Seomra Spraoi Autonomous Social Center: Some Pics Today.

Just popped into Seomra Spraoi autonomous social center at 10 Belveder Court of Mountjoy Square. The space got a bit of coverage in the IT a few weeks back.  It was looking well today.  More info at http://seomraspraoi.org/

Fortress Europe looms large. Though its the borders and not people that are the problem.

A view from the raised seating area out back

The Bike Workshop where people get skilled up on fixing their own city transport

Looking out onto the back of gaff around Mountjoy Sq

The Front Door inside the Hot air Ballon

Front Entrance nicely hidden door

Lower outside seats

Info table

Bike Workshop

DIY washing up after cafe nights

We can all do it

The History of April Fools Day

This neat video explains it well methinks

 

 

Mass Civil Disobedience Illuminates Role Of States In Abortion Discourse

In an act of mass civil disobedience directly challenging the legitimacy of the state to regulate women’s reproduction against their own will, over 100 people in Northern Ireland under the banner Alliance for Choice have signed an open letter declaring they have taken, or supported others to take, a pill to induce an abortion.

 

The political action is designed to coincide with a vote in Stormont tomorrow that, if passed, would make it illegal for women to receive abortions in private clinics in the north. The proposed amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill is being pushed by fundamentalists within what’s traditionally described as “both communities.” The proposal to change the law was tabled by the DUP’s Paul Givan, who chairs the Stormont Justice committee, and the SDLP’s Alban Maginness both of whom will never get pregnant. The Alliance party and Sinn Fein will oppose the amendment.

 

The act of civil disobedience itself is interesting from many perspectives, not least the way in which a coherent analysis within the letter makes apparent the links between women’s reproductive autonomy and social/political policies of austerity that function to increase poverty and social inequality within national borders. That analysis is shared by the Pro Choice movements in the south.

 

Its also throws into stark relief one of the ambiguities of public discourse around abortion in the south. Whilst looking northwards, mainstream media seems to have little problem in conflating religious, social and political perspectives with the function of the state itself. Its one I and other anarchist share, and the contested nature of political identity and structural oppressions that gave rise to both to the civil rights movements as well as the provos make help illuminate that. That the state itself is an ideological entity is a given and assumed, even as the workplace practices of contemporary journalism give little reward or encourage for this to be untangled and explored. Neither is the tactic of civil disobedience in examined beyond the word ‘protest’.

 

For example this act of civil disobedience forces the northern state – via its police force and criminal justice system -to act or not act in a public fashion. The political act of disobedience is calculated to illuminate and educate about unjust structures of social/political/economic power as well as forcing the state to act in ways that regardless of the specifics, all actors know the state will itself be judged upon by the wider public.

 

However when looking closer to home, this Irish state seems to be continually framed – and likes to present itself as – ideologically neutral, as if it were a paternal independent arbitrator between two opposing positions. But this self image is patently false and can only be sustained under a social imagination that separates out abortion from the state’s historical role in the systemic abuse of women. But that’s simply not tenable to an increasingly political literate population, nor is it to the growing feminist movements on the island. The state is patriarchal in so far it has continually reproduced social conditions of inequality against women.

 

The Catholic Church has seen a massive diminishing of it social power, a direct result of the breaking of silence surrounding the systemic brutality that enforced its cultural weight in Irish society. Its “socially conservative” (read deformed, sexually repressive and violent) dogmatism, simultaneously anti-women, anti-homosexuality, is being challenged by an increasingly counter-hegemonic discourse. Woman in the pro choice movements are no longing pleading for control over their own bodies from a church and state nexus which have previously deemed itself the only legitimate authority that can dispense or renege on that autonomy. Many are, quite sensibly, demanding complete autonomy for themselves and each other.

 

Also the narrative that ‘abortion debate’ revolves around two opposing yet valid abstract moral positions is itself a mispresentation. There is no emotional or intellectual equivalency between the positions of “I dont want to be forced to remain pregnant against my will” and “You should be forced to remain pregnant against your will because I think abortion is ‘bad’”. I have yet to hear a anti abortion argument that doesn’t relegate women’s existence to forced birthing factories. Appeals to God and a paradigm of ethics and morals founded upon his (yes of course his) existence can of course can be made – and as an anarchist I support the freedoms that facilitate that – but they should be given no greater intellectual weight that the musings of Thomas the Tank engine or other fictional entities.  The function of suppressing women’s right to bodily integrity and reproductive choices does need a meta philosophy to justify itself. It is not to role of critically thinking, emotionally literate human beings to do that however.

 

If you align yourself to the Catholic Church you need to get used to the idea that many people see this as reason enough to reject the idea that you are an ethically coherent and emotionally literate human being. You have some ground to make up given our collective history. Likewise if you are a member of a political organisation that oversaw generations of state sanctioned abuse. And indeed this is also the case if you “believe” in unending economic growth on a planet of finite resources and growing inequality and social injustice. You simply come with too much baggage and too much incoherency to expect your ideas be deemed valid or socially useful merely because you hold them.

 

What come from this is the basis of a position that makes coherent arguments against state coercion in all its forms, but that also recognises that the state itself is deeply ideological itself, rather than an arbitrator. The tactic of mass civil disobedience has yet to be used within this wave of feminist struggle for social justice in the south. However when that happens, the state itself will be forced to act, and in doing so illuminate part of itself that so far has remained invisible in mainstream media narratives

 

Heres the letter

Open Letter

We, the undersigned, have either taken the abortion pill or helped women to procure the abortion pill in order to cause an abortion here in Northern Ireland.

We represent just a small fraction of those who have used, or helped others to use, this method because it is almost impossible to get an NHS abortion here, even when there is likely to be a legal entitlement to one.

We know that Stormont Ministers and the Public Prosecution Service are aware that such abortions have been taking place in the region for some years, but are unwilling to prosecute for a range of reasons, at least partly to do with not wanting an open debate around the issue of when women here should have a right to abortion.

We are publishing this letter now because of the Givan/Magennis amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill which we believe is aimed at closing down the debate on abortion here, as much as it is about closing down Marie Stopes.

We want to emphasise that medical abortions happen in Northern Ireland on a daily basis but without any medical support or supervision. We were delighted when Marie Stopes came to Belfast as it meant that women who are unwell, and therefore eligible for a legal abortion, can access a doctor to supervise what we have done or helped others to do without medical help.

We live in the only part of the UK that still does not have a childcare strategy. We face huge cuts in children’s living standards if the Assembly passes the Welfare Reform Bill without major amendment. If our politicians showed as much zeal in protecting the lives of children who are already born, perhaps we would have fewer women seeking abortion because of poverty.

Signed

Christiane McGuffin, Derry
Bronagh Boyle, Belfast
Goretti Horgan, Derry
Judith Cross, Belfast
Siusaidh Laoidhigh, Belfast
Roisin Barton, Derry
Virginia Santini, Belfast
Julia Black, Derry
Natalie Biernat, Derry
Adrianne Peltz, Bangor
Elizabeth Byrne McCullough, Belfast
Naomi Connor, Belfast
Catherine Couvert, Belfast
Caitlin Ni Chonaill, Belfast
Helen McBride, Armagh
Wendy McCloskey, Derry
Alice Lyons, Bangor
Maev McDaid, Derry
Janet Shepperson, Belfast
Mary Breslin, Derry
Anita Gracey, Belfast
Grainne Boyle, Belfast
Catherine Rush, Derry
Yvette Wilders, Limavady
Deirdre Kelly, Derry
Sarah Wright, Belfast
Sharon Meenan, Derry
Shannon O’Connell, Bangor
Ciara Smyth, Belfast
Shannon Sickels, Belfast
Jason Brannigan, Belfast
Connor Kelly, Derry
Claire Hackett, Belfast
James Doherty, Derry
Jill Letson, Derry
Noella Hutton, Derry
Glen Rosborough, Derry
Ann Harley, Derry
Ryan McKinney, Belfast
Kieran Gallagher, Derry
Jeanette Hutton, Derry
Julie Rogan, Derry
Matt Collins, Belfast
Pat Byrne, Derry
Susan Power, Derry
Aisling Gallagher, Belfast
Betty Doherty, Derry
Mel Bradley, Derry
Edward Gary Hill, Belfast
Sha Gillespie, Derry
Abby Oliveira, Derry
Joanne Butler, Derry
Majella Keys, Derry,
Gerard Stewart, Belfast
Maisie Sharkey, Derry
Orlagh Ni Leid, Belfast
M. Campbell, Derry
Tiarnan O Muilleoir, Belfast
Laura McFeely, Derry
Brenda Graham, Derry
Janet Shepperson, Belfast
Donna McFeely, Derry
Daisy Mules, Derry
Malachai O’Hara Belfast
Eileen Webster, Derry
Véronique Altglas, Belfast
Dianne Kirby, Derry
Helen Quigley, Derry
Sadie Fulton, Belfast
Aaron Murray, Derry
Aoife McNamara, Co.Down
Eileen Blake, Derry
Diana King, Derry
Paula Leonard, Killea
Kitty O’Kane, Derry
Sara Greavu, Derry
Eve Campbell, Derry
Katherine Rowlandson, Derry
Justine Scoltock, Derry
Eamonn McCann, Derry
Catrin Greaves, Belfast
Anita Villa, Derry
Caolan Brown, Derry
Asha Faria-Vare, Belfast
Chrissie Kavanagh, Derry
Elaine Power, Derry
Maria Caddell, Belfast
David Stewart Campbell, Lisburn
Ellie Drake, Belfast
Lisa Byrne, Derry
Siobhan Doherty, Derry
Stella Green, Belfast
Jim Collins, Derry
Guy Hetherington, Belfast
Amos Gideon, Belfast
Stephen Connolly , Belfast
Catriona Acherson, Belfast
Timothy Lavety, Belfast
Ellen Wilson, Belfast
Richard Bailie, Belfast
Manuela Moser, Belfast

The letter contains signatures of 100 individuals from Northern Ireland who have accessed or helped women to access illegal (under Section 58 of the Offences Against the Persons Act 1861) abortion pills, such as those available from Women on Web (WoW).

Update

Since the letter was published, the following names have been added:

Emma Campbell, Belfast
Judith Thurley BA (Hons) RGN, Belfast
Lynda Walker, Belfast
Claire McCann
Lily Hendron, Coleraine
Nick Ní Fhéasóg
Claire Molloy, Belfast
Peter McCormack, Belfast
Áine Jackman, Belfast
Seanín Ní Connalláin, Belfast
Ruth Wilson, Belfast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The “Anglo” Promissory Deal Story through Memes.

Update 1: Still not sure what the update is

Yesterday senior figures within the Irish Government/Civil Service initiated “Code Red”. It’s kicked off with a planned leaking of details of an legal accounting trick designed to created a sense of political chaos and thus spring the dumber backbenchers of FF, FG and Labour into voting for the IRISH BANK RESOLUTION CORPORATION BILL 2013

The co-ordinated “leak” was part of the strategy of Code Red. that the State was to liquidate IBRC/Anglo allowed Noonan to give the impression that an emergency now existed, since IRBC/Anglo assets would plummet in value this morning without this emergency legislation. Its a bit like shooting someone in the face and them shouting at passer bys that if they didn’t give you a tissue now, you’d be responsible for their death.

The Minister of Finance wanted the late night debate to begin at 10.30pm, a whole 15 minutes after the draft bill was given to TD’s in the Dail. The bill is 59 pages and involves between €28-45 Billion euro the people in Ireland have yet to generate through their own labour.  The Dail bar was still open so the debate was pushed back until 00.00am on Thursday.

Noonan informed TD’s that he handed all power to  in KMPG, one of the Big Four accounting firm that rubberstamps the cooked books of banks across the globe for a significant slice of the pie.

The bill in Section 17 also allows Noonan and future finance minsters to issue government bonds (read bind your future labour to even more debt)

Its now up to the unelected 21 men of the ECB to rubberstamp the Code Red plan. And in doing so will turn the private debts from banks under criminal investigation (by supposedly the Irish state) has been “transformed” into fully legal, yet still illegitimate, debt that you, your children and your childrens children will have to pay out for.

Most people now understand that this is not an economic crisis, but a crisis of democracy.

How this actually pans out is up to you.

make sure and follow @notourdebt

That “IRISH BANK RESOLUTION CORPORATION BILL 2013″ IN FULL

This is the bill that Enda and his crew are trying to force through at 00.00 GMT 07/02/13 which will seek to provide legal cover for the biggest stitch up of a generation.

 

View this document on Scribd

Pics and Video: Cork City Council meeting suspended (twice) by Property Tax campaigners.

(UPDATES  AT END OF PIECE)

Protest in cork city hall #CorkCC http://t.co/jdAFnoby—
Brian Houlihan (@HoulihanBrian) January 28, 2013

Tonight’s Cork City council meeting has been brought to a halt by people campaigning against the introduction of a new property tax and the proposed water tax. They unfurled a banner reading “Axe the tax or watch your vote collapse” to sustained applause.  People at that staged had packed out the public gallery

Pic from https://twitter.com/Pompey_tegs/statuses/295989023242080256

The scene inside #Cork City Hall this evening as anti household & water tax protestors interrupt a council mtg #corkcc youtube.com/watch?v=SnXSgs…—
Eoin English (@EoinBearla) January 28, 2013

Garda have arrived outside council chamber. #corkcc—
Alan Healy (@alanhealy) January 28, 2013

The guards have arrived outside the council. More as it comes in..

UPDATE 1 20:27

Lord Mayor has suspended the meeting again to loud applause and chants from the public gallery

limewire(english – united states)……hello wheres united kingdom! cheeck buggers—
Emma (@emmalou) September 13, 2006

UPDATE 2 21:18

The meeting is still suspended and at least 15 Guards are in the corridors whilst others have moved in clear the public gallery

Garda have arrived outside council chamber. #corkcc—
Alan Healy (@alanhealy) January 28, 2013

Protesters are refusing to leave – gardai negotiating with campaigners who claim it's a public building #corkcc—
Eoin English (@EoinBearla) January 28, 2013

and the Cork Campaign Against the Household and Water Tax release this press statement. (In full).

Tonight’s meeting of Cork City Council has just been adjourned following an occupation of the council chamber by more than 100 members of the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes. A banner with the words “axe the tax or watch your vote collapse” has been unfurled. Deafening chanting of ‘labour, labour, labour, out out out’ and ‘no way we won’t pay’ are echoing around the chamber

Explaining their reasons for tonight’s action organised in response to the imposition of the property tax local activist John Lonergan said:

“Tonight’s protest at Cork City Council has been organised for two reasons:

· To send out a clear message that there is going to be a fight against the property tax when it is introduced later this year

· To mark the cards for the Government parties that their votes will collapse in 2014 if they drive on with the property tax and austerity policies.

“We are ordinary members of the Cork public who have simply decided not to take it lying down anymore.

“We have been force-fed five years of austerity. Our household budgets have been cut to the bone. We have just had our child benefit cut and our PRSI contributions hiked. We cannot afford to pay a property tax and will do everything in our power to fight it.”

Fellow activist Karen Doyle added:

“The Government are manipulating language – this is not a real property tax, it is a tax on our homes. And there is nothing “progressive” about it. Council services will not improve as a result of it – in fact, they will be cut further in the next few years. Instead, it is a smash and grab raid to pay for the bank bailouts and to give the bondholders their pound of flesh.

“We object to the ‘choice’ about to be ‘offered’ to us by the Government – sign up for the tax or have it deducted from your wages or social welfare. This is blatant robbery and we intend to resist it.

“We will be calling on people to refuse to register for the so-called property tax and will join campaigners across the country in organising civil disobedience and massive protests to force the Government to withdraw the tax and the threat of deductions.

“We are protesting at City Hall because that is the place where we find the greatest number of politicians from the Government parties gathered together in one place.

“And we want to send these politicians and their parties a message that if they drive on with the property tax and with austerity policies that they will be decimated in the elections next year.

“As our slogan says: ‘Axe the Tax – Our Watch Your Vote Collapse.’”

UPDATE 3 00:19

Here’s how it ended.

Declan Ganley’s €50: Social Media & the Virtual Reality of the Irish Political Class No 2

Part two. Im gonna take these as wee chunks as I said in the previous post.

@Fintanmonahan1 Thank you. Sisters may only be able to buy a few sandwiches with proceeds but point needed 2b made in current environment.—
Declan Ganley (@declanganley) January 10, 2013

Aw Bless….though other views exist out there

Did I hear that right? The @declanganley donation was €50? #vinb So the Poor Clares are still the Poor Clares then…—
Bernie Linnane (@Berlinnaeus) January 10, 2013

@NoToLibertas @declanganley The Poor Clares? FFS. We were dragged to visit them when I was in school. You couldn't be more reactionary.—
Álvaro Reynolds (@alvaroreynolds) January 10, 2013

It has been hailed a “landmark case” by most mainstream media (I ain’t linking) earlier this week.  ‘Irish’* businessman Declan Ganley hired celeb-media-lawyer-of-the-celebs-in-media Paul Tweed to force Irish writer/blogger and journalist Kevin Barrington to pay €50 for a tweet Ganley found ‘offensive’. Its seems Ganley got in touch with the police before the tweet was removed and an apology issued. The €50 was paid to The Poor Clares at Ganleys request, one of many organisations in Ireland that have been implicated in decades of abuse of women and children in Ireland.  Children of the Poor Clares, written by Mavis Arnold and Heather Laskey in 2004 outline in horrific detail the systemic abuse.  The statement put out by Tweed calling the donation ‘substantial’ was Ganley’s wording, though those scoffing about €50 not being substantial aren’t poor. Though coming from celeb Tweed, who got Louis Walsh half a million a few weeks back,  its understandable that this seems less of a stunning legal victory laced with high penance and more of an ongoing pub challenge to the lulzy tweeters. Throw in a tenner each as see if you can get a letter from Tweed on Tweeting before the weeks out.

I see some demeaning what those with nothing consider 'substantial' 4them. 'Substantial' frm say @IrishTimes might be 30million RTE 200m etc—
Declan Ganley (@declanganley) January 11, 2013

Most of the coverage isnt really coverage. That is unless we speak of coverage in terms of copy/pasting statements from Paul Tweed, and framing this ‘event’ as both a watershed moment yet wedded to the hysteria and moral panic emanating from politicians and journalists alike about poor people and non mainstream media journalists being ‘impolite’ when using ‘new’ communication tools such as Twitter, Facebook and email.  Not one journalist bothered to contact Kevin Barrington himself to get his perspective as they wrote about him.  They were writing about stuff coming from his Twitter account, and quoting his blog, so heres  3 possible reasons for not contacting him.

1 The work pressure to turn around copy is too much to enable the journalists concerned to send an email/tweet/comment on his blog to get his attention.

2 The culture and work practices meant they really didn’t think it important to ask a main party to the story because he wasn’t ‘famous’ like Ganley and Tweed.

3 They couldnt be arsed to learn internetz…..

Clearly didn’t even google Ganley & Barrington, cos if they did they would have known that this is the second time Ganley has took issues with Barrington’s writing. Ganley took The Village magazine to the High Court seeking them to take all the copies of the magazines of the shelves for because of an article written by Barrington. You can read about that here, long and the short of it was Ganley dropped the proceedings in April 2008. The Village offered him an interview in the next issue to answer their investigative questions in the next issue. Editor Michael Smith has this to say at the time

“We attempted to commission a number of Ireland’s most respected journalists including Fintan O’Toole, Keelin Shanley, Michael Clifford, Justine McCarthy and Olivia O’Leary to carry out this interview but for contractual or other reasons they could not do it. We also suggested Frank Connolly, Harry Browne and Damien Kiberd who were willing to do it but Declan Ganley was unwilling to be interviewed by them. He was willing to be interviewed by Vincent Browne or me but Vincent could not do it and I, as editor, felt I should preserve some distance from this legally-driven interview. Declan Ganley wanted to be interviewed by Bruce Arnold. He suggested a list of seven names including George Hook, Jason O’Toole, David Quinn, Eamon Dunphy, Matt Cooper, Richard Waghorne and Hermann Kelly. We were happy with Eamon Dunphy and he generously agreed to do the interview but in the end could not, for contractual reasons. Time was moving on so we felt the best thing in the circumstances was to hear from Mr Ganley in close to his own terms, from a journalist of integrity who is well disposed to him. Bruce Arnold it was.”

So Arnold did a puff piece with Ganley (also at the previous link). If you need be under any illusions about the type of relationship between Ganley and Arnold a few year ago you could read The Fight for Democracy- The Libertas Voice in Europe. I did. Its really worth the read once you get passed the notion that this is any sort of rigorous inquiry. In fact it is the almost massaging tone Arnold adopts – and the chummy plummy ramblings it enables that highlights clearly the type of democratic vision that underpins Ganleys political perspective. And it aint pretty. Its pretty much straight forward British neoconservatism, straight out of the Henry Jackson Institute, dressed up with a wee bit of blarney and shamrock so as not to scare the ponies. One wonders if he would be so gushing today given he is intimate with the past working of The Poor Clares, having written the foreword for the book mentioned earlier authored by his wife Mavis.

I’m pretty versed in flexible nationalisms having grown up in the north, but Ganley’s brand of flexibility is the that type associated with the people in a hurry. They see national identity as a flag of convenience, and the democratic structure of nation states as things to bend, shape, buy off or otherwise capture ( like starting a political movement like Libertas) to suit themselves. There is a difference between the right wing racists and homophobic nationalist parties around Europe Ganley met with and recruited from to his Libertas gig, and the strategy of the gig itself.

Which brings me to the ‘Irish’* from earlier

I use ‘Irish’ as there seems to be a certain ambiguity over what national status Ganley uses depending on what hes doing. Its seems from information on the business transparency website Duedil.com that Ganley is registered as a British national. They list him as current holding two company directorships- both non trading. One is the familiar sounding The Libertas Foundation registered to 167-169 Great Portland Street London W1W 5PF.  This company filed winding up papers on Christmas eve past. Not a bad time to go under the media radar right? The other listed director is a British man called Robin Matthews, who is also director of Authentic Self Limited, an non trading ‘business consultancy’ based in Surrey UK.

Thanks to Cass for this update

@soundmigration @declanganley's codirector was Lt. Col Robin Mathews, British Army,former head of spin in Afghanistan- bit.ly/11m8kwn—
Cass Flower (@cassflower) January 11, 2013

So the co director of The Libertas Foundation is a high ranking spin doctor of the British Army. Wholly want one expects of a democracy movement right?

Ganley is also listed as a British director of Ganley International Limited with an Registered address 167-169 Great Portland Street London W1W 5PF United Kingdom but a trading address of 26-28 Mount Row London W1K 3SQ. Ganley International Limited has a few directors, but one in particular ‘CCS Directors Ltd’ have been pretty busy. They have had 0ver 6000 previous directorships. You’d expect they would leave soon trace with all that work right?  Google them and you’ll see they dont leave anything.

So its unclear whether Ganley is Irish for cultural reasons and British for cashmoney reasons or what the score actually is. You could ask him on Twitter though. Because that’s actually the point of legal actions like this and useful responses to them. Its about shutting people up. Kevin Barrington has, like a few other free lance journalists and researchers, been a consistent thorn in Ganleys side. Ganley’s actions against Barrington when seen in this context seem to stem more from frustration and anger. But things are different these days

Ultimately libel laws and their fans and profiteers don’t get the internet quite simply cos they are a different demographic. They don’t get crowd sourced intelligence, citizen journalism and its multi-directional critically-aware curiosity and it occasional absense of respect for respectability. They don’t get cultures of openness, transparency and sharing, and the interrelationship of these individual-collective values that frame many peoples understanding of democracy power and agency. And they sure a fuck don’t get the lulz. Libel laws have always been about controlling the medium itself rather than controlling what people can or cant say, but the more mainstream media spin this as some muzzling on Twitter and the internet, the more they look like me talking about dubstep at a party. Daft in public… Ganley himself is being lauded by some as the saviour of decent polite discourse, but to other he looks like Cartman screaming “respect my authority”.

Technology is not neutral, and questions of how people use technology, especially public communication technology, always has political and social dimensions. The shit didn’t fall down from the sky. Its not like Ganley doesn’t get this. He runs a company that runs US intelligence and military communications infrastructure. He’s more than vague about his role in and earnings from  the disastrous vampire capitalist privatization projects in the post Soviet Union that drove millions into poverty whilst setting up new oligarchies that crush genuine democractic movements to this day. Hes pretty quiet about his role in Iraq.

For many people thats enough to question whether you have a ‘good name’ to protect in the first place. Add to that the list of racists under his Libertas umbrella. Is Ganley the Willie Frazier of Irish European politics? Both like flags of conveniences,  both mix illusions of power-grandeur with lashings of victim-hood, neither are very open about their past, and both see and support that the final arbitrator of truth to the hard power of (para)military might.

Some might seek to advise Ganley to go a wee bit easier with the litigation around people’s legitimate concerns about him. He chooses to be an outspoken public figure, and to push a right wing agenda based upon inequality. But recently when some people have started shutting down political discussion and inquiry on the interwebs, lots of other people started to take note. When you are punting to own telecommunication infrastructure across Europe like Ganley is, lots of eyes are going to be watching. He should expect that.

This isn’t a landmark victory or anything other than mainstream media yet again not being able to make sense of whats going on around them when some rich/powerful people hand them a press release that mentions ‘social media’. As I write this I see that the Irish Times has another piece about it. Its seems Mr Tweed is distancing himself from Mr Ganley statement. Its all ‘I was only working on instruction from my client’ etc etc.  Colm Meegan continues the narrative however. “Earlier this week the apology received extensive coverage in the media as it is believed to be a first for an Irish tweet.” It was believed to be a first by the media who then gave it loads of coverage because they believed that and now are describing how they gave it coverage because they believed that. This is more than a tautology. It sketches out the confusion of the specific bound in the confusion of the systemic .

It is not a first. I’ve had people send me abusive tweets,  sometimes I gave out to them for it, they said sorry and we both deleted. Ive sent tweets i later apoligised for. I see this happen at least twice a month.   It happens lots.  Only the very odd, narcissistic, or those in need of political visibility would head for Paul Tweed.  Pro Life bandwagon hopping in the immediate future you say?

Social Media and the Virtual Reality of the Irish Political Class: No 1

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise” Voltaire.

“We don’t see the people who are doing real things getting enough props. We often see politicians who are everywhere but nowhere at the same goddamn time. You know the kind of person: You see them everywhere on television but nowhere in front of your face. ” Chuck D

“Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits, in the classic formulation. Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist, with whatever suffering and injustice that it entails, as long as it is possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can. At this stage of history either one of two things is possible. Either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community interests, guided by values of solidarity, sympathy and concern for others, or alternatively there will be no destiny for anyone to control. As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority, it is going to set policy in the special interests that it serves. But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interests of the community as a whole, and by now that means the global community. The question is whether privileged elite should dominate mass communication and should use this power as they tell us they must — namely to impose necessary illusions, to manipulate and deceive the stupid majority and remove them from the public arena. The question in brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided. In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured; they may well be essential to survival.” Noam Chomsky

It has been apparent to many people in this state, across Europe and much further afield that the professional political class are living in a sort of virtual reality. We have political system that has been described as corrupt in all areas of public life in the Mahon report. We have elected government ministers who come onto the state broadcaster stating clearly that lying is an electoral strategy, and we have political organisations that opportunistically use the massive rise in suicides in the state to try deflect the role their decisions play in the rising tide of material and emotion misery of our society. We have successive government ministers beholden to finance capital, and we live within a neoliberal politcal system where the power of capital continues to squash the possibility of genuinely democratic equality. We live is a state where tax laws are written by the same Irish legal firms that benefit from Ireland position in the global tax dodging network. The main political organisation in government, Fine Gael was explicit in saying any tax rises on the rich and on private corporations cannot be countenanced unless the most impoverished in our society got kicked a lot more so as not to upset universal kamra, the ever vague but omnipotent entity know as the “confidence of the market”.  Few professional political commentators ever seems to point out that if ‘confidence’ is the only thing holding this system up, perhaps the system itself is a fundamentally flawed concept and we need something completely different.  I dunno this might be a bit out there, but something founded upon care, compassion, social need might be a start. But I would say that being a left wing anarchist extremist. Maybe Im a dreamer. But Im not the only one.

Meanwhile back in the real world we have a government minister Kathleen Lynch, with responsibility for mental health saying she will consider setting up a support system funded by us to help TDs and Senators ‘deal’ with increasing levels of public anger, whilst at the same time slashing public resources funded by us on our public mental health. Then we have FG TD Mary Mitchell O Connor releasing a press release saying “It is impossible to quantify how many deaths have been caused or contributed to in this country by the negative elements of social media. The unconstrained venom being directed at individuals on Twitter, FaceBook and YouTube is undoubtedly doing untold damage.” The contradicitions may not be immediately obvious, but if suicides due to social media are “impossible to quantify” how can they be “undoubtedly doing untold damage”

"It is impossible to quantify how many deaths have been caused or contributed to" but we need to panic anyway, says Mary Mitchell O’Connor.—
Allan Cavanagh (@AllanCavanagh) January 06, 2013

No one can condemn serious attempts to look at how peer abuses amongst school kids affects them and to try to reduce harm, however people like Pat Rabbitte etc have specifically conflated bullying within younger kids with people being completely pissed off at the structural failings of our political and economic system.

There are no government press releases on suicides relating to the indignity, social stigma and powerless that often comes from being forced into poverty or unemployment, or from the multiple and complex fears causes by threatening letters sent by private money lending banks and organisations. Using the framework and logic of the public pronouncements made on social media as factors in death, perhaps we should ourselves should be creating our own counter narratives. Would the possibility of change and equality in our society be better served by properly describing many of the deaths as “assisted suicide” since banks and government decisions have help facilitate peoples decisions to take there own lives. Or should we follow the lead of people in Spain who now reframe suicide caused by the macro political-economic system as murder.

Its hard to know whether the attitudes and statements from government are founded on intellectual incoherency or collective psychological dishonesty, but it is as if the present political class feel that they have some intrinsic right to live behind a firewall of their own victimhood, sealed off from the social consequences of their actions on our lives. However their attitude to peoples ability to use social media tools and comment public spaces afforded us via Twitter, blogs, comments sections etc is telling. Nor is it restricted to Ireland. Its a global issue with very real consequences. This week Rashid Saleh al-Anzi was sentenced to jail in the ‘friendly’ dictatorship in Kuwait for sending a tweet calling for political reform and an end to corruption. This got reported in the Irish Times. Last week noted right wing ‘economist” Jim Power called for ‘less democracy and more benign dictatorship’ on Newstalk. His interviewer let this without exploring any of the implications for such proto-facist free marketeerism. Once again it was ordinary folks using social media technology that took up that baton.

We are basically being told to shut the fuck about our own existences, about our material poverty and our individual and social fears for the future. Even as we are being pissed upon, we are being spoken too ask the rabble, the mob, the motley children, to be scolded and put in our place by our more learned others. The instinctive response to that is a simple and clear “No. Fuck Them.”

Is it ‘polite’? Is its ‘nice’? No its not. Of course its not. There is nothing polite about introducing charges for people needed chemotreatment, there is nothing polite about hiding 25 years worth of meeting minutes of the Clearing House Group, there is  nothing polite about poverty or house eviction. Theres nothing polite or nice getting legal letters from money lender taking you to court whilst the coked up fuckers in global high finance and the Irish professional legal firms who screwed us over indemnify themselves with law and corporate structures they designed precisely for that purpose. So excuse us if we lose our decorum a little. There’s a war going on outside and its a war on our lives. Its a war of inequality and a war against democracy and justice.

Fuck’em for evening daring to demand I/you/we ‘be nice’ as I/you/we watch people around hurting and fearful. Fuck’em for trying to encourage us to internalise their bullshit worldviews and values and lack of social imagination. Fuck’em for being so stupid as to think we are not aware of what goes on around us. But saying Fuck’em is merely an emotional indicator, and on it own it is just a temporary release. The refusal to be bound by the logic of market democracy is an orientation. If we aim only to be able to criticise, rather than to change, if the limits of our desire are only to be able to tweet or make comment, rather than to act together to assert full authority over the decisions that affect our lives we will remain in an echo chamber of our collective dispairs. What we have now is the ability to be visible to each other in ways previously impossible. It will take more than 140 characters to really challenge unjust power but making a new meanings, new social imaginations from our own narratives, about our actual existences as they are now, is central to making what previously seem impossible possible.