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What you want to say… Open Thread, 13th March 2013 March 13, 2013

Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.
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As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.

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1. Richard - March 13, 2013

And so Chávez, I mean, he was a remarkable man. He halved the levels of poverty in Venezuela. And then (laughs) he squandered the wealth. Among the biggest oil reserves in the world, and now mortgaged them to the Chinese. You know, the place has the highest crime rate in the world, it’s a mess, the country.

MARIAN FINUCANE: Why though? Why, why do..

PROFESSOR IAN ROBERTSON: Well, here’s why, here’s why. So. I can give you the example of Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

I did a piece the other day looking at RTE’s use of psychologists in its programming, and one particular example addressing the matter of Hugo Chávez.

http://knaves.posterous.com/but-now-well-pause-for-the-angelus-psychologi

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WorldbyStorm - March 13, 2013

Excellent and depressing piece Richard.

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eamonncork - March 13, 2013

Excellent, depressing and utterly hilarious. The psychologist is like a Steve Coogan creation. He’s also a fantastic all-rounder, displaying as little knowledge about rugby and Enda Kenny as he does about Chavez. I especially love the one about Kenny having become brighter since he was made Taoiseach because it’s increased his testosterone levels. Or his musings on how Ireland had the winning instinct when they were winning but lost it when they were losing.
But there is of course a serious point. This man’s analysis is basically extremely lazy pub talk, at times he’s like The Fast Show character who agrees with everyone, yet he’s billed having some kind of encyclopaedic knowledge of everything on the basis of a qualification in psychology. Because it’s all psychology in the end y’know.
The amazing laziness of Marian Finucane is much in evidence throughout the interview as well. Another RTE head who likes to have ‘high achievers’ on her programme and undoubtedly considers herself to be one though her main achievement is to be paid an exorbitant amount for doing very little and doing it badly.

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EWI - March 13, 2013

Applies also to many economists…

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dmfod - March 13, 2013

Really good piece showing how facile and supportive of the status quo cod psychology is as applied to politics. Barbara Ehrenreich’s ‘Smile or Die’ about the role of positive thinking on redirecting energy from social activism to personal growth and creating a quiescent workforce in the US is really interesting on this stuff. One example that stuck with me was big corporations hiring motivational speakers to cheer people up after they’ve laid them off. I’m sure they’ve worked out that ‘this a new opportunity for you’ bullshit reduces severance claims by a certain percentage.

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CL - March 13, 2013
2. Starkadder - March 13, 2013

Stephen Howe reviews a bio of Frantz Fanon:


David Macey’s 2000 biography stands in a class of its own. It is unmatched in its care and attention to detail, in its author’s knowledge of the multiple intellectual, cultural and political contexts in which the man moved – from psychiatric theory to the politics of colonial Martinique, postwar France and revolutionary Algeria – and not least in its insistence that Fanon’s thought can only be understood in those contexts, not in airy generalisations. It is thus a necessary, if sometimes impatient, corrective to the way Fanon’s ideas – or, often, his mere abstract image – has become the near-ubiquitous, polymorphous touchstone of contemporary postcolonial and anticolonialist thinking.

http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/4076/book-review-frantz-fanon-a-biography

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3. justin - March 13, 2013

A couple of scientists claim that biological structures have been found in a meteorite that landed in Sri Lanka late last year. Others claim the meteorite has been contaminated and there is some evidence that no meteorite fell as claimed. Proof of panspermia or scientists seeking glory and making unfounded claims?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/03/11/174041948/claims-of-a-meteorites-ancient-aquatic-fossils-spark-debate

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4. EWI - March 13, 2013

An Argentinian Jesuit has just been elected Pope Francis.

I hear a mushroom cloud has been spotted over Castle Gandolfino.

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eamonncork - March 13, 2013

It’s OK, his parents were Italian.

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EWI - March 13, 2013

In any case, Ratz clearly never managed to work his way down quite to the bottom of that list of Jesuits in South America… some survived, even if their parents were Italian.

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eamonncork - March 13, 2013

He also appears to have been involved in some murky stuff during the Dirty War.

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Tomboktu - March 13, 2013

He is guided by the hand of God. It’s an Argentinian thing, apparently/

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5. Tomboktu - March 13, 2013

With International Women’s Day just passed, I thought I might share a small detail of some research I was doing at the weekend.

publicpolicy.ie published a stidy late last year on income inequality that uses a newly available dataset from the CSO. I knew it was by four economists in UCC, and the reference I had was that the lead author is McCarthy.

I found it, after a bit of a delay. The four authors, as listed on the title page are: Nóirín McCarthy, Marie O’Connor, Meadhbh Sherman and Declan Jordan. Not often that there are three women and one man, but welcome.

However, on publicpolicy.ie, lists it under the last, and only male, author’s name. (And alphabetically under “D” for Declan, to boot.)

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6. doctorfive - March 14, 2013
7. Jonathan - March 14, 2013

On the election of the new Pope, Forbes is asking the question that matters: “Is Jorge Bergoglio, the New Pope Francis, a Capitalist?” It’s the usual neoliberal stuff (markets solve poverty etc) but on the second page it quotes an unidentified source as saying: “At the celebration of the Te Deum at the most recent national feast, last May 25th, there was a record audience for Cardinal Bergoglio´s homily. The cardinal asked the people of Argentina to do as Zacchaeus had done in the Gospel. Here was a sinister loan shark. But, taking account of his moral lowliness, he climbed up into a sycamore tree, to see Jesus and let himself be seen and converted by him.”
The article’s author goes on to say: “For a country that is in an almost constant state of conflict with investors who have loaned money to it, and who actually have the “nerve” to insist that the funds be repaid according to contract, the image of a ‘sinister loan shark’ is, well, sinister, and politically charged. The problem is that this is not actually what the gospel says about him. “Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. Seems like Argentina with its appallingly low score of 52 out of 100 on controlling its government spending, and its craterously low 30 out of 100 on investment spending, might want to turn its attention away from the alleged loan sharks of the international investment community and the bogeyman of excessive neo-liberal deregulation, and towards its own Zacchaeus’s [sic] in its bloated government sector.”
You have to admire the balls of a writer who corrects a man whose just been elected Pope on his interpretation of the Gospels, but I’ve been searching online for the text of Bergoglio’s Te Deum speech and can find no reference to him ever calling Zacchaeus a sinister loan shark (I don’t speak Spanish, which probably doesn’t help). The source of the quote is here: http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/6893?eng=y but the link to the actual homily is broken. In a 2002 Te Deum address Bergoglio discusses Zacchaeus at length, and maybe Spanish speakers among you can point out if he uses the phrase, as Google Translate doesn’t reveal it. Is this what passes for journalistic accuracy in Forbes? http://aica.org/aica/documentos_files/Obispos_Argentinos/Bergoglio/2002/2002_05_25.htm

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Jonathan - March 14, 2013
eamonncork - March 14, 2013

Hmmm. If this is what Forbes think of him. maybe there’s some hope.

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Richard - March 14, 2013

The homily is from 2002. He doesn’t refer to Zacchaeus as a loan shark or anything similar. In fact, he says there is a little Zacchaeus in all of us. The homily is a standard call for consensus within Argentina, and obedience to the law of God in light of capitalist excess, not some diatribe against loan sharks. The writer is talking bollocks.

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eamonncork - March 15, 2013

Indeed. It’s also interesting that while the current Chiesa Repubblica piece on the new Pope more or less goes along with the humble man of social justice line, its preview of the last papal conclave described him as a socially conservative Ratzinger ally whose response to economic crisis in Argentina was to tell the faithful to think of the beatitudes and not worry about social justice.
Meet the new pope, same as the old pope.

8. shea - March 14, 2013

anyone see this short animation film origin about a bloke emigrating that is having second thoughts. very good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fkMJ2otrk0I

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9. irishelectionliterature - March 14, 2013

Interesting Facebook Page just started. Archive of the Irish in Britain. A few bibs and bobs there at the minute but I gather lots of material such as The Troops Out Movement to come. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Archive-of-the-Irish-in-Britain/434119466670050

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10. Branno's ultra-left t-shirt - March 14, 2013
ejh - March 14, 2013

Though originally written for the Independent rather than Gulf Today.

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11. doctorfive - March 15, 2013

Family Inc.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323452204578288192043905634.html


A new generation of parents is taking solutions from the workplace and transferring them to the home. From accountability checklists to branding sessions, the result is a bold new blueprint for happy families.

Like many parents, the Starrs were trapped between the smooth-running household they aspired to have and the exhausting, earsplitting one they actually lived in. “I was trying the whole ‘love them and everything will work out’ philosophy,” she said, “but it wasn’t working. ‘For the love of God,’ I finally said, ‘I can’t take this any more.’ ”

What the Starrs did next was surprising. Instead of consulting relatives or friends, they looked to David’s workplace. They turned to a cutting-edge program called agile development that has rapidly spread from manufacturers in Japan to startups in Silicon Valley. It’s a system of group dynamics in which workers are organized into small teams, hold daily progress sessions and weekly reviews.

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doctorfive - March 15, 2013

jesus christ

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eamonncork - March 15, 2013

David Starr? You’re sure it’s not David Brent?

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EamonnCork - March 15, 2013

Everyone should read this. It’s the best laugh you’ll get all day.

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LeftAtTheCross - March 15, 2013

I’ve seen agile development in my workplace and anyone who thinks it has a place in family life deserves to be shopped to the nearest social worker.

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12. LeftAtTheCross - March 15, 2013

News from the Meath-East by-election coal face is that Ireland may have found its dangerous populist right-wing movement.

Ben Gilroy, ‘Freeman’, is contesting the by-election for Direct Democracy Ireland. He is everything one would expect of a right-wing populist.

http://directdemocracyireland.ie/

He appears to have built support through his opposition to evictions in Meath, although how successful that dirct action has been is another question.

A useful piece about his links to UKIP and the far-right is here:

http://redheadplace.blogspot.ie/2013/03/ben-gilroy-and-far-right.html

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the poll on March 27th.

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RosencrantzisDead - March 15, 2013

Is he far-right in the style of UKIP?

I always knew he was a freeman type and, therefore, a headbanger, but I did not think he was a hard-right type.

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LeftAtTheCross - March 15, 2013

I don’t know him personally and therefore cannot comment as to teh degree of his headbanging condition. Certainly on the campaign doorsteps McDonagh has come across his supporters who have voiced extreme racist views to his face. It goes with the territory doesn’t it, ‘anti-politics’, ‘anti-ideology’, ‘common sense’, they’re all cover for the worst types of prejudice. In DDI’s case they’re advocating a democratic model akin to rule by the mob. And not the kind of mob that stormed the Bastille or the WInter palace.

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RosencrantzisDead - March 15, 2013

Oh dear. I have a long-standing fascination with the Freeman movement. I always thought it a bizarre but ultimately non-malignant development. The only problem I had was their propensity to try and sell their secret knowledge of how to get out of all debts was taking advantage of the very distressed.

The racist stuff is disappoint, but perhaps it should not be surprising.

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13. Starkadder - March 15, 2013

A bit old, but an alarming list of what kids in Louisiana
are learning:


5. Slave masters were nice guys: “A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well.”—United States History for Christian Schools, 2nd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 1991

6. The KKK was A-OK: “[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians.”—United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001…

11. Abstract algebra is too dang complicated: “Unlike the ‘modern math’ theorists, who believe that mathematics is a creation of man and thus arbitrary and relative, A Beka Book teaches that the laws of mathematics are a creation of God and thus absolute…A Beka Book provides attractive, legible, and workable traditional mathematics texts that are not burdened with modern theories such as set theory.”—ABeka.com

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/07/photos-evangelical-curricula-louisiana-tax-dollars

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WorldbyStorm - March 15, 2013

Desperate stuff, isn’t it Starkadder?

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CL - March 15, 2013

Bob Jones University can’t be all bad; it conferred an honorary doctorate on the Rev. Ian Paisley.

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14. Watty Cox - March 15, 2013

I was disappointed to Sinn Fein block a policy that
aimed at preventing the death of the helpless unborn
child:

http://www.irishcatholic.ie/20130314/news/sinn-fein-blocks-ni-pro-life-legislation-S31524.html

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Watty Cox - March 15, 2013

Ta bron orm, that should be “to read of Sinn Fein block
a policy that aimed at preventing the death”

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15. Watty Cox - March 15, 2013

A common-sense realism towards Irish economics marks the editorial
for the March “Irish Political Review”:


Ireland as a society seems determined to see the process through and to bet its future on the euro.

Part of this process is the new Croke Park deal, which has been

recommended to its membership “overwhelmingly” by the National

Executive of the largest Trade Union in the public sector, IMPACT.

The Union published its Trade Union arguments in favour of

acceptance on its website (www.impact.ie—28.02.2013), while on

radio its General Secretary, Shay Cody, represented the deal as the

contribution of the Trade Unions to assisting Ireland’s financial

consolidation and its pathway out of the debt crisis. SIPTU President

Jack O’Connor described the deal as the best that could be

achieved through negotiation, and the outcomes as being better to

the alternative of a solution imposed by legislation.

http://current-magazines.atholbooks.org/readers/full_article.php?article_id=141&&title=Promissory%20Notes,%20Croke%20Park%20and%20the%20Euro

The issue also has a characteristically superb dismantling
of the odious Ed Moloney by Brendan Clifford.
Essential reading.

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WorldbyStorm - March 15, 2013

You know, just thinking about your negative comments on SF and the abortion debate in the North on the other thread, and indeed your interest in all things Clifford, I can’t help but think of Church & State Number Ten, from quite a while back, very early 1980s, which I have in front of me, issued by the same organisation as Mr. Clifford and its quite strong editorial against the “SPUC amendment”, a “lunatic fringe” (ie PLAC) and the following ‘it is indisputable that there is a widespread feelinga gainst abortion in Ireland. it is equally indisputable that few Irish people, when put on the spot, would agree to place on an equal footing a minute blob of matter a woman in the prime of her life’. And it goes on… ‘the widespread revulsion against abortion in ireland, is only against abortions performed in ireland. It is a bit of sentimental self-indulgence made possible by the fact that English abortion facilities are easily available to citizens of the Republic’.

Fascinating.

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Mark P - March 15, 2013

Ah now, WbS, it’s not playing fair to bring up their previous statements when dealing with Ireland’s favourite political chameleons.

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WorldbyStorm - March 15, 2013
Joe - March 15, 2013

“while on radio its General Secretary, Shay Cody, represented the deal as the contribution of the Trade Unions to assisting Ireland’s financial consolidation and its pathway out of the debt crisis.”

If that’s true it makes my blood boil. Cody a government lackey. End of.

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EWI - March 16, 2013

Cody needs better briefing from his Government handlers.

I believe the new euphemism for cutbacks is actually “fiscal consolidation”.

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16. Branno's ultra-left t-shirt - March 15, 2013

‘has a characteristically superb dismantling’
Ah, Brendan we know you love yourself but your overdoing it now!

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WorldbyStorm - March 15, 2013
17. Starkadder - March 15, 2013

Has anyone been following the “Hot Press” campaign against
water fluoridation? They’ sent a letter to the Department of
Health enquiring about the negative effects of fluoride, and
been running a series of articles with Declan Waugh about
the chemical’s negative impact.
http://www.hotpress.com/Water-Fluoridation-in-Ireland/news/Fluoride-An-open-letter-to-the-Junior-Minister-for-Health/9632971.html?new_layout=1

Well, it influenced me-I’ve only been drinking bottled
water these past few days.

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18. Paddy Healy - March 16, 2013

Another South Tipp Co councillor Resuigns from Labour Party
Cllr Bobby Fitzgerald has resigned from the Labour Party and from his seat on Tipp S.R. County Council. He says that Labour policies at national level are leading to “untold hardship and misery and Labour has lost it’s core values and needs real leadership”
Less than 12 months ago Cllr Darren Ryan (Tipp SR Co Council and Clonmel Borough Council) resigned from the Labour Party. In his resignation statement he said: “ I have found my position as a Cllr to be untenable in a Party that has lost its traditions and values, Labour in Government has completely turned its back on the very people it claims to represent.”
A year earlier Cllr Gabrielle Egan(Clonmel Borough Council) resigned from Labour Party in protest at the closure of Kickham Barracks and threats to local hospitals.
The resignation of Bobby fitzgerald in recent days follows an intensive campaign by Seamus Healy TD and WUA for the restoration of cuts in fuel allowances and the heating period by Minister Burton (Labour Deputy Leader). Academics had pointed out at the recent energy conference that there were 1200 extra and unnecessary deaths due to fuel poverty on the Island of Ireland each year. The St Vincent De Paul Society had pointed out that its expenditure on fuel aid to families had increased from 4 million to 12 million euro in recent years. In a reply to a parliamentary question from Seamus Healy TD last week, Minister Burton had refused to restore the cuts to fuel allowances

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19. Paddy Healy - March 16, 2013

Labour dip below 10% in new poll—On the way to oblivion!

In the new Millward Brown(Sunday Independent Poll) when “don’t knows” are included out of approximately 1000 people asked the outcome was (approximately)
Don’t Know 320; FF=197, FG=170, Lab=62, SF= 136 others =116
After don’t knows were excluded the percentages were
FF 29, Fg 25, SF 20, Lab 9, others 17

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20. doctorfive - March 16, 2013

get some good search terms landing on Cedar Lounge but whoever is googling “fine gael annual wolfe tone commemoration” is in for disappointment

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WorldbyStorm - March 17, 2013

Heheh…

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21. EWI - March 18, 2013

LBJ caught Nixon sabotaging the 1968 Vietnam War peace talks, but let him walk away scot-free:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21768668

I think it’s a safe bet the same thing happened to Jimmy Carter, don’t you think?

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22. Logan - March 18, 2013

Readers of this blog might be interested in a programme that is on tonight (March 18) at 9 pm on TV 3.

The programme description reads:

“The first of two programmes in which Professor Eunan O’Halpin explores the Irish War of Independence. Archaeologists seek the remains of victims of the hostilities”

The first episode focuses on Laoise and the second on Cork – will this re-open the Peter Harte Wars I wonder?
Apparently “shocking revelations” are promised.

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23. Pangur ban - March 18, 2013

Intetresting programme…. Small budget
Interesting piece which people might have missed is that two of
‘The disappeared’ in fact were not shot

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24. Paddy Healy - April 21, 2013

Launch of New National Political Party
WORKERS AND UNEMPLOYED ACTION
Statement on behalf of Workers and Unemployed Action Group (South Tipperary)
Workers and Unemployed Action Group (South Tipperary) wishes to announce the launch of a new national political party. The new party has the registered name Workers and Unemployed Action (WUA).
The constitution and rules of the new party can be read by clicking on:
http://wuag.wordpress.com/constitution-and-rules/
WUA has an experienced leadership. Seamus Healy TD was first elected to Dáil Éireann in a bye-election in 2000 and has been a Dail Deputy for 9 years. WUAG has been represented on local authorities for almost thirty years. Currently WUAG holds 8 local authority seats in South Tipperary and has out-polled the Labour Party in all recent general elections and bye-elections in the constituency. WUAG is the largest party on Clonmel Borough Council holding 5 seats out of 12 on that body (WUAG 5, FG 2, FF 1 Lab NIL, Ind 4).
It is now clearer than ever that the Labour Party no longer represents the interests of those on low and middle incomes. Cuts to home help, cuts to child benefit, cuts in fuel allowances to the poor and the old, imposition of a family home tax while failing to insist on higher taxation of those with huge incomes and assets are but examples of the many attacks on working people and the poor, which Labour in government is perpetrating.
The declared intention of a Labour Party minister to legislate to cut the pay and pensions of trade unionists in the public service in the centenary year of the historic 1913 lock-out is positive proof that the Labour Party has defected to the side of the employers. The rejection of the Croke Park 2 cuts by a margin of over 2 to 1 is a blow, not only to the Labour Party, but also to the trade union leaderships which are helping the party to protect the very rich.
With Connolly the new party is committed to the full sovereignty of the Irish people, Irish unity, independence and socialism. Continued capitulation to “Frankfurts Way”, commitment to repay moneys borrowed to bail out bondholders and support for the ESM Treaty are a betrayal of these principles espoused by James Connolly.
Failure of the state under Labour to invest in direct job creation in the context of huge levels of unemployment and emigration, is a betrayal of the heritage of Larkin and Connolly who founded the Labour Party in Clonmel in 1912, just over 100 years ago.
The collapse of its vote in Meath East and the continued decline of the Labour Party in opinion polls are but inevitable consequences of these betrayals.
The WUA like its local predecessor is firmly based in the trade union movement, in the unemployed, and in community organisations and has always opposed coalition with conservative parties in principle and will continue to do so.
WUAG has always taken responsibility for the immediate and long term interests of working people and has refused to involve itself in any way with political representatives who are self-declared tax defaulters or who have admitted participation in compromising activities.
Other left wing organisations give priority to recruitment of individuals to ideologically based international political tendencies. Competition between these groups for individual recruits has already damaged the United Left Alliance and narrowed support for anti-austerity campaigns. Workers and Unemployed Action will seek to set up broadly based and deeply rooted political movements in each county based on the successful model already established in South Tipperary.
From its foundation, almost 30 years ago, WUAG has opposed and refused to participate in “junkets”.
The new party, Workers and Unemployed Action (WUA), will co-operate politically with any formations based on the Labour movement which oppose coalition in principle and are willing to campaign for the formation of an all-Ireland party of workers in the Connolly tradition.
WUA is now open for membership applications. These should be sent to national organiser, Paddy Healy, at the above address.
Seamus Healy TD 087-2802199
Pat Neill, Chair
Ross Stafford, Secretary
Paddy Healy National Organiser 086-4183732
paddy.healy@eircom.net

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25. Branno's ultra-left t-shirt - April 21, 2013

Be still my beating heart

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