Category: Media coverage

Free speech under state attack in Ireland

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I do not agree with the water charges protester who called President Higgins a midget parasite.

I do, however, totally and unconditionally support the quote attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Neither does the writer Salman Rushdie pull his punches on this issue.

Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn’t exist in any declaration I have ever read. If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots of people.

The Irish state, probably under instructions from the current government, does not tolerate such freedom of speech.

This contempt for the universal concept of freedom of speech is most clearly demonstrated by the charging of four citizens with the allegation that they insulted the president as his convoy sped past.

Specifically, they are facing a charge of:

Using threatening, insulting or abusive language.

Let me be absolutely clear about what’s going on here:

It is nothing less than state oppression. It is an abuse of the law and manipulation of state agencies in order to inflict political punishment against those who disagree with government policy.

Another quote from Voltaire makes the point:

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

In a functional democracy every citizen should have the right to call the president or any other citizen a midget parasite. In a robust, functional democracy nobody has the right not to be offended.

In a dysfunctional democracy like Ireland, where the corrupt political/administrative system is facing a serious challenge from disaffected citizens, such freedoms are curtailed or withdrawn completely.

An almost identical incident occurred in South Africa in 2010 when a student, Chumani Maxwele, was arrested for allegedly insulting the president as his convoy sped past.

In stark contrast to the Irish incident, where the protesters were the target of almost universal media condemnation, the South African media strongly condemned the state for its abuse of free speech.

An investigation by the Centre for Constitutional Rights found that Maxwele’s rights of human dignity, security of person and freedom of expression and peaceful/unarmed demonstration had been violated.

One media commentator wrote the following:

(A concern is) that when a private citizen is arrested for ‘insulting the president’…the Government and the ANC take one step closer to assuming the comical status of the typical African tin-pot dictatorship.

Citizens of our tin-pot democracy do not enjoy the protection of a Centre for Constitutional Rights. Neither can citizens who participate in democratic, non-violent protests expect much support from a media that is overwhelmingly pro government/establishment.

A media that does not see free speech as a fundamental human right, no matter who it offends, but rather as a conditional right confined within very narrow parameters.

In a follow-up article I will analyse an Irish Times editorial on this issue which reflects a disturbing blindness within Irish media to the frequent abuse by the state of citizens rights.

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President Higgins
Government

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Diamaid Ferriter: Mean-spirited in giving credit to Atheist Ireland

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Historian Diamaid Ferriter has an excellent article in today’s Irish Times on the issue of what he rightly describes as the blatantly sectarian education system operating in our country.

Widespread discrimination backed up by a range of draconian state laws are the order of the day for parents who do not want their children indoctrinated into the faith of the Catholic Church.

Some parents have been forced to resort to the humiliating practice of baptising their children against their wishes; such is the stranglehold that exists, bolstered by the Equal Status Act 2000, which permits schools to discriminate in their admissions policy on the basis of religion.

Mr. Ferriter’s article is, unfortunately, somewhat spoiled by his mean-spirited failure to give credit to Atheist Ireland, ably led by Michael Nugent, as the driving force resonsible for bringing, and keeping, this disgraceful discrimination to the attention of the wider public.

Fintan O’Toole: Falling for the myth that the people are to blame

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Fintan O’Toole is, as always; spot on in his damning critique of how things are done in Ireland, of how our political system is incompetent and totally incapable of reforming itself.

Surprisingly, however, Mr. O’Toole is now blaming the electorate for this failure.

Until we as voters elect politicians with enough self-respect, and enough respect for us, to demand the right to do the job we pay them for…

This tendency to blame ordinary people for political incompetence and corruption is common among the media – it is also false.

For over thirty years Irish voters have been desperately struggling to bring about political change. In election after election they have clearly indicated that they want a political system that puts the country first.

Here’s a section of an open letter I wrote last March to Green Party leader Eamon Ryan on the issue.

A brief look at recent political history over the last three decades proves the point.

The people trusted the Progressive Democrats (PDs) because they promised accountability and reform in response to corruption within Fianna Fail

Ultimately, the PDs betrayed the people when they abandoned their integrity and principles in exchange for power and influence.

The people rejected the PDs for their betrayal.

Dick Spring gained the trust of the people in the run up to the 1992 election on the basis that he would deal with what he called the cancer of political corruption that was doing so much damage to Ireland and its people.

He immediately betrayed that trust when he went into coalition with the very cancer (Fianna Fail and the criminal politician Haughey) he had just condemned.

The people rejected Dick Spring for his betrayal.

In opposition, the Green Party gained the trust of the people by promising to reform politics, to challenge corruption.

Once in power however, the party abandoned the responsibilities of power/government and instead focused entirely on getting its own green agenda enacted. The party looked the other way as political corruption continued to wreak havoc on the lives of Irish citizens.

Here’s John Gormley in response to political corruption:

We’re not the moral watchdog of any political party…we look after our probity and our standards…we cannot be responsible for events that took place before our entry into government.

The people rejected the Green Party for its betrayal.

The Labour Party (again) and Fine Gael gained the trust, of a by now desperate people, in the run up to the 2011 election by promising to take immediate action to counter political corruption, by promising to urgently introduce the political reform the people have been desperately seeking for more than thirty years.

But once again the body politic betrayed the people.

The people will reject this government for its betrayal.

But, on this occasion, there is a difference in the people’s response.

They have finally rejected the system itself that has betrayed them. Our country is now in a transition period that will ultimately see the end of the old regime and the beginning of a new type of politics.

Recent polls have clearly demonstrated that the people have lost all faith in the political system as currently constituted. This fact is most clearly seen in the form of hundreds of thousands of citizens on the streets in protest against oppressive taxes.

These people are not on the streets primarily to protest against taxes, they are, effectively, in rebellion against the political/administrative system that has betrayed them for decades.

Your comment that the people must re-engage with politics is symptomatic of a political mindset that is in the process of passing into history. I would invite you to wake up and look around you.

A significant percentage of the people are in open rebellion against the political system that you represent, they have taken to the streets in rebellion, they have begun voting in their droves for Sinn Fein and independents for just one principal reason – they no longer trust you, your party or the political system that you represent.

Not since 1916 have the Irish people been so politically energised, not since 1916 have the people been so radically politicised, not since 1916 has the ruling power been so blind to what’s been happening on the streets and in the minds of the people.

Not since 1916 has the governing power been so disengaged from politics and the people.

Sadly, it has to be said, this disengagement from the true mood of the Irish people is also prevalent throughout the media.

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Fintan O’Toole

Tom Lyons: A journalist unlikely to ask the tough questions

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Tom Lyons is the business editor of the Sunday Business Post so you would think he would know more than most about what goes on in our corrupt state.

But judging from the questions he asks in a recent article regarding the ongoing Siteserv scandal it seems that Mr. Lyons is, in common with most Irish journalists, almost totally ignorant of the political corruption that lies at the heart of our failed state.

The problem with journalists like Mr. Lyons is that they fly at a very comfortable height above the deep dark sewer of political corruption. They only see the surface, they have little interest in probing the depths to see what lies beneath. They see a flat, calm surface surrounded by beautiful trees and flowers. For these journalists all is well within the world of Irish politics and business.

Of course, from time to time a blob of pus surfaces giving off an obnoxious stench. On such occasions the journalists get all excited and head for their keyboards to analyse and speculate about the origin of the stench.

But because they have little knowledge of the rot beneath the surface they end up asking silly/naive questions similar to those asked by Mr. Lyons in his article.

Lyons, seemingly puzzled and angry that the Commission of Investigation into the the former Anglo Irish Bank is on the brink of collapse asks:

Did the Attorney General provide advice? If so, what advice? if not, why on earth not?

Can the commission legally carry out its job?

Did anyone ask that question? And if so, why did they get it so wrong?

Here’s the answer which I suspect will shock Mr. Lyons.

Ireland is an intrinsically corrupt state ruled by an elite group of people who enjoy the full support of all state agencies including the civil service and Gardai. There is a corrupt nexus between the political system and practically every state agency.

This corrupt nexus facilitates and protects the interests of the corrupt ruling elite at the expense of Ireland, its people and democracy.

Over the past several decades Irish citizens have witnessed, to their utter despair, an avalanche of corruption that has destroyed everything they value.

And yet there has been no accountability whatsoever and there never will be until the current corrupt political/administrative system is removed from power and influence.

And that is unlikely to happen without informed and objective journalism leading the way.

Instead of flittering about over the sewer of corruption journalists like Mr. Lyons should be asking tough, relevant questions such as:

Why is there so much white-collar crime/corruption in Ireland?

Why do white-collar criminals almost always get away with their crimes?

Why does the State resolutely refuse to act to stamp out white-collar crime?

Why is it that the media/journalists seldom, if ever, deal with political/business corruption as a subject in and of itself rather than just responding to the latest incident of corruption?

Why is there almost always a close link between white-collar crime and the political system?

Why is Ireland governed under a cloak of Soviet style secrecy?

Why are they so many legal bars to accountability?

Why is it that Ireland, despite decades of rampant corruption, has still to establish a powerful, independent and efficient anti-corruption agency similar to those in many other countries?

Judging by Mr. Lyons’ concluding point in his article it is unlikely that he will be the journalist asking such tough questions.

The collapse of Anglo Irish Bank cost the state billions, destroyed the wealth, hopes and ambitions forever of thousands of Irish citizens and almost certainly led to many deaths by suicide.

Yet Mr. Lyons can only find room in his article to express sympathy for the former management of the rotten bank.

The management that received lotto sized salaries, the management that can rest easy in the absolute certainity that, if they did any wrong, will find comfort and protection within our corrupt political/administrative system.

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Tom Lyons

Breaking news: Sinn Fein responsible for IBRC farce

What I want to know is – when is RTE and other establishment media outlets going to grill Gerry Adams/Sinn Fein about their part in the Anglo Irish Bank/IBRC farce.

And before anybody says that it’s ridiculuous to claim that Sinn Fein are behind the IBRC debacle I can now reveal that two former IRA men told me that they sat with Gerry Adams and Mary Lou McDonald at an IRA Army Council meeting where the downfall of the Commission of Investigation was plotted with evil intent.

Of course, I’m not at liberty to reveal the names of the two upstanding IRA patriots. The very fact that they told me is, I believe, evidence enough to treat their words as unquestioning fact.

Why the State is targetting Sinn Fein

In recent times I have written several articles on the very obvious anti Sinn Fein propaganda campaign being conducted by the mainstream political parties and state agencies aided and abetted by a large segment of the media.

I am aware that writing such articles can be seen as supporting Sinn Fein and, by extension, supporting violence both political and criminal.

This article is to make my position crystal clear.

The core philosophy of this website is that Ireland is an intrinsically corrupt state. By this I mean that, unlike functional democracies, the Irish state actively defends, supports and protects those involved in corruption.

Corruption, to one degree or another is, of course, present in every country on the planet. Corrupt behaviour is an intrinsic aspect of human nature, it will always be with us.

But there is a huge difference between a country that suffers from a degree of corruption and a country that is, in and of itself, intrinscially corrupt.

A state is corrupt when its powers and resources are principally utilised for the benefit of a tiny but very powerful minority of individuals and organisations at the expense of the people and the greater good.

This is overwhemingly and indisputably the case in Ireland.

The corrupt regime is made up, principally, of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour with the unquestioning support of most state agencies and a disturbingly large section of the media.

Family dynasties constitute the core of the corrupt political system. Over the decades the corrupting influence of these families has spread the disease of corruption right through the influential pillars of the state and society such as the legal system, higher civil servants, the police and so on.

At some critical point, which I believe was during the 1980s when the criminal politician Haughey was at the height of his powers, the state flipped from being a democracy with some corruption to a state that that had become corrupt in and of itself.

From that moment right up to today state power does not, for the most part, operate for the good of the people. It works to maintain, protect and enhance the power of the corrupt elite.

This corrupt political/administrative regime is directly and wholly responsible for the economic catastrophe that has wreaked so much damage and loss on Ireland and its people since 2008.

And this is where Sinn Fein enters the picture.

The 2008 economic catastrophe caused serious panic within the corrupt regime. For a short period it was feared that the power, influence and wealth built up over many decades would be lost as the people began to transfer their alligience to political forces outside its power base.

Sinn Fein is being targeted because it poses the greatest threat to the power of the corrupt regime. It is the best organised, best financed, most powerful political force outside the mainstream. It is united, focused and led by a cohort of articulate and committed politicians.

It is for this reason and this reason alone that the corrupt political/administrative system, in cooperation with its many friends in the media, has targeted Sinn Fein.

The corrupt regime knows very well that if Sinn Fein gains power, even partial power in a coalition, the game is up. The cosy golden circle that has abused Irish democracy and its people for the last several decades will no longer hold sway.

People from outside the ruling elite, dangerous people with principles, people who will actually do what’s right for the country rather than vested interests will be exercising power within the corrupt citadel.

It is therefore absolutely crucial, from the corrupt regime’s point of view, that Sinn Fein’s power is destroyed or, at least, damaged to such an extent that it becomes an irrelevant political force.

It is this black propaganda campaign that I write about. It has nothing to do with Sinn Fein’s politics/policies per se but rather to challenge and expose the continuing efforts of a ruthless and diseased political system that will do anything, even commit criminal acts, to preserve its power and influence.

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All political parties
Government

Denis O’Brien and his lovely loyal lass, Martina Devlin

Ahhhh….Denis O’Brien journalist Martina Devlin has a lovely piece about Denis O’Brien in Denis O’Brien’s newspaper today.

‘Intriguing’ is how lovely Martina describes her boss’s decision to call off the floatation of his mobile operator Digicel. But that’s the amoral market for ye says the loyal Martina, that’s the Capitalist system for ya, it only cares for the bottom line – money.

Denis, of course, is not interested in the market or profit, not at all. Here’s how lovely Martina describes her boss’s pitch on the market:

He wasn’t just trading in the common currency of facts and figures; there was plain speaking, the occasional flash of self-deprecation, and several Irishisms including “we have spent a savage amount of money on our networks”.

You could see how Mr O’Brien charms people, and why he’d be in demand as an after-dinner speaker if his business empire failed.

Ahhh….isn’t he lovely all the same?

Now in fairness to the lovely Martina, she did make some criticism of her boss regarding his offer to potential shareholders.

Despite the company running at a loss with massive debts of $6.5 billion Denis was intending to:

Retain 61% equity stake in the company and 94% control. Ordinary investors were being offered A shares but he held on to B shares with 10 times the voting rights of every A share. He’d have the right to decide which directors were appointed to the board, and have control over decisions such as mergers and acquisitions, sale of assets, salaries, dividend payments, and the entire direction of the company.

Sounds like an Irish Water type deal to me.

Anyway, the lovely Martina very bravely, or perhaps foolishly, suggested that such power in the hands of one man might not rest easy with best practice.

Careful there now Martina…as Fr. Ted might say. You could lose your job or even end up in court. No….really, he will sue you, even if you are a lovely loyal lass.

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The lovely Martina

Independent Newspapers can’t handle the truth regarding political violence

Decommission your tongue, Mr. Adams

This was the headline of a recent editorial in the Sunday Independent in which Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams was taken to task for daring to make a favourable comparison between the violence of the 1916 rebels and those involved in the recent 1968-1998 conflict.

The editor didn’t spare the insults:

Mr. Adams should decommission his tongue preferably for a millennium or two.

The Sinn Fein leader has soared to new heights in self-delusion.

But it is the editor who’s occupying the heights of self-delusion when he tries to argue that the 1916 rebellion was:

Formally and massively endorsed (By the Irish people).

This, of course, is utter rubbish and is based on the ridiculous myth that the violence of 1916, War of Independence and the Civil War was all, in some magical way, different from the violence of the 1968 – 1998 conflict.

The editor goes on to ask:

Had Mr Adams been an IRA man and put himself forward as a car-bombing murderer, does he really believe he would have been handed a mandate?

When the 1916 rebels were being led away after surrendering they were spat upon by the people of Dublin for causing so much death and destruction.

So here’s the obvious retort:

Had Mr. Pearse been an violent rebel and put himself forward as a bringer of massive death and destruction, does he really believe he would have been handed a mandate?

And it is worth noting that the people of Ireland were generally content under British rule in the lead up to 1916 in stark contrast to Catholics/nationalists barely surviving under the exteme Unionist apartheid system prior to the 1968-1998 conflict.

In making the following quote the editor seems to be completely clueless about the obvious parallels between Sinn Fein’s rise to power in the aftermath of 1916 and the party’s current rise to power in the aftermath of the 2008 economic catastrophe.

Legitimacy was conferred on 1916 when Sinn Féin received its mandate in the 1918 general election. It was retrospective, but it was real. The election was the first democratic plebiscite to pass judgment on those events.

The course of today’s political events is an exact parallel with those of 1916.

Prior to 2008 Sinn Fein struggled to achieve significant political traction in the republic. Since 2008 they have become ever more popular principally because citizens are searching for an alternative to a political system that is corrupt to its core.

In other words, Sinn Fein received an overwhelming mandate as a direct result of the brutal response of the British government to the 1916 rising and now the party is receiving a similar democratic mandate as a result of the brutality inflicted on Irish citizens as a direct result of political corruption.

The editor ends with a quote about the truth.

You can rewrite history, but the truth is always the truth.

Indeed, the truth is always the truth. But it has been many years since
‘Independent’ Newspapers practiced truth.

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Editor Sunday ‘Independent’