people I have known who either work in Boulder or who I went to high school with, live/lived outside Boulder and I’m pretty sure it’s for financial reasons. 

I’m not sure if I just addressed some of what leads people to become anti-Semitic, but I think I may have.

Crucially, an aspect of this is the idea that bankers are central to capitalism. I’m not an economist or business school graduate, but I think the role of bankers in capitalism is slightly if not significantly exaggerated by people who generally like capitalism but (probably) don’t like Jews. The bankers are coordinating capitalism and the flow of capital, but are not making decisions about wages, benefits, working conditions, unions, etc. They don’t make decisions about whether or not to shift production to low-wage areas. They don’t make decisions about what to produce. I’m not saying that it’s impossible for them to make decisions about loans based on their agenda (and apparently they play a major role in urban development), but I think this is exaggerated. They want to make the loan so they can make money on it by collecting interest, and once the loan is made I seriously doubt they’ll make a negative decision if the company recognizes a union, for example- I’ve never heard of that happening and I have been a socialist for 25 years (and I doubt that hardly any businesses would take a loan whose terms involve the absence of a union because if they lose a certification election, they default on the loan). Investors do that sort of thing, and although banks are to one degree or another part of that community, they are not all of it. Unions invest, individuals invest, corporations invest, pension plans invest, non-profits invest, etc. This hostility towards banks also implies that they are inherently capitalist and do nothing good for society, communities and individuals. I have tried to find out if anti-Semites are known to also attack credit unions, an institution which I have no problem with at all. If they ARE hostile to credit unions because they extend their stereotype about Jews and bankers to them as well, that just proves beyond any doubt that they are motivated not by any hostility towards capitalism, but simply bigotry. And, although this might fuel anti-Semitic hostility towards credit unions, here and there and maybe more often than that, Jews have organized credit unions.

The actor Mel Gibson, clearly an anti-Semite, once said that all wars were the fault of Jews. Even IF there was more than the tiniest amount of truth to the stereotype about Jews and bankers, I would have to say, even as a socialist, that wars are not always solely the result of economics (and as I said, there are more components to capitalism besides banks). Imperialism is of course almost always present and there is an economic dimension to that, but there is also right-wing nationalism, racism or some other kind of bigotry. There is often support for war among the military (who often have great influence while a decision to GO TO war is being made), and that is almost always independent of capitalist beliefs and/or the defense industry. I won’t go anywhere near an exhaustive survey of war, but here are my thoughts on some wars.

1. The “American Revolution.” Although I’m not happy with the European settlement that preceded it or the westward expansion that followed it, the colonists had legitimate, non-capitalist complaints against London. I suppose some would say that the British effort in that conflict was for the benefit of banks, and there’s probably some truth to that.
2. The American Civil War. Yes there was an economic dimension, but there was also a great deal of principled opposition to slavery on one side and racist support for it on the other (yes that racism was encouraged by capitalists, but the most direct explanation for popular opposition to abolition was racism).
3. World War I. This was incredibly imperialistic and nationalistic, although I think the racist nature of that nationalism was almost nil. There was militarism. This may have been a war that could be largely attributed to bankers.
4. World War II in the Pacific. I’m not real familiar with what I call Japanese Imperialism (you could also call it Japanese Fascism). There was an economic dimension, although I’m not sure to what degree it was for the benefit of capitalists. There was undoubtedly militarism, possibly even more so than was the case with the Nazis (these Imperialists believed in what you might call a ridiculously negative and fascist warrior code that included killing prisoners or treating them much worse than the Nazis treated POWs of WESTERN Allied states). There was incredible racism towards other Asians (remember that race is socially constructed; I did a few google searches and it seems that at least MANY Japanese have light skin; Apartheid South Africa, for economic reasons, classified Japanese as White and I don’t think it was JUST economic; they were allied with Nazi Germany; I read about how an American white supremacist music label would receive a lot of orders for CDs from Japanese people who considered themselves the “white men of the East”). Although some powerful people in the United States may have primarily been worried about Japan as an imperialist rival, and FDR pursued a foreign policy that put us on a collision course with Japan, A) Japan WAS doing bad stuff, B) FDR was NOT a solid capitalist, C) Pearl Harbor was attacked, D) FDR may have allowed it to happen so that he could go to war with Germany (see below).
5. World War II in Europe. Although the Nazis were sort of capitalist and capitalists supported them, they were driven much more by bigotry, militarism, imperialism, (a crude, populist) anti-Communism and a reverence for power and strength and violence. I’d say roughly the same thing about Italian fascists, with less anti-Semitism and perhaps a little closer to socialist instead of NATIONAL socialist. The Soviet Union fought largely because they were going to be destroyed, although there were certainly some genuinely anti-fascist tendencies in Moscow (if you believe they were more than tendencies, what about the non-aggression pact between Moscow and Berlin that lasted until Germany invaded?). The British were certainly an imperialist and capitalist power at the time, but they were also a liberal democracy and recognized Nazi Germany for what it was in terms of authoritarianism and expansionism. And shortly after the war the British Left/Center-Left won a massive electoral victory, so I think most of the people at every level were motivated by a left-wing opposition to fascism. The United States quite possibly allowed a situation to develop where they would go to war with Nazi Germany. Yes, America was a capitalist and imperialist country, but once again, it was also a liberal democracy, and there seemed to be a massive center-left/left minority in the years leading up to the war and during the war, and FDR was just to the right of that (although as President he was fairly disappointing when it came to racial justice and equality, his wife was not and that’s not totally irrelevant).
6. Vietnam. The Vietnamese had been fighting for independence from the French (and briefly the Japanese) for decades and wanted a united, communist nation-state. I’m not real familiar with Vietnamese communism but banks are not inherently capitalist, and I just did some searches and apparently, for better or worse, there are almost zero Jewish people there. The United States was certainly motivated in part by capitalism. JFK and LBJ were economically to the right of FDR and Nixon certainly was. But there was also a conflict between a block of liberal (and often social) democracies and a block of communist countries that, whatever the progressive value of their social, economic and foreign policies, were authoritarian. Although the US introduced the nuclear weapon to the world, and aimed missiles at the USSR, there were a bunch of them aimed at the US.
7. Israel. Conflicts involving Israel are not anywhere near as much the fault of Jews as many people think. First, although Zionism is very flawed in multiple ways (See this) and I have serious problems with what happened to the Palestinians, the seizing and settlement of lands beyond the pre-1967 borders and states defined by ethnicity and/or religion, Israel’s Arab neighbors wanted in the past to DESTROY Israel- not in the sense that a one-state solution would “destroy” Israel, but in the sense that Jews would be driven into the sea. And this was just decades after the very flawed pacifistic response of European Jews to the Nazis contributed to 2/3 of that population being killed. As far as American fuel for Israel’s behavior towards its neighbors, see some of the material in this post. As far as an alleged Jewish role in the Bush administration’s decision to invade and occupy Iraq, see what I’ve said about support in America for Israel, and consider what I wrote elsewhere on this blog:

Bush's reasons for invading Iraq were many, Israel was a small part of it. There was the opportunity to give lots of money to corporations in multiple ways, the strong desire for using the US military that most GOPers have, the desire to teach the world a lesson in terms of what the US will do to them if they piss off D.C., the desire for oil, the idea of democratizing the Middle-East. I also heard something about it being connected to countering the growing strength of the Euro. It's possible they half believed that stuff about WMDs and Al-Qaeda. Israel was a small part of it.

I’m going to end my discussion of war there.

I believe that TD Raeda Cronin was an anti-Semite. The relevant tweets were made about 6 years ago, and she has apologized. In connection with what I write here (the first article I link to in that post is not relevant, but the rest of that post is) I’m not against the idea that SF should expel her or at least have her stand down as a TD, but I’ll continue to support SF even if they don’t. As I sort of prove here, SF is against anti-Semitism. I did this post largely because the controversy gave me a chance to discuss anti-Semitism among progressive supporters of the Palestinians, and to combine the anti-bigot part of this blog with the Ireland/N. Ireland part of the blog.

**********************

I’ve referred twice to my concern about Israel being officially called The Jewish State and being defined by ethnicity and/or religion. Some would call me a hypocrite because I’m an Irish republican. So let me explain this. Don’t call me a hypocrite. You will lose every time you try that.

After the War of Independence in Ireland, in 1920-1925 the South became what was called a “Free State.” Its independence from the UK was limited. For example, members of Parliament had to swear an oath to Queen. The 1937 Constitution created the position of President and the first President was a Protestant. Presidential terms are normally seven years and someone can serve two terms. In the 1970s there was another Protestant President for about 2 years before he died. So out of nine Presidents, two were Protestant. As far as the 1937 Constitution and Catholicism, it’s true that early drafts emphasized Catholicism and the Catholic Church, but there was GREAT opposition to that. The final draft of the relevant section recognized the existence of the main Protestant churches in Ireland, as well as the Jewish religion, and it recognized “the special position” of the Roman Catholic Church “as the guardian of the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens.” This special place for the Catholic Church was done away with in 1972. The ban on divorce was done away with in 1995. There were of course homophobic laws (only in 1993 was homosexuality decriminalized) and the constitution had to be amended in 2015 to allow for gay marriage (there wasn’t anything in the document about “a man and a woman,” but still, only in 2015 was it amended to solidly legalize gay marriage in a country where a law could be more easily overturned by politicians if the country drifted to the right) and abortion is 99% illegal there, but there is plenty of homophobia and pro-life politics among Protestants, Jews, Muslims, etc. (also, although the Catholic Church is in two ways sexist, that can be exaggerated, and in recent decades, FREQUENTLY the Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) has been a woman and between 1990 and 2011 the slightly powerful position of President of Ireland was held by women, one of whom went on to be the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights)

Is Ireland defined by ethnicity? Until about 20 years ago the South was almost literally 100% white, and there weren’t many non-Irish white people (in the last 20 years there has been bigotry that sort of resembles racism towards, for example, Poles). In 2004 there was an Amendment to the constitution that eliminates birthright citizenship for people born to parents who are not both citizens of Ireland. But if one parent is a citizen, they get citizenship. Also, although naturalization has been restricted, it’s still possible and it’s still fairly easy for citizens of the European Community, although that could be interpreted as racist, but I don’t think they had much of a choice as a member of the EU. First, the parties in Ireland I primarily support (SF and Irish Labour) opposed it as racist (and also as being in conflict with the Good Friday Agreement). Second, although I couldn’t have said this until recently, the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland for the last few years was a man named Leo Varadkar, whose father is Indian. Also, he’s an openly gay man. I don’t like him or his party (Fine Gael, who are sort of socially liberal but sort of pro-British and in love with capitalism). According to wikipedia, he was a government minister between 2011 and 2017 when he became Taoiseach. Between 2007 and 2011, when FG were in Opposition, he was a  Spokesperson (shadow minister?). The Irish language is recognized by the Constitution as the first official language and English is recognized as the second. A lot is done to promote the former, but practically everyone practically always speak the latter and everything official is available in both languages. The British came very close to stamping out the Irish language (and they WERE trying to).

The South is not comparable to the Jewish State. And SF doesn’t want a United Ireland to be any more Catholic or Irish than the South is now. The second half of this (starting with the sentence “A lot of people…”) talks about the former, and most of this deals with the latter.

Sectraian Murder and Class in N. Ireland

In The Troubles, roughly 1969 until roughly 2005 (when the IRA decommissioned) Loyalist paramilitaries killed almost exactly 696 Catholic civilians, and the security forces killed almost exactly 161 Catholic civilians. A comparable scenario in America would have meant around 67,000 unarmed people of color killed by cops or Nazi skinheads (etc.) in the same time period (based on what I’ll describe below, I would guess that the actual number for that was probably somewhere around 7,000-8,000).

I just sort of confirmed, using the Sutton Database on the CAIN site, what I sort of understood, that if you combine North Belfast and West Belfast and then look at South Belfast (North, South, and West Belfast are all, individually, roughly the same size as far as population goes, and both South and North had a small Protestant majority and West was about 85% Catholic), there were about 4.5 times more loyalist murders of Catholics in the former bloc than in South Belfast (in the former bloc, almost exactly 329, and in South Belfast almost exactly 74). I also looked at figures for the security forces, and the West/North combo had a figure 47 times higher than that of South Belfast (almost exactly 94 for the former bloc (27 in the North and 67 in the West) and almost exactly 2 for South Belfast). I just looked (using the very credible and academic site “Northern Ireland Elections”) at the 80s and 90s Westminster and 1996 Forum and 1998 Assembly elections (and 1-2 sets of local elections results that were grouped together based on Westminster Constituencies), and on average the SDLP did roughly as well as SF in North Belfast. So it's not because North Belfast was a republican stronghold, although obviously West Belfast was, but there were almost twice as many sectarian murders in the North than in the West. And although of course South Belfast was mostly Unionist, so was North Belfast.

So, in this post I'm sort of telling you what some of you already know. But I think it’s safe to say that WORKING-CLASS Catholic civilians were MUCH more likely than middle-class Catholic civilians to be killed by loyalists or the British (for Catholics, South Belfast is pretty much the only solidly middle-class area in Belfast). I think it’s because, as sectarian as the State was, a lawyer and/or professional or business connections and/or media connections and/or political connections to the Alliance (a slightly Unionist, mostly Protestant liberal democratic party, see this and this) help relatives or survivors put pressure on the police and Stormont (either the sectarian devolved government that died in 1972, or the N. Ireland Office of the British government, or the devolved, non-sectarian Assembly that has been there most of the time since 1998) to get who did it? I mean, in all fairness I imagine the SDLP (see this and this) always or almost always did what they could for relatives or survivors, even those who were working-class and/or republican, but, the SDLP was of course possibly MORE Catholic than SF and certainly much more Catholic than the Alliance, and was much more in favor of uniting Ireland than the Alliance and were much more likely to have contacts with republicans. I just confirmed what I knew which is that the Alliance was/is MUCH stronger in South than North or West. The likelihood of a victim's family or a survivor being close to Alliance politicians or leaders or activists was higher in South Belfast.


There is also some relevant stuff here, starting with the paragraph "I go into some detail...." and end with the paragraph "UPDATE 1/31/20...."

*****************

What makes me confident about my statement “probably somewhere around 7,000-8,000”?

1. Between 1996 and 2005 according to the FBI there were 38 racist murders. I have read that the Department of Justice officially estimates that for every hate crime reported to the FBI there might be 20-30 that aren’t reported because not all local law enforcement agencies report such crimes to the FBI. So I came up with 1,140 for those years.
2. I heard (from organizers of a Black Lives Matter protest) that in a 12 month period during a 2014 (apparent) surge in police murders of black people including those of Eric Garner in NY, Tamir Rice in OH, and Michael Brown in MO among other highly publicized such cases, that around 200 black people armed or unarmed, had been killed by cops in America. Although I’m very open-minded about accusations that cops plant guns, this country also has a ridiculous number of guns.
3. Bear in mind that decades ago the number of people of color and the number of cops in this country were both smaller or much smaller than they are today.
4. If it’s worth much, about 10 years ago I read a huge amount of what the Southern Poverty Law Center put on their web-site in the previous 10-15 years. I also got an Ethnic Studies degree if that’s worth much.
5. There was little or no talk about “Brown Lives Matter” so I get the impression that very few Latinos/Latinas/Chicanos/Chicanas have been killed by cops in recent years (as far as I know, even Arpaio’s sheriff’s department in AZ didn’t kill a single such person) and that might reflect the situation in earlier decades. I have practically never heard of Asian-Americans being killed by cops. And if Native Americans were being killed at a high rate in the 80s and 90s I would have heard (a massive chunk of my major was Native American Studies).

UPDATE 6/9/21 I just found a Democracy Now! story relevant to this. It's about the last 20 years, but there's a small overlap between that and the period I was looking at Catholics and people of color (1969-2005), and it's possible that what I said about this comparison is off a little. Bear in mind that the figure I refer to in item #2 above came from organizers of a Black Lives Matter protest.

Fox News Rejected an anti-Nazi ad

I just found something, it's only a year old and probably still relevant. In one of my poems (Republicans in Congress) I wrote:

Racists and anti-semites in the GOP and on Fox News
Face it, some of you are fascists, democracy you abuse

I just found a article which indicates I wasn't being more than slightly obnoxious suggesting that Fox News is fascist.

Sanders/Warren 2020!!!

A few days ago I sent the message at the very bottom to the Warren campaign.  It was flawed and incomplete and after I circulated it to some people I know politically and/or personally I actually sent out two more messages to those people. Immediately below are some new thoughts etc. that complement what I wrote to her campaign. I got only one response and that person agreed with me but declined to contact the Warren campaign. I am doing this because I believe that I am part of the broad progressive movement that Warren and Sanders are leaders of, and since I can't do normal political activism, I do my blog, I volunteer at a food bank, and I attend progressive events to learn and contribute to the success of the event as an audience member, and this post is my way of participating in the primaries beyond voting (I voted for Sanders in CO's primary). (I can't do activism because I have Depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Tourrette's Syndrome, bad Attention Deficit Disorder, and a brain injury that affects my hearing, my immediate/working memory, and my ability to organize my thoughts)


I believe that the combination of a woman on the ticket and Trump as the alternative will convince some female Clintonites (moderates) to vote for Sanders in the primary. I am not being ridiculous. I think some of them KNOW that he has a better chance in the general, and I THINK they really like the idea of a woman President and VP is a springboard to President.

And the better he does in the primaries, the more united the party will be at the convention and in the general and the more likely that Bernie voters in the general will vote for other Dems down-ballot, and then he has a chance of getting his agenda through Congress.

Also, a lot of female independents who are progressive (and might otherwise have trouble voting for someone, even Sanders, who's a Dem candidate (I don't know what he's been saying recently, but in 2000 Nader said that even progressive Dems should be targeted in elections by the Green Party)) or sort of in the center will vote for Sanders in the general.


My message to Warren’s campaign:

I'm sure you get tons of messages and you're very busy, but I still need to say this. I link from my blog to both Warren and Sanders, but I am a little more enthusiastic about Sanders because I am a socialist and from the beginning he has had a better chance of winning the nomination and a general election. After the results in SC, Warren really needs to drop out and talk with Sanders about being his running mate. I don't know if that sort of thing is done during the primaries but there can't be a law against it. Such a ticket, informal in the remaining primaries and formal in the general will attract some (in the primaries) or a lot (in the general) of support from female Clintonites who would normally hate Sanders. Such a ticket, in the primaries, would help defeat Biden and Bloomberg, and in the general it would have a good chance of defeating Trump.
Thanks for your time reading this and what you've done to promote a progressive agenda.
Tom Shelley
Boulder, CO
tshelley75@comcast.net
https://theblackandthegreen.blogspot.com/

Brexit, A Hard Border, and Irish Unity

You should read this. It's about the Northern Ireland aspect of Brexit, the departure from the EU of the UK. While reading my thoughts below, you should also read this. It's about how a "hard border" between the two parts of Ireland might violate the letter and certainly violates the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement. It doesn't mention that much of the business community, probably the vast majority, in both parts of Ireland oppose a hard border

I might be over-reacting, but there might be a new push for Irish unity soon. Besides Sinn Fein's success in the South, and the growth of Nationalist political strength in the North, there's also Brexit, and since a majority of N. Ireland voters voted to remain in the EU, there were definitely some Unionists who voted to remain (of 11 unionst MPs at the time, one opposed Brexit). Although the SF Deputy First Minister did at one point express opposition to a border between GB and NI, I think that might be because it was difficult for her to avoid since the First Minister and a large chunk, probably a majority of NI's business community oppose a border in the Irish sea (I've read that SF opposes it for different reasons than the DUP have for opposing it, but I just found something on the SF web-site indicating they might be sort of in favor of it) but SF definitely opposes a hard border in Ireland and and I think they probably realize that the EU will not accept a soft border in Ireland without a border in the Irish Sea. SF and the Social Democratic and Labour Party opposed Brexit. And the EU seems pissed about what London might be intending to do, and might strongly suggest that the situation be resolved by uniting Ireland (I believe it should be a 30 year process, but it should start ASAP).

UPDATE 3/5/20 I could swear I read somewhere that a senior DUP politician, perhaps Arlene Foster (leader of the DUP) said that a border in the Irish Sea would be the end of the Good Friday Agreement. I just found an article where a senior DUP politician says that the spirit of the GFA would be threatened by such a border. And I also just found an article where Foster said that there is so much opposition to such a border in the unionist community that there could be violence from that community, and although she didn't specify this, she's probably talking about loyalist paramilitaries. IF the DUP do walk away from the GFA because of a border in the Irish Sea, that could easily see a resumption of republican violence. There is a chance that a "hard border" in Ireland would see a small increase in republican violence, which would probably result in loyalist violence and/or repressive activity by the security forces. Hopefully the EU and America can put enough pressure on the British to resolve this by uniting Ireland. Unfortunately, as I write here, it's possible that Trump won't give a shit what SF wants (UPDATE 3/7/20 also, it was just reported that he made his now former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney his envoy to N. Ireland, and as far as I can tell, he doesn't like Mulvaney, and that makes me think that as flawed as his approach to the conflict would probably be, he also just doesn't care).

UPDATE 3/5/20 I stumbled across an Irish Times article about a December 2019 opinion poll of people in N. Ireland by the University of Liverpool, . The first relevant paragraph is:

In the 2016 Brexit vote Northern Ireland voted by 56 per cent to stay in the European Union. Excluding don’t knows, those who refused to say and those who would not vote, the survey found that now 63 per cent would vote to stay in the EU compared with 37 per cent who would vote to leave.

The second relevant paragraph is:

On checks on goods travelling between Britain and Northern Ireland, and between the North and the Republic, 68.5 per cent of those who stated an opinion believed they would be unacceptable.

The General Election in Ireland, the Working-Class, and the Palestinians

I am a little late doing this, but here are links to two articles about the recent election in the South of Ireland (the Republic).

1. An article about how Sinn Fein is a working-class party. About 15 years ago in another election there about 1/3 of SF candidates had some connection to the trade-union movement.

2. A post by Juan Cole about how Ireland is overwhelmingly in support of the Palestinians and a Sinn Fein government might turn that into policy.

Because of some things in the first article and the fact that in the PAST Cole has attacked the IRA, I want to link to a post on my blog where I explain that the IRA were not terrorists.

Also, it looks certain that there will be another election there, the numbers just don't add up to a 80 without so many different parties and independents that I doubt it will be a stable government. And, since SF didn't run many candidates, if there is another election, they might get a large plurality- hopefully seats taken from FF and not the left, but in any case it might make it more likely SF can form a government.

Also, SF is very much against anti-semitism, although it's a bit complicated. There's some stuff about that here, here, and something a little more critical here. UPDATE Another critical piece is here.



Something I wrote elsewhere:

In a recent post on his blog Juan Cole talks about SF and the Palestinians and says that unlike Germany with it's Nazi history, Ireland will be able to support the Palestinians without that kind of baggage. But That is not entirely true since Ireland was neutral and the IRA accepted aid from Nazi Germany. Unless SF has admitted recently that the IRA was wrong to do that, they are vulnerable to attacks. I go into more detail about that here. But multiple things indicate that SF IS VERY much against anti-Semitism (although it's not all favorable and some of it is ancient history much of this post is about SF and anti-semitism) and I wanted to make that even clearer to people who will criticize them over supporting the Palestinians. (I just did a google search for news about SF's current stance on the IRA and Nazi Germany, and subscribed to the Irish Times and searched that site and found nothing about SF changing it's stance on this (I found something from 2004 indicating that SF was still defending what the IRA did (using Google Advanced Search, I searched SF's web-site and found nothing, although several possibly relevant documents seemed to have been moved or removed (they probably can't archive everything (I also used the search function on SF's web-site and didn't find anything)))))

**********

UPDATE 2/22/20 First, there is an article here you read. Between this, and the WWII stuff, if Juan Cole is right, SF will be destroyed by Trump and AIPAC and much of the Left in America will look the other way because of the IRA/Nazi Germany thing.  A moderate Dem will be more merciful, but even a progressive supporter of the Palestinians like  Sanders will be pressured to criticize  SF. And AIPAC can use Congress to hurt SF. SF really needs to say that the IRA was wrong. As I said in a recent email to the TD mentioned in that article (I am typing a post about her tweets), what if the Israeli government in the 1970s offered the Provisional IRA money? Also SF needs to understand how much Americans like what we did in WWII.

 

Liberals, Progressives, and Clintionites

In recent years I have struggled with how progressives define liberal. In very early 2003, I organized an anti-war panel discussion sponsored by the Young Democratic Socialists at CU-Boulder and by an embryonic group I started called “Liberals Against War.” I’ll keep this brief for now, although I might do a post about it later (UPDATE 10/29/20 That post is here), but I felt like the main anti-war group at CU-Boulder was trying to convert people to progressives as a way of making them oppose what Bush wanted to do, instead of convincing them that an invasion of Iraq was wrong, and I felt the focus should be on a massive part of the population that would listen to the anti-war movement- liberals, as I define them. But one of the panelists thought I was talking about listening to what pro-war liberal and moderate Democrats had to say. I clarified what I meant. I just found an article about moderate Democrats here.           

The very beginning is:

Twenty-four years ago, I published an essay titled “Liberals, I Do Despise” in the Village Voice, which Common Dreams reprinted as an enduring oldie in 2009. The title was a play on an old doggerel, in this case rendering it:

Liberals and flies, I do despise

The more I see liberals, the more I like flies.

I wrote the essay in disgust after Bill Clinton concluded his and other New Democrats’ deal with the devil by signing the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act—welfare reform—that ended the federal government’s sixty-year commitment to direct income provision for the indigent.

I am frustrated by this progressive obsession with referring to Clinton as a liberal. He was not a liberal as President. Besides being economically moderate or even right-wing (on the internal DP spectrum) and generally being the candidate of the moderate part of the DP in 1992, he was also a militarist and was only sort of socially liberal. Although I’m far from familiar with his environmental record, I get the impression it was pretty bad. Although he was fiercely pro-choice, he took a moderate position on affirmative action (my thoughts about AA are here) and opposed gay marriage. He was “tough on crime.”

His Vice President was married to a woman half responsible for the “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” stickers on many music albums. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with not wanting your kids to hear a bunch of swear words and references to sex and drugs, but there were some serious problems with those stickers. First, those behind them wouldn’t have been successful without massive support from the religious right. Second, many music stores refused to sell albums with the label. Third, I’m willing to bet that the majority of albums affected were by artists who were people of color. And fourth, many of the songs on many of those albums were incredibly political with messages of the sort embraced (to one degree or another) by liberals and progressives.

Welfare reform, although largely a question of economic injustice, was also an example of social injustice if you consider A) the popular, racist image in America of a welfare recipient, and B) the fact that all mothers are working mothers.

Clinton was not a liberal. They are at least socially liberal, often passionately so, slightly skeptical of the military (and favor efforts to avoid war), and I would argue they are a bit to the left of Clinton on economic stuff although not much. They believe strongly in what you might call (STATE) CHARITY, but only sort of in CHANGE (like Single-Payer, laws that would strengthen unions, etc.). (based on what he did with welfare reform, it can be argued that Clinton doesn't consistently believe in (STATE) CHARITY very much)

Progressives seem to think that to the left of center there are only progressives and Clintonites and there is no space in between to be filled by those I would call liberal. Did everyone who opposed welfare reform (strongly) support unions and/or support single-payer health care? Did all straight supporters of gay marriage support economic justice, i.e. oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement? Same thing with affirmative action. To one extent or another there are some other things like that.

(UPDATE 10/5/25 I have a feeling that a lot of readers still don't see a couple things I'm trying to illuminate with this- the difference between a progressive and a liberal and the difference between a liberal and a Clintonite. One argument I make when I think about what my readers may say is that as important as it was that (most) progressives tried to stop Clintonite welfare "reform," welfare is not revolutionary- it did not EMPOWER people and/or TRANSFORM any structure. It was and is reformist- I can easily see MANY liberals opposing "reform" in the Clinton years without supporting single-payer or opposing NAFTA. It was a kind of CHARITY, it was not CHANGE)

Although Obama isn’t a progressive, is he a Clintonite? I could just point to the 2008 primaries, but some would say that it was two Clintonites and the anti-racist/Black vote helped Obama win against the wife of a Democratic President very popular with Democrats. But Obama was a liberal candidate. About 10 years before he ran for President he HAD been a progressive. His Justice Department went after racist police departments and let large numbers of people out of jail. Obamacare is MUCH better than what Hillary Clinton pushed in the 1990s. Unlike Hillary he had opposed the Iraq war. At the end of his presidency he commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the Army whistleblower previously known as Bradley Manning. Some would point to Hillary’s role in the Obama administration, but consider this- it’s not uncommon for Heads of Government to give some positions to people in other factions of their party, and she was only there the first half.

The Clintons are not liberals, but liberals exist. And as a progressive, I believe that here and there many of them are my allies.

Irish-American White Allies, Multi-Culturalism, Northern Ireland, and Struggles for Justice, Equality, and Freedom

I identify not just as Irish-American, but strongly so. If it’s a contest between identifying as Irish-American or white (and although this post will reflect the fact that I don’t have a sociology degree, I believe those two are competing for the same space or something like that and add up to 100%) I identify largely as Irish-American and partly as white.

In my experience many white allies have a problem with how I identify and say it is in conflict with being a white ally. This article will explain why I identify that way. It will also touch on related issues like the anti-racist nature of my N. Ireland activism, my thoughts about ethnicity, the connection between my identity and my decision as an activist to often devote large amounts of time to the issue of N. Ireland, and my record as a white ally.

************

(I primarily think of race in the sense that involves it being socially constructed. That is, the concept of race that involves power, privilege, and socialization. I haven’t, for about 16 years, had a great grasp on socialization (and can’t find anything about racial socialization in my two (more or less) introductory Ethnic Studies books) But I think I understand it enough. I think my grasp of white privilege has gone down a bit in recent years, but I believe that two good examples of what I DO know to be white privilege (to demonstrate that I at least largely understand it) are A) how the police treat you, and B) white people being comfortable dominating a conversation involving people of color (and being ALLOWED by the other white people in the conversation TO dominate the conversation). And I think I have studied the exercise of power over marginalized people enough to understand it)

(Because it makes discussing the subject technically problematic, I’m suspending the idea that all white people are racist)

**************

When I say that I identify partly as white that’s because of three things. My skin color, how I was I socialized, and the fact that I have white privilege. The thing is,  the white race exists only in the following ways:

1. In a VERY limited way connected with skin color and some other physical characteristics.
2. In our society it does if we focus on the concept of race that involves it being socially constructed and involves power and privilege, and it is of course necessary for white people who aren’t racist to acknowledge this reality (it makes a lot more sense to say white people instead of referring to the white race).

But the white race in other senses was invented to justify imperialism, exploitation and to divide the lower classes. Although I lack the sociological knowledge to explain this incredibly well, I see race in the second sense above as artificial. And I see ethnicity as organic (I'm only going to write this once in this post, but with American Indians, nationality might be a better word than ethnicity (also, if we ignore immigrants from Africa and the African diaspora, I'm not sure if ethnicity is the right word for Blacks, but I'm reluctant to say race or nation in the last two sentences of this paragraph, so I'm going with ethnicity)). Ethnicity is more about culture that developed naturally and is not inherently incompatible with equality.

At this point I want to further explain my thoughts on this and, specifically, identify what and who encouraged me to feel that identifying partly or largely based on my ethnicity was important.

One of the first things that encouraged me to go in the direction of identifying the way I do was a comment in a lecture by Angela Davis that I used to have on tape. The (probably host-created) title of her talk mentioned ethnicity in a way that assumed only people of color have ethnicity. She said something about white people needing to do something about their ethnicity (I think what she said was close to “explore” and/or “assert”). I believe that it was sometime in 1999 or 2000 when I heard that and I think the talk may have been sometime earlier in the 90s.

There was one thing that Ward Churchill said in a Native American Studies class he taught that I took that also got me thinking the way I have. It would have been 1998 or 1999 when I took that class. I asked some question more or less about my belief that the racial identity “White” is what you might call “artificial” and the ethnic identity, based on where the ancestors of European-Americans came from, is more “organic.” His response was to tell us a story about Stephen Biko, the anti-Apartheid martyr. Apparently when he was in court one day, before the proceedings began, the judge said something about how officially Biko was classified as “Black” but his skin is more of a “chocolate brown.” Biko responded by saying something like “well they call you “White” but you look more pink to me.”

On a minor but slightly relevant note, one day in 2000 when I bumped into Churchill, he greeted me by calling me “Irishman.”  Also, in 2000 he spoke about an upcoming Columbus Day Parade in Denver, sponsored of course by an Italian-American organization. He said something about how an alternative celebration of Italian-America, perhaps centered on pasta, should be organized and he would be thrilled to take part.

When I was taking Intro to Ethnic Studies in 1995, Professor Estevan Flores said that there should be two Ethnic Studies programs (or Departments): The traditional kind and one for Irish-America, Italian-America, German-America, etc.

The most critical quote I can give you about this is something the late black author James Baldwin  said. He said, ”as long as you think you are white, there is no hope for you.”

I don’t know if Davis, Churchill, Flores and the late James Baldwin would (or would have) agree(d) with me about identifying LARGELY as Irish-American and PARTLY as White (instead of the other way around). But I will shortly make a pretty good argument that it makes sense for me to do that. The thing is, I’m not saying that those four people agree with me (or would have agreed with me), although I think there’s a good chance that they would (or would have). I’m just saying that those comments are a big part of what inspired me to identify this way.

************

One miscellaneous argument that I think I’ll put here is that white supremacists seem to identify more as white than as, for example, English-American (yes that’s a joke, I don’t think the WS community is any more English-American than the white population in general). That doesn’t seem to have any positive affect on how offensive their actions and thoughts on race are.

**************

How do I justify identifying more as Irish-American than as White? There are a couple minor things and two big things and they all add up to justifying my stance on this. First the minor things:

1. I am at least slightly interested in Irish culture. For example I listen to a fair amount of Irish republican music.

2. The last thing I want to do is suggest a connection between being Irish and being Catholic (or the other way around), but I was often told when I was young that we were “Irish Catholic” and my religion was fairly important to me as I grew up and still is slightly important to me. That earlier way of talking about it has had some lingering effect on my interest in Irish things.

The first of the two big things is simply my family tree. My paternal grandfather’s family was largely from Ireland and so was my maternal grandfather’s family. My Dad’s mother was partly Irish. On my Mom’s side, her mom was half Irish. Even if it were no more than a large minority of my family tree that’s Irish, I would probably still feel the same way about N. Ireland and would mention the Irish part along with whatever was the biggest part.

The second big thing is my participation in political activity around N. Ireland which largely meant among a chunk of the Irish-American population. I wasn’t involved with the more cultural or social aspects, but I was, in a political way, fairly active. I’ll describe that some more, looking at the first and second incarnations of the independent CU-Boulder group I organized (Students for Justice in N. Ireland (SJNI)) which were 1997-2000 and 2002-2004. (UPDATE 2/12/20 I keep forgetting that although we did almost nothing, the first year SJNI was called the Bobby Sands Association)

(What I said above doesn’t mean that I WANTED it to be mostly Irish-American (you can see this as evidence of that). Although I could have handled it more democratically, in 1999 when a fellow co-chair of SJNI made a flyer for our meetings that referred to us as an “Irish Student Organization” I just said no, as the more senior leader. As much as I wish I had had more of a conversation with him, I was passionately against what he was doing. But, unsurprisingly, at least 80% of the people involved at any point were Irish-American)

To a large degree my active interest in N. Ireland in general contributes greatly to the argument I’m making about my identity. But I’m going to focus more on the 1/2 of my N. Ireland activism that was also anti-racist or anti-homophobic.

I think the first thing we did that was anti-racist (in early 1998) involved organizing a panel discussion about the Good Friday Agreement. We had three white Irish-Americans, and one Irish-American person of color (Glenn Morris, a Poli-Sci professor at the University of Colorado (Denver) and (at least back then) one of the top people in the Colorado American Indian Movement). Inviting Morris was my idea- another progressive activist told me he was very interested in N. Ireland and followed it closely (at the event I learned that Morris is half Irish-American, but I think this still counts). (about 25-50 people showed up)

The next event we did partially on a multi-cultural theme was in Oct. 1998. A few months earlier I had read a book called “Black and Green: The Fight for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland and Black America.” It’s by an Irish man from Britain named Brian Dooley and is about the similarities and connections between the two sets of issues and movements looking back as far as Frederick Douglas and Daniel O’Connell (one chapter is about Irish-America). If you doubt that such connections exist, read that book and/or read this post. We got money from student government to do an event with Brian as the speaker. We did ask the Black Student Alliance to so-sponsor after we got the funding. They readily agreed but that was it. It could be I or SJNI in general screwed up by not involving them more- I’m not sure, but it may have been unavoidably limited to that. It was a one-speaker event plus a movie that I loved showing at events, partly to provide some of the background the speaker might skip over and partly because it’s incredibly inspirational. On one hand, we should have found some way for the BSA to meaningfully contribute beyond their name on the flyer. On the other hand (in my defense and at the very least), IF I had known of a BSA member interested in Ireland, I would have suggested that they introduce Brian (and make whatever comments or announcements that seemed relevant to them). It’s possible it was doomed to be limited and I’m done speculating about things I probably should have done. (I almost forgot that their co-sponsorship, as limited as it turned out to be, MAY have had an effect on the thoughts of some racist or near-racist Irish-American(s) who saw the flyer but didn't attend the event (the apparent and often actual absence of people of color on this issue does nothing to JUSTIFY racism among Irish-Americans, but my theory is that it might PARTLY EXPLAIN it in some cases and when people of color are visible on this issue, that might get racist or semi-racist Irish-Americans who care about NI to re-think their thoughts on race)). (about 75-100 people showed up)

The third thing we did on this theme was that when we brought SF’s Representative in America to speak on campus (in early 1999 and again with student government money) we had her introduced by a Chicano man, Leo Griep-Ruiz. He had, at some point in the late 1990s, a frequent column in the Colorado Daily (then, the main but not official campus paper). At that point he had done two N. Ireland-centered interviews on KGNU community radio and had told me that many Chicana/os don’t see it as a coincidence that Bobby Sands died on  Cinco de Mayo (he was the first to die on a hunger-strike by Irish republican prisoners demanding to be treated as POWs). So, at my suggestion, we had Leo introduce SF’s Representative in America and he spoke on some inter-connected themes for about 15 minutes. (about 75-100 people showed up)

During those years there were two things worth mentioning about homophobia. First, at a 1998 weekly meeting of SJNI, a gay woman asked about how SJNI felt about homophobia. I said that as far as I was concerned it was unacceptable and for better or worse there was no further discussion (I didn’t try to suppress it at all and there was no noticeable drop in attendance at the next meeting).

The second thing was that in 1998 or 1999 I learned of the controversy over the NY City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. There was a boycott of it because LGBTQ+ organization were banned. After the 1999 parade I (as an individual, not a representative of SJNI) wrote a letter-to-the-editor of the Irish News (the main NI paper read by Catholics) criticizing SF for marching in the parade despite the fact that they support gay rights. Although I was appealing to a foreign political party, I was doing so in support of LGBTQ+ Irish-Americans and Irish immigrants.

In the late 1990s I spent a lot of time on an online discussion forum created and moderated by Sinn Fein which was dominated by Irish-Americans. I some times did things comparable to what I just described doing in the previous 7 paragraphs). And I think there were a few other miscellaneous things I can’t think of right now.

In the second incarnation, we did 2-3 things that were anti-racist and one thing that was anti-homophobic.

In Nov. 2002, the Young Democratic Socialists CU-Boulder chapter (which I was also organizing) brought Bill Fletcher Jr. to speak on campus with student government money. He had a massive history of various senior and very senior positions in the labor movement and had spent a few years as a National Co-Chair of the Black Radical Congress (it was a coalition for black people and organizations on the Left). I had learned just by chance that he was interested in N. Ireland and had in the 1980s done a lot of work on the issue. I spoke with people in YDS-CU and SJNI and SJNI organized a panel discussion that he agreed to speak on for free. (about 25 people showed up)

Around the 2003 anniversary of Bloody Sunday, we did a panel discussion that was supposed to include Ward Churchill an American Indian Studies scholar (he’s interested, at least slightly knowledgeable, and could have spoken about the concept of national self-determination) but he didn’t show up. (about 75 people showed up)

In Nov. 2003 we did a panel discussion involving a Black Studies Prof. named George Junne. When we brought Brian Dooley to speak on campus Prof. Junne had Dooley speak in his class. So I asked if he was interested in speaking. He wasn’t familiar with N. Ireland but did know a lot about something fairly relevant, which is the relationship that Black abolitionist Frederick Douglas had with Ireland in the 1800s. So he spoke about that. (about 25 people showed up)

in 2003 or 2004 I also learned that an important anti-racist training I had attended in 2001 was going to be done on campus and encouraged SJNI members to attend.

As far as homophobia goes, we took an important position in support of the boycott of the NY City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. We made copies of our statement and put them out when we tabled at events or in the student center. I had a bunch of anti-homophobic buttons left over from my past involvement with the Young Democratic Socialists and although this may have been questionable, we put the buttons out, too.

With the anti-racist events I had hoped to do two things. The most relevant one is that I hoped our 5-6 efforts might have some effect on eroding racism among a certain section of the Irish-American community (the section that was racist and that also cared about N. Ireland). The less relevant one was to broaden our audience (which would have contributed to accomplishing the first goal) (as far as broadening the audience, I almost organized an event about environmentalism in N. Ireland for the same purpose). I’d say something similar about making the 2003 statement on the NY City St. Patrick’s Day parade.

I think that (in connection to my family tree) what I did trying to promote an anti-racist and anti-homophobic agenda among a large chunk of the Irish-American population while doing N. Ireland activism contributes to justifying my assertion of an identity that is more Irish-American than white.

***************

I would also like to briefly describe my work as a white ally. It’s a different approach to defending my desire to identify largely as Irish-American and still be taken seriously as a white ally; a different approach but one that I think complements the other arguments I’ve made. This is not an exhaustive list, but probably represents about 50% of what I did (most of the other 50% is probably less important and less successful than most of what I write below).

1. In 10th grade my very first bit of activism was when I walked out of my 3rd or 4th period class and joined other students marching around town in protest of the Rodney King verdict (in 1992). That evening I went to a CU-Boulder campus march and rally.

2. In the Fall semester of my freshman year at CU-Boulder I helped with a pro-immigration/immigrants rights event.

3. In the Fall 1995 semester I was one of the main people that organized an event defending Affirmative Action.

4. In the Spring 1996 semester I was a significant part of something similar but much more politically aggressive, and much more successful. It was with a large coalition of students and student groups. The issue was primarily affirmative action but immigration was part of it, too.

5. At the 2000 National Conference of the Young Democratic Socialists I got a statement opposing Columbus Day marches added to a general anti-racism document adopted at the conference (that had originally said nothing about American Indians).

6. In January 2001 I was a small part of organizing one event in Boulder about socialist anti-racism and a massive part of organizing another event on the same topic in Denver.

7. In February of 2002 I represented the Anti-Racism Commission of the Democratic Socialists of America at the National Conference of Sinn Fein Youth in Galway, Ireland (I publicly encouraged SF to reach out to people of color in America more).


I did some miscellaneous activities that I want to briefly mention (that are in the less important 50% I referred to above): tabling in the student center with some anti-racist materials; and joining what might be called “mass meetings” by students because of concerns about diversity and equality on campus; In the late 1990s I attended at least three protests or rallies in Denver about police brutality, and around the same time I attended about 5-6 actions or marches in Denver in support of Justice for Janitors. Around 2015 I went to two protest marches in support of Black Lives Matter.

For many reasons, including that it seems appropriate after listing a lot of the GOOD things I did as a white ally, I would like to briefly say some things about the biggest mistake I made as a white ally. There’s probably 5-10 other mistakes that are all much smaller than what I’ll describe in a moment (for example, what I wrote above about the Brian Dooley event and the involvement of the BSA).

In 2000 there was a Columbus Day Parade in Denver and a massive protest against it. I think it was organized more or less by CO-AIM and especially by Glenn Morris. During the early part of the protest I decided, without thinking of it in depth earlier, that I was willing to get arrested for sitting down in the road blocking the parade (it was non-violet civil disobedience). I actually asked Ward Churchill right before I was arrested how much trouble we would get in- years later I realized that sitting down and getting arrested was a big mistake. I am lucky in some or perhaps many ways and my Dad was a lawyer back then. He barely touched criminal law but offered to sort of be my lawyer in this case. At almost the exact same time he said he had heard some rumor that we were all going to go to jail. This was four months after my mom was killed in a car accident, and I think I was reluctant to get into an argument with my Dad- even more of a problem, I really didn’t want to be in Denver County Jail with all that emotional baggage. I took his advice and separated myself from the others in the court system and pleaded guilty to 1-2 minor charges and was not even put on probation (not long after that, the charges against the others were dropped). This is embarrassing and sounds lame, but I just went brain dead and didn’t consider how fucked up what I did was, not until about early 2013.

It might not sound horrible to many progressives, but it is, as you’ll soon agree. The argument in favor of blocking the parade is something like this- the parade is close enough to advocating genocide that it’s illegal under international law and therefore we were enforcing International law. In the early 1990s a Denver jury agreed with people who did the same thing back then. Me pleading guilty to two things was a problem.

****************

Another reason I felt comfortable blocking the parade is that I supported efforts to keep anti-Catholic Orange Order parades out of Catholic areas in N. Ireland (in the Summer of 2002 I was in two riots (with the security forces) in west Belfast triggered by such marches (in 2002 such rioting was popular in the nationalist community)). Although some would argue that downtown Denver is not an American Indian area, this whole continent used to be theirs, AND, what the Columbus Day parade stands for is worse. The worst the Orange parades stand for is what happened as a result of British policy before and during the Famine. 10-15% of the population died and and 10-15% emigrated otherwise they would have died. On page 31 of his 1995 book, “Since Predator Came” Ward Churchill writes about the results of European and European-American settlement in the area that is the United States and writes: “by 1890, fewer than 250,000 Indians remained alive within the United States, a degree of decimation extending into the upper 90th percentile.”

****************

Overall I’m not sure how much damage I did- maybe none, but if Glenn Morris were to tell me that I undermined the cause a lot I would feel bad. But they WERE able to say that X, not X minus 1, people were arrested. I got the Colorado Democratic Socialists of America to endorse the protest and as a leader of that group I did a little bit of publicity for the protest (we made some flyers for the CU-Boulder campus and we made it clear that CO-DSA were just helping a tiny bit with spreading the word). I also had done a handful of other things as an ally of Indians specifically (including getting a statement on Columbus Day into the YDS document I referred to above).

For whatever it’s worth, I prefer to end by repeating what I said above- I made a big mistake by sitting down to get arrested at that point in my life and I also want to apologize- in general and to Glenn Morris (I  have apologized by email but haven't heard back).

***********

Besides a brief conclusion this is the last component.

In 9th grade (90/91), 1-4 years before I was a progressive, I became kind of a supporter of the IRA, vaguely in connection with my religion and family tree and in connection with a good friend of my mom’s who was an IRA supporter. I was probably the least educated about the conflict among American supporters of the IRA and did practically nothing about it. That changed in early 1997. I had been a socialist and very active anti-racist for about two and 1/2 years at that point. That passion for justice is part of why it changed then.

I know this will, at least initially, sound like I’m a bad white ally, but even today my identity (Irish-American and Catholic) does play a significant role in my decision to focus more on that issue than most other issues (when you look at the years 1997-2001 and 1997-2004 or 1997-today).

Here are some of the reasons why I think American progressives should do work on this issue:

1. The Catholic community in N. Ireland experienced high levels of inequality in the first 50 years of NI ’s existence (for more on that see this (describes the undemocratic and sectarian creation of N. Ireland, the inequality Catholics experienced, and how the Troubles began)). Around 1970 the situation transformed. Although there were fewer laws that could be compared to Jim Crow, job discrimination continued or got worse (in 1971 Catholics were twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestants and in 1988 they were TWO AND A HALF times more likely to be unemployed as Protestants) repression got worse, and violence against the Catholic population skyrocketed like you wouldn’t believe. During the Troubles (roughly 1969-2005) they went through a nightmare. 856+ Catholic civilians were killed in the years 1969 to 2005 by either loyalist paramilitaries or the security forces (a comparable scenario in America would have meant around 67,000 unarmed people of color killed by cops or Nazi skinheads (etc.) in the same time period). (A: based on what I’ll describe below, I would guess that the actual number for that was probably somewhere around 7,000-8,000; B: I'm not saying the racist system in this country wasn't, ideologically or programmatically, capable of killing 67,000 people of color in those years if the "rebellion" among people of color here had been as militaristic as the one among Catholics in N. Ireland; but the reality is that as bad as it was for people of color here in those years, it was, in terms of deaths, MUCH worse for Catholics in N. Ireland). Between 1975 and 1998, with practically zero influence on law and policy beyond local government, they were ruled by a state they quite reasonably saw as both foreign and hostile.

2. The government most responsible for that nightmare (see this) is the most important ally of the US government in the entire world (in addition to some other relevant info, that post exposes the fact that the British were no more concerned by the sectarian slaughter of Catholic civilians (by organizations that did little else) than they were concerned by IRA attacks that almost never resulted in civilian death). I realize that we are not propping them up like we do with Israel, but who helped us patrol the “No Fly” zones over Iraq 1991-2003?; who contributed something like 20% of the military forces for the invasion of Iraq? And who made a similar contribution during the occupation of Iraq? I believe that the British have a problem- an Ireland problem, or an imperialism problem or whatever you would call it. They need an intervention and you get friends, not enemies or strangers for interventions. The US needs to convince the British to begin, ASAP, a decades-long process of getting out of Ireland.

3. It gives us a chance to do something important that won’t require hardly any extra effort beyond what we should be doing on N. Ireland anyway. The more people of color and visibly anti-racist white people get involved (at least to a small degree), the more we erode racism among a large chunk of Irish-Americans (I’m not saying that the apparent and often actual absence of people of color justifies that racism, but I think it partly explains it). Although I haven’t heard of a specific example of it happening, I believe it can and does happen. A friend of mine with a BA in Sociology, a BA in Psychology, and a Masters in Social Work (from Denver University (which means that she must have gotten good grades in her Psychology and Sociology classes) agrees with me.

(admittedly, the last 15 years or so the situation has improved greatly in terms of overall violence and inequality for Catholics. But Catholics still don’t experience anywhere near total equality, and I would say we should wait for 10 years of that before we talk seriously about it not being a problem anymore. Also, for 3 years until Jan. 2020 there was a pretty serious crisis in the peace process, there are still republican paramilitaries active, loyalist paramilitaries are still active, the British are not owning up fully to what they did during the conflict. Basically, even if there’s not much opportunity or need to do much now, at the very least progressives should educate themselves a little so that if things DO go downhill and they want to get involved to some degree, they’ll have already started educating themselves. I recommend Michael Farrell’s “Northern Ireland: The Orange State.”) (UPDATE 11/7/20 See this for relatively recent developments in the Peace Process (it might soon come to a halt))


I think that the 2nd-to last thing I need to say in defense of WHY I am so interested in N. Ireland is to refer to Prof. Angela Y. Davis. First, as I mentioned earlier, she does encourage white allies to do something with their ethnic identity (I think something like explore and/or assert). She also feels very strongly about the need for Black people to take N. Ireland seriously as an issue. Specifically, in 1994 (I think; and on a tape of a lecture she gave at a Black Studies conference), she compared African-Americans who are unconcerned about NI with those who are pro-life, homophobic, or anti-union. A slightly different version of this is found online here, in a paragraph towards the top that starts with the word "beware."

You combine these two thoughts and I can’t imagine her having a problem with Irish-American white allies working on the North partly because of their ethnicity.

Lastly, if American progressives have a problem with me doing this, I have to ask how they feel about Jewish-Americans being very interested in Israel and/or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Even if we set aside the fact that I’m supporting the oppressed and the Jewish-Americans we are talking about are probably more likely to be pro-Israel than pro-Palestinian, why is it okay for them, but not me, to be very interested in politics that are relevant to them/me because of their/my religion and/or ethnicity? Some would say that Jewish-Americans are oppressed and neither Catholics nor the Irish (in America) are. Are they really OPPRESSED? I have a bad history with this question, but let me just briefly say that even in the last 6 years during which we saw 14 Jewish people killed because they were Jewish, they are not oppressed (my timing could be much better and I might sound insensitive, but A) I am not going post-pone this post any longer, and B) although this doesn’t mean I am above criticism as a Christian ally, I think it’s reasonable for me to point out that a lot of the material on my blog is against anti-Semitism). What about widespread police brutality? Mass incarceration? Disproportionate unemployment? Jim Crow-type laws? A low rate of educational success? Where am I getting this? I’m not going to offer a flurry of sources, statistics or quotes. I doubt anyone will seriously say I’m wrong on the relatively specific points I just made. I have been observing American politics a lot the last 25 years. During that time I have probably read an average of 3000 words a day about America in different articles or books. It’s also relevant that while getting my BA in Ethnic Studies, I don’t think anyone ever said something like “that also happens a lot with Jewish-Americans.” (UPDATE 3/28/20 this is discussed further here)

***************

In conclusion, I believe that there is nothing about identifying mostly as Irish-American and partly as white that’s at all inherently in conflict with being a white ally. Although I haven’t said much about this because I think it might require more of the sociological training I clearly lack, I think that what I’ve written in some parts of this essay implies that it might even be BETTER if white allies would have some sense of their ethnic identity and maybe take it as far as I do when that makes sense (on the other hand Northern France doesn’t exist, and certainly isn’t occupied by anyone). Although this doesn’t require taking it as far as I do, identifying as Irish-American has given me another opportunity to do stuff that had the potential of lessening the racism (and homophobia) in this society. Also, ethnic pride among European-Americans (for example, Irish-American pride) is (in general) to one degree or another much less offensive than white pride. I’m not saying it’s crucial for the equality-based, multi-cultural society we want to build, but it can’t hurt either, for white people to have some degree of pride as, for example, Greek-American (as an alternative to white pride).

(UPDATE 4/30/20 Somewhere here I need to say something. Even if 99% of Irish-Americans were racists, it wouldn't be because they're Irish-American. If that were the case, no other white people would be racist. I could go through a list of all the other European-American ethnic groups and say the same thing. And with Irish-Americans, look at the colonial history of Ireland and how anti-racist the Nationalist community in N. Ireland is, and how abolitionist the Nationalist population in Ireland as a whole was in relation to America. Those white people who are racist are racist because they're white and various sociological and psychological and political factors HERE have contributed to them being racist)

*********

What makes me confident about my statement “probably somewhere around 7,000-8,000”?

1. Between 1996 and 2005 according to the FBI there were 38 racist murders. I have read that the Department of Justice officially estimates that for every hate crime reported to the FBI there might be 20-30 that aren’t reported because not all local law enforcement agencies report such crimes to the FBI. So I came up with 1,140 for those years.
2. I heard (from organizers of a Black Lives Matter protest) that in a 12 month period during a 2014 (apparent) surge in police murders of black people including those of Eric Garner in NY, Tamir Rice in OH, and Michael Brown in MO among other highly publicized such cases, that around 200 black people armed or unarmed, had been killed by cops in America. Although I’m very open-minded about accusations that cops plant guns, this country also has a ridiculous number of guns.
3. Bear in mind that decades ago the number of people of color and the number of cops in this country were both smaller or much smaller than they are today.
4. If it’s worth much, about 10 years ago I read a huge amount of what the Southern Poverty Law Center put on their web-site in the previous 10-15 years. I also got an Ethnic Studies degree if that’s worth much.
5. There was little or no talk about “Brown Lives Matter” so I get the impression that very few Latinos/Latinas/Chicanos/Chicanas have been killed by cops in recent years (as far as I know, even Arpaio’s sheriff’s department in AZ didn’t kill a single such person) and that might reflect the situation in earlier decades. I have practically never heard of Asian-Americans being killed by cops. And if Native Americans were being killed at a high rate in the 80s and 90s I would have heard (a massive chunk of my major was Native American Studies).

UPDATE 6/9/21 I just found a Democracy Now! story relevant to this. It's about the last 20 years, but there's a small overlap between that and the period I was looking at Catholics and people of color (1969-2005), and it's possible that what I said about this comparison is off a little. Bear in mind that the figure I refer to in item #2 above came from organizers of a Black Lives Matter protest.

Trump, Evangelicals, Israel, and anti-semitism

Supporters of the Palestinians are are often accused of being anti-semitic. To whatever degree there are right-wing supporters of the Palestinians, and there are, yes, they most certainly are anti-semitic. Their hatred of Jews is apparently greater than their hatred  of Muslims.

When it comes to progressive supporters of the Palestinians, it’s more complicated. Yes, even as a supporter of the Palestinians, I readily admit there is some anti-Semitism. There is ignorance of the large minority of Jewish-Americans who support the Palestinians. There is a ridiculously flawed understanding of how much power Jewish-Americans have over foreign policy. There is tolerance for attacks aimed at intentionally killing civilians.

But in my experience most progressive supporters of the Palestinians are not anti-semitic. Many are Jewish.

*************

At some point I need to say that the post on my blog that are at least partly about anti-semitism can be found here.

Overlapping with that are my posts partly or entirely about the Palestinians. Those are here. The most relevant one is here. As far as information about the Palestinians that I agree with, there’s always between one and many articles to read on Juan Cole’s blog, just scroll down if you want more. If you want a MUCH more frequently updated and less partisan but only slightly pro-Israel source, see The Times of Israel.

******************

What about American supporters of Israel? There’s some leftists and the liberal and moderate Democrats who support Israel, but their numbers are declining. A majority of people who support Israel are Republicans. As I’ll explaIn, the idea that these people are motivated by opposition to anti-Semitism is ridiculous.

All of them, including a small number who are atheists, support Israel because they were our ally during the Cold War and they mistakenly believe that Israel is a helpful ally in the War on Terror.

The ones who are evangelical Protestants (and according to the Pew research Center, in 2014 45% of registered voters who are republican or lean republican are evangelical) believe that Jewish control of that part of the middle-east will bring about the second coming of Christ. According to the PRC:

“In a July 2003 Pew survey, fully 44% of Americans expressed their belief that God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jewish people. In a Pew survey a year ago in August 2005, 22% of Americans said that their religious beliefs were the biggest influence in determining their support for the Jewish state.”


About half of evangelicals also believe in something called the rapture. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “The Rapture, in Christianity, the eschatological (concerned with the last things and Endtime) belief that both living and dead believers will ascend into heaven to meet Jesus Christ at the Second Coming (Parousia).” (I’m Catholic and not very familiar with such things). Jews will either become christians or will perish, according to about half of evangelicals.

UPDATE 2/9/20 there are polls indicating minorities (small and large) of evangelicals are liberal on some issues. I'd be surprised if they are among the ones who believe in the Rapture and I'd be surprised if these Evangelicals with liberal tendencies vote Republican all the time. It might be safe to say that the vast majority of Evangelicals who consistently vote republican believe in the Rapture.

As I said, I’m Catholic and not familiar with theology, but I believe that we all go to the same heaven (well, out of respect for the beliefs of people who are neither Christian, Muslim nor Jewish, maybe just Muslims, Jews and Christians (I'd probably add the Druze to this)). If the Rapture is going to happen, in my version the Jews will ascend as well.

Although I couldn’t find the poll I found 10 years ago on the PRC site about the idea that Jews killed Christ I wouldn’t be surprised if many Republicans believe that they did.

In N. Ireland in the last 20 years support for the Palestinians in the Nationalist (Catholic) community has blossomed so much that when the Irish flag is displayed it is often accompanied by Palestinian flags and some times it is temporarily replaced by the Palestinian flag. In response to this and perhaps in solidarity with fellow bigoted settlers, often Israeli flags have been seen the Unionist (Protestant) community. At least some of those Israeli flags were erected by the Ulster Defense Association, a group that has often welcomed visiting British Nazi skinheads. In fact at one point they had to temporarily take down the Israeli flags before such a visit (in all fairness they didn't replace them with the Nazi flag, but they WERE flying the Union Jack in British-occupied Ireland, which is almost as bad).

Although this might arguably have more to do with racism than anti-semitism, Trump has often been, at least averse to conflict with the far-right. Eve if it IS just racism, if he were the friend of the Jewish people some like to say he is, he would have immediately and forcefully disavowed David Duke's support when he first heard about it (in all fairness, Trump's response in an interview was:

Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke. OK? I don't know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don't know. I don’t know, did he endorse me or what’s going on, because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you're asking me a question that I'm supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about.

As I said, he's not a passionate opponent of anti-Semitism unless it involves American foreign policy and fucking over a mostly Muslim population. He also displayed this lack of passion after the murder of an anti-fascist protester by fascists in Charlottesville- a woman was killed and he couldn't rouse enough passion to simply condemn those responsible (his first response failed to do that and in general  his responses leaned towards favoring the fascists)- apparrently his racism is more important to him than his opposition to anti-Semitism.

UPDATE 2/24/20 In 2016 Trump gave a speech that was pretty easy to interpret as anti-semitic. There is an article about it here. As far as I can tell, JTA is a good source, not sure to what small or slight degree it's pro-Israel or how liberal it is. It seems pretty professional and only slightly pro-Israel and maybe a little liberal.
UPDATE 2/24/20 According to this, Trump gets along with the leader of Hungry, Victor Orban. This discusses Orban's treatment of Jews. The article says that Orban claims Jewish philanthropist George Soros is supporting illegal immigration into Hungry. A senior leader of the Jewish community in Hungry sort of defends Orban but crucially says that he doesn't believe the conspiracy theory against Soros. If this man is right and Soros is innocent, why does Orban (very publicly) make the accusation? I think it's because of anti-Semitsm. Also the organization of Orban's Jewish defender is heavily supported by the government- admittedly that might erode what I'm saying, but not necessarily. MANY bigots are simply not consisent (i.e. I've heard of Nazi skinheads eating Thai food, and when a Chinese politician in N. Ireland accused an element of the Orange Order of being racist towards the Chinese community there, those accused responded by claiming (probably honestly) that they love Chinese food) and it's not irrelevant that the Nazis used a small but significant number of Jews as collaborators just before and during the Final Solution). Lastly, at least some Jewish leaders in Hungry ARE greatly concerned about Orban. Orban probably IS an anti-Semite.

UPDATE 2/2/8/20 On a related note, a poll recently found that any of the Democratic presidential candidates would beat Trump 2-1 among Jewish-Americans and that includes anti-AIPAC Jew Sanders and anti-AIPAC non-Jew Warren. There is also information about how American Jews feel about Trump's Israel policy, which dents the idea that he is supporting Israel the extreme way he is because Jewish-Americans want him to.

UPDATE 3/9/20 There's an article about anti-Semitism at Fox News.

UPDATE 6/17/20 There's an article here about a senior GOP politician pushing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about liberal Jewish billionaire philanthropist George Soros controlling the Dems. UPDATE 2/4/21 An article here contains (towards the bottom) news about her promoting another anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

UPDATE 7/8/21 An article about Taylor Greene TWICE comparing anti-COVID-19 efforts with what Nazi Germany did.

UPDATE 9/18/20 Trump spoke to Jewish-Americans as if Israel and not America was their country. 

UPDATE 7/8/21 An article here contains an accusation that Trump spoke positively about Hitler.

UPDATE 2/27/22 An article here about two GOP congresspeople attending an event organized by an anti-Semite.

UPDATE 11/26/22 An article about Trump associating with anti-Semites.

UPDATE 9/19/23 An article about Trump making anti-Semitic statements.

UPDATE 9/14/24 An article here is about an apparent dirty-tricks GOP operation aimed at discouraging critics of Israel from voting for Harris- partly because her husband is Jewish. Although I'm not sure they are necessarily anti-Semites, what they are doing can easily result in more anti-Semitism in this society.

UPDATE 9/18/24 There is an AMAZING article here suggesting that JD Vance is pretty soft on anti-Semitism in the GOP.

UPDATE 9/21/24 And article about Tucker Carlson and Holocaust revisionism ("revisionism" is the term used, and might be a little more accurate than "denial" but "denial" also works pretty well).

UPDATE 10/11/25 An article about Jewish-American groups moderately criticizing Trump for saying something anti-Semitic.

UPDATE 10/27/25 An article about how the Trump administration A) has nominated for an important government job a man widely seen as an anti-Semite and B) has, in pursuit of that effort, misrepresented the positions on the issue of between one and four powerful Jewish and/or Israeli organizations. Apparently if Jewish people might be involved, the Administration just says organizations support their likely-bigoted nominee even when that is not the case.

UPDATE 6/13/26 An article about anti-Semitism in the GOP- I feel safe assuming that most of these people are at least sort of pro-Israel.

********

UPDATE 2/11/20

I missed something about two months ago when Trump signed an Executive Order about anti-Semitism on American college campuses. I'm not saying the idea in general is a horrible one- whether it comes from the right or the left, there is anti-Semitism. But on campuses I'm sure almost everyone who is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as anti-Semitic is a progressive and/or Arab and/or Muslim supporter of the Palestinians, and Trump knows that. According to an article here, even some of the Jewish students who complain about anti-Semitism aren't happy about it, and that includes supporters of Israel. Another article here explains that even the anti-Semitism expert who developed the definition it uses isn't happy with it on free speech grounds.

Some of the elements of the definition of anti-Semitism used are:

“holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel” That IS anti-Semitic.

“denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” I'm not sure they have a right to self-determination and certainly not one that trumps that of the Palestinians who have a better claim to that area, and it IS kind of a racist endeavor (in about a week or two I should have a post done which will explain why I doubt they have a right to self-determination, as well as related issues (UPDATE 3/8/20 That post is here) (for more about self-determination, see the bottom of this post)).

“and drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” Such comparisons are not absolute bullshit but they're close. And on a similar topic, if I got pissed off and called a Jewish person a Nazi the way I MIGHT call anyone a Nazi when I'm pissed off, I would apologize immediately.

"Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations." This is also anti-semitic. 

(I got the four items above from the second article and from the State Department page about a definition of anti-semitism)

There is a European Union body that has said using the phrase "Israeli Apartheid" is anti-semitic. I deal with that here.

As the second article says, it is about suppressing pro-Palestinian speech, and as I said Trump knows that on college campuses criticism of Israel overwhelmingly or exclusively comes from people who are progressive and/or Arab and/or Muslim.

*******

UPDATE 2/21/20 In an article here, I learned that Trump's ambassador to Germany (Richard Grenell) has expressed great fondness for a conservative Austrian political party in coalition government with a far-right party. Although beyond that the article is a little vague (I don't know exactly what parties he's talking about or exactly what they're like), he has expressed enthusiasm for insurgent "conservative" (right-wing) parties in Europe. In an article here, it says: 

"The president lashes out frequently at Germany and Merkel, whose defense of liberal democratic values has turned her into a favorite target of the Republican right. Grenell, since arriving in Berlin in May of last year, has doubled down on Trump’s criticisms via tweets and interviews with sympathetic news outlets, seeming to relish the opportunity to translate the trollish ethos of Trumpism into international diplomacy."

Merkel is the leader of a center/center-right party, not a progressive or anything like that. 

Trump just recently made Grenell acting  Director of National Intelligence, the highest official in the intelligence community despite the fact that he has never worked for an intelligence agency or the military, has no experience as an elected politician and has almost no significant experience in the State Department. Trump really likes him.

UPDATE 2/28/20 The Austrian Parliament, including the far-right party I referred to above, passed a measure condemning Israel-related anti-Semitism. It briefly referred to anti-Semitism in general but was focused on the kind about Israel. I think this is similar to what I wrote about Trump and college campuses. 

**********

UPDATE 2/21/20

I want to briefly explain something I mentioned above. My doubt that the Jewish population has a right to self-determination. I AM going to write a post about that and a lot of related things but I have only done some of the research for it and it won't be completed for about 2 more months (UPDATE 3/8/20 That post is here).

The Jewish people are not a nation. Religious groups don't have a right to self-determination (Catholics globally and in Ireland don't). In America, being Jewish is a religious and/or ethnic identity and ethnic groups don't have a right to self-determination (Irish-Americans don't have a right to self-determination). Even with a large concentration in Israel, Jews are a diaspora, and that was even more true in 1948. The Irish diaspora does not have a right to self-determination. The Irish on that island do, but not the diaspora.

UPDATE 2/28/20 IF (and it might be a huge if) anyone says that the Jews are a race and therefore they have a right to self-determination, here's my response: A) No, races don't have a right to self-determination (does the white race have a right to self-determination?); B) The Nazis certainly thought Jews were a race, and C) are such hypothetical supporters of Israel saying that Israel is a racial state?

UPDATE 3/2/20 If the definition I discuss above is referring to Jewish-Israelis as having a right to self-determination, settlers and their descendants don't have that right- white people in America don't, Unionists in N. Ireland don't, Protestants there don't.

*********

Who are the real anti-Semites?

Babylon 5 Reviews M

Years ago I did what you might call “reviews” of Star Trek episodes. I mostly just briefly noted what progressive politics were involved and sometimes used that as an excuse to talk about similar situations in reality.

Last year I finally watched all five seasons of Babylon 5, another sci-fi show, one I had thought of watching once in a while stretching back a couple decades. It isn’t as political or as progressive as ST but there’s some good stuff there- in fact, on one issue, a progressive take on the working-class and/or labor movement, B5 is better than ST. Because there is so little progressive material, I’m going to do one post for every four episodes reviewed, and only mention the episodes that have some progressive political stuff. I might ignore some of the more minor and/or less unique stuff about conflict resolution because from what I remember, it’s very common in this series. Also, although less so than is the case with Star Trek, multiculturalism is a big part of Babylon Five and I will also only be commenting on that when it goes further than usual. There are issues raised about telepaths- I’m going to completely ignore stuff about telepaths when reviewing these episodes. I also will probably say nothing about the conflict with the evil race the Shadows- sure, I could say Trump is as evil as they are or compare them to Nazi Germany, but that’s kind of silly (I’m sure there is nothing political about the Shadows, they’re just evil, like the Borg or the Empire). And I might skip most of the stuff about the conflict between B5 and the Earth government- I don’t remember it involving stuff like a strong capitalist agenda or racism or something.


**Season 5 episode 7 “Secrets of the Soul”** See this for a plot summary.

There is one small political issue and one pretty large one.

First, Dr. Franklin says, for the third time, that he will not be involved in biogenetic warfare and this time promises representatives of an alien race who are giving him their people’s medical information (probably the biology, chemistry, etc. and epidemiology) that he would rather die than be involved in that sort of thing.

While reviewing that information he learns that there were two races (the Hyach who are known to Earth and the Hyach-Doh who are buried in history) on their home planet in a case of “parallel evolution.” He is accosted by one of the Hyach intent on maintaining a cover-up of what happened to the other race. He learns that at one point centuries ago they briefly co-existed and there was inter-marriage. Then Hyach religious forces had that designated as immoral, which changed to illegal, and then became punishable by death. After that the Hyach spent centuries successfully pursuing a policy of extermination. This included bounties on the heads of the Hyach-Doh and a severe ban on anyone helping them leave the planet. The former reminds me of what happened to American Indians, and the latter goes further than what the Nazis initially did (for some period of time in the 30s German Jews could leave).

Dr. Franklin then learns that the race that continued (the Hyach) is numerically declining and that it’s doing so because they needed the inter-breeding with the other race (the Hyach-Doh) for biological or genetic reasons.

There is a powerful exchange between the Dr. and a Hyach who seems RELATIVELY willing to deal with the truth:

Hyach: We are a dying people unless you help us.

Dr. Franklin: No.

Hyach: You hold us responsible for those who were killed.

Dr. Franklin: Yes.

Hyach: Even though we ourselves were not yet born?

Dr. Franklin: You helped hide the truth about what happened by revising your history, cutting out the parts you didn’t like. Now as far as I‘m concerned that makes you an accomplice after the fact.


The one quoted above asks for forgiveness and Dr. Franklin says only the Hyach-Doh can do that, but they’re all dead.



**Season 5 Episode 8 “Day of the Dead”** For a plot summary see this.

There’s one tiny comment I need to make about this. This episode was made about 20 years ago and I think that back then this mistake I need to highlight was fairly common and today probably everyone against bigotry already knows what I’m going to say. But when discussing diversity and inclusion using the word “tolerance” is very inappropriate. It suggests something is wrong with, for example, the religion being discussed. So it was disappointing that the Captain of B5 used that word in connection with religion.


**Season 5 Episode 9 “In the Kingdom of the Blind”** See this for a plot summary.

There is one brief bit of politics. The Interstellar Alliance gets one of it’s member races to agree to not block the independence of a planet near them (although it’s not stated explicitly, the seperatists were probably governed by the IA member). That was in exchange for the IA agreeing to intercede in all border disputes there for the next 20 years. I imagine something like that might be helpful somewhere on Earth in reality- possibly with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, possibly with other international conflicts.



**Season 5 Episode 10 “A Tragedy of Telepaths”** See this for a plot summary.

There's only one political issue in this episode. Evidence is discovered indicating that recent attacks on shipping by Interstellar Alliance races may be carried out by OTHER members of the IA. There is some degree of escalation of threats and military deployments between three different IA races. Then Sheridan deploys Ranger White Star military vessels and threatens to attack anyone seen attacking the military of fellow IA races. Apparently it’s allowed by the constitution of the IA and it’s not a horrible idea but I’m not sure it’s a good idea.


**Season 5 Episode 20 “Objects in Motion”** See this for a plot summary.

There are two brief things about Mars that are worth mentioning. First, looking at the time when Mars was controlled by Earth, accusations are made about what Earth was doing with it’s colony: a vague reference to “exploitation” and a more specific reference to strip mining. Those accusations are the sort of things I had been hoping to hear about Earth's rule of Mars.

The other political thing is that Earth is using bureaucracy, especially about finance, to control Mars as it tries to realize independence- it’s basically neo-colonialism. Th Interstellar Alliance offers to help Mars get financial independence from Earth.