Tribute to Norm Geras

I was saddened to learn on Sunday evening that Norm Geras, one of my favourite writers, died last week. Norm was, for this reader, a “Sunday evening blogger”. Where many writers, journalists, and reports can be easily read while on a conference call or during a hurried droid-assisted walk through a train station, Normblog, as it was called, commanded one’s full attention and a dedicated sitting. Norm Geras was a particularly rare kind of Marxist; like Karl Marx himself, he …

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NI Alliance Party puts Washington to shame

You can conclude a lot about people’s priorities during a crisis. Take North Carolina’s Congresswoman Renne Ellmers, one of the elected representatives who has forced the shutdown of Washington’s Government. Across the Atlantic in Belfast, the Alliance Party’s Naomi Long and her staff in East Belfast spent their morning doing what might strike you as unexceptional political work: leafleting among their constituents. They were out and about, prioritizing the needs of their constituents – voters and non-voters alike – because …

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BBC Newsnight makes Greenwald’s case for him

Wondering why Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark has been seen in a neck brace lately? Wark is far from the first TV journalist whose head has been left spinning by Glenn Greenwald, yet they never seem to learn. It’s the routine-like nature of Greenwald’s encounters that’s most engrossing; they never get boring not only despite their predictable patterns but largely because the formula itself is evidence of one of his favorite and most important points: What hope accountability when journalists are more …

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Italian lessons required for Stormont

From Upworthy: Mr. President (of the House of Deputies), beyond the thousands of excuses and quibbles, we’re talking here of matters of the heart, of feelings, of emotions. Because a kiss and a hug have not and will never hurt anyone. In fact, they are part of what contributes most to making us human. We want to make that clear. And so we’re going to pull back the veil and to demonstrate that there is truly nothing to be afraid …

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Can Caroline McNeill capture S. Belfast?

South Belfast has been one of the few shining lights for the SDLP during its years on the sidelines. Where the party, overall, has hemorrhaged seats, members (and, of course, members’ dues), press interest and, consequently, political relevance and leverage since the early 2000s, South Belfast – a majority unionist constituency -has twice returned eventual and current Party Leader Alasdair McDonnell to Westminster. How did the SDLP buck its general trend in this neighborhood? If John Hume had the single …

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Celebrating a Royal’s birth: What does it say about modern Britain?

Congratulations to Kate and William on the birth of their son. May they and he be afforded at least some space to shape lives of their own. The incessant media attention sure to saturate the air and print in the hours and days – and decades – ahead says more about us than them, of course. But what does it say? One of the great lies about Republicanism is its association with meritocracy and the common man. “My birth may …

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PSNI Officer: A Marching Season inspiration

There’s a title I never thought I’d write, at least not the second half. But amid all the balderdash about impersonal historical forces and “community feelings” that paint a bullshit picture stripped of personal agency; of rioting individuals as the victims of history rather than its authors; of young and not-as-young-as-they-think men at the mercy of violence rather than its – ‘because we can‘ – reveling perpetrators, isn’t great to be reminded of the decency of the individual? Tonight this …

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What was Trayvon Martin supposed to do?

Anyone familiar with the meaning of the term “universal” and the debate that has followed the trail and acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, can only be surprised by the “profound distaste” expressed this week by Spectator columnist Jeremy Brier. Brier has called foul in relation to how the “American Left…have reacted to a jury decision with immediate and universal cries of ‘miscarriage of justice‘”. Perhaps by profiling one’s ideological opponents as a homogeneous group ‘out to get’ its …

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Sam Power: Moscow’s Irish Problem From Hell

Ireland’s Samantha Power named US Ambassador to the UN (Well, we always make it parochial, don’t we?) Anyways, today’s appointment announcements of Samantha Power as US Ambassador to the UN and Susan Rice as National Security Advisor are a little more interesting than the BBC seems to realize. Depicting Power and Rice as “two liberal interventionists” suggests a little ignorance on the backstory. So allow me… Samantha Power’s Pulitzer Prize winning reflection on the failures of the US Foreign Policy …

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Integrating Northern Ireland’s divided society

What’s the definition of an integrated society? Since debate over whether integrated education in NI is a good idea invariably unravels as soon as someone attempts to define what it actually means, I’ve canvassed the opinions of some prominent thinkers from NI’s leading political parties in an attempt to clarify a way forward. What follows are the unedited quotes offered by leading thinkers from each party in response to this question. What would an integrated NI look like? UUP: “See …

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And the most racially intolerant country is…

Intriguing wee study reported in today’s Washington Post (and Daily Dish) comparing racial tolerance attitudes worldwide. From the WaPo: The survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents, picking from a list, chose “people of a different race.” The more frequently that people in a given country say they don’t want neighbors from other races, the economists reasoned, the less racially tolerant you could call that …

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Suárez bites the hand that feeds him. Again. (Updated)

*Updated below Before today Liverpool FC’s biggest problem was whether they could prevent Luis Suárez departing this summer. The guy is more than a genius; he’s a hard-working genius. They’re not common. Unfortunately for his employer, Liverpool Football Club, his manager, Carnlough’s Brendan Rogers and, not least, his opponent, Branislav Ivanovic, the reason he’s known as The Cannibal in Holland became clear this afternoon. One bitten opponent later and LFC’s biggest problem is whether they can justify not forcing his …

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Sir Stirling Moss: Cretin

A rolling stone gathers no moss. And yet…The Guardian reports wise old owl Sir Stirling’s belief that “women do not have the mental aptitude for the sport”. (F1 being the sport in question.) “I think they have the strength, but I don’t know if they’ve got the mental aptitude to race hard, wheel-to-wheel,” In fairness, he provides a sterling explanation: “The trouble is, when you’re racing, it’s pretty tiring,” One word, Stirling: Labour. Here’s an alternative reason why women aren’t …

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Thatcher: Reagan without the charm – or the opposition

No British figure will emerge in our lifttimes with the capacity to polarize debate quite like Margaret Thatcher. By forcing future Labour governments to embrace the market rather than the state as the central organizing locus of all productive and cultural life in Britain, Thatcher effectively ended tradition-left vs. right ideological debate domestically; indeed, she ended the Labour Party’s socialist project altogether. As divisive and significant as Thatcher was and remains, this was a Prime Minister who never secured much …

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Can the slow death of Irish Nationalism be averted?

Two weeks ago during a fleeting exchange with Northern Secretary Theresa Villiers I congratulated her on her government’s radical attempts to dismantle the UK’s bloated public sector and hard-earned welfare state before encouraging a bold expedition of the project where its need is greatest: Northern Ireland. On a personal and professional level Ms. Villiers came across just fine – approachable, polite, all that stuff – but I was never likely to be smitten since the very nature of her office …

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Politicians will drift from one St Patrick’s gathering to the next until the tide goes out leaving everyone beached

“Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory.” Thatcher’s former press secretary Bernard Ingham. I’ve been ‘doing’ the Washington, D.C. St. Patrick’s Day Week circuit more on than off for most of the last ten years. A relatively egalitarian atmosphere with people laughing, meeting and talking (and not that thin-lipped smile – “so what did you say you do?” thing …

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Dealing with Benedict’s legacy

A common affliction suffered by intellectuals is their ability to think arguments through to their logical conclusions. US audiences watched a minor example unfold quite recently when self-styled libertarian Senator Rand Paul was honest enough to defend the implications of his intransigent commitment to restraining Federal Government activism: ‘principled’ opposition to the Civil Rights Act and, consequently, the perpetuation of segregation in the South. Charming. Practically every Catholic living outside the Vatican Palace could have recognized the Senator’s problem. Legislating …

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Has David Ford even read the Patten Report?

Alliance Party leader David Ford must have watched last December as British Prime Minister David Cameron delivered a public apology for the unchecked, extra-judicial and murderous activities of the Force Research Unit (or FRU) in Ireland. Cameron lamented at the time that, “The collusion demonstrated beyond any doubt… is totally unacceptable”. The issue with collusion was never simply that it happened but rather how it happened: how a culture of impunity emerged and was sustained; how state agents managed to …

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Second Amendment fanatics aren’t paranoid. They’re blindsided.

The National Rifle Association is taking heat for releasing a new ad attacking President Obama’s attempts to curb citizens’ access to semi-automatic assault weapons. Many are upset at the NRA’s focus on the president’s daughters. Former Bush speech writer David Frum isn’t holding back: As the makers of the NRA ad should know, and probably do know, the First Family has come under years of racially coded attack for their “uppityism,” as Rush Limbaugh phrased it. This latest attack ad …

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The collapsing scenery of NI’s politics

It’s time to stop patronizing loyalists and tell the truth. You don’t haul down a flag in victory any more than you decommission weapons after winning a war. Trying to convince the angriest elements of the loyalist community otherwise only undermines the credibility of leaders and commentators alike. Yet politics is not an absolutist business which is why the current chaos is absolutely daft. Look: Some you win and… for those you’re gonna lose, there’s a way to do it …

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