Decent Journalism

[Rocko]

Very good again from Clifford alright.

[turfcutter]

Turf wars: Gangs forced to resort to Famine crimes
An activity that had been consigned to history is making a comeback in the recession, writes Jim Cusack

Turf stealing, a crime that should have gone out with the Famine and transportation to Van Dieman’s Land, is on the rise in the recession.
As winter approaches, gardai believe at least three gangs are actively involved in stealing entire stacks of turf at a time. Two weeks ago, a stack with a probable value of around €600 was stolen outside Killarney and similar thefts have been reported in Waterford, Tipperary and Meath.
The number of thefts reported so far this year is already just under 90, compared with a total of 54 for the whole of 2009.
The thefts reported were of quite large amounts. However, gardai believe that smaller amounts are also being stolen but the thefts are not being reported.
The turf stealing is part of a relatively new phenomenon of “low-value, high-number” crimes that have been sweeping the country. Gangs carry out multiple small thefts or burglaries, so that if they are caught they will face relatively low-level charges with little likelihood of prison.
Turf and logs, which are also being stolen in bulk, are easy to sell for cash. The thieves sell from vans to residents of housing estates.
Another reason for the targeting of turf is that it has been becoming scarcer since Environment Minister John Gormley implemented an EU directive that stopped cutting in 32 bogs. Most of the bogs that are now conserved are in Offaly, Roscommon, Leitrim and Galway.
The stealing of turf was last a common crime in the 19th century, when it was punished by imprisonment and even transportation. Court records from the time of the Famine record men being sent to Australia and Tasmania – then called Van Dieman’s Land – for the theft of turf.
Records from that time also show the desperate poverty among destitute women who were brought before the courts for the theft of turf.
Part of the reason for the increase in low-level thefts like this is that the black market for farm machinery, vehicles and building trade equipment has fallen through as a result of the recession.
It is believed that most tractors and farm equipment being stolen are not for resale in the Irish or British markets but are being exported to eastern Europe.
There has also been an increase in cattle and sheep rustling, both here and in the UK, in the past three years.
In May of this year, a herd of 40 cattle was stolen from the Teagasc college in Ballyhayes, Co Cavan. And in Britain, police believe organised gangs are stealing livestock to order. In one instance, 271 sheep were rustled in one night from a Lancashire farm.
Theft from farms is generally on the increase and the Irish Farmers’ Journal is reporting rises in cases almost on a weekly basis.
Everything that can’t be pinned down is being stolen from farms.
Earlier this year, this paper reported that a 10-acre field of grass had been mown, turned and stolen in the south-east.
Livestock rustling and smuggling across the Border is costing the agricultural industry at least €5m a year, industry source have said.

best thing I read in the indo in ages

[myboyblue]

Pearls Before Breakfast - By Gene Weingarten Washington Post

Before Farmer starts to give out about me not posting the article here, there’s some cctv footage that is embedded into the article on the Post site that help the piece. Its a few years old now (2007 originally published), but I found this to be a great read.

For those looking for a bullet point of it, the basic premise of it is a study to see can one of America’s greatest musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour.

[Watch_The_Break]

Interesting read this. Written by a documentary maker who also wrote a book called ‘The Debt Generation’. Worth a read. Contains an actual list of the bond holders we’re paying all this money top which is a nice twist.

http://golemxiv-credo.blogspot.com/2010/10/who-are-bond-holders-we-are-bailing-out.html

[size=“3”]Who are the bond holders we are bailing out?[/size]

The citizens of Ireland have been forced over the last two years to give the bond holders of Anglo Irish bank 20 billion euros. WHY? The Irish government recently told its people the 20 billion was not enough and they MUST give the same bond holders another 10 to 20 billion euros. WHO are these special people called Bond Holders that they must be so carefully protected even at the cost of despoiling a nation?

I tried to find out. I failed. 15th October the British Blogger Guido Fawkes published a list of the bond holders. I would like to thank Mr Fawkes, and thank Unclear for posting the link and bringing it to my attention.

So those are the names but WHO are they? I thought this was something I could help with, to add my contribution to Mr Fawkes’ break-through.

It is worth knowing who they are because the Irish government has said more than once that one of the reasons the bond holders had to be protected and could not, must not, be made to suffer any losses, even though it would be PERFECTLY legal to do so, is because the bond holders are pension funds for poor Irish widows and cooperative savings funds for orphans and ‘ordinary folk’. A little poetic exageration there, but only a little.

This reason, for why the Bond holders must not take any loss, was trotted out to bolster the first answer given, which was that if Ireland pissed off the bond holders then they would refuse to ever deal with Ireland ever again and Ireland would never be able to borrow ever again, ever, and everyone would die in penury, friendless and cold. That first reason started to look like it might not hold, when the Germans started to talk rather too openly about how it might be best for all, them especially, if Greece did ‘re-structure’ its debts (default - a teeny bit). When no one said it would be the end for Greece, Ireland’s ‘the sky will fall in’ reason for not asking its bond holders to share the pain started to look like what it was, a politically motivated lie. Thus the grannies and orphans had to be hurriedly wheeled out.

So, are the bond holders widow’s pension funds and orphans’ savings accounts? Well actually, NO. That too was just another lie from the morally degenerate and cringingly servile Irish government.

But don’t take my word for it. Lets look at exactly who the bond holders are.

But first be clear about my method. Over all I have decided to compare Ireland’s wealth with that of its bond holders.

I have looked at what the named companies do - according to their own literature. I have looked to see if they are in fact owned by someone else and if so who and where the companies are registered and based. And I have looked at the sort of wealth we are talking about. On this last point, I have looked not at their market value - because that, as we all know, is a matter of creative accountancy and is also often not something the companies like to list, but at their ‘assets under management’.

Assets under management gives us a view of the total amount of wealth these companies deal with so we can compare it to the total wealth of Ireland. Its GDP. Where a company is, in fact, owned by a larger one, I have used the parent company’s assets on the grounds that on the other side, Anglo Irish has been treated as a subsidiary of Ireland and the entire wealth of the nation is being deployed and called upon.

So, on one side we have Anglo Irish and its ‘parent company’/owner, Ireland and its ‘bond’ holders the people of Ireland. On the other, we have the companies listed as bond holders and the larger companies who own them and who are thus the ultimate beneficiaries and interested parties in those bonds.

On with the show!

Of the 80 listed companies only 7 listed pensions and being a cooperative savings institution. Of those only 4 listed churches and unions as their clients, the others could well have been big pension funds. The churches and unions in question were in Germany not Ireland. Those seven companies are amongst the smallest of Anglo Irish’s bond holders. I only have figures for four of the seven. The largest, Union Investments of Germany, has a mere €165 billion in assets under management.

The total assets under management which I was able to compile from publicly available figures is €20,871,150,000,000. That is an underestimate because the bond holders who turn out to be Private and Swiss banks don’t publish any figures. So Anglo Irish’s ‘bond holders’ hold and invest MORE than 20.8 trillion euros. Guido lists those bond holders as holding between them 4 Billion euros in Anglo Irish bonds.

Now, in my opinion both figures are likely to be wrong. Certainly my figure is a large underestimate. But taking them at face value Anglo Irish would account for an one 5000th of the total assets being managed by all the bond holders. So would even a total default by Anglo Irish cause that much, let alone systemic, pain and risk? Why are the ‘Bond holders’ and the Irish government so concerned that the Irish people be forced to take the loss and pay the debts for them?

Now lets look at the other side of the equation, at Ireland itself. Well Ireland’s GDP before the crash, in 2008, was … drum roll please… €207 billion. Or 0.207 trillion.

SO… on one side we have Ireland whose bond holders, its people, have between them a total GDP wealth of 0.207 trillion euros. Who are being FORCED, against their will, to pay Anglo Irish bank’s debts to its bond holders, who between them hold 20.8 Trillion euros. The people of Ireland are paying to, and protecting the wealth and power of, people who have 100 times more wealth!

So where do these wealthy bond holders live and work?

Germany has the most with 15 of the bond holders. Who between them hold 5.3 trillion euros.
France is next with 10 bond holders. Who have about 4 trillion to keep them warm.
Britain is third with 9 who have around 3 trillion.
The Swiss have 6 but who have about 8.5 trillion.
America has only three and hold only a trillion.
Other nations include, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Holland Finland, Norway, Sweden, Poland, South Africa and Italy.

All these figures are very rough. The figure for Switzerland is certainly under because Private Swiss banks just don’t publish figures. What we can say for sure, figures or no figures, is these are not banks investing widow’s pensions or orphan’s pennies.

So who are they? Well many of the bond holders are privately held banks, which list their activities as asset management for off-shore, non-resident and high value individuals. To give you an example, one of the private banks is EFG Bank of Luxembourg. EFG stands for European Financial Group which is the third largest private bank group in Switzerland. It manages over €7.5 trillion in assets. It is ‘mostly’, 40%, owned by Mr Spiro Latsis, son of a Greek shipping magnate. He also owns 30% of Hellenic Petroleum. His personal fortune is estimated to be about $9 Billion.

Now there is absolutely no suggestion that Mr Latsis has ever done anything wrong or illegal. And his holdings are, I am quite sure, perfectly legal and above board. But when we talk of Anglo Irish’s bond holders it is Mr Latsis and those with his sort of wealth who we are talking about NOT widows and orphans or you and me. It is therefore worth remembering, the next time an Irish politician, or any of our politicians for that matter, say that some welfare payment can no longer be afforded, it is because the money that could have paid for it has been given to the bond holders, people not unlike Mr Latsis, instead. The Irish people are paying and protecting the interests of people like Mr Latsis over the interests of their own children. And it is their own politicians who are doing this.

Other bond holders call themselves ‘asset management’ firms. The fifth largest asset management firm in the world is one of the bond holders. Others are insurance companies. The 6th and 9th largest in the world, to be specific. Others are the largest banks, Deutsche, Soc Gen, Barclay’s, PNB Paribas, Unicredit (who don’t appear on the list but own Pioneer Investments),and Wells Fargo (also not on the list but who own European Credit Management). Then there is Goldman. No show without the squid.

Kleinwort Benson Investors is a bond holder. But Kleinwort is owned by a Belgian holding company, RHJ which is part owned by Mr Timothy Collins. Mr Collins also sits on the board of Citigroup. So he too is one of the bond holders the Irish people are ‘helping’.

Finally, a very large number of the banks who are Anglo Irish’s bond holders, are members of something called the Euro Banking Association. All the large European, most of the large US banks, Swiss, Japanese, Nordic and some Chinese are members. The chairperson is Mr Hansjorg Nymphius of Deutsche Bank. Other board members are from JP Morgan Chase, RBS, Bank of Ireland, West LB(bankrupt), BNP Paribas, ABN Ambro, Dexia and Banco Santander.

Its a list which could double as the list of Anglo Irish’s bond holders. The EBA was set up in Paris in 1985, since when it has been and is, central to promoting European Union financial integration and the area’s banking interests. The EBA has close ties to the ECB.

I will leave you to digest this disgusting bolus of self serving wealth protection.

The only thing left to say is this. The bond holders of Anglo Irish are a very good guide to the identity of the bond holders of ALL OUR BANKS. The bond holders being protected, in every nation, on the advice of the banks and financial class, are THE BANKS AND THE WEALTHIEST OF THE FINANCIAL CLASS.

THEY are screwing YOU!

[Watch_The_Break]

Interesting read this. Written by a documentary maker who also wrote a book called ‘The Debt Generation’. Worth a read. Contains an actual list of the bond holders we’re paying all this money top which is a nice twist.

http://golemxiv-credo.blogspot.com/2010/10/who-are-bond-holders-we-are-bailing-out.html

[size=“3”]Who are the bond holders we are bailing out?[/size]

The citizens of Ireland have been forced over the last two years to give the bond holders of Anglo Irish bank 20 billion euros. WHY? The Irish government recently told its people the 20 billion was not enough and they MUST give the same bond holders another 10 to 20 billion euros. WHO are these special people called Bond Holders that they must be so carefully protected even at the cost of despoiling a nation?

I tried to find out. I failed. 15th October the British Blogger Guido Fawkes published a list of the bond holders. I would like to thank Mr Fawkes, and thank Unclear for posting the link and bringing it to my attention.

So those are the names but WHO are they? I thought this was something I could help with, to add my contribution to Mr Fawkes’ break-through.

It is worth knowing who they are because the Irish government has said more than once that one of the reasons the bond holders had to be protected and could not, must not, be made to suffer any losses, even though it would be PERFECTLY legal to do so, is because the bond holders are pension funds for poor Irish widows and cooperative savings funds for orphans and ‘ordinary folk’. A little poetic exageration there, but only a little.

This reason, for why the Bond holders must not take any loss, was trotted out to bolster the first answer given, which was that if Ireland pissed off the bond holders then they would refuse to ever deal with Ireland ever again and Ireland would never be able to borrow ever again, ever, and everyone would die in penury, friendless and cold. That first reason started to look like it might not hold, when the Germans started to talk rather too openly about how it might be best for all, them especially, if Greece did ‘re-structure’ its debts (default - a teeny bit). When no one said it would be the end for Greece, Ireland’s ‘the sky will fall in’ reason for not asking its bond holders to share the pain started to look like what it was, a politically motivated lie. Thus the grannies and orphans had to be hurriedly wheeled out.

So, are the bond holders widow’s pension funds and orphans’ savings accounts? Well actually, NO. That too was just another lie from the morally degenerate and cringingly servile Irish government.

But don’t take my word for it. Lets look at exactly who the bond holders are.

But first be clear about my method. Over all I have decided to compare Ireland’s wealth with that of its bond holders.

I have looked at what the named companies do - according to their own literature. I have looked to see if they are in fact owned by someone else and if so who and where the companies are registered and based. And I have looked at the sort of wealth we are talking about. On this last point, I have looked not at their market value - because that, as we all know, is a matter of creative accountancy and is also often not something the companies like to list, but at their ‘assets under management’.

Assets under management gives us a view of the total amount of wealth these companies deal with so we can compare it to the total wealth of Ireland. Its GDP. Where a company is, in fact, owned by a larger one, I have used the parent company’s assets on the grounds that on the other side, Anglo Irish has been treated as a subsidiary of Ireland and the entire wealth of the nation is being deployed and called upon.

So, on one side we have Anglo Irish and its ‘parent company’/owner, Ireland and its ‘bond’ holders the people of Ireland. On the other, we have the companies listed as bond holders and the larger companies who own them and who are thus the ultimate beneficiaries and interested parties in those bonds.

On with the show!

Of the 80 listed companies only 7 listed pensions and being a cooperative savings institution. Of those only 4 listed churches and unions as their clients, the others could well have been big pension funds. The churches and unions in question were in Germany not Ireland. Those seven companies are amongst the smallest of Anglo Irish’s bond holders. I only have figures for four of the seven. The largest, Union Investments of Germany, has a mere €165 billion in assets under management.

The total assets under management which I was able to compile from publicly available figures is €20,871,150,000,000. That is an underestimate because the bond holders who turn out to be Private and Swiss banks don’t publish any figures. So Anglo Irish’s ‘bond holders’ hold and invest MORE than 20.8 trillion euros. Guido lists those bond holders as holding between them 4 Billion euros in Anglo Irish bonds.

Now, in my opinion both figures are likely to be wrong. Certainly my figure is a large underestimate. But taking them at face value Anglo Irish would account for an one 5000th of the total assets being managed by all the bond holders. So would even a total default by Anglo Irish cause that much, let alone systemic, pain and risk? Why are the ‘Bond holders’ and the Irish government so concerned that the Irish people be forced to take the loss and pay the debts for them?

Now lets look at the other side of the equation, at Ireland itself. Well Ireland’s GDP before the crash, in 2008, was … drum roll please… €207 billion. Or 0.207 trillion.

SO… on one side we have Ireland whose bond holders, its people, have between them a total GDP wealth of 0.207 trillion euros. Who are being FORCED, against their will, to pay Anglo Irish bank’s debts to its bond holders, who between them hold 20.8 Trillion euros. The people of Ireland are paying to, and protecting the wealth and power of, people who have 100 times more wealth!

So where do these wealthy bond holders live and work?

Germany has the most with 15 of the bond holders. Who between them hold 5.3 trillion euros.
France is next with 10 bond holders. Who have about 4 trillion to keep them warm.
Britain is third with 9 who have around 3 trillion.
The Swiss have 6 but who have about 8.5 trillion.
America has only three and hold only a trillion.
Other nations include, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Holland Finland, Norway, Sweden, Poland, South Africa and Italy.

All these figures are very rough. The figure for Switzerland is certainly under because Private Swiss banks just don’t publish figures. What we can say for sure, figures or no figures, is these are not banks investing widow’s pensions or orphan’s pennies.

So who are they? Well many of the bond holders are privately held banks, which list their activities as asset management for off-shore, non-resident and high value individuals. To give you an example, one of the private banks is EFG Bank of Luxembourg. EFG stands for European Financial Group which is the third largest private bank group in Switzerland. It manages over €7.5 trillion in assets. It is ‘mostly’, 40%, owned by Mr Spiro Latsis, son of a Greek shipping magnate. He also owns 30% of Hellenic Petroleum. His personal fortune is estimated to be about $9 Billion.

Now there is absolutely no suggestion that Mr Latsis has ever done anything wrong or illegal. And his holdings are, I am quite sure, perfectly legal and above board. But when we talk of Anglo Irish’s bond holders it is Mr Latsis and those with his sort of wealth who we are talking about NOT widows and orphans or you and me. It is therefore worth remembering, the next time an Irish politician, or any of our politicians for that matter, say that some welfare payment can no longer be afforded, it is because the money that could have paid for it has been given to the bond holders, people not unlike Mr Latsis, instead. The Irish people are paying and protecting the interests of people like Mr Latsis over the interests of their own children. And it is their own politicians who are doing this.

Other bond holders call themselves ‘asset management’ firms. The fifth largest asset management firm in the world is one of the bond holders. Others are insurance companies. The 6th and 9th largest in the world, to be specific. Others are the largest banks, Deutsche, Soc Gen, Barclay’s, PNB Paribas, Unicredit (who don’t appear on the list but own Pioneer Investments),and Wells Fargo (also not on the list but who own European Credit Management). Then there is Goldman. No show without the squid.

Kleinwort Benson Investors is a bond holder. But Kleinwort is owned by a Belgian holding company, RHJ which is part owned by Mr Timothy Collins. Mr Collins also sits on the board of Citigroup. So he too is one of the bond holders the Irish people are ‘helping’.

Finally, a very large number of the banks who are Anglo Irish’s bond holders, are members of something called the Euro Banking Association. All the large European, most of the large US banks, Swiss, Japanese, Nordic and some Chinese are members. The chairperson is Mr Hansjorg Nymphius of Deutsche Bank. Other board members are from JP Morgan Chase, RBS, Bank of Ireland, West LB(bankrupt), BNP Paribas, ABN Ambro, Dexia and Banco Santander.

Its a list which could double as the list of Anglo Irish’s bond holders. The EBA was set up in Paris in 1985, since when it has been and is, central to promoting European Union financial integration and the area’s banking interests. The EBA has close ties to the ECB.

I will leave you to digest this disgusting bolus of self serving wealth protection.

The only thing left to say is this. The bond holders of Anglo Irish are a very good guide to the identity of the bond holders of ALL OUR BANKS. The bond holders being protected, in every nation, on the advice of the banks and financial class, are THE BANKS AND THE WEALTHIEST OF THE FINANCIAL CLASS.

THEY are screwing YOU!

[Sidney]

I’ve got good news for you Mr Spiro Latsis, Greek shipping magnate and Anglo-Irish bondholder - Brian Lenihan wants to suck your cock.

[braz83]

But this is just a list of the foreign bondholders, so it doesn’t really prove any of what he’s saying. It also doesn’t specify whether they are senior or subordinated debtholders, though at least some of them must be senior, since I think the total subordinated debt in Anglo is somewhere in the region of €2.5bn. The subordinated debt is taking an 80% hit now.

In a situation as catastrophic as Anglo, I think senior debt should take some hit too, but let’s not pretend there wouldn’t be consequences in terms of raising future debt both by the State and by the surviving banks that are systemically important. Therefore, I actually agree with the Government line that it is more prudent for us not to rock the boat with the ECB on this one. The widows and orphans bit is really just a sideshow. And the fact that these companies manage a lot of money isn’t exactly news!

[Watch_The_Break]

@braz83

But this is just a list of the foreign bondholders, so it doesn’t really prove any of what he’s saying. It also doesn’t specify whether they are senior or subordinated debtholders, though at least some of them must be senior, since I think the total subordinated debt in Anglo is somewhere in the region of €2.5bn. The subordinated debt is taking an 80% hit now.

I think his broader point is that the level of hardship which will be the fate of the Irish nation for who knows how long is due to what would be a reletively minor disruption in the bond market, challenging the prevailing notion that complete subordination to the bond market is our only course of action. I don’t necessarily agree with him, rather that it raises interesting questions and given how many places I’ve seen it today alone it seems to be resonating with people.

[Sidney]

Just reading that around half the debt to Anglo senior bondholdrs was paid on the last day of the guarantee a few weeks back. E7.9 billion. The Government borrowed the money from the ECB to pay off the bondholders so this is now officially sovereign debt.

Constantin Gurdgiev says that by 2015 there will be a public debt per working person in Ireland of over E130k, which obviously doesn’t include mortgage, loan or credit card debt.

[Rocko]

@braz83

But this is just a list of the foreign bondholders, so it doesn’t really prove any of what he’s saying. It also doesn’t specify whether they are senior or subordinated debtholders, though at least some of them must be senior, since I think the total subordinated debt in Anglo is somewhere in the region of €2.5bn. The subordinated debt is taking an 80% hit now.

In a situation as catastrophic as Anglo, I think senior debt should take some hit too, but let’s not pretend there wouldn’t be consequences in terms of raising future debt both by the State and by the surviving banks that are systemically important. Therefore, I actually agree with the Government line that it is more prudent for us not to rock the boat with the ECB on this one. The widows and orphans bit is really just a sideshow. And the fact that these companies manage a lot of money isn’t exactly news!

Do you not think that we’re already paying those consequences through existing bond rates? I don’t know how much more damage our reputation would suffer from actually defaulting. If we’re going to guarantee every level of every debt then we shouldn’t be paying that premium in the first place.

[Watch_The_Break]

Gene Kerrigan: Five-Point Enda so right, and so wrong

Sunday February 27 2011

WE’VE just seen an election campaign that was virtually politics-free. It was all about polls and constituency profiles, the ‘Gilmore Gale’ and rehearsed soundbites, phoney ‘plans’ and meaningless slogans like ‘Get Ireland back to work’. Yet, we are drowning as a result of politics. Bad politics. Politics that contrives to remain invisible behind the shadow boxing.

After the debacles of the past few years, how could the political establishment – government and opposition – have the nerve to continue in public life? The same question might be asked of their media cheerleaders and academic groupies. A train driver who did to a train what they did to the country would be forced to take up a new line of business.

The answer, of course, lies in the unswerving ability of the political right to erase uncomfortable facts from their records. They made mush of the economy; they then put the banks before the citizens; they sabotaged the real economy; they scapegoated the poorest. Each step was cheered by the groupies, and in turn each step made things worse.

After an election campaign that consisted largely of manufactured disagreements, we now dump Mr Nasal Congestion and welcome Five-Point Enda – and the policies that are killing hope have new wind in their sails.

Erasing uncomfortable facts is done gradually. Have you noticed, for instance, how the Progressive Democrats are being airbrushed from history? Last week, Mary Hanafin boasted of Fianna Fail’s ability to work within coalitions – and she instanced their (relatively brief) partnerships with Labour and the Greens. Not a mention of the PDs, with whom she shared a cosy and disastrous coalition for a dozen years.

Last week the Irish Independent published a helpful supplement that listed the vote breakdown over 30 years – and the PDs weren’t featured. In tiny italic font at the bottom of the chart, we learned that the PDs are now anonymously lumped in under “Others”.

Recently in this newspaper, ex-PD leader Michael McDowell called for the formation of a new party, once the election is out of the way. And Mickey Mac never once reminded us of – oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue, what’s the name of the party he dumped unceremoniously when he lost his seat on election night in 2007? From 1997 onwards, there was an unmistakable surge to the right in Irish politics, culminating in the blast of right-wing policies that inflated the credit bubble from around 2000 and led directly to the collapse of the economy. It was a huge right-wing development grounded in a neo-liberal philosophy fashionable elsewhere. It will have consequences for generations. Instead of recognising this, the media went along with the fiction that Ireland has a left wing but no right wing.

The PDs came, wrecked the joint, then disappeared into the past, with their bloated pensions. Their right-wing extremism was eagerly soaked up within FF and FG. Rather than admit to applying, with disastrous results, a coherent set of right-wing principles – the establishment now glosses things over. They use phrases like “mistakes were made” and, “we got some things wrong”. The pretence is that they were merely a bunch of happy-go-lucky folks who just did what they thought was right at the time.

No matter how extremist their right-wing policies are, these parties are portrayed as “the centre”. Anything outside is alien, disruptive, loony. Meaningful debate is sidelined, this is “the only game in town”.

Here’s a question that could have been asked of Mr Nasal Congestion, Brian Bailout or Five-Point Enda at any time over the past couple of years: “It was doctrinaire right-wing policies that collapsed the economy – what makes you believe that your current right-wing solutions won’t make things worse?”

Not a chance that question would be asked. Even though, at every stage of this crisis, the off-the-peg right-wing policies prescribed by the two Brians, in consultation with their EU masters, have indeed made things measurably worse.

The media can routinely – and accurately – refer to the “left-wing sensibilities” of people like Joe Higgins and Richard Boyd Barrett. Nothing wrong with that. But broadcasters and writers would be admonished if they routinely referred to FF or FG’s “right-wing sensibilities”.

This is not an accident.

Joe Higgins is in the Socialist Party. The name is on the tin. A whole lot of people are in the United Left Alliance – you know where they stand. Ditto the Workers’ Party. The Greens or even Labour give a hint of an ideological complexion. But the right-wing policies of McCreevy, Ahern, Kenny and Varadkar come clothed in party names drawn from a semi-mystical Gaelic past.

When Michael McDowell and his fellow rightists formed a party in the Eighties, they might have called themselves the Free Market Extremists. Instead, they were the Progressive Democrats. (Everyone wants progress, everyone needs democracy.)

Notions of populist nationalism – beloved of old FF – were swept away by the apparent success of the Celtic Tiger period. A generation of politicians eagerly adopted half-baked and wholly-swallowed right-wing platitudes – chop the tax base, privatise, deregulate, unleash the rich. They sucked relentlessly on these ideological soothers, regardless of circumstance or outcome.

Listen to Simon Coveney, agog at the prospect of getting into government, aching to try out his right-wing bromides on the transport system. He sounds like a child who has spent too long playing at DIY, with rubber hammers and plastic saws. Now, God help us, he’s about to be let loose with an array of power tools.

His earnestness is reminiscent of that of Mary Harney, full of good intentions and right-wing claptrap, as she set forth to consolidate the two-tier health service. Fine Gael is awash with this new breed – about to engage in another grotesque experiment, putting into practice the set of assumptions and prescriptions they picked up at business school lectures and the dinner parties of wealthy patrons.

And the unwritten ban on putting those assumptions and proscriptions into context allows them all to pretend that there’s no connection between the policies that caused the debacle, and the policies that made it worse over the past two years. And certainly no connection to the policies to come from Five-Point Enda and Weak Breeze Gilmore.

The left didn’t help. When the media demanded, “But, where will we get the money”, the left tried to answer in those terms, as though we’re faced with a knotty little accounting problem. There is no answer to that question, as long as we’re unwilling to confront the realities of wealth and inequality, of dead banks and the relationship between this little bit of an economy and the brutal right-wing policies dictated by panicky EU mandarins.

We stumbled uncertainly out of the Age of Ahern, gasped in disbelief through every development of the Cowen Chapter. Now, we nervously enter the Enda Era. The faces change, but the dread-laden establishment’s faith in those right-wing assumptions and proscriptions remains as strong as ever, even as the debacle deepens.

And those assumptions and proscriptions, largely unremarked and unacknowledged, concealing their extremism in centrist language, drastically limit our options. Oh, no, giving billions to banks isn’t extremist! We just want to boost freedom, and enterprise and nice stuff like that!

Cue Kevin Spacey, at the end of the movie The Usual Suspects: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

Sunday Independent

[gola]

@Watch The Break

Gene Kerrigan: Five-Point Enda so right, and so wrong

Sunday February 27 2011

WE’VE just seen an election campaign that was virtually politics-free. It was all about polls and constituency profiles, the ‘Gilmore Gale’ and rehearsed soundbites, phoney ‘plans’ and meaningless slogans like ‘Get Ireland back to work’. Yet, we are drowning as a result of politics. Bad politics. Politics that contrives to remain invisible behind the shadow boxing.

After the debacles of the past few years, how could the political establishment – government and opposition – have the nerve to continue in public life? The same question might be asked of their media cheerleaders and academic groupies. A train driver who did to a train what they did to the country would be forced to take up a new line of business.

The answer, of course, lies in the unswerving ability of the political right to erase uncomfortable facts from their records. They made mush of the economy; they then put the banks before the citizens; they sabotaged the real economy; they scapegoated the poorest. Each step was cheered by the groupies, and in turn each step made things worse.

After an election campaign that consisted largely of manufactured disagreements, we now dump Mr Nasal Congestion and welcome Five-Point Enda – and the policies that are killing hope have new wind in their sails.

Erasing uncomfortable facts is done gradually. Have you noticed, for instance, how the Progressive Democrats are being airbrushed from history? Last week, Mary Hanafin boasted of Fianna Fail’s ability to work within coalitions – and she instanced their (relatively brief) partnerships with Labour and the Greens. Not a mention of the PDs, with whom she shared a cosy and disastrous coalition for a dozen years.

Last week the Irish Independent published a helpful supplement that listed the vote breakdown over 30 years – and the PDs weren’t featured. In tiny italic font at the bottom of the chart, we learned that the PDs are now anonymously lumped in under “Others”.

Recently in this newspaper, ex-PD leader Michael McDowell called for the formation of a new party, once the election is out of the way. And Mickey Mac never once reminded us of – oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue, what’s the name of the party he dumped unceremoniously when he lost his seat on election night in 2007? From 1997 onwards, there was an unmistakable surge to the right in Irish politics, culminating in the blast of right-wing policies that inflated the credit bubble from around 2000 and led directly to the collapse of the economy. It was a huge right-wing development grounded in a neo-liberal philosophy fashionable elsewhere. It will have consequences for generations. Instead of recognising this, the media went along with the fiction that Ireland has a left wing but no right wing.

The PDs came, wrecked the joint, then disappeared into the past, with their bloated pensions. Their right-wing extremism was eagerly soaked up within FF and FG. Rather than admit to applying, with disastrous results, a coherent set of right-wing principles – the establishment now glosses things over. They use phrases like “mistakes were made” and, “we got some things wrong”. The pretence is that they were merely a bunch of happy-go-lucky folks who just did what they thought was right at the time.

No matter how extremist their right-wing policies are, these parties are portrayed as “the centre”. Anything outside is alien, disruptive, loony. Meaningful debate is sidelined, this is “the only game in town”.

Here’s a question that could have been asked of Mr Nasal Congestion, Brian Bailout or Five-Point Enda at any time over the past couple of years: “It was doctrinaire right-wing policies that collapsed the economy – what makes you believe that your current right-wing solutions won’t make things worse?”

Not a chance that question would be asked. Even though, at every stage of this crisis, the off-the-peg right-wing policies prescribed by the two Brians, in consultation with their EU masters, have indeed made things measurably worse.

The media can routinely – and accurately – refer to the “left-wing sensibilities” of people like Joe Higgins and Richard Boyd Barrett. Nothing wrong with that. But broadcasters and writers would be admonished if they routinely referred to FF or FG’s “right-wing sensibilities”.

This is not an accident.

Joe Higgins is in the Socialist Party. The name is on the tin. A whole lot of people are in the United Left Alliance – you know where they stand. Ditto the Workers’ Party. The Greens or even Labour give a hint of an ideological complexion. But the right-wing policies of McCreevy, Ahern, Kenny and Varadkar come clothed in party names drawn from a semi-mystical Gaelic past.

When Michael McDowell and his fellow rightists formed a party in the Eighties, they might have called themselves the Free Market Extremists. Instead, they were the Progressive Democrats. (Everyone wants progress, everyone needs democracy.)

Notions of populist nationalism – beloved of old FF – were swept away by the apparent success of the Celtic Tiger period. A generation of politicians eagerly adopted half-baked and wholly-swallowed right-wing platitudes – chop the tax base, privatise, deregulate, unleash the rich. They sucked relentlessly on these ideological soothers, regardless of circumstance or outcome.

Listen to Simon Coveney, agog at the prospect of getting into government, aching to try out his right-wing bromides on the transport system. He sounds like a child who has spent too long playing at DIY, with rubber hammers and plastic saws. Now, God help us, he’s about to be let loose with an array of power tools.

His earnestness is reminiscent of that of Mary Harney, full of good intentions and right-wing claptrap, as she set forth to consolidate the two-tier health service. Fine Gael is awash with this new breed – about to engage in another grotesque experiment, putting into practice the set of assumptions and prescriptions they picked up at business school lectures and the dinner parties of wealthy patrons.

And the unwritten ban on putting those assumptions and proscriptions into context allows them all to pretend that there’s no connection between the policies that caused the debacle, and the policies that made it worse over the past two years. And certainly no connection to the policies to come from Five-Point Enda and Weak Breeze Gilmore.

The left didn’t help. When the media demanded, “But, where will we get the money”, the left tried to answer in those terms, as though we’re faced with a knotty little accounting problem. There is no answer to that question, as long as we’re unwilling to confront the realities of wealth and inequality, of dead banks and the relationship between this little bit of an economy and the brutal right-wing policies dictated by panicky EU mandarins.

We stumbled uncertainly out of the Age of Ahern, gasped in disbelief through every development of the Cowen Chapter. Now, we nervously enter the Enda Era. The faces change, but the dread-laden establishment’s faith in those right-wing assumptions and proscriptions remains as strong as ever, even as the debacle deepens.

And those assumptions and proscriptions, largely unremarked and unacknowledged, concealing their extremism in centrist language, drastically limit our options. Oh, no, giving billions to banks isn’t extremist! We just want to boost freedom, and enterprise and nice stuff like that!

Cue Kevin Spacey, at the end of the movie The Usual Suspects: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

Sunday Independent

What exactly are the right wing domestic policies FG will be implementing? (say what would be the top five of them apart from anything to do with the banks, IMF etc) And what would the be the alternatives?

[Watch_The_Break]

@gola

What exactly are the right wing domestic policies FG will be implementing? (say what would be the top five of them apart from anything to do with the banks, IMF etc) And what would the be the alternatives?

All of them. The alternatives are everything else.

[gola]

@Watch The Break

All of them. The alternatives are everything else.

It’s actually a serious question. That article above is very short on specifics. That’s the big problem for political dunces like me, you get people denouncing others policies without actually saying what those policies are, why they won’t work and what they propose as an alternative. You were giving out about it yerself on the other thread. It’s a case of ‘I’m right wing and you’re left wing’ like supporting football teams without explaining to people what it actually means in real terms.
I genuinely think that’s why FG won so many votes, they’re just the more famous brand or team. Most people don’t actually know why they vote for them.

What are FG’s main right wing policies and why will they be so harmful? I’m not getting at you here, I actually want to know!

[Watch_The_Break]

@gola

It’s actually a serious question. That article above is very short on specifics. That’s the big problem for political dunces like me, you get people denouncing others policies without actually saying what those policies are, why they won’t work and what they propose as an alternative. You were giving out about it yerself on the other thread. It’s a case of ‘I’m right wing and you’re left wing’ like supporting football teams without explaining to people what it actually means in real terms.
I genuinely think that’s why FG won so many votes, they’re just the more famous brand or team. Most people don’t actually know why they vote for them.

What are FG’s main right wing policies and why will they be so harmful? I’m not getting at you here, I actually want to know!

The article relates to the ideology which underpins FG as a party. You’re asking about policy but we’re at the end of an electoral campaign, there is no point at which the public knows less about a party’s policy agenda than right now.

What is unmistakable however is the language and principles espoused by FG. Streamlined government, freeing the private sector, private health care, freeing the private sector, small government, freeing the private sector, anti-unions, freeing the private sector, trim the fat, freeing the private sector, freeing the private sector, freeing the private sector.

It is precisely the same language of the Tory party and the GOP. If you really want to understand what is coming down the tracks indulge yourself in a cursory examination of the record of the Cameron government since their ascent to power. Specific policies will emerge as specific issues arise. What is beyond question however is the play book from which FG will operate. That much they couldn’t hide from us.

[Bandage]

Missed this the other day. Daily Star reporter Richard Peppiatt resigns in protest at what he says is the newspaper’s anti-Muslim propaganda. The below is his resignation letter addressed to its owner Richard Desmond:

Dear Mr Desmond,

You probably don’t know me, but I know you. For the last two years I’ve been a reporter at the Daily Star, and for two years I’ve felt the weight of your ownership rest heavy on the shoulders of everyone, from the editor to the bloke who empties the bins.

Wait! I know you’re probably reaching for your phone to have me marched out of the building. But please, save on your bill. I quit.

The decision came inside my local newsstand, whilst picking up the morning papers. As I chatted with Mohammed, the Muslim owner, his blinking eyes settled on my pile of print, and then, slowly, rose to meet my face.

“English Defence League to become a political party” growled out from the countertop.

Squirming, I abandoned the change in my pocket and flung a note in his direction, the clatter of the till a welcome relief from the silence that had engulfed us. I slunk off toward the tube.

If he was hurt that my 25p had funded such hate-mongering, he’d be rightly appalled that I’d sat in the war cabinet itself as this incendiary tale was twisted and bent to fit an agenda seemingly decided before the EDL’s leader Tommy Robinson had even been interviewed.

Asked if his group were to become a political party I was told the ex-BNP goon had replied: “Not for now.”

But further up the newsprint chain it appears a story, too good to allow the mere spectre of reality to restrain, was spotted. It almost never came to this. I nearly walked out last summer when the Daily Star got all flushed about taxpayer-funded Muslim-only loos.

A newsworthy tale were said toilets Muslim-only. Or taxpayer-funded. Undeterred by the nuisance of truth, we omitted a few facts, plucked a couple of quotes, and suddenly anyone would think a Rochdale shopping centre had hired Osama Bin Laden to stand by the taps, handing out paper towels.

I was personally tasked with writing a gloating follow-up declaring our postmodern victory in “blocking” the non-existent Islamic cisterns of evil.

Not that my involvement in stirring up a bit of light-hearted Islamaphobia stopped there. Many a morning I’ve hit my speed dial button to Muslim rent-a-rant Anjem Choudary to see if he fancied pulling together a few lines about whipping drunks or stoning homosexuals.

Our caustic “us and them” narrative needs nailing home every day or two, and when asked to wield the hammer I was too scared for my career, and my bank account, to refuse.

“If you won’t write it, we’ll get someone who will,” was the sneer du jour, my eyes directed toward a teetering pile of CVs. I won’t claim I’ve simply been coshed into submission; I’ve necked the celeb party champagne and pocketed all the freebies, relying on hangovers to block out the rest.

Neither can I erase that as a young hack keen to prove his worth I threw myself into working at the Daily Star with gusto. On order I dressed up as a John Lennon, a vampire, a Mexican, Noel Gallagher, Saint George (twice), Santa Claus, Aleksandr the Meerkat, the Stig, and a transvestite Alex Reid.

I’ve been spraytanned, waxed, and in a kilt clutching roses trawled a Glasgow council estate trying to propose to Susan Boyle (I did. She said no).

When I was ordered to wear a burkha in public for the day, I asked: “Just a head scarf or full veil?” Even after being ambushed by anti-terror cops when panicked Londoners reported “a bloke pretending to be a Muslim woman”, I didn’t complain. Mercifully, I’d discovered some backbone by the time I was told to find some burkha-clad shoppers (spot the trend?) to pose with for a picture – dressed in just a pair of skintight M&S underpants.

Forget journalistic merit, I heard this was just an ill-conceived ploy to land an advertising contract with the chain. Admittedly, that was unusual. Often we hacks write vacuous puff pieces about things you own. Few would deny there’s one hell of an incestuous orgy of cross-promotion to leer at down at Northern & Shell HQ.

Never mind that it insults the intelligence of amoebas when your readers are breathlessly informed the week’s telly highlights include OK! TV and the Vanessa Feltz Show.

I suspect you see a perfect circle. I see a downward spiral. I see a cascade of shit pirouetting from your penthouse office, caking each layer of management, splattering all in between.

Daily Star favourite Kelly Brook recently said in an interview: "I do Google myself. Not that often, though, and the stories are always rubbish. “There was a story that I’d seen a hypnotherapist to help me cut down on the time I take to get ready to go out. Where do they get it from?”

Maybe I should answer that one. I made it up. Not that it was my choice; I was told to. At 6pm and staring at a blank page I simply plucked it from my arse. Not that it was all bad. I pocketed a £150 bonus. You may have read some of my other earth-shattering exclusives.

‘Michael Jackson to attend Jade Goody’s funeral’. (He didn’t.) 'Robbie pops ‘pill at heroes concert’. (He didn’t either.) ‘Matt Lucas on suicide watch’. (He wasn’t.) ‘Jordan turns to Buddha.’ (She might have, but I doubt it.)

I know showbiz is the sand on which your readership is built. And while I didn’t write tittle-tattle dreaming of Pulitzers, I never knew I’d fear a Booker Prize nomination instead.

You own the Daily Star, and it’s your right to assign whatever news values to it you choose. On the awe-inspiring day millions took to the streets of Egypt to demand freedom, your paper splashed on “Jordan … the movie.”

A snub to history? Certainly. An affront to journalism? Most definitely. Your undeniable right? Yes, sir.

But what brings me here today is those times you dispense with those skewed news values entirely by printing stories which couldn’t stand up to a gnat’s fart.

It’s those times when you morph from being a newspaper owner into the inventor of a handy product for lining rabbit hutches. While the Daily Star isn’t the only paper with a case to answer, I reckon it’s certainly the ugliest duckling of an unsightly flock.

Its endemic lack of self-perception really is something to behold. It only takes a comedian to make an ironic gag about racism and your red top is on hand to whip up a storm, demanding the culprit commit hara-kiri beside Stephen Lawrence’s shrine.

Yet turn the page and Muslims are branded “beardies” or “fanatics”, and black-on-black killings (“Bob-slayings”, as I’ve cringingly heard them called in your newsroom) can be resigned to a handful of words, shoehorned beneath a garish advert.

Outraged, we brand other celebrities sexist, demanding such dinosaurs be castrated on the steps of the Natural History Museum.

Then with our anger sated it’s back to task, arranging the day’s news based on the size of the subjects’ breasts.

Were this the behaviour of an actual person they would be diagnosed schizophrenic and bundled into the nearest white van. But because the mouthpiece is a newspaper, it’s all supposed to be ok. Well, here’s some breaking news – it’s far, far worse. When looking for the source of this hypocritical behaviour, I didn’t have to go far.

The Daily Star seems to set out its editorial stall as a newspaper written for, and fighting for, the (preferably white) working class.

Yet as a proprietor you recently dropped out of the Press Complaints Commission, leaving those self-same people with no viable recourse if they find themselves libelled or defamed on your pages.

Your red top drones on about British jobs for British workers, yet your own reporters’ pay has been on ice so long it was last seen living in an igloo and hunting seals.

A great swathe of your readership lives in the north of England, yet you employ just one staff reporter outside London. One. I guess it makes the same sense to you up there in your ivory tower as it does to me down here on my high horse. I get it, I do.

Because no one has time for subtlety of language, of thought, when they’re scrabbling to pump out a national newspaper with fewer staff hacks than it takes to man a yacht.

When you assign budgets thinner than your employee-issue loo roll there’s little option but for Daily Star editors to build a newspaper from cut-and-paste-jobs off the Daily Mail website, all tied together with gormless press releases. But when that cheap-and-cheerful journalism gives the oxygen of publicity to corrosive groups like the EDL – safe in the knowledge it’s free news about which they’ll never complain – it’s time to lay down my pen.

You may have heard the phrase, “The flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil sets off a tornado in Texas.” Well, try this: “The lies of a newspaper in London can get a bloke’s head caved in down an alley in Bradford.”

If you can’t see that words matter, you should go back to running porn magazines. But if you do, yet still allow your editors to use inciteful over insightful language, then far from standing up for Britain, you’re a menace against all things that make it great.

I may have been just a lowly hack in your business empire, void of the power to make you change your ways, but there is still one thing that I can do; that I was trained to do; that I love to do: write about it.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Peppiatt

[KIB_man]

This doublethink on absent fathers will hurt mothers | Polly Toynbee

not much mention of absent mothers but a thought provoking article all the same.

[myboyblue]

As good a place as any to put this

A MOCK-UP version of the front page of the Irish Times has been pulled from the site after mistakenly being posted to its ePaper edition earlier this morning.

The Irish Times confirmed to TheJournal.ie that the wrong page, which features mock articles as well as photographs and sketches to mark the end of Geraldine Kennedy’s tenure as editor of the paper, was posted but had been pulled.

[cluaindiuic]

Surely they could have been more creative with the headline:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-14279600

[KIB_man]

http://www.derryjournal.com/community/columnists/brolly_s_bites_wall_of_silence_shames_our_great_association_1_2912668

brave article from brolly though I seem to recall him not too long ago saying violence was part of the game.

that lad is still in a coma in san fran. astronomical medical bills building up too.