The second installment of CrisisJam’s weekly mini-avalanche of articles is now up on the Politico.ie site.
Starting things off is Gavin Titley who asks “Is there anything left to say about the spectacle of the last week? How do you sketch out that place beyond absurdity, the ‘are’ in ‘we are where we are’?”
In [...]

Margaret Thatcher has been out of office since the early 1990’s, yet her imprint on Britain and Ireland has outlived her premiership by two decades.
Thatcherism’s fan club in Ireland - The ‘Progressive’ Democrats and all who they influenced in both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael - only lasted in office from the late 80’s until, [...]

Rev. Jesse Jackson will push message that equality and rights matter in GE 11
Election 2011 got under starter’s orders this week with the launch of a campaign urging people to “Make Your Mark for Equality and Human Rights” on their ballot papers.
Equality & Rights Alliance, a coalition of 155 organisations and activists with a membership [...]

“at the drafting stage, the implications of national budgets and of major national fiscal policy measures [should be] reviewed at the level of the Union,”
European Roundtable of Industrialists, 2002
Below is a press release from Corporate Europe Observatory on their just released paper Corporate EUtopia, which discusses in detail EU proposals to monitor national budgets; reinforce [...]

Public Meeting
The Bloom Movement invites you to a public meeting:
A Justice Response to the EU-IMF Loans: Local and Global Perspectives
Wed 26th January 2011, 7 pm
Central Hotel, Exchequer Street, Dublin 2
Chair: Nessa Ní Chasaide, Debt and Development Coalition Ireland.
Speakers:
Michael Taft (UNITE): The Irish crisis and the EU-IMF intervention
Jose Antonio Gutierrez (Latin America Solidarity Centre): Lessons from [...]

If a graph can chart a thousand words, how many does two graphs chart? The math is not that simple - especially when you’re comparing Ireland’s comparative standing in both social justice and financial wealth.
In this first graph - from the Bertlelsmann Stiftung foundation - brings together OECD and related data to rank countries in [...]

I woke early this morning and, as always on such occasions, my conscience got to me - atheists have notoriously active consciences. I’m inclined to think I may have wronged poor Davie Adams. An Dorcha is right that his former associations shouldn’t matter and anyway the situation in the North of Ireland at the time [...]

January’s Edition of the Socialist Voice is out now.
Articles this month include:

Repudiate the debt!
Will an election change anything? [EMC]
Political collapse, and the alternatives [CMK]
Illegitimate, odious, and perpetual! [NL]
Further banking losses likely [NL]
We have rights only in so far as we are able to defend them [EMC]
SIPTU members in [...]

This article was written both as a think-piece and a message to urge those concerned for educational equality and quality issues to examine and make inputs on the draft plan entitled ‘Better Literacy and Numeracy for Young People‘ put forward by the Tánaiste and Department of Education and Skills last November.
The deadline for receipt of [...]

I’m not disposed towards conspiracy theories - the world is, after all, a wide world. So, no, I do think the antics in Fianna Fail are a well-planned ruse to take our attention away from the crisis coming down the line. Still . . . .
The Citigroup’s global head of credit believes Ireland is heading [...]