We Must be Talking

  The War in Ukraine       Gerry OShea   The two sides are so far apart in the war in Ukraine that there is no end in sight. President Zelensky has stated repeatedly that they will only achieve their goals when the Russian invaders have returned to their own country, and President Putin’s stated bottom line maintains categorically - and with a straight face - that Ukraine is just an extension of Russia without any justifiable claim to separate nationhood. Russia’s current assault revolves around the city of Bakhmut, which was close to falling to Moscow a month ago in a battle reminiscent of the trench fighting during the Great War a century ago, but the latest reports reflect the amazing resilience of the defending Ukrainian army and now the concession of the town to their enemies is far from inevitable.   There is no chance that victory by either side in Bakhmut will be determinative of overall victory in the war, but it is being watched closely to reveal who is getting on top.

The Rise and Fall of Rudolph Giuliani     Gerry OShea “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent only Vaulting ambition.” Act 1, Scene 7, Macbeth. During the 70’s and 80’s New York City was seen by many people as experiencing some form of a nervous breakdown. The statistics for neighborhood crime seemed to follow a cascading downward slide, especially in parts of Manhattan and the Bronx. Rudy Giuliani was the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 to 1989. He had a reputation for being very tough on crime, whether of the organized variety or just street robberies and muggings. His sterling reputation in this area won him the mayor’s job for two four-year terms ending in 2001. He can justifiably boast about his fine record in emphatically repulsing the crime surge in all five boroughs. The numbers show that it came down nearly 60% during his eight years - 1250 fewer New Yorkers were killed in 2001 than in 1993 and car thievery was cut in half

                        CRISIS in UNIONISM   A poll taken by the prestigious New Statesman in 2021   clearly suggests that the Ulster unionists’ allegiance to the Crown is not reciprocated. The results reveal that 34% of people in Britain say that they feel no connection with the neighboring statelet off their west coast, and 56% declare little or very moderate connection to the place, leaving just 10% asserting that they share a sense of community with the people in Northern Ireland. Reflecting on these numbers, one commentator wrote: “This is what unionists should be really fretting about because their love for Britain is increasingly unrequited. They are in a cold marriage where their partner is bored, indifferent and disconnected.” Prime minister Sunak went to Belfast with considerable fanfare to sell the Windsor Arrangement. He didn’t have to worry about the nationalist community. All their leaders had welcomed the deal because they want local government in Stormont restored,

  The Protocol               Gerry OShea Great Britain is a class-driven society and the top echelons, most with strong conservative and Tory credentials, operate with inbred delusions of grandeur. Their rhetoric and belief system revolve around their self-perceived history of glorious colonial expansion so extensive one time that the sun never set on its far-flung empire.   In Europe, British leaders boast with good reason that they led the forces of progress and democracy to victory in two horrendous world wars against Germany, a country that they still view with a gimlet eye. They joined the European Economic Community in 1973, after being rejected for membership by Charles De Gaulle twice in the sixties. Now called the European Union (EU) and expanded to include countries in central and eastern Europe, it includes by far the largest supranational trading organization in the world with 27 members and a population of 447 million.   The movement in Britain for leaving the EU w