Workers Solidarity Movement

If you want to cringe hard, watch the Fine Gael PR team's latest attempt to make Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney look human.  The comments section is uplifting and worth a read, another case of an arrogant elitist organisation thinking they can put out any auld waffle without a kickback from the people they abuse [1].
 

You can tell a lot about someone from what they worry about. The Housing Minister Simon Coveney isn’t so much worried about people sleeping on the streets at the moment. He is losing sleep about the thought that other people might fill their swimming pools with free water!

The northern Ireland parliament, Stormont, is in one of its usual crises.  In this latest instance we’re talking about a massive fuck up by the DUP whereby Arlene Foster introduced a Renewable Heating Initiative scheme in 2012 which would pay businesses £1.60 for every £1 they spent on heating. This lead to companies heating up empty sheds and barns through the scheme which has amounted to almost half a billion pound being squandered by the so-called political elites. This is one of those crises that has gotten out of control and Stormont is struggling to get a grasp back on things so they’ve rolled out a bit of sectarianism in the hope that we get outraged about that and not the £490 million that has gone up in smoke.

Amazingly, after watching almost half a billion quid go up in smoke, and branding calls for her to step down after such a monumental fuck up as misogynistic - insulting women who have felt the very real consequences of her and her's party's misogynistic policies - Arlene Foster has put a meme on her facebook page of a guinea pig wearing pink heart shaped sunglasses with the words "can't see all the haters with my love glasses on".

The rolling out of the red carpet by Sinn Féin to a delegation from the Zionist Likud Party Israel is a symptom of a corrupt political process built on protecting the privileges and power of the few.

Sinn Fein’s so-called ‘anti-imperialist’ credentials were put out in the dustbin the moment they became a firm pillar of the establishment and British rule. Not to mention their role in implementing a brutal austerity agenda that has inflicted devastation and misery in working class communities

December saw the promotion of Fermanagh & South Tyrone MLA, Arlene Foster to the position of DUP leader and the North of Ireland’s First Minister.

Foster is a woman who was once described to have “learned a lot from the likes of Thatcher when it comes to dealing with men in politics."

It is not coming as much of a surprise that some middle-class, career-focused feminists have made claims of this being some sort of an advance of feminism. Many are claiming that this represents a great change in northern Irish society, as a move away from the male dominated arena that we understands politics here to be (the same could be said throughout the World of course).

Project Eagle, or Nama's northern portfolio, was landed in March 2014 by American private investment firm, Cerberus. If this sale has done anything, it has proven that good old fashioned political and economic corruption is not an exclusively American affair.

Nama, oftentimes referred to as the south's "bad bank" - as if there are any good ones - was set up in late 2009 as an attempt by the southern government to try and deal with the property loans issued by Irish banks.

It's not really a secret to anyone paying attention but Renua have really blown their cover with their pre-budget submission. Far from being any sort or radical departure they are yet another party for the wealthiest 1% who have been plundering our labour with the aid of every previous government.

As Michael Taft explains "Renua has called for a flat-rate tax. It represents a massive transfer from the lowest income groups to the highest income groups. It will require low and middle income groups to fund not only their own tax cuts but even higher tax cuts for those on much higher incomes.
... they want to cut inheritance tax to 20 percent while raising thresholds to €500,000. Someone inheriting €1 million would gain over €150,000."

How many could we house, educate and care for with 19 billion? Our government is currently furiously fighting the European Union to prevent Apple paying us back taxes it owes us. There has been a lot of ‘concern’ about government plans to spend 48 million looking after 4000 people fleeing warfare in Syria and Iraq. The government and the media defend there ‘our own’ is first - the super rich in Ireland and elsewhere!

In a further confirmation of the empty nature of electoral democracy its been revealed that the Dublin City Council manager wrote to the company building the controversial Poolbeg incinerator to assure them they could ignore the two city council votes against the project. This after a special meeting when 50 out of 52 councillors voted against the proposal!

Bertie's 'testimony' to the banking enquiry could hardly have provided a better example of the way politicians in this country understand they are protected from any consequences of their wrongdoing. Apparently we are to believe that he hardly knew any developers. Even the Mail is outraged, but what will be done about it?