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Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

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Anti-Empire >>

The Saker
A bird's eye view of the vineyard

offsite link Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz
Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb

offsite link The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker
Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.? We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).?

offsite link What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker
by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are

offsite link Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader
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offsite link The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker
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Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Unite Suspends Angela Rayner and Threatens to Abandon Labour Fri Jul 11, 2025 13:03 | Will Jones
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has been suspended by Unite the union over?the Birmingham bin strike, with the union, one of Labour's biggest backers, also announcing it will review its relationship?with the party.
The post Unite Suspends Angela Rayner and Threatens to Abandon Labour appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Why I Changed My Mind About Abortion Fri Jul 11, 2025 11:00 | Oscar Evans
Growing up in 90s Britain, Oscar Evans unthinkingly accepted what he was taught: that abortion is a neutral medical procedure. His views have now changed ? and he's horrified by what Labour has done.
The post Why I Changed My Mind About Abortion appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link UN Human Rights Council Demands Criminalisation of Climate Scepticism Worldwide Fri Jul 11, 2025 09:00 | Ben Pile
The UN Human Rights Council has published a report demanding the criminalisation of climate scepticism worldwide. Ben Pile skewers the absurdity of the 'human rights' authoritarians.
The post UN Human Rights Council Demands Criminalisation of Climate Scepticism Worldwide appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Special Episode of the Sceptic: Charles Cornish-Dale on Testosterone Decline, How the Modern World I... Fri Jul 11, 2025 07:00 | Richard Eldred
Special Episode of the Sceptic: Dr Charles Cornish-Dale on testosterone decline and the Last Men, how the modern world is making us sick and how to save the West.
The post Special Episode of the Sceptic: Charles Cornish-Dale on Testosterone Decline, How the Modern World Is Making Us Sick and How to Save the West appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Fri Jul 11, 2025 01:32 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Acts of Resistance and The Bin-Tax

category national | bin tax / household tax / water tax | opinion/analysis author Wednesday October 08, 2003 21:59author by Lars Rúbenco - (non-affiliated) Report this post to the editors

-A brief analysis

Ireland, where the public good is increasingly becoming the private good, where the citizen has become the consumer, is a country that has been, and is, witness to an act of resistance, where people are defining their role in society and carving their mark in the chronicles of the State.

What has become known as the Bin-Tax, a regressive tax that has not been demonstrated to accrue benefits to Irish society yet is being imposed on that society, has had the effect of forging a mobilisation that seeks to challenge the legitimacy of the discursive and applied practice of ‘economic authority’, a scientific reasoning/ideology that has become common-sense in many minds to the point of rationalising and legitimising the destructive pattern globally evident from the trail left after the new Leviathan that presents itself as a self-evident process of inevitable market liberalisation, defined by the financial ‘experts’ who, through their expert advice, have only ever brought positive results for a minority of human beings.

On one level the jailing and institutional intimidation of those expressing their democratic rights as citizens, rights that apparently are not available to the newly defined ‘consumer’ identity, proclaims a contempt for civil liberties by a few governing technocrats, within councils, courts and the Dáil, where their actions betray their words, where such actions express a lack of understanding for the motivation of resistance, while stating in all but words an acute sense of intolerance to those ungratefuls that dare to go out into the streets and demonstrate against them, they who claim to know where the people’s happiness lies, even where that ‘happiness’ goes against the interests of those they claim to be looking out for.

On another more interesting level, symbolically and motivationally, this event has contributed to an awareness of what is, how it has come to be, and what it might become, whereby people can then make and remake their lives, a contribution that inevitably seeks that which is more respectful of the realities that confront them.

Whether we agree or disagree with the methods employed, this single act of resistance can not be taken as an isolated incident as it is but one manifestation of the increasing sense of departure from the present dominant system of unrepresentative, unaccountable and untrustworthy governance practised by a minority of actors, nationally, regionally and internationally. This departure has brought with it a desire for a democratic system that actively works towards equality and justice (which includes freedom of expression) while seeking to challenge the self-interested minority of governing technocrats who repeatedly demonstrate their contempt for the pursuit of democracy.


(moral rights, no ©)

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