Archive for the ‘Media and State Misbehaviour’ Category
“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
Coronavirus has sparked a perfect storm of nationalism and financial speculation – Yanis Varoufakis, Former SYRIZA Finance Minister in Greece – THE GUARDIAN
Here is a fresh warning about the toxic combination of two different phenomenons – the CoVid-19 Health Crisis and a Financial Money Markets Storm, similar to the 2008 Crash.
The author is Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek Finance Minister sacked from a SYRIZA Government before it surrendered to the Austerians.
When the air is replete with inflammable materials, any given spark can cause a financial explosion, at any time.
Éric Toussaint of CADTM examines a worldwide stock market collapse.
Eric Toussaint is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the international spokesperson of the CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt) , and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France.
He is the author of Debt System (2019), Bankocracy (2015); Glance in the Rear View Mirror. Neoliberal Ideology From its Origins to the Present, Haymarket books, Chicago; “Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank, Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers”, Monthly Review Press, New York, 2010. He has published extensively in this field. He is a member of the Fourth International leadership.
Nationalism and speculation have seldom had a better opportunity to combine forces as the one riding today on the coattails of Covid-19, known as the coronavirus. When Covid-19 leapfrogged from China to Italy, even ardent Europeanists normally appreciative of open borders joined the deafening calls to end freedom of movement across Europe’s national borders – a longstanding demand of nationalists. Meanwhile, the money men speculating on government debt are performing a classic flight from Italian to German government bonds, seeking the financial safety that only the continent’s hegemon can offer during any crisis. As if in a bid to remind us of the great contradiction of our times, Covid-19 is illuminating gloriously the freedom of money to transcend a borderless financial universe while humans remain as fenced in as ever.
Coronavirus has sparked a perfect storm of nationalism and financial speculation – THE GUARDIAN
https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2020/03/09/coronavirus-has-sparked-a-perfect-storm-of-nationalism-and-financial-speculation-the-guardian/
— Read on www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2020/03/09/coronavirus-has-sparked-a-perfect-storm-of-nationalism-and-financial-speculation-the-guardian/
Open the Borders! Let Refugees Enter Europe! Shameful Scenes at Greece-Turkey Border – Huge Anti-Racist Demonstrations in Athens
Brendan Young :
Great to see this demonstration in solidarity with Syrian and other refugees seeking escape from the terrible conditions of the camps in Turkey and Northern Syria. The Irish government should publicly distance itself from the despicable and shameful stance of the president of the European Commission who has praised the current right wing government of Greece as the ‘shield’ of Europe – by physically driving refugees from the border and killing some in the process. Urusla von der Leyen may speak in the name of the ruling bureaucracy of the EU and the governing parties of EU member states and be cheered by racists and neo-nazis, but she evidently does not speak for the ordinary people of Greece and many others across Europe. Open the borders: let refugees into Europe. Provide money to move people out of the overcrowded camps on the Greek Islands – not to further militarise the borders. End the struggle between the poor and the very poor for scarce resources caused by the the austerity which the EU imposed to pay for the bank bailouts, a struggle that is fueling racism and the far right, by lifting the EU restrictions on public spending so as to fund the housing, health and social services needed by both the existing population and migrants.
Dubai ruler organised kidnapping of his children, UK court rules | World news | The Guardian
The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, is an international criminal. Perhaps he will be the next monarch visiting President Michael D Higgins of Ireland in the Phoenix Park. It is time to stop grovelling to Royal Parasites. Read the rest of this entry »
The Boston Marathon and U.S. Drone Attacks: a Tale of Two Terrorisms
From Earth First! Newswire
15 Apr
Under President Obama, the number of civilian deaths due to drone strikes has increased since the Bush Administration.
To murder several runners using bombs at a sporting event is terrorism.
To murder 175 children using military drones is U.S. policy.
We should accept neither. We should fight against both.
List of children killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen:
Compiled from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports
PAKISTAN
Name | Age | Gender
Noor Aziz | 8 | male
Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
Noor Syed | 8 | male
Wajid Noor | 9 | male
Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
Ayeesha | 3 | female
Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female
Nasir Khan | male
Naeem Khan | male
Naeemullah | male
Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male
Azizul Wahab | 15 | male
Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
Ziauddin | 16 | male
Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male
Fazal Hakim | 19 | male
Ilyas | 13 | male
Sohail | 7 | male
Asadullah | 9 | male
khalilullah | 9 | male
Noor Mohammad | 8 | male
Khalid | 12 | male
Saifullah | 9 | male
Mashooq Jan | 15 | male
Nawab | 17 | male
Sultanat Khan | 16 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male
Noor Mohammad | 15 | male
Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male
Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male
Abdullah | 18 | male
Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male
Shahbuddin | 15 | male
Yahya Khan | 16 |male
Rahatullah |17 | male
Mohammad Salim | 11 | male
Shahjehan | 15 | male
Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male
Bakht Muneer | 14 | male
Numair | 14 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Taseel Khan | 18 | male
Zaheeruddin | 16 | male
Qari Ishaq | 19 | male
Jamshed Khan | 14 | male
Alam Nabi | 11 | male
Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male
Rahmatullah | 14 | male
Abdus Samad | 17 | male
Siraj | 16 | male
Saeedullah | 17 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Salman | 12 | male
Fazal Wahab | 18 | male
Baacha Rahman | 13 | male
Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
Iftikhar | 17 | male
Inayatullah | 15 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Adnan | 16 | male
Najibullah | 13 | male
Naeemullah | 17 | male
Hizbullah | 10 | male
Kitab Gul | 12 | male
Wilayat Khan | 11 | male
Zabihullah | 16 | male
Shehzad Gul | 11 | male
Shabir | 15 | male
Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male
Shafiullah | 16 | male
Nimatullah | 14 | male
Shakirullah | 16 | male
Talha | 8 | male
YEMEN
Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female
Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female
Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female
Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female
Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male
Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female
Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female
Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female
Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female
Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male
Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female
Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female
Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female
Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male
Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female
Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female
Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male
Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male
Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male
Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male
Nasser Salim | 19
Pope Francis’s critics in Argentina say document suggests he betrayed priests
http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/17/pope-francis-first-sunday-prayer A New Pope Francis; A Younger Father Bergoglio got his hands dirty; he was a collaborator with the bloody Argentine Generals’ Dictatorship of Videla in the 1970’s.
Skeleton in the New Pope’s Cupboard dating back to the Argentine Torture Government of the 1980’s?
So far nothing about this in the reverential Irish media; for how long?
All the cardinal-electors who chose Pope Francis were appointed by the previous two bishops of Rome, Benedict and John Paul II.
(UPDATED 20:58 EST)
Looks like Mother Church has screwed up big time. Hardly had the words “Habemus Papem” been uttered from the balcony above Vatican Square before Argentinian journalists were linking the new Pope, Francis 1, aka former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, to the Argentinian Generals’ dirty war against various leftists, liberals and anti-government activists during the 1970’s.
That war embraced torture, kidnapping, murder, the abduction and selling of children and, of course, the disappearing of opponents, the latter being something that the people of Ireland are not unfamiliar with. Thirty thousand people were “disappeared” by the junta – the so-called Desaparecidos – and their plight made the Troubles in Ireland look like a pillow fight at Harry Potter’s boarding school.
Those were the days when the Jesuits were more likely to be preaching the essential Christianity of liberation theology to the poor in places like Latin America than running…
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A hidden scandal – MI5 in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland under the peace process is supposed to have put the bad old days of Police Collusion with Loyalist Murder Gangs, and state force misbehaviour, into the distant past. The recent De Silva Report on the murder of civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane contains a lot of material which is very critical of the British State but leaves many questions unanswered :
Ed Moloney concludes in this essay :
“So, a powerful indictment of…what? RUC incompetence or malevolence, or evidence of some hidden subterranean manipulation? We don’t know because as with so much of Sir Desmond de Silva’s report, there are more questions than answers, more what’s, where’s and when’s than why’s.”
Bringing the story up-to–date read Eamonn McCann’s Belfast Telegraph Article
Sham row over ‘FBI-style’ body hides scandal of MI5
Web Link :
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/eamon-mccann/sham-row-over-fbistyle-body-hides-scandal-of-mi5-16268218.html?r=RSSMore and More, peace process policing and justice in Northern Ireland is hidden from view – Kafka-like rules are becoming more common, where people are held in jail without even knowing the charges made against them – as highlighted in another article on this blog featuring Dáil questions from Clare Daly TD to Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore.
Why Was Billy Stobie Charged With Pat Finucane’s Murder?
I should first of all disclose an interest in this story. As they say in the country where I now live, I have a dog in the fight.
Billy Stobie was a valued source of mine and not only did I harbor the loyalty towards him that journalists should always show their sources – in our case to the extent that I fought and successfully defeated a Scotland Yard subpoena seeking the notes of our conversations which were sought to buttress his criminal prosecution – but I also liked him despite his all too evident flaws.
That he was a rogue and a scoundrel was undeniable. That image that was set in cement in the public mind when The Sunday Tribune published his photo above the story of his involvement in the Pat Finucane scandal just after his arrest in June…
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Tomás Ó Flatharta 