In England, vote Green to keep Nick Griffin and the BNP out

http://www.stopnickgriffin.org.uk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4a5B4ysJJY

FRANK Cottrell Boyce, the Liverpool-based screenwriter and author, whose acclaimed films include 24 Hour Party People, Welcome to Sarajevo and Hilary and Jackie , explains why after voting Labour all his life, he's backing the Greens in this election to stop the BNP.

Vote Mary Lou to fix Fianna Fáil

OKAY, if it's a battle between Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil's Eoin Ryan for the last European seat in Dublin then it has to be Mary Lou Number 1.

And keep voting Left to fix Fianna Fáil.

In Europe, I'm voting Mary Lou/Sinn Féin, Joe Higgins/Socialist Party, Patricia McKenna and Labour.

The same goes for the local elections too. In my area, I'm voting Sinn Féin, Labour and maybe Independents (if I can find out what they stand for and they're not wing-nuts).

Whatever you do, don't stay home – use your vote to make the Government sit up and listen.

Child abuse by clergy in state homes – Reflection on a Sunday

I WAS going to wait until Monday before posting on this but the sheer horror of the child abuse that was rampant in so-called schools and state institutions run by religious orders is so overwhelming that I'll put up the link on the report itself and return to it again.

http://www.childabusecommission.ie

It's Sunday, a day when Christians are called to prayer. I'm not a Christian but I respect those who do believe. I hope the Catholic Church takes a long hard look at itself, stops hiding in the shadows and does the right thing by exposing the guilty and making whatever reparations it can to the victims.

Made up in Britain

THE British National Party has been caught out in its election ads extolling the very Britishness of its campaign, 'British Jobs for British Workers'... by using foreigners in them.
The World War 2 Spitfire aircraft in the BNP's 'Battle of Britain' fund-raising drive is actually Polish, the builders and doctor are American, and the elderly couple who are 'voting BNP' because they've seen Britain's decline are actually Italian – and they've lived all their lives in Italy!

Shamrock Rovers v Bohs and growing up

I MADE one of my now infrequent forays to a League of Ireland match after some years being a regular attender last night to the Dublin derby between bitter rivals Shamrock Rovers v Bohemians.

The occasion entailed a cross-city trek to the Hoops' new Tallaght Stadium, still a work in progress but at least a permanent home for one of Ireland's famous football clubs.

On the pitch, Bohs went 1-0 up from a penalty in the first quarter of an hour but we were stunned – in an otherwise lacklustre game in which Bohs had looked (too?) comfortable – by two goals by Rovers in the 88th and 89th minutes. Rovers ran out winners 2-1.

Throughout the match, in the stands, there were distractions, which caused me to miss the second Rovers goal.

I had mates in both sets of supporters and there are many passionate fans on both sides, but why are there 'crews' imitating their English hooligan counterparts with an apparent need to prove their 'manliness' by swearing and abusing the opposition if not getting to physically attacking them.

My experience at LOI and English matches makes me think twice about taking my young son again even though he's obsessed by 'The Beautiful Game'.

The journey home on the LUAS with many of the still-boisterous Bohs fans was good-natured, even with the up-close and personal presence of the Garda and LUAS Security's 'Men in Black'.

Earlier, a lot of the stuff inside the stadium was handbags at 40 paces but why do grown men – and many were adults, not 'teenage tearaways' – have to do this? Why don't they rent a backroom in a pub somewhere and have a big cage fight – and stop giving going to a match a bad name.

I'm back

THE TROUBLE with not having posted in more than six months is that some people think you've been doing a stretch in Mountjoy. I haven't. The simple reason is that I've been an idle blogger.

There's been so much personal stuff going on that blogging hasn't been one of my priorities but with the elections a mere matter of weeks away and the state of the nation, I've given myself a metaphorical kick up the arse to post in the interests of, if nothing else, therapy.

Here goes.

40th anniversary of police attack on civil rights marchers

TODAY is the 40th anniversary of the vicious attack by state paramilitary police on peaceful civil rights marchers in Derry City, in the North of Ireland, in 1968.

'Northern Ireland' is an artificial statelet carved out of the nine counties of Ulster in 1921 and made up of six counties with an in-built unionist (pro-British) majority to guard against any momentum towards reunification with the rest of Ireland and British withdrawal. It was, as unionists boasted, "A Protestant state for a Protestant people," (i.e. pro-British people).

In 1968, drawing their inspiration from student protests around the world but particularly from Martin Luther King and the black civil rights movement in the USA, marchers took to the streets to end unionist state discrimination against Catholics.

Speaking today in Derry City at a rally to mark the anniversary, Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, a former commander in the Irish Republican Army and now the joint First Minister in the power-sharing government in the North of Ireland, said:

"Forty years ago on the streets of this city, men and women from different backgrounds, from different generations, from different political roots came together as equals and we demanded our rights.

"Some unionist voices courageously spoke out. They knew what was happening was wrong and that the writing was on the wall for unionist misrule. But political unionism wasn't listening. They weren't interested in change.

• Unionism controlled the parliament
• Unionism controlled the cabinet;
• Unionism controlled the police force;
• Unionism controlled the justice system;
• Unionism dominated business and controlled local government;
• Unionism dictated housing policy and allocation.

"And unionism would try and cling to all of this and use violence and intimidation in defence of its interests."

On 5th October 1968, the Royal Ulster Constabulary viciously batoned peaceful civil rights marchers who had been singing We Shall Overcome. But this wasn't Alabama or Kent State University; this was part of the United Kingdom, supposedly under the control of and answerable to the 'Mother of Parliaments' in Westminster.

London had turned a blind eye to almost 50 years of government-approved and enforced sectarian discrimination against Catholic citizens. On 5th October, though, the eyes of the world were opened when TV cameras caught the state police in action.

Things would never be the same again.

Sarah Palin's 'terrorist pals'

SARAH PALIN has sunk to new lows in claiming that Barack Obama 'pals with terrorists' because a former member of the Vietnam War-era US Weather Underground supported Obama's first run for public office 13 years ago.

Leaving aside the fact that you can't stop people from supporting you, Sarah Plain conveniently overlooks the fact that her party leader, George W Bush, renewed diplomatic relations with Libya only two years ago. Only last month, Condi Rice visited the 'pariah state' and met Moammar Gaddafi, whom former President Reagan once labelled "this mad dog of the Middle East".

Does Sarah Palin think Dubya and Condi now 'pal with (former) terrorists'?

I think we should be told.

***

Story from RTÉ News:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1005/uselection.html

Palin says Obama pals with terrorists - Sunday, 5 October 2008 09:37

The US Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, has accused Democratic candidate Barack Obama of being pals with terrorists.

With the Republicans trailing in the polls a month before the Presidential election, Ms Palin said the time had come to take the gloves off.

Speaking yesterday at a fundraiser in Colorado, Ms Palin told supporters Senator Obama 'is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.'

Her comment referred to William Ayers, who supported Barack Obama's first run for public office in 1995.

The relationship between Senator Obama and William Ayers, a member of the radical 1960s group the Weathermen that committed bombings on the Pentagon and the Capitol, was highlighted in The New York Times yesterday.

Governor Palin's sharp jab is in step with recent Republican campaign statements that the McCain camp plans to launch a fierce assault on Barack Obama with the presidential election only 30 days away.

The Obama campaign described the attack as 'desperate and false.'

'Governor Palin's comments, while offensive, are not surprising, given the McCain campaign's statement this morning that they would be launching Swiftboat-like attacks in hopes of deflecting attention from the nation's economic ills,' said Obama-Biden spokesman Hari Sevugan.

'What's clear is that John McCain and Sarah Palin would rather spend their time tearing down Barack Obama than laying out a plan to build up our economy,' he said.

ENDS