We Must be Talking

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The Gaza Conflict

The Gaza Conflict Gerry OShea James Baldwin, the great writer and civil rights leader, reflecting on the origin of most wars wrote, "People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” His words certainly resonate throughout the Middle East when we think of the unending conflicts between Shia and Sunni or Jews and Arabs. I read recently about an event that happened back in 1956 at a kibbutz located near a border fence where Palestinian fighters attacked the Jewish settlement. A security officer named Roi Rotberg confronted the attackers but lost his life in the ensuing fracas. Moshe Dayan, then Israel’s chief of the general staff, happened to be in that neighborhood attending a wedding and was asked to give an oration at Rotberg’s funeral. Speaking of the Palestinian killers he asked: “Why should we complain of their hatred of us? Eight years they sat in the refugee camps of Gaza and saw in front of their eyes how we turned their lands and the villag

Who Pays the Bills?

Who pays the Bills? Gerry OShea Conservatives love to preach about their core commitment to limiting the power of big government, their worst bugbear. So, it is not surprising that America’s spending on social benefits, as a share of GDP, is a great deal stingier than other Western countries. We trade higher take-home salaries for less generous safety nets. This distaste for an intrusive central authority is not confined to spokespeople for the Right - it is shared throughout the population. However, teasing out the implications of this hatred of government interventions reveals major differences between the two main political parties in America. For those on the political right, this commitment is formulated around the need for fiscal discipline, and they lambast the rulers in Washington for disregarding this principle. They argue at every turn for a balanced budget or for policies that at least move in that direction. People are urged to consider the negati

An Irish Unity Referendum

An Irish Unity Referendum Gerry OShea As well as burning through five prime ministers since the Brexit referendum in 2016, the decision to leave the EU ushered in years of economic decline in Great Britain. The Tory argument that drove the change promised that by stripping their country from the domination of bureaucrats in Brussels they would invigorate the local economy and open the door to a new era of English supremacy. Brexit was carried by less than 52% of the electorate in the United Kingdom, but, significantly, it was rejected by the voters in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Polls show that if the British people were asked today to decouple from the European Union the proposal would be roundly defeated. The damage is done and Keir Starmer, the Labor Party leader and odds-on favorite to be the next British prime minister, has assured the electorate that while his party will actively pursue policies of close co-operation with the EU they will not put the country th

Next Year's Presidential Election

The 2024 Presidential Election Gerry OShea Senator Mitt Romney in announcing his retirement from the Senate last month suggested that the two current likely major-party nominees for the presidency should step down: “I think it would be great if both President Biden and former President Trump were to stand aside and let their respective parties choose someone from the next generation.” More problematical for Mr. Biden than the ruminations of the Utah senator are the results of a recent CNN poll where 67% of Democrats said that they hoped he would not be renominated, reflecting widespread concerns in his own party that the president who will be 82 on Inauguration Day is too old for the job. Imagining him dozing off when a sharp mind is needed will constitute the mocking parlance promoted by opponents. Democrats point to the impressive list of legislation that has emerged from President Biden’s first term. The American Rescue Plan protected workers’ pensions, as well as prov

Up the Republic

Up the Republic! Gerry OShea Up the Republic, they raise their battle cry, Pearse and McDermott will pray for you on high From “Legion of the Rearguard” – a Republican Civil War song The goal of an Irish Republic was central to the debates and arguments surrounding the Treaty negotiations that were headed in the Irish delegation by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins while the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, led his team on the opposing side. The proposals that emerged offered dominion status, the same political freedom as applied in Canada and Australia, to a new Irish Free State. This fell far short of the 32-county republic sought by the Irish delegation. For some dominion status was a major achievement, involving the departure of all British forces from the new 26-county state and the end of foreign rule with all its entanglements. It offered far greater political freedom than any of the Home Rule Bills proposed in the British parliament over the

Cafeteria Catholics

Cafeteria Catholics Gerry OShea Accusing someone of being a cafeteria Catholic implies that the person picks and chooses what he or she believes from the broad board of church teaching. While the expression is heard less today, it was commonly used in the past, meant as a derogatory judgement implying that the recipient should decide for or against the whole panoply of church beliefs. The Irish language expression, Tadgh a da thaobh , (a person who takes the two sides in any debate) conveys this sense of indecisiveness, of trying to please everyone. I recall a man named Freddy in my home county, Kerry, declaring over fifty years ago that he did not accept his church’s declarations about limbo, where, according to clear church teaching, good people, including babies who died before being baptized, ended up with no hope of ever enjoying the presence of God. Freddy was a bachelor farmer in his fifties, who explained to anyone who would listen that he knew two set