What Did James Connolly Die For?

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Saturday June 18, 2005 17:28

by Sean Crudden - impero

sean at impero dot iol dot ie

Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth.

042 93 71310

Give The Worker Individual Responsibility

Who has the best chance of forming the correct opinions about management in the police or in the health "service"? Is it the tub-thumping, opinionated politician with a big mouth and deaf ears? Has the individual worker a smaller brain or a less important personal life than "Mr Big" in the Health Service Executive (HSE)?

"A HSE spokesman told The Irish Times last night that the review would examine whether nursing-home inspections were ‘sufficiently robust’ and whether health authorities were consistent in their assessments of the homes."

Quotations like the above from the Health Service Executive are designed to cause a little flutter in the breast of people involved in nursing home care. Individual words like "Executive" "robust" "authorities" "assessment" carry, for me, a flavour of the Dickensian. It looks like as if the HSE considers it can guarantee standards only by some kind of aggressive imposition "from the top." My own personal experience is that it is not only in golf that hitting "from the top" is a bad idea.

We all know that James Connolly was executed by gunfire sitting in a chair after he had fought bravely a hopeless battle intended to secure the liberty of the Irish working class. I am sure that if he were alive today he would interpret the HSE as a bureaucratic oppressor seeking to make slaves of workers at the lower levels in the health "service."

The legacy of the 20th century is one of personal freedom and responsibility - next Tuesday is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sartre who with Albert Camus was one of the fathers of existentialism. People in general today have a high standard of general education. People in their personal lives are well fitted to use their own judgement and there should always be room for personal discretion at work too. The experience which people have of working in a job often has a lot to do with their personal development and the way they are treated at work will often have a very profound spillover effect in their personal and family lives. If workers in the health service (or in the police) are treated like eejits and morons and worse who have no intelligence and who do not know how to do their job then the long term results for society (in terms of family culture) will be regrettable.

Apart from that the work of the health "service" and the police will be of the lowest bestial quality.

No. We will have to get back to basic ideas of respect for the individual worker, training and team-building - and none of this will flow easily from a top-down, authoritarian approach. Paradoxically aggressive management seems to be common currency with the main political ideologues of today (Fine Gael and The Progressive Democrats). Aggression and bullying are the trade marks of Blair in Britain and Bush in The United States - and maybe, also, Putin in Russia.

There are people in Ireland who know a better way and, I think, Bertie Ahern is not least among them. However they have their work cut out for them to roll back a stinking tide of popular, fascistic, unthinking and merciless right-wing politics.

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Comments (6 of 6)

Bertie

by John McDermott - www.soldiersofdestiny.org

Sun Jun 19, 2005 02:09

jmcd444 at yahoo dot com

Pondering upon your comment- (quote )
,"a stinking tide of popular, fascist, unthinking and merciless right-wing politics."
But Sean , Bertie is rolling out a unique combination of socialist(where appropriate) and right wing politics-(bin taxes ,toll bridges etc...) just in time for the next election.!

Health

by John

Sun Jun 19, 2005 11:01

Where is the evidence that, if Connolly had survived and gone on to run the country, Ireland would have had a better health service? Connolly was a marxist. At the time of his death there were no marxist-run countries in the world. Within 30 years there were quite a few, mainly in eastern Europe. These regimes lasted until around 1990. During their forty years or so of existence the marxist governments of eastern europe had a dreadful health record. By the late 1980s mortality rates in eastern Europe were double those of western Europe and life expectancy was 10 years lower in countries like Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Romania and Czechoslovakia than in western European countries. Even the poorest countries in western Europe of that time, such as Ireland, Portugal and Greece had life expectancies 8 years higher than in the marxist-run eastern European countries. If Connolly had lived and gone on to run the country, where is the evidence that Ireland would not have ended up in the late 1980s with mortality rates and life expectancy similar to the levels that prevailed then in Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Romania and Czechoslovakia ?

Connolly legacy discussion (Galway)

by JC - GLHG

Sun Jun 19, 2005 14:50

Roddy Connolly: political odyssey of a socialist republican

PUBLIC LECTURE by CHARLIE McGUIRE, Imperial Hotel, Eyre Square, Galway, 8pm

Roddy Connolly (1901 -1980) had a long & varied political career. He was at the side of his father in the GPO in 1916; a few years later he was a founder of the Communist Party of Ireland and a confidant of anti-Treaty republicans; in the 1930s, he was involved in the Republican Congress. Later, he was a Labour TD; later still, he was an obedient pro-coalition chairman of the Labour Party. The lecture will consider Roddy Connolly's career, with a particular focus on his custodianship of the Connolly legacy.

by Larry Brennan - Retired Salesman

Sun Jun 19, 2005 18:31

"Ardmara" Point Road Dundalk

We all know that James Connolly was executed by gunfire sitting in a chair after he had fought bravely a hopeless battle intended to secure the liberty of the Irish working class. I am sure that if he were alive today he would interpret the HSE as a bureaucratic oppressor seeking to make slaves of workers at the lower levels in the health "service."

First of all let me say, “James Connolly was only an old Shite full of wind who needed a good dose of Epsom salts or castor oil to clear his system of shit”!

Second I want to say that the HSE is choked with bureaucracy and a workforce is only as good as it management and the management speaks for itself as the system is out of control offering no value for money to the economics when compared internationally. Unit costs are far too height here in The Emerald Isle

The whole system needs to be scrapped and let the Health task be let in the hands of privatisation. Let market forces run the health service.

And further to be honest we cannot accuse the government of bullying tactics etc. The problem is that too many people want everything for nothing and don’t want to work just sit around on their arses like arm chair generals and do fuck all but moan and groan and this can include many politicians like your good beloved colleague Mr Michael (Mick) McDowell and your darling colleague Ms Mary Harney. Well to be fair they are doing some movement by wagging their tongues to the news media while they may pile on weight like a big heap of Shite. However, I must give credit to Mrs Elizabeth O’Donnell-Carter whose is a very hard working politician and keeps herself lovely and trim.

Executed by gunfire sitting on a chair ironically is what should be done with the present system and open out to market forces. Yes I have come from a business background and would give it a go at running the country for 12 months as long as I would have time for relaxation with a drop of the craters etc.

I am very diplomatic and approachable too!

Larry Brennan

What James Connolly Should have Lived For?

by Michael Anthony Curran - Public Servant

Sun Jun 19, 2005 19:10

Rostrevor Co Down

What Did James Connolly Die For?

There is only one man that is fit to run the country and his name is Cllr Peter Savage because he will show James Connolly “What you shall live for”. A big car, plenty of money from expenses etc, plus his own private businesses I am just back from sabbatical Sean and no so thankful for all I have got and now I do not never want to die and leave this world. I will settle for you nagging at me and realise all that I can do in this life with the huge salary I get from the council I am entirely grateful to be alive and serving in my capacity even though you try to eat the backside out of me and get me sent away on sabbatical.

I only wish that you would do it more Sean as I had such a great time. I will try and get you to join me maybe linking up in a programme with Communities Connect. Gosh Sean I assure you that you will connect if you get away with me as the birds are lovely in the trees.

Thanking you Sean

Michael Anthony Curran