Casement's Leftovers

Donald Trump loves to talk about tariffs, and people love to panic about them. But what exactly are they? Are they really all that new? And what does Trump's fondness for them say about our the current state of liberalism?

Listen to this episode for answers to at least one or two of those questions.

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What can we say really

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There's a reason we chose Roger Casement as the symbol for this podcast: a queer figure in Irish revolutionary history (queer here meaning gay, a failure and truly disruptive) and a genuine anti-imperialist who saw through a persuasive ideological hegemony in order to understand the brutality and illegitimacy of colonialism and dedicated his life to fighting it, he represents an active, civic republicanism that offers the contemporary Left so much.
It's about time we dedicated an episode to him, and so Helen and Glen are joined by Professor Gerry Kearns to discuss Casement's life and the lessons we can take from his actions and ideas. They examine his cruising and the intersectional spaces of encounter that this carved out for him, his ability to identify and articulate the problems of colonialism in an explicitly socialist, materialist way, the importance he placed on love and humanity and his haunting final speech before his execution.
They debate the limits of cultural nationalism, specifically with a 1916 framework, and look at how nationalism can be expanded through a re-imagining of the nation, an impetus on what kind of nation you want to build, and a centring of love, loyalty, legitimacy and humanity. As if this wasn't enough, they finally discuss contemporary colonialism and how unregulated late stage capitalism has led us into a world as confusing and inhospitable as the one Casement faced, and use Casement's many lessons to try to understand how to make our way into a future he would be proud of.
Prof Gerry Kearns has written a piece on Casement which can be read here: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/11094/1/Kearns%2CNally%2CAn%20accumulated%20wrong.pdf
*Note: around 19 minutes in Gerry mentions Thomas Davitt, but this should actually be corrected to Michael Davitt.

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So, when are we gonna start REALLY taxing fags?

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The liberal fantasy of civil debate is dead and gone: we live in an age of post truth and conspiracy theories, and we need new arguments and methods to tackle the growing far right, who will use every trick in the book. In the second half of this emergency miniseries Helen and Glen debunk the ideologies, methods and myth-making of the Irish far right. Why do they use revolutionary figures from the likes of the 1916 Rising to promote their conservative values? How is it possible that the Left and the Right in Ireland can have the same heroes? Do they have any legitimate concerns? And most importantly, how can we fight back?

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