A [small] cheer for the Sunday Business Post… August 21, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.add a comment
It may seem a bit odd that someone on an avowedly left wing site would have a good word for a right of centre Business newspaper, but I was quite heartened to read that the readership has increased by 19% between June 2009 and June 2010.
The Sunday Business Post has an average weekly readership of 193,000 in the 2009/10 survey, which covered the second half of last year and the first half of this year, up from 162,000 in the corresponding 2008/9 survey.
Which only goes to give them an opportunity to get a dig in at the competition…
This is 25,000 more readers than the Sunday Tribune, whose readership fell to 167,000 from 172,000 in the previous year.
Well… okay.
The thing is that to my mind the SBP possesses one quality that sets it apart from the other Sunday newspapers, indeed from most Irish news media. It is serious about its business.
This doesn’t mean that its outlook is mine, or most likely yours. But there’s more than enough there to work with as this site has found over the years, but there’s usually something of some use, some nugget of information to consider, some comment to reflect upon.
Now, if only there was a means to capture some of that readership, and its clear interest in matters economic away from orthodoxy (although the SBP diverges on that orthodoxy on occasion, although almost overwhelmingly in a rightwards direction). Because one senses that there is a search for answers and – yes – alternatives.
More on the mosque… August 20, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in US Politics.29 comments
Got to say the attacks on the mosque in Lower Manhattan are becoming increasingly strange. Newt Gingrich, whatever the public perception, is no fool so to hear him saying on the Guardian :
“We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor,”… “There is no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Centre.”
…is an absurdity – since Islam isn’t coterminous with violent Islamists any more than… well, insert organisations and religions as one sees fit. Worse he’s being more than liberal with the truth…
Gingrich has also claimed that the imam behind the proposed community centre, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is a “radical Islamist” even though the US state department flew Rauf to Saudi Arabia this week to promote America by telling audiences “what it’s like to practise Islam under our regime of religious freedom and equality”.
And that’s rather a pernicious thing to do.
Meanwhile speaking of ‘Japanese sites’ close to Pearl Harbour one presumes that Gingrich must be at least somewhat exercised by say this , Japan-America Institute of Management Science, sited on ‘a six-acre campus in the Honolulu suburb of Hawaii Kai on the island of Oahu’.
Now granted it’s not a religious or community centre, but rather a commercial site which arguably is worse than people worshipping essentially the same God as many of those making these rhetorical attacks.
And for those of us not aware of it Oahu is the same island as Pearl Harbour, indeed Honolulu and Pearl Harbour are broadly speaking part of the same conurbation [and on a slight tangent it's weird looking at maps or photographs of Honolulu. Many hours years back spent playing FA/18 on computer has given me a strong if somewhat graphically abstract grasp of the layout of the island].. Now, it’s not a couple of blocks away, but once a site is not quite literally positioned at the main location what principle is at work there? Is there a ten block exclusion zone? Twenty? 100? It’s an odd day when the Spectator supports the point… and notes a Shinto Shrine not far from Pearl Harbour.
And they’re – the Japanese – ‘opening offices’, bringing in ‘employees’ – or so they say .
And fond of the place too… We love Hawaii. He wants us to have a dream for their life. And for the Japanese, this is like a paradise,” said Yoshie Fujita, of Royal Cosmetics.
Indeed.
But surely the stand out must be…
A common theme of the Republican attacks is Saudi Arabia’s ban on non-Muslims from Mecca. “Ground Zero is hallowed ground to Americans,” Elliott Maynard, a Republican candidate for Congress in West Virginia, said. “Do you think the Muslims would allow a Jewish temple or Christian church to be built in Mecca?”
Erm… yes… and tell us again about the distinction between living in an open society (however flawed) and a theocracy?
I visited Ground Zero about eight months after the attack and there’s no doubt that it was enormously affecting. There are sensitivities – although given that the future plans include office buildings it’s hard to know where to start picking those sensitivities apart. But this furore seems to invert the reality of a crime and to invest the place the crime occurred at with something that is in truth quite inappropriate and turn the reality of what it is meant to represent on its head.
……….
Meanwhile on a not unrelated matter I was checking out Paul Berman’s latest work online during the week. I read and enjoyed – even if didn’t entirely agree with – his mid-2000s book on the development of the European left post 1968 and attempting to engage with totalitarianism and urban terrorism, amongst other issues, entitled A Tale of Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the Generation of 1968. His later Terror and Liberalism was less convincing, a post-9/11 attempt to chart a line between totalitarianism of left and right and violent Islam. And while there some evidence of some philosophical influence it seems very shallow compared and contrasted with the actuality of events, histories and already extant philosophies.
It appears that he has been doing something similar subsequently in his ‘Flight of the Intellectuals’, albeit this time his focus has now shifted to responses to those like Tariq Ramadan who he appears convinced is an exponent of an even more – gasp – dangerous iteration of the Islamist threat. Ramadan seems like an intriguing character to me, and given that he must balance a number of sharply opposing forces continually manages to impress.
I haven’t read the Berman book yet, but this review from the always interesting Foreign Affairs (which I was amused to read is regarded by some on the internet as ‘left-wing’) provides an interesting analysis .
The analysis… August 20, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, The Left.12 comments
…here may be of interest. Hard to beat the last line for a mixture of complacency and indifference to the realities of what austerity does and will mean.
This week at the Irish Election Literature Blog… August 20, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.add a comment
‘A quiet enough week as I didn’t have much time to scan or the like,’ says AK, but as ever many thanks to him, there’s a lot of material here to consider. Not least the first document…
From the early 1970s a Leaflet advertising ‘Labour Party Bounty Bonds’
From 2007, ‘South West Socialist’ a leaflet from The Socialist Party’s Mick Murphy
From 2007 ..“Fianna Fail -The party who care for the elderly, the young and those in need”
The Green Partys 2007 Party Political Broadcast
and two more ‘what you may have missed’…
From 2007 The brilliant Party Pizzas the Election Election
Socialist Labour Party Recruitment Leaflet from circa 1980 [surely one of the most interesting political formations this state has seen - wbs]
The final one posted this week is…
another Marian White leaflet from the 1991 Local Elections in Blackrock
Actually, one late arrival…
for the audience brought in by the post on ‘Alive’….
Farewell universal provision in the UK… August 19, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in British Politics, Economy.4 comments
The most significant snippet of information in a Guardian piece on the current standing of the British Coalition government – and how odd it is to even write that phrase – is not the news that a leaderless Labour Party stands on 37%, level pegging the Conservatives for the first time in three years, nor that the Liberal Democrats are down 1% at 18%. Nor that Others are at 8%.
Nor is that David Cameron is believed by 57% of voters to be dong a good job, or that the Coalition ‘remains reasonably popular’ at 46%, with 36% thinking it’s not (there’s something intriguing about that poll result when set against party strengths, is there not?). Or that that figure drops by 2% when voters are asked whether the coalition is ‘securing economic recovery’.
Nope, it’s the following:
Osborne sought today to convince voters that the coalition had no alternative but to bring down borrowing. “We are all in this together,” he said, repeating a key message of the government’s since the election but he said the coalition’s welfare cuts would be “fair and progressive”.
Which means what exactly?
The coalition appear to be gearing up to end universal benefits and instead means-test them so that allowances such as the winter fuel allowance and child benefit will no longer go to well-off families. Osborne yesterday refused to rule out curbing entitlements to universal benefits.
We’ve seen that argument run in this state [the RoI] where sentiment is much more sharply tilted against the incumbent government, and on child benefit the status quo remains. It’s hard to see a Coalition with the levels of support enjoyed presently by the British one having the same problem in selling the termination of universal benefits.
I’ve argued before that there is strong researched evidence that demonstrates the most efficacious way of delivering benefits to those who need them most is through universalism backed up – and this is crucial – by proper taxation. Clearly the UK government sees differently.
The effect in Britain is going to be profound and, I think, negative. But the influence of policy changes there may well seep ultimately into this polity. Or perhaps not. It will be very very telling what the eventual response of the public is to measures such as those outlined below…
It was the first public comment by the chancellor since his spending row with the work and pensions minister Iain Duncan Smith was resolved. IDS had been pushing to keep some of the savings his department made by tightening up benefit payments and wanted to reinvest the money in an overhaul of the benefit system. It appears the Treasury will let the DWP keep some of the department’s own savings to that end. The DWP will find the extra revenue by ending winter fuel payments to the over-65s and could also reduce the number of parents available for child benefit.
It’s Alive! August 19, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Bioethics, Religion, Social Policy.67 comments
I was given a copy of Alive! by Jim Monaghan the other day. It’s odd, but where I live I don’t seem to see it as much as I used to. Anyone have any thoughts on why that might be?
Anyhow, a few pieces caught my attention. Actually a whole heap of them, from the surprising news that ‘Europe’s Left [are] pushing a cultural revolution’.
There’s more, ‘with the collapse of the socialist project to re-make the economy, the Left has ‘replaced socio-economic revolution by sexual, moral and cultural revolution’”. Really? Clearly the memo from the Left didn’t reach me, for this was the first I heard about it.
And wait, the news is that ‘family structure, bioethics and the role of religion in society will be the major divisive issues in the US and in Europe this century’. Ah yes, us leftists, just gunning to rip apart traditional family structures. Which will be news to those around me.
Moreover, ‘the view that the struggle beetween violent Islamism and the West was a religious clash [was rejected]. Rather, it was the very secularism of the West which hindered dialogue with other societies, which continue to be religious’.
Now you might think that dialogue between the West and other societies is something rather different to the ‘struggle between violent Islamism and the West’ [sic]. But clearly this conflation doesn’t trouble the speaker.
All this was stated by Philosophy of Law professor at Seville University, Dr. Francisco Contreras. And he was speaking at a seminar ‘sponsored on behalf of the European People’s Party by’… Gay Mitchell MEP.
Meanwhile, and there’s more which I hope to address over the next while, what of the following?
And…
Here’s the original editorial in the Mullingar/Athlone Advertiser. Perhaps it’s an odd topic for the paper to be dealing with, but… on the other hand… (and what of the risible comments about the Examiner? Hard to know what is more so, perhaps the idea that it’s part of the ‘leftwing’ Irish media) Some might find it disturbing that the very expression of opinions on abortion being boycotted or campaigned against is – whatever ones views on the issue itself – something to be concerned about.
Mick Ryan’s oration at unveiling of Plaque commemorating Official IRA comrades August 18, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, Northern Ireland, Republicanism, The Left.44 comments
Given the debates on this site around the plaque, this may be of interest. Many thanks to the person who forwarded this.
MICK RYAN’S [a former member of the I.R.A. G.H.Q. staff] oration at unveiling of Plaque commemorating official IRA comrades who died in the cause of a 32 county Socialist Republic Springfield Road Belfast 15 August 2010.
A comrádaithe, thángamar le chéile anseo inniu le omós a thabhairt dóibh siúd go léir, idir fir agus mná, de chuid Óglaigh na hEireann Oifigiuil a fuair bás , nó a dfhulaing, ar son Saoirse n hÉireann agus Cearta an phobal go léir. Ghabh siad ar bhóthar na saoirse, bóthar nach bfhuil deireadh leis go fóill. Ghabh said an bóthar ceannan cheanna a ghabhTone agus an Phiarsach ag lorg saoirse ár dtire, neamhsplách agus aontaithe. Sin an chúis a bfhuilimid fós ag iarraidh baint amach.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anamacha dilis..
I am proud to stand among you my comrades today and to have taken part in those campaigns which we fought with honour and in which we never brought the name Republican or IRA into shame or disrepute.
I am proud to be here at this unveiling of a memorial to Official IRA Volunteers and friends of the movement who gave their lives in pursuit of a Socialist Republic.
As a veteran of Operation Harvest, the IRA’s Campaign of ’56 to 62, and of those in the 1960s to the 1980s, I send greetings to surviving Republicans of those Campaigns on this occasion and to celebrate the 94th Anniversary of the 1916 Rising. And I want to say here that the Official IRA had during those years to defend their areas against great odds, in Belfast and elsewhere against attacks by the British Army, the UDR, the Loyalist paramilitary organisations and, sadly and regrettably too, attacks by ex-members of the IRA.
Every year in every part of Ireland, men and women gather to commemorate those who have died in the cause of Irish freedom; it is a sad duty but a necessary one. We must never for one moment allow the memory of our soldier dead to be forgotten.
These men and women fought and died for us and the unborn generations of Irishmen and women; they died above all that this nation would live as a Free, Independent, Irish nation that would cherish and foster its culture and language and values; a 32 County Irish Republic that would be truly free and with a truly United people; a Republic where we could live in peace and prosperity with each other regardless of our religious beliefs or none; an Ireland free of any foreign control or domination and that would be prosperous and where the curse of sectarianism and the tragedy of forced emigration would end and where our people could then live and prosper in this, their own land. And a country, a nation, where the kind of corruption we are now experiencing in the 26 counties would be eliminated.
They were the ideals that the men and women of 1916 fought for and they were the ideals fought for in the ‘56 Campaign and between the 60s and the 80s. They remain our ideals today.
We also remember with pride our own comrades who were jailed or who gave their lives in that courageous struggle between the 60s to the 80’s against tremendous odds; we must never forget those gallant men and women who supported us sometimes at great risk to themselves and their families. We will not forget that noble cause for which they died; that great cause of Tone and Emmet and Pearse and our comrades of our own time, and so eloquently embraced in the Proclamation of 1916 which promised: ‘The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all its parts, cherishing all the people equally…’ It was those great and honourable ideals laid down in that Proclamation that inspired the men and women of 1916 and us of the later generations and we have a duty to cherish those ideals and remember with pride all those who fought and died to achieve them.
But while we remember them with pride we have to remind ourselves and today’s young generation that we are faced with a totally different situation today in 2010 to that which faced us in ’56 and our comrades of previous and later generations. Today, as a result of the massive support of the vast majority of all the people of Ireland, given democratically in an all Ireland Referendum, following the Good Friday Agreement, there is no longer any need or right to engage in violent military activity to bring about the reunification of Ireland. That Referendum, the first since 1918, was a complete rejection of the right of any group to coerce any section of the people into a united Ireland; and upheld the right of the unionist people to hold on to their beliefs in a union with Britain BUT IN A PEACEFUL AND DEMOCRATIC WAY. But we, as Republicans have to say, that we believe that the natural, historical and most logical state of Ireland is as an Independent Republic of 32 Counties existing as an independent Republic – independent of Britain or any other foreign power, and we, therefore, will continue to attempt to convince the Loyalist and Unionists in our population that a 32 County Republic independent of any other state, UK or otherwise, offers the best future for all our people Unionist and Republican. But that is entirely up to our Unionist citizens to join voluntarily with us in that great objective.
Similarly, the referendum underlined and guaranteed the right of Nationalists and Republicans to hold their opinions and pursue their ideal of a United Ireland but by peaceful and democratic means.
The clear and absolute message was that a United Ireland could only come about by peaceful and democratic means and with the consent of the majority of the people of the North.
There was also a clear and total rejection of SECTARIANISM which tragically has not gone away. The curse of sectarianism must be rejected and abhorred wherever it rears its ugly head, no matter what person or group promotes it. Sectarianism has no place in any civilised society; sectarianism has no place in the Republican ideal or ethos. It never had and never will. And that has been stated explicitly by the founders of the United Irishmen 210 years ago and repeated and emphasised by all true Republicans since then. And we here today renew our pledge to uphold that great tenet of Tone as it was so eloquently stated by him and included by Pearse and his comrades in the Easter Proclamation which is worth repeating again.
The Proclamation of the Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens and declared its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, c herishing all the people equally.
Comrades, it is time, once and for all, to give the people, all the people, the peace they so desperately desire and need in order to pursue their everyday lives and their political objectives and aims, and the betterment of their lives and of their communities by peaceful and democratic means, means that are now open to all. And though the political systems are not to everyone’s liking, then the solution is begin to get organised in your local and community organisations to organise to get your opinions across to the politicians and those in power. We’re talking here merely about exercising your local power – exercising your vote, your democratic rights to change things for the better for you and your community.
If our society is to have a “Shared Future” and a “Peaceful Future”, then all those who were involved in armed conflict must now act as advocates to today’s younger generation that only peaceful methods must be used from now on.
And I must repeat that speaking as an unashamed, unrepentant Republican and IRA veteran, it is my belief that that is the proper and best way forward for us Republicans to achieve our vision of a truly United 32 County Irish Republic.
And that comrades, is a worthy objective and aspiration with which to end this commemoration of our Republican dead.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anamacha dilis
90 Years of the US 19th Amendment August 18, 2010
Posted by Garibaldy in Uncategorized.5 comments
Just thought it was worth noting that today is the 90th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the US constitution.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Identity politics might be ok sometimes.
From the CLR Vaults… Part 2 – It’s 2008, Sarah Palin is selected as John McCain’s running mate. August 18, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in United States, US Politics.2 comments
Continuing a series of posts linking to topics the Cedar Lounge Revolution dealt with in the dim and not so distant part…
…who would have thought that Sarah Palin would become an iconic figure on the US right? And even, if we throw in the Tea Party, the right of right? And it’s been barely two or so years.
Of the original post I think this paragraph is perhaps of most interest:
So how then does this play out? We’re about to see if African-American and staidish older white guy trumps staidish older white guy and woman or vice versa. The significations of all this are a sight to see, aren’t they? And here’s the thing, both tickets invert while simultaneously utilising identity politics. It just depends to a degree what flavour of identity politics you hold.
It seems to me that one could argue that during and after the election the PUMAs and more recently the Tea Party we see that identity politics manifested, albeit in odd configurations. And Palin has been part of the narrative both of those strands manufactured.
Even the current imbroglio over the mosque close to, near, not on, Ground Zero (and William Saletan has some refreshingly sane thoughts on that issue) demonstrates how she channels – or is it shapes – at least a part of the right discourse in the US. Where she goes next is something that, one suspects, will be of some importance. It’s difficult to see her succeeding at national level given her current positioning. Although that is to a considerable degree on both how she positions herself in the future and the sort of environment that is gifted to her after this administration.
But this first sighting, in the original post (which itself was one of a large series tracking the Presidential Election), was hardly indicative of the sort of presence she would later assume.
Slightly off the pointa recent NBC/WSJ poll has both Republicans and Democrats on near equally low figures, while Obama’s figures while far from stellar remain reasonably high for this time in the electoral cycle.
22nd Desmond Greaves Weekend School 2010: The Economy: Democracy, Class, and Gender August 18, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics, The Left.2 comments
Friday to Sunday, 10 to 12 September 2010
Topics: Iceland, the Euro, and the EU; The crisis of the Irish economy; Corporate Influence and Lobbying: Who really makes policy in Ireland and the EU?; Challenges for the Irish public service today; Gender, class, and the economy in Ireland.
Speakers: Ragnar Arnalds (Former Minister for Finance, Iceland), Paula Clancy, Tom O’Connor, Niamh Brennan, Brian Denny, Michael Smith, Blair Horan, William Kingston, Marie Sherlock, Anne Casey, Cathleen O’Neill, Kathleen Lynch.
Ionad an Phiarsaigh
The Pearse Centre
27 Pearse Street
Dublin 2
Further information from 087 2308330 or post@greavesschool.com
Thanks to the person who forwarded this.
