Friday, Jan 27th 2012
Latest figures show long-term unemployment is rising sharply (CSO, 9 December 2011) - yet the recent budget threatens the future of our Community Employment Programme for the long-term unemployed!
The Community Employment (CE) Programme has been targeted for massive cuts in the recent budget. If these cuts are implemented, the impact on the local community in [...]
J Woods, from Gort an Choirce, Dun nGall on not paying the household charge
Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan, on introducing the household charge, described it as a mere palatable €2 per week. It’s very easy for him to count so little on €2 (he’s on €160,000-plus a year).
Invitations to attend the meeting went out to all [...]
What price the new democracy? Goldman Sachs conquers Europe
Old news now perhaps, but a useful reference for Michael Youltan’s piece on the front page.
Picking up well-connected policymakers on their way out of government is only one half of the Project, sending Goldman alumni into government is the other half. Like Mr Monti, Mario Draghi, who [...]
AGGRESSOR : in plain English a country or organisation(s) that begins hostilities provoking reaction
(In the text below I will try to develop and share some of the thoughts and ideas generated by the podium presentations and the discussion that followed during the ULA meeting in Dublin’s Wynns Hotel last Tuesday night).
It is becoming abundantly clear [...]
Book Review: Hilary Wainwright, Reclaim the state: experiments in popular democracy. London / New York / Calcutta: Seagull (2nd edition - 2009).
A new book by Hilary Wainwright is usually a significant event: Beyond the Fragments (with Sheila Rowbotham and Lynne Segal, 1979), Arguments for a New Left (1994) and the first edition of Reclaim the [...]
UK-US ’special relationship’ is alive and well - it runs from City of London to Wall St. | Nick Shaxson
Wisdom abounds that one of the many outcomes of Cameron’s Veto over the EU Summit Treaty was that not only did it isolate the UK in Europe, but it also occurred without the safety net [...]
The December edition of the Socialist Voice is out now (PDF) or from the Communist Party of Ireland Socialist Voice website.
Articles in this issue include:
Monopoly capitalism: “technocracy” or fascism? [NL]
The outing of “social Europe” [CMK]
The budget: Make the poor, the sick, children and pensioners pay [EMC]
Enda’s big speech [MA]
A tale [...]
The outcome of the EU summit has widely been hailed in the British media as a triumph for David Cameron. It is rare that a complete rupture and isolation in multi-party negotiations is regarded as a triumph - but this is a function of the dominant and still growing xenophobia of the British press.
The EU [...]
“You are Irish, I like George Bernard Shaw”
“Shaw. Wow…I don’t know much about him”
The disappointment on the face of the Egyptian man sitting beside me would have made the Sphinx cry.
It was just the truth. Shaw is one of the Irish writers I know least about. I saw ‘Saint Joan’ in the Abbey Theatre (I [...]
Depression and Democracy | Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman says that the current ‘depression’ and turmoil in Europe is aiding and abetting the rise of authoritarian rule in Europe. He points to the anti-democratic actions of Fidesz in Hungry, a party he refers to as ‘Centre-Right’. People should stop using this ‘centre’ stuff as there is nothing [...]
