First, I wish to say thank you to all who came to the premiere of 'Route Irish' at Közért. last Friday, Nov 30th. About 35 of us squeezed into that small space and watched the documentary with poor sound speakers - it must have been difficult for some. So, thank you....

After the screening, we used Skype to have a conversation and discussion with the documentary's filmmaker Eamonn Crudden in Ireland - and thanks goes out to Balazs for being the moderator of that discussion.

What was perhaps most interesting for me was hearing people paralleling Hungary with Ireland in its sycophancy towards the American empire - but also examining the differences as well.

By the end of the night everyone had more questions than answers, which only illustrates how thought provoking the 'Route Irish' film is. It asks all antiwar activists are we being effective in resistance to empire or merely creating a public ritual to make ourselves feel good while unconsciously washing our hands of the issue.

It's difficult film to watch, especially when one considers that the war in Iraq has yet not ended and that Iraqi deaths are now well beyond 600,000+. And its even harder to watch the scenes of February 15th 2003 and how it seemed that the world came together to say 'NO!' and yet, the world's governments did nothing to prevent the oncoming disaster.

And today, the Bush/Cheney Administration has been caught in another lie about Iran, yet it still pushes for war with Iran - and where is the antiwar movement now?

If you listen to the MP3 the discussion with Eamonn (below) he says:

''When I think of the international protests against the war, it really showed an inability of the democratic systems of the West to reflect and act on what majorities in a lot of countries thought.

Yes, in countries like Spain when voters did get a chance to give their verdict on Aznar's government they chucked him out! And maybe they will chuck out Bush in the United States and they chucked out Howard in Australia. But you know this is not much of a replacement for stopping governments from being involved when a war is starting.

Its scary in a way how a lot of governments could just ignore popular opinion in their countries.''

During those times around February 15th 2003 the world did not know for sure if Bush was really going to attack Iraq - and today the declassified documents show they intended to attack all along.

Today in Bush's press conference he arrogantly says his Iran policy will not change one bit - even as all 16 US Intelligence agencies unanimously said Iran has not had a Nuke weapons programs since 2003.

In 2003 we were all naïve to what the Bush/Cheney people were capable of - today we are not. So, why the apathy?

Give a listen to November 30s Közért after-film conversation with Eamonn...

Audio was uploaded to archive.org for free.

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