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Wow

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This was a couple spots above your post in my feed. (See post he's referring to.)

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From Lapham's Quarterly... www.laphamsquarterly.org/rule-law/due...

The above was written by Lewis Lapham for Lapham's Quarterly. www.laphamsquarterly.org/rule-law/due...

This is American Christianity in a nutshell. They now believe if you’re rich that god has rewarded you.

"So-called free market" is a weird criticism of something partially caused by bone-headed tariffs. I can't read the full piece but is that more in reference to their draconian landlord system?

Nothing causes me to tear open a new issue of the NYRB like the words "by Fintan O'Toole" appearing on the cover.

I recently learned why food is green for St. Paddy’s.

'cognitive blight' what a turn of phrase dang

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@fintanmallory.com @quiteclare.bsky.social

The ending got me good.

They were doing that as part of market fixing. It's the same thing that caused the British induced famines in South Asia. European free markets couldn't tolerate the shock of lower yield seasons. So, the British would still require the same amount of shipments out of Ireland and India.

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Highly recommend Fintan's book "We don't know ourselves" for anyone interested in Irish history. It isn't comprehensive as it only covers his lifetime but it's a great account of those years.

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Sorry to be a downer, but A) the vast, vast majority of Trump supporters don’t deserve to die, despite their culpability. It’s a social problem. B) as this very story teaches us, they’ll do their best to make sure that their nationalistic out-groups—PoC and women this time—will bear the brunt.

The London Times (officially called just The Times & referred to that way in the UK)

For a modern parallel, consider the possibility of Trump cutting FEMA in general, but withholding such funds entirely from liberal states; yes, there’s a free market ideology there, but it’s *also* being applied unfairly. Now imagine 90% of the landlords in California identified as Texan…

...including the economic & political norms of the time (including wealthy landowners and merchants exporting food & laissez-faire policies), but also the historical Irish over-reliance upon the potato & the pig, allowing families to subsist on smaller pieces of land as the years passed by...

commenting so i can find this again later

bars????????? bars

Ooh that last sentence though. Chills.

After the Tory split, Russel became the PM without an election. Nor did he "win" in 1847: Tories together had a solid plurality, very close to an outright majority. But they were split: so Russell was still able to form the government.

"setting up soup kitchens" very famously altruistically, of course, no citation needed

does the author really believe the irish people just kinda Decided to make 90% of their diet potatoes? that was just a Big Tragic coincidence and not the history of imperial exploitation brought to its ugly logical conclusion? it might as well have been manufactured by the british.

True, but they were very happy to repeat the Irish genocide in India & Africa when famines happened I'm not disagreeing that the English landlord class hated the Irish poor, I'm just saying the poor part is a big part of the hate & they didn't hate the wealthy Irish & It hasn't changed much

Tbc I believe they hate all poor, but there is a hierarchial element to it, the Irish poor might have been slightly less hated than the Indian poor, they slightly less than the African poor, but more than the Scottish poor who were in turn hated more than the English poor but the hate was the key

After Brexit there was an idea floated by the likes of Farage that Ireland should be the next ones to throw off the shackles of the evil EU. They seemed surprised at Irish people's lack of enthusiasm to become the UK's smaller weaker trading partner.

Of course this was a “deliberate genocide”. No matter what the cost human animal environment the capitalist ideology has always to be maintained. Just like now.

I'm reading The Graves are Walking by John Kelly right now. A detailed book about the famine, tons of detail on destructive British policy. It is all so familiar. Many sentiments about the Irish identical to GOP talking points. It didn't end well.

Behind the Bastards has some great episodes about the great hunger.

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@lethalityjane.bsky.social ⬆️⬆️ something you might be interested in based on other comments I've seen on your feed.

bsky.app/profile/roge... If you have an hour and three-quarters to spare, the documentary I reference here is a good way to learn all you need to know about the #Famine in Ireland. It copiously cites the Atlas mentioned in Fintan's review. #speirgorm #spéirgorm

Topical detail: 9 million eggs were exported from Ireland to Britain in one year during the Famine.

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There is such a dissonance between the common perception (in the US) of the famine and its grotesque anthropogenic architecture. We are aware of the suffering, but don’t grapple with the colonialist, capitalist, and paternalistic causes.

That last line is powerful on its own...

If you’re interested in more, these are two great “sequels”. One about the fight to take back ownership of the land, and the other about how persecuted immigrants in American turned to white supremacy for safety and acceptance. The famine really gave us a historical split worth analyzing.