Slugger O'Toole

Moderate Irish nationalist . Humanist , atheist , centre left politically but no ideologue . Despite present crisis favours Euro longer term as in best interest of all. Not anti British or anti American but definitely anti trickle down economics and anti the ruinous Afghan and Iraqi wars . Presently trying to look beyond the anarchic capitalism of the present to a better future. Fears that what we call 'democracy' has now become an oligarchy of ruling international financial interests who have the world's elected leaders at their beck and call. Neither for or against a UI but against any violence used by those to achieve or prevent it . Favours closer and better relations with UK in education , defence and health and practical cross border cooperation with NI.

Latest comments from Greenflag (see all)

Greenflag has commented 3,326 times (38 in the last month).

1. Comment on 2013 elections: the alienation of Freelander man
   on 5 May 2013 at 12:41 pm

   @ aquifer ,

   Some add ons to your lucid comment above ,

   ‘but British workers are surplus to requirements when others are cheaper or have better skills.’

   Not just British -Spanish , American , Irish , Japanese and I now read South Chinese ( a later comment hereunder).

   ‘Neo-liberal economic cults have downsized government so that it can no longer bribe the populace into quiescence.’

   Not just that but they have made governments hostage to their multinational financial interest above all else . In the USA they have led the downward spiral of State Governments competing with each other to see who can reduce the most number of teachers -pay the lowest State taxes etc etc etc and finally when the lowest cost USA State can no longer offer enough ‘freebies ‘ the corporation will outsource to China etc .

   ‘Lobbyists for business ensure that the last thing to happen will be rational policy interventions that create jobs health and opportunity, and which work to prevent extortion and destruction.’

   Full marks for the obvious .Does anyone still believe that if it weren’t for government regulation and trade union activism that UK and USA and European workers would ever have achieved the incomes they currently earn ?

   ‘National governments cannot keep international capital in the one place for long enough to pay its dues. Workers are not paid enough to buy stuff.’

   It’s actually worse that that . International capital is demanding that incomes be reduced in developed countries so that workers will be paid even less so that they purchase less so that they can be paid even less etc in the downward spiral that leads to eventual blood on the streets .

   ‘The game is up. This could go anywhere.’

   It looks like a slow dying end to ‘democratic capitalism ‘ or whatever is left of it and it’s replacement by authoritarian -top down -non democratic plutocrat rule a.k.a banksters and international financial capital . It could of course tip to extreme left totalitarianism when the western middle class is emisserated to that point when all pretense is finally given up that the system can be fixed /repaired.

   ‘Scapegoating can gather a fearful us against an other them.’

   Indeed it has begun and grows even in developed countries like the UK /USA /Belgium /Spain -North v South -class warfare -worsening race relations -religious sectarianism etc etc. From todays BBC evidence of growing anti semitism in Europe .
   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22413301

   ‘Socialists and trendy revolutionistas cannot be trusted with an economy,’

   No more so than the neo con destructionistas.

   And in South China textile factories lie idle as the companies have upped and left for Bangla Desh and Vietnam where wages are lower and safety regulations for workers even less implemented . Meanwhile the Indian Government constructs 1500 mile long border fence to prevent Bangla Desh’s 170 million people from crossing into India in a region which already has been experiencing sectarian conflict between Hindu and Islam .

   The wurrld is in a state of chassis (chaos ) -again – as Captain Boyle remarked in O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock.

   And those in charge of the chaos and responsible for it seem utterly bereft of practical solutions .

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2. Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
   on 5 May 2013 at 11:55 am

   @ tmitch57,

   ‘When the thirteenth amendment was passed it was never intended to apply to those whose parents had come illegally from another country but rather to the black population, most of whom had been born in slavery.’

   The law of unintended consequences .

   Ditto for the right to bear arms . In the late 1700′s bearing arms meant a flintlock musket that might hit a target at 10 yards 25% of the time . It was not meant for assault weapons that could wipe out a class of schoolchildren in minutes

   The American Constitution needs upgrading for the 21 st century if Congress and the Senate are ever to regain the trust of a majority of the American people .Not to worry though the plutocrats and lobbyists in Washington DC will ensure stasis to further the financial interests of their clientele:(

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3. Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
   on 5 May 2013 at 11:46 am

   @ Rory Carr

   ‘I shall try to keep a little diary as they topple one-by-one and two-by-two in tales of financial finagling, sexual shenanigans and town-hall turpitude over the coming months so that we all may delight in their downfall.’

   Judging by today’s Sunday headlines you might want to keep a diary on the Tories also and set up a book on which downfall comes first .

   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22417941

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4. Comment on 2013 elections: the alienation of Freelander man
   on 4 May 2013 at 8:46 pm

   Excellent post election analysis Turgon

   @ DC ,,

   ‘Don’t frighten the horses because of capital flight.’

   Our Mr Rabbitte is not afraid of Goldman Sachs or so he says anyway

   http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0504/390367-aib-michael-somers/

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5. Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
   on 4 May 2013 at 1:43 pm

   @ harry flashman,

   ‘Thus my original point that immigration, which has such a major effect on politics is a very legitimate and utterly fundamental issue in politics.’

   I don’t think anybody is saying it is’nt an issue or to be more accurate won’t be an issue in the 2015 election but so too will EU membership ,the economy and whether the mew Governor of the Bank of England is ‘permitted’ by the banksters to implement necessary reforms to prevent another financial meltdown.

   It’s your quote below which is ‘off the wall ‘

   Is it not perfectly legitimate therefore for followers of a political ideology, which sees its ideological opponents (in the US and UK) importing its voters from overseas to win elections it would otherwise lose,

   Other than Enoch Powell I can’t recall any former major Tory achieving notoriety on the issue . The Tories like Labour just did what the ‘economy ‘ a.k.a the financial interests said they must do – In the absence of British people reproducing themselves and of course minus those Britons who left for overseas -Australia , Canada ,USA etc (several million since the 1960′s) then the only recourse was to ‘import ‘ labour .Even the Irish usually dependable supply of excess population from the neighbouring island began to dry up and in the late 1990′s and 2000′s turned into reverse .

   Ideologically the Conservatives at least the establishment did not care to discuss the subject other than row along mostly with Labour and vice versa when either were in government . The UKIP is how can I put this -reaping the current disenchantment with both main parties in a protest vote which is popular with those sections of the British white -working and middle classes who are most affected by immigration . The ‘ideological ‘ right in England like ancient Gaul is divided into three parts . The Cameroonians and the financiers of the City- the middle and lower middle classes of the South and the little englanders of the white working class who see their country changing before their eyes to an extent which up to now was not noted by the political establishments of either main party .

   What these supporters forget in their anti immigrant and anti EU positions is that it’s the ‘economy ‘ that decides who gets to live in and who gets to immigrate into the UK (and elsewhere)

   I agree it’ll make for a more interesting 2015 General Election and might even prompt the Scots to ‘opt out ‘ rather than stay in assuming it becomes fractious enough .Alternatively the right may implode under Cameron’s dithering to a point whereby Labour will prove the only safe alternative . Could be a tough call for the Scots in 2014 .

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6. Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
   on 2 May 2013 at 1:33 pm

   @ malcolm redfellow ,

   ‘as for the casual rest, what we in London notice is that the passing Australian bar-tender (frequently stroppy with it) has been supplanted by stacks of helpful and considerate (and — to be sexist — stacked) Czech and Hungarian bar-maids.’

   Lucky Londoners – A couple of years back when visiting Dublin’s city centre I dropped into an old former watering hole . The place was relatively empty and I noticed when I went in a huge TV screen which was at that moment showing Manchester Utd playing some other team and on the attack towards goal which I found riveted my attention . A voice called out behind me ‘Are ye havin a pint ‘

   ‘Yes please I replied with a wave of my arm backwards while watching Rooney once again miss a proverbial sitter . . I turned to the bar only to be served alas not by a stacked Hungarian or Czech but by a young Oriental gentleman from China who could have won an Oscar for his Dublin accent .

   Meanwhile the Polish lady who serves up an occasional pint at an hostelry nearer home still sounds like she just got off the bus from Cracow

   BTW thanks for that link to Renaissance – I’m sure Harry will appreciate not having to dig up his numbers .

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7. Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
   on 2 May 2013 at 12:58 pm

   @ harry flashman .

   Electorates change Harry -perhaps not in Northern Ireland but over a period of 30 years even there they change . The demographic changes taking place in USA & UK began a generation ago or more .

   ‘I have absolutely no problem with well-educated immigrants coming to a country, ‘

   Of course all the more so when the educational system within developed countries such as the UK and/or USA can’t or is either unwilling to ‘produce ‘ their own for reasons of cost and ‘profit ‘ . The other side of that coin is that developing countries lose their ‘talent ‘ and the very people they need to help develop their countries.

   ‘it’s mostly unskilled, uneducated immigrants who are flooding in to do jobs that the natives maintained on unaffordable benefits turn their noses up at.’

   Thats part of the problem but you need to dig a bit deeper than that aspect to understand whats really going on among probably mow more than half the workforce in western developed economies and in particular since about the mid 1970′s . Summarising briefly -deindustrialisation -outsourcing -robotics – capital consolidation among some financial and business corporations on a scale that dwarfs more than half the national economies in the UN .- the reduction of trade union influence and power and it’s almost complete disappearance from the private sector -globalisation- the rise of the ‘internet ‘ information age and the emergence of significant new economies into the world financial and trading system plus the extra 2 billion ‘global ‘employees . You can buy a shirt for 22 dollars/euros /pounds in any western retail superstore that is made in Bangla Desh and for which the employee is paid 8 cents .Go figure . At the top of the middle and working class ‘living standard’ epoch in the west -circa 1975-1980 labour costs on average accounted for close to 50% of all costs . Thats not the case in Bangla Desh or Vietnam or South China or Indonesia etc in 2013.

   Like everything else all of the above have had both positive and negative outcomes both in the west and in the east ..

   One of those negatives is that ‘capitalism ‘ in it’s raw and naked state is unable /incapable / unwilling, choose whichever , to create jobs at a wage level that many people in western countries are willing to work for particularly as you say when they can be just as well off or not noticeably much worse off ‘living ‘ on benefits . They are in effect in those instances behaving as ‘capitalists ‘ Simply put they are getting the best possible return on their ‘capital ‘ resource (their labour ) by investing the minimum amount required to get the best possible return in the short term -in a stagnant market .

   . I believe that in the USA some 14 million are ‘disabled ‘ Add that to the 24 million unemployed or underemployed and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that without large scale immigration legal or otherwise from countries like Mexico and those in Central America the US economy would implode . Ditto for the UK and Germany and France .

   In an economy which is 75% driven by consumer spending then the net effect of an overall real wage reduction or freeze in the private sector over the past 15 years has led to a weakening of consumer demand and this was/is further aggravated by the continuing property bubble burst aftermath and the failures in the banking sector which has put further pressure on tax payers in these countries .’

   ‘the idea that immigrants are a boon to the economy misses the blindingly obvious fact that immigrants get sick too, they have children too that need to go to school, and eventually they get old and need the pensions the same as everyone else.’

   But in the meantime many are prepared to do the kind of work that white and not so white Americans and Europeans are not prepared to do at the wage rate that the ‘market ‘ decides . You cannot get 250 pound Americans to harvest oranges or pick vegetables from Californian fields -Closer to home you can’t get Irish workers to pick strawberries in Co Wexford .For the above jobs only Mexicans /Guatemalans /Latvians and Estonians will apply .

   In Germany home care workers i.e those attending the aged in that geriatric society tend to be overwhelmingly from Poland and other countries in Eastern Europe .

   Without them these German aged would die of neglect for many have no family to care and their friends have already passed on .

   I believe that what the world (in particular the Western world ) is going through at this time is of a consequential order greater than that of the Industrial Revolution or even the Black Death and as yet those consequences as they impact the planet and all countries are still surfacing .Mass immigration is just one of them .

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8. Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
   on 30 April 2013 at 9:32 pm

   @ harry flashman,

   ”I’ll need to dig out the figures but like I say in a 1980-electorate Romney would have won with a Reagan-like landslide..

   Probably not . Romney’s Mormon background back then would have prevented him from getting the nomination particularly among Southern white evangelicals of the time. .
   Secondly his opponent would not have been an Obama and an African American would not have made it to the VP slot never mind winning a Presidential nomination .

   ‘Your usual about capitalism is irrelevant. ‘

   Its actually very relevant .It’s what primarily led to Romney’s defeat . The identification of Romney with the 1% elite and the banksters plus his disdain for that 47% of Americans whom he categorised as losers – all of that plus his offshore Cayman accounts -and his Bain Capital ties -all of the above made him non electable . The experience of what I call modern day financial sector led plutocratic capitalism has divided the USA much like it has divided the UK although in the latter it is a North /South divide whereas in the USA its a East Coast /West Coast plus North Central v the South and South west .

   If Hilary Clinton gets the next Democratic nomination for President the GOP might as well nominate Yogi Bear for they’ll be wiped out .

   ‘If you believe that importing poverty and ignorance from third world countries’

   What a stupid remark Harry -you should be ashamed of yourself . Its a fact that without students from the developing world such as China and India and elsewhere most American and British faculties of science and engineering and mathematics would not exist or would be half the size they are now assuming they could still be viable .

   While I agree that uncontrolled immigration or even legal immigration above perhaps 10-15% of any population can be politically destabilizing particulalry in countries without a history of immigration it never ceases to amaze me that when the subject is raised among people and it doesn’t matter whether they are White American or Irish or British or Nationalist or Unionist or German and you ask these people if they have any children themselves – you will be amazed at how many are not parents and who for one reason or another haven’t decided to have a family .

   And my answer to them is always the same -’Why the f**K— are you complaining about immigrants -at least the latter are providing a workforce to enable the former to have a state pension at least ‘

   Of course eventually the immigrant flow will dry up from those countries which are now developing and reducing their birthrates to replacement levels and thus following the western model .Even In Africa this is happening although based on present projections the sub Saharan African population is expected to be greater (3.6 billion ) than the current Chinese plus India combined by 2100 .

   If anyone can envisage NIgeria with a population of 760 million or a Yemen or Malawi with 150 million each -I can’t .Long before those numbers are reached their will be a solution .Ditto for a future Palestinian majority in present day Israel .

   The UKIP haven’t got solutions to the crisis of financial sector led capitalism although to be fair neither have the Tories nor Labour nor the LIb Dems or none that I have noticed . They are not only avoiding the inherent contradictions in the current chaos but they have all adopted what can only be described as ostrich like postures and that of course will end in a mess .

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9. Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
   on 30 April 2013 at 10:46 am

   @harryflash

   ‘Romney swept the board with all ages and classes of white voters, ‘

   Not much use to any future GOP candidate when fewer of those older white voters will be around to vote . Incidentally it was the white working class vote in a number of the key swing states which in the end won the election for Obama .

   A significant section of white ‘working class ‘ vote in the deep south has not yet evolved to the state whereby it can vote for it’s economic interest above it’s preference for skin colour.

   More importantly for future elections Obama won a great majority of votes from the under 45′s as compared to Romney’s majority with the over 45′s . Obama’s victory and lets face it it was adifficult in the circumstances given the problems of the USA economy -was won despite a drop in turnout .

   And that ‘drop’ made the election result closer than it would have been . Subsequent to the election a survey of non voters ( all races , ages and classes ) showed that had they voted they’d have supported Obama by 80% versus 20% for Romney .

   Which fact informs that the result for the GOP was worse than the official results showed .

   And that’s why the GOP is scurrying to be seen as favouring immigration reform .

   ‘Is it not perfectly legitimate therefore for followers of a political ideology, which sees its ideological opponents (in the US and UK) importing its voters from overseas to win elections it would otherwise lose, to express some concern about this fact?

   Or is that simply “RACIST!!!!!!!!”?’

   No Harry it’s not racist just stupid . Capital always wants ‘cheap labour ‘ wherever possible . Thus the American slave trade among others in the 17th/18th and 19th centuries . The death tolls in both world wars ‘depopulated ‘Europe by 100 million -skewed population growth and overall reduced the probable otherwise European market by some 300 million people .This shortfall of labour had to be made up from somewhere and if Europeans are unwilling to produce the numbers needed then they have to come from somewhere else .Thats not racism it’s just crude market economics -supply and demand .

   But you have it arse backwards with the ideology favouring large scale immigration . Admittedly the white ‘working class ‘ in both Europe and the USA does not favour immigration due to downward pressure being exerted on their incomes and this is also due to other factors than just immigration. However it has been to the advantage of the ‘white ‘ corporate class to have large scale immigration as they are by and large at least in the first and maybe second generations ‘timid ‘ enough to accept their lot in the ‘west ‘ as compared to less security back home wherever that is.

   This issue has been growing for about 50 years since the mid 1960′s when the first signs of labour shortage were seen as inhibiting economic growth in the UK, USA , Germany and France . It has now reached the stage whereby these economies and ironically their remaining white working and middle classes are now dependent on these younger immigrants to pay for their (white ) pensions .Just as importantly these new immigrants even in Ireland are helping many of these countries from a precipitous decline while also shoring up a more geriatric profile .

   Only France and Sweden have managed to turn around the population decline by means of ‘welfare ‘ encouragement to people to have ‘children ‘.

   UKIP will fail for two reasons -One is that it is and will be even more so in the future impossible for a country the size of the UK to be ‘independent ‘ in the sense in which that idea is conveyed to British voters . Even if the Eurozone were to collapse that would be no less true and the same would apply to Germany, France , Italy , Spain etc.

   Worlds a changin Harry – ain’t goin back except there is a similarity to the competitive world of 1913 except now there are just different main players .

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10. Comment on Peter Robinson: in 50 years’ time the votes of the culturally Irish will help ensure union remains safe
    on 29 April 2013 at 8:01 pm

    He may well be right .Much will depend on how the current Eurozone never ending crisis finally ends and more particularly how it affects the Republic and the UK’s economies .

    The ‘sovereign ‘state is not what it was and in a ‘nationalist ‘ dominated political entity i.e a future NI people may feel they can be as Irish or not as Irish as they want to be . Much will also depend on general unionist reaction to issues such as the Irish language and other facets of Irish historical remembrance within NI . A less paranoid ‘unionism ‘ could be it’s greatest asset in terms of maintaining the union .

    A week is a long time in politics and a year has been described as an eternity so looking ahead 50 years is more properly the job of a futurist- or an oracle ‘or a ‘nostradamus ‘

    50 years ago it was 1963 and 50 before that it was 1913 . I read recently that in Vienna in 1913 one could have bumped into Freud , Hitler , Stalin , and Tito who all lived within a mile of each other in that city , and no one could have foretold what the latter three would leave in their wake by the time they were ‘finished ‘ .In 1963 who would foreseen the collapse of the USSR , authoritarian capitalism in China, an apartheid free South Africa or an African American US President or indeed the upcoming 40 years of sectarian strife in Northern Ireland ? And as for the globalised information led economy and cloud data ?

    For NI nationalists much will also depend on how the Republic emerges from it’s current financial strictures and demonstrates it has learned it’s ‘lesson ‘. On the other hand the EU was supposed to be a mechanism which would reconcile Germany to a wider Europe . It now seems under Kanzlerin Merkiavelli that the smaller European nations such as Greece , Portugal , Cyprus , Ireland etc are being coerced via EU mechanisms into becoming mere adjuncts and vehicles to further the German interest . If this current seeming scenario remains unchanged the EU will break up and either implode or divide into a north /south two speed conglomeration of states .

    The best hope for Irish nationalists and republicans is that a big enough cohort within NI unionism maintain it’s pavlovian anti everything Irish stance with occasional forays into parade issue thuggery and flag waving hysteria . These are the type of ‘unionists ‘ that help bring out the nationalist /republican vote.

    And on that note well done the British Legion for refusing to fly the Union Jack at the Cenotaph every .day and restrict it to official remembrance events thus keeping it above sectarian politics.

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