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Counterpunch 🥊Written by Vijay Prashad.

I am heartsick.

As a young boy, I experienced horrific sexual violence, which I have written about before and which continues to mark me even decades later. It means that I cannot tolerate anyone who exploits young children in a way that is not merely moral but physical: I am utterly repulsed by anyone who harms children and shudder when I hear anyone who even disciplines a child. Two of my children are adults, and two are still children and with each of them I have felt and feel deeply about their fragilities and their futures. For me, there are no second chances for a person who violates a child.

I read about the Jeffrey Epstein case because it hurts me greatly to read about the dangerous violence inflicted on children and young people.

But of course, it was impossible to ignore the emails between my friend and collaborator Noam Chomsky and Epstein. I have read what I can, and I have seen what I need to see. Noam has been a great mentor for me, and we have made two books together. Both books were written around the time that he was in correspondence with Epstein. 

Continue @ Counterpunch.

On The Emails Between Jeffrey Epstein And Noam Chomsky

Dr John Coulter ✍ Last week’s Special General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) in Belfast to update ministers and elders on the safe-guarding crisis which has enveloped the denomination became a soundbite paradise for anyone either reporting on it, or making notes for their congregations.

As a Presbyterian minister’s son and PCI communicant member myself, while phrases such as ‘ecclesiastical earthquake’ and the Church is ‘in trouble, make no mistake about it’, were earth-shattering enough, it was a remark by Rev David Bruce, a retired minister and convenor of PCI’s general council, which - for me personally - stuck out the most.

Mr Bruce said: 

The church must be under no illusions that things will be said to us concerning our past and current practice in areas extending beyond safe-guarding and I have absolutely no doubt that this will be challenging for us to hear.

It was the word ‘past’ which hit me like a bombshell. While the current safe-guarding crisis relates to allegations from a period in the new millennium, could historical allegations dating back generations into the past 20th century now surface in the coming weeks and months?

Look at how the Catholic Church has been hammered over the years concerning allegations and cases of clerical sex abuse. Could a similar historical crisis now be facing PCI over safe-guarding?

One thing PCI cannot do in regard to any historical allegations which may surface is sweep them behind the pulpit under the excuse that many of those involved are now dead, so what’s the point in opening old sores and wounds?

When it comes to safe-guarding issues, PCI must not hide behind the Old Testament text of Isaiah Chapter 43 and verse 18: “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.” (King James Version) In short, PCI must never adopt the view - let the past be the past and let us bury it completely and forget about it!

I recall my own upbringing as a PCI minister’s son in the north Antrim hills in the Seventies. Safe-guarding was a non-existent term for me; it was all about self-guarding.

As a young teenage born again Christian, I had at one time a theologically liberal elder for a Sunday school teacher. I learned nothing spiritually from his classes - except that I could be made an example of for being the preacher’s kid.

To lift the boredom of his class, myself and my fellow classmates would have a bit of craic. This elder was known for his short fuse and eventually he’d had enough of us misbehaving.

Rather than tell us to behave, his way of doing it was to punch me in the face in front of my chums, reducing me to tears. There is the problem we can look at this incident in the 1970s though 2026 eyes; imagine if a Presbyterian elder punched a teenager in a Sunday school class nowadays? Think of the legal action that would follow.

However, we must remember that in the Seventies, corporal punishment was still legal in Northern Ireland schools - and that also applied to Sunday schools. That liberal elder is now dead. I suppose if he was still alive, he’d be using the excuse that he needed to maintain discipline in his class and a good punch to the face of the preacher’s kid was one way of doing that.

No action was ever taken against that elder for the punch. Whilst I remain a born again Christian, I wonder how many other young folk have been put off church, and PCI in particular, and the Christian faith generally because of experiences they’ve had in a place of worship?

For me in the late Seventies, self-guarding became the key term in PCI. A particular thug in the community, known for his bullying, began to target me simply because I was the minister’s son.

What many of my chums took for granted - namely, walking from their parents’ cars to the church pew - I had to plan very carefully to avoid getting a beating from this thug. A number of my peers warned me about this thug.

I used to hide out in my dad’s minister’s room on Sunday mornings, then rush in to the church hall for the opening devotions before Sunday school and Bible class began. I kept this routine up for a number of months. Thankfully, nothing happened.

So one Sunday in the latter part of the year, I felt the coast was clear and I abandoned by routine and took my seat as usual in the church hall. I didn’t see the thug come up behind me. He landed - either by accident or by design - a well-placed kick into my lower back on the left-hand side. The pain was excruciating.

I managed to walk back to dad’s minister’s room where I collapsed on the carpet. I didn’t want a doctor called or to go to the then Ballymena Waveney Hospital as that would have given the thug the satisfaction of knowing how badly he had injured me.

This event happened around half a century ago. At first reading of this, you might conclude - you need to man up Coulter and remember Isaiah 43:18.

I wish I could, but twice a day, even now in my late sixties, I still have to take the medication as a result of that attack. It was a secret I managed to keep from that community until after both my parents passed away.

But as I take my pills for that injury, I wonder how many other folk over the years had to keep it a secret about their experiences either when safe-guarding failed, or when safe-guarding simply did not exist.

At least as a working journalist, I have a voice. I can write about my experiences. Many have chosen to remain silent. But for their own peace of mind, they need to come forward and share their experiences, current or historical.

There has been much talk in Northern Ireland about legacy issues and dealing with the past. For PCI, the past must never remain buried when it comes to safe-guarding and other issues. Now is the time for total transparency, no matter how bitter the medicine to swallow.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Safe-Guarding, Not Self-Guarding, Must Be PCI’s Future Vision

Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.


Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Ninety

 

A Morning Thought @ 3067

Anthony McIntyre ðŸ”– When I first learned of Billy Connolly I was a teenage republican prisoner in Maghaberry back in 1975.

I failed to see what the draw was.  A loud mouth Scottish guy who laughed at his own jokes and sang what seemed to be silly songs had little appeal for me. No shortage of the type hanging around the pubs of Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street, so no reason that I could see for someone in Cage F to have a Long Playing record of one of his concerts. 

For years I never got into him. Even now I could not call myself a Billy Connolly fan, having paid insufficient attention to him over the decades. I eventually warmed to him not as a result of his comedy but because of a role he played in a film about Glaswegian gangsters. He struck me as having an aptitude for acting. Slowly, his wickedly facetious sense of humour cut through whatever barrier I had erected and I grew to appreciate him. 

So when my sister gave me a book by him as a Christmas present shortly after it was published and highly recommended it, I thought I would give it a try. I completed it last week, reading a hundred pages on a bus from Galway to Dublin which left me only five or six pages to get through on the train from Dublin to Drogheda. Prior to that it had been read in hotel rooms in Limerick, Kilkenny, Ennis and Cork. Not the worst way to read a book with the title Rambling Man.

At the stage in life where I have read more books than I will ever get to read I tend to be choosy about what I pick up, always mindful of that great John McGuffin quip, made when he was dying: there are so many good books to read and still there's bastards writing more. When it comes to autobiographies my preference is for the political kind or those that trace the lives of military people operating in political conflict. Their lives, despite the narrow focus, offer a window on a broader social and political context. 

Rambling Man, I read for pleasure, and there was plenty that was pleasurable in its pages. Billy Connolly is no stranger to a life rambling along the road from one country or continent to another. It has imbued him with a respect for other peoples and their cultures. Not a religious person he values the spiritual view of the people he met in Africa or India, where he discovered belief systems that were 'a step up from the threat of roasting in hellfire for touching your willy.' Connolly has little tolerance for those who believe Jesus came not to keep you from starving but to keep you from wanking, the type that HL Mencken had such strong disdain for.  

Living in Florida, having rambled the globe, the contrast feeds his disdain for the Calvinist type. He bristles at Mark Twain books being on a banned list for Floridians who at the same time 'are allowed to ride a motorcycle without helmet or shoes.' The Lord works in mysterious ways. He even mysteriously prompted Pastor Jack Glass, a hate vendor even more trenchant than the big Bigot who once served as First Minister in the North, to picket his concerts and throw missiles at Connolly. 

Rambling Man is replete with Connolly's adventures from baking deserts to freezing ice caps. He writes about farting cows and farting dogs, takes his readers on a journey of wit and and work, the symbiosis of which has kept him on the road. He leaves his reader spoiled for choice. Pick of the bunch might be about a friend who gave his wife a large glass of whiskey at Christmas. She spat it out, asking how he could drink it. His response: 'See? You think I am out enjoying myself every night.'

That one is trumped by an even more delicious delicacy:

Australia’s got to be the luckiest country on Earth. When one of their prime ministers was apparently eaten by a shark, people in the UK went: Why didn’t we think of that? All those years we had to put up with Margaret Thatcher – and all those sharks doing nothing.

That alone makes the book worth reading, all the while hoping that Donald Trump takes a swim in the Pacific. On second thoughts, feeding sharks a bag of shit might just be considered as cruel as feeding them a pastor. 

Billy Connolly, 2023, Rambling Man: My Life On The Road. Publisher - Two Roads. ISBN: 978-1-399-80257-4

⏩Follow on Bluesky

Rambling Man

Jonathon Porritt ★  I’ve finally worked out what Tony Blair still exists for . . . 

. . .  providing comfort to future war criminals that it's still possible, as a former war criminal, to be accepted in polite society.

Blair has never been indicted as a war criminal. Of course he hasn't. But he played a pivotal role in enabling the assault on Iraq in March 2003, lying time after time, about “high level intelligence” confirming the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. George Bush would probably have invaded Iraq anyway, but Blair shares direct accountability for the chaos that ensued over the next decade — including the death of at least 500,000 Iraqi citizens.

As Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission between 2000 and 2009, I reported directly to Tony Blair for seven years. For the first three years, it was extremely rewarding. He seriously understood the significance of the climate crisis, and was interested enough in sustainable development more broadly to make it possible for the Commission to develop effective working relationships (through the Cabinet Office) with at least eight government departments. Direct access was frequent and taken seriously.

It all changed in 2003.

Continue @  Jonathon Porritt.

Tony Blair 🪶 Once A War Criminal

Friendly Atheist ★ An appeals court ruled that Kimberly Polk's religious beliefs didn't give her license to ignore district policy or harm trans kids.

In 2020, Kimberly Ann Polk applied to become a substitute teacher in the Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. She was hired in 2021 with the understanding that she could be called to fill in anywhere in the district, and there were no complaints about her performance that first year. She did the job and planned to keep doing it.

When the 2022-2023 school year began, she had to complete some basic training modules online, including one that reminded subs of the school board’s policies. One of them concerned transgender students: The board policy made clear that all teachers should respect students’ gender identities, use their preferred names and pronouns, and keep that information confidential like they would any medical issues.

Polk refused to e-sign the paperwork that said she accepted the policy. She cited her “sincerely held religious beliefs… based on her understanding of her Christian religion and the Holy Bible.”
So she asked for some kind of religious accommodation. When speaking with a district staffer about that, one possibility was that she could only substitute teach in lower grades . . . 

Court Rules Against Anti-Trans Christian Teacher Who Demanded Right To Misgender Students

Right Wing Watch 👀Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invited far-right Christian nationalist Doug Wilson to preach at the Pentagon Tuesday, reported Brian Kaylor at A Public Witness. 

Hegseth’s monthly evangelical worship services and the appearance of Wilson are signs of just how far the most aggressive forms of Christian nationalism have advanced within the MAGA movement and the Trump administration.

As Right Wing Watch has reported, Wilson is a Christian nationalist extremist who believes women should not have the right to vote. In the “Christian republic” he envisions, liberal Christians and non-Christians would not be allowed to hold public office or worship in public. He wants to see the Apostle’s Creed inserted into the U.S. Constitution.

Hegseth was criticized for apparently endorsing Wilson’s views last year when he promoted a CNN profile of Wilson with the comment, “All of Christ for All of Life.” (Hegseth eventually clarified that he supports women’s right to vote.) But Hegseth’s words and actions since then make it clear that he is intent on imposing his Christian nationalist worldview on the U.S. military.

Kaylor reported earlier that at the Feb. 5 National Prayer Service, Hegseth asserted, “America was founded as a Christian nation” and that public officials “have a sacred duty to glorify him.”

Hegseth Invites Christian Nationalist Extremist Doug Wilson To Lead Pentagon Worship Service

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Eighty Nine

 

Pastords @ 32

 

A Morning Thought @ 3066

Cam Ogie ✍ The racist abuse directed at Vinícius Júnior was not an anomaly. It was an exposure.

Vinícius, the Brazilian forward for Real Madrid, has repeatedly been subjected to racist chanting in Spanish stadiums. Each time, the ritual is familiar: outrage, condemnation, symbolic sanctions, rebranded anti-racism campaigns. Yet the incidents recur.

The recurrence is the indictment. The issue is not one chant. It is the structure that makes such abuse foreseeable.

Europe’s Political Climate and the Stadium as Echo Chamber

Racism in football does not exist separately from European politics. Across Europe — particularly in the United Kingdom — immigration has been repeatedly weaponized in electoral discourse. When migrants are framed as threats to stability or cultural cohesion, such rhetoric shapes public culture.

Under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the British government has aligned itself politically with Israel’s military campaign in Gaza while calling for humanitarian protections and ceasefire arrangements. Critics describe Israel’s actions as genocidal; the UK government does not use that terminology. Regardless of terminology, political alignment influences domestic discourse — and football institutions operate within that climate.

When a staff member at Arsenal FC reportedly lost his role after publicly expressing pro-Palestinian views, questions arose about selective neutrality. By contrast, former player Andriy Shevchenko has publicly expressed support for Israel without comparable sanction. Whether legally identical or not, the perception of asymmetry reinforces the belief that football regulates political speech unevenly.

Selective neutrality is not neutrality. It is alignment disguised as principle.

Celtic, UEFA, and the Hierarchy of Acceptable Solidarity

Supporters of Celtic FC have repeatedly displayed Palestinian flags and banners during European fixtures. Under regulations enforced by UEFA, the club has faced fines for what are classified as “political” messages.

Yet Israel’s national team and affiliated clubs continue to compete in UEFA competitions and globally under FIFA. By contrast, Russia was swiftly suspended from international football competitions following its invasion of Ukraine.

The comparison is structural.

If solidarity with Palestinians is deemed impermissibly political while state participation during large-scale military devastation proceeds uninterrupted, a troubling asymmetry emerges.

That asymmetry risks creating an implicit hierarchy of whose suffering is institutionally actionable and whose is administratively containable.

Racism is not only individual hostility. It is structural differentiation in how human lives are valued. When one population’s suffering justifies sporting exclusion while another’s generates disciplinary action against those expressing solidarity, the message conveyed — intentionally or not — is that some lives disrupt global sport and others do not.

That is not consistent with the universalist anti-racism principles UEFA and FIFA publicly promote.

The GAA, Allianz, and the Global Hierarchy of Values

This pattern is not confined to international football governance.

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), an organization historically rooted in Irish cultural identity and anti-colonial heritage, has faced controversy over its continued sponsorship relationship with Allianz.

Critics have argued that Allianz’s global activities raise ethical concerns that appear to conflict with the GAA’s stated community-centred ethos. In response, the GAA has relied heavily on procedural language — emphasizing contractual obligations, corporate independence, and neutrality — rather than directly addressing whether the sponsorship relationship aligns with its declared moral framework.

The relevance to the racism critique is not incidental.

When institutions retreat into technical language to justify continued financial relationships despite moral challenge, they participate in a broader system where economic stability outweighs ethical consistency. The hierarchy becomes visible: financial relationships are preserved; moral discomfort is managed rhetorically.

This mirrors the logic seen in global football governance:
 
  • Anti-racism campaigns are emphatic.
  • Equality slogans are prominent.
  • Human dignity is marketed as universal.

Yet when those values collide with commercial interests or geopolitical alliances, institutions pivot to procedural defensiveness.

The effect is cumulative.

If sport repeatedly signals — through sponsorship, sanctions, and speech regulation — that certain moral concerns are negotiable while others trigger decisive action, it contributes to a global hierarchy of value.

And hierarchies of human value are the structural foundation upon which racism operates.

The GAA controversy therefore is not peripheral. It illustrates how even culturally rooted sporting bodies can become embedded in global systems where capital and political alignment quietly outrank proclaimed solidarity.

The Myth That Sport and Politics Are Separate

Whenever these contradictions surface, the familiar refrain appears: “Keep politics out of sport.”

This position is unsustainable.

  • Politics determines:
  • Tournament hosts.
  • Ownership structures.
  • Sponsorship relationships.
  • Sanctions regimes.
  • Which conflicts trigger bans.
  • Which conflicts are absorbed as background noise.

The awarding of the 2026 FIFA World Cup to the United States was not apolitical. It was a geopolitical decision shaped by commercial and diplomatic considerations.

The United States has a documented history of racial terror, including the campaigns of the Ku Klux Klan. Former President Donald Trump remains a polarizing political figure facing civil judgments and legal proceedings while retaining influence.

When political actors propose alternative diplomatic mechanisms (Board of Peace) that appear to sideline institutions such as the United Nations, questions of mandate and legitimacy arise. Football governance operates within the same geopolitical ecosystem.

To claim that sport should be separate from politics while federations ban nations selectively, clubs are state-owned (Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, Newcastle Utd, Girona FC) sponsorships are geopolitically embedded, and supporter solidarity is fined is not principled. It is naïve.

Sport is not outside politics. It is structured by it.

Infantino, Access, and Moral Flexibility

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has cultivated relationships across political systems, including leaders in Saudi Arabia and Western administrations alike.

If Russia’s invasion triggers exclusion but other devastating military campaigns do not, the principle appears flexible. If supporter banners are punished while state participation is protected, neutrality appears selective.

Selective neutrality is alignment.

The Structural Nature of Recurrence

If:
 
  • Political discourse normalizes racialized hierarchies,
  • Governments align with controversial military campaigns,
  • Clubs discipline political speech selectively,
  • Federations apply sanctions unevenly,
  • Sponsorship ethics yield to commercial necessity,
  • Institutions retreat into procedural language when values are tested,

then racist abuse in stadiums is not shocking. It is structurally predictable.

Each incident involving Vinícius is treated as a scandal. Yet governance structures remain intact. Fines are absorbed. Campaigns are refreshed. Optics are managed.

The system endures.

The Core Crisis

When José Mourinho invoked Eusébio in discussions about racism, it evoked a revered Black icon of European football history. But referencing historic greatness does not resolve contemporary systemic discrimination.

Celebrating past Black excellence while failing to protect present Black players risks transforming anti-racism into symbolism rather than substance.

The frustration surrounding racist incidents is not only about individual wrongdoing. It is about accumulated contradiction.

Football presents itself as universal and inclusive. Yet it operates within — and often reinforces — systems marked by selective moral application and hierarchies of value.

The stadium reflects society’s power structures. The tragedy is not merely that racist abuse happens. It is that it happens within a global sporting order that repeatedly signals — through action more than words — that some lives, some conflicts, and some solidarities matter more than others.

Until values are enforced consistently — across nations, across conflicts, across speech, across sponsorship — incidents like those faced by Vinícius will not feel exceptional. They will feel inevitable.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

The Predictable Scandal 🪶 Racism, Power, And The Structural Hypocrisy Of Modern Football

Common Dreams ★ Written by Olivia Rosane.

Making the film taught Martin that “it is completely undeniable” that the US military “is the greatest threat to all living things on Earth.”

It’s a commonly repeated statistic that the US military is the world’s largest institutional polluter, but what exactly does that mean?

The quest to find a real answer to that question led journalist and documentary filmmaker Abby Martin and her husband and co-director Mike Prysner on a five-year journey from defense contractor conferences and international climate gatherings to the Rim of the Pacific military training exercises and the fight against the construction of a military base in Okinawa that would fill in its iconic Oura Bay.

The result is Earth’s Greatest Enemy, released this year independently through Martin and Prysner’s own Empire Files, with editing by Taylor Gill and an original score by Anahedron. The film uses personal narrative, research, investigative reporting, interviews, and live footage to detail all the ways in which the Pentagon poisons the planet, including greenhouse gas emissions, the ecocide of war, and the toxins left behind long after the fighting has stopped."When you combine all of this, it is completely undeniable that this force that is upheld by extreme violence is the greatest threat to all living things on Earth,” Martin told Common Dreams.

Continue @ Common Dreams.

Abby Martin’s New Documentary Takes On ‘Earth’s Greatest Enemy’

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