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Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

The Saker

Indymedia ireland

Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Fraud and mismanagement at University College Cork Thu Aug 28, 2025 18:30 | Calli Morganite
UCC has paid huge sums to a criminal professor
This story is not for republication. I bear responsibility for the things I write. I have read the guidelines and understand that I must not write anything untrue, and I won't.
This is a public interest story about a complete failure of governance and management at UCC.

offsite link Deliberate Design Flaw In ChatGPT-5 Sun Aug 17, 2025 08:04 | Mind Agent
Socratic Dialog Between ChatGPT-5 and Mind Agent Reveals Fatal and Deliberate 'Design by Construction' Flaw
This design flaw in ChatGPT-5's default epistemic mode subverts what the much touted ChatGPT-5 can do... so long as the flaw is not tickled, any usage should be fine---The epistemological question is: how would anyone in the public, includes you reading this (since no one is all knowing), in an unfamiliar domain know whether or not the flaw has been tickled when seeking information or understanding of a domain without prior knowledge of that domain???!

This analysis is a pretty unique and significant contribution to the space of empirical evaluation of LLMs that exist in AI public world... at least thus far, as far as I am aware! For what it's worth--as if anyone in the ChatGPT universe cares as they pile up on using the "PhD level scholar in your pocket".

According to GPT-5, and according to my tests, this flaw exists in all LLMs... What is revealing is the deduction GPT-5 made: Why ?design choice? starts looking like ?deliberate flaw?.

People are paying $200 a month to not just ChatGPT, but all major LLMs have similar Pro pricing! I bet they, like the normal user of free ChatGPT, stay in LLM's default mode where the flaw manifests itself. As it did in this evaluation.

offsite link AI Reach: Gemini Reasoning Question of God Sat Aug 02, 2025 20:00 | Mind Agent
Evaluating Semantic Reasoning Capability of AI Chatbot on Ontologically Deep Abstract (bias neutral) Thought
I have been evaluating AI Chatbot agents for their epistemic limits over the past two months, and have tested all major AI Agents, ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Perplexity, and DeepSeek, for their epistemic limits and their negative impact as information gate-keepers.... Today I decided to test for how AI could be the boon for humanity in other positive areas, such as in completely abstract realms, such as metaphysical thought. Meaning, I wanted to test the LLMs for Positives beyond what most researchers benchmark these for, or have expressed in the approx. 2500 Turing tests in Humanity?s Last Exam.. And I chose as my first candidate, Google DeepMind's Gemini as I had not evaluated it before on anything.

offsite link Israeli Human Rights Group B'Tselem finally Admits It is Genocide releasing Our Genocide report Fri Aug 01, 2025 23:54 | 1 of indy
We have all known it for over 2 years that it is a genocide in Gaza
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has finally admitted what everyone else outside Israel has known for two years is that the Israeli state is carrying out a genocide in Gaza

Western governments like the USA are complicit in it as they have been supplying the huge bombs and missiles used by Israel and dropped on innocent civilians in Gaza. One phone call from the USA regime could have ended it at any point. However many other countries are complicity with their tacit approval and neighboring Arab countries have been pretty spinless too in their support

With the release of this report titled: Our Genocide -there is a good chance this will make it okay for more people within Israel itself to speak out and do something about it despite the fact that many there are actually in support of the Gaza

offsite link China?s CITY WIDE CASH SEIZURES Begin ? ATMs Frozen, Digital Yuan FORCED Overnight Wed Jul 30, 2025 21:40 | 1 of indy
This story is unverified but it is very instructive of what will happen when cash is removed
THIS STORY IS UNVERIFIED BUT PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO OR READ THE TRANSCRIPT AS IT GIVES AN VERY GOOD IDEA OF WHAT A CASHLESS SOCIETY WILL LOOK LIKE. And it ain't pretty

A single video report has come out of China claiming China's biggest cities are now cashless, not by choice, but by force. The report goes on to claim ATMs have gone dark, vaults are being emptied. And overnight (July 20 into 21), the digital yuan is the only currency allowed.

The Saker >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Reeves Under Pressure to Spend Even More on Welfare as Cabinet Ministers ?Demand Removal of Two-Chil... Thu Sep 25, 2025 17:00 | Will Jones
Cabinet Ministers are ramping up the pressure on Rachel Reeves to spend even more on welfare by lifting the two-child benefit cap, sparking warnings that Britain is entering an "economic doom loop".
The post Reeves Under Pressure to Spend Even More on Welfare as Cabinet Ministers “Demand Removal of Two-Child Benefit Cap” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Every Adult in Britain to Be Forced to Have a Digital ID Card Under New Keir Starmer Plan Thu Sep 25, 2025 15:38 | Will Jones
Every adult in Britain will be forced to have a Government-issued digital ID card under "dystopian" proposals designed to tackle illegal immigration set to be announced by Sir Keir Starmer. Papers, please!
The post Every Adult in Britain to Be Forced to Have a Digital ID Card Under New Keir Starmer Plan appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Watch: Boris Defends the Boriswave Thu Sep 25, 2025 14:10 | Will Jones
To add to Kemi Badenoch's woes, Boris Johnson has popped up to defend his massive 'Boriswave' of immigration, asking "Who do you want to kick out?" It's not helping, Boris.
The post Watch: Boris Defends the Boriswave appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Richard Dawkins: ?Trans Women Are Women? Slogan is Scientifically False Thu Sep 25, 2025 11:17 | Will Jones
The slogan 'trans women are women' is scientifically false and harms the rights of women,?Richard Dawkins?has said in a new book warning that scientific truth must prevail over "personal feelings".
The post Richard Dawkins: ‘Trans Women Are Women’ Slogan is Scientifically False appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link A New Definition of Freedom of Speech: An Unsackable Late Night Host Thu Sep 25, 2025 09:00 | James Alexander
From liberal America, the people who brought you Covid and climate censorship and the assassination of Charlie Kirk, we have a new definition of free speech: the unsackable late night host, says Prof James Alexander.
The post A New Definition of Freedom of Speech: An Unsackable Late Night Host appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Workers Party tribute to Sean Cronin

category international | miscellaneous | press release author Monday March 21, 2011 10:49author by Malachy Steenson Report this post to the editors

Workers Party Tribute to Sean Cronin who died on 9th March 2011

Sean Cronin (1920 - 2011)

Sean Cronin (1920 - 2011)
Sean Cronin (1920 - 2011)

Sean Cronin who died in the US on 9th March was a highly respected republican, in the tradition of Tone and Connolly, who made a significant contribution to the study of Irish nationalism. From the late sixties into the seventies and eighties he produced a number of major works on Irish revolutionaries; “Young Connolly” and “For Whom the Hangman’s noose was spun” a short booklet on Wolfe Tone’s journey to America and to France where he spent some years seeking French aid for the United Irishmen, A biography of Frank Ryan Socialist Republican leader of the Republican Congress and leader of the Irish contingent in the Spanish Civil War who were defending the Democratic Spanish Republic against Franco’s Fascists, he also wrote The Revolutionaries, Jemmy Hope, Marx and the Irish Question all published by Repsol Publishing the publishing arm of the Workers Party of Ireland.

Sean had the view that even in the darkest periods of Irish history it was essential to keep the flame alive. He made this point very strongly in his pamphlet “They Kept Faith” on Sean Sabhat and Fergal O’Hanlon who were killed at Brookeborough Fermanagh in January 1957. It is clear from all the works that Sean Cronin produced that he had a great affinity for all the subjects of his work. He identified with the struggles and the sacrifices of subject people all over the world and never hesitated to express or render support to those under attack or suffering repression from reaction. Living in the United States for many decades he never lost his interest or optimism that Ireland would one day succeed in achieving Tone’s and Connolly’s objective of a united people free and independent.

Through reading the obituary, by an anonymous writer, in the Irish Times of Saturday 12th March one would never know the extent and the valuable contribution Sean Cronin made to Irish history and politics. They mention in passing a major project he completed on Irish Nationalism: The History of its Roots and Ideology. Living in the United States for many decades he never lost his interest or optimism that Ireland would one day succeed in achieving Ton and Connolly’s objective of a united people free and independent.

I first met with Sean Cronin in 1955, after he arrived in Ireland from America with his wife Terry, when he joined the IRA. Having spent the war years in the Defence Forces he was, compared to the IRA standards, an able soldier. He became a member of GHQ staff and within some months he was working on a plan of campaign “Operation Harvest”. A very generous, sociable, unassuming man of integrity he never imposed himself on any person. His first wife Terry, who died in 1977, was in her own right a very capable and progressive person a shining light in bringing a very different viewpoint and analyses of politics in Ireland and the world to many naïve Irish republicans in the 1950s. During the time preparing for the commencement of “Operation Harvest” Sean Cronin took part in a number of IRA operations a major one being the attempt to rescue IRA prisoners from Wakefield Prison England (The aircraft episode).

Obviously resented and indeed hated by some elements in the IRA and the broader Republican Movement he was a victim of one of the most sordid and despicable campaigns of Irish McCarthyism’s witchhunts in the late fifties. A number of allegations, coming from the United States, claiming that Sean and Terry were Communists and therefore not fit or suitable, according to their standards, to be involved in what they stood for a Catholic Nationalist organisation. Spurred on by the lies and distortions of this element in the US Clann na Gael the campaign was led and fomented by Paddy McLogan a longtime reactionary leader of Irish nationalism and who had been a major figure in the IRA for many decades.

The IRA Army Council decided to establish a court of inquiry into the allegations. Some of the IRA Council did not agree with this decision but went along with it saying it would clear the air. Sean rejected this decision and parted company with the IRA. The IRA went ahead with its inquiry but by then the damage had been done. Instead of standing with an honourable man, who had been tried and tested many times, they surrendered to a faction of reactionaries and in the process lost the services and goodwill of an honest and true follower of Tone and Connolly.

Sean Cronin was a great friend and admirer of George Gilmore one of the foremost leaders and thinkers of revolutionary thought and practice in Ireland over the decades from the thirties. Sean had a great rapport with Cathal Goulding and Tomás MacGiolla and they worked together on many projects with Sean who was living in the United States. A great admirer of Frank Ryan his biography of Frank Ryan is acknowledged to be a first class accomplishment. On a number of occasions discussions were held with film producers on the possibility of producing a film based on Sean’s biography of Frank Ryan. Like many such ideas in the world of filmmaking unfortunately it never came to pass.

Sean was a founder member of the Wolfe Tone Society which played a huge role in the formation of NICRA which has an honoured place in Irish history in its task of building an equal, tolerant and democratic society. Again, as so often in the past, sectarian and anti-progressive forces played their trump card of sectarianism and for decades our country was trapped in the mire of sectarian conflict resulting in thousands of dead and tens of thousands seriously injured. Sean Cronin hated splits and factions and always opposed those who sought to divide people. He had long recognised that to achieve the objectives of Tone, Lalor, Connolly sectarianism had to be confronted and defeated and he always strove to create the conditions in which a united people could achieve the aim of those men.

To return to the Irish Times (the paper of record) for whom Sean worked as its US correspondent, they got a few facts wrong in their obituary of Sean. He was not sentenced to three months in the Curragh in January 1957 it was to Mountjoy Gaol he was sentenced. The Curragh was not opened until July 1957 as an internment camp in which Sean found himself in late 1958. The one pamphlet which they mention Resistance, in my recollection, was not a Sinn Féin publication but was issued by Republican Publicity Bureau. The crap Irish Times comes away with concerning his training as an officer in the Defence Forces in the 1940’s and sharpening pencils at both ends to demonstrate his discipline leading on to how this marked him over from other members of the IRA concerning timekeeping shows the depth and sincerity of their article. Such a man as Sean Cronin deserves respect and honour not the crap that the Irish Times passes off as an obituary.

In his last years he suffered serious health problems. Most saddening of all was the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. For an intellectual and a very active person this was a dreadful blow after living a life which gave so much to so many, many people. He still had so much to give in our common struggle.

We understand that his ashes will be scattered in Kerry in September when his wife Reva Rubenstein Cronin and family will be travelling to Ireland. On behalf of the Ard Comhairle and members and supporters of the Workers Party and all Sean’s friends in Ireland, we extend our sincere sympathy to Reva, Sean’s stepson, Philip Rubenstein and his two step-grandsons Douglas and Kenny.

We would intend to organise a memorial evening for Sean Cronin on the occasion of the scattering of Sean’s ashes.

Sean Garland on Behalf of Ard Comhairle and members of the Workers Party of Ireland

17th March 2011

Related Link: http://workerspartyireland.net/index.html
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