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What you want to say – 10th October 2018 October 10, 2018

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. Tomboktu - October 10, 2018

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2. Paddy Healy - October 10, 2018

Seamus Healy TD Speaks in the Dáil on Budget for The Super-Rich
Click Here to watch and listen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqJycOWbfR8
Tax Relief for Millionaires- None for the Lowly Paid
Tax Evasion by Super-Rich (with Assistance of Government) Click Here https://wp.me/pKzXa-oM
Lack of Mental Health Services-No Hospital Places in Tipperary
Buy-To-Let Landlords Helped to Outbid Home buyers,
No Reduction in Class Sizes
Water to Be Piped from Shannon to Dublin to flow out through Broken Pipes into Liffey

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3. Paddy Healy - October 10, 2018

Social Justice Ireland Criticises Housing Budget
#Budget19 prioritised private landlords over homes for families
Colette Bennett is research and policy officer with Social Justice Ireland
Irish Examiner Wednesday, October 10,
Full Article https://wp.me/pKzXa-wc

The Government has failed again to address housing needs, writes Colette Bennett.

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4. Paddy Healy - October 11, 2018

Social Justice Ireland’s Sean Healy on Budget -Irish Examiner
Budget 2019 does nothing to tackle entrenched inequality
Budget 2019 fails to make any notable impact on Ireland’s entrenched inequalities and fails to tackle any of the major challenges the country currently faces, according to Social Justice Ireland’s Sean Healy https://wp.me/pKzXa-Oa
“However, the approach taken in Budget 2019, towards addressing the need for a substantial programme of building social housing, is totally inadequate.”
“Budget 2019 included a number of welcome initiatives such as increasing social welfare rates and the minimum wage. However, its failure to address some of the major challenges Irish people currently face, such as the housing crisis or climate change, on anything like the scale required, is very disappointing.”

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5. Paddy Healy - October 11, 2018

Landlords ‘gorging’ like ‘some starved waif’ on increased rents – Children’s Ombudsman Dr Niall Muldoon
COPE GALWAY REPORT shows “Crisis of Epic Proportions”
Lorna Siggins Irish Times Full Article https://wp.me/pKzXa-wc

Ombudsman for Children Dr Niall Muldoon has criticised State reliance on landlords who lost out during the economic crash and are now “gorging . . . like some starved waif” on increased rents.
The current housing and homelessness situation is a “crisis of epic proportions” with “monumental impacts” over the course of this century, Dr Muldoon said, and it may be “decades before we understand its full impact”. Dr Muldoon was speaking at Wednesday’s publication of an annual report by Cope Galway, which provides services to the homeless, victims of domestic violence and to older people.
The organisation has reported an 80 per cent increase in the past year in the number of families it is working with in Galway, at 242 families with 576 children and 695 single people.

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6. Tomboktu - October 11, 2018

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Starkadder - October 11, 2018

I remember CoC -there is an excerpt from the novel in
“Spanish Front” edited by Valentine Cunningham.

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7. Starkadder - October 11, 2018

Speaking of art and politics, Wesley Morris has a long essay in the NYT relevant to some of the controversies we have been discussing in relation to Kipling and Picasso here:

Nobody has time to wait for the last paragraph now.

I can imagine the distress of graduating from a high school or college campus in the Obama era, having missed the early culture wars but having imbibed the real possibilities of multiculturalism; having fought against hate speech and cultural appropriation and for greater emotional and atmospheric sensitivity; living in the Donald Trump era, in the #MeToo era, with “Hamilton” on Broadway and white people more aware than ever of the totality of their whiteness, but with white nationalists on the march even as Confederate statues are being toppled. Things might truly feel apocalyptic. And a determination to stem further distress might be radicalizing.

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Barnes - October 12, 2018

I have suffered from anxiety. Its a tough condition to work through. On thr right side of it now.
Reading that extract I wonder about the state of mind of a lot of people. I’d wonder about the author of that extract or the people who feel aligned to the sense of urgency and sentiment in that extract. It reads like “hit refresh and see if things are better”.
Can anyone recall a Socialist text where someone wrote a similar thing i.e. ” the state of the working class is abhorrent. Its all so hopeless. I think I’m having a panic attack”

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Barnes - October 12, 2018

It is a good article by the way and that extract reads as a nod to those people he is perhaps trying to reach out to rather than his personal views. He is quite nuanced.

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yourcousin - October 12, 2018

Ben Hamper for one, better known as “Rivethead” in his writings for the Flint Voice and in his memoir of the same name who was an auto worker.

I also know that one of Studs Terkel’s interviewees (a steel worker IIRC) in “Working” talked about how guys went to the bar and since they couldn’t hit their job, or the system they hit the guy sitting next to them.

I would also argue that a good deal of the drinking, domestic violence and now current opioid crisis can be traced back to some kind of existential angst, that is not articulated, but is still very real.

Just my two cents.

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Barnes - October 12, 2018

Good 2 cents.

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WorldbyStorm - October 12, 2018

I have a lot of sympathy for his article – that said I went to an art and design college in the 80s and I learned there to take a lot of this stuff pro and contra with a large grain of salt. So much is overblown or tweeted to death or parsed out in the media to an absurd extent —and there are realities that there’s now thankfully a greater diversity of actors artists directors etc indeed I think Morris makes a great point that the terrain was so hard won the dynamic to overdefend is v great. But so much culture is fluff – not bad or pointless but ephemeral (like twitterstorms). A lot of people reign really quite mundane stuff. And there’s exaggeration everywhere even in the piece, most people seem to be a lot less exercised than those who complain (sometimes rightly) the most. I doubt art is ‘safer’ not even sure how one would measure it (I’ve a whole different argument about how art is already in trouble and has been for decades for different reasons – and by the by in the 90s people were worried about precisely the opposite that it was too unsafe) If there is a real fundamental change we’ll see it in our laws eventually. I’m skeptical.

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8. Paddy Healy - October 13, 2018

Rural Broadband-Resignation of Minister Naughten
Now Naughten Says Varadkar Met The CEO of the Finance Company on several occasions!!! https://wp.me/pKzXa-18R
Privatisation of Eircom Bites Back
100 % Rural Broadband Provision COULD NOT BE DELIVERED PROFITABLY BY PRIVATE COMPANIES COMPETITIVELY TENDERING. Like Rural Electrification, including in the Remotest Areas, it could only be delivered by the state due to high initial cost and long term low usage in low population density areas. So all the Communication Companies Pulled out leaving a single finance company standing. Then Naughten and Varadkar scrambled to save the process. The finance company demanded it’s pound of flesh!–CRISIS

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9. Tomboktu - October 14, 2018

I submitted the thesis months ago, but I still feel guilty when I get home on a Saturday evening if I haven’t planned to spend an hour on it before going to bed.

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10. Paddy Healy - October 14, 2018

Privatisation of Eircom Bites Back-My Earlier Analysis (at post no 8 above)) Confirmed by Sunday Business Post.
More here https://wp.me/pKzXa-18R
“The Privatisation of the Telecom Eireann telephone network is now widely accepted as being a huge mistake and has made the rollout of rural broadband more expensive.-By Hugh O’Connell, Michael Brennan and Jack Horgan Jones, SB Post
The DEMISE OF THE BROADBAND PLAN And where does it leave the future of high-speed connectivity in rural Ireland?
In retrospect, the rural broadband contract was always a massive challenge, if not doomed to failure.
The telephone network used to be owned by the state. But it was sold off when Telecom Éireann was privatised by the Fianna Fáil government in 1999. That loss of the network is now widely accepted as being a huge mistake and has made the rollout of rural broadband more expensive.
The fibre-optic cables which deliver broadband have to be hung on the 1.2 million telephone poles owned by Eir, as Telecom Éireann is now known. Eir is proposing to charge the winning consortium €20 per year for every telephone pole it uses – which makes it very costly to run fibre-optic cables to rural homes in remote areas. That is where wireless broadband will have to come in……”

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wolfie - October 15, 2018

not being at all technological, i just sorta barely u/stand the above.
but one thing about Eir (that I wonder if it is sinister): is that Irish Water this year have tendered out for Contracts for what they call “Remote Access”; this just never seems to be clarified to the general person?
Do they require this so that all water drains (of every kind), can be, in conjunction with Eir: constantly monitored.?
This concentration of all things; – always to have to “access remotely”, be it, Three, Eir, electric, Irish Water, etc., as a way of taking away jobs; but even more, a bit sinister; the disintegration and remoteness, of areas.
btw; do the remote monitoring security firms (clustered in Citywest?), pay Eir for the use of these former telecom lines, in order to Monitor, the water drains? of everyone?

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11. Alibaba - October 14, 2018

Some interesting reads on Corbyn:

‘Corbyn’s left reformism is mild by the standards of earlier generations, by the standards of some other European countries and …’

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2018/10/02/lorna-finlayson/has-corbyn-changed/

and how “antisemitism has been ‘weaponised’ to attack Corbyn and any prospect of a progressive UK government critical of Israel.”

http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2018/876-israel-is-the-real-problem.html

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12. Michael Carley - October 15, 2018
WorldbyStorm - October 15, 2018

Brilliant – sheesh this is brilliant! Great spot MC

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13. Paddy Healy - October 15, 2018

A Marxist Review of ‘I, Dolours’
Posted in the Blog “Broken Elbow” Edited by ED Moloney on October 4 2018
“She does however say that what Sinn Fein had achieved(Good Friday Agmt.) was not worth missing a good breakfast for.” https://wp.me/pKzXa-tR
I, Dolours
‘I Dolours’ is a film about the life of Dolours Price, and her activities as a member of the IRA during the 1970s. It is part dramatisation and part interview conducted by the journalist Ed Moloney, who is also the Producer and has written an important book on the history of the IRA

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yourcousin - October 15, 2018

This comment left me with a sense of dejavu so instead of reinventing the wheel I’ll just copy and paste.

“I’ve also never understood now why folks who abhorred the violence would now that it’s all over seek out “true” IRA members to smear Adams now as if the “simple soldiers” have a truer tale to tell.

I know I beat this horse frequently but Adams never shied away from PIRA during some pretty dark days. He was the public face of many atrocities. I fail to see how him being caught in a balaclava or admitting to shooting an off duty UDR soldier would actually help it all make sense.”

And again I would point out that Adams apologized to McConnville family on behalf of the Republican movement. That is not even close to proper justice for them but it is telling that Adams took that one on the chin and owned it like many other PIRA disasters that he was the face of.

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14. Paddy Healy - October 15, 2018

Budget 2019: biggest losers were working families and children
Michelle Murphy is a research and policy analyst with Social Justice Ireland
Sunday Independent https://wp.me/pKzXa-Oa
Budgets are about choices and priorities. In Budget 2019, the Government chose not to prioritise children and families.–
Income tax measures only favour high earners and will do nothing to ease the burden of childcare costs, writes Michelle Murphy Caught in a trap: As a percentage of wages, net childcare costs in Ireland are the highest in the European Union.This year’s Budget has yet again failed to significantly alleviate the crippling pressure on young families. Access to quality and affordable childcare and after-school care is a significant challenge facing families with young children in Ireland.As a percentage of wages, net childcare costs in Ireland are the highest in the European Union. Measures introduced in Budget 2019 will fall far short of easing the cost of childcare for working families.

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15. Joe - October 15, 2018
16. Paddy Healy - October 15, 2018

Well Done Orla!!
Murderous Surrogate Wars by Imperialist Exploiters

Murderous Surrogate Wars By Imperialist Exploiters


Yemen could be ‘worst famine in 100 years’-BBC-Orla Guerin
The United Nations is warning that 13 MILLION PEOPLE in Yemen are facing starvation. United Nations is calling on the military coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, to halt air strikes which are killing civilians, and contributing to what the UN says could become “the worst famine in the world in 100 years”
Saudi Arabia, backed by the US, the UK and France, is using air strikes and a blockade – in support of the internationally-recognised government. At least 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict and millions are displaced.

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17. Paddy Healy - October 16, 2018

Saudi Deliberately Bombing Food Supplies to Yemen-50% of fishing Boats destroyed-It is a war crime-Patrick Coburn, London Independent
Yemen could be ‘worst famine in 100 years’-BBC-Orla Guerin
The United Nations is warning that 13 million people in Yemen are facing starvation.
It’s calling on the military coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, to halt air strikes which are killing civilians, and contributing to what the UN says could become “the worst famine in the world in 100 years”. https://wp.me/pKzXa-1ax
Saudi Arabia, backed by the US, the UK and France, is using air strikes and a blockade – in support of the internationally-recognised government

Any Chance That Irish Government Would Denounce War Crimes??

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Paddy Healy - October 16, 2018

Edward Horgan Yes Paddy military support for Saudi Arabia are passing through Shannon, probably including several mid air refuelling planes that I photographed at Shannon airport. Saudi Arabia has no mid air refuelling planes of their own so the US air force provided the mid air refuelling for them as their fighter planes attack Yemen. Most of the bombs dropped by the US in Yemen are supplied by the USA, but some are also supplied by Britain, France and Germany, three nice “peaceful” European Union countries.

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18. CL - October 16, 2018

‘there are those in Saudi Arabia, UAE and their allies in Washington, London and Paris who evidently do not feel any regret and are intent on creating conditions for a man-made famine as the best way of winning the war against the Houthis…
The coalition air campaign is aided by US aerial refuelling and logistic support while UK military personnel are stationed in command and control centres….
If the Saudis murdered Khashoggi, why did they expect to carry out the assassination without producing an international uproar? The explanation probably is that Saudi leaders imagined that, having got away with worse atrocities in Yemen, that any outcry over the death of a single man in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was something they could handle.”-Patrick Cockburn
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/saudi-arabia-jamal-khashoggi-disappeared-journalist-washington-post-embassy-a8581341.html

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