Comments on: Fascist!

By: Steve Caudill

Steve Caudill — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:02:32 +0000

This sort of story happens in the U.S. once every decade. And the domestic furor by the Judge’s decision was enough to correct the situation. Meaning no offense to the Irish (I’m Irish on my mom’s side and Scots-Irish on my dad’s side), but this post I would classify as “The Sir Bono Syndrome.” Here in the U.S. we were always amused how Bono would come over and do concerts with his interspersed criticism of White vs. Black racism. We wondered, especially at my high school – St. Patrick’s School – which was 33% Protestant, why Bono never raised hell about the ‘troubles’ in his own country.
Anyway, I’d recommend instead of making an international incident of this isolated case, instead look at similar situations in Israel, per this link –
http://bit.ly/Israeli-wedding-bans
Non-Jewish (and even Jewish but non-Orthodox) Israelis have their marriage plans quashed on a daily basis based on ethnicity or religion.
Hey, get your Irish up!
Steve Caudill, “The Saint”

By: The Digest – Dec 13 2009

The Digest – Dec 13 2009 — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:26:06 +0000

[...] I missed this one last week, I don’t know; Fergal’s excellent piece on the social dynamics, misconceptions and misinterpretations of fascism, and around the word [...]

By: rubensni

rubensni — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:04:27 +0000

Excellent essay, but I have to disagree with you on the national government point. A national government does not amount to fascism per se. Britain had a national government during the war who had Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee as its most senior members, but I wouldn’t call either of them fascists. In fact it was the national government which may have saved the UK (and Ireland, for that matter) from fascism.

By: The Digest – Dec 13 2009 – The Story

The Digest – Dec 13 2009 – The Story — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 22:12:38 +0000

[...] I missed this one last week, I don’t know; Fergal’s excellent piece on the social dynamics, misconceptions and misinterpretations of fascism, and around the word [...]

By: fústar

fústar — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:31:12 +0000

Cracking stuff, as always.

I’ve been troubled, for a good while now, about the increased prevalence in public/media discourse of the notion of “The Nation”. It seems to have taken a firm hold in the UK, where (of course) different identities rub shoulders with each other in more dizzying ways than they do here. The Nation’s Favourite X! The Nation Decides! The Nation This. The Nation That.

The problem I have with it is that it seems (even when concerned with trivial matters) to imply consensus. Unity. A group identity all can share. An identity that binds together all the loose strands that make things so damn complicated and messy.

The subtext is the desire for a flattening and compressing of difference. And difference, of course, is one of the very things that makes life bearable. Not only that, difference is the way life IS (in as much as that can be confidentially stated). “The Nation”, in contrast, represents a desire for things to be otherwise. A desire that may be, dare we say it, a manifestation of the “F” word.

By: Daragh O Brien

Daragh O Brien — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:17:45 +0000

Perhaps we should seek to coin a new phrase to circumvent the F-word dilemma?

The-philosophy-formerly-labelled-with-an-F-word espouses a radicalism in terms of putting parts of democracy on hold in the interests of a Utilitarian unity. It also espouses a belief in technological solutions to many problems (to whit… one website for ideas generation is the output of Farmleigh). But above all they are concerned with the fostering of a Social awarness and strong society.

So: RUTISM, or RUTS

Once we rebrand them we can all get stuck into them.

By: Reading Matters « 200 Words

Reading Matters « 200 Words — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:41:14 +0000

[...] Tuppenceworth is always worth a look-in, for a unique take on the conventional and the quirky. If you read nothing else this week, read Fergal Crehan’s Worst Case Scenario. [...]