We Must be Talking

  Is America Heading for Another Civil War?           Gerry OShea A few months ago three retired military generals warned about the prospect of a breakdown of the American system of government after the 2024 presidential election. They fear that in a contested result “some might follow orders from the rightful commander in chief while others might follow the Trumpian loser  - - -  and a military breakdown could lead to civil war.” In a recent poll conducted by the Institute of Politics in Harvard, 35% of voting-age Americans under 30 place the odds of another civil war at 50% or higher. Instability and cynicism have permeated the political system in the United States. Collective suggestion far outstrips individual conviction in choosing party affiliation.  In repeated surveys around 70% of Republicans still believe that Donald Trump won the presidential election. The former president’s top lawyers, led by Rudy...

  Identity Issues in Northern Ireland            Gerry O’Shea   I recall reading a report about the strength of the different tribal identities in Northern Ireland. It was written by an English sociologist and was published at the height of the Troubles in the 1980s. In one part of her study she spoke to hundreds of people waiting at bus stops. Her question to them centered on how conscious they were about the ethnic identity of the other people in the bus line. The interviewees were almost unanimous in conceding that they were indeed cognizant of the background of other bus users, and they had their own ways of deciphering which of the two communities they belonged to. I found this very surprising because they all shared the same color and physical features. When I mentioned the findings to people from Northern Ireland living in New York, their responses strongly affirmed the sociologist’s findings. I thought of that res...

  Mixing the Political and the Legal             Gerry O’Shea When the imperatives of the law clash with the dynamic push and pull of power politics, the result is often an unseemly public mess.   In the 2000 presidential contest Vice-President Al Gore and George W. Bush ended up within a few hundred votes of each other in Florida, and the overall national result hinged on the declaration from Miami. Complicating matters, the Governor of that state was Mr. Bush’s younger brother, Jeb, and Katherine Harris, the secretary of state charged with ensuring an impartial election, served as co-chair of the Bush for President election committee. The electronic result favored Bush by a whisker, but Gore called for a hand recount. Young readers may not remember the heated controversy about “hanging chads” in punch card ballots while the whole counting system clogged up. The Supreme Court expressed a strong preference for a ...

  Child Abuse and the Papacy                 Gerry OShea The recent 190-page report commissioned by the Munich archdiocese found Emeritus Pope Benedict complicit in covering up cases of child abuse where predator priests were allowed to continue in pastoral work after their corrupt actions were known.  This papal debacle brings to mind the famous Danish writer Hans Christian Anderson’s story about the Emperor whose arrogance was revealed when he walked naked in a parade. The tale began when two swindlers, posing as weavers, promised to supply the Emperor with magnificent clothes which, however, would only be visible to those subjects who were wise and perceptive. They set up looms and finally announced that the emperor’s suit was ready.  The “tailors” mime that they are dressing him in gorgeous attire and he struts off proudly to lead a big parade. His subjects cheer him on because to ...

  The Anglo-Irish Treaty              Gerry OShea I recall clearly a conversation with my uncle, Michael OShea, shortly after I came to New York in the early seventies. He and his older brother, Paddy, were active in the Irish War of Independence. My query centered on why they had taken the anti-treaty side in December 1921.   He explained that the Volunteer group that they trained with attended mass every Sunday in the village of Ardgroom in west Cork, just over the Kerry border from their home in Lauragh. After the church service, they proceeded to a designated secluded area about two miles out the road where their leader, Liam O’Dwyer, would announce plans for the coming week. Towards the end of his instructions on the Sunday after the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in London on Tuesday, December 6 th 1921, he told them that “a crowd in Dublin want us to abandon our oath to the Republic. Needless to say, we w...

  In Praise of Trade Unions            Gerry OShea I watched an interview with Marty Walsh this week. He is the Secretary of Labor in Washington who started his working career with Laborers Local 223 in Boston, where his father, an emigrant from Ireland, was a lifelong member. Addressing the importance of union membership, he pointed out that his late father enjoyed a comfortable retirement because of his pension, negotiated by his Local, and he added that his mother still gets a substantial check every month from the same fund to supplement her social security entitlement. A substantial minority of American retirees are flirting with poverty because many of them depend solely on their social security check every month to meet their living expenses for housing, travel and food. Trade Unions are needed more now than ever. Our new Gilded Age is marked by obscene wealth garnered by a small percentage of Americans while tens of mi...

  Liberalism                       Gerry OShea The revolutionary cry from America in the 1770’s that all men are created equal shattered the prevailing political wisdom of those years. It debunked the legitimacy of monarchs and clerics who claimed that their power was unassailable because it was part of their heritage, approved from on high. The American colonies asserted their right to independence from England and they won the war against a disgruntled king to establish a democratic form of government, the first since the Greeks of old. Fourteen years later, the French – greatly influenced by events on this side of the Atlantic - made a similarly decisive move. Louis XV1 was convinced that he ruled with divine approval, but he and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, represented the Ancien Regime and were dispatched by guillotine.  Loud French proclamations abo...