This Sunday (24th May), the Socialist Party candidate in the Dublin Euro Election Campaign, Joe Higgins, will be doing a live online video Q&A session, to give people throughout Dublin the chance to directly ask him questions. Starting at 5pm, he will be answering questions as they come in, live on video through his website . To watch the video, or ask a question people simply have to log on at 5pm.

The event, which his campaign believes to be the first of its kind for Ireland, will also reach out to those in the online blogging community, who the campaign are keen to engage with. As well as taking questions from the internet, a number of ‘bloggers’ will also be at the event, taking place in the IFI in Templebar, with plenty of time to interview Joe.

RELATED LINKS:

- More information about the bloggers side of the event: - "Open Invitation to Bloggers"
- "Joe Higgins Launches Online Euro Election Campaign": Click Here
- "Joe Higgins - Why I'm Standing": Click Here
- Information about all the candidates running in the Dublin European Elections, and a chance to ask them all questions by email: Click Here

Socialist Party of Ireland website
Joe Higgins website

Greens show their true colours yet again

Anyone wringing their hands over the current deal being wrought between the Green Party and Fianna Fail ought to examine the actual evidence of what the Green Party believes as opposed to what the voters wish they believe. A quick glance at the Indymedia Archives will adequately disillusion you.

May 20 2002 Greens get six seats in the Dail. Commentary on indymedia.ie draws attention to Trevor Sargent's attack on the SP's attempt to stop the bin tax. One cynic suggests that no one ought to be surprised at any Green "betrayal" because the history of the EU Greens was rife with it.

Mar 20 2003 80 People blockade the Dail. Protestors are beaten and dragged by the hair. Green Party TD Paul Gogarty is passed the mic by one of the protest organisers and uses the opportunity to plead that "we" are defeated and that he needs to drive his CO2 emitter home, so "shut up and listen"

April 2nd 2003. Blockade of 1000 at the Dail. Two people hospitalised. Joe Higgins dragged off.

June 10th 2003. Ciaran Cuffe steps down. Fianna Fail were horrified and disgusted at the revelation that the Green Party's Environmental spokesman Ciaran Cuffe had over $70,000 of investments in oil companies. The GP accepted his resignation but were satisfied that Mr.Cuffe's investments were not scandalous because they were part of a $1,300,000 inheritance.

November 3rd 2003 Deputy Mayor Attacks Anti-War Activists Deputy Mayor (Green Party) Brian Meaney attacks the attempt to shut down Shannon to US troops and torture planes as "outrageous threats".

June 16 2006 Green Party stokes Graffiti hysteria. Green Party TD John Gormley calls for strong measures to be taken against a blight that is sapping the vigour of our nation's youth.
Audio of the media scrum outside the Dáil from Séan Ryan: TrevorSargent runs from Shannon, 2.5MB mp3|EamonRyan 2.3MB mp3

gplobby06.jpg 0.26 Mb Will the Green Party follw TD Ryan's choice to turn his back on Shannon? 0.22 Mb gplobby03.jpg 0.2 Mb gplobby08.jpg 0.23 Mb gplobby16.jpg 0.24 Mb gplobby17.jpg 0.27 Mb Lobbying Green Party members 0.17 Mb Lobbying Green Party members 0.19 Mb Save Tara 0.3 Mb

As the dust recedes from the ballot box and the parties alternately lick their wounds and rest on their laurels it’s worth having a think about its consequences for the left in general and the radical left in particular...Sinking a lot of work into achieving an especially high soapbox isn’t that much use when people aren’t listening. If we want our arguments to be heard we need to make them from the furnace where our politics have been forged, the heart of the struggles of the people.

The small parties generally got a drubbing this time around, and of course, the left wing parties are all very much on the small side. The only winners are the centre right civil war parties of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, if one is to judge political mood by elections then the left wing is in a sorry state all around. Despite anarchists talking up electoral non-participation this was one of the biggest turn outs in years, people turned up and turned right.

Related Links: Drop in Green First Preferences | Post Election '07 Eirig and Dublin PSF | Indymedia Election Blog | Adams Takes A Dive To The Right | Remember the vote to give away our gas? | Captain Moonlight Discusses Voting Irish Anarchists Launch Campaign To Encourage Democracy | Has Bertie's Begging Bowl Exposed The Emptiness Of The Opposition?

Climate change is everywhere. Ramor Ryan gatecrashes the ineffectual UN Conference on Climate Change in Nairobi and comes back blaming Capitalism.

A momentous report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that climate change is 'man-made and unstoppable'. The 21-page report, described as conservative by the IPCC itself, says human-made emissions of greenhouse gases are to blame for heat waves, floods and heavy rains, droughts and stronger storms, melting ice-caps and rising sea-levels.

The IPCC is comprised of over 2000 climate experts and scientists. It was set up in 1988 by the UN and the World Meteorological organisation to guide policy makers on the impact of climate change. Despite strenuous attempts by oil companies and big business to undermine the final report, it remains quietly apocalyptic in its assessment.

Its mind-boggling conclusion predicts serious water shortage for between 1.1 and 3.2 billion people, food shortages for 200 to 600 million people. Coastal flooding will hit seven million people within 70 years. The list of potential catastrophe goes on and on.

Related Links: SP on climate change | The Politics and Reality of Peak Oil | Book Review: Ramor Ryan's 'Clandestines: the pirate journals of an Irish Exile' | Climate Change Action Now: Demonstration This Friday 13th ,Dublin City | International Day of Direct Action against Climate Change and the G8. | Climate Change: Answering the Sceptics (and Channel 4) | Ireland and Climate Chaos

Riot police have been firing tear gas at demonstrators in Budapest in the last hours as they tried to storm hungary's state TV company. Storming TV stations is a pretty traditional way of kicking off a revolution. The protesters are angry at the revelation that the current prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany admits that his party lied to gain office. Being relatively new to democracy the Hungarians find such cleverness a distasteful display of sociopathy. Hungarian radio played a tape of a meeting in which Gyurcsany & other party leaders (socialists by the way) did their Nixon best to pull the wool over the electorates' eyesv last week & since then the "politicisation" index of Hungarians has shot up. They are now very newsworthy and enjoying their second day of attention on Slavic language news sites.

Indy Audio Updates: 'Zoltan' (not real name) who describes the night when MTV (Hungarian TV) was attacked by angry demonstrators (6:38mins / 1.5megs)... Balazs describes how Hungary exploded in the last couple days and the lasted effect of 'socialism' and the imprint of the Soviet crushing of the 1956 revolution. He also offers some interesting observations about how media behaves in a post-socialist country. Part 1 (15:42mins / 3,6megs), Part 2 (16:43mins / 3.8megs)
BBC: We lied to win, says Hungary PM | BBC: Protests Target State TV
Reports From IMC.hu:National television under siege in Hungary | Photos of the disturbances