The Future Will Condemn Us For Pandering to Trans Agenda

The Cass Report on Gender Identity Services for Children

(1) The Trans Agenda and Anti-Catholic Bigotry

The title of this article reflects the headline to an article by Eilis O'Hanlon in the Sunday Independent on 7 August 2022. The Trans Agenda is not a subject I have dwelt on (or even mentioned) on this Blog over the years. One reason I write about it now is that the year 2022 is the 25th anniversary of the first occurrence of a topic that has frequently hit the headlines since 1997  and constitutes my central concern i.e. false claims of child abuse against the Catholic Church - especially false allegations of child murder.  

I summarised my quarter century Crusade in Part E 'My Conclusion - Blood Libel Forever?' of article "Deaths of Children in Mother and Baby Care Homes". The following is an extract from that Summary where I recall an optimistic piece I wrote years ago: 

• "[the hysteria] began in 1997 with an allegation that related to the death of a REAL baby - because Blood Libel  was new in Ireland and needed the appearance of credibility
• it  came to an end in 2010 with reference to the unsolved murder of a REAL child - because several claims had been refuted and credibility was again a factor BUT
• between these two dates, anti-clerical Hysteria reigned supreme and journalists thought they could get away with anything including "Murder of the Undead" allegations!

Even THAT cynical analysis now looks too hopeful with allegations that nuns starved babies in the Mother and Baby Homes. The fact that the Report of the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes refuted those claims, won't put a stop to our anti-clerical hysteria, if the history of the last quarter-century is anything to go by."

On a few occasions over the decades, I thought that our Blood Libel hysteria was at an end (and even that I had contributed to its demise!) [NOTE (i)] but it always re-ignited, albeit in slightly different form on each occasion. Today I note that Eilis O'Hanlon, Brenda Power and Gender  Critical Feminists (and others) in Ireland and the UK are on the offensive against the Trans Lobby - and doing well for now! My own experience has taught me to be deeply pessimistic and never to anticipate victory in the struggle against fanaticism and fantasy in our society!

(2) Ireland: Gender Recognition Act, Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) and the HSE

(2.1) In an article in the Sunday Times (Irish edition) on 12 June 2022 "Why Women are Right to Defend Their Terf", Brenda Power wrote:

Under the Gender Recognition Act (2015) all a man needs to do is to make a statutory declaration in front of a solicitor and he's a woman! He can participate in women's sport including boxing. He can use women's toilets and changing rooms. He can be admitted to a woman's prison and and indeed there are two violent biological men in Limerick prison at present, one convicted of rape threats and who must be addressed as she. [(ii)]

The employers' representative group IBEC recently circulated guidance that trans employees must be allowed to use the toilets of their gender identity, not their biological sex, and any objectors should receive "training". It has become "standard practice", IBEC says for staff to include their preferred pronouns - he/him, she/her - in email signatures. ...

The extent to which the Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) is now directing public policy is alarming. It collaborated on IBEC's document, and Niall Muldoon, the Ombudsman for Children, [(iii)] has admitted that his article demanding more access to medical treatment for transgender children was also composed with TENI's guidance. 

According to the HSE, meanwhile, it's "people with cervixes" who get cervical cancer but men get prostate cancer. The Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2022 amends maternity legislation by replacing "woman" with "person". Sara Phillips who chairs TENI, fathered three children before transitioning and sits on the board of the National Women's Council, has admitted to resuming her male identity for a job interview as "I don't believe I'd get a fair shake if I presented myself as female".!

 

(2.2) The Tavistock Clinic - "Unquestioned, Unproven, Unsafe"

The Tavistock Clinic, in London named the Gender and Identity Development Service, was launched in the UK in 1989 to help people aged 17 and under struggling with their gender identity. But in 2020, questions about the service were raised after it was rated "inadequate" by inspectors, following concerns raised by whistleblowers. The number of people seeking the clinic's help is 20 times higher than it was a decade ago, jumping from 250 to 5,000 referrals in 2021. [(iv)] 

In 2009 the HSE began referring Irish children to the clinic. The numbers were small but growing and in the decade up to 2021, 234 Irish children, two as young as five, were referred to the clinic for treatment. From 2014, Tavistock began holding satellite clinics in Crumlin Children's Hospital, Dublin. However, the standard of care given to patients by Tavistock was soon called into question by doctors working in the National Gender Service (NGS) in Loughlinstown in south Dublin where adults and teenagers over 16 are treated.

In early 2019, senior clinicians in the NGS warned the HSE and Crumlin that Tavistock’s Irish operation was “unsafe” and should be immediately shut down. Despite this, the HSE continued to use Tavistock even as alarm about its practices grew in the UK.

The Cass Report

According to an article by Mark Tighe in the Sunday Independent on 7 August 2022 "Unquestioned, Unproven, Unsafe"

An interim report in March 2022 by Dr Hillary Cass, a consultant paediatrician commissioned by the UK government to examine Tavistock, found serious failings in how it assessed children and decided which were placed on puberty blockers.

The Cass Report found children attending Tavistock faced a “clinician lottery”. They either would be assessed for a range of psychological and social issues or instead would get a doctor who would see gender incongruence as “immutable”, with the prescription of puberty blockers and hormones the only solution.

Staff felt pressurised to adopt an “unquestioning affirmative approach” to gender — at odds with standard clinical assessment requirements. A lack of documented assessments meant there was missing evidence justifying transition regimes that children were placed on.

This was all flagged in writing in 2019 by Dr Paul Moran, a consultant psychiatrist with the NGS in St Colmcille’s hospital, who along with Donal O’Shea, a consultant endocrinologist, tried to shout “stop”. Dr Moran fears there is an ideological desire in the HSE to continue the Tavistock-type model of care. ..

Having treated former child patients of the Tavistock Irish satellite in the NGS, Dr Moran is predicting significant numbers of patients will regret transitioning or have other adverse outcomes because they were “rushed” onto puberty blockers and hormones.

“We have good evidence from the patients we have seen that it is the wrong approach for most likely the majority,” Dr Moran said. “There are some children who seem to do well, but at the moment there is no way of predicting at the start of treatment who will do well or badly. In cases where we’ve seen them and they’ve been left in a heap we’ve put resources in to try and fix their mental health, their social problems, try and get them back into college, et cetera.”...

Dr Moran and Dr O’Shea attended a meeting with Crumlin hospital management on March 20, 2019, to discuss how patients would graduate from the Tavistock service to the NGS. “We asked basic questions about the service, such as ‘how many patients attended’ and ‘how many letters of referral there were’,” Moran said. “Crumlin management said they had no knowledge about the service. ‘Who approved it?’ They had no idea.”

As more patients aged out of Tavistock’s care and into the NGS age cohort, Dr Moran and his colleagues became aware of the “very poor clinical service for children”. We were coming across children who were clearly unwell and who had none of their underlying mental health problems addressed,” Dr Moran said. “Many of them were not suitable or ready yet to be on hormone treatment. The endocrinologists working in Crumlin recognised that, too.

“They had basically gone over to Tavistock in distress, dropped out of school and started self-harming. They were rushed on to hormones but left sitting at home, not being schooled. Mental health issues were not addressed.

“There was this total focus on blockers and hormones, but the bigger problems that were pressing in their lives were ignored. By the time they got to us they were often a couple of years sitting in their rooms self-harming...

“Tavistock had a very narrow approach, because they didn’t have the clinical skill or the mix of professions, they become a very ideologically driven service. If you ignore the other problems and proceed with medical treatment, it doesn’t just leave problems unaddressed, it generally worsens. A person who’s really having difficulty engaging with life now, when they’re on hormones, unprepared, that can worsen.”...

Dr Moran  believes that the Cass Report is a watershed moment. "The international consensus is rolling back against specialist hormone treatment for children before puberty", he said. While puberty blockers were previously described as 'reversable', he said the emerging evidence is that administering them to children hitting puberty can have detrimental effects on bone growth and brain development.....     ALSO

Dr. Moran said it is ""really hard for a kid to say 'stop' when there has been such massive investment in what they want, by their family, by their doctor, by their school, by their peers." He said the idea of regret or people changing their minds is seen as "taboo" by some transgender activist groups. Patients tell him they are made feel unwelcome if they bring it up. "There's such cultural taboo about regret that people feel shame if they say there're not happy because they're left out of the community," he said.

He also voices concern that some HSE-funded groups have coached patients to "get their stories straight" before being assessed so they have the best chance lof being prescribed hormones. "They are being told to deny mental health problems and particularly any history of suicide attempts when they come for assessments," Dr Moran said. .....

Much of the surge [in patient numbers on a waiting list] has been caused by a huge increase in autistic people presenting. Dr Moran said that while roughly 20pc of their cases involved autistic people five years ago, it is now approaching 90pc .... Dr Moran is now concerned the HSE will repeat the mistakes of its Tavistock alliance. ..."The HSE seems wedded to to this idea of specialist, hormone-based care for children, which is unsafe. It may be developed safely in the future but right now, as we don't have evidence for the safety of these treatments." 

 

 (2.3) "The Future Will Condemn Us"

Eilis O Hanlon's article "The Future Will Condemn Us for Pandering to the Trans Agenda" is also in Sunday Independent on 7 August 2022. She asks why Government Ministers and the media are silent on the questions over children sent to a dangerous medical clinic abroad. After all when people look back at scandals from the past involving the abuse of children by church and state,  they always ask  How was this allowed to happen? And  reassure themselves it could never happen today, because the citizens of our caring and compassionate society, having learned from the mistakes of the past, would now speak out against it! Nothing of the kind!

Critics had warned for years that the treatments the [Tavistock] clinic performed on children who expressed doubts or unease about their gender were driven by ideological fervour rather than medical ethics and good practice, but they were either ignored or condemned as “transphobic”.

The recent Cass Report vindicated every one of their misgivings. Despite that, there has been virtual silence in Ireland about what happened to Irish children sent to this hellish place. TDs aren’t raising the issue. The media is largely silent.

In marked contrast, an inspection report by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) that showed dozens of children in foster care in north Dublin were overdue a visit by child and family agency Tusla was given the full interrogative treatment on RTÉ’s News At One last week, despite the fact that, thankfully, “there was no child at immediate risk in any of the cases discussed”.

Why has there not been similar concern about children who were actively put in harm’s way by being referred to the Tavistock clinic? Why are no questions being asked of Irish authorities who approved this egregious trade? ....

Trans activist groups funded by the taxpayer have been given free rein to go into schools to proselytise, weaponising spurious statistics about the risk of suicide among gender-confused young people, the upshot of which is to poison children’s minds against their own bodies. Teachers and parents say more and more children are presenting as trans after being exposed to such propaganda online, where activists proliferate. Professionals who bravely resist this pressure by reassuring children that there is nothing wrong with their bodies are mendaciously accused of advocating “conversion therapy” when it is the activists themselves who are urging children to reject their bodies.....

The publicly funded Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) even offers what it calls “gender identity skills training” for health workers, using self-styled “national and international experts”, paid for by the HSE’s Social Inclusion Division, meaning the State is pushing models of care known to be widely discredited. TENI makes no bones about what it wants to see. It explicitly urges the “abolishment of the medical/diagnostic model” of treatment, to be replaced by “the right to our own bodies”. The problem is that it wants the right to influence how children think about their bodies, too, while continuing to state as if it was a fact that puberty blockers are reversible — a highly irresponsible assertion two years after Irish doctors officially stopped making any such claims. 

Children’s Ombudsman Niall Muldoon was even forced to acknowledge last year that a piece he wrote for [the Sunday Independent] about the issue was “done in collaboration” with TENI, as well as the LGBTQ+ youth charity BeLongTo. BeLongTo also states that meetings of “trans, non-binary and questioning young people” are held weekly in the Children’s Ombudsman’s Office.

Ministers urgently need to address these concerns. A trawl of the Government’s own website fails to find a single press release published on the closure of the Tavistock clinic, despite the fact hundreds of vulnerable Irish children went through the system.....Everyone who looks at this honestly knows full well that, if this involved any other failure of care by the State, it would be everywhere on the news in Ireland, as the cervical cancer scandal was. Instead, because it’s about patients who identify as trans, there is an awkward and fearful silence from politicians and the media alike.

 

(3) WHY are Politicians, the HSE and RTÉ so Fearful of ideologically Driven Trans Organisations?

In a follow-up article on 14 August Eilis O'Hanlon attempts to answer that question. 

Regarding RTE and the HSE:   RTE initially chose to ignore the Sunday Independent story about clinical psychiatrist Paul Moran’s warnings to the HSE over Tavistock. Then, when shamed into covering the story a day late, the national broadcaster put out a report on Morning Ireland which did not even feature Moran’s voice, despite having interviewed him. Dr Siobhán Ní Bhriain, the HSE’s national lead for integrated care, was asked if the HSE had listened to Moran’s concerns.

“We did of course take them on board... but we satisfied ourselves that the evidence wasn’t there to support what we were hearing,” she said. This assertion was not scrutinised by Morning Ireland. Neither was Ní Bhriain’s statement that, as the HSE continues to send children to a discredited clinic, “we will monitor it extremely closely”. As per Eilis O'Hanlon "It goes beyond belief that RTÉ would allow such statements in relation to any other reported scandal to go unchallenged."

The RTE reporter even declared at one point that puberty blockers “work by putting a pause on puberty while a young person thinks about their gender identity” BUT according to Dr Hilary Cass, author of the report which led to Tavistock’s closure, “there has been very little research” on the effect of puberty blockers on “neurocognitive development”.

It was left to [national independent radio] Newstalk Breakfast to allow Dr Paul Moran to speak at length. He made it clear that representations by him to the HSE went unanswered.

“We went as far as sending them an audit of children outlining the problems, and this was never addressed or discussed with us,” he said. “Further, when we did meet Crumlin, the concerns we raised were omitted from the minutes — so the idea that they’ve been taking on board concerns and found no evidence is shocking.”

Regarding current Tanaiste [Deputy PM] Leo Varadkar: When the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) recently updated its policy to say that female contact rugby was only for those born female, he waded in within hours to urge the IRFU to consider “the voice of those most affected” — by which it’s clear he meant those born male.

In 2015, Varadkar’s first full year as Minister for Health, 15 children were referred to Tavistock. After he became Taoiseach [Prime Minister] in 2017, with Simon Harris as Minister for Health, referrals rose to 36. The following year they went up again, to 49. As per Eilis O'Hanlon: "Even if neither man knew every detail about what went on while they were in office, they must now be concerned — yet neither has felt the need to comment. No politician has." 

The Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI), which goes into schools and teaches children controversial gender theories, remains a source for government and media.

Ollie Bell is a self-described “non-binary socialist feminist activist” from Dublin. As per Eilis O'Hanlon "On Bell’s public profile on Twitter there is a link to a page on the internet giving advice on where to buy and administer DIY hormone treatment. Bell sits on the board of TENI. Even though it’s been reported that the HSE is concerned about TENI’s online activities, nothing has yet been done to rein them in."

BUT the dangers of placing children on puberty blockers and other hormonal treatment are becoming increasingly clear. Sweden has outlawed their use completely for under 18s, citing a “lack of quality evidence”. They believe the risks of the treatment “outweigh the benefits at present”. According to Paul Moran, these gender-affirming clinics are also being closed in France and Finland. Yet Crumlin remains ideologically committed to this form of care. “They’re very influenced by activist groups,” he says.

(4) CONCLUSION: Will Fight-Back against Trans Agenda be Successful?

I stated in the Introduction that on a number of occasions over the past 25 years, I thought my own Crusade against the fanatics who accused Catholic clergy and religious of killing children was successful. Not only was I incorrect but the insanity - once largely confined to Ireland - has spread to other countries - most recently Canada. [(v)]

I am encouraged that, in the aftermath of the Cass Report, some heavy hitters in the Media and among Doctors and Feminists have spoken out against what Dr Paul Moran believes is an ideological desire in the HSE to continue the Tavistock-type model of care. They have certainly been more successful than I or other activists have been in bringing their issue to the attention of the public and putting their opponents on the back foot. I am still dubious that this is going to end well!

I note that our national broadcaster RTE is doing its best to ignore the Trans issue - as is our "newspaper of record" the Irish Times. The vast majority of our politicians have remained silent - apparently too scared to criticise the Trans Lobby - while our Tanaiste [Deputy PM soon to be PM] Leo Varadkar spoke out against the Irish Rugby Football Union when it declared that female rugby is solely for those born female. How long will the Sunday Independent et al continue to publish critical articles about Tavistock and TENI if everyone else is either silent about their follies or actively supporting them and denouncing the critics?

Returning to my own subject (False Allegations of Child Abuse and Child Killing), I note that Irish Catholic nuns were major targets of this hysteria. The original Blood Libel was directed against the Sisters of Mercy 25 years ago and recent ones targeted the nuns who ran Mother and Baby Homes - especially the Bon Secours Sisters of Tuam. All such claims were discredited (not least by the Final Report of the Committee of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes) [(vi)] but the media, politicians and "Victims" just shifted gear and attacked the nuns on a different front. I suspect something similar will happen here. Also NO feminists - including the current gender-critical ones - spoke up for the women who were defamed over the past quarter century!

 

NOTES:

(i) I may have contributed to the demise of the "Murder of the Undead" allegations i.e. claims that the Christian Brothers killed boys - during periods when no boy died of ANY cause. On the other hand, our anti-clerics may have figured out - by themselves - that it's unwise to make idiot accusations that can be easily refuted!

(ii) See article in Irish Examiner dated 4th August 2021 "Transgender Women in Limerick jail Locked in Cells for up to 23 hours" . It begins: 

Two transgender women in Limerick Prison are locked in their cells for up to 23 hours a day, with one of the inmates describing her isolation as “mental torture” and the other saying it was “worse than hell”. 

Their plight is highlighted in a report by the Inspector of Prisons, who said the two prisoners live an “extremely isolated existence”. In a report, the inspector said the women are largely confined to their cells under a prison rule which allows inmates to be put on a restricted regime either for their own safety or that of other prisoners....

(iii) The website of our Ombudsman for Children indicates that its values include: 

"Independent — our independence is important so we can say the things that need to be said and hold public organisations to account."

Are there any circumstances that would cause our Ombudsman to criticise TENI ?  

(iv) See NHS to Close Tavistock Child Gender Identity Clinic - BBC News, 28 July 2022

(v) See in particular Part A of Blog article Blood Libel in Canada - Church Burning and Graves of Indigenous Children at former Residential Schools

(vi) See Part A of Blog article Deaths of Children in Mother and Baby Care Homes (did they die of starvation?) and the extract concerning 'Marasmus' from Chapter 33 of the Final Report of the Commission 

'We've Been Treated Like Monsters' - Sisters of Charity in fear of media and bewildered by negative coverage

 

NUNS OUT OR ELSE GOVERNMENT'S OUT!

(A) INTRODUCTION

Michael Kelly, editor of The Irish Catholic writes on 19 May 2022: 

The Religious Sisters of Charity, who agreed to hand over their hospital and the site of the new National maternity Hospital, are fearful of the media and feel bewildered that they have been so badly portrayed in the public eye since deciding to transfer ownership of St. Vincent's Hospital in Dublin. The Government this week signed off on the deal.

"You would think we were evil", a source close to the Sisters told the The Irish Catholic this week on on condition of anonymity. "We've been treated like monsters. In no way do they want the Church involved in any way [in the running of healthcare].  Yet many, many people experienced the care and work that the Sisters had done - many in the Irish population experienced care and concern and compassion. Yes there were some exceptions but for the most part the good that was done was amazing," the source said

The Religious Sisters of Charity began caring for cholera victims in Ireland in 1832 and in 1834 set up St Vincent's Hospital and since then have been "dedicated to providing the best possible healthcare in hospitals, hospices, nursing homes and in the homes of the sick. The nuns are also known for their work among prisoners and the homeless as well as in education, counselling and emigration. It is distressing that people would think so badly of us. I'm more concerned for the people who are saying these things than for us," [!] continued the source.

"The Sisters are absolutely terrified of the media and the way they have been portrayed. The notion that a young person listening to this, what idea of Christianity do they go away with?" she said.

My Own Suggested Answer: Is this "source" Sister Stanislaus Kennedy by any chance? I have posted previous articles about the Sisters of Charity and Sister Stan - the latest being "The Folly of the Sisters of Charity (and other Nuns)" However the most relevant response to this question is contained in the Introduction and in part D ("Eloi and Morlocks") of my article "The Decadence of the Sisters of Mercy" 

What idea of Christianity do young people go away with? the Sister asks. One of two things: (i) either they believe the atrocity stories published by the media about the Sisters OR (ii) they regard you as cowardly fools who practise a decadent kind of religion that prevents you from defending yourselves!

(B) Why are Sisters of Charity "Treated like Monsters" by Media and Politicians?

The leaders of the Religious Sisters of Charity (like their Sister of Mercy colleagues and other nuns' leaders) have spent many years trying to ingratiate themselves with our new secular overlords - and made themselves ridiculous in the process. They now find themselves spurned by Traditionalists and Liberals alike! Consider the following:

• "The nuns are annoyed and they consider some of the comments that have been made as being defamatory. I think their attitude now is ‘let the State go off and build their hospital on their own land’." (Valerie Hanley, Mail on Sunday, 23 April 2017) 
  The leaders of the Sisters of Charity should have done this and allowed the the anti-clerical mob of politicians and media to experience the fruits of their own bigotry. Instead they caved in to the mob, handed over property worth hundreds of millions of euro for the new National Maternity Hospital and announced they were withdrawing from their own St. Vincent's Hospital!

• Also in 2017, the Sisters were libelled by journalists and politicians who claimed that they owed €3 million to the State - when the State actually owed the nuns €2 million! As per the same article in The Mail on Sunday: "the claim that the Sisters owed €3 million, had been repeatedly cited by politicians from Fianna Fail, The Greens, Labour and the Social Democrats and the media as justification for outraged comments about the agreement brokered by Kieran Mulvey." 
  Did the Sisters complain or sue for libel? No they told the State it could keep the €2 million it owed them - that will teach the liars about the joys of Christian Charity!

• I have no inside information about the Sisters of Charity but I was told there was a conflict within the Sisters of Mercy about how to treat false accusations. I was told that the dispute pitted older Traditionalist Sisters against "Liberal" colleagues - and the Liberal ones won! I suspect that the same applies to the Religious Sisters of Charity'.

• In 2015 the Sisters' most prominent representative Sr Stanislaus Kennedy announced that was going to vote in favour of same-sex marriage in the forthcoming referendum. She was, of course, "bravely" repudiating Catholic moral teaching and defying the Hierarchy in favour of a group whose cause was supported by every main political party and by the mass media. 

• In 2017 the same Sr Stan reacted to the storm of anti-clerical hatred and lies directed at the nuns by describing it as "Elder Abuse"! [See Depiction of Sisters of Charity like ‘Elder Abuse’, says Sr Stan ] In my article "The Folly of the Sisters of Charity" I wrote that "No Jewish woman face to face with anti-Semites would make that kind of "mistake" and the VERY Charitable Sisters thereby demonstrated their unfitness to survive in the modern world!" 

However- see APPENDIX at end of this article!

(C) Civil War within the Pro-Choice Lobby - an Opportunity for Church??

I think it was Iona Institute Director David Quinn who described the Maternity Hospital debacle as a "civil war within the abortion lobby". Public figures who are strong supporters of abortion rights (plus those who normally take no part in the debate) have found themselves obliged to state that the allegations against the Sisters of Charity and claims of a Catholic Plot to influence the ethos of the NMH are rubbish. Is it too much to hope that this gives an opportunity to the Sisters of Charity (and other female Religious) to restore their reputation in the eyes of the public? 

Well yes I think it is too much to hope! Irish nuns have gutted their morale and their self-respect by decades of grovelling before the Secular Power. Now that the latest outbreak of anti-clerical hysteria is disappearing from the front pages, the Sisters will likely retire into their shells - until the next wave of media hysteria forces them out again! However it may be possible for other parts of the Catholic Church to take advantage of the current opportunity to make the truth known!

Some Unusual "Supporters" of the Catholic Church

(i) In an article in Irish Independent on 5 May 2022 Health Minister Stephen Donnelly (Fianna Fail) said some people had been making "false claims" about the National Maternity Hospital project. "There are people who are making really serious claims that are really worrying people. These claims are false and in many cases they have been told repeatedly that these claims are false." Mr Donnelly said that the Catholic Church was not involved in the project and there would be no religious interference at the hospital....."The Vatican has nothing to do with this. What the Vatican thinks about our national maternity hospital is irrelevant." [NOTE 1]

(ii) In Irish Independent article "Five-year row over maternity hospital now looks like time wasted on someone’s culture war"  Ellen Coyne writes: "Many people are asking why the land the hospital is being built on can’t just be given to the State. Wouldn’t that make things much easier? [Prime Minister] Micheál Martin argued in the Dáil that the hospital land is in public ownership in all but name, as it is being leased for the negligible rate of €10 a year for 299 years. It is worth explaining that what many regard as the best maternity hospitals in Ireland are built on land that the State doesn’t own. These hospitals – like the Coombe, the Rotunda and the existing NMH – are voluntary hospitals. This means that while they get most of their funding from the State, they are run by private bodies....Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said nobody is trying to use a compulsory purchase order on the Rotunda or the Coombe, which operate on land the State doesn’t own."

(iii) However Ivana Bacik, leader of the Labour Party claims “There are concerns about the lingering ethos of the Sisters of Charity". But according to Ellen Coyne: This is a common claim, but one that is described as a “red rag” to those at St Vincent’s who are “seething” over the way the hospital is being portrayed. A senior source at Holles Street [the current National Maternity Hospital] said they believed that claims of religious interference at the new hospital were part of “the biggest misinformation campaign in Irish medicine”.

(iv) Mary Brosnan, director of midwifery and nursing, says. “Because we don’t have strong politicians, we have weak, fearful politicians who are afraid of losing their seats and of women’s opprobrium.” Staff at Holles Street are dismayed, feeling they are fighting a tide of misinformation about the new hospital. Campaigners tweeted pictures from a protest outside an NMH board meeting this week, holding posters declaring that “nuns who sold babies” are to be “gifted” a hospital. This is false not only because the Sisters of Charity will have zero involvement in the new hospital, but also because the hospital will not be “gifted” to anybody. The State will own the hospital building. [ ‘We have a fortnight to get the truth out there’: As Holles Street creaks at the seams, staff battle ‘myths’ by Ellen Coyne]

(v) Younger female staff [at the existing National Maternity Hospital, Holles St] are horrified by the rhetoric in their WhatsApp groups, where friends ask if the nuns are trying to “steal” a hospital. Walking this reporter [Ellen Coyne] through the hospital Brosnan will sometimes pull a midwife aside at random and ask her if she has “any concerns about religious interference at St Vincent’s?” Some look askance. A few cast an incredulous look at the Irish Independent, as though to confirm such a question is genuinely being asked. Emma, a midwife working on the infamous Unit 3, laughs with derision. “No,” she says, “I’m not worried about nuns.” [Above article by Ellen Coyne]

(vi) Professor Shane Higgins, Master of National Maternity Hospital: Higgins is dismayed by politicians who he says are “not doing due diligence” before making claims about the hospital. “They’re willing to just repeat whatever has been said to them by the loudest voice, which is typically and usually Peter Boylan’s,” Dr Higgins says. “I don’t understand why Peter Boylan is continuing to peddle the narrative that he’s been peddling for years about ‘the nuns’, knowing that they’re gone, knowing that they won’t have any influence on anything … he’s out there, he has a very large soapbox upon which to stand...

I assure you, if this is derailed every single member of staff in this hospital and I’d say the vast majority of St Vincent’s will hold him wholly responsible for damaging women’s health for the next 20 years,” Prof Higgins said. [Above article by Ellen Coyne] [NOTE 2]

 (vii) Fifty-two doctors, including Higgins and three other former masters as well as many staff who currently work at Holles Street, signed a letter pleading for the project to go ahead. [Above article by Ellen Coyne] An article in Irish Independent on 6 May 2022 "What the Row is All About - and Who Says What" gives further details. It listed the more than 50 doctors who signed a letter in support of the new Hospital stating that it was "manifestly false" to claim that full State ownership was the only way to avoid religious interference in the new National Maternity Hospital. They included "Professor Shane Higgins, current Master of the NMH; Dr Michael Robson and Prof Declan Keane former Masters of the NMH". The article also quotes Dr Rhona Mahony, former Master of the NMH "Let it be said absolutely today, every procedure that is permissible under Irish law will be performed at the new maternity hospital on St Vincent's campus." 

My Comment

Many people who have no allegiance to the Catholic Church (or would not normally involve themselves in a public dispute concerning religion) now feel compelled to speak out against anti-clerical fanatics whose antics are delaying  the establishment of the new hospital. This is something that our Church should build on!

(D) Against the Hospital 

(according to Irish Independent article, 6 May 2022 "What the Row Is All About"  

Dr Peter Boylan - former Master of the National Maternity Hospital

"If it's to be independent, it should not be owned by another entity." According to David Quinn (in "No Reason to fear Nuns Under the Hospital Bed" 15 May 2022): 

Boylan told the [Oireachtas Health] Committee last Thursday: "It's about time we stood up for ourselves as a people, faced down the church, and said "We need that land thank you". In this case, however there is no church to stand up to; it has already gone. [See also NOTE 3]

Roisin Shortall - Leader of the Social Democrats

"What is known about the new company, St Vincent's Holdings, to which the Government is handing over control of a €1 billion publicly funded hospital?

"Our Maternity Hospital"

A grassroots campaign group that says it is "against Church ownership of women's healthcare."

PLUS: All other opposition parties including Labour and Sinn Fein. HOWEVER the Irish Independent article also points out that while the coalition Government of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Green Party support the project, this is "with the exception of a number of government TDs who are still raising concerns about the project." This is a reference to the Green Party and indeed two Green Party TDs Neasa Hourigan and  Patrick Costello were suspended from the Green Party for six months because they supported a Sinn Fein motion  calling for the new NMH  to be built on land owned by the State. 

(E) CONCLUSION - Sinn Fein and Opponents of Hospital and Church

A few comments about these opponents. 

David Quinn's abovementioned article "No Need to Fear Nuns Under the Hospital Bed" is subtitled "Concerns about a caring, religious ethos at the new national maternity campus resemble the furore of McCarthyite America". He  writes: "Like Senator Joseph McCarthy seeing Communist plots everywhere in the 1950s, we are now being led to believe that sinister nuns will one day succeed in dragging Ireland back to the past, all because the naive refused to heed the warnings." 

The Political Parties opposing the project are almost identical to those who in 2017 accused the Sisters of Charity of owing €3 million to the State - at a time the State owed €2 million to them! See Part B above - "the claim that the Sisters owed €3 million, had been repeatedly cited by politicians from Fianna Fail, The Greens, Labour and the Social Democrats and the media as justification for outraged comments about the agreement.." We are talking about people who utterly reckless as to the truth of their allegations - and who made no apologies once their lie was exposed. 

These are the parties that are most likely to form a coalition with Sinn Fein if and when that party wins our next General Election. OK Fianna Fail is an exception BUT Sinn Fein is well on its way to replacing FF as THE "Republican Party" in the State. Moreover Fianna Fail's willingness to participate in a reckless anti-clerical lie, is a potent symbol of its decline. [NOTE 4]

Regarding my reference to "lie": I suppose that an Honest Bigot - a  left-wing or 'liberal' equivalent of Rev Ian Paisley - could believe in a Catholic Plot to control the ethos of the New National Maternity Hospital. But how is it possible to believe that the nuns owed millions to the State when the reverse was true?? Anti-clerical hatred is similar to the anti-Semitic variety. I doubt if an anti-Semite says to himself: "I know this story about Jews is false, but I'll publish it anyway." Self-deceit and believing what one wants to believe, are more complicated than that. But the description "liar" is still valid and I apply it to the afore-mentioned politicians from Fianna Fail, The Greens, Labour and the Social Democrats.

NOTES

[1] But perhaps Stephen Donnelly is a secret admirer of the Catholic Church? He has neither thanked the nuns for their gift of hugely valuable land for the new NMH nor for their two centuries of service to Irish women. However - as noted in the article by Ellen Coyne, Philip Ryan and Eilish O'Regan - "more than €50 million  has already been spent in preparing the site of the new hospital building."  In the eyes of the State, our anti-clerical fanatics have become a serious nuisance who must now be discredited!

[2] The current master of the NMH at Holles Street, Dr Shane Higgins, told the [Oireachtas Health] committee: “It has been difficult to hear claims both in the media and in this room that my fervent support for the proposed move to Elm Park is some kind surrender to the church. Legitimate concerns are welcome and deserve every consideration, but we must also deal in facts, and I am alarmed by the combination of emotive misinformation and misunderstanding that prevails.” From article by Eilish O'Regan: Release ‘Vatican papers’ on New NMH, Former Master Demands

[3] In her article Maternity Hospital Debate Hijacked by Fear and Loathing, Irish Times journalist Kathy Sheridan wrote on 18 May 2022: 

"On Monday, while the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group was declaring itself “a secular organisation”, Dr Peter Boylan tweeted pictures of Catholic paraphernalia – a wooden crucifix, a Zambian mission hospital collection box, a notice about the streaming of Sunday Mass, apparently in a corridor – which he said were taken an hour before in the “fully secular” (his quotes) St Vincent’s Hospital.

Among the inevitable angry responses calling for a shutdown of all religious iconography and chaplains etc, a staff member calmly noted that the picture selection was from the private hospital where she often uses the oratory for some peace and quiet. Meanwhile the SVHG chair was assuring people that all religious iconography at St Vincent’s public hospital will be removed in the coming months."

Something other than "misunderstanding" lor even "normal" bias is on display here!

[4] In Part D ("Bethany Mother and Baby Home - a PROTESTANT Institution") of article Deaths of Children in Mother and Baby Care Homes (did they die of starvation?) I wrote: 

I was slightly surprised to see that the Protestant Bethany Home was also the subject of false allegations of starving children - coming mainly (of course) from Sinn Fein but Deputy Niall Collins of Fianna Fail makes a contribution as well by referring to Marasmus as "a form of malnutrition". This seems to be the sole Fianna Fail contribution to this brand of hysteria. It does indicate that irrational attacks on the Catholic Church have a way of spreading.- and corrupting the entire society.

Are Fianna Fail now trying to match the Sinn Fein/Labour/Far Left brand of anti-clerical hatred? If so they will lose some core supporters and likely fail to impress the haters anyway!

APPENDIX regarding History of Sisters of Charity & Voluntary Sector

In part B above, I refer to the folly and cowardice of the current leadership of the Religious Sisters of Charity. However, it is only fair to recall their very different history. In his article Nun Better for Generosity, Charity and Care in the Sunday Times on 8 May 2022, David Quinn wrote:

For most of the last 300 years the voluntary [i.e. non-State] sector has been run by religious organisations both Protestant and Catholic. The Religious Sisters of Charity founded St. Vincent's Hospital on its original St Stephen's Green site in 1835. It was run by women, for women. From a feminist point of view, you would think this is a good thing, but not when those in charge are nuns apparently. 

The congregation was established in 1815  by Mary Aikenhead. It played a leading role in the fight against a terrible cholera outbreak in Dublin in 1832. The nuns were asked by a group of laypeople to take over the running of the Temple Street Children's Hospital in 1876. Three years later they set up the country's first Hospice for the Dying, Our Lady's in Harold's Cross, Dublin.  

To this day they are involved in prison ministry, education, assisting the homeless, helping immigrants, offering mental health support and fighting sex trafficking...

David Quinn also quotes Sam Coulter-Smith, a former Master of the Rotunda Hospital (and a Protestant) in praising the role of the voluntary hospitals in the Irish health-care system. Professor Coulter-Smith said: "Pretty much everything good that has come out of the health service in Ireland in the past 300 years, has come out of the voluntary service." He expands on the theme in a new book: Delivering the Future: Reflections of a Rotunda Master. The Rotunda [founded 1745] is the world's oldest maternity hospital in continuous operation, and traditionally has had a Protestant ethos. Several Church of Ireland clergy are on the board of governors.

According to David Quinn, Coulter-Smith thinks it is a good thing that the relocated NMH will still be a voluntary hospital because he believes these institutions are generally better than their HSE-run counterparts. He argues they are faster to react, less tied up in red tape, and can respond to emergencies better than the HSE system. 

Indeed, in Part C above I quoted Health Minister Stephen Donnelly (Fianna Fail) saying that "nobody is trying to use a compulsory purchase order on the Rotunda or the Coombe, which operate on land the State doesn’t own." But will that last, if and when, Sinn Fein comes to power?? [See also NOTE 4 above]

Ukraine and the Decadence of the West

 

US Soldiers at Grafenwoehr Army Base, Bavaria, Germany 

(A) Some Introductory Remarks

[1] Grafenwoehr army base, Bavaria - the largest US base outside America. Male soldiers parade in women's shoes with signs "We Are ALL hurt by Rape", "LOVE Should NOT Hurt", "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes".

This MIGHT make sense if it was a "cunning plan" by Joe Biden (AKA Baldrick) to trick Putin into (A) believing that US soldiers are decadent wimps (B) thus encouraging Putin to attack the West and be annihilated. The problem is that only (A) is likely to be valid!

[2] Tweet by Richard Moore who apparently is really the Chief of British spy agency MI6 and this is not a Parody Account!

Richard Moore @ChiefMI6 · Feb 25 With the tragedy and destruction unfolding so distressingly in Ukraine, we should remember the values and hard won freedoms that distinguish us from Putin, none more than LGBT+ rights. So let’s resume our series of tweets to mark #LGBTHM2022

[Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans+ History Month 2022]

[3] And of course Ireland - trying hard not to be left behind in the slide towards self-destruction: Target of 35pc female involvement in military is ‘ambitious’

The Defence Forces have described a target of 35pc overall female participation within the organisation as “ambitious”. The target was recently recommended in a report by the Commission into the Defence Forces which also cited a “masculine” culture in the military.... The Commission was established by Defence Minister Simon Coveney in late 2020 in response to concerns about the capabilities of the military and an ongoing retention crisis. [ Note (i) ]

:

[4] On the other hand we have the Catholic Bishop of Derry Donal McKeown.:

“The horrible events in Ukraine ask our western states what is it that they stand for. Amongst the threats to our society is not just a rampant Russian war in Central Europe, but the fact that liberal democracies look like little more than economic or industrial entities. Does Europe have any pretence at virtue or at generosity that goes beyond self-interest?...

" A widespread emphasis on entitlement and on victimhood generates a corrosive blame culture. It is unhealthy when we demand that something impersonal called the ‘State’ should pick up the pieces of every mess that we make. A dependency culture weakens us individually and communally. Virtue and responsibility will build hope and healing"......

"If western countries are unable to offer the world more than consumer goods and mind-numbing entertainment then we have nothing to boast of except our hollow economic power which struggles to drown out our nightmares."

[5]  Major General Jonathan Shaw former Director of Special Forces in the British Army shares the concerns of Bishop McKeown

"The West will only truly win when the Russian people reject the current regime and its ideology. My fear now, however, is that whatever happens in Ukraine, the West will lack the moral staying power to see down the threat posed by Putin....

" Meanwhile the curse of the 24-hour news cycle is that we can obsess over the dramatic and the visual at the expense of the important. This focus on what is happening on the ground distracts us from the real battle: that of values. Putin believes that the West is morally degenerate, that its support for democratic values is weak, and that its populations are more interested in their quality of life than Ukraine."

(B) The Decadence of the USA - and NATO

On January 26th 2022 the Irish Independent published an article by conservative Catholic, columnist and author Sohrab Ahmari that originally appeared in the Washington Post: Biden is Correct to Ignore War Hawks over Ukraine. I actually disagree with his conclusion regarding Ukraine but he provides a wealth of information - including (remarkably) some issues that Left and Right in the USA agree on!

"Left and right agree on very little these days, but they share a sense that something has gone profoundly wrong with America – internally. The two camps disagree over the diagnosis, whether it’s structural racism or elite liberalism that’s to blame, but the symptoms are apparent to both: the decrepit infrastructure, the loneliness that haunted young Americans long before social distancing, widespread job and health precarity, addiction and homelessness.

"Then there’s the cultural incohesion, an inability to agree on the most basic facts about US history and identity...... Biden’s [original] posture was perfectly sensible, given the political mood in Europe and especially its pivotal power, Germany. It also reflected a deeper wisdom, in continuity with his two immediate predecessors, that US power is over-stretched, exhausted and battered by domestic polarisation and decay."

Ahrami believes that the "war hawks" are asking the US President to be more zealous for European security than are Europeans themselves. He states that a majority of Europeans are ambivalent, at best, when it comes to America, Nato and the Russian threat.

"A 2020 Pew Research Centre survey of populations in 16 key Nato states found a majority opposes using force to defend a fellow member state in a conflict with Russia.

"In France, 53pc oppose fulfilling the Western Alliance’s Article 5 obligations under such a scenario, compared with 41pc who would back military action. More startling still, 60pc of Germans oppose using force to defend a fellow member state. [!] Ukraine isn’t even a Nato member.".

Ahrami believes Western Europe’s has no real commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and points to our lackadaisical response to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and "stealth invasion" of the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine:

At various points since, Paris and Berlin resisted economic sanctions against Moscow, on occasion even calling for existing sanctions to be lifted. Meanwhile, Germany has remained determined to push ahead with Nord Stream 2, a natural gas pipeline running from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, thus bypassing Ukraine and Poland and tightening Moscow’s energy stranglehold on the continent. 

Successive US administrations of both parties begged for a rethink, to no avail, until Biden dropped the issue last year. Lately, Berlin has signaled it might abandon the project if Russia invades Ukraine – maybe!

Sohrab Ahrami believes it's crazy for the USA to try to police Europe’s borders when Europeans have been this indifferent, this long. I disagree with his conclusion while recognising that the premises of his argument are largely correct!

On similar lines Ian O'Doherty writes in "The Divided States of America – Now a Country Ripping Itself Apart in Self-Loathing"

On the foreign fields, the shambolic and shameful abandonment of Afghanistan will go down in the history books as one of the most craven acts by any US leader. It also rang the dinner bell for Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian invasion. After all, when news emerged that Mr Putin had watched the live footage of the evacuation and laughed throughout, the die was cast. He already had the idea of invading Ukraine, but the American performance in Afghanistan told him that now was the time to make that idea a reality. [ Note (ii) ]

 (C) The Decadence of Germany

[ 60pc of Germans oppose using force to defend a fellow NATO member state!]

On 29 January Ambrose Evans-Pritchard the international business editor of the Daily Telegraph wrote Markets Remain Calm despite Talk of Imminent War yet Putin knows he has a Narrow Window and a Strong Hand

It is now or never for Mr Putin. The stars are unusually well-aligned for the overthrow of the post-Cold War settlement....

The Kremlin enjoys the same partial advantage on the politico-military front. European Nato disarmed through the austerity years and is now near rock-bottom, while Russia has been re-arming for a decade. The White House is perceived to be a pushover after waving its objections to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in a shabby deal with Germany....

Mr Putin does not have to worry about serious economic retaliation. Germany has effectively vetoed use of the financial “nuclear option”, which would to expel Russia from the SWIFT system of international payments. Berlin’s argument is that such sanctions have asymmetric blowback. The US has little direct exposure and would suffer modest loss. German and European companies with large interests in Russia would take the brunt... “I don’t see anything on the economic front that would seriously frighten Putin,” said Ian Bond, former ambassador and British security planner now at the Centre for European Reform......

Energy dependence has turned core Europe into an accomplice by default.... Top figures in the German Social Democratic Party are not even willing to take Nord Stream 2 off the table if Mr Putin annihilates Ukraine. Defence minister Christine Lambrecht said there is “no connection” between the two issues. Chancellor Olaf Scholz has belatedly agreed to demands from Washington and his Green coalition partners that there should be some linkage but the commitment is too vague and half-hearted to have much deterrent value. He still insists that the pipeline is a purely “commercial” matter. Germany has not only refused to sell vital weapons to Ukraine but is actively preventing its Nato allies from doing so.

Regarding this point British journalist (and Berlin resident) Justin Huggler described an encounter between the mayor of Kiev Vitali Klitschko and German foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at a Security Conference meeting in Munich (!)

"We need defensive weapons. We face one of the strongest armies in the world. We are ready to fight, to defend our families,” Mr Klitschko told Ms Baerbock. “Thank you for the 5,000 helmets,” he went on, referring to a shipment of helmets Germany sent instead of weapons. “But we can’t defend our state with them, it’s not enough.”

The emotional outburst laid bare divisions that remain within the Western alliance. Germany claims it has a longstanding policy of not sending arms to conflict zones because of its Nazi past. [ Note (iii) ]

 See also Reuters article dated 21 January Germany blocks Estonia from Exporting German-origin Weapons to Ukraine 

Germany is blocking NATO ally Estonia from giving military support to Ukraine by refusing to issue permits for German-origin weapons to be exported to Kyiv as it braces for a potential Russian invasion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday...[The USA and] Many other NATO allies, including Britain and Poland, also agreed to export weapons directly to Ukraine, but the German government declined to do so.

“Germany has not supported the export of lethal weapons in recent years,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told a news conference on Friday. In the case of Estonia, Berlin is refusing to allow a third country to send artillery to Ukraine because the weaponry originated in Germany, the Journal cited Estonian and German officials as saying. 

Germany has had a belated change of heart as described by Telegraph journalists in

Germany to Ramp up Military Spend in Major €100bn Defence Policy Shift but

Since the end of the Cold War, Germany has reduced its troop strength from 500,000 to about 200,000 today. On the day Mr Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine, Alfons Mais, the chief of the German land army, admitted that the Bundeswehr was in a desperate state and was “more or less bare”. “The options we can offer to politicians to support [Nato] are extremely limited,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

(D) Conclusions 

60 per cent of Germans oppose using force to defend a fellow NATO member state! How many would refuse to defend their own country and collaborate with any enemy for a peaceful life? [ Note (iv) ]

At a Conference in Munich (!) Germany claimed it has a longstanding policy of not sending arms to conflict zones because of its Nazi past. For the same reason it banned Estonia from sending German-manufactured weapons to the Ukraine to help it defend itself. Germany has a degraded and perverse attitude to its Nazi past - more akin to Self-Hatred than Repentance. (Catholic confessors used to be good at distinguishing between the two.) One example is the case of the 93 year old "Nazi Grandma" Ursula Haverbeck convicted several times for the crime of Holocaust Denial, released from prison at the end of 2020, quickly charged again and due to face a new trial about now. The German authorities have been pursuing her since 2004 as their armed forces decayed, they made themselves dependent on Russian energy supplies and resolved not to assist a non-NATO member attacked by Russia - because of Germany's Nazi past! This is the kind of Weimar Decadence that helped Hitler to power in the first place and is now empowering Putin! [ Note (v) ]

BUT Germany has reversed course, has agreed to major sanctions against Russia and is sending arms to Ukraine and beefing up its military forces - so all is now OK! Forgive my cynicism but I agree wioth the Telegraph's Jeremy Warner that West Totally Unready for Sacrifices Needed to Really Hurt Putin

Are western electorates even remotely prepared for the economic deprivations this latter course of action – a war with Russia in all but name – is likely to entail? The already near hysterical political reaction to the cost of living squeeze suggests strongly they are not. Without wishing to trivialise today’s hardships, they are as nothing compared with what would come. “Welcome to the brave new world where Europeans are very soon going to pay €2,000 for 1,000 cubic metres of natural gas,” said Putin’s sidekick, Dmitry Medvedev, rubbing it in over Europe’s unfortunate dependence on Russian gas.

We have grown so complacent and lazy on the fruits of globalisation that the idea of anything more than a temporary interruption in the onward march of economic progress is so far beyond any recent experience as to be thought almost impossible.....So forgive my scepticism when the West promises to put up a meaningful fight against Putin’s power play. Even ignoring the threat of nuclear annihilation, the price of defiance will be high. It is not clear that mollycoddled western voters have the stomach for it. By all means, Europe must scramble to wean itself off dependence on Russian gas, but exactly the same thing was said in 2014 after Crimea. Small wonder Putin thinks he can get away with it.

"Mollycoddled western voters" indeed. Long before the Welfare State was even thought of, the main functions of the State were supposed to be defense against external aggression and maintenance of internal order. In part A above, I quote Bishop Donal McKeown regarding our "dependency culture", "emphasis on entitlement and on victimhood" and "demand that something impersonal called the ‘State’ should pick up the pieces of every mess that we make". These attitudes are now rotting the foundations of the State especially in Germany where the chief of the German land army, admitted that the Bundeswehr was in a desperate state, was “more or less bare” and unable to contribute to NATO's response to Putin.

If this crisis continues and impacts seriously on the State's ability to supply voters with goodies, I predict that our sympathy with the people of the Ukraine and refugees will evaporate with extreme speed. Western voters will start denouncing President Volodymyr Zelensky for 'intransigence' and demand he conclude a "peace at any price" with Russia!

NOTES

(i) I recall reading about an Irish guy who joined the British army during the Second World War and became one of its highest decorated veterans. After the war he left the army and led a troubled unhappy life until dying in a car crash about 1950 - a time when there were few cars on Irish roads. A country needs people like that in times of War (although they can be trouble in peacetime). Our current Defence Minister and his "Commission" are doing their best to alienate such men and ensure they will never join the army. "Masculine Culture" indeed!

(ii) It's likely that Putin's advisers showed him the photo at the head of this article. If so he undoubtedly laughed a lot!

(iii) Another nice illustration of the link between Barbarism on one side and Decadence on the other! And it also happened at a Conference in Munich!

(iv) For Irish equivalent see "Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, the Simpsons and Our Insect Overlords"

(v) Another example of the corruption of Germany's attempts to face up to its Nazi past dates from 1970 when the Red Army Faction (or 'Baeder Meinhoff Gang') started a terrorist campaign that lasted until 1998. As per Wikipedia "the group was motivated by leftist political concerns and the perceived failure of their parents' generation to confront Germany's Nazi past, and received support from Stasi and other Eastern Bloc security services." (On meetings with KGB in Dresden the group was also met by Vladimir Putin, then KGB resident in East Germany!) In 1977 Jillian Becker published "Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang" a study of the 'first generation' of the RAF that pointed out that the terrorists were more akin to Nazi Stormtroopers than to the forces of the German Federal Republic that opposed them. In addition German journalist Stefan Aust wrote in 1985 "The Baader-Meinhof Gang drew a measure of support that violent leftists in the United States, like the Weather Underground, never enjoyed. A poll at the time showed that a quarter of West Germans under forty felt sympathy for the gang and one-tenth said they would hide a gang member from the police. Prominent intellectuals spoke up for the gang's righteousness (as) Germany even into the 1970s was still a guilt-ridden society." As per Wikipedia: "Horst Mahler, a founding RAF member, is now a vocal Neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier. In 2005, he was sentenced to six years in prison for incitement to racial hatred against Jews. He is on record as saying that his beliefs have not changed: Der Feind ist der Gleiche (The enemy is the same)."