Archive for the ‘FFFGGG Coalition’ Category
Campaigners ask President Higgins to keep Dáil in situ – Israel’s Illegal Settlements and an Occupied Territories Bill
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/1108/1479764-higgins-dail-campaigners/
It is hard to know if President Higgins has the power to force the Dáil to continue to meet against the wishes of taoiseach Simon Harris – but this request is certainly justified morally.
President Michael D Higgins has been asked not to dissolve the Dail later today, by campaigners who want the Occupied Territories Bill to be passed by the Oireachtas.
The bill would ban trade between Ireland and Israel’s illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
It is expected that Taoiseach Simon Harris will make the request for a dissolution this afternoon.
However, in a letter sent to Áras an Uachtaráin by the Mothers Against Genocide group, President Higgins has been asked to use his presidential powers to keep the Dáil in situ.
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Who are ‘the Irish’? History shows we’ve been a mixed bunch for centuries – Maurice J Casey
Who are ‘the Irish’? History shows we’ve been a mixed bunch for centuries
Introduction :
From the 1800’s to the early 1990’s Ireland was a world champion in one cruel activity – export of its own people. During the Great Hunger [An Gorta Mór in Irish] (Famine) of 1845-49 official figures state the population crashed from 8 million to 6 million : 1 million died and 1 million emigrated. In almost every following decade, the population continued to fall – from 8.2 million in 1841 to 4.2 million in 1961.
People of Irish extraction – the diaspora – are estimated to number 70 million. In 1921 the British imperialist government partitioned Ireland into two states – the republic and the north. The revolution heralded by the 1916 Easter Rising was betrayed.
Today Just over 5 million live in the republic, 2 million reside in the north, and 1.5 million Irish passport holders reside outside Ireland and Britain.
Up to the 1990’s immigration to Ireland existed – in relatively small numbers. The trend then altered significantly.
In the 2020’s the population of Ireland rose to 7 million. This remains below the 1841 figure of 8.2 million – so much for racist claims that Ireland is “full”.
Read the rest of this entry »The Media Bogeyman – by Brendan Ogle
Source :
The Media ‘Bogeyman’
Engaging with hostile media goes with the territory
Firstly I am qualified to write on this topic. I did my first national media interview in 1996, a full 28 years ago. Since then there is barely a national or local media outlet that I haven’t engaged with. Most of those engagements over all of those years have been hostile. I was generally pushing an industrial or campaigning issue to a media which has a single opposing ideological focus and a narrow ownership that dictates control and editorial output and attitude. As a result I have been pilloried, defamed, targeted and abused. I’ve been ‘Public Enemy Number One’, ‘Mister Misery’, I’ve had national newspapers’ doctor photographs of me to make me look as evil as possible and I’ve had so many agendas laid at my door that I’d need to build a lengthy driveway to accommodate them all.
Yet in that 28 years I have never hidden from my responsibility to engage on behalf of whatever cause I was advocating at the time. It goes with the territory. So I understand more than most how the Irish media treat those who refuse to bend a knee to it. I’m ‘qualified’ to write this from years of raw and difficult experience in the field.
Legitimate claims or agenda-driven hyperbole?
So when, last Saturday, the media were yet again held up as the big bad bogeyman doing down the decent people I can assess the legitimacy of those claims or whether it is simply agenda driven hyperbole. The claims on that day were entirely unconnected on fact but very connected in attitude and intent. The first claimant that particular day (and it’s just one day of these constant claims) was from the Father of Cathal Crotty blaming the media for his Son’s troubles. The second was by a left wing blog blaming the media bogeyman for Clare Daly losing her European Parliament seat. These claims are so ridiculously baseless that they would be funny, and in ways they are, if they were not seeking to perpetuate dangerous agenda’s, one of misogyny and gender violence, the other of political pandering to dangerous populism. Whether the abuse is justifying a thug using his military training to beat a defenceless young woman or excusing a woman Politician not being able to defend her awful voting record on behalf of her electors the agenda is clear – blame the ‘media bogeyman’ as a deflection from basic undeniable reality. In other words create fake news and alternate facts to obscure reality.
Read the rest of this entry »British General Election 2024 – Highlights and Lowlights – Loveless Landslide, Sandcastle Majority. Far-Right Hiding in Plain Sight, House of Paisley Falls in Antrim – and a Message of Hope from new MP Shockat Adam, Leicester South
Let’s start with positive news :
Shockat Adam MP, Leicester South – “This is for the people of Gaza”.
When you listen to this June 25 car-crash interview with former Leicester South Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth, you would be forgiven for thinking he was a member of the far-right racist party, Reform.
Shockat Adam was not alone. Five pro-Gaza independent candidates (including former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North) are members of the new Westminster parliament :
Read the rest of this entry »The Irish Left Must Unite to break the old stranglehold – Paul Murphy TD (People Before Profit, Dublin South-West), Irish Times, July 4 2024
Paul Murphy’s opinion piece in the July 4 2024 edition of the Irish Times makes a strong case :
“Another five years of FF/FG rule would be disastrous for the country. Left parties and Independents must come together to stop it happening”
There is a bottom line :
No coalition with Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
Time for a new united left alliance to topple Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael
Another five years of FF/FG rule would be disastrous for the country. Left parties and Independents must come together and stop this happening
A general election is looming. If the local election results are repeated, it will mean a return of this Government but with the Greens replaced as the third wheel by right-wing Independents. The 100-year rule of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will continue.
This would be a disaster.
Another five years of their rule would mean a deepening of the crises in housing and health, with more children growing up in emergency accommodation, more adults trapped in their childhood bedroom unable to move out, as well as growing hospital waiting lists. It would mean continued inaction on the climate and biodiversity crises and large numbers of workers in low-paid, precarious employment without the right to collectively bargain.
Read the rest of this entry »The June 2024 European and Local Elections in Ireland – What do the results tell us about Irish Politics? – Independent Left Analysis
Independent Left on Election 2024
Independent Left candidate Councillor John Lyons topped the poll in Artane-Whitehall 2024 for first preferences in the local government elections of 7 June 2024. This was a terrific result for our small party and above all is a recognition of the consistent, empathetic and determined work carried out by John for individuals and groups in the community he represents on Dublin City Council. The high vote might also be connected to the values and priorities of Independent Left and this deserves some reflection.
Before getting to that, however, what happened in the bigger picture? What do the results tell us about Irish politics in the snapshot provided by the election?
1. Fine Gael turned public concern onto the question of immigration.
It’s an old and, unfortunately, successful tactic by conservative and governing parties that to deflect from how they have facilitated the rich getting richer, they focus public anxiety on immigrants. In the run up to the election, Fine Gael, and their Fianna Fáil and Green partners in government, forced refugees into homelessness then arranged performances such as bulldozing tents to generate attention to the issue. This worked to put a spotlight on Sinn Féin’s response.
2. The Centre Held?
Ever since COVID restrictions gave fascists a focus to organise around, they’ve been growing in Ireland. By mobilising against refugee centres, they gained a following beyond a fringe. Encouraging people to be angry against immigrants plays right into the hands of these fascists. Fine Gael took a calculated risk on this: they chose to give fascism a boost rather than face the electorate on their record in government. After the election they breathed a sigh of relief and pundits everywhere said that the centre held. The reality, unfortunately, is that fascists did make significant gains. Not the gains that they themselves and their US funders hoped for, but about 5% of the electorate voted far-right in the European elections and in the local elections they got five seats, coming very close to a sixth in Artane-Whitehall.
Read the rest of this entry »New French popular front (uniting trade unions and entire significant left) – against Marine Le Pen and Putin’s fascism : ‘unconditional support for Ukraine against Putin’s aggression’.
Everyone on the left in Ireland and across the globe should warmly welcome this French initiative.
The New Popular Front in France, which unites trade unions, ATTAC, the Socialist Party, the Greens, the Communist Party, France Unbowed (Melenchon) and the NPA [NOUVEAU PARTI ANTICAPITALISTE] (the entire significant left) against the fascist National Rally, includes in it’s platform ‘unconditional support for Ukraine against Putin’s aggression’.
Links :
New French Popular Front – Wikipedia
New French Popular Front website
General Mobilisation Against the far right and Macron, the Popular Front! (NPA)
To defeat Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression, and that he answers for his crimes before international justice: unfailingly defend the sovereignty and freedom of the Ukrainian people as well as the integrity of its borders, by the delivery of necessary weapons, the cancellation of its foreign debt, the seizure of the assets of the oligarchs who contribute to the Russian war effort in the framework allowed by international law, the dispatch of peacekeepers to secure nuclear power plants, in an international context of tension and war on the European continent, and work towards the return of peace.
A June 14 poll shows Marine Le Pen’s far-right, Putin-friendly National Rally at 29.5%, the left-wing New Popular Front at 28.5%, and Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renew at 18%. The winner-take-all district elections for the 577 seats in the French National Assembly will be held on June 30. Run-offs between the top two if no one wins a majority in the first round will be held on July 7.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 