July 2018

Tens of thousands take part in Pride in Dublin on 25th anniversary of decriminalisation

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60,000 people marched as part of Pride this year in Dublin according to the organisers. This would make it  the largest to date, this year was also significant as it was marking 25 years since the 1993 decriminalisation of sex between men. 

25 years after the government finally removed the 10 year jail sentence for sex between men the Irish army marched near the front of parade, with many in the army band wearing rainbow angel wings.  There was one lone counter protester marching along the route 100m ahead of Pride with a cornflakes box on the end of a umbrella.   He had stuck a religious icon and the slogan ‘Sodomy is Sexual Abuse’ on the side of the box! While that was pretty laughable we do not forget that on the eve of the pride there were homophobic attacks in Dublin and Laois so we have a lot to fight for even if Pride today can  feel more like a corporate sponsored carnival than a protest. 

Video - Living Utopia - The Anarchists and the Spanish Revolution

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This documentary has interviews with 30 anarchist participants in the Spanish revolution alongside footage captured at that time. [Video]

"Living Utopia is a unique documentary that blends the historical account of the origins and development of the Spanish anarchist movement, focussing on the 1936 war. A reflection on the philosophical underpinnings of such a movement and their practical application. As both an informative and inspiring piece of research it is considered a jewel amongst historians and rebel hearts.

Jordan Peterson & Sam Harris - what brings them together for a tour and why do they attract the far-right.

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Jordan Peterson is a Canadian scholar who rose to prominence after his statements concerning a bill passed in Canada (C-16) to prevent trans people from being targeted by hate propaganda and from being denied services, employment or accommodation on the basis of their gender expression and identity. Peterson’s stance consisted in a slippery slope argument whereby this kind of law would supposedly lead to people being fined or imprisoned for not using a trans person’s preferred pronouns. By framing the law as an attack on free speech, Peterson may have mislead many people into thinking that this fantasy of his was actually what the content of the bill was about. Indeed the Canadian Bar Association made a lengthy public reply to his concerns (though without naming Peterson), clearly stating that the bill had been grossly misunderstood.

As it turns out, Jordan Peterson believes that hierarchies of class, gender and race are ordained by nature. As a direct outcome of this, he denies the existence of white privilege or patriarchy and is known to believe, along with many fascist organisations, that ideologies which contradict this perspective are part of a marxist conspiracy (‘’cultural marxism’’) to undermine western values and bring about totalitarianism. With no sense or irony whatsoever, Peterson suggested that kindergarten educators who supposedly target children with “postmodern marxist ideologies” should be tried for treason.

Review: Jordan Peterson in Dublin - not the type of talk the audience had envisaged

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Saturday 14th July we checked out the Dublin appearance of Youtube snake oil salesman Jordan Peterson. Peterson over the last couple of years has developed a sizable following of angry young white men through Youtube videos consisting of incomprehensible lectures on ‘meaning’ and, more disconcertingly, anti-trans, anti-feminist, and anti-leftist rants.  We expected it to attract many of the small fascist groups and those in orbit around them, indeed there were even ‘Men’s Rights Activists’ leafleting outside it, presumably having identified it as a recruiting ground for their poisonous misogyny.