The Sunday Papers.

international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Sunday April 10, 2005 16:05 by iosaf .:. sofia = O as If - rabbi ipsiphi says - "you could start by killing your telly" barcelona.

by slow attrition. my occasional epistle to the peers.

It has been long observed that people for some reason on their non-banking days readily absorb shite about Dangerous Places, Famous People, Sensible Saving Options, Holidays, Interesting facts, Sport results, Media, gardening and health as well looking ahead at “upcoming issues” including the future.

In this issue 've only been able to weave together :-
Dangerous Places - Famous People -
Sensible Saving Options & Health.

clotho lachysis atropo "the 3 fates" & mates enjoy the game.

In Iraq and Israel, despite the commitment of the majority of the best trained standing armies in the world, the conflicts still haven't produced any conclusive results.

* over 50% of Iraqi's are un-employed.
* The black market provides the majority of basic staples such as food and fuel.
* The USA hasn't been able to secure oil exportation.
* we know the war was illegal.
* The cause of the deaf and hearing impaired in Ireland and abroad has come to our attention in the last week, as this morning Bush th 43rd president of the USA meets Sharon to discuss the "road map"
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69288
I think to draw one of many allusions-
Goya is significant for many reasons. He helped start the sign language tradition, and gave us as his 43rd caprice an etching with the words "the dream of enlightenment produces monsters".
You may see a picture of that etching in comment 7 at this article :-
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67338
The temple of Jerusalem which is the millenial scared site of both jew and muslim and the traditionally mythical charge of the order of templers to protect has been closed today.

The oratory of Saddam Hussein was rich in classical arabic allusion. His speeches abounded in puns, allusions to ancient poetry and hyperbole. All too often the tyrant has been masked by the worm-tongued words of demagoguery. Saddam managed to charm the arabic world more than once by his skilled use of his language, which in translation to english, often seemed exaggerated. So it was the some amongst us (analysts, collators and spinners of the threads) found the last reported speech of Saddam Hussein thought-provoking to say the least. He repeated several times the phrase "they will not leave the slough". It provoked our thought, because he chose the word "slough" not "marsh", not "bog". He had indeed ordered attacks on the marsh ethnic minority of his land many times, there is a word in Iraqi argot arabic for "marsh". But instead in the last speech the demagogue chose to use the word "slough". It was almost as if he wised make a reference to that classical text of American dissenting evangelical christianity "The Pilgrim's progress" by Bunyon.
A work which proved from its illegal publication in XVI england to the XX century to be a "must read" from New England massachuessets to the expansion of the praries in the XIX century. Indeed more than one commentator has thought there may be a link between the only "white settler" north american mythic character the giant farmer Bunyon and the text which built "Gilead".
The first test which "The Pilgrims' Progress" sets its character christian is the route through "the slough of despond".

As the pilgrims and world leaders return from Rome, more than one seek to make political gain from their presence at the funereal rites for the late pope John Paul 2 "the great" = "saint" Karol Wotyla. Included amongst them the Irish government ministers Mary Harney and Michael Mc Dowell, who have included quotes from the late Roman Pontiff's words in their annual PD's conference being held this weekend in Cork.

Speculation worldwide turns to the successor of the Pope. Joseph Ratzinger who presided the funeral rites chose to repeat the words "Follow me" several times in paying tribute to Karol Wotyla.

But what kind of priest or bishops could possibly be chosen by conclave to "follow" Karol Wotyla?

Doubtless he would have to travel globally, there may be no more a Roman Pontiff who is content to sit alone in majestic isolation in the Vatican State.
Doubtless as did Karol he must be prepared to bridge the gaps between millienial religious traditions and others more recent, moral absolutism, social and all to often misogynistic conservatism and non religious based ethics and humanitarian traditions in the search for global justice and equality. "The message of the Christ".

Perhaps if he has grown in privelage he will be rejected by the world's catholic and other religious communities who have in this last week demonstrated the high regard they held Karol, if he does not share some element of Karol's formation. A bishop born to silk would bland in comparison to Karol the child of Nazi-ism and Stalin-ism.

Moreover any candidate chosen by conclave who sets rather than fulfilling the mission of JP2 and John XXIII as priority - a continuation of the recent absolutist moves within the RC heirarchy in choosing to "ignore" the global evil done in the name of avarice and ignorance by the corporations, would soon be seen to undo the progress acheived by Karol. The cardinals now prepare for conclave in secrecy as one of my previous "Sunday Papers" highlighted they ought by qouting the rules laid down by Karol. , I've been watching the Holy See caerfully over the years but most particularly since the Pope tried to throw doves off his balcony at the young people and they returned and he then contracted the flu which led to his death.

The global injustices which are seen and not seen find common root in the most recent trust placed by the ruling political and socio-economic classes in the role to be played by private investment in social development and the providence of the basic services which our universal human rights are based for their continuing security and extension.

Private investment may not provide health care, or education to the children of the richest states, and thus it will not offer such to the millions who are condemned to live in economic slavery by the economic system imposed by the richest nations on Earth.

Harney in her defence of a low tax = continual emerging "nice house "nouveau riche mediocre meritocracy, offered to her party conference claims that private investment (= irish money) ought better be spent investing in public health in Ireland rather than retail abroad.

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69250
http://www.progressivedemocrats.ie/press_room/1364/
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69192

The speculation in real estate in the tourist areas of Europe, has resulted in huge coastal areas of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Malta, Cyrpus passing from local ownership hands to new owners from the following states - Germany, Sweden, UK, France, Nederlands, Ireland.

In short the richest and least sun-tanned EU citizens are buying second homes in the poorest regions of the EU. This results in the wholesale destruction of local communities, young people in Mallorca, Sardinia, Sicily, Minorca may no longer find homes they can afford in their local communities, thus they move to the cities, pushing up rental costs even higher. The only spin-off economy job creation in their home areas are tourist related and seasonal. Precarity by definition. The waiters and waitresses who bring the drinks will never afford a "home" in their _home_ again.

And too soon, this "people's constitution" of the European Union (as Bertie Ahern another pilgrim to Rome described it yesterday to a conference of young politically interested Irish ) will stoke the move to the extreme and xenophobic right in the newest generations which we now see written on the walls...

Which is why, in .:. the name of Beethovan, Lachesis, Atropos and Clotho .:.
I ask the French to reject this constitution that does not guarantee the right to a home, a job, or health care. Re-write it, and get it right.

There are soon to be apparant effects which none of the elected and professional politicians ever thought of. Bertie, Mary, Michael Mc Dowell, Tony Blair, even "brother but not a brudah" Valerie Giscard d'Estaing all enjoy second and more homes within the EU on which they pay no tax.
They make no annual contribution to local development, economic or cultural through the ownership of these houses. Are we to expect such an example will provide new hospital beds to the county Monaghan? Or vaccines to Africa?
Not even at the depth of the Victorian age did such unrepentant greed masquerade as "an elect which enjoys providence".

I recently brought your attention to an ESRI report criticising such.
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1362848&issue_id=12237

I propose the restriction of holiday home ownerships and investment as the neccesary first step to be taken in the mediterranean region to stem the imbalance and destruction to communities which is the result of such "greed" and naked disregard for the lives of others.

Mc Dowell, as well as referring to the Pope, (which is now obligatory for all world leaders that He has "safely" died to be succeeded by a "non-Saint") has alledged to his faithful that his sworn enemies "SF/IRA" had assembled a "state within a state".

If this is true and not the usual emotive demogoguery we have come to expect from big swinging Michael, then Ireland can not have progressed much in her 80 odd years of independence. Are we really to believe that secret organisations yet exert untold influence on the affairs of state? Are we to ponder the continuing existence of secret bank accounts, untold business connections and funny handshakes?

Are we to think incomprehensible powerbrokers of cryptic wisdom sit aside the national game eternally toying with the little pilgrims?

O as If
Maybe
we R.