Month: April 2013

21 posts
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Review: The Spirit of ’45

Ken Loach’s new documentary ”The Spirit of ’45” isn’t just a film about a historical period. It’s an excellent addition to the discussion on how working people can achieve a decent life in 2013.

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Resist IMF’s demand for more shock therapy!

Can an institution, like a human person, suffer from schizophrenia? Judging by the latest report from the International Monetary Fund it would certainly seem so. The condition involves a ‘breakdown of thought processes’, a ‘deficit of typical emotional responses’ and ‘disorganised thinking and speech.’ All these conditions are evident in the prescriptions by the IMF for the Irish people.

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Thatcher – A class warrior for capitalism

Millions have been waiting for this day, 8 April 2013. Margaret Thatcher will never be forgiven for the devastation that her Tory governments' policies wrought on working class communities in the 1980s - and is still being felt today. "I would suggest as a memorial to Mrs Thatcher that instead of the usual headstone or statue, a dance floor should be erected over her grave". This was proposed by a writer to the Observer paper from Durham, a former mining area, on the 30th anniversary of her coming to power.

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North Korea: Dictator threatens nuclear attack

Last week, fear and tension escalated on the Korean peninsula and far beyond, for very understandable reasons. North Korea is a quasi Stalinist regime of a peculiar kind and inherently unstable. The new ‘great leader’ - Kim Jon-un - appears to be even more unpredictable than his father when it comes to threats of sending nuclear weapons into the sky.

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Labour fear of political annihilation motivates deferral of Water Tax

Labour Leader Eamon Gilmore's announcement of the deferral of water charges from next January is prompted wholly by the party's fear of annihilation at the Local and Euro Parliament Elections in 2014. The absence of meters did not prevent the Labour / Fine Gael Coalition from introducing water charges in 1983 nor again their reintroduction in Dublin in 1994.

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Behind the stock market surge

In the first week of March share prices surged on the New York Stock Exchange followed by other major exchanges. Does this signify a revival of the global capitalist economy? The Financial Times was quick to note that "little of investors’ exuberance is reflected in core economic data… The US and the UK ended the year stagnant; the eurozone and Japan in renewed recession; the emerging world slowing down". (Stock Markets Defy Economic Woes, 6 March)