One works the land that has fed generations,the other one works the system that has cost generations

This is an image that has been posted on the Ardraigue, Barroughter, & Clonmoylan Bogs Action Group Facebook page.

Firstly, a bit of good news and then a comment on the image. The good news is that turf was cut in Galway and Roscommon today. Since our blog and network began, we have constantly spoken and written against the menace of bankerdom. They are trying to make criminals out of small plot holders in rural Ireland yet the degeneracy of modern banking has brought about wars, famines, pollution, genocide, grinding poverty, social manipulation, consumerism, youth suicide, alcoholism and disintegrating families.

In Ireland not a single corrupt banker or politician has been jailed. Bankers, who enslave entire nations and people in debt. International Finance is one of the greatest evils of the modern world.

It’s well time to send squad cars to arrest bankers and politicians and not to be sent out in large numbers to rural Irish communities, who have cut turf for generations, who have lived off the land for generations, who have protected the environment, and who are law abiding  people.

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We desperately need an alternative to this Government

It’s very clear that the Irish people have lost faith in the party system and are looking beyond “left v right” politics. The Third Position is neither left or right and opposed to both Capitalism and Socialism. There is a credible alternative to this current system.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gene-kerrigan/austerity-is-going-to-kill-our-democracy-29105470.html

Austerity is going to kill our democracy

We desperately need an alternative to this Government. Fianna Fail? Don't be silly, writes Gene Kerrigan

03 March 2013

IT'S like one of those hackneyed movies where, after an epic struggle, the bad guy has been killed. Relief all around, the hero relaxes. He turns towards the woman he loves, his smile a mixture of relief and triumph. And, as the good guys embrace, we cut to a shot of the bad guy's hand. And his fingers twitch. Close-up on his face and his eyes are opening. Now his hand is reaching for the blood-stained cleaver.

Yes, you're right. This is about Fianna Fail, coming back from the dead – poised for one last desperate lunge. The polls show life trickling back into the battered body of the party of Charlie Haughey, Bertie Ahern and 'Biffo' Cowen. It's as predictable as the closing scenes of a fifth-rate Hollywood thriller.

Some said there was no way back for the party of the Galway tent, the brown envelope, the scandalous bank guarantee, the party of light-touch regulation and whatever you're having yourself.

No hope for the party of the builders' buddy, the bankers' amigo. The bondholders' best friend. Kisser of Monsieur Trichet's superbly tailored backside, genuflector in the vicinity of Frau Merkel.

Fianna Fail, who still denied that Charlie or Bertie put a foot wrong, even as the evidence jumped up and bit them on their ever-lengthening noses.

Fooled, sickened, angry, the voters devastated the party in 2011. Patience, circumstance and the behaviour of their rivals are giving Fianna Fail a shot at a comeback.

The current Government, with its bowing and scraping to Frankfurt, its casual brutality towards its citizens – and, above all, its unearned air of piety – makes some people nostalgic for the good old days of backhanders and back-stabbing. And that shows what a deep, deep mess we're in – not just economically but politically. When we kick them out, who takes their place?

Shocked by what they did to the country, we threw out Tweedle Fianna Fail. And we installed Tweedle Fine Gael. Are we now destined to do the same over and over, turn and turn about, in perpetuity?

If our fate – at best – is to perpetually swap one bunch of chancers for the other, then there's no point to parliamentary politics.

If parties can oppose each other bitterly and after the election casually swap positions – and just as bitterly champion the policies they recently denounced – well, it's a game. The winner gets a State car and a big pension.

The major parties share the same view on most of the major issues of the day – reverence for bankers and bondholders, absolute obedience to the European Central Bankers. They believe that even in a recession a deficit must be cut, whatever the long-term effects on the economy.

Last week, a couple of economists – Paul de Grauwe, Yuemei Ji – crunched the numbers on five years of EU austerity.

"Countries that imposed the strongest austerity measures also experienced the strongest declines in their GDP," they found. But, maybe it's worth damaging the economy if it strengthens the public finances? Eh, no.

"The more intense the austerity, the larger is the subsequent increase in the debt-to-GDP ratios." The title of the paper: Panic-driven Austerity in the Eurozone and Its Implications.

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are two wings of the same party, each taking turns in denouncing and then implementing the same policies.

We were shocked some years ago when Catholic theologists explained how a bishop might legitimately mislead on the issue of child abuse. As long as he secretly had a "mental reservation", it was not sinful. How medieval, we thought.

When Ruairi Quinn signed a pledge not to impose student fees, he must have had a mental reservation. When Eamon Gilmore pledged to oppose "Frankfurt's Way", perhaps he too had a mental reservation.

Michael Noonan must have had a mental reservation when he denounced the "disastrous and obscene" policy of forcing citizens to pay the private debts of rich gamblers. Because three months later he became Minister for Finance and has been cheerfully operating that policy ever since.

And when Enda Kenny met the teenage Joanne O'Riordan and made her a promise, well . . .

"Enda Kenny looked me in the eye before the general election," Joanne told the Irish Examiner, "and promised me one thing and then once again, did another." Kenny promised Joanne – who was born without limbs – that there would be no cuts in disability benefits.

Apparently, speaking to this young woman, looking her in the eyes with that sincere expression he uses, making a promise that meant so much to her, he had a mental reservation.

These are politics that are not only cruel and deceptive, they trash the very notion of democratic legitimacy.

What do we do, we who believe that austerity and bank worship have turned a crisis into a disaster?

We can't vote for Labour or the Greens. These me-too parties merely make up the numbers for FF or FG in exchange for some cabinet seats and a pension.

We could vote for Sinn Fein, if we could be sure that it wouldn't help Fianna Fail into office. We could support that new party that Michael McDowell keeps suggesting – PD Nua. If we could forget that the PDs were in office for 12 of the 14 years in which FF wrecked the place. And that for five of those years, McDowell was a minister. And that the PDs shared FF's view on all those disastrous policies, including light-touch regulation and the bank guarantee.

We could vote Left. But in the period in which the capitalist parties have destroyed the economy, loaded private debts onto our backs, driven thousands into exile, slashed social services and cut disposable income, the Left in the Dail hasn't had much to say that is either compelling or new.

We've heard the same rusty formulas so often, it's seldom that any of the Dail lefties begin a speech most of us couldn't finish. They rightly reject the orthodoxies that have brought catastrophe, but in terms of their strategy, tactics and language they isolate themselves.

If not now, when do they show their mettle? If they can't draw mass support in a period of wholesale robbery of citizens, when might they do so?

Democratic opposition matters. When a parliament is so dysfunctional, other forms of expressing opposition become more important than ever.

Trade unions, community groups, single-issue campaigns – all can influence events. Right now, the unions are in the firm grip of full-timers, many of whom are mere over-paid executives running a service company. Their power depends on their control of a quiescent rank and file.

In Italy, the technocrats imposed by the ECB have been rejected and the Right, the Left and the angry Centre – focused around a comedian – are currently jostling for influence. In Greece, an openly fascist outfit gets a significant share of support.

When we in Ireland hear from the forces denied a voice in the Oireachtas, it will not necessarily be in coherent, reasonable terms.

To put it mildly.

Meanwhile, as anger rises at the casual cruelties and mindless austerity of this Government, Fianna Fail – of all outfits – murmurs its sympathy and sheds tears for the plight of the disabled and the unemployed. And bides its time.

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Provisional Sinn Fein and the Baby Butchers

An alert here regarding Provisional Sinn Fein.

 

https://www.facebook.com/PreciousLife.Ireland

!!! URGENT ACTION ALERT !!!
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Sinn Fein says it opposes an amendment coming before the Northern Ireland Assembly that will stop Marie Stopes International from killing unborn children in Northern Ireland. The Director of Marie Stopes in Belfast - Dawn Purvis - has admitted they would perform surgical abortions up to 24 weeks and beyond.
The aim of the amendment in the Assembly is to strengthen the laws protecting our unborn babies.
But Caitriona Ruane from Sinn Fein said the move by the DUP's Paul Givan and the SDLP's Alban Maginness was an attempt to restrict a so-called 'right to abortion'.
When Marie Stopes opened in Belfast last October, the Sinn Fein Deputy Leader Martin McGuinness said "Well it's a private institution…that is setting itself up as…a competitor to what's happening within the health service."
By opposing this amendment, Sinn Fein are committing "political suicide". Against the views of the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein are now supporting Marie Stopes International - a private institution which exploits vulnerable women by charging them up to £1900 to kill their unborn babies.
The amendment to the criminal justice bill will be debated and voted on in the NI Assembly next Tuesday.
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!!! TAKE ACTION !!!
Contact Sinn Fein and tell that you want unborn babies and their mothers protected from abortion, and that you are totally opposed to Marie Stopes International and the killing of unborn babies.
Marie Stopes have admitted performing illegal abortions all over the world, and they now want to challenge our pro-life laws in Northern Ireland.
Tell Sinn Fein that you expect them, as elected representatives, to defend the right to life of unborn babies.
Urge them to ACT NOW in your name to STOP MARIE STOPES and ensure their Belfast 'abortion centre' is closed.
If you are a Sinn Fein voter, and they fail to give you these guarantees, tell them that you will not vote for them in future elections.
CONTACT Sinn Fein:
Telephone :
02890521473 (from within Northern Ireland)
04890521473 (from within Republic of Ireland)
004490521473 (International)
--------------------------------------------
http://www.preciouslife.com/?va=1&vc=1225

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Voting Changes Nothing!

An article from Gene Kerrigan. See below our comment. There are few who believe that power is wielded in parliament. As Thought and Action and others have declared time and time again, parliamentary democracy is a total sham. The electoral road is a road that leads you to a dead end! It is a charade.

At an election, you can pay a lot of money to gain a small ‘victory’ here or there but ultimately you are pouring money down the drain if playing by the system’s rules.

So what is the alternative? A counter power is being built up. What the counter power is is a beacon of light to our people. A new milieu, a new type of man must emerge.  An obvious initiative is to set up a usury free co-operative bank/loan system, establish a guild or a network of small businesses which will help employ your own people. There are a million and one things people can be doing instead of pouring money down the drain of a crumbling system.

It’s time to build up the Counter Power in 2013.

 

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gene-kerrigan/gene-kerrigan-negative-give-us-some-good-news-pat-3343312.html

We, the people, are in "distress and difficulty". This is according to Pat Rabbitte, Minister With Responsibility for Vicious Slagging. And the "all-pervasive negativity in the media" is making things worse. He thinks the media is irresponsible. In fact, he fears that the media might be taking us towards some sort of fascist nightmare.

Mr Rabbitte says the people are afflicted with "a very cranky media" that engages in "the constant denigration of politics". And we do so carelessly. "I don't think the media give a damn about where this is going to bring politics," he says.

"What is the alternative to politics?" he asks. "Hand over the running of the country and the economy to some kind of dictatorship?"

So, we're cranky, irrationally negative, without a sense of responsibility. What if he's right?

After all, there's no doubt there's a lot of negativity around. This column, for instance. Hard as I try, I can't find a good word to say about picking the pockets of the blind, docking money from carers – and – well, leave aside the effects of the past four years and just look at last week's headlines.

Motor tax up, just to balance out that 18 per cent increase in public transport fares. The 10 quid cut in child benefit came into effect last week. A 120 per cent rise in the cost of renewing a 10-year driving licence. Health insurance costs up almost 50 per cent from next year. One fears to scratch ones arse, for fear that some ministerial zealot slaps a tax on that. In the Indo, Charlie Weston reckoned the latest raft of charges will cost families up to a thousand extra euro a year.

Spend and they hit you, save and – well, taxes on savings interest go up by three per cent. They take another fiver a week off us by tweaking the PRSI allowance.

The services we get for our taxes are sliced ever-thinner. Funds of about €35m have been diverted from suicide prevention (this emerged days after the funeral of a government minister who took his own life).

And on and on and on. In such circumstances, it's hard to avoid a certain level of crankiness.

The current Government seems to see themselves as patriots. Making "tough decisions", and suffering the pain of having to deliberately, knowingly hurt their most vulnerable fellow citizens. And doing so to achieve a greater good – the return of economic sovereignty and the recovery of the economy.

Meanwhile, the Government publicly grovels to its EU betters. We'll continue to pay the banking debts of Irish and German bankers and bondholders, and we'll asset-strip our citizens and force our kids to emigrate – but any chance you might reduce the burden a wee bit, please Frau Merkel? And, if you won't cut it, will you a least spread it out over 40 years? And God be good to you.

Mr Rabbitte's Government believes – with justification – that most of the media support this strategy. And he finds it hard to understand why the media don't shower them with hugs and kisses.

Perhaps we can enlighten him.

The media bit is easily understood. The media shares with bankers, bondholders and politicians

the hope that normality can be resumed, with all the old hierarchies and inequalities in place. This requires the cost of the crisis to be shifted to the usual mugs.

But the media has to maintain credibility with its customers – and to that end, it can hardly ignore the dreadful damage being done to the citizens. Neither can it ignore the fact that, for instance, Mr Kenny is on €200,000 a year, while the French prime minister is on €177,000 and the UK prime minister is on €172,000. Nor the fact that Pat Rabbitte is on €169,000, while a French minister is on about €119,000.

Mostly, though, the media batters nurses and teachers and other public sector monsters of its vivid imagination.

Beyond government delusions and media cynicism, there lies reality. As one authority summed it up, the Minister for Finance "reduced social welfare payments, punished the blind, disabled, widows, carers and the unemployed and he taxed the poorest at work". And why?

"It was so that the taxpayer can take on liability for debts the country never incurred, and arose from private arrangements between private institutions. What a disaster and an obscenity."

This authority was, of course, Michael Noonan, three months before he became the Minister for Finance and began inflicting on citizens policies that he knows are "a disaster and an obscenity".

We know this reality – of an economy ransacked to help pay the debts of others; of politicians who knowingly take on policies they have stated to be a disaster for the country; who knowingly engage in activities they believe to be obscene.

And no amount of pious patriotic posing can obscure this reality. Exceedingly well-paid individuals, who can look forward to astonishingly generous pensions, are inflicting years of pain on people innocent of reckless or dangerous actions – and who are being forced to endure hardship in order to pay the debts of others.

The danger to democracy lies not in dissident views expressed in the media – or even in the cynical views of those in the media who support the policies but affect to find the consequences unacceptable. The danger to democracy lies in the clear, deliberate demonstration, by Fine Gael and Labour, that voting changes nothing.

Politicians always played fast and loose with election promises – but before the 2011 election, those currently in office severely condemned the policies being followed. And immediately took up those policies once elected. Never in the history of ditched election promises has there been such a blatant and unmistakable rejection of the principle of representational democracy.

For Mr Rabbitte to now cast aspersions on others' commitment to democracy is amusing.

Mr Rabbitte has achieved a certain reputation for witty banter, one that makes him an odd person to protest against robust media criticism. He is no stranger to personal taunts. The most obvious being his Prime Time verbal assault on Fianna Fail's Pat Carey. Rabbitte shouted down Carey, for coming on TV with "your oul' palaver about this and that", his voice rising, "you ought to be ashamed", "that's the problem with you, you don't have any shame", and so on.

When Labour TD Colm Keaveney voted against social welfare cuts last month, he had previously voted for austerity and had reached a line he couldn't cross, for whatever reason. Rabbitte might have taken this as a regrettable fraternal disagreement. Instead, he launched into a highly personal attack on "political narcissism", and "selfish acts of departure". He spoke of those "pirouetting on the plinth, parading their struggle with their conscience".

Anyone who follows Keaveney, Shortall, Broughan and Nulty beyond the pale can presumably expect similar personal taunts from Mr Witty Banter.

However, macho boasts about the "courage" of those who hang on when the "going gets tough", would be more impressive if not coming from a politician who will retire on a pension as large as his neck is hard.

- Gene Kerrigan

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Budget 2013

As demonstrated yesterday in Dublin during a Vigil for Life, the Irish people still stand for the life of the unborn child in the womb, the family and family values. This is a healthy and ordered society. With mass-immigration, emigration of Irish youth, it is not logical nor moral to foist abortion on demand upon the Irish people.

Thought and Action remains opposed to the capitalist right wing and the anti-national left wing. More people are looking beyond left v right.

Thought and Action believes in private property but property (homes, land, business) should be widely owned. Family farms, producer co-ops and small business are to be supported.

Despite everything the vast majority of people in Ireland regard themselves as Catholic. Working for the common good and a real social justice and freedom, the people of Ireland must stand for Faith, Family and Nation. The new republic, the real republic is being built.

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