Specific policies for a new Irish political party.

(AS Elsewhere (CSP, 2013) I have written about what a constitution for a new Irish republic might look like.

You can find this book, the proceedings of the first ICIS conference at UC Berkeley, with a free excerpt at

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/ireland-in-crisis-16

The monograph can be found at

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/ireland-16

A free excerpt from my monograph is at;

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/59226

I include this parenthesized antescript  as the readership of this blog is indeed international)

Here the objectives are less abstract; simply to outline current absurdities and  to propose a course of action to resolve them

I. The nation and its territory

It would seem reasonable to assume;

-         That there is a national territory

-         That there be no ambiguity about sovereignty

-         That there be a clear ownership of the island’s  natural resources by the Irish people for their own benefit

-         That we Irish be accorded the status of a sovereign nation by the USA rather than have a charge d’affaires

-         That the US embassy in Dublin properly safeguard the Irish passports entrusted to it for visa approval

Neither of the above is true as of the early 21^st century; after the 1998 referendum there is no territory and none of the island is ours. After the  2004 referendum , the alternative pre-1998  definition is also gone. Therefore these are the policies;

1 The territory of the Irish state is the island of Ireland

2. A referendum is to take place in “northern Ireland” allowing areas to secede. Those that do secede will lose immediate access to Irish passports

3. If the USA continues to treat us abusively , we should recall our ambassador

II Macroeconomic policy

It would seem reasonable to assume;

-         That we should have control over a currency

-         That we should not set a world first in having junior private bank debt transferred to the sovereign

-         That we should get a deal at least as good as Iceland, post 2008, whose private banks defaulted on British account holders

None of the above is true as of the early 21^st century. We therefore propose;

1. We should refuse to repay all debt imposed by the IMF/ECB
2. As a quid pro quo, we should offer to bring our corporation tax regime in line with the rest of the EU;
3. If this offer is not accepted, we should reboot our “punt” currency and exploit the carrying capacity of a land currently exporting over $13 billion worth of food every year

III Civil and corporate law enforcement

It would seem reasonable to assume;

- That our corporate law enforcement body has taken at least one successful prosecution since its formation in 2001;

- That there be no ambiguity about whether civil or common law exists in Ireland, and whether its basis is natural law or not;

- That judges should be properly trained, and refrain from gratuitous comments;

- That 100% of the new law should come from Ireland, not 25%

None of the above is true as of the early 21^st century. We therefore propose , in a land whose revolution was exemplified by the creation of a new court system;

1. The civil and corporate law systems be stripped down to basics about property;
2. That criminal law rely on the common law;
3. that properly trained judges interpret the law vis a vis justice and civil society precedent and in so doing create the basis for new fundamentals

IV Culture and ethnicity

It would seem reasonable to assume;

-         That Ireland is the land of the Irish, as France is of the French, and that the public statements of university presidents should not demand that the Irish be a minority ethnicity in Ireland;

-         That the highest cultural resources of the state be reserved for the ethnically Irish;

-         That the state behave to its citizens with decency and with a sense of the benefits to the world of a fully-realized Irish state;

-         That the goal be the Irish fully alive, rather than neoliberalism exemplified

None of the above is true as of the early 21^st century. We therefore propose that;

-         A definition of Irish ethnicity, one that recognizes our vast Diaspora, be included in the constitution;

-         That any immigrants should be assimilated;

-         That we cease projects like those in science that replace native enterprise with extravagantly-funded and foreign-staffed nonsense

V Right to life

It would seem reasonable to assume;

-         That life in all its manifestations be honoured, including  through a well-provisioned health service

-         That, given scientific  ignorance of the relation between impulse and action, suicide not be grounds for full-term abortion with its Gothic mechanism

Neither  of the above is true as of the early 21^st century. We therefore propose that;

-         The state refrain from having power over life and death

VI Property

It would seem reasonable to assume;

-         That those losing their homes to foreclosure would not have to pay the debt for which their inability to pay is the reason for their eviction;

-         That those who make massive property investments and lose them through incompetence should not be able to hold onto them at the taxpayers’ expense;

Neither  of the above is true as of the early 21^st century. We therefore propose that;;

1. NAMA be scrapped and the property be sold at market price, or alternatively used to woo the recent Diaspora back with cheap home deals;
2. That, given that homelessness is more expensive to the state than building cheap housing for the indigent, we should do the latter;
3. That the current scams involving NAMA to promote scarcity in various prestige areas of Dublin to pump up the property values of the Irish establishment be scrapped

VII Industrial relations

It would seem reasonable to assume;

-         That since unions are legal, so are strikes for illegal dismissal

-         That the state should ensure equality of representation at illegal dismissal tribunals

Neither  of the above is true as of the early 21^st century. We therefore propose that;

1. The current “social partnership” model be abandoned and real unions be allowed to emerge
2. Equality of representation should be enshrined in law as the ECHR required in Morris and Steele vs UK (2005)

VIII State media

It would seem reasonable to assume;

-         That the national broadcaster should stress quality material, from all over the world;

-         That it should either pay for itself through ads or attenuate to a bare-bones quality service

Neither  of the above is true as of the early 21^st century. We therefore propose that;

   1. RTE should cast off its “pop” wing and be subsidized as a quality service, as distinct from consuming hundreds of millions annually in the production of trash

  2.   Producers and presenters currently with RTE  and having to leave should be subsidized to create independent media companies

IX Culture

It would seem reasonable to assume, particularly in a country with as ancient and attractive an attested and living culture as Ireland;

-         That state export boards would not collude with criminals in selling the quality expression of its greatest artists for Walmart to market at cut-price;

-         That the national “music rights body” should not be involved in copyright theft at an industrial scale;

-         That the entire corpus of traditional should not be privatized, but be in the public domain;

-         That criminals in this area should be brought to justice once caught in Ireland by the Gardai, and exposed both in British litigation and US federal court proceedings

None of the above is true as of the early 21^st century. We therefore propose that;

1. The statute of limitations be lifted for these crimes as for others;
2. Civil “servants” involved should be prosecuted, and lose their pensions if convicted

Seán O Nualláin

What we Irish should learn from the Scottish independence referendum

Ireland’s colonial history and the genocide repeatedly visited on the country are well-known facts. Less well-known is that Ireland became the donkey on which the  tail was pinned in 2010, the international debtor of last resort;

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ireland-must-play-hardball-to-get-deal-on-bank-bailouts-29954697.html

Since this indenture was imposed on Ireland, approximately 250k of the brightest and best have left the country. It is  clear that we were never meant to recover from the famine and Cromwellian genocides; it is equally clear that this is the Endlosung, the final solution with a debt that cannot be repaid forever burdening Ireland.

In 1998 the Irish people were conned into giving up their national territory (all of it, not just the NE corner) in the name of “peace”. They were told that there would be a referendum in that corner to determine its status; there is no sign of it. However, in 2004  there WAS a referendum in the rest of the island in which the people decided 80:20 that the 1998 definition of the nation was wrong.

Now we know what will await us if the NI referendum comes to pass. The US president will weigh in for a “No” vote;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11103256/Barack-Obama-tells-Scotland-stay-united.html

This is particularly the   case as the Obama administration persistently uses Ireland as a whipping-boy be it for his obsession with gender “rights” or tax;

http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/Obama-needs-to-stop-bad-mouthing-Ireland-right-away.html

From the ramparts of  international neoliberal establishment we will experience fire;

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/scottish-independence-blow-to-yes-campaign-as-bp-and-standard-life-claim-breakaway-will-harm-business-9724874.html

So what can be done? Elsewhere in my “Ireland in crisis” book, I proposed a new constitution in which Ireland reinstates its claim on its territory and interprets the NI referendum as the opportunity for electoral areas to secede.

It is my belief that we are undergoing yet another genocide. I do not believe that we are still meant to be producing the level of high culture we are doing, just as the success of the Irish in America was not foreseen. The “Ireland in crisis” book is full of solutions, at the political, administrative, technological and state narrative levels. The way things are deteriorating in Ireland, they may even be implemented

  Seán O Nualláin

PS (28 April 2015) What of sinn fein holding the balance of power in Westminster after holding their noses/crossing their fingers as they swear loyalty a la 1927?

Why active civil disobedience in Ireland is both increasing and morally justifiable

The Irish constitution defines treason narrowly as the attempt to destroy the state by violence. Thus, the criminals who accepted over $100 billion   debt to international banksters are not by this definition traitors; nor are the Irish banksters  who deliberately lied to the Irish authorities to get $10 billion to keep their Anglo scam going for a while; nor are the scum who destroyed our music industry, putting in its place the U2 Muppet show;

http://davemarsh.us/?p=951

In the past week, the Irish deputy prime minister has  been confronted with her espousal of the classic neoliberal tactic of throwing people out of their homes by activists threatening to take the law into their own hands;

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/t%C3%A1naiste-heckled-at-dublin-homelessness-conference-1.1936483

Of course, in opposition  she used to be a vigorous defender of  housing rights;

http://www.labour.ie/press/2008/07/04/home-repossessions-double-in-just-12-months/

Taking the law into one’s own hands is exactly how revolutionary public like Ireland began.

For the first time, we have seen  Irish people going “postal” at higher rates than the USA and – a la the Dolce Vita – killing their children. There is a massive increase in suicide, alcoholism, and every other index. The Irish state is responding by exporting its talented and young people and replacing them with worker drones for corporate interests.

This is not a stable state of affairs

  Seán O Nualláin
 
PS Please note that I am not advocating a return to 1969-1994. The current situation wherein politicians are being confronted in public is fine with me. In that sense I advocate "civil disobedience". And yes, the threat of a centenary rerun on 1916  - very unlikely and probably even more of a military debacle - should be there and I am not willing to condemn groups like Eirigi

And now – independence for Ireland?

All I am about to say has been published by us in 2 CSP books (2012, 2013). Here I am just trying to spark a real debate (ie one that will end with action, perhaps in conjunction with our Scots cousins)

First of all, unlucky indeed is the land that needs  heroes; but  non-existent is the nation that doesn’t have them. Scotland’s shame will last a generation; it has been 35 years since the 1979 referendum and by 2049 North Sea oil will be gone. In 1960 JFK won less than 50% of the vote; by 1962 surveys showed 64% claimed they voted for him. We will have a lot of yes voters in 2015's Scotland

 What this campaign showed was the limits of the purely civic nationalism the SNP espouses. The Scots could be scared by rebuttal of Salmond’s economic arguments; what was needed was a narrative tying them to their land.  Yet his central thesis, that a low population density, resource-rich country can thrive in the 21st century is one we Irish need to pay attention to.

In my 2013 book, I argued that we should be willing to risk losing foreign investment as we refuse to pay the “debt” imposed on us in 2010 to buttress the  neoliberal world order. We always had the ability to do without Google, Facebook and other US garbage. Then again, so has Scotland. Instead we created garbage like Deri in SFI and imported criminals who continue to assert (in publications written with Botox’s manufacturer) against attested lab work that Botox cannot reach the brain;

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/whistleblowers-lab-probe-scientist-to-take-up-irish-post/188052.article

There has recently been controversy about censorship of poets in the Maldives. Are  we in Ireland really in a position to throw stones here? W  do not allow musicians to make a living – it is documented that the chair of IMRO, FF’s Shay Hennessy, was stealing copyrights in the 1990’s at an industrial scale. The state then colluded with him via Enterprise Ireland to sell off the songs at a cut rate via Walmart. So we celebrate Dolores Keane’s return, we should be aware of the factors that caused her depression and drug abuse. Specifically, not getting paid for her work

Secondly, our “legal system has nothing to do with justice.  The Gardai rarely investigate white-collar crime; when they do, as with the Hennessy music scam, the prosecution in interfered with at the DPP level and the musicians had to go to Federal court in the USA, where they won. The alternative is grinding through a system whose legal costs  that has spawned three of the top 20 biggest legal firms in the EU from a population of 1% or so of the total

Thirdly, we do not have academic freedom in Ireland. The 1990 act prohibits strikes for “single” dismissals of everybody, including uni profs. Only Paul Cahill’s willingness to declare bankruptcy in the event of his losing prevented mass sackings at DCU.

The Irish State has a classic corporatist structure, with evisceration of civil society. By all means invite poets from anywhere to speak here; but it should not turn into another excuse for not investigating the institutionalized criminality  and brutalization of artists and thinkers rampant in Ireland

Our  country did not fail for lack of talent and hard work

 Seán O Nualláin

PS Now for the good news; in 1979 only 32% of the Scottish electorate voted in favour of devolution. In 2014 38%  of the Scottish electorate voted in favour of outright independence. The trajectory seems clear, and Westminster will have to "think again" as "Flower of Scotland" puts it.

Looked at through this filter, Salmond looks like the last hope for an independent Scotland that remained loyalist and in NATO. The response from Westminster may be devolution on their terms, with the Scottish Labour MP's hamstrung by the "West Lothian question" and so irrelevant that the Scots begin to replace them with the SNP. Then comes an ethnic national independence drive, possibly after a UK EU withdrawal, one that has a hard man like Jimmy Reid in charge, one that will rightly ignore the BS we heard from international banksters

Next time we Irish should explicitly support outright independence for Scotland

PPS  It is as well to mention, given this scandalous incident of vandalism by Irish students in the SF area;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrJyXL4h3iY

that in 2013 Mel and I formally wrote to the Irish consul-general there complaining about how the behaviour of these students might create anti-Irish sentiment

Announcing an online course in Irish music and song taught at UC Berkeley

We are currently offering an online course on “Irish Music and Song ” precisely as 
taught as an advanced seminar in UC Berkeley .

A sample lecture and outline of the course can be found at

http://universityofireland.com/irisherig2011.html

You can simply become a member of the following blog to enroll;
http://irishmusicandsong.blogspot.com/

Queries can be sent to universityofireland@gmail.com

The course costs $25, and will run with lectures posted on the blog every week from Sept 19 for 5 weeks Passwords will be issued to members.

  Please pay at

http://foundationsofmind.org/donate/



It does NOT use video, as we believe that slides + voiceover is a more economical means of learning. The method of assessment is essay submission at the end of the course. As with all the other courses in Stanford's recent offerings (which includes a Berkeley course on software as a service), it is NOT accredited by UC Berkeley , but taught exactly as in UC Berkeley

Students who submit an essay will be given a signature of completion and an indication of where they would have finished vis a vis the Berkeley class

An independent Scotland may make Ireland irrelevant - so vote "yes"

Readers, please note you can find free  excerpts from my 2 books on Ireland here;

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/59226

and here;


http://www.cambridgescholars.com/ireland-in-crisis-16


The books are also for sale;


 http://www.amazon.com/Ireland-A-Colony-Once-Again/dp/1443840858

http://www.amazon.com/Ireland-Crisis-Analyses-Proposed-Solutions/dp/1443849650

 (A further letter to the Taoiseach)

I have made serious allegations of criminal activity and believe that
documentary evidence is readily available. It is not just at DCU the
crimes were committed, but – as I indicated – the music industry.
Indeed, it could be argued that what was being planned at Ireland was
a massive sell-off of the universities, the music, everything.

Ironically, Irish corruption  may allow an independent Scotland get a
great start. Scotland already has universities much higher ranked than
ours and its artists and engineers have not had to put up with Fianna
Fail so are better placed than ours.

Maybe this exchange is simply the government collecting information
with no intention to act; but as an Irishman I must show that I did
care sufficiently to predict how we should re-assert our sovereignty;

http://www.amazon.com/Ireland-Crisis-Analyses-Proposed-Solutions/dp/1443849650

I am sympathetic to the constraints you experience from the ECB/IMF
but a “yes” vote from Scotland with its implicit rejection of
neoliberalism will provide an opening for you to cast off the ECB/IMF
shackles and  indeed become a nation once again, perhaps with
overwhelmingly protestant Scotland  guaranteeing the rights of
Ireland’s Protestant co-religionists of Alex Salmond  in a loose
confederation.

PS Those wondering about the wisdom of an ex-pat advising the Taoiseach may do well to consider that the current Ostrich strategy is unlikely to work;

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/polititcs/dublin-silence-will-no-longer-be-an-option-if-scotland-votes-for-independence-1.1919450

This is particularly the case as it emerges from "mandarins" who believed that Lenin visited Ireland during the Russian civil war;

 http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/enda-kenny-redfaced-over-wrong-claim-that-lenin-visited-ireland-26889968.html

Maybe they thought it was Lennon?

PPS The content above has now been acknowledged by the Taoiseach.

As companies like BP come out for "no" in Scotland we are getting a sense of what the years 1916-1924 must have been like in Ireland. The added complication of having to defeat the British militarily after repeatedly voting “yes” in Ireland  will not have to be faced by the Scots. Anything other than “yes” is a national disgrace from which they will not recover, particularly after we showed then the way and took the brunt of British violence.

A “No” vote will make it even more urgent that we cure the pathological state of Irish society so that our shared culture can persist in the world

PPPS (14/9) Remarkable  party politics this past week.

1. Gordon Brown and others announce that the status quo is untenable and that the original option Salmond requested of increased  devolution will follow a "no" vote

2. Al Darling seems to amplify this, then goes on the Scotsman to speecify - nothing

3 Hague confirms this by saying Westminster has planned  no additional powers for holyrood

4. Cameron announces  he loves his country more than his party

The biggest party political winners from a "yes" would be the Tories as Labour will lose 40 + seats at Westminster.. So the Tories seem to have a wing that would prefer Scotland leave...........

 Seán O Nualláin

Finally  (4/2015) We seem to be close to a situation wherein a coalition of the SNP, SDLP and the Sinn feiners who take the oath with their fingers crossed hold the balance of power in Westminster. Indeed, for the English to maintain their own sovereignty, they may be compelled to slough off the Celtic "fringe" ........