Posted by Louise Sullivan on August 17, 2013
| Summer might be winding down, but it’s not over yet! There are still a few weeks left for you and your faith community to schedule a district visit with your Representative and Senators. If you’re still on the fence about it, we’re here to help! Contact your CRS Regional Office for assistance. You can also watch a recording of our recent webcast for some tips and tools to make your advocacy efforts more effective.
The three issues we’re focusing on during this recess period are:
- Immigration Reform: Our talking points focus on addressing the root causes of migration and Catholic Relief Servcices’ work overseas in migrant communites. Please be sure to visit the Justice for Immigrants website for more information on the Church’s position on immigration reform.
- The Farm Bill and how it impacts global hunger. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has extensive information about how the Farm Bill affects hunger in the United States as well as small farmers, conservation efforts and rural communities in the U.S.
- Protecting poverty-focused international assistance funding.
Because of you and your efforts, our brothers and sisters who are poor and vulnerable have a voice on Capitol Hill. Your advocacy actions and prayers do make a difference! Thank you for all you do on their behalf.
Yours in Christ,
Your Catholics Confront Global Poverty Team
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Posted by Jim on August 16, 2013
August 12, 2013
EDITOR
IRISH NEWS
113-117 Donegal Street
Belfast, Northern Ireland
BTI 2GE
INTERNMENT RALLY IN BELFAST
The injustices which drew so many nationalists to the streets on Internment Day in Belfast must not be overlooked because of loyalist reaction. Internment Day had long been a day to march against British injustice. The symbolism was self-evident.
Internment went beyond imprisonment without charge or trial which began on August 9, 1971. British forces had shot down those who got in the way at Ballymurphy, hooded and tortured selected internees, and then given their final answer to Internment protests on “Bloody Sunday.” Compton and Widgery rubber-stamped it all.
Internment revealed Britain’s willingness to mete out and cover-up injustice whenever it served British interests. After Internment became untenable, it was replaced by Diplock Courts, forced confessions and a thinly veiled conveyor belt to the H-Blocks or Armagh.
As the first step in Britain’s new system, Republicans were arrested, denied bail on flimsy pretexts and taken off the streets for lengthy periods before trial. Often the charges were dismissed or case collapsed. Republicans during the 1970s coined the phrase ‘Internment by Remand’ to describe this tactic. Today the British have updated Internment by Remand. Some waited as long as three or four years to be acquitted.
For years, Internment Day marches were a launching pad for successive campaigns supporting Republican prisoners against each new British injustice. In recent times the Internment Day rallies were wound down then ended, perhaps in hopes that new structures including a compromised justice ministry and constabulary boards could be worked to end British repression from within.
There is no question that the number of Republicans wrongfully imprisoned today is dramatically less than in the past. However the plight of any Republican prisoners, who are victims of injustice and of their families, is not eased because there are fewer of them.
During past Internment Marches, Republican speakers repeatedly charged that British rule was irreformable and that nationalist politicians who joined the British system would end up as partners in its injustices. Perhaps those who taught me and so many others that truth were reminded of it on Internment Day.
Slan, Martin Galvin
Posted by admin on
By
Irish Voice Editorial,
The Unionist marching season includes about 2,300 marches across Northern Ireland. The Republican marching season includes about 70 marches usually clustered around Easter Rising commemoration ceremonies and held in their own communities.
It is important to place the marches from the different communities in perspective when discussing the outrageous activities around the 2013 marching season.
People calling for a ban on all marches equate the two communities as similar, but that is far from the truth.
Marching has always been a Unionist weapon of expressing their supremacy, and fond hopes that marches would eventually become just cultural symbols of diminishing significance, alas, have not panned out.
Many of the Unionist marches are not controversial and are held in their own neighborhoods, but there are an increasing number that seek to march through or infringe on Nationalist areas where residents want no lambeg drums beating or triumphalist chants, often from inebriated participants.
What changed this year was that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) stepped up to the mark and carried out the law to the letter when dealing with rogue marches and marchers.
That was a huge change and very important for the future of the North.
There is no more visible example of a successful peace process than a police force that protects both communities equally.
In recent years the PSNI had been seen to favor the Orange marchers, but this year that changed dramatically and scores of their police force were injured defending Nationalist neighborhoods from banned marches.
If there is a silver lining in the marches debacle that is it. It was an important boost for Nationalist community confidence in the relatively new police force.
Otherwise it is easy to despair at the lack of political foresight in unionism, which each year allows the marchers to trek into the same dead end politically where they seem to be at the mercy of the ugliest tendencies within their community.
Where is the leadership in all that? Where is the need to take an international view and see the damage that is being done to Northern Ireland overseas with the gory images of police being stoned, masked mobs roaming at will and massive property damage?
Alas, every summer it seems the mob mentality rules and the Unionist politicians duck for cover.
The reality is that the Orange Order, once the touchstone of political power in Unionist Northern Ireland, is quickly disappearing as a result of these riots.
The days when all top positions in Northern Ireland were filled by men who swore allegiance to that order are gone.
Posted by admin on August 15, 2013
Irish politicians move to aid of 50,000 Irish citizens “living in limbo” and cut off from home
By IrishCentral Staff Writers,
The matter of the estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish living in the United States was discussed by 12 representatives from Congress at Ireland’s government buildings, Leinster House, on Wednesday.
The American politicians met with Fine Gael TD Pat Breen, according to TheJournal.ie reports. Breen is also the chair of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee.
Breen said it had been a “very constructive engagement” which he hope to make further progress with next month.
In September Breen will lead a delegation of Irish government representatives to Washington DC to further lobby US politicians on the immigration reform legislations which will soon be voted upon by the House of Representatives.
Breen called the passage of the legislation through the Senate a “landmark step in bringing about long-awaited changes to the US immigration system, which will change the lives of thousands of undocumented Irish, who are living in limbo.”
The Fine Gael politician went on to comment about how the lives of these 50,000 Irish citizens are being affected by living undocumented in the United States.
“Irish immigrants want to contribute to US society; but instead they have been living in the shadows, unable to participate fully in American life or return home to Ireland for major family events,” Breen said.
“Sadly, it’s not uncommon at Irish funerals to see somebody holding up a smartphone or tablet so that an undocumented son or daughter or brother or sister in the US can connect in a small way with the funeral of their loved one. In Co Clare, a local funeral director has started streaming funerals online for the benefit of grieving relatives who cannot get home.”
Posted by Jim on August 12, 2013
Says votes are there to pass the legislation if GOP wants to
By
PADDY CLANCY,
IrishCentral Contributing Writer
President Barack Obama has claimed that internal Republican politics is delaying an immigration reform bill arriving on his desk.
The bill, if passed, would make 50,000 undocumented Irish legal in the US.
President Obama insisted on Friday that the Senate Gang of Eight immigration bill would pass the GOP-led House, but that “internal Republican caucus politics” were preventing Congress from sending a comprehensive reform bill to his desk.
The Gang of Eight’s wide-reaching legislation, which passed the Senate with 68 votes in late June, has essentially evaporated after House Republicans – adverse to many provisions in the 1,000-plus page bill – said they would not take it up.
The Bill provides for a 13-year path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million unauthorised immigrants living and working in the US.
Obama said during his news conference that he was “absolutely confident” that if the Gang of Eight bill was put on the House floor, it would pass. It would need mostly Democratic votes to do so.
He added: “The challenge right now is not that there aren’t a majority of House members, just like a majority of Senate members, who aren’t prepared to support this bill. The problem is internal Republican caucus politics.”
Instead of the Senate’s bill, the House leadership has proposed a piecemeal approach that tackles different parts of immigration reform with separate bills. And there is a bipartisan group that is hoping to release its comprehensive reform bill in September.
Still, Senate advocates of the Gang of Eight bill are hoping to revive it if the two chambers make it into conference negotiations.
In his news conference, Obama did not disclose specific initiatives he would take to enact political pressure on House Republicans to move immigration reform.
Instead, he touted the benefits of the Senate immigration bill, such as its deficit-cutting capabilities and its surge in resources for the U.S.-Mexico border.
He also said while he prefers the House to take up the Gang of Eight bills, he was open to other methods of getting immigration reform through the chamber.
In June, Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore said the Immigration Bill passed by the US Senate was “a positive development”and was a step closer towards addressing the problems faced by undocumented Irish emigrants in the US and “allowing them to emerge from the shadows.”
In July he travelled to Washington DC for two days to lobby politicians on Capitol Hill on immigration reform.