Posted by Jim on September 30, 2017
Ahead of the October 1 referendum on self-determination, the Spanish
government is engaged in a level of political repression in Catalonia
not experienced since the days of the Franco dictatorship. Kate Shea
Baird writes for the Independent on the sudden collapse in Spanish
democracy.
Last week Mariano Rajoy lost control of the narrative on the Catalan
question. Appearing before the press after a series of raids and arrests
designed to halt a unilateral referendum on independence planned for 1
October, the Spanish Prime Minister trotted out the government’s
well-worn arguments in defence of the constitution and the “rights of
all Spaniards”.
However, Rajoy’s professed defence of the rule of law is increasingly at
odds with reality on the ground. Over recent weeks, judges in Spain have
used startlingly loose interpretations of the Supreme Court’s ruling on
the referendum’s illegality to issue orders that violate many of the
rights they’re charged with upholding. Local police across Catalonia
have seized posters and banners related to the 1 October vote, and the
Spanish Civil Guard has searched a number of newspaper offices for
incriminating materials. These aren’t signs of a state that’s confident
in its authority.
Significantly, this legal overreach hasn’t been limited to Catalonia,
and nor has the popular response to it. Judges in Madrid and Bilbao have
ruled public debates on the Catalan question illegal. While both events
eventually went ahead despite the court suspensions, the apparent
attempt to use criminal law to suppress political expression recalls
some of the darkest moments of Spain’s recent history.
The scale of state repression in Catalonia and its extension to the rest
of Spain mark a significant shift in the ongoing dispute over the
national question. The conflict is less and less about competing
conceptions of democracy and increasingly about the defence of the basic
rights like freedom of assembly, speech and the press.
As Rajoy addressed the country on Wednesday night, the streets of
Barcelona swelled with tens of thousands of people demonstrating outside
the Catalan economy ministry, where a junior minister had been arrested
earlier that morning. On the other side of the city, protesters gathered
outside the headquarters of the pro-independence party “Popular Unity
Candidacy”, blocking the entrance of the national police, which had
spent the morning attempting to search the offices without a warrant.
Is this a revolt with a national current? Undoubtedly. But there is
something else going on, too. Wednesday’s rallies were not the highly
organised, disciplined affairs that characterise the annual
demonstrations of the independence movement. Their spirit owed something
to the anti-establishment “indignados” movement that occupied the
squares of Spain’s major cities in May 2011 and politicised a
generation.
Protesters alternated between collective renditions of the Catalan
national anthem, “Els Segadors” and the libertarian and anti-fascist
chants of “the streets will always be ours” and “no passaran”. As night
fell, the air was filled with the sound of people banging pots from
their balconies in protest, even in neighbourhoods where support for
independence is relatively low. Elsewhere in Spain, emergency solidarity
protests were held in more than 20 cities, using the hashtag
#CatalunaNoEstasSola, “Catalonia, you’re not alone”.
Since the financial crisis in 2008, both the independence and the
“indignados” movements have questioned the foundations of the so-called
“’78 Regime” in Spain, the constitutional settlement that transitioned
the country to democracy after decades of dictatorship. While neither
movement on its own has had the strength to pose a serious threat to the
established order, united around a common cause, they could create the
most formidable grassroots movement in Europe.
Posted by Jim on September 27, 2017
Despite their deal, the Conservatives are cutting the ground from under their ‘mates’
Fintan O’Toole. Irish Times. Dublin.Tuesday, September 26, 2017
I apologize to the Democratic Unionist Party. After it did a deal to keep Theresa May in power, I suggested it would eventually be stabbed in the back by its Tory friends. This has proved to be doubly wrong. It didn’t happen eventually – it has happened already. And it has been stabbed, not in the back, but in the front. Sorry about that.
The DUP’s enthusiastic support for Brexit is largely an exercise in identity politics, a way of expressing an emotional attachment to Britishness. But it has two political imperatives. The DUP’s own voters do not want a hard Border. And they do not want to lose the agricultural subsidies that account for 87 per cent of farm incomes in Northern Ireland.
They need their friends in London to swing these two big things for them. Otherwise Arlene Foster will look less like Moses leading her people to the promised land and more like a scout leader who has lost the compass, forgotten the tents and dropped the sandwiches in the bog.
The DUP always acknowledged that a hard frontier is not just undesirable but impossible, a reality made starker by figures showing the Border is crossed 110 million times a year. But it has been pushing a magical solution: technology. Some as-yet-undiscovered technology (vaguely imagined as having something to do with number-plate recognition and data analytics) would allow the frictionless movements of goods and people.
There was something oddly touching in this act of faith, like one of those cargo cults that developed on remote South Sea islands when fridges and TVs washed ashore and were worshipped as mysterious messages from the gods.
But, while the DUP was placing all its bets on this technological thoroughbred, its Tory friends dragged the poor beast out the back and shot it. At the end of July, Jeffrey Donaldson was still rhapsodising about the ingenious machines that were going to solve the Border problem, sighing that “Modern technology is a wonderful thing”. Two weeks later the Tory government published its long-awaited position paper on the Irish dimension of the Brexit negotiations.
It was a mercy killing without the mercy. The DUP’s solution was dismissed in a single line, committing the UK to “avoid any physical border infrastructure in either the United Kingdom or Ireland, for any purpose”. No physical Border infrastructure means no magic machines. Unless it is going to suggest that Border controls will be purely spiritual, it is hard to see where this leaves the DUP.
Sent to slaughterOn agricultural subsidies, too, the DUP has been brushed aside by its Brexiteer mates. The party knows very well that agriculture matters much more to Northern Ireland than it does to England. And most of it is currently unthinkable without the cheque in the post from Brussels: Northern Ireland makes up 3 per cent of the UK population but gets almost 10 per cent of its European Union farm subsidies.
A beef farmer in Northern Ireland who followed the DUP’s advice to vote for Brexit might typically have a commercial income of £14,745. The Brussels cheque is for almost twice that amount: £28,726. What’s going to happen after Brexit? The DUP has a simple answer: London will send that farmer £28,726.
In the short term, this is probably true. The Brexiteers cannot afford an immediate food security crisis, so London will pony up for a few years. But in the medium term, frankly my dears, London doesn’t give a damn.
Remember the tragicomic episode in July when one of the arch-Brexiteers, Michael Gove, now the UK’s food minister, visited a farm show in Antrim and was feted by the DUP? He issued a statement praising the quality and worldwide renown of, um, Welsh lamb. Hard to blame him – all these rainy, hilly peripheries where people talk in funny accents do rather meld into one another.
The ultra free marketWhat the Brexiteers really want is an ultra free-market Britain, liberated from subsidies and regulations. George Eustice, the UK farming minister, has been clear about the implications: “If subsidies equal direct payments, of course we want to move away from that.”
The promise to protect farm subsidies is tied up with the idea that Britain will have a vast amount of money to spend because it will no longer be sending it to Brussels. Leaving aside the mendacity of the infamous £350 million a week that is supposed to be available, has the DUP noticed that this mythic sum has been promised yet again to the National Health Service, not to farmers? In the 4,326-word essay in which Boris Johnson revived these claims, he said nothing about giving a penny of the dividend to farmers.
The DUP needs to consult a self-help manual, He’s Just Not that into You, which is advertised as ideal for those “who want to get past the crappy get-out lines fellas use”. The crappy get-out lines about the wonders of technology and the cheque in the post from London didn’t disguise the truth that the Brexiteers are just not that into dealing with the complications of Ireland. Whether it likes it or not, the DUP has to join the rest of Ireland in trying to do so.
Posted by Jim on September 26, 2017
An Official Communication from the UFA
#34 of 2017 · September 26th
- ROBERT “PUDGIE” WALSH (LADDER 108) STREET RENAMING
This Sunday, October 1st , will be a “Street Naming Ceremony” to honor Lt. Robert “Pudgie Walsh, Ladder 108. Location: Avenue P & East 36th Street, Marine Park, Brooklyn. Time: 12 noon. Pudgie was the former Head Coach and Founder of the Bravest Football Club, long time Head Coach of the Brooklyn Mariner Football Club, as well as a member of the U.S. Navy. All off duty members and their families are invited to attend. Attire for the day is casual.
Posted by Jim on September 25, 2017
A chara
It is said everyone deserves their day in Court. Why are the “Ballymurphy Massacre” families, waiting for their day in court, forty-six years after the killing of their loved ones? Why is Arlene Foster’s permission needed to get Court inquests and a chance for truth?
The “Ballymurphy Massacre,” was set in motion when British Prime Minister Edward Heath greenlit Brian Faulkner’s call for Internment. Faulkner’s Ulster Unionist Party ran Britain’s Orange State for nearly fifty years. Internment, or mass arrests and indefinite imprisonment of suspected Republicans without charges or trial, was their answer to periodic Irish resistance.
INTERNMENT
On Monday August 9,1971,British troopers rampaged across the north, broke into homes, terrorized families, jailed hundreds without charge, and began a catastrophic Internment policy lasting four years.
Mass arrests and home invasions were step one. They selected men held without charge, hooded and brutalized them with techniques which have Britain charged with torture in the European Court.
ELEVEN VICTIMS
The massacre began hours after the first days’ raids ended. British Paratroopers barracked in Ballymurphy came out and opened fire without warning.
A Catholic priest, waving a white handkerchief, Fr. Hugh Mullan, nineteen year old Francis Quinn, mother of 8 children, Joan Connolly, were each shot dead for going to help wounded victims.
Daniel Teggart, was felled by a bullet to the leg, then shot a total of 14 times, as he lay on the ground. Noel Philips was also shot dead that first night.
Joseph Murphy was wounded, and taken into custody. Before his death on August 22nd, he whispered that he had been shot a second time while in the Para’s barracks. The second bullet was found after his body was exhumed for an autopsy.
Edward Doherty, John Laverty, Joseph Corr and John McKerr were murdered over the next two days. An eleventh murder victim, Paddy McCarthy, died of a heart attack, when troopers placed an empty gun inside his mouth in mock execution.
COVER STORIES
However the “Ballymurphy Massacre” did not end with taking 11 innocent lives, or taking parents from 57 children. The British also massacred the truth. Cover stories were crafted. Victims became posthumous gunmen. British Royal Military Police made their troopers innocent and the dead guilty.
No eyewitnesses could challenge the official story line. No lawyers could ask why no British casualties, nor weapons recovered from so many dead IRA gunmen. The BBC and newspapers relayed this British version.
Brigadier General Frank Kitson, had written “Law should be used as just another weapon in the government’s arsenal… little more than a propaganda cover for disposal of unwanted members of the public”.(Low Intensity Operations)
As a secret British Ministry Memorandum, uncovered by Relatives For Justice put it, the British “Army should not be inhibited in its campaign by the threat of Court proceedings”.
British troopers would have undeclared immunity. The families of murdered “unwanted members of the public” would not be allowed to “inhibit” Britain’s campaign with court proceedings. They would have to swallow their grief and take it.
It worked so well in Ballymurphy that the British decided to try it again five months later, with the mistake of too many witnesses on “Bloody Sunday”.
RELATIVES FOR JUSTICE
More than a quarter-century later, Relatives For Justice organized a conference for forgotten victims of the Troubles. Afterwards, still grieving families vowed to fight for truth. They fought for and in 2011, won the legal right to reopen inquests. They would get their day in court and chance for truth!
They are still waiting. Eighteen months ago, British Chief Justice Declan Morgan, met the Ballymurphy families, among others, about delays in legacy inquests. Morgan said Britain was legally obligated to hold these inquests. He planned to deal with all 50 legacy inquests within 5 years, given cooperation and some funding.
On September 5th,Morgan went public with his “deep frustration” at getting nothing. The funds are there said the British, but need agreement and Arlene Foster’s permission for release. Democratic Unionist Party head Arlene Foster refused. She says it would divert money from “innocent victims.” After all, Foster assumes, if British troopers killed the Ballymurphy victims, they must have been guilty of something.
Once the British ruled through the UUP, and blamed them for the injustices of the Orange State. Today they give nationalists a say, but impose sham requirements for agreements amounting to a DUP veto. The British not worried about the victims being proven innocent. They worry that the truth may point to the guilt of those who fired the shots and those who gave them immunity to do so. They think unionists can always cancel out nationalist demands. The British do worry about American pressure. Will Irish-Americans help get the “Ballymurphy Massacre” families their chance for truth?
Slan
MARTIN GALVIN
The writer is Freedom-for-all-Ireland Chair for ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS, in New York State.
Posted by Jim on September 23, 2017
I will fight for “local families” says DUP man amid controversy over housing development
DUP councilor Paul Porter with party leader
Arlene Foster. The old Dunmurry high school
site was the subject of comments by the Seymour
Hill and Conway Residents’ Association calling
for homes to be filled up with people from the
loyalist/unionist community
Brendan Hughes. Irish News. Belfast.
Saturday, September 23, 2017A DUP councilor has said he will fight for “local housing for local families” amid controversy over a residents’ group calling for homes to be “filled up with people from the Loyalist/Uunionist[Protestant] community”.
Seymour Hill and Conway Residents’ Association faced criticism earlier this week over a Facebook post encouraging people to meet with a DUP councilor about a new social housing development.
The group told people to “call in to see councilor Jonathan Craig” about the old Dunmurry High School site development, adding: “Please get yourself on the list and let’s get these houses filled up with people from [the] loyalist/unionist community [Protestant].”
Their board includes the former Lagan Valley MLA’s wife, ex-DUP councilor Yvonne Craig. Nationalist parties branded the remarks “extremely disappointing” and “disgraceful”.
Mr. Craig distanced himself from the comments, saying he has “no influence whatsoever” over housing allocation.
The residents’ group later apologized for using the “wrong vocabulary” and said their message was “aimed at local houses for local people”.
Following the apology, DUP Lisburn councilor Paul Porter on Thursday wrote on Facebook: “As your local councilor, I will continue to fight for more local housing for local families and individuals !”
The post was ‘liked’ on the social media site by several DUP representatives.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin South Belfast MLA Máirtín Ó Muilleoir yesterday expressed concern over a development site having “no plans yet to build homes for local families”.
In a video on Twitter, Mr. Ó Muilleoir said: “Distressed to hear that while the community of Short Strand lost homes when the Sirocco site was cleared, the developers have no plans yet to build homes for local families on the Sirocco site which I find absolutely disgraceful. Needs sorted as soon as possible.”