Andew Black on 8 million and on last table of Poker World Series
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Friday July 15, 2005 14:55
by Joe
You don't get many sport stories on indymedia but is poker a sport
Ex student activists from the late 1980's might remember the name of TCD student and general trouble maker Andrew Black. Well tonight he is on the last table of the Los Vegas 'World Poker Series' with some 8 million dollars in chips sitting in front of him. This puts him at a real chance of winning as the table leader is only on 10 million. The prize money if over 2 million but getting to the last table will gurantee him at least 300,000.
Andrew will be remembered by other indymedia readers who were active in that period as a bit of a nuttier who spent quite a while going around with half a beard on one side of his face. He was one of the ring leaders of 'the collective' a loose libertarian grouping of students who stoked up the heat on a few USI marches, and occupied Fianna Fail and the National Art Gallery (Haughey was opening something or the other).
Those who took part in the 3 week 1987 occupation of the Accommodation building in TCD will remember the debate towards the end of it when Andrew argued that we should keep escalating our demands (the college had agreed to the inital set) and never leave.
He has been in the poker World Series the last few years after a spell as a Buddist. The World series is basically a huge winner takes all elimination game of 'Texas Hold Em'. The inital entry is 10,000 (which many players raise by playing a pre-winner takes all of 10 players with a stake of a grand each).
Each initial table of 10 is played until one person has all the chips and that person then moves onto a table where each of the 9 players has won their table. Then the winner of that table moves up in turn until only one table it left.
Play resumes at midnight Irish time you can catch up with key hands and hear an interview with Andrew (which will confirm the story to those of you going - it can't be) at
Comments (40 of 40)
Great to hear the reminiscences of TCD in the late 80s.
Those were the days when being a student still meant something more than just getting your degree!
Did someone mention "Electric Soup"????
Reading the above has brought on a flashback from november 1988. A meeting of anarchos (all six of us!) in a non-descript room somewhere off Front Square. Aileen O'Carroll and Andrew were defintely there as were a few others who will remain nameless. It was a week before the so-called Irving "debate" which we were hoping to upstage. Andrew was the one suggesting a bomb scare in the Hist which as I recall was the most constructive proposal we had at the time... Good too see his innate sense of tactical advantage has stood to him over time!
JD, great to hear you're on the pig's back. I'll be dropping you a line.
Pete S (French Pierre)
Nice memories..
Gerry F- if you email me your email/address contact details I can put Andy in touch with you,
jd
Andrew Black is a person who is great fun and who you can have a good conversation with and an old friend of mine. So if you are reading this (which no doubt you will) give me a shout and we can go for some electric soup and yak about the days of yore in Botany Bay.
"The first time I saw him he was attempting to throw a pint over Shane Ross, then and now TCD Senator and currently Business Editor of the Sunday Independent. Andrew had delivered a ferocious speech in the Hist with Ross sitting in the chair in which Andrew claimed Ross had pushed through some legislation connected with house improvement grants and was the first person to claim one of the grants. Having failed to aim the pint exactly at Ross (it hit the Auditor, Anthony Whelan, instead) it took four people to carry him from the debating chamber. That was Andrew! "
P.S.
Andrew is a good guy. I shared a flat with him my last year. Also him and Eddie Manning (a true son of the Dublin working class!) stayed for a while in my rented flat in London. Haven't seen him since but he's got a welcome if he ever turns up. As for whoever wondered what I'm doing....living in the country with hens, a dog and a garden and always remembering the shock at 40, which I was when I went to TCD, of coming face to face with the corrupt spoiled children of the southern rich and the majority of decent students. They know who they are. All those first preference votes proved who were the majority.
be realistic demand the impossible
free your ass and your mind will follow
It' s weird reading all the crap written, and suprising too the recall of those who were in the Presidential Collective, to give it it's correct name. Basically, I was asked by some people to run for president of the union enough times to say eventually to those people to meet together. I put it to them that the post of president be abolished, the presidental room,board and expenses be given to a student from the poor part of Dublin. We decided to run in the election as the Presidential Collective. Needless to say the idiots running the union, the so called left and the rabid right came together to block us. At a packed union meeting when the vote came the class delegates voted in our favour. It had been decided that classes would be canvased but apart from one I addressed myself and a stall set up in the foyer of the Arts building I don't think much was done. But enough people knew about the antics of the Hist, the Phil, the union officers(with the usual exceptions that prove the rule) the capitation committe, the C.S.C. and all the other crap. At the election count there was consternation in the faces of the above when the Presidential Collective got the highest number of first preference votes.
I remember also that a comment Andrew made to me just then indicated that he felt it was a personal triumph, for him at least. I realised that my original suggestion hadn't been understood by him and that politics do inflate egos. (If politics changed anything it would be illegal)
A few other remarks while I'm here...the slogan was-no more mothers, no more fathers, no more sisters, no more brothers, from this on only friends , comrades and lovers. Just another way of saying you're an adult now. There were no shortage of fascists in the college, among students,left and right, and among the staff. David Irving came to 1988 I see....several years after all this. And I never heard of the bubble gang
Such was the rumour at the time....
Funny how irrelevant the SU was to most of us.
Sounds deadly all the same.
It probably needs to be said that 'the collective' was a rather loose label used by a couple of 'generations' of students in the years from around 1985 to around 1991. I missed phase 1 (described above) and was unaware of a lot that had happened.
The 'bubble gang*' was very much phase 2 or even 3 depending on where you put it in terms of the great constitutional debate of '87/'88 where Marty had his new 'model constiution' shreded by amendments from the collective passed at an SU assembley. That was OK as afterwards he discovered a bit in the old constitution that said all votes should involve holding up your SU card and as this hadn't been done (for some time) he simply overturned the result of that assembly.
He got most (but not all) of his constitution through second time around and I think part of that was a ban on collectives standing for positions because the years that followed saw a 'spoil your vote' and later still a 'soil your vote' campaigns.
I think the last action in the spirit of the collective happened with the opening of the O'Reilly building in the science end (1990ish). College and the SU officers (the president was then RTE's Mark Little - who never knowingly harmed a sheep) had negotiated that there would be no protests to spoil Tony's day. But the night before the grand opening persons unknown had sprayed in 6 foot gold letters (no metric in those days) down the entire side of the building 'Dedicated to those O'Reilly exploits'.
I think Andrew was long gone at that stage.
(which sounds like something even Dunc wouldn't make up), it's interesting that the Collective has come up on this thread, a fairly minor blip on the radar screen of Irish student politics, or so I would have thought.
While all histories involving the writer as participant are naturally subjective, some of the comments above have got me thinking of just how serious a proposition the Collective was and how it came about.
Most of us were actually History students who had met on the Dunnes Stores picket and subsequently worked together on the anti-Reagan campaign and on various S.U. issues, the medical card, fee increases etc. etc. There were also a couple of language and music students. It was not a formal group in any sense of the word, people drifted in and out. It wasn't overtly anarchist either, but perhaps leaning in that direction...
Our theoretical grounding as libertarians was honed on discussions about pre-plantation Gaelic societies in Ulster and the Spanish Civil War. We read 'On the Poverty of Student Life' (some of us doubtless in the original French). We drank as much as we could afford, smoked blow whenever we got it and listened to stuff like big fLAME and Delbert McClinton. We engaged in petty theft, mostly books and food, were mostly vegetarian and rode bikes. Popularist we weren't!
We were active within the S.U. and preferred occupations to marches. During an occupation, an alternative centre of power would often emerge, leaving the elected officers who were inside with us in a position where they weren't in control of events. Most of the time they led the capitulation and we'd be the ones pulled out later by the cops. Nothing terribly rad so far.
By this stage, a bunch of us were working on the S.U. magazine, Aontas, were involved in Community Action and would have been well known heads around the S.U. We tried to run the mag as an 'editorial collective' (2 words which still stick in my gut... a bit like 'student politics') but the Union wasn't having any of it. Funnily enough, this situation suited the elected editor, who went on to be part of the Collective. He's now a senior Foreign Office mandarin on the Africa desk in Whitehall. But I digress.
The Collective became a formal entity at a meeting about 4 weeks before the S.U. elections, where about 10-15 of us decided to run for president collectively in order to abolish the post. The scam wasn't terribly well thought out, but it was generally aimed at the careerists who were using the S.U. to compromise any radicalism that had survived within the student body into the '80s.
Nothing new was happening... the S.U. was a club more concerned with buraucracy than with student issues. Some of us were particularly into outreach, bringing local kids into Trinity to use the facilities. The S.U. wasn't up for that at all (funny to look at where Philip Watt is now!). There was enough apathy down the Science end to get some support from the jocks, while we had a lot of support within the Union, enough together to win the day.
Most involved at this stage wouldn't have called themselves anarchists. As someone has pointed out above, there was a fair Shinner element and as we became more visible, others joined us from out of the woodwork. There was definately no hierarchy and decisions were taken collectively after a general discussion (none of this hand wagging business either).
We published 1 issue of 'Dissent', which was banned by the senior dean (or was it? Well, according to the S.U. it was!). It naturally sold out and we even made a few quid on it (which was spent on cider if I remember correctly). A group of jocks also set themselves up as the Collective, in order to split the vote, not that we cared. The S.U. leadership had their chosen one (Marty Whelan, later a FF press spinner) shitting himself that his annointed role would be denied him and the S.U. executive then tried to pass a motion removing us from the ballot paper, on the basis that the constitution, where it referred to the president, referred to he or she and not they!!!!
In retrospect, none of us were ready for the attacks that came from various directions on our sexual preferences and private lives, I mean this was student politics for Jaysus sake! As History students, most of us (approaching our finals) enjoyed good relations with the staff, who were now telling us to watch our backs. The head of college security had been keeping files on various bods for a while and they were all passed on to the Branch (we felt really dangerous after we heard that one, but were rather surprised to have had our gaffs pulled apart a year or two later in the search for various kidnap victims. The cops had been told that as anarchists, kidnapping was our forte!). The best one was the rumour that we were secretive Maoists who had supported Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (we had used No Daddies! No Mammies! a a slogan).
As it happened, we came second. Not that we really cared, or did we? I for one withdrew from student politics and did something more constructive with my time. I remember visiting the occupation referred to above with another ex-student Collectivist and feeling rather proud that something was at last starting to happen in Trinity. I remember in particular where a decision was made at a general meeting not to share razors because of the risk of HIV-Aids (this must have been in 1987?). Students had now, it appeared, the confidence to articulate, discuss and take positive action for themselves. Marty sulked in the corner.
As for the rest of the Collectivists, I'm looking at the single issue of 'Dissent' at the moment. The content is unfortunately mostly rubbish.There's the aforementioned F.O. mandarin's name on the bottom of the page, along with that of a bloke who now writes for the Sunday Times (he just did a good piece on Rossport). Another bloke from Community Action is there, a woman who I think was involved in the republican movement and myself. Others involved big time were Andrew (and in the original spirit of this thread, the very best of luck to him!) and Gerry Flanagan, probably the only true anarchist among us.
I think that if we'd really had the support/influence that people suggest we had, the WSM would probably now have its own fund raising tent at the Galway Races. As for the Bubble Gang, now supposedly well represented in DGN and in various universities... well that has to be a wind up. Isn't it?
Anyway...
All power to the Collective! No Mammies! No Daddies!
David Irving addressed a History society meeting in 1988 at QUB.
His take on the Holocaust was a simple "intellectual" arguement that as there was no historical evidence linking Hitler to the death camps, then historically you could not make an arguement connecting him to these deaths...
David Irving was exposed for the fraud and white supramist that he is, by his own warped arguement..in his own words...it was good to hear the master race's whine in person.
Never knew the source of 'bubble gang' onto now. It wasn't something we called ourselves - that was 'the collective' if anything at all.
Mannix your a little wrong on TCD security (as they prefer to be called because its better paid). As I remember it the SITPU branch took the decision to refuse to provide any extra coverage on the night which meant that all the college had on hand was the Junior Dean (who was told to fuck off when he asked for ID cards early on the night) and I think one scabby non union member. For those of us who wanted to shut the meeting down rather than have it banned this was exactly what we wanted so no complaints there.
The Sparts didn't actually exist in Ireland at the time - one of the people who played a big role in organising things did later join them for a while but he has long since left for another party. The major on campus organisation was done by the 'Socialist Society' a broad combination of young libertarians and republicans and older orthodox trotskyists. But lots of people came along on the night, many from off campus.
A final story - this was one of the winters before the coal ban was introduced in Dublin and there was a thick smog down that night. One of FF Mininister Brian Lenehans sons was involved in hosting Irving and when they managed to sneak him into the building four hours before the meeting he came out to announce that 'The Eagle has landed'. He was told it wasn't over yet and indeed they spent 12 hours trapped in the building until we dispersed in the early hours of the morning. I don't think he was one of the fascists just an idiot liberal they were using who hadn't quite realised what was really going on.
yes well actually the name bubble gang was generated by freddie, hector's brother, and was put into circulation by pirhana, then a fine publication....
one of course remembers andew arriving in college with the half beard and getting a 2 1 law degree, exceedingly bright... and deserving of our admiration, as he gambled quite a bit in college, giving generously to those around him from his winnings,
...one also remembers the triple trinity debate in the ed burke when in fairly frivilous affiar andew was quite pointed particularly to lord rees mogg.....[in fact black won that and got some sort of a minor trophy and major bottle of whiskey]....
thank you for the days....
that should have said "There is no such body as the " Trinity College Dublin Literary and
Debating group"...
and not
"There is no such body as the Institute for Historical Review group.."
"I think it a mistake to debate the fascist issue as pro or anti 'free speech'. The issue at the time was whether we were going to allow the little fascist cell in college to publicly organise. Irving wasn't just someone with very odd historical views but an active recruiter for fascism - specifically with the goal of recruiting an intellectual fascist cadre from campuses. So proving him to be an idiot in front of 98% of students was futile when his goal was to organise the 1% (or less) that already agreed with him."
"Given that the little cell went on to try and stage a commemoration of Hitlers birthday and then arranged an off campus attack on those who stopped them doing so it seems clear that it was a good thing that the Irving meeting was unable to go ahead. And that it was militant opposition rather than a college ban that stopped him - at the time we were very clear that a ban was not what we wanted."
Agreed. But only with hindsight is this "organising" point well made, so there should lessons for many from this episode, from 15-20 years ago, that apply today. Nostalgia for some, sure (especially if you admit to being 35+) but, for others, something to learn from, too.
Although some of the protesters realised the issue of fascist organisation at the time (AFA for example), most *did not and *could not, and remained opposed to Irving for different reasons.
The opposition was a disparate coalition of Trinity, student and outside bodies (SU, USI, AFA, Swimmies, Labour Yoof, Sparts, Anarchists, Sinn Fein, bubble gangers, Finbarr Cullen Co-Op people, Anti-Apartheid, Jewish organisations, individual students who couldn't stand the odious people involved, et cetera) that didn't agree on a central plank why they were opposing the event.
Some key players were also notably absent. For example, although the (all unionised) "porters" (please - you have to call them "security") *did stop some skinheads at the gate of the college, it was *not anything that they hadn't done before and could hardly be interpreted as a gesture of support (for example, they stopped skinheads at the Bad Manners Freshers Ball in Sept '86). The trade unions in the college (I think Jack McGinley was the SU SIPTU convener there at the time) did nothing concrete to stop Irving. But then, when did SIPTU in Trinity *ever support student demands then?
Similary, the Central Societies Committee, the college body that "controlled" the finances of student societies (paid for my student capitation) could have intervented and told the meeting organisers where to stick it, but didn't. Hardly surprising, given that a cabal of smirking Trinity Fianna Fail members and sneaking admirers were in control of the CSC at the time.
The mass action methods used to deter fascist "organisation" - even if this was seen as little more than "dabbling" at that point by most - worked on the night, but I question if they were right in the long term. Sure, mass action is great and gets the blood up and undoubtedly radicalised some people. However, a better way to deter these "fascist" twits would have been an economic disincentive - to publicise their behaviour with material sent to the merchant banks, US universities, management consultancies, accountancy firms, EC and governmental bodies, and the law bodies that these people were all applying to for jobs or positions at the time (of course, this is a tactic to bear in mind with other such college "fascists" in future).
There is a photograph in existence of Irving having dinner with the meeting organisers inside the Graduates Memorial Building (GMB) in Trinity College Dublin (the location of the meeting). Possibly, the students laughing along with Irving imagined themselves as "bright young gay things" of the "flirting with fascism" tradition of the 1930's, and were delighted with the publicity. The rest of us were not so amused or convinced by their "Brideshead Revisited" antics.
Some of these students were unpleasant people generally, who liked to act as gauche public schoolboys and deliberately offend people, and others were naive or misguided. They are all equally culpable. Although hardly a potential Moseley among them, Irving, on the other hand, clearly was a line that they should not have stepped over. At the end of his trial, the judge found that Irving was "an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist and that he associates with right wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism".
Here's what Irving said in his final statement during the famous libel trial where he came to grief (if you want the sources for these, then e-mail me):
"I am not, and never have been, an official of the Institute for Historical Review (IHR); at most, one of many friendly advisers. As for speaking engagements, my association with the IHR has been the same as my association was with, for instance, the Cambridge University Fabian Society, or the Trinity College Dublin Literary and Debating group, or any other body of enlightened people keen to hear alternative views."
There is no such body as the Institute for Historical Review group (it was the University Philosophical Society, UPS, or "The Phil" on this occasion). He furthermore said elsewhere:
"Hitherto everyone pointed to the 1983 Trinity College Dublin riot as grounds not to invite me (that was when 500 Jews - as I was told next day, having been trapped inside the debating chamber myself - materialised from nowhere and barricaded the building until 3 a.m., inflicting painful material damage on its historic facade). They and the Traditional Enemies of the Truth."
1983? 500 Jews materialising from nowhere? Both wrong. One small window in the GMB was broken...
It's extremely unlikely any overt mass fascist organisation could have happened inside Trinity. However, the "abuse" of every student's money (or capitation fee) or college property for the purposes of some arseholes from the Inviters of Irving or the Hitler Birthday Party was not only offensive but the prospect of deliberate holocaust denial and fellow travelling of Nazism within our midst menacing.
But, because of the grandstanding that went on during the night in question, the long term issue of fascist organisation was lost. The day after the night of the protest in question, Irving was able to walk with two female students from Trinity unhindered down O'Connell Street and into Easons in broad daylight, making enquires there. That the organizers of the Irving meeting included the offspring and relatives of then current and past Irish politicians was a disgrace. That some were also part of the "Tuesday Club" (those idiots and their confederates who celebrated Hitler's Birthday Party - there were women involved too) while some of them had laughed at the Irving event as a great way to piss off the Jewish "curator" (David Lass) of the Bram Stoker "collection" that was housed in the same building that *the holocaust denier was to speak in, were all points that should have been made more strongly and not forgotten.
And, of course, you know who was on hand to sing the praises of some of these people in the "Irishman's Diary".
Incidentally, these "Happy Birthday Adolf" students went onto positions and jobs in the City, the EU, in law, and in research. The alleged skinhead paymaster is currently a lawyer, located in southern Europe. I know one of this shower is in academia in a country that has little time for holocaust deniers, another is doing their best to act out some fantasy as a Tory MP by getting into leather S+M (wonder if that person has an SS cap to match?).
On the opposing side, the Trinity Sparts (a tiresome group of ex-Labour Militants, Gramsci-spouting frauds, Bros heads narcissists, and 2CV-driving ninnies with too much money) went onto university lecturing jobs and positions in the UK and Irish State and the rest. I hope Red Ken and comrades of the TCD Swimmies are still fighting a good fight. Didn't agree with them, but they were for real.
History, take note.
The "Bubble Gang" was a label given to the group of male and female students in Trinity College im the mid 80’s who had a very distinctive dress style (crusty-meets-grunge-meets-pipe smoking fogey-meets-anorak-meets cross-dressing), but, more importantly, a political outlook on the world that was an eclectic mix of environmentalism, anarchy, and some kind of autonomous community organisation (I recall a bunch of them used to hang around the Community Action office in No. 6 of TCD’s front square, but this was convenience).
If I'm not mistaken there *may a couple of greens involved that went onto Dublin County Council positions later. The core of the "gang" appeared to be Science students, though others studied History, English, Engineering and so on.
The name "Bubble Gang" came from the fact that one of the most identifiable (Andrew "King" Bubble) wore glasses that looked like two bubbles on his face (yeah, yeah, I know it's not Jonathan Swift - or Baader Meinhoff material either - but what the fuck). I think they have remained all fairly committed to their then beliefs to this day – some now are major players in Irish grassroots and anarchy organizations, are in education (lecturers and teachers), and so on. I've no doubt they were serious at the time, but knew their limitations, being able to argue the finer points of collective organisation while laughing their arses off at Buster Gonad in Viz comic. However, they remained largely marginal to the interests of majority of students ot student activists in Trinity Students Union (SU), as does the politics of anarchy and autonomy that the main remnants of the Bubble Gang still profess today.
Their first real outing into the mainstream of Trinity student politics, through the "collective" in 1986 (I think). They fell foul of electoral rules and a good deal of resistence from the student union "establishment".
The "collective" that ran for Students Union Sabbatical Officer election, was made up of some members of the bubble gang, greens, socialists, republicans and 2 Northern students of note –Gerry Flanagan (hitting 50, wonder what happened him) and Andrew Black. Basically the idea was that a group of people could be SU president, taking decisions collectively (and I presumed, splitting up the 70 quid a week salary and student accommodation between themselves too). I don't know of a similar feat being attempted or succeeding in any other college in Ireland, anyway. The bould Marty Whelan won the election for President.
Black wasn't into Buddhism at the time. I do remember him doing security at a student ball – he was very effective, but not very meditative. He was, and still is, a nice guym though the Malone Road accent combined very badly with his Subcommandante Marcos whine.
Maybe it's worth an Wikipedia entry (joke).
Us youthful WSMers will make this question the first item on the agenda of Tuesday's branch meeting. Everything else will moved down the agenda!
Warms my cockles
"Unfortunately, the recent incidents with Mr. Barrett in UCD show what there are many people who would do better to adopt Black's position rather that the "No Platform for Fascists" mentality which denies EVERYONE the right to speak. Then then, they, like me, fall into the young and stupid category, I suppose."
If you were there, you might have been surprised to see a quite large anti-fascist crowd sit through the several racist anecedotes and minutes of gibberish coming from your one Ni Conail. Barret was stopped speaking, not EVERYONE, as you make the mistake of assuming. When he was stopped the L and H pulled the plug on the debate despite protesters encouraging it to carry on...
.
The casino next to the homeless shelter I work in was showing a live broadcast.
Well that drifted off in some interesting directions.
I think it a mistake to debate the fascist issue as pro or anti 'free speech'. The issue at the time was whether we were going to allow the little fascist cell in college to publically organise. Irving wasn't just someone with very odd historical views but an active recruiter for fascism - specifically with the goal of recruiting an intellectual fascist cadre from campuses. So proving him to be an idiot in front of 98% of students was futile when his goal was to organise the 1% (or less) that already agreed with him.
Given that the little cell went on to try and stage a commemoration of Hitlers birthday and then arranged an off campus attack on those who stopped them doing so it seems clear that it was a good thing that the Irving meeting was unable to go ahead. And that it was militant opposition rather than a college ban that stopped him - at the time we were very clear that a ban was not what we wanted.
As a further illustration later that year or early the next year one of the debating societies had Mosleys widow (who was also a fascist) in to speak. As she no longer seemed to be acvive in any real way we just ignored her.
As for the anarchist position - well its probably worth saying that the anarchist response the emergance of the first fascist movement in Italy was to argue for and help form the Arditi del Popolo. "Even as the association was being founded, its first successes arrived - the defence of Viterbo against the Perugian blackshirt attack - and at Sarzana where about 20 fascists were killed."
http://anarchism.ws/history/italy/ArditidelPopolo.html
All of which is a long way from a poker game - anyone know if it was being filmed?
Absolute free speech is an anarchist position.
Absolute free speech? A position advocated mainly by those not affected by it. And Ex-JCR-Head miscontrues the argument if I recall it correctly. In my recollection the Bubble Gang argued that the College authorities should not be appealed to to "ban" Irving because they (an embryonic State) could then use that power/precedent to ban others: instead it was up to the students to decide whether or not they wanted fascist organisers on campus.
The amoral, insulated, publicity-seeking children in the Phil/Hist didn't care as long as they had a nice controversial speaker.
Bubble-Gangers and others (including prominent SWPers at the time) argued that the fascist filth was using "debates" as an excuse to organise fascist cells that would attack the usual targets. Irving's own published statements to the League of St. George and the historical record of increased numbers of attacks after his "debates" supported that idea.
Indeed, on the night in question, the College porters turned away skinheads (thus averting what might have been an interesting confrontation given the preparations made).
Later, some of the unsocialised children with nasty tendencies, tried to celebrate Hitler's Birthday and were picketted by a certain Spartacist and others. The picketters were later attacked in the Coffee Inn by skinheads who were introduced to them by one particular law student with a gallically pretentious surname.
In short: Black got it wrong. Yes he was young, but if I compare the current activities of a poker-playing Buddhist versus some very effective activists I'd suspect that individualist lifestyle anarchism (=libertarianism) versus communist anarchism leads to the latter being more effective in terms of social change.
In short: fuck absolute Free Speech and it's supporters.
Happy Birthday Andrew (40th on Wednesday) and well done
Belfast poker player snaps up €1.45m
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-1697375,00.html
The Battle between Black and Kanter
'On the very next hand, Black and Kanter went heads up in the biggest hand of the tournament to date. After the flop, Black bet $500,000 and Kanter raised to $1.6 million. Black then quickly re-raised to $6.6 million. Kanter, after several minutes of deliberation and a lot of half-smiles from Black, folded his hand and Black won the huge pot to give him a commanding lead with $18.23 million in chips.'
Read full story
http://www.lodinews.com/articles/2005/07/16/news/1_kanter_050716.txt
As I recall, Black's position, at the time, was pretty much that of Voltaire, which does not seem unreasonable.
You have to contrast that with those who clearly were in favour of Irving's position, and those who just want to bait the left, some nuts who ended up in RSF, crypto-fascists, jew-haters, and those who wanted to get as many punters into the seats as possible, with maximum publicity.
Opposing were people like Kader Asmal (http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/asmal-k.htm), who was a law lecturer there, at the time, who were well able to argue the case against (basically, you don't afford freedoms to those that do no reciprocate them), David Lass, Jewish organizations (I think the British Board of Jewish Deputies issued a statement), Anti-Racist associations, Labour Party (Ivana Bacik was also vocal), and so on. True, there were left-wing organizations who might have used the occassion to examine their own historical origins, but didn't.
It was a disgusting move to invite Irving by some people in the University Philisophical Society in my opinion, and what they failed to realize was that there was an element of opposition based on the fact that *they were the offensive personalities, not Irving.
Unfortunately, the debate surrounding the night in question left a worse taste in people's mouths than the incident itself - the contribution of the likes of Kevin Myers in the Irish Times, in particular, was unhelpful. Stupid as it sounds there are alumni of Trinity College who, to this day, will not speak to each other.
Although I objected to Irving's presence at the time, with reflection I can see that Black had a better position - allow him to speak and knock down his argument with arguments of your own. It would not have been a difficult thing to dismantle Irving's arguments.
Unfortunately, the recent incidents with Mr. Barrett in UCD show what there are many people who would do better to adopt Black's position rather that the "No Platform for Fascists" mentality which denies EVERYONE the right to speak. Then then, they, like me, fall into the young and stupid category, I suppose.
Absolutist position on free speech..as in Voltaire? What's wrong with that?
Man, I did a Catholic Worker two month tour of duty in Las Vegas. Weird town, the dark side of Disneyland. They were testing nukes 60 miles from town (think they might be starting that up again real soon!)... Andrew's gotta be a breath of fresh air for that place!
Student politics..well everyone's got the right to be young and stupid. Cut'em some slack!
What rates as newz on this wire is pretty subjective....I guess becoming a Buddhist professional poker player might be a good role model for the yoof of our movement. Sounds a lot less compromised than others who emerged from that particular bubbel (not that it's a competition!)
Yes, the collective actually was a pretty diverse group, politically. Their aims and objectives should all be pretty much documented in the students publications from Trinity which were archived in the Trinity and NUI Libraries, as well as the British, Scottish and Welsh libraries, if you're interested in researching it.
The current "members" of DGN would know more.
Look for the editions of Aontas and Trinity News from 1985-90. Go back to the late 70's early 80s it you want to see what Joe Duffy (yes, RTE Talk to Joe, Joe Duffy) was saying then too
At the time of their running, I think the president of the SU was Philip Watt, now director of director of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI), and Bernie Dwyer was vice-president ( now with the Cuba Ireland solidarity group - she talks w/ chomsky at http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20031028.htm).
So, I don't think its true to make a sweeping judgement about student activists ending up betraying what they were saying then, tho' clearly a lot have.
Marty Whelan was the one who made the famous "make the college shit in its pants" speech at the occupation in 87. I was very surprised he didn't make it into RTE with such eloquence...tho' Marty wasn't in the Labour Party or the Stickies, so he might not have been wanted then anyway...
Interestingly enough, after the David Irving episode, a bunch of people in Trinity formed a thing called the Tuesday Club (apeing the Tory Monday Club), among their activities was celebrating Hitler's birthday. They then spent much time covering up this fact when they realized that the merchant banks they were applying to for jobs, were owned by members of the Jewish faith. So, the volte-face worked both ways. Sadly, many of them were employed.
Anyway, I am sure this is boring to everyone, but if you want to research where/how Joe Duffy, Quentin Letts of the Telegraph, Mark Little of RTE, Ted Harding (ex) of the Sunday Business Post, David McWilliams of Talk 106, and Ramor from Chiapas started, then you know where to start...
View interesting anecdotes here for those still hanging around the colleges. Amazing how activism in colleges vanishes from the map and we seem to return to an accepted leadership of FF et al, despite there being existing left projects in recent years.
Any more on the Collective?
Yes. That's him then. I don't think it's fair to lump the Bubble Gang in with him. Just because they all called themselves anarchists doesn't mean that Andrew Black shared much with them politically. Anyway, this is all very fascinating but doesn't have much news value.
Yes, I believe it is the same lad ...
This e-mail can be contextualised by some of today's political dynamics:
"Andrew will be remembered by other indymedia readers who were active in that period as a bit of a nuttier who spent quite a while going around with half a beard on one side of his face. He was one of the ring leaders of 'the collective' a loose libertarian grouping of students who stoked up the heat on a few USI marches, and occupied Fianna Fail and the National Art Gallery (Haughey was opening something or the other)."
Actually, Andrew studied Law in Trinity College Dublin, and his tiresome Norn Iron whine was the bane of college authorities and fellow-students alike.
True, he was part of "the collective" who attempted to run for the position of Students' Union president en mass in 86 I think, but this was ruled out of order. Other "famous" members of "the collective" included various anarchist people from Trinity's "Bubble Gang" who have now landed lecturing jobs in UCD and Maynooth (including the one who like to wear a dress) and are active in Dublin Grassroots Network, as well as Gerry Flanagan who spent his life looking for the Trinity Ball accounts and is still looking.
"Those who took part in the 3 week 1987 occupation of the Accommodation building in TCD will remember the debate towards the end of it when Andrew argued that we should keep escalating our demands (the college had agreed to the inital set) and never leave."
Interestingly, the leader of this was Marty Whelan, the PLO-scarf wearing radical from Enniscorthy (and president of the SU) who later ended up working as one of Bertie's advisors, monitoring radio programmes, on a plush salary. Mark Little was there too. In fact, just about everyone in Trinity College bar the bloody Provost joined the famous "occie". It ended in farce, looking like the aftermath of a Big Brother program.
The Andrew Black who stood up in front of the SU and argued for an absolutist free speech position: "I'd talk to anyone, I'd talk to Hitler .... I'd talk to Saddam Hussein?"
That guy?
He looked pretty groovey on the RTE teev newz wearing his peace sign, dharma, smiley facet-shirt. Nice conntrast to the stetsons and cowboy boots!
"Each initial table of 10 is played until one person has all the chips and that person then moves onto a table where each of the 9 players has won their table. Then the winner of that table moves up in turn until only one table it left."
Not correct. The World Series is played on a "texas tears' style... i.e. the remaining tables are levelled off (if one has 9 players and one has 7 then the next BB is moved from the big table to the small tables).
Not a big deal... unless you're playing!
Yup he was our next door neighbour when the Catholic Worker was in Rialto Cottages. Good guy, nice neighbor, still a Buddhist.
Yeah looks like he 'lost' a few million on that hand as further down he 'had' around 16 million.
Good luck to him. I wish I was there. 10 grand though. And they dont play for fun in Binions.
What's with the 'out'ed - its hardly like he was sneaking around in basements at the time.
I knew him well and I consider his success a bit of good news.
Andrews doing his thing and hardly deserves being outed here for it.
unless its what he wants. Eds i think this should be removed.
Good Luck Andrew.
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