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What you want to say – 14th September 2016 September 14, 2016

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. GW - September 14, 2016

Average temperature timeline comic from xfcd. Since the last glaciation maximum.

Including a Spinal Tap reference.

Don’t scroll to the bottom if you want to remain cheerful.

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GW - September 14, 2016

xkcd. And I did warn you about scrolling down. 😦

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2. Joe - September 14, 2016
3. Tomboktu - September 14, 2016

I suppose that in a western democracy, the kind of people who, in a dictatorship like Uzbekistan, want to be in power skip politics and go into business instead.

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4. fergal - September 14, 2016

Usual suspect- Michael O Leary calling for privatisation of buses and railways.
Weren’t the buses in Dublin privately run in the 20s and 30s and it was utter chaos and shambolic
The railways? Mmm… our next door neighbours surely have a few things to fill us in on there
The key part of pubic transport is public, is it not? and users measure it in terms of efficiency and cheapness. Dublin Bus’s subventions have been slashed over the last few years. Is there any city in Europe that has a cheap and efficient private transport system, it would be great if O’Leary could reel them off for us

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5. Joe - September 14, 2016

A friend of mine has a good answer for the “privatise everything and it will be more efficient and effective” brigade. His answer is “Yes, like with Broadband”.

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WorldbyStorm - September 14, 2016

+1

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6. Torheit - September 14, 2016

Interesting information at the Intercept on the collaboration between Israel and Facebook to censor Palestinians. Israelis inciting violence against Palestinians is fine and dandy though.

People – just boycott it. Facebook I mean. Actually boycott them both.

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7. CL - September 15, 2016

At the Imperial War Museum:

“the entire gallery openly and shamelessly celebrates Britain’s imperial violence and provides little or no historical context to it. The British Empire’s repressive, reactionary and frequently vicious role in the world is thus completely obscured….
Generally, the portrayal of both Britain and the USA throughout the museum’s permanent galleries reflects the ruling class consensus of these two states being responsible, well-intentioned global powers. For instance, Britain is said to have sent its military to Northern Ireland merely to “help the police keep order” and British soldiers are presented as innocent bystanders simply “trying to keep the peace and strike a balance between the two fiercely divided communities”….
the cabinet contains the incongruous combination of photographs of Adolf Hitler and issues of the British Union of Fascists’ newspaper, Blackshirt, alongside a copy of the Communist Manifesto….The message behind the curatorial decision to include these pamphlets immediately side by side is unambiguous; Nazism/Fascism and Communism are directly comparable and both were internal threats from which MI5 had to protect the British public…. For good measure, the display case also contains items related to Sinn Fein and Irish Nationalism, thus tainting that cause by direct association with Nazism too….
A section of the museum entitled ‘Secret Soldiers’ that follows the MI5 display, unashamedly venerates Britain’s elite special forces unit, the Special Air Service (SAS), for its “skill and determination” in “confront[ing] communist guerrillas” in the so-called Malayan Emergency (1948-1960). This heroic picture hides a different reality: that Britain’s supposed anti-insurgency operation in Malaya was in fact a brutal war of mass murder, aerial bombardment (including the use of chemical weapons), torture and collective punishment, which was waged ruthlessly against the local population in order to ensure British companies maintained ownership and control of the region’s natural resources, notably its rubber and tin….
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/allday070916.html

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EWI - September 16, 2016

The IWM is shameless, but it’s part of a trend. I recently saw a display in am RAF museum that claimed NATO was set up by democracies to defend against the march of the communist Warsaw Pact (I count a number of NATO countries which were dictatorships at the time, and the Warsaw Pact seems clearly to have been a reaction to NATO, which soon showed its stripes by eehabilitating former Nazis as anti-communist assets).

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ejh - September 17, 2016

I count a number of NATO countries which were dictatorships at the time

I can think of Portugal, who else?

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WorldbyStorm - September 17, 2016

There’s a lot in what you say EWI, though the Soviets weren’t any slouches at rehabilitating Nazi’s when it suited them either.

There is compelling evidence that with the death of Stalin there was a serious push by the Soviet leadership to come to better terms with the West but this was stymied in particular by Dulles (IIRC).

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yourcousin - September 17, 2016

It’s a shame that the Soviets didn’t extend that same idea of reapproachment to the workers. Thinking East Berlin here.

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WorldbyStorm - September 17, 2016

I’d completely agree there with you YC.

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yourcousin - September 17, 2016

That’s it until 55 when Greece and Turkey joined. And if memory serves me Spain didn’t join until after Franco died.

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ejh - September 17, 2016

Spain didn’t join until 1982, though it did I believe host NATO forces from a much earlier date.

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FergusD - September 19, 2016

Spain, Greece (for a lot of the time), Turkey (for a lot of the time)?

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yourcousin - September 17, 2016

Also it is worth highlighting that the creation of NATO was done voluntarily and countries did back out (thinking France under DeGaulle). Compare the time in which countries were creating NATO to the salami tactics taking place at the same time behind the iron curtain. And the fact that the iron curtain literally was killing people for the entire duration of their existence to keep them from fleeing.

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gendjinn - September 17, 2016

“And the fact that the iron curtain literally was killing people for the entire duration of their existence to keep them from fleeing.”

Jim Crow.

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yourcousin - September 17, 2016

Okay so we’re doing two word rebuttals. Um ok…

Great Migration?

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gendjinn - September 17, 2016

From what I can see about the only difference between the USA and the USSR was for white people.

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yourcousin - September 17, 2016

Well you are welcome to your opinion. It would be wrong, but you are welcome to it.

But obviously your statement is so extraordinarily vague, overarching and simplistic as to render it meaningless.

But believe me when I say that you are so wrong that it is not even funny. Your statement trivializes the struggle within America for both class and race justice as well as the horrors experienced in the USSR.

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gendjinn - September 17, 2016

And Native Americans? They’d whole heartedly endorse your statements?

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yourcousin - September 17, 2016

Well I’d like to think that some of the five million plus folks who identify as Native American would agree that your remarks are flippant and do nothing to either highlight injustices that they suffered historically or seek redress of grievances today. But of course as a white guy I am very hesitant to speak for anyone other than myself.

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WorldbyStorm - September 17, 2016

It’s always tricky to work out the balance sheet in these discussions but I think that if all that is between the USSR or the US is really competing but different oppressions then we’re not necessarily analysing them correctly. The fall of the Soviets raises some hugely problematic questions as to the nature of the regime there which have to be addressed in relation to it apart from the negative aspects of the US. One major problem is that for all the clear problems of the US it has retained a societal legitimacy despite everything that the Soviets just didn’t. That’s not to suggest it’s ‘better’ in a crass way but to suggest that on some fundamental level the Soviets just didn’t connect with their own citizens. And that’s not simply about repression of minorities in the US (something not unknown in the USSR either – and arguably on a greater level in relation to the power relationships between the centre and certain SRs and/or Eastern European states).

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gendjinn - September 18, 2016

We hold these truths to be self evident that all white rich landowning men are equal and that all others aren’t but specifically that non-white people are 3/5 of a person.

Slavery => Jim Crow which has never ended. The penal system in this country was designed as a continuation of slavery.

Coming up on 25 years here and having lived mid-west, east coast, the south and now west coast. This country is great for heterosexual, cisgendered white males. Until very recently it was only great only for the WASP subpopulation of the above.

The USA whether it’s through Vietnam, Iraq, Jim Crow, genocide has about as much moral or social legitimacy as Apartheid South Africa or a USSR.

It’s like Trump & Clinton – they are both unacceptably evil but one is slightly less worse than the other. Still both are unacceptably evil.

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gendjinn - September 18, 2016

Any reign of terror inflicted by the USSR on its own people was dramatically exceeded in scope and carnage by the reigns of terror US created dictators around the world inflicted on their people.

The USA was and continues to be evil, in very much the same ways the USSR was. The USSR gave privilege to the politburo and the USA gave privilege to rich white men.

How that’s a moral superior philosophy is beyond me. Both sound like cackhanded evil rationalising privilege.

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gendjinn - September 18, 2016

WbS,

I get the point you are making but frankly, after 25 years here it’s really just good propaganda. The same thing the BBC does for the UK.

There has been an extremely limited franchise of privilege in this country. Women still do not get a fair shake here and that’s half the population. Minorities are shot with impunity by police, everyone knows it’s racism and the supreme court overturns voting rights protections declaring racism no longer a problem.

Every single criticism of the USSR, every single the USSR did to it’s citizens the USA did to it’s population. There was a clear privileged class but anyone from that class could easily be deprived of that privilege by the state for having the wrong views.

There is not a decade in the history of the USA that is soaked in the blood of innocents. It is barely a hundred years since California was paying for the scalps if natives – on a sliding scale for men, women, children. Dropped two atomic weapons on children.

Scoring the balance sheet is immaterial, but the idea that the US is a beacon of moral authority is laughable. It is as evil as the British, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian empires. Empires *always* are.

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yourcousin - September 20, 2016

Gendjinn,
Well again, you’re objectively wrong here. You’re also conflating 200+ years of history to something that that existed for 70ish years (in the 20th century). Tack onto that the idea that the number of deaths from US supported regimes is the same as if say American soldiers had done the killing is fudging the numbers as well. Please don’t take that last sentence as evading responsibility or condoning US policy in Latin America. It should go without saying that America was wrong, a 100 times over.

And again, my main complaint here is not the gist of what you are arguing. You and I would probably agree on far more than we disagree on, but the truth is no matter how strongly we may about issues today spreading historically inaccurate information is wrong. It does nothing to move forward today’s cause and does a disservice to the past.

I mean you do realize that by your own admission you came here, you’ve travelled all over this country and are obviously free to leave it at any time. You can critique its policies and politicians. Hell you can just downright talk shit without any repercussions.

I don’t have time refute your flippant remarks on a point by point basis, but again with the slavery thing I would point out that 5% of the population died trying to sort that little kerfuffle out. And yes, reconstruction was an unmitigated failure. And there certainly are still long standing racial issues that need to addressed urgently.

But again you’re not helping address these issues by getting on a high horse and moralizing with a broad and inaccurate brush.

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gendjinn - September 20, 2016

“… are obviously free to leave it at any time. ”

Ahh, there you are.

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yourcousin - September 20, 2016

I’m certainly not saying love or leave it, but I’ve had enough of my family flee the iron curtain at great personal risk to themselves and enough friends who entered this country with shall we say questionable legal status to know the difference between the two.

If you don’t then that is most certainly on you.

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8. roddy - September 15, 2016

In just a matter of weeks that imperial violence will be legitimised as the annual poppyfest commences.For well over a month every broadcast beamed into my house will be delivered by a poppy adorned “journalist” who will reject any suggestion that their “impartiality” might be compromised.Public buildings will be awash with these obnoxious symbols (including those unquestionable paragons of virtue the integrated schools) and anybody objecting will be laboured “sectarian” if you don’t mind.Police officers in Republican areas will attach them to their caps and theresidents could’nt possibly be offended.Any attempt to give the easter lily an equivalence will be shrilly denounced and many on the”left” will go along with this.

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9. Ed - September 15, 2016

This might have been posted before and I missed it, but if not: this is a very good article by Brendan Young about Brexit and all that.

“Notwithstanding the anti-democratic nature of EU rules, the anti-EU sentiment mobilised in support of ‘Leave’ was based more on demagoguery than on actual experience of anti-social EU strictures. There has not been a Troika-imposed austerity program in Britain to fund the bank bailout. Nor has the EU imposed privatisation of public services. Rather it has been British governments – both Tory and New Labour – that have driven the rundown of social housing, the attacks on welfare and forcing people into low-paid work, and the privatisation and the liberalisation of trade in public services both domestically and in the policies of the EU (for example in the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty). People in Britain have not experienced EU rules in the same way as people in Greece or Ireland. Farrage disowning the Leave Campaign claim – the day after the referendum – that £350 million a day would go to the NHS rather than the EU, reveals the demagoguery that lay behind much of the Leave politics.”

http://www.irishleftreview.org/2016/08/29/brexit-issues-comments-current-situation/

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10. EWI - September 16, 2016

Based on a fusion of the topics dominating certain threads, there is clearly a market gap open for ‘Newton Emerson Irish Passport Watch’.

What do people think?

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11. sonofstan - September 16, 2016

Does the panel think?

Gary Gannon has a half perceptive, half, well, not so much piece in Broadsheet about an elected mayor for Dublin. Opinions? Most would agree dublin is not well governed, but is the celeb mayor approach the one to go for? No govt. would be comfortable with a mayor in Dawson street with the biggest personal mandate outside the president….

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WorldbyStorm - September 16, 2016

Can’t be a runner for precisely that reason. I’m also dubious about individual figures in those contexts.

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Joe - September 18, 2016

Possible ‘celebrity’ mayor candidates? The one that springs to mind just now is Alan Brogan.
Any more nominations?

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6to5against - September 18, 2016

Not after today!

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6to5against - September 18, 2016

Just relised it was Bernard i was thinking of. But still…..

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12. Starkadder - September 18, 2016

“The IWM is shameless, but it’s part of a trend.”

The odd thing is that the IWM sponsered the Lyn Smith book
“Voices Against War: A Century of Protest”- a publicat which is full of the anti-war and anti-imperialist sentiments absent from the main museum.

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13. Tomboktu - September 18, 2016

I think Alive! is the mid-market equivalent of the Sunday World of Irish Catholicism.

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14. Geraldus Galwensis - September 18, 2016

@ Tomboktu #13 Alive! doesn’t carry adverts for sex talk telephone chatlines.

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Tomboktu - September 18, 2016

But it does carry adverts for 62-year-old NDNS (which, I believe does not mean ‘non-dom, non-sub’ but refers to drikning and smoking) looking for a member of the opposite sex for relationship.

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15. GW - September 18, 2016

Couldn’t find Signs of Hope but it’s looking fairly cheerful in the Berlin elections were reasonably positive.

Both the Groko (grand coalition) parties (SPD/CDU) lost at least 20% of their votes meaning they can no longer do further damage.

Die Linke increased it’s vote by about 30%, taking a largeish chunk of the Pirate Party vote (many former Pirates have joined die Linke), and looking like coming in ahead of the Greens.

The Greens (fair play to them) refuse to make up the numbers so a greenish Groko can carry on. So everything is pointing to an SPD/Linke/Green government in Berlin.

But we’ll see what the negotiations bring – certainly the SPD is going to have to change it’s way of working – and members of die Linke get to vote on whether their party should take part in the coalition.

No so good is the AfD getting 14% of the vote and at least one Anti-Islam Nazi militia self-styled ‘division commander’ was directly elected. The AfD vote came mainly from previous non-voters but a significant number came from the SPD and CDU.

Which once again demonstrates there is no mileage in giving any ground to the racists and xenophobes – die Linke didn’t and were rewarded.

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16. GW - September 18, 2016

Another Sign of Hope would be the attendance of 250,000 people at anti-CETA&TTIP marches throughout Germany on Saturday. It was one of the best demos I’ve been on – loads of people under 25 – and an absolute determination to fight back against rule by transnational corporations, their secretive lobby-power and their tame politicos.

The SPD bigwigs need to win by at least 5% in the CETA vote (they are off course in favour with minor adjustments) at the party convention tomorrow or Sigmar Gabriel is toast as a candidate for next years’ elections.

I have not enough knowledge of the internal workings of the SPD to say what the outcome will be – but others reckon it will be close.

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17. EWI - September 19, 2016

So, apparently the Irish Government snuck the (renamed) UDR’s marching band into an emergency services event in Dublin yesterday, at the last moment.

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Joe - September 19, 2016

Really? Link? It was emergency services, no? So, ambulance, fire, coast guard, civil defence etc. Were there any units of Óglaigh na hÉireann in it?
The UDR was disbanded. Or was it subsumed into the Royal Irish Regiment? So what was the name of this marching band to which you refer, EWI?

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EWI - September 19, 2016

The ‘link’ is up on Facebook, should you care to go looking for it. The various groups promoting the British Army have been sharing around videos. The Defence Forces are considered a part of the emergency services here (ATCP), but I’m at a loss as to what connection a unit primarily known for harbouring loyalist paramilitaries has here. Is there to be a cull on showbands?

The UDR is now called something else, as already mentioned, and is the second (and entirely unrelated) British Army unit to bear that particular name.

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Joe - September 19, 2016

Thanks. I found that link. Interesting.

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18. Jim Monaghan - September 19, 2016

Comparative statistics on education. Well worth a look. https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm#indicator-chart I highlighted us and our neighbour.

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19. Joe - September 19, 2016

IMPACT’s take on water charges. http://impacttradeunion.newsweaver.com/newsletter/pohol4z064g6rrq8ifqg1x?email=true&a=1&p=50818808&t=24272685

Inter alia, IMPACT says the public could support domestic charges if there was “a generous allowance of free water, based on the essential requirements of individuals and families, but with significant charges for those whose usage goes above this allowance.”

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EWI - September 19, 2016

IMPACT, riding to the support of the Labour Party (not affiliated, my arse).

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