Thursday, September 10, 2015
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Desperate Attempt to Collect Bondholder Money Will Create 'Domestic Emigration'
Irish Water
"ah jaysis, here we go again.."
I know, I know - you're fed up with it. You wish it would just go away. It's a total catastrophe and should be consigned to the history books with e-Voting and Kenny's half-wit whim to abolish the Seanad.
Well it's actually Kenny and his corporate-fascist/banker driven Fine/Gaol-Slavour government that insist on flogging the Irish Water dead horse.
Now they are talking about taking charges/fines (the story is still unclear) from your wage packet if you work and your social welfare if you don't.
Income Tax, Universal Social Tax, Pay-Related-Social-Tax, Property Tax, and now Water Tax. Your employer is now a tax collector - responsible for collecting taxes from you that have NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR EMPLOYMENT!
Naturally enough as we have come to expect, the government simply haven't a clue about the bigger picture here and what implications these measures will have on the labour market.
As your employer becomes more and more involved in implementing totally unrelated government policy against you (and these things are AGAINST you ... you don't benefit 1c from property tax, water tax, even PRSI and USC!), more and more people will find it attractive to look for work in the black economy.
What this means is a DOUBLE-WHAMMY for the government. In trying to efficiently collect tax on water and other things, the government will drive people out of the real labour market, reducing revenue to the exchequer and COMPOUNDING the issue of lack of funds for public services like hospitals, schools, infrastructure and social welfare.
What we will have in effect will be 'Domestic Emigration' ... the disappearance of people from the system. Of course, this won't be a massive diaspora initially, but as the effects of austerity policies prevent the unemployed from finding jobs (cost of childcare, after school services, loss of benefits not compensated for by low wages/zero contract hours etc) and drive more and more of the working middle classes on average wages below the poverty line. More and more desperate people will seek relief in black economy jobs, putting more and more and more pressure on services from a bankrupt government.
David McWilliams has painted a very concise picture of the mortgage-debt time-bomb that is at this moment counting down to it's last 'tick'.
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2015/05/05/the-day-of-debt-reckoning-is-nigh
As middle income families (and even families of professional people mortgaged to the hilt - doctors, dentists, solicitors, barristers, accountants, etc) see this bomb go off under their homes, every cent of property tax, USC, water charges (and pending other arbitrary made-up and unjustifiable taxes like broadcasting charge) becomes one more cent that people just simply cannot afford.
What we can expect in the next ten years is a further surge in emigration, as our best, brightest and most employable seek a less oppressive existence elsewhere; in homelessness, as the priority of finance over humanity continues under an indifferent and controlled political regime; in suicide, as people fall under ever-increasing levels of stress with NO support or solution from the State.
In 2025, when Ireland is populated by pensioners, homeless, unemployed and unemployable, and a disenchanted, disenfranchised youth ... who will be left to tax?
Between 2024 and 3031 the government will have to destroy € 16 BILLION of bond-money thanks to the Fine/Gaol-Slavour Promissory Note.
http://thechatteringmagpie14.blogspot.ie/2015/04/quantitative-squeezing.html
The politicians have quite simply NO CREATIVE THINKING to solve Ireland's problems except the TAKE TAKE TAKE from the people and throw money - not at the problems - but into the fire.
The solution will not be found in politics - not in its current form. A general election and a new government will be as effective as changing the cabin crew on a hijacked plane.
While we allow the political agenda to be set by bankers and global corporations (TTIP etc) then our social policy and well-being will also come a poor second to their bottom line.
The only solution is take back control of the plane...
#fuckEU
"ah jaysis, here we go again.."
I know, I know - you're fed up with it. You wish it would just go away. It's a total catastrophe and should be consigned to the history books with e-Voting and Kenny's half-wit whim to abolish the Seanad.
Well it's actually Kenny and his corporate-fascist/banker driven Fine/Gaol-Slavour government that insist on flogging the Irish Water dead horse.
Now they are talking about taking charges/fines (the story is still unclear) from your wage packet if you work and your social welfare if you don't.
Income Tax, Universal Social Tax, Pay-Related-Social-Tax, Property Tax, and now Water Tax. Your employer is now a tax collector - responsible for collecting taxes from you that have NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR EMPLOYMENT!
Naturally enough as we have come to expect, the government simply haven't a clue about the bigger picture here and what implications these measures will have on the labour market.
As your employer becomes more and more involved in implementing totally unrelated government policy against you (and these things are AGAINST you ... you don't benefit 1c from property tax, water tax, even PRSI and USC!), more and more people will find it attractive to look for work in the black economy.
What this means is a DOUBLE-WHAMMY for the government. In trying to efficiently collect tax on water and other things, the government will drive people out of the real labour market, reducing revenue to the exchequer and COMPOUNDING the issue of lack of funds for public services like hospitals, schools, infrastructure and social welfare.
What we will have in effect will be 'Domestic Emigration' ... the disappearance of people from the system. Of course, this won't be a massive diaspora initially, but as the effects of austerity policies prevent the unemployed from finding jobs (cost of childcare, after school services, loss of benefits not compensated for by low wages/zero contract hours etc) and drive more and more of the working middle classes on average wages below the poverty line. More and more desperate people will seek relief in black economy jobs, putting more and more and more pressure on services from a bankrupt government.
David McWilliams has painted a very concise picture of the mortgage-debt time-bomb that is at this moment counting down to it's last 'tick'.
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2015/05/05/the-day-of-debt-reckoning-is-nigh
As middle income families (and even families of professional people mortgaged to the hilt - doctors, dentists, solicitors, barristers, accountants, etc) see this bomb go off under their homes, every cent of property tax, USC, water charges (and pending other arbitrary made-up and unjustifiable taxes like broadcasting charge) becomes one more cent that people just simply cannot afford.
What we can expect in the next ten years is a further surge in emigration, as our best, brightest and most employable seek a less oppressive existence elsewhere; in homelessness, as the priority of finance over humanity continues under an indifferent and controlled political regime; in suicide, as people fall under ever-increasing levels of stress with NO support or solution from the State.
In 2025, when Ireland is populated by pensioners, homeless, unemployed and unemployable, and a disenchanted, disenfranchised youth ... who will be left to tax?
Between 2024 and 3031 the government will have to destroy € 16 BILLION of bond-money thanks to the Fine/Gaol-Slavour Promissory Note.
http://thechatteringmagpie14.blogspot.ie/2015/04/quantitative-squeezing.html
The politicians have quite simply NO CREATIVE THINKING to solve Ireland's problems except the TAKE TAKE TAKE from the people and throw money - not at the problems - but into the fire.
The solution will not be found in politics - not in its current form. A general election and a new government will be as effective as changing the cabin crew on a hijacked plane.
While we allow the political agenda to be set by bankers and global corporations (TTIP etc) then our social policy and well-being will also come a poor second to their bottom line.
The only solution is take back control of the plane...
#fuckEU
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Friday, March 27, 2015
Friday, March 13, 2015
Everything you need to know about ReNua Ireland revealed on day 1
So we've had four years of Fine Gael led austerity, a Fine gael that Ms Creighton was a member of and as Mininster of State for European Affairs was the champion of all things Europe/Troika/Frankfurt in the most right wing fascist political regime in the country's history.
And today Creighton reveals for the first time the name of her new plaything, ReNua Ireland. Astutely avoiding a launch on April 1st, she has unwittingly provided the country with a nonetheless spectacular Friday the 13th moment: a glimpse that the addition of yet another right of centre right party in Irish politics means the nightmare of austerity is set to continue with renewed zeal.
With our health system approaching a state of apocalypse; our education system which has been one of the major lights in our history under threat; evictions of securitised homes by anonymous absentee landlords not seen since the 1870's; homlessness in Dublin up by 40% in only 8 months; one in six children at risk of poverty in the 21st century!!; children with serious illness or terminal conditions denied medical assistance by the state; an emerging low-wage labour "market" which should more acurately be called a labour "trap"; corruption, abuse of office, tax evasion and all manner of crime covered up by the State and the criminals protected and shielded by political influence, what has been the VERY FIRST PIECE OF POLICY revealed by Creighton?
More business for the banks!
That's right, Creighton's number one priority, the first thing she has on her agenda in addressing the state of the country's woes is to help the banks to be able to provide loans to people with no jobs to buy things they can't afford and a zero-risk repayment system whereby the banks get their profits directly from the State coffers.
Well, I guess she really wasn't kidding with the whole "Reboot Ireland" thing then. The banking system failed ... when a system fails, you reboot it.
With Kenny it was "First: the best little country in the world to do business" - with Creighton it's obviously "First: the best little country in the world to do banking".
Creighton's weak launch is a testimony to the dearth of real intellect among our politicians. When ReBoot was launched previously it was announced that the party was seeking donations (handouts) of €1million ... without a single piece of policy or even ideology to stand behind. Basically the pitch was "POLITICAL PARTY FOR SALE" ... with the policies being "formulated" in return for donations and presumably the patron's agenda given priority in direct proportion to the amount of money profered.
Apparently a long way short of her €1million war chest Creighton has launched ReNua without the help of even basic PR guidance ... otherwise she wouldn't have made "Easy Bank Loans for the Unemployed" her first piece of policy.
Creighton is a disappointing affirmation that even amongst the younger members of the political system there is a monumental void of reason, nouse, logic and creative thinking within the halls of Gangster House.
She is not the new generation of politician ... she is simply the offspring of the dinosaur generation.
She has shown herself on day one to be just as out of touch and disconnected from the real world as her political father, Kenny. Where has she been for the past 6 months? Obviously NOT talking to irish people suffering under her FG austerity policies. Obviously NOT walking the corridors of our war-zone hospitals. Obviously NOT speaking with water meter protesters actu
ally finding out WHY they get up at 5am to peacefully demonstrate against the imposition of an unjust tax.
She has most likely been spending her months in Europe, glad-handing her EPP buddies and looking for support from the REAL policy makers for Ireland, selling herself as the new face of Euro-Sycophancy. She has no doubt been telling the corporate giants who hold the strings of Brussels that she's ready for the job should Kenny decide in one final act of betrayal to the Irish people before the next election to take his seat at the EU Council table as reward for protecting their interests. Creighton's message to Europe is most certainly "the show will go on".
When you think about it, a (new-)blue shirt politician like Creighton behaves exactly to type with her new party launch.
And today Creighton reveals for the first time the name of her new plaything, ReNua Ireland. Astutely avoiding a launch on April 1st, she has unwittingly provided the country with a nonetheless spectacular Friday the 13th moment: a glimpse that the addition of yet another right of centre right party in Irish politics means the nightmare of austerity is set to continue with renewed zeal.
With our health system approaching a state of apocalypse; our education system which has been one of the major lights in our history under threat; evictions of securitised homes by anonymous absentee landlords not seen since the 1870's; homlessness in Dublin up by 40% in only 8 months; one in six children at risk of poverty in the 21st century!!; children with serious illness or terminal conditions denied medical assistance by the state; an emerging low-wage labour "market" which should more acurately be called a labour "trap"; corruption, abuse of office, tax evasion and all manner of crime covered up by the State and the criminals protected and shielded by political influence, what has been the VERY FIRST PIECE OF POLICY revealed by Creighton?
More business for the banks!
That's right, Creighton's number one priority, the first thing she has on her agenda in addressing the state of the country's woes is to help the banks to be able to provide loans to people with no jobs to buy things they can't afford and a zero-risk repayment system whereby the banks get their profits directly from the State coffers.
 |
| http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/revealed-lucindas-plan-to-repay-bank-loans-directly-from-dole-31063117.html |
With Kenny it was "First: the best little country in the world to do business" - with Creighton it's obviously "First: the best little country in the world to do banking".
Creighton's weak launch is a testimony to the dearth of real intellect among our politicians. When ReBoot was launched previously it was announced that the party was seeking donations (handouts) of €1million ... without a single piece of policy or even ideology to stand behind. Basically the pitch was "POLITICAL PARTY FOR SALE" ... with the policies being "formulated" in return for donations and presumably the patron's agenda given priority in direct proportion to the amount of money profered.
Apparently a long way short of her €1million war chest Creighton has launched ReNua without the help of even basic PR guidance ... otherwise she wouldn't have made "Easy Bank Loans for the Unemployed" her first piece of policy.
Creighton is a disappointing affirmation that even amongst the younger members of the political system there is a monumental void of reason, nouse, logic and creative thinking within the halls of Gangster House.
She is not the new generation of politician ... she is simply the offspring of the dinosaur generation.
She has shown herself on day one to be just as out of touch and disconnected from the real world as her political father, Kenny. Where has she been for the past 6 months? Obviously NOT talking to irish people suffering under her FG austerity policies. Obviously NOT walking the corridors of our war-zone hospitals. Obviously NOT speaking with water meter protesters actu
ally finding out WHY they get up at 5am to peacefully demonstrate against the imposition of an unjust tax.
She has most likely been spending her months in Europe, glad-handing her EPP buddies and looking for support from the REAL policy makers for Ireland, selling herself as the new face of Euro-Sycophancy. She has no doubt been telling the corporate giants who hold the strings of Brussels that she's ready for the job should Kenny decide in one final act of betrayal to the Irish people before the next election to take his seat at the EU Council table as reward for protecting their interests. Creighton's message to Europe is most certainly "the show will go on".
When you think about it, a (new-)blue shirt politician like Creighton behaves exactly to type with her new party launch.
- Create a catchphrase for the media to run with : Reboot Ireland.
- Come up with a party name with a bit of gaelic in it to appeal to nationalist (even republican) tendencies, but with a "new-vision/renaissance" slant to appeal to the liberal progressives: ReNua Ireland
- Invite people to join up (and donate .... the're looking for a handout of €1million) ... without declaring any policy positions which might piss off potential large investors.
- After the launch, begin to outline vague policy positions based on the unwritten understandings of your new patrons, making sure they are easily negotiable in the context of coalition.
It's all just the same old game, the same tired formulaic vacuum - no
substance, no true ideology, no vision, no creativity, no hope.
There won't be any surprises from reNua Ireland I'm sad to say, because on day one they've already started on the back foot with a launch from which they may never recover. Lucinda Creighton may be a minorly astute politician, but she's no Harriet Houdini.
Jog on, Lucy ... you had your shot.
There won't be any surprises from reNua Ireland I'm sad to say, because on day one they've already started on the back foot with a launch from which they may never recover. Lucinda Creighton may be a minorly astute politician, but she's no Harriet Houdini.
Jog on, Lucy ... you had your shot.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Conscience v Injustice - The Irresistible Force Meets The Immovable Object
It's the great debate of the day, dividing the population between two poles; one of outrage and one of support.
Have the water meter protests gone too far? Are they an affront to democracy? Have the water meter protesters damaged the popular mass movement against Irish Water and the austerity water charges?
What drives a person to act in such a way as to impede another from carrying out their job? to protest in a manner some might find aggressive or intimidating? to shout remarks that some would find unacceptable or offensive?
The delicate balance between Conscience and Injustice.
Whatever your opinion on how the country came to a point of financial crisis, either by negligent regulation, wanton greed, bank corruption, lack of political foresight or any other cause, we are where we are. No doubt future students of history and economics will be writing theses on the Rise of the Tiger and its eventual demise, but at the present moment in toime (as Kenny Cunningham would say), we have to live in circumstances that make ordinary daily life extremely difficult.
In 2015, families are experiencing pretty much the same quality of life that their parents and grand parents experienced in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Many have levels of income that require every penny to be budgeted with the book-keeping skills of Ebenezer Scrooge: juggling between food, heat, rent, electricity, clothes and other household bills. Poverty levels have increased to the pint where 31% of the population are living in deprivation compared to 12% in 2007.
A UNICEF report last year found that Ireland ranked 37 out of 41 in a league table of child poverty in Western countries. Homlessness is increasing daily as more and more families are losing their homes to the banks that were bailed out.
You know the rest.
Most people who are now protesting have likely never protested or been involved in any political activity before in their lives. What has ignited a spark in them to mobilise is their conscience. It prevents them from accepting that the responsibility for getting the country out of its current mess has been nailed to their backs when they had no hand or part in the creation of it.
Their conscience prevents them from accepting that they should contribute € 9,000 each to the cost of the European banking crisis while he average cost of the crash across all European nations is € 192 per head. Germans have been the next hardest hit but each German still only pays € 491 per person. The Irish cost also does NOT include € 18 BILLION raided from the National Pension Fund to bail out insolvent banks...
When you have small children, still in primary school, it is absolutely unconscienable that they have a debt (somebody elses debt!) to pay off before they begin their lives. Indeed children born in maternity wards across the country in this decade will have a debt of € 9,000 each to pay off before they've drawn their first breath.
If this situation is acceptable to you, then your priorities, your humanity, your conscience and even your national pride should be re-examined with immediate haste. If you are prepared to allow this situation to exist without any objection then you are willing to accept the shackles of debt like a beaten-down slave.
If your conscience does not allow you to find this acceptable then you are on the first steps to understanding how protesters can initially find the conviction to take to the streets and ultimately arrive at a point of such desperation as to become more vocal, more active, more inflamed and potentially more 'militant'.
It is your conscience that draws the line where your protest ends, be it venting on social media, writing stern emails to TDs, marching on the streets, obstructing social and economic policy that you deem to be unjust.
The removal of medical cards from children with serious illness and life threatening disease. THe removal of SNA support for children with learning disabilities. The indifference to groups like the people of Priory Hall. The lip-service-concern for homelessness only passingly acknowledged following the death of Jonathan Corrie. The daily suffering of hundreds of people on hospital trollies across the country. The cynical attempt to dismantle the political system and hijack democracy with the Seanad referendum. Numerous cuts to public services and newly dreamt-up ways to extract money from working families have caused immeasurable distress, the effects of which are visible in protest action now and may result in severe long-lasting implications for men, women and children in the future.
What decides whether you write a letter to a TD, vote for particular candidate, take part in a march, stand with placard, occupy a constituency office or bank, attend a meeting, create a facebook page or stand in a hole while a water meter is being installed is a matter of personal conscience.
None of the jailed protesters have been jailed for committing a crime. No law has been broken, A court order has been breached but as better men than us have said:
The "behaviour" of ALL the water meter protests has unequivocally demonstrated that peoples' consciences have been ignited while at the same time there is an amazing and inspiring respect for human rights and property. In Spain, Italy, Belgium and Greece, the countries worst hit by the Eurobank crash and the effects of austerity policy, there have been huge demonstrations which HAVE disintegrated into violent conflict. Private and public property has been destroyed, cars have been burned out, running battles with armed police and military forces have happened, rubber bullets have been fired into crowds and lives have been put at great risk.
Nothing like that has happened here as protesters continue to show intelligent, mature restraint and consciousness towards others. At the same time the Garda Siochana have demonstrated an eagerness to launch themselves into situations to either provoke violence among protesters (the Dec 10th O'Connell Bridge charge) or use protests as an opportunity to unleash their own psychotic lust for confrontation. The authorities and media have seized on every minor incident like a Minister "trapped" in the comfort of a fifty thousand euro state limousine to portray peaceful non-violent demonstrators as akin to ISIS terrorists or some other threat to the nation.
What has been lacking in much coverage of protests over the past year has been a lack of appreciation (to put it mildly) and at times a complete denial of the reality of life for hundreds of thousands of families. Added to that is a gold-fish minded ignorance of the context of these protests: where they originate; what drives them; what their objective is; and how they are conducted.
Quite simply: people are fighting for their lives.
They are fighting for their lives, literally their survival, their rights, the lives and futures of their children, the betrayal of their parents, the destruction and sale of their country, their dreams of a life worth living in the land of their birth.
Politics is a gameshow. The players compete for pay, pension and perks. They play with peoples lives. The rules are simple: anything goes as long as their power, position and pals are protected. They lie, they cheat, they embezzle, they steal, they abuse. They act with an attitude of absolute impunity in the belief that they have unquestionable authority and entitlement to their position, pissing on the very people that put them there. They say and do as they please safe in the knowledge that the media and the judiciary are their allies and co-conspirators.
This government have told the people of Ireland to hold out their hands so that they can handcuff them and their children into perpetual debt slavery in the name of the EU, the financial markets and the ECB/IMF... and many have accepted these chains without resistance.
This is the injustice of Ireland's pseudo-democracy. The is what pricks the conscience of intelligent people.
If you can't understand or don't accept that it's because your conscience draws a line so far away from what challenges the establishment that they don't see you, hear you or even know you exist.
Some of us draw our line on their doorstep. They see us, they hear us, they know us by name ... and still they ignore us.
That's why some people dare to cross the line.
A political system that is unjust is not an immovable object. It just takes an unstoppable
force to move it. That force is the people of Ireland - arisen.
Have the water meter protests gone too far? Are they an affront to democracy? Have the water meter protesters damaged the popular mass movement against Irish Water and the austerity water charges?
What drives a person to act in such a way as to impede another from carrying out their job? to protest in a manner some might find aggressive or intimidating? to shout remarks that some would find unacceptable or offensive?
The delicate balance between Conscience and Injustice.
Whatever your opinion on how the country came to a point of financial crisis, either by negligent regulation, wanton greed, bank corruption, lack of political foresight or any other cause, we are where we are. No doubt future students of history and economics will be writing theses on the Rise of the Tiger and its eventual demise, but at the present moment in toime (as Kenny Cunningham would say), we have to live in circumstances that make ordinary daily life extremely difficult.
In 2015, families are experiencing pretty much the same quality of life that their parents and grand parents experienced in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Many have levels of income that require every penny to be budgeted with the book-keeping skills of Ebenezer Scrooge: juggling between food, heat, rent, electricity, clothes and other household bills. Poverty levels have increased to the pint where 31% of the population are living in deprivation compared to 12% in 2007.
A UNICEF report last year found that Ireland ranked 37 out of 41 in a league table of child poverty in Western countries. Homlessness is increasing daily as more and more families are losing their homes to the banks that were bailed out.
You know the rest.
Most people who are now protesting have likely never protested or been involved in any political activity before in their lives. What has ignited a spark in them to mobilise is their conscience. It prevents them from accepting that the responsibility for getting the country out of its current mess has been nailed to their backs when they had no hand or part in the creation of it.
Their conscience prevents them from accepting that they should contribute € 9,000 each to the cost of the European banking crisis while he average cost of the crash across all European nations is € 192 per head. Germans have been the next hardest hit but each German still only pays € 491 per person. The Irish cost also does NOT include € 18 BILLION raided from the National Pension Fund to bail out insolvent banks...
When you have small children, still in primary school, it is absolutely unconscienable that they have a debt (somebody elses debt!) to pay off before they begin their lives. Indeed children born in maternity wards across the country in this decade will have a debt of € 9,000 each to pay off before they've drawn their first breath.
If this situation is acceptable to you, then your priorities, your humanity, your conscience and even your national pride should be re-examined with immediate haste. If you are prepared to allow this situation to exist without any objection then you are willing to accept the shackles of debt like a beaten-down slave.
If your conscience does not allow you to find this acceptable then you are on the first steps to understanding how protesters can initially find the conviction to take to the streets and ultimately arrive at a point of such desperation as to become more vocal, more active, more inflamed and potentially more 'militant'.
It is your conscience that draws the line where your protest ends, be it venting on social media, writing stern emails to TDs, marching on the streets, obstructing social and economic policy that you deem to be unjust.
The removal of medical cards from children with serious illness and life threatening disease. THe removal of SNA support for children with learning disabilities. The indifference to groups like the people of Priory Hall. The lip-service-concern for homelessness only passingly acknowledged following the death of Jonathan Corrie. The daily suffering of hundreds of people on hospital trollies across the country. The cynical attempt to dismantle the political system and hijack democracy with the Seanad referendum. Numerous cuts to public services and newly dreamt-up ways to extract money from working families have caused immeasurable distress, the effects of which are visible in protest action now and may result in severe long-lasting implications for men, women and children in the future.
What decides whether you write a letter to a TD, vote for particular candidate, take part in a march, stand with placard, occupy a constituency office or bank, attend a meeting, create a facebook page or stand in a hole while a water meter is being installed is a matter of personal conscience.
None of the jailed protesters have been jailed for committing a crime. No law has been broken, A court order has been breached but as better men than us have said:
“Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”
― Howard Zinn“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law”
― Martin Luther King Jr.“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.”
― Mahatma Gandhi,“If you're not going to use your free speech to criticize your own government, then what the hell is the point of having it?”
― Michel Templet“Civil disobedience, as I put it to the audience, was not the problem, despite the warnings of some that it threatened social stability, that it led to anarchy. The greatest danger, I argued, was civil obedience, the submission of individual conscience to governmental authority. Such obedience led to the horrors we saw in totalitarian states, and in liberal states it led to the public's acceptance of war whenever the so-called democratic government decided on it...
In such a world, the rule of law maintains things as they are. Therefore, to begin the process of change, to stop a war, to establish justice, it may be necessary to break the law, to commit acts of civil disobedience, as Southern black did, as antiwar protesters did.”
― Howard Zinn,
“Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it.” ― Albert Einstein
The "behaviour" of ALL the water meter protests has unequivocally demonstrated that peoples' consciences have been ignited while at the same time there is an amazing and inspiring respect for human rights and property. In Spain, Italy, Belgium and Greece, the countries worst hit by the Eurobank crash and the effects of austerity policy, there have been huge demonstrations which HAVE disintegrated into violent conflict. Private and public property has been destroyed, cars have been burned out, running battles with armed police and military forces have happened, rubber bullets have been fired into crowds and lives have been put at great risk.
Nothing like that has happened here as protesters continue to show intelligent, mature restraint and consciousness towards others. At the same time the Garda Siochana have demonstrated an eagerness to launch themselves into situations to either provoke violence among protesters (the Dec 10th O'Connell Bridge charge) or use protests as an opportunity to unleash their own psychotic lust for confrontation. The authorities and media have seized on every minor incident like a Minister "trapped" in the comfort of a fifty thousand euro state limousine to portray peaceful non-violent demonstrators as akin to ISIS terrorists or some other threat to the nation.
What has been lacking in much coverage of protests over the past year has been a lack of appreciation (to put it mildly) and at times a complete denial of the reality of life for hundreds of thousands of families. Added to that is a gold-fish minded ignorance of the context of these protests: where they originate; what drives them; what their objective is; and how they are conducted.
Quite simply: people are fighting for their lives.
They are fighting for their lives, literally their survival, their rights, the lives and futures of their children, the betrayal of their parents, the destruction and sale of their country, their dreams of a life worth living in the land of their birth.
Politics is a gameshow. The players compete for pay, pension and perks. They play with peoples lives. The rules are simple: anything goes as long as their power, position and pals are protected. They lie, they cheat, they embezzle, they steal, they abuse. They act with an attitude of absolute impunity in the belief that they have unquestionable authority and entitlement to their position, pissing on the very people that put them there. They say and do as they please safe in the knowledge that the media and the judiciary are their allies and co-conspirators.
This government have told the people of Ireland to hold out their hands so that they can handcuff them and their children into perpetual debt slavery in the name of the EU, the financial markets and the ECB/IMF... and many have accepted these chains without resistance.
This is the injustice of Ireland's pseudo-democracy. The is what pricks the conscience of intelligent people.
If you can't understand or don't accept that it's because your conscience draws a line so far away from what challenges the establishment that they don't see you, hear you or even know you exist.
Some of us draw our line on their doorstep. They see us, they hear us, they know us by name ... and still they ignore us.
That's why some people dare to cross the line.
A political system that is unjust is not an immovable object. It just takes an unstoppable
force to move it. That force is the people of Ireland - arisen.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
The President Has No Right to Respect!
Bet that got your attention!
"STORY OF THE WEEK!" (as many of the excellent CUT BACKS videos used to begin ... wish they were still being produced) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPqkq-J3bTA
The story of the week last week was: RESPECT.
A Dublin man was alleged to have insulted, offended and disrespected President of Ireland Michael D Higgins.
Well, the simple fact is that President Higgins has no right to respect. No man has.
Respect is not a right.
Free speech is a right.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny travelled to Paris just a few weeks ago to stand with heads of government in defence of the RIGHT of free speech and in SUPPORT of a French publication which offends many muslim people of the Nation of Islam. This week Enda Kenny did a complete "volte face" (having picked up a bit of the lingo apparently) and was outraged at an Irish citizen's comments aimed at his country's President.
President Higgins may be ENTITLED to respect, but he has no RIGHT to it. Respect is an entitlement, but first it has to be earned. Michael D Higgins has spent his entire political career championing human rights and social justice, both at home and around the world, and is absolutely and unquestionably entitled to respect for doing so. But when his own people, whom he represents as the nation's President, are in their hour of greatest need for many many years, he has remained silent.
Ireland is a country bound in tax and debt slavery, entirely thanks to a lazy, corrupt, self-serving political elite, bought by global multinationals and a predatory banking system. Enda Kenny's Fine Gael (and Joan Burton's Labour) did not "inherit" a crisis. They were totally complicit in what has happened in Ireland. They sat across the house in Dáil Eireann and enjoyed their position as first class passengers on the runaway gravy train.
Throughout the tiger years NOBODY in Fine Gael or Labour were warning of the unsustainability of the construction driven economy which was building nothing but a house of cards. And neither can they claim "nobody else was" because there were political commentators, financial experts and even credible Irish economists who tried hard to sound the alarm bells. Their voices were heard and ignored ... dismissed as nay-sayers and prophets of doom.
The outrage at "m1dj3t-gate" is farcical. Of course nobody believes that politicians are actually losing sleep over it but it has been headlined as "an attack on democracy". What they are actually saying is "sit down, shut up and bow to your masters!" Can their arrogance, self-righteousness, elitist mentality, psychopathic mindest be any clearer.
No one can tell one man that he has to respect another. THAT'S! what fascists do ... Mr. Hayes. YOU are the real threat to democracy.
And that is what has happened to the psyche of the Irish people over generations. I've written this before (bloglink) but it bears revisiting.
Our politicians, lead by Kenny, Varadkar and Hayes (both donning their armour for a not-too-distant leadership contest) are demanding that the President be shown respect. Well for my part I am happy to show any man the same respect that he shows me.
Two years ago this week I sent a letter by registered post to Enda Kenny asking important questions about the existence of company named "An Taoiseach", seemingly registered off-shore with an address at Mr Kenny's constituency office. the letter. Two years on and Mr Kenny has refused to show me the respect of a response... Why should I show him any respect?
RIGHTS are ABSOLUTE. Even rights that are denied are not extinguished.
If respect was a RIGHT then it would not be something that could be lost. Respect is an entitlement that is earned and it can be lost.
President Higgins has lost the respect of a lot of Irish citizens - even those who voted for him. It now turns out that the principles on which he has based his own political ideology do not apply to the citizens of Ireland.
The good news is that he can earn it back. That's up to him. A man of honour would do the right thing.
"STORY OF THE WEEK!" (as many of the excellent CUT BACKS videos used to begin ... wish they were still being produced) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPqkq-J3bTA
The story of the week last week was: RESPECT.
A Dublin man was alleged to have insulted, offended and disrespected President of Ireland Michael D Higgins.
Well, the simple fact is that President Higgins has no right to respect. No man has.
Respect is not a right.
Free speech is a right.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny travelled to Paris just a few weeks ago to stand with heads of government in defence of the RIGHT of free speech and in SUPPORT of a French publication which offends many muslim people of the Nation of Islam. This week Enda Kenny did a complete "volte face" (having picked up a bit of the lingo apparently) and was outraged at an Irish citizen's comments aimed at his country's President.
President Higgins may be ENTITLED to respect, but he has no RIGHT to it. Respect is an entitlement, but first it has to be earned. Michael D Higgins has spent his entire political career championing human rights and social justice, both at home and around the world, and is absolutely and unquestionably entitled to respect for doing so. But when his own people, whom he represents as the nation's President, are in their hour of greatest need for many many years, he has remained silent.
Ireland is a country bound in tax and debt slavery, entirely thanks to a lazy, corrupt, self-serving political elite, bought by global multinationals and a predatory banking system. Enda Kenny's Fine Gael (and Joan Burton's Labour) did not "inherit" a crisis. They were totally complicit in what has happened in Ireland. They sat across the house in Dáil Eireann and enjoyed their position as first class passengers on the runaway gravy train.
Throughout the tiger years NOBODY in Fine Gael or Labour were warning of the unsustainability of the construction driven economy which was building nothing but a house of cards. And neither can they claim "nobody else was" because there were political commentators, financial experts and even credible Irish economists who tried hard to sound the alarm bells. Their voices were heard and ignored ... dismissed as nay-sayers and prophets of doom.
The outrage at "m1dj3t-gate" is farcical. Of course nobody believes that politicians are actually losing sleep over it but it has been headlined as "an attack on democracy". What they are actually saying is "sit down, shut up and bow to your masters!" Can their arrogance, self-righteousness, elitist mentality, psychopathic mindest be any clearer.
No one can tell one man that he has to respect another. THAT'S! what fascists do ... Mr. Hayes. YOU are the real threat to democracy.
And that is what has happened to the psyche of the Irish people over generations. I've written this before (bloglink) but it bears revisiting.
In every city and town in the country we were taught to respect the local Parish Priest, respect the local Bank Manager, respect the local TD,respect the Garda and Magistrate.Respect must also be mutual. If not mutual then it is not respect! It is the "respect" of a slave for his master. It is the "respect" of a peasant for a king. What
Today we know what the Church has done to us. We know what the banks have done to us. We know what our politicians have done to us. And we know what our Garda force and our judiciary are doing to us.
We are not children any more. We have grown up. And we have learnt that what we are taught was wrong.
I don’t respect these people any more.
Respect is something that should be taught to children. But after childhood Respect is something that must be earned.
Our politicians, lead by Kenny, Varadkar and Hayes (both donning their armour for a not-too-distant leadership contest) are demanding that the President be shown respect. Well for my part I am happy to show any man the same respect that he shows me.
Two years ago this week I sent a letter by registered post to Enda Kenny asking important questions about the existence of company named "An Taoiseach", seemingly registered off-shore with an address at Mr Kenny's constituency office. the letter. Two years on and Mr Kenny has refused to show me the respect of a response... Why should I show him any respect?
RIGHTS are ABSOLUTE. Even rights that are denied are not extinguished.
If respect was a RIGHT then it would not be something that could be lost. Respect is an entitlement that is earned and it can be lost.
President Higgins has lost the respect of a lot of Irish citizens - even those who voted for him. It now turns out that the principles on which he has based his own political ideology do not apply to the citizens of Ireland.
The good news is that he can earn it back. That's up to him. A man of honour would do the right thing.
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