Happy Dance

You cant see me do this- but right now, I'm doing the "happy dance" ( wiggling hips, waving hands in the air, big shit-eating grin on my face) cos my pal MP just won

Best Blogger in Ireland

Chachacha!

We need more than a march

Well, we were out in our tens of thousands. Gardai figures say 100,000 plus but if ever an occasion bursting with potential was wasted, it was today. Where was the creativity, the spontaneity, the surge to build a movement, the taking back of lost territory and forging a new kind of people’s politics.

Marching bands from the Fire Brigade and Prison Officers Unions along with the community salsa band were all placed in the first quarter of the march. Where were the loudhailers spitting chants and slogans? We marched like sheep quietly, obediently shepherded by well-organised and extremely pleasant and accommodating stewards, sans anger and passion. Where was the maximising of the energy that got us out on the street, giving it voice and sensation in all its myriad possibilities?

Where were the major NGO and voluntary sector organisations to-day, apart from the half dozen small groupings who will always turn out reliably? Where were those NGOs swollen by philanthropic funds and an over-familiarity with government, the gatekeepers to representation, the professionalised class of liberals who have sucked the life-blood from what was once a vibrant, organic, model of people’s democracy and participation? Did they need to bring in consultants to tell them where they should be? Were they not interested because it was outside of their 35 hour a week paid contracts?

At the end rally only a few thousand were lucky enough to even hear the ICTU President (one of my favourite activists) and General Secretary speak because march stewards blocked off the street where the platform was located from the remaining 90,000 or more still finishing the route. Loudspeakers were non -existent outside of the cordoned off street and by the time the key figures had spoken and the rally dispersed, marchers were still flooding into nearby streets. I had expected to hear speeches not just telling us what the problem is- we all know that by know- but outlining actions and activities to take this enormous physical manifestation of protest further. Instead, we were instructed to put our placards in the appointed skips to prevent littering and consciously or not the inference was, that we wouldn’t be needing them again. Then we were thanked for coming. Sin e. We were marched to the top of the hill and abandoned. It felt like political coitus interruptus.

We, the people, the workers, the unemployed, the vulnerable in our inestimable diversity, were lined up, walked through the streets almost mutely and sent on our way home at the end. Goddamn it! The Celtic Tiger and its sanitised, single issue-focused culture requiring genuflection at the altar of professional expertise and polite dialogue has diminished and suppressed our instincts for innovative thinking and action. We need to do something beyond worshipping at the church of masochism where the talk is all about taking a hit and hairshirts and start singing, performing, demonstrating and producing the rainbow of possibilities that collective, organic change can bring. We need agitprop, we need localised action groups, we need a palpable and consistent sensation of our priorities that lingers longer than the hour and half it took to walk through the city centre.

We need a leadership that recognises that all of that and more must be encouraged, accommodated and promoted. That means an opposition leadership of more than one entity or power bloc, not just the trade union movement or political opposition parties- the times and our survival demand it. Yes, the trade union movement have put forward a 10 point plan of alternative economic recovery and we want the government to take cognisance of it, but we need more than a single one-off march and a few days of strike action.

We need a leadership to embolden the unemployed, the redundant, the anxious, the embattled but still employed, whole communities, families, churches, discriminated groups, jugglers and strugglers to act, to agitate, to create, to imagine alternatives, to envision the change and make it happen.

We got here because we failed to adequately challenge a corrupt government party, inept, self-interested coalition parties and their cronies in high finance and venture capital. No more. We have to use every means possible to resurrect first principles of social justice. There must be no more following the unimaginative, the sterile march-to-the -top –of- the hill- and –then-hurtle- down- again politics, no matter who calls upon us to do so.

Name them and Nail them!

Hello? Hello? Earth to Mc Evaddy... can you hear us inside that bubble of supreme disconnect with reality..your leaking gas out yer ass.

I have no doubt that Mc Evaddy’s Golden Circle pals sent him out to see if we would swallow anymore guff, painting them as national heroes who unselfishly shouldered the weight of carrying the Anglo-Irish Bank, no doubt until their pals in Fianna Fail bludgeoned the country into paying up and shutting up to bail them out.

Like the rest of the country,I’m incandescent with rage at the extent to which we are being treated like cannon-fodder for the big guns of capitalism. However, I honestly do not know why we are putting so much energy into demanding that Anglo- Irish’s Golden Shower of Bastards are named unless we are prepared to also put as much and more energy into ensuring that we nail them and their accomplices in Fianna Fail. They need to do hard time for grievous bodily harm to the country and its people.

Back to the Future

Definitely time for a new version of this ( preferably without Mick Hucknall), just substitute Reaganomics with Cowenomics.

I'm Still Waiting

Well, its been 2weeks since I sent the following email to GLEN:

Dear GLEN

Is there any possibility at all that you will provide information about current issues which have impacted on the LGB community in which GLEN is directly involved:

1. Perhaps some clarification on why the Chairman of GLEN continues to sit on the Board of the Equality Authority, despite the resignation of the CEO and half of the board, what is the rationale for this?

2. Information as to how many lesbians have recently resigned from the board of GLEN and the reasons for those resignations. Given that gender balance in GLEN was never a model of good practice, these resignations raise serious questions as to whether or not it has any chance of ever being so.

3. What response has GLEN made to the proposed Adoption Bill on overseas adoptions which makes no accommodation for same sex couples?


Like the song goes- I'm still waiting

Same Horse, Different Course

In Britain, a prominent member of the ruling elite is caught using a racist slur against a minority and he is packed off to diversity training.

In Ireland a prominent member of the ruling elite uses a racist slur against a minority and we make him Minister of Integration.

J'accuse

“This is not good governance and the situation must be addressed urgently. The chair of the Equality Authority should resign immediately, having signally failed to protect the interests of her own organisation and presided over the resignation of the chief executive and now up to half the board. I publicly call upon her today to do so. In addition, the tattered remnants of the serving board should also pack up their kit and salvage what little dignity they have left. Like the ancient Israelites, they are being commanded to make bricks without straw. We are not living in the middle kingdom of ancient Egypt. We are in a 21st century European democracy and they should land this task, which has been deliberately made impossible, back in the lap of the Government. The fraudulence of the Government’s pretended commitment to human rights should be publicly exposed.” Seanad debate 5/2/09

Senator David Norris yet again has risen to defend human rights and equality with all the gusto, conviction and eloquence we have come to expect of him. We should thank whatever god we pray to for his unfailing consistency in this respect, for the same cannot be said of some of our other LGB spokespeople. Norris was unequivocal in his condemnation of the Chair of the Equality Authority Board, Angela Kerins for her role as henchwoman in ensuring that the hatchet fell where it would do most damage. He has challenged remaining Board members of the EA to do the decent thing and resign rather than collude with the destruction of the Authority.

His undiluted disgust at their continuing to remain on the Board was refreshing to this blogger’s ears. Because no one else appears ready to name the hypocrisy that allows members of NGO organisations to provide cover for the destruction of one of, if not THE most important rights agency in Ireland. Niall Crowley was effectively pushed from his position as CEO, because anyone who knows the man and the depth of his commitment to equality, knows that it was untenable for him to remain in that position while everything he believed in and had laboured to achieve was being systematically demolished by the government and its plants on the EA board.

Some Board members have already resigned in support of Crowley and in protest at the disproportionate level of cuts incurred by the EA and the Minister’s outright refusal to consider any alternatives. Nevertheless, there are those who remain to give credibility to the pathetic husk of what is left of the agency.

While GLEN participates in the Equality & Rights Alliance established to fight the cuts and attacks on rights and equality bodies, Chair of the GLEN board, Kieran Rose continues to sit on the board of the EA overseeing the implementation of the cuts on the Authority. Rose claims he is on the EA as an individual. He is deliberately splitting hairs. The EA’s track record in promoting lesbian and gay equality is outstanding. Niall Crowley made LGB rights a priority from the moment he took up his post, by appointing a specific officer on sexual orientation issues and making LGB equality the subject of the very first report produced by the Authority. Kieran Rose as an individual gay man and as head of a national gay organisation has much to be thankful for in Crowley’s stewardship of the EA, but he repays him and the EA by actively colluding with a government that has made it impossible for the Equality Authority to ever be able to support and promote LGB rights to the same extent again.

Save us the trouble of pretending to care.

Ok- I give up, I cant find it! I dont want to play hunt the response anymore, its too frustrating. I'm tired of this game because there's no point looking for something that isnt there, thats just silly. There is no public response from LGB organisations on the new Adoption Bill. The Bill makes no reference to and no accommodation for overseas adoptions by same sex couples. So, can we also stop playing that other game where our self-appointed LGB spokespeople pretend to be interested in children's rights and same sex couples. It would save so much time and save so many people from having raised expectations of LGB organisations who have no interest in same sex couples and children unless it's politically convenient for them.