Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘Media Sources – Reliable Versus Unreliable’ Category

Nazi Rally Scheduled in Dublin – Don’t Go! Boycott!

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A correspondent highlights a tiny rally in Dublin next Saturday – Don’t Go!

“I see Justin Barrett’s National Party, who want a Catholic Fascist Dictatorship in Ireland, have organised a little protest for Saturday ‘against the lockdown’. Even if you don’t agree with public health measures, don’t be fooled by this shit. These people want young women and girls back in slave labour laundries, young men and boys back in industrial schools, an end to birth control and women’s bodily autonomy, all non-white-Irish people to be forcibly exiled, and executions of their political opponents. All under the jackboot of a paedophile-protecting Catholic dictatorship.”

Don’t Go!

Conspiracy Anti-Vaxers against Covid-19 lockdowns blend with far-right fascists – Irish and British Examples

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No to Racism Defend Our Public Health Workers – Minorities, Migrants, Homeless, Asylum Seekers, LGBTQ+Solidarity for Real Change

12 September 2020 | 1 PM
Assemble: GPO | O’Connell Street Dublin United Against Racism is organizing this rally in partnership with others and co-hosted by all organisations supporting it. For support and endorsements please email: info@united-against-racism.net…

https://www.facebook.com/events/653860718566358?active_tab=about

Congratulations to United Against Racism for calling this event. It needs to be supported by other organizations across the left, and mass membership organizations like trade unions.

Mass action is badly needed to confront and crush the racist far-right.

Professor Dolores Cahill, leader of far-right Irish Freedom Party

In Dublin, across Ireland and internationally the racist far right are using anti-mask, anti-vaccine and other fears to promote themselves and their racist agenda. In Dublin they mobilised up to 2000 at the Custom House on 22 August. In London, with the aid of Dolores Cahill (pictured above) from the Irish Freedom Party they put several thousand in Trafalgar Square.

In Berlin they mobilized up-to 30,000 and in the US they have been holding armed demonstrations. In Dublin they also rally regularly at the GPO on Saturdays. This is very dangerous; they must be exposed and opposed. At the heart of these mobilizations are individuals and organisations whose core agenda is to attack people of colour, migrants, minorities, asylum seekers, Muslims etc. but at present they are focusing on other prejudices, bigotries and COVID-19 fears and doing so in the name of an utterly perverted version of Irish nationalism that is an insult to Connolly and Pearse and all they stood for. They mounted a vile homophobic campaign against Green Party government minister Roderic O’Gorman.

DON’T ENDANGER OUR FRONT LINE WORKERS

ANTI-MASK IS ANTI – WORKER!

We can trust our healthcare workers who have risked their lives and are telling us first hand to wear a mask and follow the basic health advice. We can mind our health and criticize the government at the same time without the lies and conspiracy theories of the far-right.It is urgent that their lies are exposed and their influence is countered.The far-right have zero policies or interest in protecting civil liberties, defending workers, ending the housing crisis, improving the health system or uniting people. These are the same people that campaign against asylum seekers and refugees. They simply want to divide us and scapegoat vulnerable sections of our society which lets the government off the hook.We therefore call on all progressive organisations and individuals – trade unions and trade unionists, migrants rights organisations , anti-racists, LGBTQ+ activists, feminist activists, progressive political parties, environmental activists, housing activists – everyone who wants to defend public health and see a more just and equal country – to unite and oppose the far-right and their growth in IrelandWe in United Against Racism like to organise this rally in partnership with others and co-hosted by all organisations supporting it. For support and endorsements please email info@united-against-racism.netWe are planning to call for an organisers Zoom meeting next week 8 September 2020, 6.30PMJoin us for a peaceful, socially distant rally to give your support to our front line heroes in hospital; shops etc who are being put in danger by those who think COVID-19 is a conspiracy – not a disease.’This is will be a socially distances rally. Please wear a mask to protect yourself and others around you. Thank You!

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“Eamon Ryan’s sleep-in 💤 wasn’t a mortal sin” – Gene Kerrigan returns us to the Dublin Government’s real world – First on the agenda : gut low-paid workers

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Reviewing a week in the so-far short life of the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/Green/Gombeen (FFFGGG) government readers may have missed some interesting details. Twenty mini-ministers are behaving worse than piglets at a trough. RTÉ News did not notice a connection between human events at the Dáil (Leinster House and the Convention Centre) – and piglet events at a midlands farm.

The village of Moyne in Co Longford is celebrating the arrival of 20 piglets to a first-time mother. The bumper delivery is believed to be one of the highest ever recorded in the area. https://www.rte.ie/news/leinster/2020/0718/1154128-piglets-longford/

Only 16 of the Longford piglets out of 20 can feed from the mother. Special arrangements are needed for the remaining four.

In Leinster House three piglet mini-ministers out of 20 are demanding improved feeding facilities – even though they slurp from the same source as their colleagues.

One of the Government’s immediate priorities will be to rush through legislation to ensure that each of the super-juniors will be entitled to an extra €16,288 a year on top of the junior rate. This is not a joke.

– Gene Kerrigan

16 Piglets in Longford offer ecological example to Leinster House mini-ministers (especially Greens)
Green Party Leader Éamon Ryan

Eamon Ryan’s sleep-in 💤 wasn’t a mortal sin. In another life, I spent many an hour crouched on the Dáil press gallery. It can be difficult to listen to that stuff and stay awake. Ryan was one of at least two TDs seen sleeping during Thursday’s proceedings. – Gene Kerrigan

Gene Kerrigan’s complete article, July 20 2020 :

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The Annual Orange Order Hate Festival in Northern Ireland – Partition Within a Partitioned State

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Suzanne Breen reports :

‘Kill All Taigs’ on a ‘children’s’ bonfire in Belfast. That’s not family fun, it’s a hate crime. Was there nobody in the community to show leadership & remove it? Shameful.

“Kill All Taigs” Belfast Bonfire
No social Distancing at a Racist Belfast Bonfire

Hang on a second, I hear people say. The 12th was postponed in 2020 because of the CoronaVirus Crisis. That is the “Official Version” (OV):

There will be no official Orange Order parades after the organisation announced their cancellation earlier this year.

Grand Secretary of the Orange Order, Mervyn Gibson, urged people to stay at home, while the Order have launched a ‘Twelfth at Home’ campaign to urge people to celebrate safely.

https://www.derrynow.com/news/news/556402/thirteen-twelfth-parades-to-go-ahead-in-county-derry.html

OV is not the real world – it has become a “talking point”.
Hundreds of thousands of residents of the Six Counties leave their homes and travel far away to avoid the tyranny of the “OrangeFest”. Not this year due to travel restrictions. But residents of Andersonstown and other areas like it do not have to worry about flags; Lambeg Drums; blocked streets; 11th night bonfire parties in their public parks. A new partition within partition exists in the Six County State today.

An update :

The Belfast Telegraph suggests “community relations” have “taken a hit” :

There had been a surge in the number of bonfires being organised by loyalists following the contentious west Belfast funeral of former IRA man Bobby Storey on June 30 – in defiance of an Orange Order plea for no pyres because of the coronavirus threat.

Scrap wood and furniture with messages mocking Bobby Storey written on them were placed on some bonfires along with tricolour flags and the sectarian abbreviation KAT. Pictures also emerged in social media of an anti-Black Lives Matter placard at Whitehill bonfire in Bangor.

Yesterday afternoon cops confirmed they were investigating a separate loyalist banner which also ridiculed the funeral of Bobby Storey.

The ghoulish banner was circulated on social media as preparations for the bonfires ramped up last week and the PSNI said it was being investigated as a hate crime. The banner, which carried images of Bobby Storey and his funeral, carried the caption: “Bobby Storey raised in west Belfast, burnt in Loyalist east Belfast.”

Former British soldier and UUP MLA Doug Beattie condemned the banner, saying: “I’ll be clear – I think this is wrong and only targets the grieving family.

“There are issues to explore in respect to the funeral but this is not the way to do it.”

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/news/burning-bridges-community-relations-take-hit-as-old-hostilities-resurface-39360717.html

Virginia Roberts-Giuffre, Courtney Wild, Maria Farmer – Women Assaulted by Ghislaine Maxwell and the Late Jeffrey Epstein tell their stories as American FBI swoops in Bradford New Hampshire

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www.youtube.com/watch

This Australian TV documentary tells a sharp accurate story in 30 minutes.

US Attorney Audrey Strauss explains case against Ghislaine Maxwell in New York

Virginia Roberts Giuffre confidently tells her frightening story

Contrast this account with tedious fluff elsewhere camouflaging the likely crimes of British Royal Prince Andrew. Follow the facts, ignore conspiracy theories.

There is a host of unanswered questions. We should be clear that a number of people make direct specific child abuse allegations against the English Prince Andrew, ex Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, ex US Senator George Mitchell (an architect of the Irish 1998 Good Friday Agreement), ultra-Zionist Alan Dershowitz and some others. While the Clintons, the Trumps et al were close personal associates of Epstein/Maxwell they are not accused of child abuse. The police probably look on the Clintons et al as people who can be very helpful with their investigations. The carrot for Bill Clinton is : help the cops, and embarrassing information might not enter the public domain. The stick is : obstruct the cops and you are back in Monica Lewinsky territory.

Michael Clifford: Debating the tired claims of ‘media bias’

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This is a startling story written by Irish Examiner columnist Michael Clifford, the target of a vicious personal attack written by pro Sinn Féin blogger Jude Collins.

Sources are crucial – some are reliable, retired university lecturer Jude Collins is not reliable, despite his large online following. Beware.

Blogger Jude Collins with Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald and former Stormont Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness

I have received death threats. I have received threats that my daughter will be raped. These have come from supporters of a political party. I have not gone to the gardaí about these threats. That suggests that I am probably a liar and am manufacturing these threats and blaming a political party because I’m hopelessly biased against them.

So it goes in the parallel universe of social media.

The above statements and inferences appeared in a blog by an academic and writer a few years back. I just discovered the blog 10 days ago and contacted the blogger.

His name is Jude Collins. He is a retired university lecturer and prominent Sinn Féin supporter in which guise he writes columns and frequently contributes to radio and TV. His blog attracts thousands of like minds — up to 25,000 for the ‘most-read posts’. The blog posting that disseminated lies about me was entitled ‘Michael Clifford and the Social Media’. Read the rest of this entry »