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What you want to say – 3 September 2019 September 3, 2019

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. Paddy Healy - September 3, 2019

Capitalism in Last Chance Saloon on Climate Change Warns Financial Expert Full Article https://wp.me/pKzXa-1os
Without far more ambitious targets and policies to combat global warming, an increasing number of people will come to believe that capitalism is the problem and not part of the solution
By ADAIR TURNER, Business Post Sep 3, 2019
Adair Turner, Chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, was Chair of the UK Financial Services Authority from 2008 to 2012.
This year, the evidence that global warming is occurring, and that the consequences for humanity could be severe and potentially catastrophic, has become more compelling than ever
Record global temperatures in June and July. Unprecedented heatwaves in Australia and India, with temperatures above 50°C. Huge forest fires across northern Russia. All of these things tell us that we are running out of time to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and contain global warming to at least manageable levels.

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2. tafkaGW - September 3, 2019

It’s great to see the BLP finally playing a decent game of Brexshit shenanigans.

First try to get a bill forcing an extension, then talk about the timing of an election, trying to ensure that Johnson doesn’t get to choose the timing of an election that results, either deliberately or accidentally, in a no-deal Brexit.

And go into an election having secured an extension, promising a referendum with remain on the ballot.

It may well not work, but at least it’s doing the best they can with a fairly bad hand.

One can only assume that McCluskey and Milne are no longer exercising undue influence.

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tafkaGW - September 3, 2019

Gotcha Alexander de Pfeffel!

BLP agrees with other opposition parties not to vote for a general election until the Benn bill passes.

This is smart tactics on many levels. It levers the fixed term parliaments act, bolsters the Tory rebels, make Corbyn looks ‘statesmanlike’ and attracts back some of the remain spectrum that the BLP needs to become the largest party in a general election when it comes.

Hope the rumours prove true. The Tories will have plenty of other dirty tricks up their sleeves I’m sure. A week of bank holidays anyone?

Or is the Cummings armoury rapidly emptying out?

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CL - September 3, 2019

“Labour wants to prevent a no-deal Brexit, and to have a general election, so we can end austerity and invest in our communities. I am confident we can have both, and we’ve been in discussions about a way to achieve this. We will continue to work across parliament towards this goal and will have further meetings to this end in coming days.”-Corbyn.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/sep/03/commons-showdown-looms-in-battle-over-no-deal-brexit-live?page=with:block-5d6e715d8f0845a5dab7c7e1#block-5d6e715d8f0845a5dab7c7e1

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tafkaGW - September 3, 2019

Hugely ironic that the UK parliamentary tactics are leveraging the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Act, which the DUP midwifed by their refusal to share power.

From the Act:

(5)The Secretary of State shall make a further report under subsection (1) on or before 9 October 2019 and at least every fourteen calendar days thereafter until either an Executive is formed or until 18 December 2019, whichever is the sooner.

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3. Paddy Healy - September 3, 2019

Lack of staff, beds to trigger ‘worst winter trolley crisis’-Hospital Consultants Association https://wp.me/pKzXa-10V
“The quality and safety of patient care is deteriorating further due to persistent under-investment.”Our acute hospital system is at breaking point due to a severe shortage of consultants and a lack of beds and other facilities.”Some 500 consultant posts – accounting for one in five specialists – remain vacant or filled on a temporary basis, the president of HCA Dr Donal O’Hanlon, president of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA), warned:
Eilish O,Regan, Irish Idependent, September 3 2019
Hospital overcrowding is in danger of reaching record levels this winter as more patients endure long delays on trolleys before being moved to a ward, senior doctors warned yesterday.

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4. Tomboktu - September 3, 2019
5. Lamentreat - September 4, 2019

wherever you stand on their particular positions etc., this is v strong political writing
https://loveandragemedia.org/2019/09/02/zapatista-communique-we-broke-the-siege/amp/

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6. Paddy Healy - September 4, 2019

Further Trade Union Degeneration-Brian Gould Cork https://wp.me/pKzXa-ZB
Over the last few years Amalgamation of Unions have taken place. Notable FORSA, (the three Civil Servants /Local Authority workers Unions), CONNECT Electricians,Engineers, Carpenters, Plumbers, Constructions Trades), SIPTU bring some of the smaller Unions under their wing.
The above new 3 Unions now hold a Majority of Votes in ICTU
This is a move to a FEDERATION of Unions. ICTU would Negotiate on behalf of ALL Unions
It is a move to a Trade Association and NOT a Movement of Workers
Less input from the Rank and File Members.
Full Time Paid Officials (ICTU) Negotiating and making the Decisions on Wages, Salaries, and Working Conditions
UNIONS were formed by the Rank and File Members NOT by Careerist in Trade Unions or Trade Associations
Rank and File Members were NOT afraid of taking Civil Disobedience
Full Time Paid Officials agreed to FEMPI, and IRA (Industrial Relations Act) which means No Civil disobedience
Unions in the 21st Century have become the Garda Police men for the Government
Quote from Trade Union President in 1920 Cissie Cahalan is true today as it was then -Brian Gould Cork
Cissie Cahalane Cork) President Iris Union of Distributive Workers and Clerks( Now MANDATE TRADE UNION) 1920
“The movement as we know it today has accepted capitalism in practice, in theory they repudiate it”
It is the same in 2019 -Brian Gould

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7. Paddy Healy - September 4, 2019

Flow of Multi-National Taxes to Irish Government to Dry Up
David Chance: ‘Haven or not, the State faces an inevitable day of reckoning on tax’
Ireland Made Grossly Over-Dependent on Multinationals Over Decades https://wp.me/pKzXa-18R
“The Minister of the day may then be faced with the unenviable task of explaining that other taxes will have to make up the shortfall, potentially at the same time that it has to sell a programme of “green taxes” to the population as part of the fight against climate change.”
David Chance, Irish Independent,September 4 2019
Another week, another publication that groups this country in with tax havens which have received trillions of dollars in investments that largely reflect efforts by companies to cut their tax bills.

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8. Paddy Healy - September 4, 2019

Big Surge to Far Right in German State Elections
Full Article https://wp.me/pKzXa-1gl
Far-right AfD makes big gains but fails to topple mainstream parties. Exit polls put party second in German state elections in Saxony and Brandenburg
Kate Connolly in Berlin, Guardian, Sun 1 Sep 2019
The anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland party made strong gains in two crucial state elections in Germany on Sunday, increasing its support significantly but failing to oust the mainstream parties.
But the sharp shift to the right in Saxony and Brandenburg – AfD came second in both states – is a blow to the ruling coalition of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD), both parties having lost thousands of voters to AfD.The AfD was also able to mobilise several hundred thousand people who had never voted before, initial analysis showed.

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9. Starkadder - September 4, 2019

I see Kissinger Apologist Ronan Farrow has a new book, “Catch and
Kill” out in Autumn.

https://donotlink.it/NlMB7

I wonder will “Catch and Kill” mention that Ronan’s uncle, John Charles Farrow AKA John Charles Villiers Farrow, is currently serving a prison sentence for raping two little boys.

The brother of movie star Mia Farrow will spend the next 10 years in prison for sexually abusing two boys in Maryland.

John Charles Villiers-Farrow, 67, was sentenced Monday to 25 years in prison, with 15 years suspended.

Villiers-Farrow entered an Alford plea in July to two counts of child abuse in the molestation of two 10-year-old boys who were his neighbors in Anne Arundel County, Md., in 2002.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Mia-Farrows-Brother-to-Be-Sentenced-for-Sex-Abuse-229522321.html

Imagine that the Garda Commissioner had an uncle in jail for two bank robberies.

Imagine that five years after his uncle’s conviction, (which is publicly known), and that said Garda Commissioner never said anything about his uncle’s crimes, or expressed any sympathy for his uncle’s victims.

We’d call the Garda Commissioner a hypocrite, and we’d be right.

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10. Paddy Healy - September 6, 2019

Northern Ireland’s economy is threatened by more than Brexit
John Fitzgerald, Irish Times,
Full Article https://wp.me/pKzXa-Vu
SUMMARY: The Northern Ireland economy is likely to be worse affected by Brexit than economies in other UK regions. The Brexit shock will compound the difficulties of what is already a very weak regional economy. However, the potential fracturing of the United Kingdom itself and the rise of English nationalism could bring even greater destabilisation in the longer term.
The ceasefire, followed by the Belfast Agreement in 1998, ushered in a new era for Northern Irish society and, potentially, for the economy. However, the 20 years since the signing of the Belfast Agreement have been a considerable economic disappointment. Since 1998, Northern Ireland has been the slowest growing region in the UK in terms of GDP per head, at 1.2 per cent a year.In addition, the transfer from London actually increased from its average of 15 per cent of GDP a year between 1980 and 1998, to 20 per cent of GDP since then. When this fiscal injection is allowed for, the underlying growth in Northern Ireland in recent years seems even more anaemic.
The key symptom of the failure of the Northern Ireland economy in recent years has been the fact that there has been almost no growth in productivity. In turn, this reflects the reality that Northern Ireland has the lowest level of educational attainment of any UK region.

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11. Starkadder - September 6, 2019

Not a Slavoj Žižek fan, but this is a good article by him:

Through all his shocking vulgarities, he [Trump] is providing his followers with a narrative which makes sense – a very limited and twisted sense, but nonetheless a sense which obviously does a better job than the left-liberal narrative.

His shameless obscenities serve as signs of solidarity with so-called ordinary people (‘you see, I am the same as you, we are all red under our skin’), and this solidarity also signals the point at which Trump’s obscenity reaches its limit.

https://spectator.us/trump-re-elected-left-liberal-stupidity/

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WorldbyStorm - September 6, 2019

That is good

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12. kestrel - September 7, 2019

when all this political gangsta’ stuff, is, just nothing settled or done, a person thinks that recourse to the justice system might be better. then, solicitors seem to manifest like gangs, themselves. On accessing solicitors myself, there is no escaping the fact that these decide what cases will lose?
are most solicitors f.f. party political?
and, at Capel Building, are they all f.f.?
this building is like Bleak House?, where “lawyers lie like maggots in nuts”.
worse even, do f.f. have a stranglehold on the entire justice system here.

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13. roddy - September 7, 2019

Paddy,ironically the low level of educational attainment is most profound in Loyalist areas where education is segregated on class lines.The greatly maligned Catholic sector is more egalitarian and academic selection is gradually on the way out..However virtually all the Unionist parties oppose a move to all ability and fought all SF attempts to end academic selection.

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Dr. Nightdub - September 8, 2019

Maybe things have moved on since I was a kid, but it wasn’t just loyalist areas where education was segregated on class lines. In my day, we sat the 11+ so’s to get into St Patrick’s grammar school in east Belfast. Can’t remember what the alternative was if you failed, maybe it just didn’t bear thinking about. We’d just moved down here but my folks took me back up to sit the exams (it was in two halves) in case we moved home, we stayed in my auntie’s. Two abiding memories: first, for the half that my da brought me up for, he couldn’t cook, so our dinner was baked beans from a tin that also had sausages already in it. Gross. Second, I failed the 11+. Lucky me, I had the Christian Brothers in Dublin as a get-out clause…

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WorldbyStorm - September 8, 2019

The 11+ sounds like a perfect way to extend inequality. It’s mad how many people in the North (and Britain come to think of it) buy into that.

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Dr. Nightdub - September 8, 2019

On a more general level, the 11+ was/is the most insidious form of segregation of children practised on these islands, it was almost Calvinist in its thinking: if you passed, you were in the elect, so you got to go to grammar school. But if you failed, you were fast-tracked to damnation. Utterly non-sectarian, as it applied equally to catholic and protestant kids. But utterly evil.

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WorldbyStorm - September 8, 2019

Completely agree. It’s almost unbelievably grim.

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Paddy Healy - September 8, 2019

Selection and the 11+ was indeed non-sectarian and utterly evil. But Selection and class division alone does not explain why the most educationally underperforming sector is the unionist/protestant community. Because the protestant working class could walk into a job in the Yard, Shortts, Mackeys etc , they had no economic necessity for education and that bad , no interest in education tradition,has continued after these industries declined. Educational sociologists have also detected this in old north of England industrial cities and Welsh Mining villages. The majority of students in Queens and NUU are now of catholic background. Many Protestant students are being sent to Scotland and other parts of the UK.Many are not returning home. The majority of school-going pupils is now also nationalist, driven by general demographic factors. The highest performing secondary schools at A -Level are overwhelmingly Catholic according to recent statistics. Many Catholics, disadvantaged in employment by the caste system in the 6-counties, enthusiastically grabbed the opportunity provided by free secondary education after the second world war and later free university education. The Civil Rights movement was strong in Queens in the late sixties. Population experts are predicting that when all individuals however young are counted, there will be a majority of the population of Catholic background in two years time-2021

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14. Paddy Healy - September 7, 2019

Billions of euro in corporation tax ‘could disappear like a supernova explosion’-Professor Honahan Warns Government
Brian Hutton, Saturday, September 7, 2019 https://wp.me/pKzXa-18R
Billions of euro pouring into the public purse from corporation tax could end abruptly like a “supernova explosion”, former Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan has warned.
Days after the latest exchequer figures showed another record tax take expected this year on the back of an ongoing windfall from businesses, Mr Honohan said the Government should not be relying on it.
“This is not really a sustainable system,” he told RTÉ Radio’s The Business.
“It has generated huge tax revenues in the last few years. It might be like the end of one of these stars that has a supernova explosion towards the end of its life.”
Mr Honohan said he felt like “the little boy with the finger in the dike” cautioning that the flood of corporation tax receipts would not last in the years to come.
Asked by presenter Richard Curran if it might “just fall off a cliff one year”, Mr Honohan replied: “Yes, I think so.”

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15. Paddy Healy - September 8, 2019

Trade wars ‘risk a global slump’ : Joachim Lang , Head of the German Industry Federation warned of a potential global recession
David Chance (Former Reuters Economics Editor for the Americas, overseeing coverage of the Federal Reserve as it managed the post-crisis recovery, the US economy and President Trump’s trade wars), Irish Independent, Sept 7 2019
Full Article https://wp.me/pKzXa-ua
The head of Germany’s powerful industry association lashed out at Brexit and trade protectionism in the US and China in a Dublin speech yesterday, saying they risked tipping the world into recession.
The speech by Joachim Lang came hard on the heels of data that showed German manufacturing output had fallen by 0.6pc in July from June, largely thanks to a collapse in car production, which is 20pc below its 2017 peak.
“The conventional assumption of a return to higher dynamism next year assumes away Trump, Johnson, Xi Jinping and other risks,” Dr Lang, the director-general of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), said.
“In fact, Europe will find itself in recession next year if a hard Brexit takes place, and in a slow-growth situation if it can be avoided,” he told the Institute of International and European Affairs.
Dr Lang, who said the BDI fully supports the backstop, added that the issue of president Donald Trump and Mr Xi’s protectionism, as well as Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit threat, marked the first time since the Second World War a recession had been “manufactured in Washington DC and London”.

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16. Paddy Healy - September 8, 2019

Further to the discussion on education in the 6 counties and changing demographics generally there:
By Gareth GordonBBC News NI Political Correspondent, 19 April 2018Demographics are shifting in Northern Ireland
It is likely Catholics will outnumber Protestants by 2021 in Northern Ireland, according to a leading academic.
Dr Paul Nolan, who specialises in monitoring the peace process and social trends, told BBC News NI that there could be more Catholics than Protestants in Northern Ireland by the centenary of the foundation of the state.
However, he says unionists should not be too alarmed because you cannot necessarily equate being a Catholic with supporting a united Ireland.
Census figures in 2011 showed a narrowing gap in the population
The last census in 2011 put the Protestant population at 48%, just 3% more than Catholics at 45%.
More recent figures from 2016 show that among those of working age 44% are now Catholic and 40% Protestant.
Figures from 2016 of working age population
The difference is even more marked among schoolchildren with 51% Catholic, 37% Protestant.
Only among the over 60s is there a majority of Protestants with 57%, compared to Catholics on 35%.
Dr Nolan said: “Three years from now we will end up, I think, in the ironic situation on the centenary of the state where we actually have a state that has a Catholic majority.”
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17. roddy - September 8, 2019

I think you are all missing the point that Nationalist parties and the church are against the 11 plus while Unionism is clinging grimly to it.

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WorldbyStorm - September 8, 2019

Yes, that’s been striking and it’s yet another indication of how disinterested political unionism is in engaging with that and other issues similar to it where outcomes to those it supposedly represents are so poor. It’s almost incredible how badly served unionists are by unionism in its political form. It’s not like in the South FF or FG were any great shakes but the former certainly had more than an eye on its working class support base (until I’d argue the 80s) in a way that by contrast the UUP and latterly the DUP have seemed almost oblivious to.

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18. Paddy Healy - September 8, 2019

Address to National Hunger Strike Commemoration, Bundoran, Co. Donegal, 31st August 2019 by Sean Bresnahan, Thomas Ashe 1916 Society, Omagh, Co Tyrone

Republican War For Freedom No Criminal Enterprise


The 1916 Societies are an emerging political, cultural and historical movement in Ireland founded in 2009 to oppose the further running down of the republican struggle, with the specific remit of securing the legacy of those who gave their lives in the cause of Irish freedom and ensuring the preservation of the republican tradition on that basis. The Societies are growing rapidly throughout Ireland, North and South.
“The Republican war for freedom was not a criminal enterprise, as presented by those who allowed the Hunger Strikers to go to their deaths, and such painful deaths. The Republican war for freedom carried not only a moral right — of the dispossessed and downtrodden; of the colonised and occupied. It carried the lawful right and authority of the Irish Republic. The criminal in Ireland was and remains Britain.
Those ten men suffered death to uphold the right of the Republic, their demand to be treated as political prisoners — to be afforded the status thus warranted — born of the enduring reality that they were not mere British criminals, as labelled, but Irish soldiers.
They went to their deaths asserting that Britain had no right or title to Ireland — that her actions in Ireland had no lawful basis.
It remains the case.”

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19. Paddy Healy - September 8, 2019

Bombshell!! France Will Veto ANY BREXIT DELAY BEYOND OCTOBER 31 Next!!! https://wp.me/pKzXa-Vu
French foreign minister says ‘NON’ to Brexit delay beyond October 31 ‘under current conditions’ and blasts the chaos gripping UK as Remainers pass law to postpone Britain’s exit-Mail on Line
Jean-Yves Le Drian said delay to Brexit beyond October 31 ‘isn’t possible’ under current conditions
Boris Johnson’s Tories on 35% open up 14 points over Labour in new poll despite Brexit chaos
Prime Minister ‘will refuse to ask EU for Brexit delay at meeting on October 17’
Will put Prime Minister at odds with an anti-No Deal law passed by Parliament
It would almost certainly trigger emergency legal challenge in Supreme Court
Sajid Javid hit back and said the government is ‘serious’ about getting a deal
Dominic Raab said government will ‘test to the limit’ the anti-No Deal law
By JACK MAIDMENT, DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE and RORY TINGLE : 8 September 2019
France today said the EU will not agree a Brexit delay beyond October 31 amid claims Boris Johnson will defy the law and ‘sabotage’ an extension if he is unable to strike a deal with Brussels.
Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister, said the Brexit meltdown in the UK was ‘very worrying’ as he insisted an extension would not be possible under the current circumstances.
‘We are not going to do (extend) this every three months,’ he said.

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20. Paddy Healy - September 8, 2019

The Guardian has a somewhat different interpretation to that of the Mail of French threat to Veto any Extension of Brexit deadline beyond October 31

Guardian:“The French foreign minister’s threat of blocking an extension will be seen as an expression of heightened irritation but EU sources have suggested it is unlikely come to pass.
EU leaders have said that a second referendum or general election would be sufficient reason to extend again and, for all the frustration at the British, there is a reluctance to appear to be pushing the UK out of the bloc.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/08/france-threatens-to-veto-further-brexit-extension

It should be noted that the Guardian also reports the French threat, also published in the Mail. Time will tell which interpretation is correct, of course. Perhaps the final sentence in the statement of the French Foreign Minister is the most important: ‘We are not going to do (extend) this every three months,’ he said. In the context of heightened inter-imperialist rivalry including trade/tariff wars between US and EU, it is to be expected that France will not tolerate “an enemy within” for very long. Johnson and the Tories are in League with TRUMP. While the UK remains a member of the EU, it has a veto on crucial political and economic matters. It can disrupt and paralyse the EU in the service of Trump with whom Johnson wishes to Ally.. France will not allow this to continue. Of course, as before the Second World War, inter-imperialist alliances can shift suddenly. Remember the Stalin-Hitler Pact.! Note Trumps recent kind words for Putin! When imperialist interests are in play, it would be wise not to rule anything out. States have no morals, just interests as we all know. My own opinion is that France will insist that the Brexit issue be fully resolved within months.

In the lead up to a Third World War, what are the chances of the following line-up occurring at some stage:

USA-Russia vs Franco-German Axis- Peoples Republic of China??

Fortunately Hitler did not have nuclear weapons!!!!!

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21. Paddy Healy - September 9, 2019

There Will Be A Third World War Unless The Far-Right is Defeated in Several Countries by Mass Action! Remember Hitler Didn’t Have Nuclear Weapons! https://wp.me/pKzXa-1p2
Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Björn Höcke (Germany), Peter Casey, are preparing the ground for the New Hitlers, Mussolinis, General O’Duffys (Blueshirts) Remember: Peter Casey came second in the 2018 Irish Presidential Election. The second world war was preceded by capitalist economic crisis and heightened worl-wide inter imperialist rivalry including trade wars

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22. Paddy Healy - September 9, 2019

Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Björn Höcke (Germany), Peter Casey, are preparing the ground for the New Hitlers, Mussolinis, General O’Duffys (Blueshirts) Remember: Peter Casey came second in the 2018 Irish Presidential Election. The second world war was preceded by capitalist economic crisis and heightened world-wide inter imperialist rivalry including trade wars https://wp.me/pKzXa-1p2
In the lead up to a Third World War, what are the chances of the following line-up occurring at some stage: USA-Russia vs Franco-German Axis- Peoples Republic of China??
Why is France Threatening To Veto any Brexit Extension?
Perhaps the final sentence in the statement of the French Foreign Minister is the most important: ‘We are not going to do (extend) this every three months,’ he said.

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23. Paddy Healy - September 9, 2019

Far-right AfD makes big gains but fails to topple mainstream parties. Exit polls put party second in German state elections in Saxony and Brandenburg
https://wp.me/pKzXa-1p2 Kate Connolly, in Berlin, Guardian, Sun 1 Sep 2019
The anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland party made strong gains in two crucial state elections in Germany on Sunday, increasing its support significantly but failing to oust the mainstream parties.
But the sharp shift to the right in Saxony and Brandenburg – AfD came second in both states – is a blow to the ruling coalition of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD), both parties having lost thousands of voters to AfD.The AfD was also able to mobilise several hundred thousand people who had never voted before, initial analysis showed.

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24. Paddy Healy - September 9, 2019

Trotsky Was First to Warn of Nazism
There Will be A Third World War Unless the Far-Right is Defeated by Mass Action in Several Countries https://wp.me/pKzXa-1p2
From The Militant ,Volume 1X No 19, 12 May 1945, p. 5. The course of events in Europe have given terrible confirmation to Trotsky’s repeated warnings of the dangers of fascism. Before Hitler came to power, the statesmen of the capitalist “democracies” viewed the rise of fascism with sympathy, while the heads of the Social-Democratic and Stalinist organisations retreated without fighting before the onslaught of the Nazi gangs. Trotsky on the other hand sounded the. alarm from the very beginning.
Here is one of hiTrotsky’s first warnings in 1931:“The decisive hour is very close … The coming into power of the German ‘National Socialists’ would mean above all the extermination of the flower of the German proletariat, the disruption of its organizations, the extirpation of its belief in itself and in its future. Considering the far greater maturity and acuteness of the social contradictions in Germany, the hellish work of Italian Fascism would probably appear as a pale and almost humane experiment in comparison with the work of the German National Socialists … The struggle of the proletariat, taken unawares, disorientated, disappointed and betrayed by its own leadership, against the Fascist regime would be transformed into a series of frightful bloody and futile convulsions …

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25. Paddy Healy - September 9, 2019

Great Article on Irish Neutrality by Justine McCarthy in Sunday Times Quoting US VP Mike Pence https://wp.me/pKzXa-Ut
IRELAND AN ACCESSORY IN INTERNATIONAL WARS, NOT A PEACEMAKER – Justine McCarthy, ‘The Sunday Times’, :
Just because the world’s most powerful political leader and his deputy are in the habit of spouting delusionary, hare-brained utterances does not mean rational multitudes automatically disbelieve what they say. Thus, when Mike Pence, America’s vice-president, flew into his ancestral homeland on Monday, Ireland’s military neutrality flew away in his slipstream.
Irish eyes were busy smiling with such doggedly determined diplomacy, they appear to have been rendered blind to the flight of a supposedly cherished value of this republic.
“Being here, particularly at Shannon airport, which has become such an important hub for US forces deploying overseas, I’m especially mindful of the close co-ordination that our two countries have had in US military operations around the world,” said Pence.
(Interesting Article from Clare Echo also at the Link above)

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26. roddy - September 10, 2019

I see former SDLP MP Margaret Ritchie has been given a peerage by the Tories.A party that berates SF’s abstensionism and will take their seats and swear the royal oath “to fight the Tories” and then accepts Tory honours!

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