Opinion analycist

by : + : - (no platform) Thu Jul 23, 2009 22:30

There really have only been five names on the global far-right scene for the last generation. We may take small comfort from the death of Jurgen Haider and wonder at his replacement by the eager British Griffin, but if we are to understand the subliminal as well as ideological shift which meant the Irish went from being one of the supposed lower races to right up there in the company of white supremacists we really need to understand the significance of David Duke and his tenure as "grand wizard" of the KKK, his role as a democratically elected US congressman & his current career in Europe. c/f http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92072

It was David Duke who managed to convince the US far-right and heartland of the Confederate states of America and its racist empire that Roman Catholics ranging from the helpfully well historically credentialed fascist Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarians & Romanians to the much more noticeable and formally antagonistic Irish gaelic communities in the USA were just the same as any pond life which could wash a white sheet in a Lousianna swamp and burn a cross.

Thereafter, thanks to David Duke, the celtic cross entered the semiotic vocabulary of the far-right.

What had once been so Irish and so pious became in a generation a symbol which when sprayed on walls in graffiti or tatoo'ed on backs in prison yards meant as much if not more than any swastika or nordic rune.

The Irish have been in the catchment area of the white supremacists for several generations now, and was clearly shown during the Dwyer case of clear links between Hungarian and Romanian neo-Nazi's in Bolivia - social networks are pivotal to the recruitment of the newest generation of unthinking nazi youth.

Dwyer spent most of his time paying attention to his Bebo and Facebook accounts, as his fellow mercenaries constantly updated their profiles and in the case of the Romanian Arpad, paid enormous attention to Youtube. http://www.indymedia.ie/article/90029?comment_order=des...ments specifically http://www.indymedia.ie/article/90029?&condense_comment...50850

Oh, if these people made the move from cyberspace social networks to real world social spaces - would we perhaps have to wonder had we been caught complacently napping?

fadó fadó long ago before Ryanair subverted the harp the neoNazi adopted the Celtic Cross

now how did we go from peering in that window to peering out?

by Pete. Fri Jul 24, 2009 15:02

"How it is possible in the year of 2009, to still find people who believe that others are inferiors because they were simply born a few kilometers away?"

When the Voyager 1 spacecraft was at Jupiter it swung around and took a photograph of the Earth,400 million miles away.

The Earth looked like a blue speck of dust basking in sunlight.......a "Pale Blue Dot".
Greatly magnified view here(The "little sphere" is the moon):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Cres...n.jpg

The great astronomer Carl Sagan wrote this essay about the Pale Blue Dot:

" Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

.

by (a) Mon Jul 27, 2009 05:06

Explained here in a few short steps is the rationale which forms the basis for the growing anti-immigration sentiment.

1. Immigration into a country/market is perfectly justified when it experiences a 'labour shortage'.

2. At present, Ireland has about 9.5% unemployment, which means that it has a 9.5% 'labour surplus'. This means that the supply of labour is greater than the demand for it, due to a shrinking economy.

3. This means that absolutely every job on the market is occupied. There is now a finite amount of jobs, which results in fierce competition.

4. Allowing immigration to continue in this context would be like continously pouring water into an already-full cup.

5. If unemployed immigrants were to leave the country/market area, it would save the government money that would otherwise be spent on dole payments/welfare and instead could be spent on market stimulus packages to help restore confidence, reduce unemployment etc.

6. The most important objective is to harmonise the supply of labour and the demand for it i.e. aim towards 0% unemployment. This cannot be achieved with present rates of immigration.

The bottom line: Europe still bears the scars of what can happen when disdain for foreginers reaches fever-point and most people are ashamed of the past, so whenever politicians or the media talk about our 'problem with the foreginers' they get cautious. But in reality support for anti-immigration policies is rarely directly due to a climate of racism and xenophobia, but rather just common sense.

by cosmopolitan Mon Jul 27, 2009 06:19

When the 'tiger' economy boomed we were happy to be served tea, coffee and meals by Polish and Lithuanian staff - who often provided service with a smile. Where were the Irish unemployed at that time? Where were the Irish unemployed when Poles, Brazilians and others built all those housing estates?

by Pete. Mon Jul 27, 2009 15:03

"Where were the Irish unemployed at that time? Where were the Irish unemployed when Poles, Brazilians and others built all those housing estates?"

There were very few Irish unemployed.
The unemployment rate was less than 4.5% up till 2 years ago.
That was regarded as virtually full employment because a small minority are always between jobs, or are just plain unemployable.

The rate is now at 12% and rising like a bat out of hell as the (Private Sector) economy falls off the cliff.

CSO Website:

http://www.cso.ie/statistics/sasunemprates.htm

The public sector and the bankers and politicians are safe...
We borrow €40 million a day to keep THEM in comfort:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0703....html

by cosmopolitan Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:05

Pete has pointed out that immigrant workers from Poland, Lithuania and Brazil did not displace Irish citizens during the tiger boom years. In fact they contributed to our society. Therefore talk now about immigrants taking jobs of citizens is way off the mark. My personal impression of immigrant workers is that they were cheerful, hard working and honest. I hope many of them have settled into our society and will live happy lives. They may ginger up our culture into the bargain.

by paul o toole Tue Jul 28, 2009 13:58 pauljotoole at eircom dot net

Racism is a very carefully constructed and maintained destructive evil in society.
Divisions in society based on colour, nationality, citizenship, political belief, religious belief , serves only the eletes.
Keeping divisions between working class people is a must to maintain the imbalance of wealth and power.

The only division in society and across borders worth talking about is the division of wealth. A horizontal line, that those above this line wish to remain obscured from the working class by creating the hideous notion that we are different from our neighbours in other countries, other neighbourhoods, any division will do.

Politics has one purpose.....to maintain wealth and power for those with in the Golden Circle' as Bertie called his one in FF. Or Bush's 'The Have More's'...as he described his 'base'.
Racism is a vry profound tool to prevent the establishment of a collective view of the human condition, and thus, if we never grow past the hideous notion of racism we will never grow at all.

Creating hate is easy in an ignorant ill-educated society, but I think Irish people are better than what is described as 'education' getting shoved down their throats, not for long.
Fed on a feast of drivel passing off as entertainment or art or whatever on our tv's and kids watching this unwholesome subliminally devisive muck i dont hold out much hope given the average Irish kid watckes 54 hours of this crap each week.
Biologically, we are all 98.7% identical. Its the 2.3% that is all 'they' have to work with.
Werre in trouble no doubt.