Archive for the ‘Media and State Misbehaviour’ Category
Europe must open its doors – Irish Times Editorial, February 28 2023
The Irish Times, one of Ireland’s main daily newspapers, highlights hypocritical European Union migration policy, and effectively calls for an end to the racist “Fortress Europe” Régime
Yet an emphasis on measures directed exclusively at strangling the smuggling networks ignores the context of mass migration and will do little to turn back a tide of human desperation rooted in a flight from wars and oppression. It is an attempt to evade treaty and moral obligations to provide succour and protection for those in peril.
Irish Times Editorial, February 28 2023
Europe needs to offer safe pathways to migrants coming to its shores – the current focus on enforcement and barriers to migrants is misplaced.
Read the rest of this entry »RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN THROWS LEFT SUPPORTERS UNDER THE BUS – by Brendan Ogle
The Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke for several hours to a captive audience in a Moscow palace on February 21, describing LGBT Rights as “Pure Satanism”. Brendan Ogle, a UNITE Trade Union official in Ireland, responds. Source : https://www.facebook.com/camilo.ogle
It had to come to this.
In fact for those watching, those not completely blinded by their understandable hatred of US and NATO imperialism, it came to this a long time ago. But yesterday it happened in horrific awful technicolour. Putin threw left supporters – and there are still far too many of them – under the bus.
A year from his invasion of Ukraine Putin’s war with what he calls ‘the west’ has now openly gone full #FarRight. The language of the toxic fascist inspired racist protests that took place here and elsewhere recently is 100% Putin’s language. He helped to create it. Yesterday in a lengthy monologue in front of a room of nodding donkeys applauding rapturously in case they got a nerve agent in their lunch, he described LGBT rights as ‘pure satanism’, engaged in transphobic hate speech and described paedophilia as the ‘new norm’ in the west.
A year from his invasion of Ukraine Putin’s war with what he calls ‘the west’ has now openly gone full #FarRight. The language of the toxic fascist inspired racist protests that took place here and elsewhere recently is 100% Putin’s language. He helped to create it.
Yesterday in a lengthy monologue in front of a room of nodding donkeys applauding rapturously in case they got a nerve agent in their lunch, he described LGBT rights as ‘pure satanism’, engaged in transphobic hate speech and described paedophilia as the ‘new norm’ in the west.
Sound familiar?
Read the rest of this entry »Stand Against Racism – Solidarity With Refugees – Dublin, GPO, Monday February 6, 1.30pm – Called by Le Chëile – Diversity Not Division
We call on all our comrades to come out in a show of peaceful and determined solidarity, to stand with our refugee and migrant communities with love and compassion on Monday 6th February at 1.30pm at the Spire to oppose the latest iteration of anti-refugee hate.
Demonstrations have been called claiming to represent communities in Ireland under various slogans such as “Ireland is full” or “Ireland says no”. We know that Ireland is not full. The population is millions less than pre-famine times. There are many thousands of housing units and buildings laying empty across the country. Successive neoliberal governments have failed the Irish people, and particularly its homeless population, for years. In doing so, they have also failed refugees and migrants who have come to our shores. The Direct Provision system is a crime and many migrants are homeless.
It is undeniable that many of those involved in these demonstrations are using the language of the far right, of virulent racism, of hateful xenophobia. Violence is threatened against refugees and migrants simply due to the colour of their skin and their countries of origin. A migrant camp was violently attacked. Direct provision centres are targeted. Social media is awash with hate and vitriol, all based on ignorance and prejudice. Misleading and fact-free slogans and tropes are circulated and accepted as fact when they are simply a tissue of lies. We cannot sit back and hope that this awful period in our history passes. Many of us are working in our communities trying to counteract this misinformed narrative but whilst that slow and painstaking work continues, our refugee and migrant communities are in danger now – and they do not see that work being done in communities. They see crowds gathered outside hotels and refugee centres screaming “get them out”. That is not expressing reasonable concern. That is blatant intimidation. Anger at the government should be directed at the door of the government, where it rightfully belongs, and not at the door of those who have had no part to play in the immiseration of communities across the country.
Read the rest of this entry »Report : Community Standout Against Racism — Monday January 30 6pm @Ashtown Station, Dublin 15
Up to 200 protesters attended an anti-racist protest in Ashtown (Dublin 15) on a freezing cold night – an impressive turnout to a demonstration called at short notice after news of a brutal racist attack was widely circulated two days beforehand. Journalists from various mainstream media organisations attended.
Significant Update from Ruth Coppinger, a former Dublin West TD :
At the end of the solidarity standout in Ashtown last night, we were approached by one of the men who lived in the homeless encampment that was attacked. My colleague Cllr John Burtchaell and others went with him to the campsite to retrieve some belongings and they gave him a lift to a place to try get a bed for the night in north county Dublin, and some other assistance. This man is Polish and worked in one of the largest companies in Ireland since 2006. He was even a union activist.
The lies and denial of some that this attack even happened is quite sickening. A whole number of men are probably on the streets tonight. They were living in squalor and not using resources from anyone. The attack on Saturday afternoon was preceded by a number of visits and videos which encouraged people to clear out the site because they weren’t Irish. All of this evidence should be pursued by the Gardai. Shame on all involved.
The Irish Times reported :
Between six and eight men – Polish, Croatian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Indian and Scottish – had been living at the camp since August, without incident they say, until the attack by a number of men and their dogs on Saturday, after which they abandoned the site.
Protesters in Ashtown on Monday evening chanted “Reject fear racist attacks end here” and “Homes for all not racism” while several people carried placards reading slogans such as “everyone is welcome here”.
One speaker at the protest, Myriam Point Marouki, said the “vile beating up of homeless migrants” was making everyone in the area “very fearful” and racism “cannot be left unchallenged,” she said.
“The lack of services in our society affecting everyone isn’t the fault of refugees or migrants who disproportionately find themselves in vulnerable situations and homelessness like the men who were attacked this weekend”. The full report is here : https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/01/30/anti-racism-protest-takes-place-in-ashtown-after-attack-on-migrant-camp/
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Ukrainian socialist and academic, Yuliya Yurchenko, speaks at a public meeting ‘Ireland – Ukraine International Solidarity of the Left’ in Dublin on Monday November 21 : Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Square West, Dublin 1.
Ukrainian Socialist Yuliya Yurchenko to speak at Solidarity Meeting in Dublin :
Ukrainian socialist and academic, Yuliya Yurchenko, speaks at a public meeting ‘Ireland – Ukraine International Solidarity of the Left’ in Dublin on Monday November 21.
The meeting is organised by Irish Left With Ukraine, which says that the purpose of the meeting is to extend solidarity to the Ukrainian people as they continue to resist the Russian invasion of their country – and to amplify the voices of Ukrainian socialists and trade unionists.
Statement – Meeting Chairperson Nóirín Greene
Read the rest of this entry »Biden Fist Bump – Political Candidates who make promises they do not keep
Presidential candidates often make promises they don’t live up to after elections. Take the capital of Israel for example. For decades, U.S. …
Biden Fist Bump
Clay Jones writes about US Presidents like Joe Biden who made campaign promises they threw into the wheelie-bin once they took over at Washington DC’s White House :
Presidential candidates often make promises they don’t live up to after elections. Take the capital of Israel for example.
For decades, U.S. presidential candidates promised to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the U.S. embassy to the holy city from Tel Aviv. But reality would arrive after they were sworn in and they’d ignore the promise. Most nations don’t recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel since the Palestinians also claim it. While there are multiple resolutions from the United Nations, the European Union, and organized middle east nations, most of them come down to stating the designation of the city hasn’t been resolved, so no recognition. It would take a real dumbass to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move our embassy there as it’d be a huge obstacle to ever bringing peace between Israel and Palestine. Donald Trump is a huge dumbass. While he kept a campaign promise others did not, he made it clear that the United States, while he was president (sic), didn’t care about the Palestinian people.
Read the rest of this entry »No to war – Russia hands off Ukraine!
This is a very clear statement – Russia Hands Off Ukraine! Source : http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article61191 – where readers can view a long list of people and organizations endorsing the statement. Sign the statement here : https://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/2022/01/28/russia-hands-off-ukraine-2/
The Ukraine Solidarity Campaign in Britain released this call to action.
Readers may also like to read this recommended article written by Volodymyr Ishchenko, who explores the possible consequences that would flow from a successful Russian military invasion of Ukraine. https://lefteast.org/russian-invasion-could-destabilize-russias-political-order/
Volodymyr Ishchenko is a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. His research focused on protests and social movements, revolutions, radical right and left politics, nationalism and civil society. He authored a number of peer-reviewed articles and interviews on contemporary Ukrainian politics, the Euromaidan uprising and the following war in 2013-14, published in Post-Soviet Affairs, Globalizations and New Left Review, among other journals. He has been a prominent contributor to major international media outlets such as The Guardian and Jacobin since 2014. He is working on a collective book manuscript, The Maidan Uprising: Mobilization, Radicalization, and Revolution in Ukraine, 2013-2014. Source : https://lefteast.org/russian-invasion-could-destabilize-russias-political-order/
We, socialists, trade unionists, scholars, activists for human rights, social justice and peace, stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine against Russian imperialism.
The international left and labour movement must vigorously oppose Russia’s threats against Ukraine.
We say neither Washington nor Moscow. We oppose the policy and manoeuvrings of the big Western powers and NATO.
Read the rest of this entry »But currently it is Russia that is threatening the Ukrainian people’s right to self-determination and challenging their legitimacy as an independent nation.
British State Trying to Shoot a Birmingham Six Messenger Chris Mullin – Journalist in the Old Bailey Dock – Charged under 2000 ‘Terrorism Act” because he is protecting his sources
This Duncan Campbell story comes from the British Guardian Newspaper. The journalist and former Labour MP (Sunderland South) Chris Mullin is protecting his sources. He bravely confronted a monstrous British State frame-up of Six Irish political hostages, jailed for 16 years for a crime they did not commit. These men were known all over the world as The Birmingham Six.
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Tomás Ó Flatharta 
