Slaves No More - Time To Shout Stop
No to the Bank Bail Outs - No to the Croke Park Trade Union selloutSeo thíos litir a scríobh mo chara is comrádaí Dara Mac Gabhann go forleathan chuig na meáin
Below I reproduce a letter sent to various media outlets by my friend and comrade Dara Mac Gabhann.
Scaip an scéal - Spread the word.
It is vital that as many people as possible attend the weekly protests at the Dáil - in order to maintain the fantastic momentum that has been achieved thus far - despite the best attempts of a largely gombeen and shoneen media to ignore it to death.
gombeen definition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombeen_man
shoneen definition
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shoneen
It is also high time, in my view, that the people of the Gaeltacht and the language struggle generally got more involved. If Gaeil na hÉireann believe that they can stand aloof from this campaign (which is calling for exactly the same things being called for by Irish language activists), they may as well kiss the language goodbye.
An oasis of rights for the language when all around her is bereft of rights is a ridiculous notion and a mistake that was made before by language activists.
Capitalism adopts a broad front to attack workers and that's what we need to do in return. Whatever gains we make from now on will have to be fought for, whatever defeats we suffer will be because we did not fight hard enough and failed to work together.
Ní Neart go cur le chéile
Unity is strength
Hope Not Hate
The Hope Not Hate campaign in England showed exactly what can be achieved when the people of the left (and in fairness the liberal centre ground of politics) combine to defeat an evil cause. In the case of Hope Not Hate, it was the fascist BNP, which electorally at least was destroyed by a brilliant Broad Front campaign of targeted leafleting and exposés by Searchlight magazine.
In football parlance, even in the supposed fascist redoubt of Barking and Dagenham in East London, the result was Hope 51 - BNP - 0
In our case it is an evil economic system (I use the word "evil consciously) in its peculiarly Irish guise, which Dara Mac Gabhann describes much more succinctly and tellingly than I could. Please read on.
Statement by Dara Mac Gabhann
On Tuesday 11 May I attended a protest march to Dáil Éireann, organised by the ‘Right to Work Campaign’. I went there to lend my support to their call for an end to the government policy of pumping countless billions of taxpayers’ money into worthless banks and for those billions instead to be invested in creating employment for the 450,000 citizens currently out of work in this State. I intend participating in the follow-up protest outside the Dáil on Tuesday 18 May also.
I will attend this protest precisely because I was present last week and therefore capable of refuting the incomplete impression given of what occurred. Despite what the propagandists in the media would wish you to believe, what I witnessed was good people like Kathleen Lynch, John Bissett and Richard Boyd-Barrett give a voice to ordinary citizens in Ireland, a group that have been criminally under-represented in this State in the past. I heard these people speak of freedom, equality, justice and respect for human dignity, ideals which have been shamefully betrayed by the ruling elite in Ireland for far too long.
That RTÉ, the national broadcaster, subsequently reported this event as ‘an incident under investigation by gardaí’ in which 20% of those present launched an attack on the Dáíl itself, tells you all you need to know about how all-powerful the control of this State by a minority elite really is.
Recently The Sunday Times published its list of the 250 wealthiest people in Ireland. To qualify for inclusion these individuals had to have in excess of 30 million Euros of personal wealth. Most, if not all, of these people, whose combined wealth totalled over 35 billion Euros, avail of the myriad of loopholes provided for them by our government to avoid contributing to the tax-take which funds the essential health, welfare, educational and infrastructural services deserved by all in this State. If they were required to meet their legitimate tax obligations over 15 billion Euros would be made available to the State coffers. Think of the suffering and hardship which the government caused in their crude attempts to save 4 billion in last year’s budget.
Isn’t it strange that our prisons are overcrowded with people whose only crime was an inability to pay relatively miniscule fines and yet those that have visited suffering and hardship on a scale previously un-imaginable on ordinary citizens, through their greed and self-interest, remain free to enjoy the exclusive rewards of their criminally immoral behaviour?
Isn’t it outrageous that each year over fifty people are imprisoned in Ireland for non-payment of a television licence to an institution where obscenely remunerated broadcasters champion the agenda of the wealthy at every turn, while Sean Fitzpatrick and Michael Fingleton remain free to walk the fairways of their elite golf clubs every day?
And yet, when we, the citizens assemble outside of our Parliament to protest at this affront to human dignity and natural justice we are informed by those inside and their cronies in the intellectual elite that we do not understand economic affairs and that we are the ones who are damaging the international reputation of this country!
This, from those fraudsters and fools in our parliament, who have connived and contrived to bring the citizens of this State, to the edge of an economic abyss, the likes of which we have never before witnessed.
This, from economic illiterates who have yet to realise that their precious system of free-market capitalism is broken beyond repair!
Though no less a figure than Paul Volcker, former head of the Federal Reserve and current adviser to the Obama administration, admitted as much in 2008, and that he suggested that no amount of tinkering would mend it, the suggested remedy of these economic buffoons is to administer more of the same medicine that has brought the patient to death’s door in the first instance.
It is time to shout stop!
It is time to call a halt to this blind loyalty to a totally discredited system of finance. It is time for a new ideology. It is time for a new capitalism, a kinder capitalism, if you will, which will be underpinned by a morality that would have freedom, justice, equality and respect for the dignity of all in society at its core. These are the ideals and basic principles which my parents attempted to instil in me as a child and they are the same principles which I will attempt to foster in my own child.
My parents brought me up to respect all in society and I again will attempt to nurture this respect in my own son. But I will also advise him of the importance of self-respect.
My parents explained to me from an early age the importance of paying tax and of making my economic contribution to creating a fair and just society. They advised me of the dangers involved in becoming enslaved to debt and the subsequent restriction in personal freedom that was a natural consequence of it.
Having, I believe, adhered to these principles and having endeavoured to ensure that I, and my family, would not succumb to the debt enslavement that was a pre-requisite for sustaining the growth of the Celtic Tiger economy I am now informed that those who were the most avaricious and self-serving in our society propose dumping their obscene debts on my child and yours and that we have no option but to accept this.
Do our children not deserve respect?
Do our children not deserve the opportunity to be educated to the best of their abilities?
Do our children not deserve access to an excellent health service?
Shouldn’t our justice system treat all our children equally?
Why should our children be expected to shoulder the debt created by the reckless behaviour of others?
We need to safeguard our children’s future.
To achieve this end we must look for a more acceptable solution than that suggested by those with a vested interest in preserving the economic status quo that prevails in this State.
That solution is, I believe, readily available and has in fact already been proposed by none other than the Minister for Finance himself.
Many months ago, Brian Lenihan, a member of one the privileged dynasties which rules this State, was interviewed at length about the financial crisis in Ireland. During the course of an interview with Independent News and Media, a corporation owned by tax-exiles Tony O’Reilly and Denis O’Brien, the Minister was asked why the burden of solving our financial crisis could not extend to taxing the richest members of our society.
In reply Brian Lenihan said, “If we taxed the rich, the elite would leave the country”.
Well if the minister says that if he taxed the rich, the elite would leave the country, I say, ‘Tax the Rich!’
Dara Mac Gabhann. 16th May 2010.
Next protest: Assemble Dáíl Éireann 7.30pm Tuesday 25 May 2010.
www.timetoshoutstop.com
(For information on Hope Not Hate) - please see:
http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/