Something that really bothered me this week was fast fashion giant H&M limply apologising for using a black child to advertise an eight pound hoodie with the slogan “coolest monkey in the jungle”.

Here is a list of people who didn’t consider this racist:
The Model’s Agent
The Photographer
Senior Designer
Graphic Design Department
Art Director
Creative Director
Web Department
Pricing Specialist
Department Manager
H&M Staff

One can also draw the conclusion that the boy’s parents were not involved in the decision making process which raises further ethical questions.  

To anyone who dismisses H&M’s roll out of the shot please consider the following:

Monkey chanting has been used by football hooligans for over thirty years to discourage black players from both performing and playing the game.

Carl-Gustaf Scott writes about racism in Swedish football in the 80’s and 90’s in his book - African Footballers in Sweden: Race, Immigration, and Integration in the Age of Globalization

He writes; “Djurgarden’s  supporters for instance chanted ‘Samir Bakaou belongs in a zoo’, whereas IFK Goteborg’s fans made monkey noises shouting ‘ugh, ugh, ugh’ every time AIK’s Pascal Simpson touched the ball. In news footage taken from a match in the summer of 1988 AIK followers can be seen yelling ‘Kunta Kinte’ at Djurgarden’s Glen Myrthil”
 
The Guardian 19/11/2004
Tony Blair and the Spanish prime minister yesterday condemned the racist abuse of black England footballers by thousands of Spanish fans as the disgraceful scenes on Wednesday night prompted outrage in Britain and threatened to escalate into a diplomatic row. Several black England players were taunted with monkey chants and chants by large sections of the crowd at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium during England's 1-0 defeat.

BBC News 07/05/2014
Villarreal have been fined €12,000 (£9,850) by the Spanish Football Federation after a fan threw a banana at Barcelona defender Dani Alves. The Brazilian, 30, picked up the banana and took a bite as he prepared to take a corner in the La Liga match between the sides last month.

The Guardian 29/09/2016
Russia’s FC Rostov face sanction for banana-throwing in Champions League

The Mirror 21/02/2017
Everton Luiz has vowed to continue playing in Serbian football despite racist abuse bringing him to tears whilst playing for Partizan Belgrade last weekend. The Brazilian was abused during the fiery encounter with fierce rivals Rad Beograd last Sunday with what the player describes as monkey chants.

Wikipedia
Shock advertising or Shockvertising is a type of advertising that "deliberately, rather than inadvertently, startles and offends its audience by violating norms for social values and personal ideals". It is the employment in advertising or public relations of "graphic imagery and blunt slogans to highlight" a public policy issue, goods, or services. Shock advertising is designed principally to break through the advertising “clutter” to capture attention and create buzz.

Conclusion
The racial slur ‘monkey’ is an ugly feature in football hooliganism across Europe including Sweden and the UK. Too many people involved in the production and publication of this photograph not to notice the reference and one can only conclude there was intent to create ‘buzz’ by dressing an innocent child with racist slogans.

With articles supporting water charges and others which attack the rise of the alternative left in Irish politics it is no surprise that Noel Whelan has found a few enemies in Ireland and even further afield.

Where he might be cast aside by some of the better established ‘left of centre’ parties and simply labelled a proponent of traditional free state politics, he is however more of a concern to the people who are literally fighting for change, as his toxic neoliberal views give reason to ignorance and make excuses for a conservative political landscape which is not adapting quick enough to make any difference to the problems we are facing as a society.

The fact that we are facing larger geopolitical issues than ever before, from global conflict, to the extinction of species, to the rise in inequality, global warming, pollution of our oceans, etc is proof enough that the way we do business, and the way we do politics is not working. Quite simply we need change, and gradual change is no longer good enough. This fact alone is proof that the revolution is coming.

Anyone who hinders progress in the growth of the left is blind to this revolution, and most likely they have an invested interest in maintaining the status quo, to maintain their wealth position, because they’re not psychologically prepared to embrace a society built on equality. Without a progressive shift in the way we think, the way we do business, and the way we do politics our planet will die.

Noel denies this with articles such as:
‘Far left’s high profile contrasts sharply with modest electoral reach’ in which he writes;

“They are political minnows in the Irish party system so they lay claim to being part of larger international movements or trends.... their history is one of an inability to work with others and of deep personality conflicts between themselves”

Unquestionably such articles do not go unnoticed. Jill Bryson’s response on July 12th to the Irish Times is a prime example of the fight the left must endure to make change happen. Thankfully the editor of the Times found it worthy of print, whether to patter to a large segment of it's readership or out of respect for Jill we will never know. The following is the letter as it featured:

Sir, – Noel Whelan’s article “Far left’s high profile contrasts sharply with modest electoral reach” (Opinion & Analysis, July 7th) describes the Solidarity-PBP grouping as minnows. The Labour Party has seven seats to Solidarity-PBP’s six. If we combine, as Mr Whelan does in his article, Solidarity-PBP’s seats with those of the Independents 4 Change grouping and other left-wing TDs, the left comfortably outnumbers Labour.

Yet Noel Whelan does not call Labour small fish or “fringe deputies”.

The thuddingly dull comparison between Donald Trump and the left, as constant in your newspaper as the Angelus, on the basis of criticism of the mainstream media, is fatuous. It should not need to be said that the basis and method of the left’s critique of certain sections of the media differs ever so slightly from Mr Trump’s lying, egomaniacal Twitter outbursts against CNN.

Your columnist manages class snobbery and reverse class snobbery in the one paragraph, suggesting that the kind of people who vote left are not natural Irish Times readers and, heaven forbid, that some left-wing TDs have the temerity to have been born to middle-class backgrounds. I can assure him that many supporters of the left of all classes read this newspaper, either as its de facto status as the paper of record or as a means to keep abreast of the latest fashionable delusions of the bourgeois hive-mind, of which Noel Whelan is such a stalwart proponent. – Yours, etc,

JILL BRYSON,
Walthamstow,
London.

As per @noelwhelan bio Noel Whelan is a barrister, author, political analyst and columnist with The Irish Times. Unfortunately I could not find a bio for Jill Bryson but I'm pretty sure it reads hero. 

​When I first started writing someone asked me why bloggers feel every random event in their life is suddenly worth reading about. I’ve always bore that in mind somewhat so I try to keep things relevant, but at the same time I’m not being commissioned to write so the boundaries of the page are limited to my life and my personal experiences.
Lately I’ve been listening to this band quite a lot and this one song called ‘London Can Take It’ seemed particularly significant in the last few days, so I thought I would share. 

The following s a short review from The Guardian of the band called ‘Public Service Broadcasting’ written by Phil Mongredien

You can visit the band @  www.publicservicebroadcasting.net/
​
Pseudonymous London duo Public Service Broadcasting hit upon a winning combination of guitars, electronics and vintage public information films for their 2013 debut, Inform-Educate-Entertain. The follow-up focuses on the US-Soviet space race, between 1957 and 1972. It’s a smart move. Archive samples evoke the wonder and majesty of mankind’s most giant leap, and they’re complemented by finely judged soundscapes, from the mournful, static-soaked drone of Fire in the Cockpit (detailing the tragedy of Apollo 1) to the pulsing euphoria of Go! (the successful July 1969 moon landing). Even more powerful is the palpable suspense of The Other Side, as Apollo 8 orbits the moon and loses radio contact on the far side… before regaining it after an agonising wait.

Former Darts World Champion Eric Bristow has created the biggest controversy in the UK since Brexit over his comments on how to handle sex offenders, tweeting;  

“Might be a looney but if some football coach was touching me when i was a kid as i got older i would have went back and sorted that poof out”

Another of Bristow’s tweets stated “bet the rugby boys are ok” – prompting a reply from Brian Moore, the former England hooker who himself was abused as a child. “I’m not even going to address the many reasons these tweets are wrong. I’ll just say ignorance is no excuse for this idiocy,”

Whether right or wrong the controversy reminds me of Team America’s Gary Johnston’s immortal speech to the UN

“We're dicks! We're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And the Film Actors Guild are pussies. And Kim Jong-il is an asshole. Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes - assholes who just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way, but the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls.”

I’m not sure why there has been such outrage over encouraging vigilantism in the UK, in fact I thought racism and this kind of brutish mentality would be widely accepted in Brexit Utopia. I even thought we’d be seeing more people like Bristow running for office, so I’m a bit shocked to see him getting fired over voicing his opinion on what he thinks about child rapists.

Even if you don’t agree with Bristow’s Twitter outburst, it’s heavy emotion like this that ensures we have a rule of law, to ensure that victims can feel safe coming forward, that justice will be served because society is enraged on their behalf. Let's not brand him homophobic because of his ignorance, but seriously give Eric Bristow his job back before he runs for public office.

The following is an article which appeared on spectator.co.uk by Brendan O’Neill called ‘In Defence of Eric Bristow’

The Twitch-hunters, those antsy, intolerant guardians of what it’s permissible to say on Twitter, have claimed another scalp. Eric Bristow’s. The former darts champion, lovably known as the ‘Crafty Cockney’, will now probably be better known as hate-speaker thanks to the offence-taking army that took umbrage at his tweets about child abuse. For this quarrelsome mob has the power to destroy reputations, and it looks like it has successfully destroyed Bristow’s.

Bristow’s speechcrime, or tweet-crime, was to gruffly express his views on the child-abuse scandal rocking football right now. Last night, somewhat unguardedly, he wrote a series of tweets in which he asked whether it is wise for the former players who experienced abuse to tell their stories in the media, as some have done in recent days.

‘Might be a looney,’ he allowed, recognising the danger that comes with expressing one’s views these days, ‘but if some football coach was touching me when I was a kid, as I got older I would have went back and sorted that poof out’. He continued: ‘Darts players tough guys footballers wimps’. He eventually apologised, kind of: ‘Sorry meant paedo not poof.’

For these tweets he has been hounded and demonised. The insatiable outrage machine on Twitter, which needs to crush tweet-criminals as surely as Moloch needs to devour souls, has pumped out tweets calling him nasty, evil, extreme, and worse. Sky Sports has dumped him as a darts commentator. His tweets were ‘toxic’, says a Guardian columnist, and could cause ‘hurtful anguish’ to victims of child abuse. It’s the usual ancient argument for self-censorship: your thoughts are dangerous, so keep them to yourself. Or else. Or else you’ll be dumped from your TV job and rebranded an unspeakable person.

I want to defend Bristow. Firstly because everyone should be free, and should feel free, to express themselves. And second because beneath the rough, late-night language he used, I think he has a point.

The freedom of speech point can’t be overemphasised. Slippery defenders of Twitch-hunts, of the online kangaroo court that almost daily finds someone guilty of evil speech, will insist this has nothing to do with censorship because he said what he wanted to say and he hasn’t been arrested. What they overlook, or just don’t care about, is the cumulative chilling effect that illiberal hissy fits and bellows of ‘You Can’t Say That!’ have on open public life. How they encourage people to suppress their dangerous, eccentric or simply non-mainstream views. How they cultivate self-silencing.
You don’t need a court or a copper for censorship. As John Stuart Mill argued, a non-official ‘tyranny of custom’ can chill speech more effectively than statute. It nurtures conformism, until ‘the mind itself is bowed to the yoke’. Twitter is a hotbed of the tyranny of wisdom, always bowing minds.

Then there’s Bristow’s point. In his own way he was issuing a challenge to today’s victim culture. Especially to the questionable moral voyeurism that demands all former victims of child abuse must relive their experiences in public, on TV, best of all in misery memoirs. Is this healthy? Bristow is suggesting it isn’t. I think he’s right.

Of course he shouldn’t have called those footballers ‘wimps’ and he shouldn’t have said ‘poof’. And he’s wrong to encourage the beating-up of child abusers. ‘When the football lads got older and fitter they should have went back and sorted him out,’ he said. No. But still, there’s something important in Bristow’s comments, something about encouraging people to deal with bad past experiences in a more personal, perhaps confrontational way, that should not be rubbished.

In these post-Savile times, we’ve come to think that all former victims of child abuse have some kind of responsibility to parade their wounds. We have come to expect, somewhat greedily, even perversely, that the abuse of decades ago must be relived, as publicly as possibly, in order to ‘raise awareness’. I’m sorry, but I think it’s possible there’s an element of moral titillation to all this. And I think it’s possible that it makes abuse victims even less likely to get over their experiences by making them go through it all again for our viewing or reading pleasure. I think it’s possible this is wrong. And I think Bristow should be free to suggest this.

Bristow comes from a different part of the world to today’s media finger-waggers and Twitch-hunters. He comes from one of those bits of Britain where, guess what, people believe it’s better to be an actor than a victim. That you should fix your troubles yourself. That therapy might not be the solution to bad experiences. That the public has no right to know what you’ve suffered. These are unfashionable views now, but millions of people hold them. I agree with them. Though I bet far fewer of them will express these rather independent, brave views now that they know you can be so severely punished for doing so.
​
Brendan O'Neill is the editor of Spiked and a columnist for The Australian and The Big Issue.

​The following content is difficult to source despite the involvement of Rage Against The Machine front man Zack de la Rocha. The video accompanying the post has been removed from YouTube on several occasions.

In 2003, musician and anarchist activist Sherman Austin was sentenced to 12 months in jail for posting content on his website that could potentially inspire terrorist attacks. Many believe he was a wrongfully targeted political prisoner, among them Zack de la Rocha. The MC spoke on the case at a benefit show that took place just a few days before Austin pleaded guilty to avoid a Patriot Act clause that would enforce a 20-year minimum sentence.

Zack de la Rocha – On the Case of Sherman Austin

"It began nearly two years ago, January 24th 2002 to be exact, it was four in the afternoon. Sherman Austin was asleep. Seemed like a normal day until reason was suddenly stripped from reality. Twenty five fully armed special agents surrounded Sherman’s house. Two of the agents met him at the door, showed him a warrant, and drag him outside.

With shotguns and machine guns they entered his house and went straight to his room.
Once inside they began ripping through his belongings, seizing his books, his political posters, and finally dismantling his computer, which was taken immediately to federal trucks that were parked outside and had all his information downloaded to government servers and were confiscated, and then they left. His room torn apart and the life of his friends and his family turned upside down.

They left and he was charged with nothing.

It began almost two years ago but it was just the beginning.

A month later in February after his home was raided Sherman drove three thousand miles to New York to participate in a peaceful demonstration against the policies of the World Bank and the IMF. Standing in Columbus circle as the march was beginning he was again rushed, this time by twenty police officers and arrested. He was jailed and interrogated without the presence of a lawyer for thirty hours. While inside he was asked over and over again if he was a terrorist, and if he belonged to terrorist organisations.

He was released without being charged.

It was almost two years ago, but it was just the beginning.

While waiting for a ride thirty minutes after he was arrested without charge, thinking the worst was over; in the same court house where he was arrested and released, he was surrounded again. This time by six FBI agents and arrested. He was grabbed by his neck, thrown into a black SUV and taken to a federal building where he was placed in a maximum security jail and held for eleven days. He was then taken out of prison in New York and taken to Oklahoma, in a Federal jail for two more days.

At this point you might be asking what was his crime? Was he a murderer? Did he kill anybody? Or was it that he was a young black anarchist and an activist who refused to be silent.

The website that the government has attempted to shut down is called Raise The Fist .com

It was a website that Sherman ran from his bedroom. It posted information about all kinds of topics, covered all kinds of issues dealing with everything from challenging racism and police brutality to giving a voice to those engaged in a movement to challenge corporate globalisation. The site, raisethefist.com

R.A.I.S.E.
T.H.E.
F.I.S.T.com

One word, also functioned as a host server, providing links to the sites of others. One of those sites, not authored by Sherman, contained information about explosives. Yet it was Sherman after two years of harassment, upending the life of his family, who was finally charged with distribution of material related to explosives with the intent to use them. He was charged and sentenced for a year in Federal penitentiary for having a link to a site, who he himself did not author or personally endorse containing information that can be found anywhere. I mean anywhere. It can be found in libraries, it can be found in bookstores, it can be found on internet book distributors, you can find it on amazon.com

In fact, several years ago I found a little cartoon that I found interesting. The first Rage Against The Machine t-shirt that was ever put out had a cartoon with instructions in Spanish on how to make a Molotov cocktail.

Looking back it was somewhat of a silly provocation but the interesting thing about it was that it was authored by the CIA. These cartoons were used in the training of an unconstitutional illegal terrorist army known as the ‘Contras’ who are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people, tens of thousands of innocent Nicaraguan civilians, as the US government in violation of the highest forms of international law attempted to seize control of the resources of a sovereign country, a country by the way which may never recover from the destruction imposed upon it.
I mention this only as a glaring example of the level of hypocrisy that not only runs right through Sherman’s case but is also weaving its way into the fabric of our everyday lives.

It’s an example of this vicious and repressive political climate set in to motion by the Bush administration in the aftermath of September 11th. A climate in which the right wing violence of the state, for example the illegal and unjust bombing and occupation of Iraq is sanctioned in the name of building democracy while simultaneously they destroy it right here. It is in this climate where blind obedience and buying things are equated with patriotism. When being Muslim is to be considered being a suspect, and being a young black free thinking, rebellious, righteous anarchist, is equated with being a violent criminal.

All of this of course doesn’t speak to the unjust suffering imposed upon this family. The fear, the harassment, the humiliation, the intimidation, the longing and the loss, the pain by which I’m sure that  no words can describe, but it brings up one of the reasons that brought us here, to give our support, our love, our solidarity. To help give them the strength and the courage to continue to fight and bring some justice home for Sherman.

The second and equally important reason is to let this fucking government know that they are not going to silence Sherman and keep his case in isolation. The government’s case against him is so weak that they thought they could railroad him so long as it was kept from public view. Well the fact that we’re here tonight is proof that they have failed.

Word travels fast, and with some diligence and some struggle, justice can’t be far behind.
​
(Sherman Austin was released one month early in July 2004 with 3 years of probation which prohibited him from having access to a computer or knowingly associating with individuals who "espouse violence for political change". Following his release from prison, he released “Silence is Defeat”)       

Recently one of my close friends deleted his Whatsapp profile, his facebook, & his twitter account, after he watched a made for YouTube documentary called Facebookistan, it gave him such a case of the shivers he now lives in the woods and calls himself BadgerMan.

I'm gad he got out when he did because I can only  imagine he would have a complete meltdown if he found out the UK have just passed the Investigatory Powers Bill which gives the government unrestricted authority to monitor its citizens. 

Edward Snowden has somewhat become the Messiah for people like BadgerMan and anyone who fears this level of surveillance is undemocratic and too powerful to leave in the hands of mortal men and power corrupt governments. 

Snowden once warned how dangerous this level of data surveillance is, with the emphasis being on how an innocent individual can be manipulated in the future, or how a prosecuting government can use such large levels of data to paint whatever kind of picture they need to convict a potential radical who challenges government authority:

“Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded. And the storage capability of these systems increases every year consistently, by orders of magnitude, to where it’s getting to the point you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.”

Reaction to the UK’s IP Bill has been quiet in mainstream media and with companies like Google and Facebook looking to crack down on ‘Fake News’ websites it’s not guaranteed you’ll find counter information freely available on the internet for anyone speaking out about government surveillance in the future.

But for now here’s some of the internet's finest backlash to the bill:

"Under the guise of counter-terrorism, the state has achieved totalitarian-style surveillance powers –- the most intrusive system of any democracy in human history.” Bella Sankey policy director of Liberty

“There seems to be mass acceptance both in the UK and around the world that continuous bulk surveillance is simply becoming a fact of life. It needn’t. And with a creeping move towards authoritarianism around the world, fighting back is more imperative than ever. Once granted, sweeping powers such as this are rarely rescinded. And whether or not you like your present leaders, the fact is that you could, actually, have a lot worse – and maybe one day will.” @EmmaWoollacott

“Some still try to claim mass surveillance is about counter-terrorism. But if you look at the targets, you'll find the truth is darker” @Snowden Edward Snowden

“Once the databases holding ICRs are created, it is only a matter of time before some of them fall victim to one of the many threats that will see intimate details of people's online lives exposed to the world, with possibly serious consequences for the individuals concerned.” @glynmoody Glyn Moody, Contributing Policy Editor at Ars Technica. He has been writing about the Internet and digital rights for over 20 years.

“The UK has just legalized the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes farther than many autocracies”. @Snowden 

"It can be necessary and proportionate to have targeted surveillance and what I am saying is that there's not yet any evidence which convinces me that it is necessary and proportionate to have mass surveillance” Joseph Cannataci, the UN's special rapporteur on privacy.

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power.” 1984 – George Orwell

“Our rights matter because you never know when you’ll need them. In democratic societies around the world, people should be able to pick up the phone, call family, send text messages to loved one, travel by train, buy an airline ticket — without wondering how those events will look to an agent of government, possibly not even your government but one years in the future. How might this be misinterpreted? We have a right to privacy. We require warrants to be based on probable causes. Trusting any government authority with the entirety of human communications without any oversight is too great a temptation to be ignored.” Edward Snowden

“If living unfreely but comfortably is something you’re willing to accept, and I think many of us are, it’s the human nature, you can get up every day, you can go to work, you can collect your large paycheck for relatively little work against the public interest, and go to sleep at night after watching your shows. But if you realize that’s the world that you helped create, and it’s going to get worse with the next generation, and the next generation, who extend the capabilities of this sort of architecture of oppression, you realize that you might be willing to accept any risk, and it doesn’t matter what the outcome is, so long as the public gets to make their own decisions about how that’s applied.” Edward Snowden 

Picture by Banksy 

What started off as a simple gesture of goodwill has somehow taken over the internet, perhaps due to populist thinking or from a socialist tilting desire to establish a separate identity from the neoliberal nazi brigade which has assumed power in the western world all of a sudden. Here are some short sound bites gathered from the ‘cyber’ of what people think about the safety pin solidarity movement:
 
The “safety pin movement” began in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. Amid reports of post-Brexit hate crimes, an American living in London posted now-deleted tweets urging people to wear safety pins on their outer garments to show their willingness to protect people being abused. Within days, the hashtag #safetypin was trending on Twitter. The campaign caught on quickly in the United States after Trump won.
 
“This is meant to be more than just a symbolic gesture or a way for like-minded people to pat each other on the back. If people wear the pin and support the campaign they are saying they are prepared to be part of the solution. It could be by confronting racist behaviour, or if that is not possible at least documenting it. More generally it is about reaching out to people and letting them know they are safe and welcome.” @Cheeah (Campaign Founder)
 
“I won’t trust anyone just because they are wearing a safety pin. No, it won’t give me any comfort. I will trust actions, nothing more, nothing less. I wear my blackness every single day, and people don’t have to look for it to target me. Don’t make me look for your symbol of support. Show it every day in your words and deeds. Yes, it’s nice to tell marginalized populations that you won’t hurt them, but it’s even nicer to make sure that sexist White Supremacists know that they are not safe attacking me.” @IjeomaOluo Ijeoma Oluo, named one of the Most Influential People in Seattle by Seattle Magazine.
 
“A safety pin is literally one of the most insignificant things one could wear. They are nothing but badges made for white people to assuage white guilt and declare themselves allies completely autonomously. It's convenient and puts the wearer under absolutely no scrutiny from their peers. It signifies almost nothing at all. It is a self-administered pat on the back for being a decent human being. Privilege at its finest.” @MajorPhilebrity Phillip Henry is an actor, comedian, & singer
 
“The act is meant to show solidarity with women, Muslims, minorities, the LGBT community, and anyone else who fears what this new nativist chapter may mean for their safety and well-being.” @mgustashaw Megan Gustashaw Contributing Fashion Editor at GQ

“When I’m sitting on a train and I see your safety pin, I don’t think: ‘Hurrah, now I feel safe.’ My default expectation from you as a human being in society is to not be racist or call me a Paki on my morning commute. Wearing a safety pin just reminds me that I’m not safe, and telling me that you’re on ‘my side’ just reinforces the idea of sides. I don’t want sides. I want to go to work, do my job, go to the pub and not have to wear my race on my sleeve while doing it.” @HuffPostPoorna Poorna Bell Executive Editor, The Huffington Post UK
 
“This really does nothing to dismantle racism/White Supremacy — You’re not a special snowflake.” @cjwilburn Courtney Wilburn, blogger from Philadelphia
​
“I know, I know, you’re uncomfortable. You feel guilty. You think people are going to suspect you of being a racist, and you want some way to assuage that guilt and reassure your neighbors that you’re one of the good ones. But you know what? You don’t get to do that. You need to sit in your guilt right now. You need to feel bad. So do I, so do all of us. We fucked up. We didn’t do enough to change the minds of our fellow White people” @keeltyc Christopher Keelty blogger from New York 

Every now and again something amazing happens on Twitter, like a fluffy cat video goes viral, Brexiter admits horrible mistake, TheChampsVoice gets retweeted, or maybe I get followed by someone from the TV guide.

Well today was one of those days, not because Brexiters have grasped basic economics and tolerance towards fellow human beings, but because I came across an Irish Writer by the name Aaron Vallely. Vallely is a sharp writer covering topical Irish issues and his work features in the UK edition of The Huffington Post.

The following is a condensed version of an article of his called:
‘Ireland: The Republic of Emigration and Internships’

It was Conor Cruise O’Brien who wrote that: “Irishness is not primarily a question of birth or blood or language ; it is the condition of being involved in the Irish situation, and usually being mauled by it.”

Ireland has a distinguished history of emigration, and for a time while it was an insular theocracy, had an infatuation with exiles. Famine, Recession, and a lack of opportunity have all been contributing factors in young Irish people seeking a better living outside of Ireland. So many of our greatest minds, and notorious social liberators, have been part of that Diaspora.

This once holy land of Ireland, has seen ten million people emigrate from the island since 1800. More Irish people have taken abroad becoming immigrants in other countries, than those whom remain to brazen it out and suffer on our Celtic isle.

Ultimately, in the last five years, we have lost 151,000 people. A throwback to the emigration crises of the 1950s and 1980s, when high unemployment drove thousands of mainly working class people out and away from their homes to seek a livelihood elsewhere.

Through all this, ladies and gentlemen, we are being told that we should not worry, as our bronze haired Celtic warrior-in-chief, Alexander the Average, Enda Kenny, reassures us that he knows what he is doing.

Not necessarily experiencing the same level of unemployment as Spain or Greece, Ireland appears to have experienced significantly higher levels of emigration per capita than other Western European countries, they too affected by the Eurozone crisis. We Irish have paid more in emigration than any of our EU ‘partners’.

When one thinks of the many wrongful reasons some feel for which they are leaving, one should remind oneself that the Irish are paying the billion euro bills of unaccountable gambling bankers, scoundrel bondholders, and idiot politicians, one can then hardly but at all blame them for their evacuation.

Many young people cannot afford to stay and live here so they are moving away. We are at 11.5% unemployment nationally, with 25.1% of those under 25 unemployed.
So what have us young passengers of this Irish economy got to protect ourselves from a potential economic iceberg? A youth guarantee scheme.

To prevent long-term youth unemployment, our Government has launched a programme that will supposedly guarantee young people either a place in education, training, or a job.

One of the conditions of this “Youth Guarantee” is that JobBridge will now become mandatory. JobBridge offers placements for young people in businesses for an additional €50 a week (in addition to social welfare benefit), it is also perhaps the most abused body since the Trojan Horse.

The Youth Guarantee states:
In the case of young people, failures to engage that will give rise to sanctions will include:
Failure to apply for or accept an opportunity on the national internship scheme (JobBridge)
Sanctions will be quite the stinger. Young people could see their Jobseekers payment cut by up to 25%. Not to mention that JobSeekers benefit has already been cut back to €100 a week. So a full week of work on JobBridge would amount to an underwhelming €150.

The loss of taxes paid by workers from the companies is an increased loss for the Irish exchequer, because of the potential revenue accumulated from taxpayers in a job. It also distorts the market as it can see a situation where JobBridge could be increasingly used by companies to reduce labour costs to remain competitive. What begins as a rational scheme by providing young people with experience in the field they are seeking to find work, is then jeopardized by possibly becoming a scheme where more and more employment can only be found through subsidized internships. Ireland, the Republic of Internships and Emigration.

Extract from an article by @Vallmeister first published 02/11/2014
Full article can be found @ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/aaron-vallely/ireland-migration_b_5756386.html
Picture is Patrick Hennessy’s 1943 painting, “Exiles“

It is widely agreed that globalisation has bought immense benefits. But it is also recognised that these benefits are not equally distributed.

Last week’s Apple decision demonstrates the complexity of the issue of distributing the benefits of globalisation. The Irish Government, faced with a windfall of some €13 billion, appears to have sided with the world’s largest and most profitable company against the welfare of its citizens.

It was believed once that countries initially became more unequal as they became more prosperous, but that all would then benefit from globalisation. This theory, which was correct at the time for the US, is wrong.

The fact is that globalisation brings increasing inequality. Soaring inequality can only be addressed by governments, and increasingly only by governments co-operating internationally.

The dilemma of the Irish Government is whether it acts to increase or reduce inequality by siding with its citizens or with corporations. The issue is far more complex than this, but the Apple case brings to a head the unequal struggle between unchallenged, powerful corporations and sovereign governments trying to represent their citizens.

It is unequal because, to date, governments have sided with corporations and, in Ireland, we appeared to gain from that tax strategy. But growing inequality and corporate tax avoidance on such a scale has brought the issue to a head.

Apple has staggering cash reserves, but it still borrowed a huge amount in order to offset the interest against taxation. It and most multinationals no longer believe in paying tax. For them, tax is a business cost, not a payment for public services.

Apple’s iPhone, in particular, has several key features that were invented in publicly funded labs – which were supported by taxes.

With globalisation, transfer pricing has allowed companies to easily avoid taxation with the assistance of their “professional” advisers – the Big Four accounting firms.

Until multinationals begin to see tax as a legitimate, lawful and morally responsible payment for public services, then international tax avoidance on an industrial scale will continue.

Up until now, the EU’s directorate-general for taxation negotiated with the Big Four and multinationals on taxation issues. But it took a wildcard –commissioner Margrethe Vestager – to seriously disrupt these cosy chats when she made the Apple ruling.

The EU now looks as if it may be finally working for its citizens!

Tax avoidance cheats us out of funds that could be used for the public benefit. It is out of control. And wherever you find tax avoidance, you are likely to find the big accounting firms.

These firms have had a major influence on policymaking in taxation. The partners and their professional organisations, which they dominate, have pursued an anti-tax and particularly an anti-progressive tax policy at every opportunity.

Thus another issue raised by the Apple case is whether there is a revolving door between the Irish Revenue Commissioners and the Big Four?

The Government has a real moral dilemma. It must act in the interests of its citizens. The Irish State has demonstrated that it is not powerless in the global economy. It was able to rescue all of its six banks and most of its developers, and it put the economy back on course, albeit with some external help.

The EU has now shown multinationals that such levels of tax avoidance, while legal, will no longer be tolerated.

The Government should do what is morally correct: take the money and invest it in an ambitious capital programme, not on day-to-day spending. It should also develop a sustainable industrial policy that is no longer dependent on the uncertainty of the tax avoidance industry. Ireland has much more to offer.
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Most multinationals, including Apple, invest here for many other good reasons and will continue to do so. If governments cease their “tax wars” and big companies begin to pay a fair tax on profits, inequality will also decline. We should warmly welcome the Apple ruling.
 
This article was written by Paul Sweeney and published in the Irish Times on Monday 5th September (originally titled ‘On Apple tax, State must side with its citizens’). Picture by Rod Clement – Australian Financial Review

“Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be ‘governed’ by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct”

In 1943, World War II was at its height - but in Munich, the centre of Nazi power, a group of students had started a campaign of passive resistance.

Hans Scholl's readings of philosophical and theological texts augmented his disdain for the Nazi party. He allied with fellow University of Munich students of similar dispositions and began The White Rose movement to end the Nazi regime. His sister Sophie and Professor Kurt Huber, a philosophy professor at the University, would later join the cause.

On 18 February, Hans and Sophie Scholl set off on their most daring expedition yet. They planned to distribute copies of their sixth - and as it would turn out, final - leaflet at the University of Munich, where students would find them as they came out of lectures. The siblings left piles of the leaflets around the central stairwell. But as they reached the top of the stairs, Sophie still had a number of leaflets left over - so she threw them over the balcony, to float down to the students below. She was seen by a caretaker, who called the Gestapo. Hans Scholl had a draft for another leaflet in his pocket, which he attempted to swallow, but the Gestapo were too quick.

The Scholl siblings were arrested and tried in front of an emergency session of the People's Court. They were found guilty and executed by guillotine, along with their friend and collaborator Christoph Probst, on 22 February 1943.
Hans Scholl's last words before he was executed were:

"Long live freedom!"

This article is taken in part from a BBC news magazine: 
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21521060