I figure there’s no better time than the 4th of July to acknowledge that Trump has finally crossed the line, into North Korea that is, a country as well known for being a cartoon villain as it is for its humanitarian abuses and nuclear missile testing.

A site I like to visit from time to time is the Human Rights Watch page to look through their annual review of human rights across the globe. Here is what they have to say about North Korea:

“North Korea remains one of the world’s most repressive states. In his seventh year in power, Kim Jong-un—who serves as chairman of the States Affairs Commission and head of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea—continues to exercise almost total political control. The government restricts all civil and political liberties, including freedom of expression, assembly, association, and religion. It also prohibits all organized political opposition, independent media, civil society, and trade unions.”

On Trumps visit into North Korea The New Yorker reported:
President Donald Trump praised that nation’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, for his efforts on immigration, telling Kim, “No one is trying to get into your country.”

Barely containing his envy, Trump continued, “Of course, you don’t have Congress to deal with, like I do. They’ve caused all the problems I’ve had on immigration. You’ve got a much better deal. You want to build a wall, you build a wall. No one can tell you you can’t.”

But how exactly would North Korea build such a wall, let’s jump back into the HRW report to find out:
“The government routinely uses arbitrary arrest and punishment of crimes, torture in custody, and executions to maintain fear and control over the population. The government and security agencies systematically extract forced, unpaid labour from its citizens— including women, children, detainees, and prisoners—to build infrastructure, implement projects, and carry out activities and events extolling the ruling Kim family and the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).”

“The government uses forced labour from ordinary citizens, including children, to control its people and sustain its economy. A significant majority of North Koreans must perform unpaid labour at some point in their lives.

Ordinary North Korean workers are not free to choose their own job. The government assigns jobs to both men and unmarried women from cities and rural areas. In many cases, these enterprises do not compensate them, forcing them to find other jobs to survive and pay bribes to be absent at their assigned workplace. Failing to show up for work without permission is a crime punishable by three to six months in forced labour training camps (rodong dallyeondae).”

The report also highlights while North Korea might not have trouble with people trying to get into the country it has significant difficulty with people trying to get out:
“Kim Jong-un’s government bolstered efforts to prevent people from leaving North Korea without permission by increasing the number of border guards, CCTV cameras, and barbed wire fences on its border with China. Other tactics included jamming Chinese mobile phone services at the border and targeting for arrest those communicating with people outside the country.”

“The Ministry of People’s Security considers defection to be a crime of “treachery against the nation.” Harsh punishments apply to North Koreans forcibly returned by China. The severity of punishment depends on authorities’ assessments of what returnees did while in China. North Koreans caught working or living in China are sent to long term ordinary prisons (kyohwaso) or short-term detention facilities (rodong danryeonda). Those discovered trying to reach South Korea are treated more harshly and may be sent to North Korea’s horrific political prison camp system (kwanliso), where prisoners face torture, sexual violence, forced labour, and other inhuman treatment.”

Seems like Trump has really got his finger on the pulse when it comes to how well North Korea is doing. It’s also downright bizarre that Trump would legitimise the North Korean dictator when the country reacts so heavy handed towards its neighbours in the South, who remain an ally of the US.
​
If Trump gets a second term New America will probably end up doing a trade deal with North Korea and Human Rights Violations will not only be ignored but become the norm in the MAGA Empire. The world should be shocked by Trump crossing the line and American voters should be alarmed at the course their country is on, because whether you’re drinking out of toilets at the border or making flip flops in a concentration camp in North Korea, New America is sending a message that it doesn’t care about Human Rights. 

Radical political action is required to force the Government to roll out a major, public building programme to deal with the urgent need for social and affordable housing, according to SIPTU General Secretary Joe O’Flynn.
 
He has called on SIPTU members, their families and friends to join the ‘Raise the Roof’ rally to be held outside Leinster House on Wednesday, 3rd October. The rally organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the National Homeless and Housing Coalition, the National Womens’ Council and the Union of Students in Ireland is timed to coincide with a Dáil motion on the housing crisis.
 
The motion calls for the immediate construction of quality, affordable public housing, an end to evictions and the inclusion of the right to housing in the Irish Constitution. It is supported by opposition parties including Sinn Féin, the Labour Party, People Before Profit/Solidarity, the Social Democrats, the Green Party and Independents4Change.
 
Trade union members and other campaigners have been lobbying Fianna Fáil deputies and senators over recent months to support the call for a massive, publicly led, social and affordable housing programme. They will seek to have the party support the motion to be tabled by the other opposition parties.
 
“It is no exaggeration to say that the housing crisis is damaging the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and their families. As with any crisis it is working people, those on low and average incomes, who suffer the most,” Joe O’Flynn said.
 
“Buying your own home is now beyond reach for a generation of young people. The shortage of public, social and affordable housing means that tens of thousands are forced into the rental sector”
 
“Rents are increasing, as landlords take advantage of the shortfall in supply. Young workers and students find it almost impossible to find decent accommodation at affordable prices, particularly when they work in low paid, precarious employment,” the SIPTU General Secretary told Liberty.
 
“More and more families are forced into homelessness because rents are too high or because they cannot meet their mortgage repayments due to financial difficulty. They are then forced into unsuitable accommodation in hotels or emergency hubs. A generation of children will grow up without knowing what a normal home is like.”
 
“It is important that we come out in large numbers to support this call for immediate action that puts the public interest ahead of those who are profiting from the lack of social and affordable housing which makes life a misery for so many families across the country,” he said.
 
The SIPTU Dublin District Council is co-ordinating the union’s participation in the
rally. It is calling on all members to stand together on the 3rd of October.
 
This article is from the front cover of SIPTU’s free online paper “Liberty”, also available in print, written by SIPTU Head of Communications Frank Connolly. 

Anzac day, another reminder of the horrors of war, a day to respect the fallen, or blind pride for state and glorification of bloody conquest.

Anzac Day is observed on 25 April every year and honours members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) who lost their lives in foreign conflicts. Originally inaugurated to mark the anniversary of Anzac troops entering the fray against the Ottomon Empire at Gallipoli in the First World War, the scope of this national day of remembrance has since been broadened out of respect for those killed during the Second World War and on subsequent peacekeeping missions around the globe.  @JoeSommerlad

“I wept because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”

Recently Anzac Day has rebranded itself to commemorate all soldiers in all wars which has caused a bit of controversy in Australia as there has been a growing movement to recognise Aboriginal people who died in the so-called ‘frontier wars’ of colonisation, but Australia doesn’t like to talk about that.

So for this Anzac Day make sure you share a story about the indigenous people of Australia and their fight against colonisation.

More than 200 years after the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove, white Australians are still struggling to come to terms with their colonial past. Long erased from official accounts, the clashes and massacres that took place on the frontier remain a contested area of history, often replaced by more palatable stories of rugged pioneers conquering an inhospitable land. @kathymarksoz

Certainly the stories of massacres of Indigenous Australians are everywhere in the archives of the major cultural institutions of Australia and Great Britain. The diaries, letters, journals and memoirs of colonial and postcolonial officials, troops, police, farmers, frontiersmen and women are replete with accounts of fights against – and massacres of – the “marauding blacks”. Early newspapers also offer remarkably detailed concurrent and retrospective accounts of frontier violence. Such stories are so often defined by a chilling, deeply disturbing candour, so detached are the killers from the humanity of their victims. Paul Daley The Guardian
​
A group of settlers on the Hawkesbury river, reportedly in reprisal for an attack on a settler and his servant and the theft of their clothes some days prior, armed themselves and killed seven or eight members of the Bediagal clan. The massacre occurred on a bend in the river at Cornwallis, about 4km from what is now Richmond. According to a 2011 book by the historian Peter Turbet, one of the sources cited by the University of Newcastle researchers, it was the largest massacre committed by settlers to date.  Another seven or eight Bediagal were killed nine months later, just over 6km away on what is now a thoroughbred stud. Their murderers were two officers and 66 soldiers of the New South Wales Corps, dispatched by Captain William Paterson, who would later be promoted to colonel, serve as the lieutenant governor of NSW, be celebrated by history as an explorer, and have a river in the Hunter Valley named after him. According to a temporary account, Paterson ordered his men to “drive the natives to a distance; and, in the hope of striking terror, to erect gibbets in different places, whereon the bodies of all they might kill were to be hung”. @callapilla 

There has been a stand down at Standing Rock but whether this means the administration respects The Treaty of Fort Laramie or simply a way of creating a landmine issue for President Elect Donald Trump is yet to be determined. Republicans have already spoken out against the decision despite the Sioux Tribe delivering a statement celebrating the landmark decision in Tribal Sovereignty.

North Dakota Congressman Kevin Cramer, a Republican who supported the pipeline’s construction, said “today’s unfortunate decision sends a very chilling signal to others who want to build infrastructure in this country.”

“Roads, bridges, transmission lines, pipelines, wind farms, and water lines will be very difficult, if not impossible, to build when criminal behaviour is rewarded this way” he said in a statement.

The state’s governor, Jack Dalrymple, also slammed the announcement as “a serious mistake.”

“It does nothing to resolve the issue, and worst of all it prolongs the serious problems faced by North Dakota law enforcement as they try to maintain public safety,” Gov. Dalrymple said.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Statement on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Decision to Not Grant Easement:

“Today, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not be granting the easement to cross Lake Oahe for the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline. Instead, the Corps will be undertaking an environmental impact statement to look at possible alternative routes. We wholeheartedly support the decision of the administration and commend with the utmost gratitude the courage it took on the part of President Obama, the Army Corps, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior to take steps to correct the course of history and to do the right thing.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and all of Indian Country will be forever grateful to the Obama Administration for this historic decision.

We want to thank everyone who played a role in advocating for this cause. We thank the tribal youth who initiated this movement. We thank the millions of people around the globe who expressed support for our cause. We thank the thousands of people who came to the camps to support us, and the tens of thousands who donated time, talent, and money to our efforts to stand against this pipeline in the name of protecting our water. We especially thank all of the other tribal nations and jurisdictions who stood in solidarity with us, and we stand ready to stand with you if and when your people are in need.

Throughout this effort I have stressed the importance of acting at all times in a peaceful and prayerful manner – and that is how we will respond to this decision. With this decision we look forward to being able to return home and spend the winter with our families and loved ones, many of whom have sacrificed as well. We look forward to celebrating in Wopila, in thanks, in the coming days.

We hope that Kelcey Warren, Governor Dalrymple, and the incoming Trump administration respect this decision and understand the complex process that led us to this point. When it comes to infrastructure development in Indian Country and with respect to treaty lands, we must strive to work together to reach decisions that reflect the multifaceted considerations of tribes.

Treaties are paramount law and must be respected, and we welcome dialogue on how to continue to honor that moving forward. We are not opposed to energy independence, economic development, or national security concerns but we must ensure that these decisions are made with the considerations of our Indigenous peoples.

To our local law enforcement, I hope that we can work together to heal our relationship as we all work to protect the lives and safety of our people. I recognize the extreme stress that the situation caused and look forward to a future that reflects more mutual understanding and respect.
​
Again, we are deeply appreciative that the Obama Administration took the time and effort to genuinely consider the broad spectrum of tribal concerns. In a system that has continuously been stacked against us from every angle, it took tremendous courage to take a new approach to our nation-to-nation relationship, and we will be forever grateful.

In potentially the most controversial Thanksgiving of all time, members of the Sioux Nation in Standing Rock have been attacked with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons as they protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which threatens to contaminate their drinking water, crops and burial grounds.

The plight of a marginalised people fighting to protect their environment from predatory oil companies, who have the full military backing of governments who put tax returns ahead of the individual rights of their citizens and the future of a borrowed landscape, resonates in the hearts of the Irish people, and all those involved in protesting against the Corrib Gasline and those who participated in the Shell to Sea campaign.

The following sound bites capture some of the story and feeling behind the pipeline and the comments at the end are a reminder of the struggle of a small rural community in the County of Mayo.

'At issue for the tribes is the 1,172-mile Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, which runs through North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois and has a capacity to transport more than 500,000 barrels of oil a day. The $3.8 billion pipeline now under construction was approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to cross under the Missouri River a mile north of the reservation. That river is the source of water for the reservation’s 8,000 residents. Any leak, tribal leaders argue, would cause immediate and irreparable harm' @JoeHeim

'The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe are up against illegal aggressors trespassing on their land, land which they not only have a right to protect, but have the right to defend with arms according to U.S. law.' @caitoz

'The conflict inflames a long, brutal and disgraceful history of Native American dispossession and the elevation of private and corporate rights over indigenous ones, and overlaps with urgent efforts to curb fossil fuel dependency.' @LCarasik

'At a time when white-supremacist notions are re-emerging and a major-party presidential candidate is encouraging America to hate again, this battle of government and corporate power against Native American rights is an important reminder of the real power dynamics in the U.S. and of who has been denied rights since the founding of the country.' @SonaliKolhatkar

'The question I need to ask the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) is whether he is aware of the meetings of the Shell committee of managing directors in London prior to the commencement of the Shell project when it discussed whether the company had sufficiently well-placed contacts in the Irish Government and among the Irish regulators, an instance which it said it would investigate further and which set the scene for everything else that followed? Is the Taoiseach aware of the continued police harassment and intimidation of the local community?' @ClareDalyTD
​
'Right from the beginning, they say it was about health and safety. Not gas, not the right of a gas company to bring it ashore, not the right of the Government to permit that to happen — it was about health and safety in a small, rural, aging community, a knot of people in a sprawling, beautiful but mostly empty part of the western seaboard, conscious of their rights as citizens. It was their land, their livelihoods, their community they felt were under threat.' @noelbaker1
 
Picture by Kim Ryu

​The following content is difficult to source despite the involvement of Rage Against The Machine front man Zack de la Rocha. The video accompanying the post has been removed from YouTube on several occasions.

In 2003, musician and anarchist activist Sherman Austin was sentenced to 12 months in jail for posting content on his website that could potentially inspire terrorist attacks. Many believe he was a wrongfully targeted political prisoner, among them Zack de la Rocha. The MC spoke on the case at a benefit show that took place just a few days before Austin pleaded guilty to avoid a Patriot Act clause that would enforce a 20-year minimum sentence.

Zack de la Rocha – On the Case of Sherman Austin

"It began nearly two years ago, January 24th 2002 to be exact, it was four in the afternoon. Sherman Austin was asleep. Seemed like a normal day until reason was suddenly stripped from reality. Twenty five fully armed special agents surrounded Sherman’s house. Two of the agents met him at the door, showed him a warrant, and drag him outside.

With shotguns and machine guns they entered his house and went straight to his room.
Once inside they began ripping through his belongings, seizing his books, his political posters, and finally dismantling his computer, which was taken immediately to federal trucks that were parked outside and had all his information downloaded to government servers and were confiscated, and then they left. His room torn apart and the life of his friends and his family turned upside down.

They left and he was charged with nothing.

It began almost two years ago but it was just the beginning.

A month later in February after his home was raided Sherman drove three thousand miles to New York to participate in a peaceful demonstration against the policies of the World Bank and the IMF. Standing in Columbus circle as the march was beginning he was again rushed, this time by twenty police officers and arrested. He was jailed and interrogated without the presence of a lawyer for thirty hours. While inside he was asked over and over again if he was a terrorist, and if he belonged to terrorist organisations.

He was released without being charged.

It was almost two years ago, but it was just the beginning.

While waiting for a ride thirty minutes after he was arrested without charge, thinking the worst was over; in the same court house where he was arrested and released, he was surrounded again. This time by six FBI agents and arrested. He was grabbed by his neck, thrown into a black SUV and taken to a federal building where he was placed in a maximum security jail and held for eleven days. He was then taken out of prison in New York and taken to Oklahoma, in a Federal jail for two more days.

At this point you might be asking what was his crime? Was he a murderer? Did he kill anybody? Or was it that he was a young black anarchist and an activist who refused to be silent.

The website that the government has attempted to shut down is called Raise The Fist .com

It was a website that Sherman ran from his bedroom. It posted information about all kinds of topics, covered all kinds of issues dealing with everything from challenging racism and police brutality to giving a voice to those engaged in a movement to challenge corporate globalisation. The site, raisethefist.com

R.A.I.S.E.
T.H.E.
F.I.S.T.com

One word, also functioned as a host server, providing links to the sites of others. One of those sites, not authored by Sherman, contained information about explosives. Yet it was Sherman after two years of harassment, upending the life of his family, who was finally charged with distribution of material related to explosives with the intent to use them. He was charged and sentenced for a year in Federal penitentiary for having a link to a site, who he himself did not author or personally endorse containing information that can be found anywhere. I mean anywhere. It can be found in libraries, it can be found in bookstores, it can be found on internet book distributors, you can find it on amazon.com

In fact, several years ago I found a little cartoon that I found interesting. The first Rage Against The Machine t-shirt that was ever put out had a cartoon with instructions in Spanish on how to make a Molotov cocktail.

Looking back it was somewhat of a silly provocation but the interesting thing about it was that it was authored by the CIA. These cartoons were used in the training of an unconstitutional illegal terrorist army known as the ‘Contras’ who are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people, tens of thousands of innocent Nicaraguan civilians, as the US government in violation of the highest forms of international law attempted to seize control of the resources of a sovereign country, a country by the way which may never recover from the destruction imposed upon it.
I mention this only as a glaring example of the level of hypocrisy that not only runs right through Sherman’s case but is also weaving its way into the fabric of our everyday lives.

It’s an example of this vicious and repressive political climate set in to motion by the Bush administration in the aftermath of September 11th. A climate in which the right wing violence of the state, for example the illegal and unjust bombing and occupation of Iraq is sanctioned in the name of building democracy while simultaneously they destroy it right here. It is in this climate where blind obedience and buying things are equated with patriotism. When being Muslim is to be considered being a suspect, and being a young black free thinking, rebellious, righteous anarchist, is equated with being a violent criminal.

All of this of course doesn’t speak to the unjust suffering imposed upon this family. The fear, the harassment, the humiliation, the intimidation, the longing and the loss, the pain by which I’m sure that  no words can describe, but it brings up one of the reasons that brought us here, to give our support, our love, our solidarity. To help give them the strength and the courage to continue to fight and bring some justice home for Sherman.

The second and equally important reason is to let this fucking government know that they are not going to silence Sherman and keep his case in isolation. The government’s case against him is so weak that they thought they could railroad him so long as it was kept from public view. Well the fact that we’re here tonight is proof that they have failed.

Word travels fast, and with some diligence and some struggle, justice can’t be far behind.
​
(Sherman Austin was released one month early in July 2004 with 3 years of probation which prohibited him from having access to a computer or knowingly associating with individuals who "espouse violence for political change". Following his release from prison, he released “Silence is Defeat”)       

Recently one of my close friends deleted his Whatsapp profile, his facebook, & his twitter account, after he watched a made for YouTube documentary called Facebookistan, it gave him such a case of the shivers he now lives in the woods and calls himself BadgerMan.

I'm gad he got out when he did because I can only  imagine he would have a complete meltdown if he found out the UK have just passed the Investigatory Powers Bill which gives the government unrestricted authority to monitor its citizens. 

Edward Snowden has somewhat become the Messiah for people like BadgerMan and anyone who fears this level of surveillance is undemocratic and too powerful to leave in the hands of mortal men and power corrupt governments. 

Snowden once warned how dangerous this level of data surveillance is, with the emphasis being on how an innocent individual can be manipulated in the future, or how a prosecuting government can use such large levels of data to paint whatever kind of picture they need to convict a potential radical who challenges government authority:

“Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded. And the storage capability of these systems increases every year consistently, by orders of magnitude, to where it’s getting to the point you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.”

Reaction to the UK’s IP Bill has been quiet in mainstream media and with companies like Google and Facebook looking to crack down on ‘Fake News’ websites it’s not guaranteed you’ll find counter information freely available on the internet for anyone speaking out about government surveillance in the future.

But for now here’s some of the internet's finest backlash to the bill:

"Under the guise of counter-terrorism, the state has achieved totalitarian-style surveillance powers –- the most intrusive system of any democracy in human history.” Bella Sankey policy director of Liberty

“There seems to be mass acceptance both in the UK and around the world that continuous bulk surveillance is simply becoming a fact of life. It needn’t. And with a creeping move towards authoritarianism around the world, fighting back is more imperative than ever. Once granted, sweeping powers such as this are rarely rescinded. And whether or not you like your present leaders, the fact is that you could, actually, have a lot worse – and maybe one day will.” @EmmaWoollacott

“Some still try to claim mass surveillance is about counter-terrorism. But if you look at the targets, you'll find the truth is darker” @Snowden Edward Snowden

“Once the databases holding ICRs are created, it is only a matter of time before some of them fall victim to one of the many threats that will see intimate details of people's online lives exposed to the world, with possibly serious consequences for the individuals concerned.” @glynmoody Glyn Moody, Contributing Policy Editor at Ars Technica. He has been writing about the Internet and digital rights for over 20 years.

“The UK has just legalized the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes farther than many autocracies”. @Snowden 

"It can be necessary and proportionate to have targeted surveillance and what I am saying is that there's not yet any evidence which convinces me that it is necessary and proportionate to have mass surveillance” Joseph Cannataci, the UN's special rapporteur on privacy.

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power.” 1984 – George Orwell

“Our rights matter because you never know when you’ll need them. In democratic societies around the world, people should be able to pick up the phone, call family, send text messages to loved one, travel by train, buy an airline ticket — without wondering how those events will look to an agent of government, possibly not even your government but one years in the future. How might this be misinterpreted? We have a right to privacy. We require warrants to be based on probable causes. Trusting any government authority with the entirety of human communications without any oversight is too great a temptation to be ignored.” Edward Snowden

“If living unfreely but comfortably is something you’re willing to accept, and I think many of us are, it’s the human nature, you can get up every day, you can go to work, you can collect your large paycheck for relatively little work against the public interest, and go to sleep at night after watching your shows. But if you realize that’s the world that you helped create, and it’s going to get worse with the next generation, and the next generation, who extend the capabilities of this sort of architecture of oppression, you realize that you might be willing to accept any risk, and it doesn’t matter what the outcome is, so long as the public gets to make their own decisions about how that’s applied.” Edward Snowden 

Picture by Banksy 

Reflecting over the Repeal the 8th March in Dublin yesterday I think one of the stand out messages I came across on social media was this poem by Tasha Kerry called My Womb is a War Zone.

My womb is a war zone,
A battleground
Where children die;
My children,
Not by my hand,
By the cast of a die
In a rigged game,
The soft walls of my flesh
Turned into rock
And a hard place.
 
My womb is a time bomb,
A hot-button topic,
Where politicians scrap
To score points from
Chauffeur-driven cars.
They are protected
From the likes of me:
Woman
With no money, no love,
No choice.
 
My womb is a plane ride,
A last-minute deal
Where the unborn
Travel for free.
Above the clouds,
In no man’s land
My flesh is allowed
To breath, and it screams;
“Take me home,
I’m lost”.
 
My womb is an old tomb
Cloaked by heavy lids
Where low murmurs
Debate my future,
Ignoring my pleas
For what’s fair;
My chance to bloom,
My choice, my voice,
My right to my life
And my graceful death.
 
My womb is the last-born,
A trail-blazer
Where Irish sisters unite
To call the nation
To rise and repeal,
Call the ghosts out
From under the carpet,
Call the unknowns back
From the runway,
Call our truths home.
 
 
Tasha Kerry is a writer @xsbabble (http://xsbabble.com/)Picture by @CiaraMPSI

Bobby Sands: 66 Days has achieved the highest opening weekend ever at the Irish box office for an Irish made documentary, taking in €50,933, over its opening weekend including previews.

The film, which was released in Irish cinemas by Wildcard Distribution, is now the second highest (non-concert) documentary opening in Ireland, after Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911. The film pushed last year’s record holder, Amy, into 3rd place and surpassed previous Irish record holderThe Queen of Ireland.
Brendan J. Byrne’s critically acclaimed and controversial documentary which is a portrait of the Irish Republican’s 66-day hunger strike has garnered much publicity and debate on both sides of the border. The film played in a total of 16 cinemas in the Republic and 9 cinemas in Northern Ireland and despite the good weather, the opening of the Olympics, and the GAA football quarter-finals, and GAA Hurling semi-final, the film attracted a significant audience, with many cinemas reporting sold out screenings.

At 17, Bobby Sands was interested in girls, soccer and music. Ten years later he led a prison protest against the conditions in Northern Ireland’s infamous H-Blocks that grabbed the attention of the whole world. Seeing himself as a soldier in a conflict, Bobby Sands starved for the right to be recognised as a political prisoner. The film’s narrative is comprised of Sands’ own words, drawn from his hunger strike diary, which gives a powerful and personal insight into the man and his beliefs as he embarked on his final journey.

​Article by Niall Murphy in Irish Film

​The following article is buzzing on Linkedin at the moment, titled ‘I’m Black and I Just Might Vote For Donald Trump – Here’s Why...’ it might just raise an eyebrow or two...

Growing up in the 90’s was an interesting experience for me. I grew up in a neighborhood that was mostly black and once in a while I would come across a white person; be it in school, playing basketball or other random activities. Back then my favorite teachers and basketball coaches were both white and black, my closest friends were both white and black, I thought both Christina Aguilera and Beyonce were REALLY attractive and I was interested in “white activities” like skateboarding and tech and “black activities” like basketball and rap music. I was a cultured kid. I appreciated people for their actions and not by their skin tone.

​I didn’t view the world the same way my parents, grandparents and great grandparents did. My America was totally different than their America. I knew about slavery and racism but to me those days were over. I’m not saying racism didn’t exist, I’m just saying I never thought about it. For instance, I remember my first week of college at Monmouth University, a school that is 96% white. I walked in the Computer Science department to inquire about the program. And if the school was 96% white, the CS department was 10000% white. I walked in wearing a pair of baggy pants, an oversized t shirt and a baseball cap. I looked something like this:

When I walked in, there were four people and they all looked at me and treated me as if I was lost. I told them I was thinking about choosing CS as my major and they didn’t directly tell me that it wasn’t a possibility but they did their best to persuade me not to join their program. They said things like “If you don’t have any previous CS background, this program may not be for you” and “The coursework may be too much for you, especially since you are on the basketball team”. At the time, I thought they were looking out for my best interest so I didn’t study Computer Science; I ended up getting a degree in finance. But a year later, I became friends with a student that studied CS and asked him if he had any prior CS knowledge before joining the program and he said no. His race, yup, you guessed it — white. Today I can look back on that experience and see how my race and socioeconomic status played into them not accepting me but back then I was clueless.

November 4, 2008.
The best day of my life. Barack Obama becomes president of the United States of America. If there wasn’t anything that happened in my life before this moment to convince me that racism was dead and racist people were a dying breed, this did it. Americans voted for a black man to be their leader, how can this country be racist? HOW?

BUT THEN IT HAPPENED. I started to experience racism a daily basis from afar and at home. Not only did I have to go on Twitter everyday to find out about another black person being murdered by the cops, I also experienced police harassment myself. There have been many times when white policemen pulled me over, pulled me out of my car, sexually harassed me to only tell me things like “There is a screw missing from your license plate which prevents us from reading it properly”. I remember walking into a Wal Mart in New Hampshire and having everyone stare at me my entire time in the store. I remember working at Care.com and having a white male employee say “If you aren’t white, I don’t care about you” while watching coverage of Mike Brown on CNN. I remember having a white investor tell me “If you are so passionate about the playing field being equal in tech for black people maybe you should stop wasting your time pitching Blastchat and go work on that”.

What happened to my America?

It’s as if Barack Obama became president and white people have been on a mission to “take the country back” and prove that they are still the dominate race. Hence, “Make America Great Again”. When Donald Trump says he wants to “Make America great again”, he doesn’t want my America where everyone is judged by their actions and not the color of their skin. He wants an America where the white race reigns supreme, again. He wants a pre 60’s America and if he could he would take a 19th century America.

But he is exactly what America deserves.

Over the past eight years, America has allowed racist people to freely show their true colors and now we will pay the price for it. I’m all for Donald Trump becoming president for these few reasons:

1. We will become the laughingstock of the world. Not only will we be laughed at because our inability to help our poor, our obesity levels and our undeserving arrogance; we will be laughed at because we actually voted him into office.
2. Barack Obama will be adorned. Most presidents are appreciated and glorified decades after they leave office, however if Trump becomes president Obama will become a legend in two weeks.
3. More black people will unite for the better. Other cultures have bettered their conditions by sticking together and helping each other succeed. Unfortunately for blacks, this only happens when our backs are up against the walls. And I think a Donald Trump’s presidency will do just that. The same way Jewish and Japanese people rose from the ghettos and concentration camps in America, we can do the same and this will help level the playing field for our future generations.

All in all, I think a Donald Trump presidency will be great for America. It will help us realize how screwed up we really are and how much we need a political and societal reform. There are times when you have to take a step back to go forward and unfortunately, I believe this is one of those times.

GO AMERICA!
​
GO TRUMP!
 
Written by Jhamar D Youngblood