Article in Journal.ie clearly written to provoke comments from “I’m not racist but…” brigade

January 6, 2017January 6, 2017 ~ jlpagano

Here’s the story…as part of Ireland’s agreements as part of the international community, 80 refugees, mostly of Syrian extraction, are to be accommodated in a refurbished hotel in County Roscommon.

For the most part, we here at FPP see that as a good thing. It’s not perfect, there are negative connotations, but given all that has been happening in the world, that a place is being found for these people where hunks of metal are not being dropped from the sky on a daily basis has to be seen as a net blessing all round.

So when you report on that, we think the “80 lives made better” thing is the best starting point.

Now…to get a clear picture of what is going on, of COURSE you look into how the locals feel about it. Of COURSE you interview local people and representatives. And of COURSE you seek out the response from the Department of Justice and the Roscommon County Council.

However, assuming there are language and logistical barriers preventing you from speaking to the refugees themselves, we believe you should ALSO interview the Irish Refugee Council, or Amnesty International, or some other such organisation who generally act as the first responders from Irish society towards such people when they arrive on our shores. Maybe get a little perspective on what it must be like for them?

According to this article in the Journal, the 80 refugees are not the story.

“Council meets to discuss housing of refugees in refurbished hotel“

The important narrative, apparently, is that the locals don’t like the way THEY have been treated.

Fine Gael Senator Maura Hopkins, a Ballaghaderreen native, says that “a number of questions need to be answered” with regard to the move.

They go on to interview a Fine Gael councillor, as well as two Fianna Fáil councillors (FF have 8 of 18 on the council by the way – FG 3, SF 1, IND 6) .

Like we point out, those viewpoints are all fine, but they are not the full story. To be fair, the article does end like this…

TheJournal.ie has contacted both the Department of Justice and Roscommon County Council on the matter.

…yet they still posted an article that purely focuses on the reaction of a handful of right-leaning councillors.

You can imagine the kind of comments that will appear below an article like this. Posted at 10:30am Friday, by 3pm there were 182 comments, like these…

The plan is to get in as many Muslims as possible until Ireland becomes as unstable and divided as Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, basically any country with a high Islamic fundamentalist presence. God help any of you with female kids.

Screw our own people, leave them on the streets, but look after the foreigners, that’s the humane thing to do. What the hell is wrong with this Country?

There is a cruel irony here, where sending refugees to a hotel in Rosscommon somehow makes it okay. There are absolutely no prospects of them ever finding employment, so they might be better off back in Syria where they came from and at least can fend for themselves and regain their dignity. They certainly won’t have much dignity around here.

This makes my f**king blood boil

Let’s house 80 ” refugees ” in a newly refurbished hotel …..

Meanwhile the government issue a court order to remove irish homesless people from an abandoned building …

How does this make sense ???????

Now to be fair, there are some comments going the other way…

Lots on here on about homelessness. No humanity at all

If ye feel that strong on irish homelessness open yer own door welcome in the homeless. Id say 0% of ye would. So shut up on about innocent people who didnt choose to be bombed beheaded shot HOMELESS imprisoned for nothing risking lifes spending all there money drowning trying to save there familys

Do you think 5 years ago they would choose to be in this situation and end up thousands of miles from home in ballaghaderreen.

Ps the mayo border is nearly 13 km away

…but the way the article has been presented views like this are guaranteed to be in the minority.

#IANWAE

Just two things to say about the Irish budget 2016

October 13, 2016October 14, 2016 ~ jlpagano

The mainstream media in general seems more concerned with who gets an extra fiver than they do with the fact that this is essentially a coalition budget between Fianna Gael and Fine Fáil. (Not a typo)
Whatever about the Lansdowne Road Agreement I cannot wrap my head around the fact that nobody is talking about a protest march surrounding the fact that the politicians are getting a pay rise. Here at FPP, not only do we think they are morally obliged to waive it, no TD who supports it should receive any political capital for doing so. It’s like showing up to work on time…you shouldn’t get credit for something that everyone expects of you.

We haven’t been posting as often of late. We hope to get back to our post-a-day schedule soon.

A strong case for #TeamKeep made by Fintan O’Toole #AppleTax

August 30, 2016 ~ jlpagano

So just a few hours after that stunning EU ruling, which has effectively done a “Wikileaks” on Irish foreign investment policy over the past few decades, public opinion seems to have quickly evolved into a debate between #TeamKeep and #TeamAppeal.

No doubting what side the national public broadcaster is on. Joe Duffy had a few dissenting voices in his half-hour’s coverage today but miraculously his supposedly “reliable” text poll produced an impressive 56% support of appealing the ruling by “over 3000” of his listeners.

In general the thrust of the #TeamAppeal argument is that by keeping the money we’d be “penny wise, pound foolish”. All of a sudden American multinationals will be fleeing the country like there’s no tomorrow and this in turn would doom our futures with all of the jobs and tax revenues that would go with them.

But what I say to that is…I’m sure if there was a national debate on the first of these “sweetheart deals” with Apple when they were made 25 years ago in 1991 (when the Minister of Finance job was held by Albert Reynolds up to November, Charlie Haughey for a week and Bertie Ahern from then on – it was Brian Cowen in 2007) we’d have been told about the importance of the investment in Ireland’s future.

Yet now, when there’s €13billion on offer, we want it to help our schools, we want it to help our hospitals, we want it to help our housing crisis. Just how sweet a deal for us was that which they made back in 1991? Where was the real benefit?

But look…I’m not the one to make the case for #TeamKeep. I’d rather leave that to someone like FIntan O’Toole in the Irish Times :

At the very least, we should not be railroaded into lodging an appeal against the ruling that will define us, for the rest of the world, as the tax-avoider’s crazy little sidekick. We have some big thinking to do – and the cabinet’s job on Wednesday morning is to open up that process of deliberation, not to insist that any democratic decision that Apple does not like is unthinkable.

Can we please stop pretending that ticket touting is the biggest scandal of #Rio2016?

August 19, 2016August 19, 2016 ~ jlpagano ~ Leave a comment

When we gather around the watercooler discussing the Olympic games today here in Ireland, according to the media we are meant to be focusing on two topics…Thomas Barr’s agonising 4th place finish in the hurdles despite setting another personal best time, or the ticket-touting scandal involving Irishman Pat Hickey, President of the IOC.

On the Barr story, fine. Of course we should be celebrating actual sporting success. While I haven’t really paid much mind to these games, naturally I’m happy when it’s Irish men and women doing so well. Personally my favourite story is that of Annalise Murphy, mostly because I had the pleasure of meeting her at a rugby event in the Aviva Stadium not long after the 2012 Olympics. I found her post-event interview a joy to watch because it was so obvious just how happy she was with her medal and that’s what it’s all about from the sporting side of things.

But when it comes to scandals, I couldn’t give a damn about ticket touting. So a few people at the top were trying to make a quick buck here and there. What of it.

Why the indifference? Stories like this one from the Huffington Post entitled The Olympics Are Always A Disaster For Poor People.

Displacement of the urban poor is a hallmark of the modern Olympics, a virtual certainty rather than an accidental occurrence.

In fact, the major beneficiaries of the Olympics are the local and international developers in charge of these projects, as well as the host city’s wealthy residents. The poor lose out.

Sorry if my “bleeding heart liberal”-ness pricks your conscience too much here but I feel that this is what we should ALWAYS be talking about when it comes to the Olympic Games, or any major sporting event for that matter – soccer’s World Cup isn’t much better.

Inequality laid bare by Oxfam study

August 18, 2016August 25, 2016 ~ jlpagano ~ Leave a comment

On a personal note I love it when two of my favourite sources of progressive online knowledge come together, like the edgy-John Stewart-like comedy news style of Lee “Geeky Jesus” (my nickname for him) Camp host of Redacted Tonight and anti-capitalist economist Richard Wolff, host of the Democracy@Work podcast.

You can’t love what they’re discussing in the above clip, however. A study published by Oxfam earlier this year offers the frightening stat that 62 human beings alive today own as much wealth as 3.5 billion. And no that’s not a typo, that’s the “illion” that begins with a “b”, so in other words half the entire planet.

Although world leaders have increasingly talked about the need to tackle inequality, and in September agreed a global goal to reduce it, the gap between the richest and the rest has widened dramatically in the past 12 months.

I suppose what it all boils down to is first, whether or not you choose to believe the report and then, if you do, whether or not you care enough to do anything about it.

Here’s the story…as part of Ireland’s agreements as part of the international community, 80 refugees, mostly of Syrian extraction, are to be accommodated in a refurbished hotel in County Roscommon.

The mainstream media in general seems more concerned with who gets an extra fiver than they do with the fact that this is essentially a coalition budget between Fianna Gael and Fine Fáil. (Not a typo)

So just a few hours after that stunning EU ruling, which has effectively done a “Wikileaks” on Irish foreign investment policy over the past few decades, public opinion seems to have quickly evolved into a debate between #TeamKeep and #TeamAppeal.