There’s a clear link between the promotion and practice of unregulated capitalism and a spike in drug use, mental health issues and suicide. The more individualistic society becomes, the more alienation and hopelessness , particularly among young men, rises. You think the spike in cocaine use is random? You think swathes of the country - especially rural areas, have just turned to drugs for a bit of craic? No, it’s the breaking down of values and age old institutions of community and morality. These no longer matter in 2020… we can point to a smaller world thanks to technology. We can point to smaller world socially also - but the reality is that a lot of people are in pain and are struggling to find meaning in a world of materialism.
A vote for FG is a vote for the continuation of the break down of society and profit over people.
How come in the depths of the recession cocaine use fell off a cliff?
Surely the fact that people have money & cocaine is cheap is the main reason for cocaine use? People have been taking mind altering drugs for as long as we’ve been on the planet.
There’s always different factors at play - but it’s at unprecedented levels now — I dont recall it being half as prevalent during the last boom — what has happened in 10 years? And It’s people of all ages taking it now, young and old.
Drugs are getting cheaper and easier to access. Young people have switched from drink to drugs as their poison of choice as a result. The war on drugs is a massive failure.
Comments on the performances on Prime Time last night:
Pearse Doherty: Excellent as usual. Best tax system I have seen from any party so far. Nice little idea to reduce the pension age as well which will get some votes.
Ruth Coppinger: Piggy backed quite a bit on Doherty but spoke well in relation to taxing of corporations which McCullough failed to raise adequately with Donahue. Seemed quite militant on changes required for climate change which is never good.
Michael McGrath: Horrific appearance. He had no policy decision to speak about and adopted an agressive tone to make up for it. Pulled up rightly by Doherty for approving budgets by FG with insufficient housing measure and went on the attack about holding the government together when Brexit was on, which is beside the point.
Eamon Ryan: Extremely poor when speaking about the general tax system (rabbitted on about a tax credit for carers) but obviously had his views on climate change. Seems to be a non-confrontational individual when discussing the carbon tax with Donahue.
Pascal Donahue: Did well in terms of assertiveness and confidence although a lot of his content was garbage, such as the dismissing of the corporation issue raised by Coppinger with the jobs line and also raising the notion of increasing the threshold for the application of the higher tax rate, which we know isn’t going to happen.
I dont see the benefit of that myself.
Tho, they do need to address the gap between retiring from work and being pad pension. Am I correct in that Some companies still make people retire at 65 and no state pension until 67 ?
Completely agree re your last point. They also need to accelerate auto-enrolment in pensions for all workers. The pension liability of this country at the moment is outrageous and you’d have to wonder how likely it is that all the pensions paid from the public purse will be paid when people hit that age
It’s a shame they’re never called up on the “jobs” spin they use when discussing Corporation Tax. It’s the same lazy line trotted out every time and the cap doffers fall for it every time.