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What you want to say – 12th July, 2017 July 12, 2017

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. Michael Carley - July 12, 2017
crocodileshoes - July 12, 2017

No great mystery: it’s a small country and a lot of us have met them.

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Starkadder - July 14, 2017

U2 are jerks, but they at least made some good music in the 80s.

Which is far more than you can say for such disasters as the
Cranberries or the Thrills.

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sonofstan - July 17, 2017

” at least made some good music in the 80s.”

As Beckett is reported to have replied to a friend who suggested that a fine summer day would make one feel glad to be alive: ‘I wouldn’t go that far’

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Joe - July 17, 2017

Ah here to both of yis. I listened to U2’s Boy album all those years ago and thought it was decent. Bono taught me that there is more than one way to pronounce the letter ‘o’ when he ‘started a landslide in my ego’.
As for the Cranberries, they had some great singles but their greatest achievemnt was peace in Ireland. Or as this interweb piece has it: “On August 31, 1994, just a few weeks after this song [Zombie] was released, the IRA declared a ceasefire after 25 years of conflict, leading some critics of The Cranberries to wonder if the IRA was willing to call a truce to make sure the group didn’t release any more songs about them.”

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2. Jolly Red Giant - July 12, 2017
RosencrantzisDead - July 12, 2017

Varadkar should be made an honorary member of Jobstown Not Guilty, given his efforts to impede any forthcoming trials.

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George Wanouttathat - July 12, 2017

Leo “Lord of the Lies” Varadkar.

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3. sonofstan - July 12, 2017

The Catherine Kelly story as reported by the Fair Fox
had somewhat passed me by, but, along with the Jobstown hysteria, suggests – more than suggests – that while FG (and Labour) love being the best little liberal country in the world because gay marriage/ gay taoiseach, the authoritarian streak and the lack of respect for basic civil liberties is still a mile wide, especially with regard to the lower orders.

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Alibaba - July 12, 2017

Absolutely.

Varadkar told Murphy:

‘”You are not a victim here, you are not a victim of any conspiracy, you had a fair trial and were acquitted,” he said.

He said the protest was ugly and violent, and may not have been kidnapping, but it was thuggery. Mr Varadkar said what Mr Murphy should do now was to offer a public apology to Ms Burton and Ms O’Connell.’

https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2017/0712/889713-murphy-varadkar-dail-jobstown/

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Liam - July 12, 2017

I saw that on the six one news and nearly burned the dinner. A few years ago I’m sure I saw someone here say Enda’s great still was his emotional intelligence, and that FG would miss having that with someone like Leo in charge. That stuck with me. I always found it hard to dislike Enda in any really passionate way.

This is definitely not going to be the case with Leo Varadkar.

(By the way; hello. I’m Liam and I’ve been lurking for years)

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WorldbyStorm - July 12, 2017

How’re you Liam and welcome (and thanks for commenting) and yeah, completely agree, this is marmite stuff isn’t it? I’d say you weren’t the only one to nearly burn the dinner!

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sonofstan - July 12, 2017

FF/FG/LAB Really hate the ‘new’ left don’t they? They could cope with, even pretend to respect the likes of Joe Higgins, Gregory and the sainted Noel Browne, but the new lot won’t be house trained. And what confuses them is a) that some of them are pretty damn middle-class but seem to believe all that stuff, and b) women – too many of them, and not properly grateful to let have their say every now and then.

I was paying one of my regular visits to the House of Commons this evening (more frequent that some NI MPs wha’?) and listened to too many speeches from MPs on both sides about how important it is to support the incredible range and diversity of the UK music industry. What sticks in the throat is the way the oily junior junior minister for That Kind of Thing slags Tom Watson who slags back; all very clubable, all white men in suits. TW got an easy and entirely undeserved cheer for saying he was ‘sorry the prime minister Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t be here’ which, given his behaviour up until whenever the Damascus moment was for him is somewhat, shall we say, hypocritical? Tory oik said how vitally important it was to keep music education in schools, as if tory policy had nothing at all to do with the way it’s increasingly becoming an option only for poshies.

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Phil F - July 12, 2017

They love being liberal around what are now fairly harmless social issues. I’m glad that gay rights have expanded so much and the marriage equality referendum delivered such a staunch vote against bigotry. But liberals could easily vote for more liberal positions on gay rights because they never impinged on any fundamental relations of capital(ism). And there is a layer of gay snobs who look down on the working class too – even though the vote for gay marriage was stronger in working class areas than posh areas. Varadkar belongs to this layer, who look down on the working class every bit as much as the straight members of their class do and have no appreciation for the fact that the left championed gay rights before the neo-liberal right ever did.

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Phil F - July 12, 2017

Actually, I should have said before the neoliberal right ever clambered on the bandwagon.

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WorldbyStorm - July 12, 2017

I wouldn’t worry about gay snobs any more than non-gay snobs. Snobs are snobs. Their sexuality is irrelevant.

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GearóidGalway - July 13, 2017

Doing the rounds on Twitter recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO45HZU57Wk

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4. Phil F - July 12, 2017

The Kim dynasty is odious, but the US government probably prefers that it is there.

If North Korea didn’t exist the US would create it

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oconnorlysaght - July 12, 2017

The same can be seen in the middle east. Kim is an eejit, but he is less of an eejit than that mate of the mates of the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the late (hopefully) Caliph al Baghdadi.

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5. Starkadder - July 12, 2017

The July/August issue of “Alive!” was pushed through our letterbox yesterday, in spite of our prominent “No Junk Mail or Free Newspapers” sign.

The “Editor’s Jottings” on pg. 7 states “Unless we recognise that we are in the middle of a religious war- yes, a war – and take vigorous action to fight Secularism, the faith in Ireland will be wiped out”.

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WorldbyStorm - July 12, 2017

Yeah, there’s been a more and more shrill tone to it in recent times. Wonder why.

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Starkadder - July 12, 2017

There’s an unsigned article on pg. 3 which complains “About 50 years ago the Catholic Church informally decided to more or less downplay the Ten Commandments in its spirituality, preaching and catechetics…this left the way wide open to the only alternative, the evil “pro-choice” ideology which dominates Western society today”.

So if the traditionalist Catholics who read “Alive!” are repeatedly told that they are in “a War”, and that their political opponents are not merely wrong, but actually “Wvil”….it doesn’t add up to a healthy way of viewing the world.

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Starkadder - July 12, 2017

Should be:

So if the traditionalist Catholics who read “Alive!” are repeatedly told that they are in “a War”, and that their political opponents are not merely wrong, but actually “Evil”….it doesn’t add up to a healthy way of viewing the world.

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GearóidGalway - July 13, 2017

It’s almost as if there may be a referendum around the corner.

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Starkadder - July 13, 2017

It should be noted that the editor of “Alive!”, Father
Brian McKevitt, was also active in the 1980s group
Women Hurt By Abortion :

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/06/29/irish-catholic-traditions-confront-modern-trends/9196a78b-af83-4334-ac87-636ed70115e8/?utm_term=.4cfc5cae30e2

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WorldbyStorm - July 14, 2017

Which would make you wonder is there a link to The Liberal stuff as noted by IEL this morning.

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6. lcox - July 12, 2017

New issue of the open-access, activist/academic social movements journal Interface out here http://www.interfacejournal.net/current/

589 pages and 40 pieces, by authors writing from / about Aotearoa/New Zealand, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, the EU, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the UK, Uruguay, the US and Venezuela.

Particular interest for this audience maybe Brian Mallon’s piece on direct action in Dublin since 2014, esp around housing, and Andreas Bieler’s on the trade union-led European Citizens’ Initiative on water (my own on the water charges movement in Ireland is there too but will be familiar to many here).

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GW - July 14, 2017

I’ve just scanned the Bieler piece, having some experience with this campaign against water privatisation, and it’s well worth a read – an example of a European wide action which resulted in some political success.

Great to see a journal like this has taken the open-access route.

And as Bieler notes:

Nevertheless, struggles against water privatisation have not only been defensive. They are also signs of struggles for a transformation beyond neo-liberal economics. A focus on the commons combined with a new understanding of democracy may provide the basis for a broader transformative agenda. From
their establishment in water services, these new models can then be extended to other public services/commons such as health, education, energy and transport.
Especially left-wing individuals and groups have been ‘willing to adopt water as an “entry point” to pursue a broader political strategy: exploring new forms of political engagement alternative to traditional left-wing parties and trade unions.

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WorldbyStorm - July 14, 2017

+1

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7. roddy - July 12, 2017

As someone who has been raging with the media North and South all week with their attitudes to Jobstown,Regina Doherty and Bonfires etc,I just received a great antidote to shameless journalism and biased media.I was flicking through the scores of freeview channels when I hit on a ballad group belting out “the foggy dew” in the most unapologetic and forthright manner! ( I think the station was called Ireland West music TV or something and although it seems to be mostly country music ,it certainly was refreshing to see a bit of non revisionist balladry amongst it!)

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ar scáth a chéile - July 13, 2017

Roddy kindly show some maturity and give us a few bars of “The Gentle Black and Tan”

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irishelectionliterature - July 13, 2017

Roddy, You’ll be sorry to hear that Shamrock Rovers are dropping “The Foggy Dew” as the music when the team enter the pitch. Hopefully going back to “Thunderstruck” or “Build Me Up Buttercup”

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8. roddy - July 12, 2017

FF/FG/LAB hate SF even more.

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9. roddy - July 13, 2017

Ar Scath,I’m totally ashamed of myself. The “correct” position is of course that we should only remember John and Willie Redmond and state that those “on Flanders field”represented ALL of us and gave their lives so that we can enjoy the “freedoms” that obtain in “these islands “today.

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10. dublinstreams - July 13, 2017
FergusD - July 13, 2017

So I suppose parties should follow their supporters, supermarket politics one U.K. Writer called it. Pick and mix to find the policies that will get you elected. Or you could just try and convince people of your policies! Mad, I know.

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Ed - July 13, 2017

People have been insistently telling SF that it needs to adopt an anti-immigrant line for as long as I can remember, well over 10 years anyway, and brandishing surveys like this. They’ve ignored the advice, in fairness to them, and risen to their highest ever levels of support. The question is not whether some SF voters are more anti-immigrant than the party itself, but whether that issue is of such overwhelming importance to them that they’re willing to vote for another party on that basis alone. There’s no evidence that they are.

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WorldbyStorm - July 13, 2017

That’s it exactly FergusD and Ed. And the point about people going to a ‘new’ party. What sense would that make?

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dublinstreams - July 14, 2017

I do have some concern that the issue is not being addressed, by Sinn Fein and other parties, (while the gov implements things like direct provision, deportation, separation and ignore exploited immigrant workers), I would prefer Sinn Fein etc to activily tackle it head on with a lets “raise working and living standards for everyone campaign. The issues could be avoided during the boom, may not being able to anymore or when new boom crashes.

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11. Jolly Red Giant - July 14, 2017

It appears that FG have decided that the only way they can detract from the serious issues around the Jobstown investigation and trial is to engaged in a coordinated and highly personalised smear campaign against Paul Murphy.

FG reps have been hitting the media hurling the same smears that Varadkar spouted in the Dail.

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12. GW - July 14, 2017

Wow. Check out this Wikipedia hatchet job on Seamus Milne.

I always say to the fruit of my loins that Wikipedia is a useful resource in the hard sciences and mathematics, or anything that could be considered politically neutral, but in questions of history, politics, economics and indeed biography you have to learn to read through the systematic political bias of the contributors.

Does MI5 have a Wikipedia section, I wonder?

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GW - July 14, 2017

sorry Seumas – that’s a fairly rare spelling of the name, isn’t it?

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The McCarthy Report - July 17, 2017

Not sure to what extent his personal views permeate through, but this is what it’s founder thinks. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/08/26/jeremy-corbyn-is-completely-bonkers-says-wikipedia-founder-jimmy-wales_n_8042484.html

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Joe - July 17, 2017

But that was back in August 2015. Surely Mr Wales has, like pretty much everyone else, gotten with the programme by now and knows that JC is the saviour of the world.

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13. roddy - July 14, 2017

U2 = FG and DeRossa. .Cranberries = Kemmy. Nuff said!

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14. Gerryboy - July 14, 2017

For beginners and for seasoned guitar players, here are some fascinating tips on strumming chords on the world’s favourite musical instrument.

http://www.openculture.com/2017/07/mark-knopfler-gives-a-short-masterclass-on-his-favorite-guitars-guitar-sounds.html

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15. yourcousin - July 15, 2017

Happy Bastille day to all the folks of the CLR and happy birthday to Buenaventura Durrutti.

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16. Tomboktu - July 16, 2017

In 1983, Young Fine Gael campaigned against the 8th amendment.

Yesterday, they were voting on a motion to stay ‘neutral’ in the repeal campaign.

Even better: they deleted their tweet about passing the motion.

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EWI - July 17, 2017

They’ll be ‘for’ it half a heartbeat past the referendum passing.

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17. sonofstan - July 16, 2017

Good piece by Sean O’Hagan on what sounds like a fearful piece of paddywhackery:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/16/jez-butterworth-the-ferryman-irish-stereotypes-sam-mendes

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Pasionario - July 16, 2017

I saw the play. It’s a powerful and gripping piece of theatre, but O’Hagan does have a point about paddywhackery. I can particularly remember rolling my eyes at the line about “throwing your baby into the fire for a free Ireland” or some such. On the other hand, the portrayal of the younger men’s sense of violence-fuelled bravado seemed spot on to me.

English artists haven’t always got Northern Ireland wrong. Some of the best films about the Troubles were written and directed Englishmen — Odd Man Out, Hunger, and 1971 all stick out.

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Michael Carley - July 17, 2017

O’Hagan’s not above a touch of Paddywhackery himself:

The exhausted tropes of Irish mysticism seemed to have seeped into The Ferryman from other older dramas about a different pre-modern Ireland across the border.

“Pre-modern Ireland across the border”, mar dhea?

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Michael Carley - July 17, 2017

And he called the English guy Tom Kettle?

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18. roddy - July 17, 2017

And you have experience of life in South Armagh for instance?

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6to5against - July 17, 2017

Odd Man Out is a great film – but is it really about the troubles?
And I don’t think any of those films are set in South Armagh, Roddy. And isn’t 1971 really about a British soldier and the confusion of being in a hostile area that you don’t understand? I’d love to see more good movies coming from the nationalist communities and their experiences in the 60s- 80s. But a British movie made from a British perspective can still be a good movie.

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Michael Carley - July 17, 2017

I saw 1971 with a good friend who was in Belfast in 1971 with the Royal Signals, and he said it gets the experience of the squaddies just right: they had no idea what was going on. The politics of the Official/Provo split is simplified (it’s a film) but not caricatured and even the Loyalists are shown as manipulated by Britain. It is a very fine film.

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WorldbyStorm - July 17, 2017

Perhaps the best of its kind IMO.

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Michael Carley - July 17, 2017

I’ve just seen it was written by Gregory Burke, who also wrote Black Watch, which is one of the best things I have ever seen anywhere ever.

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19. irishelectionliterature - July 17, 2017

Solidarity Cllr Mick Murphy and Lisa Maher speak about the Jobstown trial
http://talliforniadreaming.blogspot.ie/2017/07/solidarity-cllr-mick-murphy-and-lisa.html

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20. sonofstan - July 17, 2017

Mr Toland said that Dublin Airport’s passenger numbers were up 6 per cent so far this year. “What that’s really disguising is the fact that inbound trips from the UK are down 7 per cent and falling like a stone,” he added

Mr. Toland is the CEO of DAA – he’s attributing the fall to ‘uncertainty’ over brexit. I’m not following the logic I must admit; although the fact that any eurozone country is up to 20% dearer for British tourists may be a factor. Can’t say I’ve encountered an any less than 90% full planes yet in a couple of dozen trips back since last June. An empty plane would be nice occasionally…..

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WorldbyStorm - July 17, 2017

Have the schedules changed? Are there less flights or flights that have been doubled up, and are some of those numbers accounted for by charter flights?

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sonofstan - July 17, 2017

I usually fly from Birmingham and I think there’s an extra Aer Lingus flight to Dublin compared to a few years back. I know Ryanair have cut back on some flights from the smaller provincial airports which I guess would depend on the stag/ hen trade a little more.
People here do seem to be adjusting holiday plans; staying at home or heading further afield – the far east – rather than Europe or America. Reason given is usually the exchange rate but I suspect for some – remainers more than leavers – they’d rather not have those conversations in the patisserie this year…

London seems even more awash with tourists than last year despite the terror alerts.

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WorldbyStorm - July 18, 2017

I guess if flights are only a little less packed the percentages will show and then there’s people taking the ferries, usually albeit not exclusively families.

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21. irishelectionliterature - July 18, 2017

I see Nessa Childers has announced she won’t be standing at the next European Elections.
http://nessachilders.ie/2017/07/18/childers-will-not-contest-the-2019-european-parliament-elections/

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22. thepleasedmiddle - July 18, 2017
GW - July 18, 2017

John Waters! I’ve not heard the name in years. No wonder my life feels thin and trivial.

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Geraldus Galwensis - July 18, 2017

Cheer yourself up. John Waters has an article, reflecting on work and other things, in the US online religious magazine First Things.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/08/back-to-work

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