Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week September 2, 2012
Posted by Garibaldy in Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week.trackback
This week’s winner, Willie Kealy, for setting up the strawman of the century at the start of his article.
Public servants are not the most vulnerable section of society. That is the conclusion to be drawn from the results of our latest Sunday Independent/Quantum Research nationwide poll of 500 homes carried out on Friday night.
Actually, scratch that.
It is not fashionable to say so, of course; it is always easier to blame somebody else –bankers, politicians, regulators, developers, the media, anybody, really, but those who have benefitted more than most from the gross mismanagement of the finances of the State.
Who has done better than the bankers, politicians and developers?
Teachers, guards, nurses, semi-state staff, and the rest of the 380,800 workers in the public sector
We know from his bizarre claim that the Tories won than the last general election that Jody Corcoran has problems with maths, but the mere suggestion that it is not the bankers and developers who have gained the most from what has gone on in the Republic over decades is simply contemptible. And that happened with the cheerleading of certain newspapers, and certain journalists who lionised them and the corrupt political system they exploited.
Anne Harris on Clare Daly:
Mick Wallace is a problem for all our public representatives. Not just Clare Daly. And certainly there is an argument to be made that while the Oireachtas continues to count among its number a man who defrauded the Revenue of a fortune, then why should she not sit next to him, stand next to him and refuse to sign documents against him?
It’s called freedom. Was anybody in the GAA censured for standing next to Sean Quinn?
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/talented-street-fighter-will-survive-her-show-trial-3216830.html
There’s an hilarious bit further in her piece:
Her real misdemeanour, one suspects, comes towards the end of the statement. “Clare has tended to orientate to the independent members of the Technical Group in the Dail.” Followed closely by her real crime. “She has not worked in a genuinely collective way with her colleagues on the SP.”
Ah, the collective. Up until now, they were on to a good thing. After all, Mick Wallace is a problem for the entire political process.
But then they gave the game away and we are in the world of Bukharin and his Bolshevik show trial. Too much talk of the collective is a worry. That way lies totalitarianism.
Shhh… don’t anyone tell Anne about the following idea and why her (mis)understanding of the way the term is used says more about her…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_collective_responsibility
Without taking sides on the substantive issue, it does look as though Anne Harris has no idea of how we are expected to behave if we join a political party.
Anne Harris’ piece is hilarious, once again demonstrating her ability to expand lazy hypocrisy to the level of a psychosis.
It’s interesting, though, that between today and yesterday the INM have started referring to Wallace again without automatically including the words “Tax cheat” before every mention of his name.
Also enjoyable is the typical Sindo trope in the Jody Corcoran piece on the review of PS allowances:
“The disclosure today that the Government has scrapped the review will provoke outrage among many people expected to be seriously affected by the Health Service Executive (HSE) announcement on Thursday to slash spending by €130m”
Not only does the Sindo report what has happened, it also reports what the reaction is going to be! I certainly hope that the review (the review hasn’t been scrapped) will provoke outrage; I’d hate for Jody Corcoran to have been proved wrong.
Best of all is my personal favorite, John Paul McCarthy. He never lets me down. Today’s piece, while disappointingly lacking in Harrisite hagiography, does contain the obligatory reference to Daniel Corkery (with every ten mentions, you get a free copy of ‘The necessity for social democracy’). It’s an odd one, even more disjointed than usual, a handful of random references in search of an argument. But it does conclude with the wonderfully pompous:
“I thought about all this during my boat trip, as I adjusted my Panama hat to shield my eyes from the sun …”
Ludicrous troll is ludicrous.
for those who wish to read that bit for themselves
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/the-ties-that-bind-in-a-city-once-divided-3216831.html
Repeat a lie enough times …
Surely Michael Taft has some graphs and pie charts we could forward to the Hall of Sindo in order to educate them about the distribution of wealth in Ireland?
And Quantum Research rears its funny little head again.
“phone polls of questionable provenance” – Denis O’Brien, ten months ago
I’d be prepared to offer a monetary reward to anyone who can get a staff list for Quantum Research.
I`ll tell you for free.
1. Eoghan Harris
2. Eoghan Harris
3. Eoghan Harris
If 1 & 2 disagree 3 decides. Or any combination of the 3.
No, I get that. I’d like to see the *Sindo* give details of what appears to be an entirely fictitious pollster.
You have to laugh when you hear the likes of the Sunday Independent talking about society, coming as it does from the same mindset as Margaret Thatcher who tried to dismantle society and deny its existence. If they only knew what society meant.
That’s an interesting point and something well worth exploring further because their definition of ‘society’ seems to be one which is tilted in a very distinct direction.
Very true. Interestingly Wikipedia says “the term “society” came from the Latin word societas, which in turn was derived from the noun socius (“comrade, friend, ally”; adjectival form socialis) used to describe a bond or interaction among parties that are friendly, or at least civil”.
I think the Indo would have a very different definition which is far from comradeship or even kinship. More “High Society” than social society.
Eilis O’Hanlon starts well:
FORGET the bankers. By far the biggest scoundrels in Irish life are the evil geniuses behind the racket known as schoolbooks. Every year they bring out supposedly “new” editions of the same books containing minor changes to the text, meaning parents are forced to fork out a small fortune each year.
But then seems not to know the difference between copyrighted and out-of-copyright books:
Then there’s the fact that the books are all printed on thick paper which not only makes bags so heavy that they cause major injury to the shoulders of young people forced to carry them, but also adds even more to the cost. I can buy the complete works of Shakespeare in paperback for under a tenner but I can’t get a textbook for woodwork without robbing the bank? That can’t be right.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/the-endless-handholding-must-stop-for-all-our-sakes-3216833.html
The sister was talking to me about the heavy school bag problem the other day. She mentioned that a lot of the texts have to last for the duration, which may be two or even three years. Hence the heavy, durable paper.
As far as the Sindo goes, I’m genuinely flabbergasted. But then I remain part of the reality-based community.
Do you think they sit around Doheny and Nesbitts, taking bets on who can come up with the biggest outrage against truth and decency each week?
If I might put on my professional hat once again, what really scares me about this rhetoric about the PS, is that it is scapegoating . A phenomena that occurs during times when “bad things” lurk in groups. If the scapegoat goes, another one has to be found, or else the whole system collapses and the group has to function properly, and deal with this bad stuff. Perhaps then it might be the Troika. In addition, those engaging in scapegoating are often unaware of what they are doing .
See Greece. Are the problems limited to the ‘periphery’ as we’re lead to believe or is it much wider. Germany and France can no more avoid what’s coming then INM or the squeezed middle or whatever it is this week.
Anyone listening to Marian Finucane (second half) this morning? That Declan Power continues to be some piece of work.
What did he say?
Oh, there was a bunch of stuff on various topics, where he dutifully fulfilled his role as a mouthpiece for international Anglophone wingnuttery. But maybe the most startling thing I’ve heard on Irish radio for some time occurred during a discussion on the killing of those strikers in SA by police goons.
The other guest (Staunton from the IT, I think) and Finucane agreed that charging the other miners with their comrades’ murder was outrageous. And Power agreed… but then went on to elaborate that what he meant was that he wanted the union organisers up on the same charges.
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/marianfinucane/
Wow. That’s actually pretty shocking. Some gent!
“LABOUR TDs have begun preparing for a general election, following last week’s health-cuts fiasco, which has caused the most serious split in the Coalition since it took office.”
Labour TDs pulling the plug now would be turkeys voting for Christmas to be replaced with Thanksgiving as the major celebration. They’re cooked, but why ask for the date to be brought earlier?
Which reminds me again of the question I asked when the coalition was being formed. What is the success rate of minor parties in parliamentary coalitions? Isn’t it nearly always the case that the minor party takes a hammering in the subsequent election?
The data is availabe on http://electionsireland.org/ if you want to extract it and do the counting.
PDs generally did better out of participation in Government than from opposition (apart from their final election, obviously).
I don’t that means much for left-wing parties though. The support base is clearly very different.
I’m not particularly thinking of Ireland: I was thinking as a general theme (and one currently playing out with the Liberal Democrats in the UK and the Free Democrats in Germany, for instance).
I think this regime is beginning to rot. Reilly did not even inform the Labour junior ministers. My guess is that he is losing it. Overwhelmed at the job, he blames everyone except his professional caste. How Harney must be enjoying this.
I expect a few defections. Independent FG just like the last Dail had independent FF.
This is part of the rationale for rehabilitating FF. They need twedleedee just in case. They do not trust Sinn Fein yet, not fully house trained. My guess a government of national unity (united against the 99%) middle of next year.
And instead of Syriza we have an ULA which cannot get its act together.
Any article in the SINDO on the latest fall in profits at INM??? ha ha ha ha maybe the journalists there should have gotten their own version of ‘the croke park agreement’ they may need one lol
Always nice to see some bollocks crowing over the fact that people might lose their jobs.
Fair point Eamonn. It’s easy to forget the ordinary people working there behind the headline “commentators”.
Well, do you take the same attitude to the SINDO calling for cuts in jobs in public sector! ??
Gene Kerrigan seems to be back-the only Sindo journo left
who isn’t a right-winger:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gene-kerrigan/gene-kerrigan-more-cuts-as-we-waste-cash-on-anglo-3216845.html