On 10 May éirígí held its second Ard Fheis. In a mere two years it has grown greatly beyond the original six members based in Dublin.
For those interested in following developments, you can read and view the new rúnaí ginearálta Rab Jackson’s address to the Ard Fheis here.
Tommy McKearney’s and Brian Lesson’s orations at the Connolly commemoration are also available.
Interesting BBC article on an upcoming presentation and talk [Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre, 17 August] by lecturer and broadcaster Stephen Price on the subject of his new book – The Earl Bishop. The 18th Century ”Earl Bishop” was Frederick Augustus Hervey, fourth Earl of Bristol and Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry. Hervey was also elected [...] read our review »
Northern Ireland’s peace process has been promoted as an international success story. The Republic’s Department of Foreign Affairs has its Conflict Resolution Unit, which aims to disseminate the ‘lessons’ of the Northern Ireland peace process. And some of the prominent players in our peace process have travelled abroad to other troubled spots to share their [...] read our review »
I’ve been catching up on some reading, recently. Most pleasantly surprised by John Drennan’s latest opus from Gill and Macmillan, Cute Hoors and Pious Protestors… It’s early days yet, but I was struck by this paragraph, part of a dissection of Fianna Fail near the beginning: One of the more fatal consequences of our colonial [...] read our review »
MH
Toughen up, Nancy boy…you may get hurt when you fall from your high horse.
GW Bush invaded Iraq…
Ahhh….LIBERATED is more accurate. Not that truth and accuracy is high up on your anti-American list there Mick.
Mick Hall,
‘Anyone who had experience of the UK during the Falklands war or the US when GW Bush invaded Iraq will know just how attractive flag waving appears to be for many people.’
Not forgetting our tricolour and union jack waving neighbours n NI
‘I do not believe education has much to do with how people decide to vote.’
You might think that but post election surveys across many western democracies seem to indicate that the least educated tend to vote the least – with the less well educated and the economic elite tending to vote ‘conservative’. The ‘intellectuals’ tend to vote left of centre . There are variances between countries of course but in general Conservative governments have tended to benefit from lower turnout of voters with the aged and the middle aged taking their ‘democracy’ a lot more seriously than the younger population and ethnic minorities (USA ). .
‘I believe the neo cons are about the most short sighted people since the Russian and French aristocracy walked the earth, it is this above all else that makes them very dangerous to the future of human kind.’
I tend to agree particularly as regards the American branch of the species . Nevertheless they appear to be on their way out. The American Republicans have over the past 7 years destroyed the conservative ‘message’ if it ever had one . They have proven themselves to be quite pssibly the worst administration in modern American history .
‘I agree that it is extremely unlikely that a revolution will break out in western Europe in the foreseeable future, but times change and when they do they change extremely quickly.’
Well yes however the difference between today and say 1918 or 1840 or 1917 (Russia) is that the majority of people are far better off than they were back in those times . The ‘masses’ today are fat even overweight , well off , and not oppressed enough- well not yet anyway . The bottom 10 to 20% of the population who have not benefited from ‘globalisation’ are of course a ‘problem’ in all countries . The rising tide has lifted all boats but the largest boats have benefitted the most in many countries even in those with left of centre governments . Interestingly reports from the USA indicate that the middling size boats have now taken an aversion to the widening ‘gap’ which has been opening up between them and the largest boats and the ever narrowing of the gap between them and the smaller boats.
‘what I find interesting is the rush by sections of Capital to row back these reforms,’
Never underestimate the capacity of some of the wealthy /powerful/arrogant to consume all and everything around them in the grasp for more be it political power , immense wealth, or fame . It’s the human condition . Which is why democracies tend to have constitutional safeguards and protections built in to help reduce the possibility of abuse of power.
The ‘market economy’ works but it’s by no means perfect. Despite thousands of economists and governments staffed by well educated ‘mandarins’ the present economic downturn / property burst apparently escaped almost everybody’s attention until it happened . It was the same with the collapse of the Soviet Union . Mr George Soros ( he who took the Bank of England for a billion in a devaluation fracas with Prime Minister Major 12 years ago ) was recently heard to have remarked that our western ‘civilisation’ could be on the way out . If it does go well won’t the neo cons be delighted ? after all isn’t that what they purported to defend ?
I’m a little more optimistic but not by much . If the USA can get to November without Bush or Cheney or their proxies ‘bombing ‘Iran in one last attempt at ‘gotcha’ diplomacy a new American administration may steer the west back towards safer waters .
Northern Ireland and eirigi and indeed the Republic in all of this is of course a mere pinprick . Unless we/they/somebody discovers oil around our coast.
“So let me get this right, Irish republicans, if that is there wish, should not set up a party with an Irish name, say éirígí, as it may offend northern Protestants, but it is OK for the same unionist protestants to have the word UNIONIST in all of their party names.
Let me understand this correctly, republicans at all costs must hide their politics under a blanket, but Unionists have a god given right to flaunt their political belifes.
What is next, a new law to ban the flying of the Irish flag, and you say you want a liberal democracy?” – Mick Hall
Mick, the point is related to identifying a gap in the political market for a new party. If you can’t do that or if there isn’t such a gap, then why bother with a new party? It’s a one-way ticket to redundancy. If you look at the PDs as an example, you’ll see that they found a gap for a party that was to the right of the existing centrist parties. What they didn’t notice is that nationalism is an important component of that right-wing market. Why? Because people who are successful are pro-business (supporting the system they have prospered under) and that support translates as patriotism on the political spectrum. Nationalism isn’t a simple synonym for flag-waving: it means seeking to further the best interests of one’s nation. The PDs censored nationalism from their party because they wanted favourable press from the pro-British Independent News & Media Group (controlled by [Sir] Tony O’Reilly) and from the Irish Times, and they knew that a primary function of those propaganda vehicles is to promote the censorship of Irish nationalism by systematically undermining any party or individual who promotes it. That deliberate act of omission by the PDs relegated them to the dustbin of political history. A left-wing party that is also nationalist is a party that doesn’t understand that the disenfranchised make very poor patriots in real terms and never form the majority in prosperous societies. It’s a bust. But I take your point in relation to Northern Ireland: the reality is that a party must be overtly of either nationalism if it is to be viable. While a left-wing party that could appeal to members of either denomination is good in theory, it is unworkable in reality (look at the Alliance Party for a prime example of redundancy). Anyway, if meaning of éirígí’s name is an indication of its agenda, then it isn’t intended to have any appeal beyond a diehard Trotskyite rabble.
By the way, I don’t support the censoring of any national flag or of any element that is an important part of another person’s culture. The mutual censorship agenda is one that is proffered by Sinn Fein and, if it is ever accepted as being a legitimate enterprise, will have the effect of cancelling out Irish nationalism. Oddly enough, Sinn Fein and [Sir] Tony O’Reilly have a shared agenda there.
Garibaldi,
Yes I’m aware of the flag wavers of NI of both political traditions however the point I was making that flag wavers on both sides have had to settle for a lot less than each would have wanted . Neither can win -however both can and probably will lose out in the longer term both to competition from within this island and without.
‘So whatever changes have happened in the economy at a structual level, there are still conflicting class interests within societies.’
And there will be as long as human beings are human. It’s been wired into the nature of the species ever since homo sapiens progressed from hunting and gathering in groups of 30 to settling down in neolithic times and forming small tribes of several hundred people in which some of the people became priests , artists , craftsmen , etc and did not have to work the land directly to earn a crust so to speak . As societies became more complex and tribes became chieftainships and small kingdoms and nation states and empires the ‘class’ system became ever more variegated . Along the road we have amassed some hard won democratic rights which to judge by some of the electoral turnouts in western societies are no longer valued highly by people who once upon a time found them absolutely necessary to human dignity .
I prefer to think we are in an age when neither the left nor the right can look into their political compendium of tricks and say they have found the Holy Grail . There is’nt and there never was any holy grail anyway .The best we can hope for is to muddle through and not to throw the baby out with the bathwater when either the reactionary brat or his extreme leftist cousin brat need changing and a wash
‘And workers continue to be exploited by their employers. That is the base of the capitalist system of production.’
I’m reminded of the old Soviet joke re exploitation in the communist era Moscow.
Question:
‘Comrade Ivanov is there anything worse than being exploited by your fellow man under capitalism ‘?
Answer :
‘Yes Comrade Petrov’
Question :
‘What then Comrade Ivanov ‘?
Answer :
‘ Not being exploited by western capitalism ‘
Dave ,
The PDs censored nationalism from their party because they wanted favourable press from the pro-British Independent News & Media Group (controlled by [Sir] Tony O’Reilly) and from the Irish Times, and they knew that a primary function of those propaganda vehicles is to promote the censorship of Irish nationalism by systematically undermining any party or individual who promotes it. That deliberate act of omission by the PDs relegated them to the dustbin of political history.’
Good point and sounds plausible . Hard to imagine that Tony O’Reilly was once approached by FF to stand for the party back in Jack Lynch’s day I believe. I don’t know how the new PD leader what’s his name will fare but they may be heading for extinction next time out . FF will gladly absorb any survivors .
Mr. Flag
Good to see you’re still getting paid by the word.
I like the boat analogy. The big boat guys are giving little boats to the illegal aliens and charging the medium boats guys (who are the only ones who built their own boats). When they have their figurehead installed the shite will hit the fan big time. Can’t wait for Putin to get a hold of ‘em…..
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Last year, a Bank of Ireland report “Wealth of the Nation” stated that, when the value of residential assets is excluded, 1% of the population owns 34% of the wealth in the South. It didn’t say what that percentage of wealth would rise to if the figures were extended to encompass the top 10% of the population. Nevertheless, one can assume it would be fairly eye-opening. Far from being an equal society.
I am not aware of any similar report for the North but perhaps some sluggerite could oblige.
wealth for some ,
‘Far from being an equal society.’
There is’nt any ‘equal’ society on the planet -never has been and never will be .
Share 10 million out equally between 100 people Go back to the 100 ‘lucky’ ones and you’ll probably find that between 10 and 20 % will have increased their share significantly and the rest will have spent, drank , or lost their share or barely held onto it’s value through poor investments . It’s the human condition.
Given that NI is substantially poorer as regards the size of it’s private sector there may be more wealth ‘equality . But then Most eastern european former communist countries were also very ‘equal’ -all equally poor.
BfB ,
Have you considered ‘mental telepathy’ in trying to communicate your thoughts ?. Next time try English and I’ll be able to reply .
BTW – You can succeed by giving up .
Post no 9 above should have read
‘Go back to the 100 ‘lucky’ ones AFTER 5 to 10 years.
I’d be happy to share some of the wealth with the citizens of Northern Ireland if they promise to take the awful Mary McAleese back.
Greenie….
Giving up is an option only found in your arsenal..
Besides I’m taking a speed reading course and your bloggy diarrhea is fantastic practice.
Do keep up, will you. I hear keeping a diary helps.
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Bfb,
‘Giving up is an option only found in your arsenal’
Your friend Mr Bush never gives up as we can see form his latest ‘begging’ mission to his allies in Saudi Arabia . Even the Saudis appear to enjoy screwing the lame duck .
“What they’re saying to us is … Saudi Arabia does not have customers that are making requests for oil that they are not able to satisfy,” Hadley told reporters.
( in other words piss off )
The Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, said there was no need to increase production now. “Supply and demand are in balance today,” he told a news conference. “How much does Saudi Arabia need to do to satisfy people who are questioning our oil practices and policies?”
( in other words we have enough of your dollars and don’t need any more devaluation prone paper)
He said the kingdom decided on May 10 to raise production by 300,000 barrels, at the request of customers, and that increase was sufficient.
(best of luck in the upcoming election the American voters just love sending us Saudis more money than we can spend )
When Bush met Abdullah in mid-January, the president also asked Saudi Arabia to raise production to ease high prices at the pump. But he got a chilly response to that plea. The kingdom said it would increase production only when the market justified it, and that production levels appeared normal.
( Listen here Dubya – no way means no in Arabic as well as in English – Did you enjoy your Israeli trip ? One billion Arabs were ecstatic about your demonstrated concern for the Palestinian people )
Oil prices climbed to a new high Friday, above $127 a barrel. At the pump, gas prices rose to a national average of $3.78 per gallon,
Meanwhile Republican Presidential candidate John McCain has now publicly reduced the Iraqi War from being a 100 year war to just another 5 years i.e until 2013 ? Mr McCain failed to mention how this war would be financed and whether or not the dollar would be worth anything in another 5 years
How did America elect these arseholes
Mr Flag
Wah, wah, wah…..Bush is bad…..boo hoooo
Bye bye America……
We’ll see where your ass is in ten years…..
We’ll see.
I’m betting I’ll be better off than you….
McCain sucks as bad as the lobotomy twins, so we adults are hunkering down for an interesting ride. The new regime will be out robbing banks to finance their pie in the sky shit….
I haven’t your prescience, although I can claim to be right about most things in my adult life, and I think I’m good right where I stand. I hope you’re not conscription age……Eurostan might have things planned for your sorry arses….
Very short battle I’m afraid. jihadist have real men on their side. You poofy bastards won’t make it out of the coffee shops, and if you do all you’ll have is witty comments and droneing opinions to throw at them….
Take a look at the Daniel Pearl beheading a few times.. Those guys understand pacifists like you, eh?
Bark a few times about the evil empire, they’ll embrace you and life will be good.
Prat.
America, protecting the whining shitbags of the world since 1776…
‘so we adults are hunkering down for an interesting ride.’
Adults ?
Cheney ? Rove ? Bush ? Bremner ? Rodriguez ? Lott ? Rumsfeld ?
If that lot have been displaying adult powers of judgement then American educational standards are worse than we have been told
So you already agree that the Republicans have made such a cock up of the economy , a mess of foreign policy, and a sewer heap of health care
Even a thicko like yourself can now see they have no chance of winning the November election.
You may not have my prescience but you’ve got the message alright !
And there’s the loyal faithful Saudis pissing on Uncle Sams shoes for all the world to see
Gobshite
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Truly inspired outreach program to the Ulster-Scots here from éirígí.
First we have the semi-retired Scottish piper leading things off & then the main man himself, a certain Rab Jackson (whose Scottish ancestors are no doubt just thrilled about…)
Finally news just in, éirígí have welcomed the recent Scottish invasion of Manchester. In a statement their spokeman said “Not since the days of William Wallace has a force so grand, gone so far to inflict so great a price on the English foe. We salute the gallant Glaswegians.”
Other reports of a Rab C. Nesbitt viewing party with free irn Bru at the Ard Fheis have proved to be spurious.
Cheers
David
Flagster,
I would turn Saudiland in a piece of glass.
Cheney ? Rove ? Bush ? Rumsfeld ?
Yes, real men. I’m not surprised you can’t tell the difference.
The liberal, secular, democratic congress and their msm enablers have messed up the economy. Illegal, thieving, immigrants are destroying healthcare, will the gleeful support of the dems, Mcain, Bush, et al.
The economy isn’t in as bad a shape as your minders have led you to believe.
Yes, our public schools and colleges are brainwashing, indoctrination, ‘muticultural’ cesspools…
As Daniel Pipes opined a few years ago…
‘
* Why do American academics so often despise their own country while finding excuses for repressive and dangerous regimes?
* Why have university specialists proven so inept at understanding the great contemporary issues of war and peace, starting with Vietnam, then the Cold War, the Kuwait war and now the War on Terror?
* Why do professors of linguistics, chemistry, American history, genetics and business present themselves in public as authorities on the Middle East?
* What is the long-term effect of an extremist, intolerant and anti-American environment on university students?
The time has come for adult supervision of the faculty and administrators at many American campuses. Especially as we are at war, the goal must be for universities to resume their civic responsibilities. ‘
I’m still waaaayyyyyyyyyy better off, now, and in the future, than your sorry yurpean ass..
imho, of course.
And there’s the loyal faithful Saudis pissing on Uncle Sams shoes for all the world to see
Our man Mr. Bush said..
“Our problem in America gets solved when we aggressively go for domestic exploration. Our problem in America gets solved if we expand our refining capacity, promote nuclear energy and continue our strategy for the advancing of alternative energies as well as conservation,” he said.
“One interesting thing about American politics these days is those who are screaming the loudest for increased production from Saudi Arabia are the very same people who are fighting the fiercest against domestic exploration, against the development of nuclear power and against expanding refining capacity.”
It’s not the Saudis, it’s the effin socialist, nanny state dems what’s the problem. We’ll see who get’s blamed when Mr. Bush is getting monster speaking tour money…and Obie wan house of cards is in charge…….I’m stocking the cellar for a long siege…
BfB
‘I would turn Saudiland in a piece of glass.’
Brilliant . So you can afford gas at 500 dollars a gallon . Wonderful . Keep your gate locked and make sure you are well armed and able to defend yourself against the 299 million Americans who will only be able to afford gas by stealing it from the tiny wealthy minority that can afford it !
‘Cheney ? Rove ? Bush ? Rumsfeld ?
Yes, real men. I’m not surprised you can’t tell the difference.’
Well they all have pricks but most people have something else inside their skulls .
‘The liberal, secular, democratic congress and their msm enablers have messed up the economy.’
Let me see Pres Bush was elected in 2000 when gas was 28 dollars a barrel . The Republicans have been in control of Congress from 1994 to 2006 ? The reasons for the messing up of the American economy are quite simple . Unadulterated greed and irresponsible fiscal policies by the Bush adminstration including illegal war mongering.
BfB,
‘It’s not the Saudis, it’s the effin socialist, nanny state dems what’s the problem.’
Not according to former Marine & Republican Congressman Ji Webb .
Before he became Virginia’s junior Senator, Jim Webb was a Marine, a Republican, Secretary of the Navy, and a best-selling author. He became a Democrat because of his disgust over the handling of Iraq. He ran on that issue, as well as the increasing economic disparity between the rich and the working class.
Excerpt: ‘A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America’
by Jim Webb
The take-it-all mentality of corporate America in these early years of the twenty-first century has come to resemble in many ways the uncaring rapacity of a corporate America that Teddy Roosevelt chose to confront a hundred years ago. But answers will be harder to find, because other conditions in the country today bear little resemblance to the America that Roosevelt was speaking to, and about, in 1903. The structure and especially the geographical diversity of today’s corporate America are decidedly different from a century ago.
In the age of globalization, and because of other domestic factors now at play, the precepts that Roosevelt proposed can no longer be so easily applied. Why is this so? Because, quite simply, those sitting comfortably at the very top in today’s America know that we don’t all go up or down together anymore. Worker incomes in America have been disturbingly and demonstrably declining as a percentage of our national wealth.
In August 2007, the Internal Revenue Service reported that average incomes in this country have been lower during every year of the Bush Administration than they were in the year before this presidency began, a phenomenon not seen in modern times till now. Once the Great Depression ended, and particularly in the years following World War II, America has always viewed itself as a land of rising incomes, rising hopes, and rising expectations.
According to the New York Times, “Total income listed on tax returns grew every year after World Wa r II, with a single one-year exception, until 2001, making the five-year period of lower average incomes and four years of lower total incomes a new experience for the majority of Americans born since 1945.”
The article went on to point out that “nearly half of Americans reported incomes of less than $30,000, and two-thirds make less than $50,000.”
How does this affect us as a nation? Average incomes have been less for five years in a row. Nearly half of the country makes less than $30,000 a year, and two-thirds make less than $50,000 a year. But at the same time, the stock market has risen to historic highs, and when it comes to personal income at the very top rung of our society, there has indeed been a good bit of growth.
According to that same New York Times article, growth in total incomes “was concentrated among those making more than $1 million … These individuals, who constitute less than a quarter of 1 percent of all taxpayers, reaped almost 47 percent of the total income gains in 2005.”
Throughout our history, we have seen cycles where income inequalities have become severe. But over the past twenty-five years, our country has seen an enormous — and perhaps unprecedented — transfer of wealth to the very top of our society.
The New York Times recently reported that “not since the Roaring Twenties have the rich been so much richer than everyone else. In 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, the top 1 percent of Americans—whose average income was $1.1 million a year — received 21.8 percent of the nation’s income, their largest share since 1929. Overall, the top 10 percent of Americans — those making more than about $100,000 a year — collected 48.5 percent, also a share last seen before the Great Depression.”
more to follow
The top 1 percent of our(USA) population also owns more than half of our stocks, making the stock market a poor indicator of the overall economic health of our society but a pretty good indicator of how the top 1 percent is doing. What has happened with these stocks? A lot of money is being made by those who are fortunate enough to own them. In 1957, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fluctuated between 450 and 500. By 1982, it was averaging around 900, and it finally broke 1,000 at the end of that year. But by 2007, it had skyrocketed to around 13,000.
And to top it off, the “capital gains” tax rate for making money on stocks is only 15 percent—far lower than the tax rate for most wage earners, some of whom pay more than double that rate for income they have received through the sweat of their labor. This puts many of the wealthiest people in America in the enviable position of not even having to work to make money. In the America of today, it is entirely doable to find a good money manager, let him or her invest your money in exchange for a small percentage of the take, which itself is tax-deductible as a business fee, and then, as billionaire Warren Buffett is reputed to have said, end up paying a lower tax rate than your secretary.
While the average compensation for American workers has actually declined, Reuters recently reported that in 2006 the number of U.S. households with a net worth of more than $5 million, excluding their primary residence, surged 23 percent to surpass one million for the first time. Only ten years ago, according to the Chicago-based Spectrem Group, there were just 250,000 U.S. households in this category. This means that while worker incomes have been declining, the number of “superrich” in America has quadrupled in ten years.
As we can see from the above the USA’s economy has been ‘hijacked’ by the extreme right and through a bone headed war strategy the nutters on the right have stolen America from it’s people !
They have handed over the USA to Asian and other countries Sovereign Wealth Funds and put the next generation of Americans into hock for their future !
No wonder Americans will elect an African American or a woman President in November .
BfB ‘
I’d read Jim Webb’s book . You might learn a bit about your country and get to know the views of the man who might yet be your next Vice President