A United Ireland?

I recently read an article regarding the possibility of a United Ireland.  As someone of Irish descent, I will have to admit that I understood little of the politics of Irish history and the reason there was a division of Northern Ireland from the rest of the country.  My month-long trip to Ireland in 2012 was travel restricted to the southern portions as I was using a rental car that prohibited driving into the northern portions of the island nation.

A Kerry Couple
Photo by William Lawrence 1895
(from my grandmother's collection)

I knew of The Troubles as they are called and found that, even after getting to know B&B owners during an extended stay, few were willing to discuss that period beyond saying that I should do my own research.  One nice couple told me that few outside Ireland really understood how the Irish were treated by the British.  It was suggested that I go back to that distant past to begin my understanding.

St Colman's Cathedral, Cobh, Ireland
(southeast of Cork City, 2012)

After that vacation, I did manage to learn that, unlike the stories I had heard of the backward shanty-town Irish who were stupid to try to survive on a limited crop of mostly potatoes and who were driven to starvation in the mid-1800s, I found that history to be flawed.  The potato blight that attacked the potato crops was just the tip of the iceberg. 

Blarney Castle

Years of absentee landlord control from Great Britain had forced the Irish to farm only the worst land while British aristocrats grew and exported crops from the better Irish farmland.  Irish Catholics were prohibited from entering professions and were not allowed to own land.  They were forced to rent small plots.  Potatoes were one of the few crops that could be grown on the land left to the Irish.  When that crop was hit by the fungus-like microorganism that turns the potatoes into a foul-smelling mush, that limited food source disappeared and millions of Irish died of starvation under the watchful eyes of their British occupiers.  Millions of the survivors emigrated in the largest migration from an island nation in history.

Turf Cart (wheelless) 1906

By 1919, the Irish nationalist party, Sinn Féin declared an Irish republic.  To head off a civil war, Britain portioned the island in 1920 into a Protestant-dominated northeast and a predominantly Catholic south and northwest (Republic of Ireland).  Those left behind as religious minorities in their section of the island were then the subject of continued discrimination.

King Street (now MacCurtain), Cork City, 1906
(from my grandmother's collection from her birthplace)

The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s in America went far beyond our borders and the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland demanded an end to the discrimination.  Protestant Unionists owned and controlled most Northern Ireland businesses that refused to hire or promote Catholics.  Irish segregation was along religious lines for employment, housing, and education.  Gerrymandering of electoral boundaries split Catholic voting power.  Even the right to vote in local elections was restricted to property ownership.  If you owned six houses, you got six votes.  If you rented, you could not vote at all.  This meant that Protestants, who had the better-paying jobs, controlled the vote.

By the late 60s, a recession hit Northern Ireland’s industries hard and unemployment was felt by all, but was particularly worse for Catholics.  In 1967, NICRA (Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association) was formed to end discrimination and obtain equal rights (one vote per person) to participate in government.  NICRA was infiltrated by the IRA (Irish Republican Army) who wanted to use the group for its own ends.  This was the beginning of The Troubles or Na Trioblóidí as it is called in the Irish, that lasted for 30 years ending with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.  It was not so much a religious conflict as it involved the status of Northern Ireland as either part of Great Britain or part of a United Ireland.  The death toll stands at around 3,500 for this period.

Enter Brexit, the oxymoron.  Britain’s bitter divorce from the European Union that paradoxically isolated Northern Ireland with trade laws, customs declarations, tariffs, and goods inspections, may provide some incentive to reunite Ireland as part of the EU.  Currently, the trade barriers are not along the north-south border of Ireland as one might assume, but between the UK and Northern Ireland.  One would assume this would be the lesser of the two evils.

Part of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 was that the six counties of Northern Ireland could sever ties to the UK if the majority of the people voted to do so.  There are currently more Catholics in Northern Ireland than Protestants according to a 2021 census.  There may also be a financial incentive as Ireland has a budget surplus and the UK is dealing with high inflation, a somewhat sluggish economy, and higher interest rates.  Northern Ireland is also dealing with a dysfunctional government after the Democratic Unionist Party walked out over trade and border policies.  Forty percent of the drinking water in the north comes from a single lake that is currently suffering from a blue-green algae bloom.

With Brexit as a guide as to what not to do, a plan for unification is being approached with caution.  Now that there is a majority Catholic population in the north, the original 1921 UK plan to ensure Protestant domination of the six counties, may be at an end.  Can a unified Ireland be that far off?

Revenge, Retaliation, Let the Violence Continue

A famous American feud involved the Hatfields and the McCoys.* These two extended families lived on either side of a border stream called Tug Fork that separated West Virginia and Kentucky.

Nobody could remember what started the feud. Some said it had to do with the American Civil War where the McCoys were Unionists and the Hatfields were Confederates. Others said the fight started when Rand’l McCoy accused a Hatfield of stealing one of his hogs in 1878. Whatever the original sin, the first killings didn’t happen until 1882. The fighting went on to the end of the 19th century and finally ended sometime early in the second decade of the twentieth.

Like many long-term disagreements, the origins aren’t always clear but continue to be fueled by ongoing incidents. On a much larger scale, we have seen historical “feuds” that last for centuries. Many are founded on religious disagreements which can go beyond factual reasoning. It is not usually a disagreement of fundamental beliefs, although such factors may be used as an excuse, but most are about power and control.

If we look at the two main Islamic sects, the Sunni and Shia, their split goes back 14 centuries when there was disagreement as to who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad as leader of their faith. The resulting split went 85-15 with 85 percent becoming Sunni. While the split was initially peaceful, by the late 20th century extremists in each sect began a fight for religious and political supremacy. The minority Shia faction is prominent in Iran, Iraq, and a few other countries. The Sunni Muslims are primarily in Central Asia (including China), Europe (including Russia and the Balkans), South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Arab World, Turkey, and among Muslims in the United States.

It was the fight for political power advanced by Muslim religious fundamentalists of both sects that widened the chasm that was made worse following the two Persian Gulf Wars, the US ouster of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni regime in Iraq, and the regional uprisings known now as the Arab Spring that started in 2011.

That last reference to the Arab Spring was a drive for increased democracy and cultural freedoms among Muslims that started with a single incident in December 2010. It seems that a Tunisian street vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest of the seizing of his vegetable stand by the police for a permit violation. With his sacrifice, protests erupted and led to the overthrow of the authoritarian president who had ruled for over 20 years. The success of this initial protest fueled other grassroots movements elsewhere.

In another Arab Spring moment in Libya, Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011 and was dragged through the streets, tortured, and executed. In Syria, things were different, and Bashar al-Assad remains in power.

All of this is to say that, while the excuse may be religious doctrine, the real motivation is political power. It is like what we have here in the US. We have a Christian extremist minority making serious inroads into our democracy using religious doctrine as their excuse. While they don’t have the numbers to win in a democratic fashion, they do have a strong will and a fanaticism that seems to motivate even the non-religious among us to action.

No one could mistake Donald Trump or his MAGA movement as one founded in religious piety, but their willingness to act in concert with this Christian minority has been meaningful. The overthrow of Roe v. Wade with his trifecta of appointments to the US Supreme Court is just the beginning of another grab for the reigns of our government and the power it wields. While we know that Donald Trump is not a religious person, we also know he is an opportunistic grifter who will use support where he finds it. If the religious right votes for him, he will support their actions to federally ban all abortions.

In recent surveys, Americans are so distrustful of our public institutions that many are now willing to accept that a violent overthrow may be their only way to “right the ship.” More people are willing to abandon democracy in favor of authoritarian rule. The violence in Portland Oregon in 2020, and Trump’s deployment of federal law-enforcement agents in tactical gear against the wishes of the government of Oregon (mayor of Portland and governor of Oregon) was to be a harbinger of Trump’s efforts that culminated in the violence of January 6th. The difference in Washington D.C. was that Trump was the insurrectionist.

Trump’s actions in Portland in 2020 and later in Chicago were clearly in violation of our constitution. While a president has the power granted under the Insurrection Act of 1807 to quell an insurrection, he is also required to do so AFTER a formal proclamation and only when state laws cannot be enforced to protect the constitutional rights of its citizens. Eisenhower did this in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1958 and George H.W. Bush did it during the L.A. riots of 1992. Trump issued no formal proclamation and neither Portland nor Chicago citizens were having their constitutional rights threatened. This mention here has nothing to do with using religion as a weapon only that, once democratic norms are trampled, all other rights can suffer a similar fate.

Pitting the left and right against one another under a banner of Christian righteousness seems to be a page out of the history books being wielded by a man who doesn’t know history. Perhaps he knows someone who knows history. If our democracy is overturned under the guise of some convoluted religious logic, misinformation, and an existing political system that has been twisted by interested parties for financial gain, the outcome will have us questioning how we got here.

Whatever the result, there will always be someone willing to take advantage of a disgruntled populace through any means necessary. For many the cause will be the advancement of some religious ideology but there should be no mistaking the true motivation is just a lust for power and the financial rewards that follow.

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*Postscript: One theory regarding the Hatfield v. McCoy feud that I ran across mentioned the possibility of a genetic predisposition for adrenal tumors known as von Hippel-Lindau disease, which may explain why the McCoy family members were so violent. Such tumors ran in the McCoy family and are known to cause surges in adrenaline that can lead to violent behavior. Eleven-year-old Winnter Reynolds is a descendant of the McCoy line and she and other family members have the disease. In 2002 a symbolic peace treaty was signed by Hatfield and McCoy descendants. Members of Winnter Reynolds’ family have attended Hatfield-McCoy reunions for years and have been swapping stories about their distant cousins all their lives.

Veterans Day Has Passed

 

Veterans Day has once again passed for another year. We posted our flags and patriotic memes honoring our veterans. Now we can go about our daily routines and ignore the true cost of freedom.

Wars, preparing for wars, and taking care of those who have suffered loss in that effort is an expensive proposition. We have long lived beyond our means with a callous disregard for some of the not-so-hidden costs of protecting our freedoms. We will drop over $400 billion developing an F-35 and spend over $600 billion for our four military branches to function for a year. The Department of Defense budget for 2023 was $1.8 trillion. This represents almost half of our discretionary spending.

Calls for budget cuts are regularly in the news and amount to a political hot potato that becomes hotter with elections on the horizon. Budget cuts are important but only when the other party is in office. We seem to always be heading for another election that is more important than the last. Most of us also know that the US spends more money on defense than the combined spending of the next ten countries.

Most countries in this top ten are our allies. Could or should we cut our military spending in deference to reducing our national debt or perhaps spend that money on other needs like infrastructure, improving the healthcare system for the non-billionaire classes, improving education for all, or finding solutions to climate change. Perhaps we would think twice about military solutions when diplomacy might work.

Did we need the F-35? I’m certainly not able to make that determination. I just know that it is a very expensive system at $75M a copy with an operating cost of over $7M each year per plane. Their promotional brochure states: “The F-35 strengthens national security, enhances global partnerships, and powers economic growth. It is the most lethal, survivable, and connected fighter aircraft in the world, giving pilots an advantage against any adversary and enabling them to execute their mission and come home safe.” Who can argue with that? Perhaps someone should.

What the brochure didn’t mention was that, like many things within the confines of our dysfunctional military-industrial complex, its development was ten years behind schedule and more than 80% over budget. Could we have saved a few bucks if we settled for Mach 1.5 instead of Mach 1.6 speeds? If you can only fly at 1,227.63 mph and hypersonic missiles can exceed 3,800 mph, that extra decimal point might buy you an extra nanosecond of life expectancy.

None of these decisions is in my wheelhouse, they are just cause for reflection so we might consider how our nation might be better served with a little belt-tightening and maybe consider a different distribution of our precious tax dollars. It’s either that or we start taxing the very wealthy with percentages like what you and I pay. Oh, the horror. Since the very wealthy own the politicians and the courts, a fair taxing of the yachting-private jet set is not in our foreseeable future. For the record, the wealthiest 400 families pay about 8.2 percent in taxes on their incomes while the average American taxpayer pays 13 percent.

The very expensive and stealthy F-35 only came up after I read an article that discussed our war effort of 2016 in Syria and Iraq as we had a ground war with the Islamic State. That was the very first time the F-35 flew in actual combat. It was flown by Israel’s IAF. To minimize American casualties and shorten the war, it was decided that bombardment with heavy artillery would be used by our forces. American artillery crews launched hundred-pound shells at targets over fifteen miles away. They did this nonstop, twenty-four-seven. Over 10,000 times gun crews did this in a matter of months. Those on the receiving end were put out of commission, but the gun crews were also suffering a stealthy injury, unaware of the future consequences.

Much like the repeated shocks received by boxers and NFL players over time, the loud explosions that launched our artillery shells also did damage to the crews. They started having problems with nausea, memory and balance, irritability, sleeplessness, and fatigue like symptoms of someone suffering a concussion. They were all screened with normal tests designed for people suffering a single large explosion, and those tests found nothing out of the ordinary. The tests were not designed for repeated smaller blast waves. These crews had been subjected to shock waves that repeatedly reverberated through bones, tissue, organs, and the brain.

Complaints from the crews were diagnosed as ADD, depression, or PTSD, and some were given psychotropic drugs for relief. When job performance was affected, some were punished for misconduct and a few with punitive discharges which cut them off from veterans’ health care. As civilians, their marriages failed, jobs were lost, and some became homeless. Some committed suicide.

Even Heavy Hand-held Weapons
Provide Shock Waves For The Operator

Recent studies now suggest minute scarring of the brain. This has now been found in those who have been subjected to multiple shock waves as might come from cannons, mortars, RPGs, or even heavy machine guns. This microscopic tissue damage in the brain may only be found at autopsy so diagnosis is difficult. There was a limited 2016 DOD-funded study of postmortem subjects. That study compared a control group to others with chronic blast exposure (similar to the heavy artillery crews), acute blast exposure, and those with opiate exposure.

The results showed that all the chronic blast exposure subjects had unique and prominent scarring of “the subpial glial plate, penetrating cortical blood vessels, grey-white matter junctions, and structures lining the ventricles.” All subjects of acute blast exposure showed these same results. I won’t suggest that I know what this technical description means but brain damage comes to mind, no pun intended.

When I heard that such damage suffered by the heavy artillery crews could also be seen in repeated exposure to even heavy machine gun fire, I thought of Robert Card, the US Army Reserve firearms instructor who killed 18 people in Maine recently. He certainly had been around explosive gunfire. He had been previously discharged from a mental health facility after complaining of hallucinations. Would a postmortem brain analysis provide any insight?

The cost of our nation’s defense goes beyond the cost overruns of the F-35 program. There is a human cost. Our veterans deserve the best care we can provide. One way to support our troops would be to call on their services as a last resort and not as a quick solution.