Jailed for Standing up against Warmongers!

Margaretta D'Arcy is a role model for us all. 
Politicians of all parties in the last three governments facilitated the use of Shannon Airport by US military involved in an illegal invasion and war in Iraq. The country and its peoples were destroyed by this action undertaken purely to secure oilfields for the USA. 
Today Iraq is reduced to a nightmarish Mad Max landscape, controlled by warlords and their religious fundamentalist gangs, millions dead or as refugees; its female, Christian and secular inhabitants without basic human rights. 

Margaretta goes to jail for standing up for human rights, peace and neutrality, the principles supposedly of the Irish state whilst Denis O'Brien, Michael Lowry, Irish bankers, property speculators and corrupt politicians who destroyed our country for their own private gain still walk free and enjoy the riches that they stole from us. No Justice!
President Michael D Higgins participated with Margaretta on many demonstrations against the US war in Iraq and against the American military use of Shannon. 
In the past, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore and Minister Pat Rabbitte loudly condemned American interference in the affairs of other countries and demanded that Ireland should not be caught up supporting their aggressive imperialistic
So please Mr. President and the Irish government. Have her released now!
 

Free Speech under threat in the Free World

Not a good week for 'Free Speech' in the 'Free World' as the Pussy Riot musicians are jailed in Russia; Sweden and Britain try to extradite Julian Assange on what seems to be trumped-up charges; and Denis O'Brien makes a personal libel threat to sue Vincent Browne.
But thankfully these brave messengers of Truth and Justice are not allowing themselves to be coerced into silence. This includes Ecuador, which has granted asylum to Julian Assange, and is one of a growing number of South American states where people power is finally throwing off the shackles of oppression imposed by white minority wealthy elites kept in power for decades by the US establishment in return for access to cheap raw materials. It is no coincidence that Ecuador along with Bolivia which have large native Indian population became a few months ago the first states in the modern era to amend their constitutions to grant rights to wildlife, symptomatic of some traditional indigenous societies where respect for Nature matters more than monetary value.
In Ireland, it is long overdue for the government to stand up to the 'old boys network'  and take action again Michael Lowry and Denis O'Brien for what the taxpayer funded Moriarty Tribunal concluded was a corruption of Irish political system for personal gain.

Arab Uprisings Reminiscent of Eastern Europe

Is history repeating itself? The wave of popular revolutions sweeping across the Arab world is reminiscent of events in Europe over twenty years ago. A series of mass street protests and strikes across Poland ended the fifty-four year authoritarian rule of the Communist Party when the regime was forced to hold democratic elections in 1989. Like a game of dominoes, the success of Polish ‘people power’ caused a knock-on effect of uprisings across all of the one-party Stalinist countries of eastern Europe. The seemingly indestructible edifice of militaristic Soviet puppet governments imploded within a matter of months.

Violence though was lessened by the ground-breaking decision of the Soviet Union under a reformist Mikhail Gorbachev government not to intervene in its satellite states as it had done so often in the past.

But the struggle for liberty and democracy knows no boundaries. Within a few years the USSR itself, then the world’s second superpower, disintegrated as its own peoples finally unshackled their chains of bondage.

In 2011 the majority of the Arab states, reeling from mass popular protests, are mainly one party regimes kept in power this time by the economic and military support of the USA, the world’s number one superpower.

Egypt for instance has long being the second largest (after Israel) recipient of American aid. Yet these funds, totalling c$2bn annually, are not used to improve the quality of life of the poverty stricken Egyptian people but primarily to buy arsenals of sophisticated weaponry from American arms manufacturers to keep a hated elite in power and to help Israel maintain its illegal siege of Gaza.

Thankfully it is Barack Obama in the White House and not George Bush leading to the hope that the Arabs will be able to eject their rulers from Yemen, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Of course the struggle for freedom and justice cannot be contained and inevitably it will be the turn of the Israeli colonists in the West Bank to face the wrath of both the enslaved and the exiled Palestinian peoples supported by the freed Arab populace of neighbouring countries. Peace in a war -ravaged Middle East will possibly then have a chance to blossom in a more fertile soil.

What have the Anti-War Protestors Ever Done for Galway?

Photo: Galway City Mayor Councillor Tom Costello addressing the Anti-Salthill Airshow protest in Summer 2007

Over the last few months Michael Crowe, an auctioneer and former independent councillor who recently joined Fianna Fáil, has taken it upon himself to try and relaunch the controversial Salthill Airshow famed for its display of US military airplanes. In so doing , he has launched a series of blistering attacks on the Galway Alliance Against War(GAAW) condemning its members as a bunch of 'lunatics' and professional complainers who have never really done anything constructive in their lives.
I got fed up with hearing and reading these lies and standard cliches being made against individuals whom I have admired for their idealistic committment to others but who have also contributed in their professional lives to greatly enhancing the image of Galway. So I decided to put the record straight by submitting the following letter to the 'Galway Advertiser' prior to Christmas:

Dear Editor,
I was saddened at the comments made by Councillor Michael Crowe in last week’s Galway Advertiser when he disparagingly condemned the anti-war movement as nothing more than a “…rent-a-crowd brigade… who if they don’t like which way the sun comes up stick up a few posters…go out protesting…”
He then asks what have these people “…ever done for the city?…”
Well outside the important element of having the moral courage to increase public awareness about the glorification by the Salthill Air Show of war machines and an air force that has killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in illegal wars over the last few decades, quite a lot really.
For example, the literary works of Rita Ann Higgins and Fred Johnston are respected worldwide and their efforts have helped establish our city as a mecca for creative writing. Author and broadcaster Padraic Breathnach co-founded Macnas which, with his many other pioneering endeavours over the last thirty years, earned Galway the accolade of being the nation’s cultural capital. Other seasoned locally-based American pacifist campaigners such as technologist Doug Foxvoug and stain-glass designer Richard Kimball are recognised globally as experts in their own career areas who have greatly benefited their adopted homeland and its citizenry.
It will be a long time before people such as Councillor Crowe or myself come anywhere close to enhancing the reputation of the city as these visionary luminaries have done.

It is also very strange to condemn these peace activists as ‘lunatics’. Especially at this time of year when we celebrate the Christmas message of ‘peace on earth, goodwill to all men’.

Finally, I would ask the Michael to familiarise himself with the history of the political party that he has recently joined. Its founder Eamon DeValera would never agree with the councillor’s recommendation to campaigners that they should “…make their views known…and (then) leave it…”. Dev was a committed international campaigner against injustice, who never gave up the struggle and warned against small nations being sucked into imperial wars of aggression that were disingenuously portrayed by their protagonists as crusades for freedom and democracy.

Check out my previous postings on the Salthill Airshow:
Galway Businesses Glorify Terrorist Bombers
Sights & Sounds of US Bombers Re-awaken Fears in Galway

Why is the United States of America Hated So Much?

Anti-War Protest, Galway 2006

The nation that has defined so much of the world for the last 100 years has never been so despised.
Why is that so many of us that have fond memories of working in the United States, that use American products daily, are life-long fans of the country's technological achievements, listen avidly to American-inspired pop music, have an insatiable appetite for American television programmes & Hollywood movies, pander without any hesitation to U.S. fashion, espouse its inherent political ideology of "life, liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness", yet still possess a deep and growing hatred of its political presence on the world stage?

The answer is simple- The policies of the United States, particularly its environmental and foreign activities, are arrogant, selfish, hypocritical, militaristic and smack of a new type of imperialism that is dramatically escalating under the present regime of George Bush and is leading the world on a path of global self-destruction.
The White House now views the planet as something to be used and abused to serve the the greed and selfish interests of Corporate America. In doing so, it has given the green light to the Russian, Chinese, Israeli, Indian and a host of other governments to follow suit and abuse human rights, implement state terrorism and rape the environment.