Archive for the ‘International Political Analysis’ Category
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life – New World After the CoronaVirus War
Guest Post : John Meehan calls for an international revolutionary tendency!
Once, in the mid-1980’s while attending an extremely serious international political congress, I briefly attracted the attention of a Latin American comrade so Deep in Thought about the world revolution, he wasn’t saying hello to bit players like me.
A deluded speaker had seriously suggested that Lenin’s 1915 formula – “turn the imperialist war into a civil war” – could be adapted to the prospect of an imminent 20th Century Nuclear War. Workers’ and Capitalists’ bombs would reduce the globe to smithereens. Out of the Doomsday Ashes, human survivors would create the Communist Garden of Eden, a new Valhalla :
Valhalla, Old Norse Valhöll, in Norse mythology, the hall of slain warriors, who live there blissfully under the leadership of the god Odin. Valhalla is depicted as a splendid palace, roofed with shields, where the warriors feast on the flesh of a boar slaughtered daily and made whole again each evening. They drink liquor that flows from the udders of a goat, and their sport is to fight one another every day.
Thus they will live until the Ragnarök(Doomsday), when they will march out the 540 doors of the palace to fight at the side of Odin against the giants. When heroes fall in battle it is said that Odin needs them to strengthen his forces for the Ragnarök.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Valhalla-Norse-mythology
A mischievous comrade – promoting the despised “pacifist” and “reformist” policy of abolishing all nuclear weapons – advised us that success for the Valhalla Doomsday Policy would leave our planet inhabited only by termites – the only living creatures capable of surviving a nuclear holocaust. Civil War For Termites Comrades?
Read the rest of this entry »A sad day. Manolis Glezos, who tore the swastika down from the Acropolis in 1941, has died
An Inspiration For All of Us Today
Manolis Glezos, Greek left-wing politician best known for his participation in the World War II resistance, passed away on Monday morning aged 98.
A sad day. Manolis Glezos, who tore the swastika down from the Acropolis in 1941, has died.
ERT has reported that the wartime icon, who had been hospitalised earlier this month with gastroenteritis and a urinary infection, died of heart failure.
https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/03/30/greek-resistance-hero-manolis-glezos-passes-away-aged-98/
98 years in the struggle for socialism, from the anti-fascist resistance to the fight against the Troika in Greece.
“Why do I go on? Why I am doing this when I am so old? I could, after all, be sitting on a sofa in slippers with my feet up. So why do I do this? You think the man sitting opposite you is Manolis but you are wrong. I am not him. And I am not him because I have not forgotten that every time someone was about to be executed during the war, they said: ‘Don’t forget me. When you say good morning, think of me. When you raise a glass, say my name.’ And that is what I am doing talking to you, or doing any of this. The man you see before you is all those people. And all this is about not forgetting them.”
During a visit to Corinth to take part in a farmers’ blockade, political veteran and activist Manolis Glezos did not mince his words in criticizing the Syriza-led government and PM Alexis Tsipras. In a tone that displayed his bitter disappointment over how things have turned out under the Syriza government, Glezos apologized to the Greek people for trusting Tsipras, saying that the current PM cares only about power.
Biden: “We Have To Take Care Of The Cure That Will Make The Problem Worse No Matter What” | Video | RealClearPolitics
Joe Biden is almost certain to be the American Democratic Party Presidential Candidate in November 2020.
Tariq Ali Brilliantly Translates a Baffling Biden Statement About the CoronaVirus into the English Language ;
People are puzzled by this one, but in fact, it’s Biden at his most lucid. What he’s saying is that he needs to be taken into care because even though he is the cure to the Trump virus he will make all the problems worse no matter what.
Comeback Kid 🧒 In Evil 👿 of Two Lessers Saloon
Bluebottle Alert – British Prime Minister Johnson and his Health Minister Hancock Have the CoVid-19 Pox – Schadenfreude Moments
Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister, and Matt Hancock, British Health Minister, Got the Pox – “Ten Blue Bottles Sitting on a Wall; And if One Blue Bottle Should Accidentally Fall?; There’ll be Nine Blue Bottles Sitting on a Wall…”
New British Tory Party Logo
Remedy
Keep dustbins clean, with tight lids and away from doors or windows.”
How did Johnson and Hancock become infected? A detective supplies a big clue
Schadenfreude :
Schadenfreude is a complex emotion, where rather than feeling sympathy towards someone’s misfortune, schadenfreude evokes joyful feelings that take pleasure from watching someone fail. This emotion is displayed more in children than adults. However, adults also experience schadenfreude, though generally concealed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude?wprov=sfti1
A Charming Photo
All Out At Home, Thursday March 26 2020 Across Ireland for Health Workers
All Out, Thursday March 26, 8pm Tonight Across Ireland.
Well Done Brid Smith TD and Memet Uludag
I will play Bella Ciao from my IPAD – Other Suggestions! https://youtu.be/X5dGRM7Fw88
Also here https://youtu.be/nJTOD5jjac4
“There are no infallible party leaderships, or individual party leaders, party majorities, “Leninist” central committees” – and so on!
We can learn from history, we cannot change it.
Russia in the 1920’s was a one-Party State. The ruling Bolshevik Party banned internal oppositional currents. Different groups emerged opposing the party leadership centred around the dictator, Joseph Stalin.
On a smaller level today in Ireland, one-Faction “broader parties” – for example People Before Profit (ultimately controlled by the Socialist Workers’ Network) or Solidarity (ultimately controlled by the Socialist Party) – are a living contradiction. They are, because internal democracy is curtailed, bureaucratically deformed radical-left parties. RISE, originating from internal differences within Solidarity/Socialist Party, represents a serious effort to break free from the bureaucratically deformed model.
“Build a new mass left-wing party
“There is a desperate need for a mass political party of the left. Because of Sinn Féin’s acceptance of the capitalist market and its hesitancy to engage with people-power movements, it will not be that party.
“None of the existing radical left parties are likely to grow directly into that mass left party either. Instead, we need a left party that is anti-capitalist, anti-coalition and anti-oppression, while being open for different groups to organise within it. https://www.letusrise.ie/featured-articles/we-need-a-socialist-government
RISE and our TD, Paul Murphy, wants to work with others to build such a party. While fighting for every reform in the here and now, we are a revolutionary socialist group that sees the need to end the rule of the bosses and big corporations.”
In the 1920’s and 1930’s, most of the opposition currents were reluctant to put their differences in perspective, and unite against the common ruling enemy. Tragic consequences followed – the Stalin machine murdered and framed all its opponents in infamous 1930’s Moscow Show-Trials.
Victor Osprey highlights important efforts to do things differently
A view from Madrid during the crisis
From the Cedar Lounge Revolution Site : Jason O’Toole, well known in this parish, has a piece in the Mirror about the situation in Madrid where he’s currently based. Troubling is the word … Madrid is eerily like a ghost town since being put on a near-total lockdown nine days ago.
But the deafening silence has been broken every single night by Madrilenos – as locals are called – taking to their balconies at 8pm to applaud the doctors and nurses on the front lines saving lives.
It provides only light relief to Spain’s 47-million population is only allowed to leave home for work, buy food or visit the pharmacy.
A view from Madrid during the crisis
The story is dark. We also learn that every evening Madrilenos emerge from their homes to sing and chant, supporting each other and health workers battling the CoronaVirus. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-spain-balcony-sing/amid-coronavirus-blues-balcony-singer-helps-madrilenos-to-party-on-idUSKBN21723W
Another story from the Spanish State is very grim reading, and we should prepare ourselves for similar events in Ireland
“Spanish Military Finds Dead Bodies And Seniors ‘Completely Abandoned’ In Care Homes” https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/03/24/820711855/spanish-military-finds-dead-bodies-and-seniors-completely-abandoned-in-care-home
With more than 39,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 2,800 deaths as of Tuesday, Spain is the second hardest-hit country in Europe
Last week, one privately owned home in Madrid reported 20 deaths and 75 infections, claiming it didn’t have adequate material to take care of the sick residents and dead bodies.
Manu Fernandez/AP
Stormont Health Minister Robin Swann Offers CoronaVirus Unnecessary Deaths in Ireland – North, South, East and West
Professor Gabriel Scally came to the attention of many people in Ireland because of his no-holds-barred examination of a Cervical Smear Scandal in the Irish Health Service. https://www.thejournal.ie/scally-review-outsourcing-labs-4677380-Jun2019/
Scally assesses the behaviour of Stormont Government Health Minister Robin Swann (recent leader of the Ulster Unionist Party)
Professor Gabriel Scally writes :
Ridiculous assertion on BBC from N Ireland minister @RobinSwannMoH
“the RoI has worse #corvid19 position than N Ireland.”
The South has more cases. But that’s because they have 32 community based testing stations. The North has ZERO and stopped testing in communities last week https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1240923430318456832
Here is A Sharp Comment
Siubhán O’Connor@siubhanoc·Replying to @GabrielScally and @RobinSwannMoHSwann is so utterly blinded by his bias…ppl in the South with NO SYMPTOMS are getting tested where they are deemed ‘at risk’. Our maintenance man has COPD & has been referred for test. 2 day wait. NI is in serious trouble
The Irish Examiner Reports “Public health specialist Dr Gabriel Scally, Honorary Professor of Public Health in Bristol University, has described the UK’s policy on Covid-19 as “way out of line” with the rest of Europe and advice from the World Health Organisation.
“I think it’s dangerous. Their view really is let this fire burn and they will try and damp it down where they can and spread it out over a period of time.
“But we know from elsewhere in the world that if countries and communities act fast, this can be kept under control and knocked back.”
The UK approach is similar to the old adage: “Everyone is out of step with our Johnny”, he said.
“If the UK has got it right, then the rest of the world has got it wrong. And I don’t think that’s likely.
“I think it’s displayed by some of their appalling science that they’re talking about, using herd immunity.
They are reliant on mathematical modelling but this is not a mathematical modelling issue.
Dr Scally said that if there was one threat to how things are being handled in the Republic of Ireland, it is the UK’s position.
People in Northern Ireland need to be demanding better from their leaders and they themselves need to do a better job.
“They’re following along blindly this notion that somehow all of the wisdom is emanating from Number 10 Downing Street and we know that to be wrong.
“Even the United States is taking a more proactive approach than the UK.” https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/closing-borders-would-make-things-worse-says-disease-prevention-and-control-expert-988199.html
Readers should also note from the Irish Examiner report that Public Health Experts Oppose the Closing of Borders
“Dr Agoritsa Baka said that given there is already community transmission of the virus in European countries, “we need to collaborate to make sure everyone can deal with the virus in a coordinated way.”
Closing borders would make things worse, she said and would negatively affect the function of healthcare systems, as was seen during the Ebola outbreak in 2014.
Dr Baka said that if, for example, Germany closed its border “everything, like food supplies, personal protection equipment cannot move around Europe, and it would be a disaster.”
Let’s Get Real – Swann Must Go! The Stormont Health Minister has already guaranteed unnecessary death and illness in the North of Ireland – and, because so many people travel daily across the Irish Border in both directions, Swann has guaranteed unnecessary death and illness in the South East and West of Ireland.
Nursing home staff spread coronavirus to other facilities, CDC investigation finds – Los Angeles Times
This is a scary factual report about the spread of the CoVid-19 illness in an American Nursing Home based in Seattle, Washington State.
A key cause of the crisis was :
low wages in nursing homes and assisted-living centers force many staffers to work in multiple facilities. Certified nursing assistants often make no more than minimum wage, and nurses typically receive less than they do in hospitals.
In addition, a sense of duty and financial stress may tempt employees to come to work sick, endangering elderly residents who have underlying health conditions.
Could this happen in Ireland? The answer has to be Yes.
Of the deaths linked to the nursing home, one was a visitor and the rest were patients.
The advanced age of many long-term care facility residents, their underlying health conditions and their proximity to one another put them at risk for sickness and death, the report said.
Life Care residents infected by the virus ranged from 54 to 100 years old, with a median age of 81.
“Substantial morbidity and mortality might be averted if all long-term care facilities take steps now to prevent exposure of their residents to COVID-19,” the report said.
Infected Life Care workers ranged from 22 to 79 years old.
A spokesman for the nursing home said Wednesday that managers welcomed the CDC report, because it could alert other facilities and lead to new guidelines.
“For us this is all positive, even if there are things they found that we could have done better,” said Timothy Killian, a crisis communications specialist, on behalf of Life Care.
He said that two or three days after the outbreak was discovered, staff members were banned from working at other facilities.
“As soon as we had an idea that this was something that shouldn’t be done, we stopped,” he said.
Killian said that “it’s a relatively common practice” for nurses to work in multiple long-term care facilities.
Dr. Michael Wasserman, president of the California Assn. of Long Term Care Medicine, said that low wages in nursing homes and assisted-living centers force many staffers to work in multiple facilities. Certified nursing assistants often make no more than minimum wage, and nurses typically receive less than they do in hospitals.
In addition, a sense of duty and financial stress may tempt employees to come to work sick, endangering elderly residents who have underlying health conditions.
— Read on www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-18/coronavirus-spread-nursing-homes
Westminster Government in London and Stormont Puppet in Belfast Planning Virus Mass Murder
Eamonn McCann, a People Before Profit Derry and Strabane Councillor, argues that, in effect, the Boris Johnson British Government is planning Mass Murder :
But this isn’t really about herd immunity. It’s about a dangerous and reckless drive to keep Britain open for business and maintain profits at all costs
Veteran British Comrade Phil Hearse Makes the Same Argument : he says the Westminster “herd immunity” strategy is akin to a “far-right death cult” https://www.timetomutiny.org/post/government-strategy-tipping-britain-towards-huge-death-toll
McCann continues in the same vein below. He calls on Admiral Arlene Foster to steer the Stormont Titanic Away from the Mass Grave. But, she won’t do that. It is Time for a Mutiny – Sinn Féin should sink the Stormont Titanic.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 