Ireland’s Mary Celeste: Cill Eoin “Ghost Estate”, Kenmare

I came across this small ghost estate on a recent trip to Kenmare.  The estate, Cill Eoin, is near the ruin of an old church on the Kenmare-Kilgarvan Road.  As ‘ghost estates’ go this is an extraordinary place.

The most striking aspect of Cill Eoin is the feeling I got that it had been abandoned suddenly.  The scaffolding inside some of the partially finished houses is still in place.  There is equipment lying around as if it had been used earlier that same day that I visited.  Some of the houses are in such good condition that you expect to see someone come in and check on progress.  Cill Eoin is the Mary Celeste of building sites.

Other signs tell a different story, of course.   Weeds have taken over the paths between the various houses.  The nails that lay in piles here and there are badly rusted.  And there is such an amount of bird song, as if the birds know the real story about this place: no one had been around here for a long, long time.

Just standing there and looking around, I understood better than I ever had before how the future has been stolen from us all and our children.

To Hell With Safety … in China

Had to put up these photos taken on the way home from Auz in January. They are of a building site in the Wan Chai area of Hong Kong – now a part of  the People’s Republic of China.  Being a visitor I was well impressed by the skyline and the ultra-tall skyscrapers.

In the area I was staying I came across this huge building site.  The main structure, already in place, was encased in this elaborate net of bamboo scaffolding. Impressive in terms of its complexity and scale.  However close inspection revealed that the structure was being held together with plastic ties, no less.   I mean, take a look at the close-ups.  The dark ages, let’s face it.   I’m sure a safety engineer would quickly explain how a contraption such as this is just an accident waiting to happen.   The site workers are vulnerable but so are the people living around the site who pass by and under the structure each day.

I’m guessing that concern for the construction workers and for the local community is fairly low down on the priority scale when measured against the insatiable desire to make money in such a fast growing economy.

Taking a closer look at this I discovered that safety violations are nothing unusual on the China mainland.  One recent and notorious case was that of China’s flagship ‘high-speed’ rail line system.  There have been serious and fatal derailments and in one case the rail line itself collapsed.  A report noted that: 

Engineers working on some projects have complained of problems with contractors using inferior concrete or inadequate steel support bars. A report last week by the state-run magazine Time Weekly reported allegations that builders on another section of the same Wuhan-Yichang line may have compromised safety by substituting soil for rocks in the railway bed.

This is no exception.  In the chemical and mining industries there are widespread abuses.  One report put the number of deaths from industrial accidents at 200 per day!

Independent Unions

The major advances that were made in Europe and the US on safe working standards were of course made by workers fighting for safe and better working conditions.   [Take for example with the curse of abestosis where it was the asbosteos workers who led the way in the fight for safety and compensation.]  Sometimes we think that it is the other way around but not so.  In almost all of the significant cases it is workers who have driven the demand for safe workplaces and working conditions.  Of course to win such demands the key factor is the ability of workers to organise for themselves .  In other words workers must win the struggle to form and organise independent unions which can give muscle and force to their demands.

Independent unions are the very thing that are most absent in today’s China.  The abomination that is the Chinese Communist Party – with its millionaires and brutal authoritarian methods – disallows any such rights.  But wary of the  desire and needs of workers the CCP has set up a trade union structure of its own that it ‘allows’.   This union – The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) – is a hollow shell made up of careerists and party yes men.

The real struggles of workers to establish independent and strong organisations of their own goes on elsewhere.  To find out more about this  then you could no better than look at the web site and publications of China Labour Bulletin.  They recently issued a new report about the struggles of workers in China.  In this they point out the improved militancy of Chinese workers and in particular the import role being played by young migrant workers:

 The workers’ movement in China has been galvanized and invigorated over the last three years by a new generation of migrant workers. They are demanding better pay and working conditions, and are refusing to tolerate the exploitation and discrimination their parents had to endure. These young activists have not only won noticeable concessions from their employers, they have also forced the government and trade unions to reassess their labour and social policies.

The report highlights that Chinese workers are now becoming more proactive, they are getting better at organising, and they are winning more of the struggles that they engage in.  All in that this is very hopeful and encouraging news.

Related articles

• Tested Section of New High-Speed Rail Track Disintegrates in China
• Unsafe Conditions In the Coal Industry
• Workplace Safety in China
• Workers at diamond factory fall sick
• 200 deaths a day
• Conditions at Apple Assembly Plants in China

‘Heavy Gang’ short stories at Smashwords

The collection of short stories Do You Like Oranges? is now available from Smashwords  in all the main eBook formats.  Just click on the cover image in this post and you’ll arrive at the download page.

Downloading is free for the present – special Xmas offer – after which time a small charge will apply. In the New Year a hard copy edition will be published for the target date of May Day, 2012.

If you like the stories, please pass the word on.  Recommend the collection to your friends by forwarding or sharing the link.

Dear reader, this is vital and much appreciated as the stories in this  collection address difficult but important issues: the power of the police and the abuses of that power.  In other words this is political fiction with a capital ‘P’ and ‘F’ …  so your help and support is greatly appreciated AND required.

There’s also a Facebook promotion page where you add a ‘Like’ or a comment.   Or a even short review.

Thanks, of course, to everyone who has supported this publication already!

Occupy Cork, €700 Million and The Secret Millionaire

A couple of weeks back, RTE‘s inane series The Secret Millionaire came to Cork.  In the programme the so-called ‘secret millionaire’ traversed the northside of the city and reviewed different charities operating there.   Local newspaper, The Cork Independent, reported:

The marketing millionaire, Nadim Sadek, who lives on his private island Inish Turk Beg in Co. Mayo, visited Cois Tine, the Knocknaheeney Music Project, Rebel Rollers and the Penny Dinners during his eight days living off Shandon Street.

Eventually Nadim handed out about €40,000 to a number of groups – one operating a musical group for youngsters in the area; another providing basketball facilities and club organization for kids with disabilities.  The €40 K was divied up into two €5k lots and the remainder amount of €30 K went to  the ‘winner’.

The lucky local charities were uniformly over the moon with their windfalls.  Indeed in a number of cases the recipients – invariably the organisers of these groups and clubs – were personally overwhelmed by their good fortune.  Some were openly tearful about what they would be able to do with these sums of money – the doors that the monies would open for their clubs and members.  It was a salutary lesson – if one ever needed one – about how little money can sometimes make a real difference in the lives of people in this country in this year of 2011.

CONTRAST the sum of money involved above [€40K] with the fact that in the next few days, on Nov 1st to be precise, the Irish Government intends to pay over the sum of 700 million euros (OR 700,000,000 euros) to unsecured bondholders associated with the zombie Anglo Irish Bank.

This sum of money – the latest round of ‘debt re-payments’ – is gargantuan compared to the €40 K involved in The Secret Millionaire programme.  It puts into perspective  perfectly the scale of the wealth (and resource) transfer that is now being undertaken in this country under the guise of the present crisis.

 This wealth transfer is being conducted in your name and at your expense but did you agree to it happening? Were you even asked your opinion? [I recall the Government parties making vague promises in the election about this - do you? But then those promises are long ago forgotten, right?]

This is one reason – but there are many others – why we all need to take a good look at the Occupy movement.  It is a diverse movement and it incorporates many different hopes and proposals – but it is spreading and has taken up positions right around the world about this key question: who owns the wealth of the world and who should control it.

What is important is that in Cork, in Dublin and across the globe indignant groups have taken action and stood up.  They are attempting to draw attention to this daylight robbery from the public purse. They are also speaking out about this robbery on a grand scale that will take place here in Ireland on noon on November 1st – when the above monies are transferred from Government funds to the bond holders.

The question for you is do you support Occupy Cork and Occupy Dublin?  If not, then what is the alternative?  Throw our hands up in the air and say what can I do?

If you do nothing now be assured of this much: they (the Government) will come back for more money (in the next budget and the next round of cuts) and they will transfer even more wealth to these millionaire bankers and bond holders.

Then – in a time not so far from now – you will see some of those very same millionaires on some new inane RTE programme dropping coins and crumbs to local community groups and being applauded for it.  And, yes, people will be crying with gratitude too, and it will all be filmed for your enjoyment too.  That’s the future if we do nothing now ….

Don’t participate any longer in this soap opera.  Stand up and fight back!

More Information and Related Articles here:

• Details on Irish bonds due and sums of money involved
• Cork Independent Article on The Secret Millionaire
• RTE’s blurb on The Secret Millionaire Series
• Cork Penny Dinners
• Secret Millionaire at Cois Tine

Blarney Business Park: For This We Suffer?

If you think about the straightforward human need for decent, basic necessities – housing, education, healthcare and a means to earn your way in the world – then a visit to the Blarney Business Park is the sort of thing that is likely to make you weep.

Somewhere, a while ago now, some bunch of businessmen egged on by other local businessmen and assorted land developers, got the demented idea that the village of Blarney (located a few miles outside of Cork) needed its very own business park.  And so it came to pass …

You might imagine then that the construction of Blarney Business Park was part of some grand plan to meet some vital human need – after all isn’t it often said that that is exactly what the ‘free market’ excels at. You know, matching demand to supply and supply to demand and so on and so forth?  Oh ha, ha, ha!   You’re surely joking.

Not only is Blarney Business Park today just about devoid of life,  it is also in competition with a rash of other business park ventures located near its pew on the edge of the Cork-Mallow road.   Yes, there’s NorthPoint at Blackpool keenly looking for tenants – only a few kms away.  And also close by is Gateway Business Park who are offering loads and loads of ‘office space’, ‘warehouse space’ and other various ‘turnkey solutions’ to anyone who will venture in their gate.

Yes, one has to wonder?  What were those fine businessmen that conjured the Blarney Business Park into existence actually thinking?  What imaginary hole in the marketplace were they desperate to plug when they turned the sod for this gigantic waste of an effort?

[Of course, the truth is BBP was all about making a fast buck.  Let's not doubt that for one moment.   The developers wanted to cash in on a perceived ever-enlarging economic expansion.  They were motivated only by greed for more profits.  But importantly - and this is key - these profit-zombies also had access to the cash, credit and wherewithal to make their plan realizable.  Human needs were never a factor in their skewed calculations. ]

It was developed and built by Bowen Construction, as far as I can tell.  Bowen was a one time major Irish building company that is now in receivership.  A recent Irish Times profile declared that Bowen were “established in 1968  [... and] grew to become one of the largest building and civil engineering contractors in the State with offices in Cork, Dublin, Belfast, Limerick and Waterford”.   Now Bowen are under the control of NAMA.  Which means what, dear reader?

Well, what NAMA means is that the plain people of Ireland are picking up the tab.  And how? Via wage cuts, pension cuts, cuts in resources to education, cuts in hospital services, ward closures.  And so on.

Look closely at the above photo and you will see something interesting.  Laughable too.  The canvas backdrop decorating this empty showroom, depicts what? No doubt it was installed to entice and stimulate those would be entrepreneurs whom it was imagined were out there and ready to flock to Blarney Business Park.

Your eyes are not deceiving you: it’s a vista straight from idyllic rural Ireland.   A narrow boreen somewhere out there in west Cork or Kerry, or Clare or somewhere like that.   Oh how wonderful it looks.  And what a thoughtful, original and appropriate inclusion too.  They really did think of everything didn’t they – those business men who conceived of Blarney Business Park.  Truly, no stone was left unturned.

75th Anniversary of the Spanish Revolution!

This month, 75 years ago, one of the most significant democratic movements in human history got underway in Spain.

The onset of the Spanish Civil War will be remembered by many for the tragic and valiant struggle that took place in Spain to stem the tide of fascism in Europe.  It is certainly important to remember and celebrate that struggle that took place in Spain between 1936-39.  But less well known and more important – to my mind – was the democratic revolution that took place in Spain between 1936 and 1937.  It was an immense revolution and it ushered in a new economic and social order where workers and farm labourers organised and controlled this places of work and their communities.  For an important and significant period of time a different way of organising society and economic production – where human needs came ahead of profits – held sway.

Let’s face it, in today’s world – where inequality is rampant; where poverty and starvation is rife while the world’s wealthy party on; and where environmental destruction seems never ending – it is important to remember and cherish this possible way forward for human kind.

Even now the scale of the revolution and the  its achievements are not fully acknowledged.  Although this is a situation that is gradually being reversed – with more academic research now focused on this important revolutionary period in Spain’s history.

Over the long period of this anniversary I hope to look at different aspects of the revolution and its eventual fate.   There’s no real plan here other than to cover topics of interest whilst completing research for a fictional work that is in part set in revolutionary Spain – of which more much later on.

But first a salute to those that resisted dictatorship and fascism and in the process opened up  a real window of hope for a viable and free socialist society.

Related articles and further reading:

• Anarchist sources on  The Spanish Revolution

The “Drone Bomber” Arrives To A Warm Welcome From Our Glorious Leaders

Image via Wikipedia

Hamid Mir, Editor with Geo News in Islamabad (Pakistan) recorded that there were 34 drone attacks in the Pakistan region between 2004 -2008.  Between 2008 and March 2009 the  number rose dramatically and there were 46 drone attacks alone in that 15 month period.  [Note, as confirmed in reports below, the number of drone attacks has risen further and sharply under Obama's first office term.  See in particular this Google Map of the attacks]

Mir points out that there 80 drone attacks during the entire period referred to above.  In all of these attacks 513 people were killed.  Having checked all the records Mir has ascertained that of all these casualties only 14 were actually of alleged terrorists (names confirmed by US Defense Dept Press Releases). The remainder, 499 people, were all civilians.

Hamid Mir investigated 11 individual incidents of drone bombings.  In two of these, he found that two ‘low-level’ Taliban activists had been killed.  In the remaining 9 attacks only civilians were killed.  As he states in the second of the two you tube clips below this is violation Article 3 of the UN Human Rights Charter – among many other violations contrary to the conduct of war.

Today, our glorious leaders, will warmly welcome the Commander In Chief of the US armed forced responsible for these atrocities.

And Hamid Mir on Drone attacks in Pakistan.

Related articles

• WikiLeaks Cables: Pakistan Urged Drone Strikes (newser.com)
• Obama Increase Drone Bombings
• You: Six killed in US drone attack in NWaziristan (nation.com.pk)
• “Drone strike kills six in N Waziristan” and related posts (thefrontierpost.com)
• Eight Killed In Latest Drone Bombing

Victory for Liberty: Obama not coming to Cork

Quick take: Obama’s proposed visit to Cork to honour the memory of Frederick Douglass, the former slave and abolitionist,  has been cancelled after it emerged that the conditions and abuse suffered by prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre (currently endorsed by Obama) were in many cases comparable to the horrendous conditions suffered by slaves in the United States.  Unconfirmed reports suggest that Douglass’s  statue – soon to be unveiled in Cork – refused to have anything to do with proceedings if Obama was to attend.

>>>> For those with time, read on >>>>>

It nearly happened and to think that the fine city of Cork actually had four US senators on its side too!  Imagine: four real millionaires were flying the flag for Cork, but Obama’s visit is not to happen afterall.  Heart breaking news, of course, for Cork’s La-Di-Da community and the Lord Mayor but a victory for truth and liberty nonetheless.

Readers will be wondering why the old liar was going to go to Cork in the first place?  Well, it’s an interesting story. Obama’s proposed stop off here had to do with a plan by University College Cork to honour the memory of Frederick Douglass, the  former black slave and abolitionist, who wrote the ground-breaking autobiography Narrative Of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave.  This book, published in 1846, was one of a number at that time to record in words the life and experiences of African slaves in the United States.  As such it played a seminal role in opening up knowledge and condemnation of slavery and what it entailed.  Later in his life, Douglass visited Ireland (and Cork itself) during our Famine and wrote warmly about his experiences and the welcome he received here.  [Not wanting to be ironic but us Irish know quite a lot about slavery and so we all got on famously.]

In remembrance of this connection (and fittingly too) UCC  will, in May, officially launch a human rights lecture series – part of which will entail the unveiling of a statue on campus in honour of Frederick Douglass.   Hence the Obama visit connection.  Apparently Obama credits Douglass as a inspirational figure in his own life – for his moral stand, courage and outspokenness [yes Barack you sure could learn a lot from Frederick alright].  But also, of course, Obama likes to place himself beside Douglass and his important position as an African American who escaped slavery and fought for liberty.

So Cork, Obama, Douglass – it was on the cards, it seems.

However then things started to go askew.  Good old fashioned nervousness entered the fray and following close scrutiny of the record books, distressing parallels between what Douglas fought against AND what Obama is standing up for, emerged.

If you read Douglass’s main work, the above named book, and you examine what he records, then one thing becomes very clear: Douglass had a huge and uncompromising committment to human liberty.  Douglass too, of course, knew what he was taking about.  He had been a slave and he had witnessed the lives of slaves.  Douglass saw the ugliness of servitude first hand.   Take this passage from Narrative …  (By the way Douglass’s account is scattered with accounts like this below.  In Narrative …. he paints a violent picture of the abuses and random violence that slaves were subjected to on a whim.)  Here is one:

“I used to be in Mrs Hamilton’s house nearly everyday.  Mrs Hamilton used to sit in a large chair in the middle of the room, with a heavy cowskin always by her side, and scarce an  hour passed during the day but was marked by the blood of one of these slaves.  The girls seldom passed by her without her saying ‘Move faster, you black gip’ at the same time giving them a blow with the cowskin over the head or shoulders, often drawing the blood.”  (p 80  Penguin Classic edition.)

Now take a look at something that Obama has recently stood over with his Administration’s defence of the prosecutions/ information gleaned from interrogations carried out at Guantanamo Bay.  I picked this at random: an account of the circumstance of Martin Mubanga incarceration there.

“Martin Mubanga‘s … hands were shackled in rigid, metal cuffs attached to a body belt; another set of chains ran to his ankles, severely restricting his ability to move his legs. Trussed in this fashion, he was lying on the interrogation booth floor. The seemingly interminable questioning had already lasted for hours. ‘I needed the toilet,’ Mubanga said, ‘and I asked the interrogator to let me go. But he just said, “you’ll go when I say so”. I told him he had five minutes to get me to the toilet or I was going to go on the floor. He left the room … I squirmed across the floor and did it in the corner, trying to minimise the mess. I suppose he was watching through a one-way mirror or the CCTV camera. He comes back with a mop and dips it in the pool of urine. Then he starts covering me with my own waste, like he’s using a big paintbrush, working methodically, beginning with my feet and ankles and working his way up my legs. All the while he’s racially abusing me, cussing me: “Oh, the poor little negro, the poor little nigger.” He seemed to think it was funny.’ (From How I entered the hellish world of Guantanamo Bay.  See more about Martin Mubanga’s story here.)

Parallels, right?  But the thing is – and initially this got lost in the heat – Douglass was against these abuses.  Against.   Whereas Obama, now he is for them.  He has defended and kept open the atrocious Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre despite his election promise and plenty of other guff about human rights and so on.

So something was wrong , right?  Actually it got worse.  Incredibly.  When I was looking into the Obama thingy and his coming to Cork, I also discovered: apparently, as a youth Frederick Douglass was enslaved on a plantation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, called Mount Misery.  This aptly named place was then owned by Edward Covey, a notorious “slave breaker.”  It was, reports say, a place where brutality and beatings were very common.  Now guess who owns some of that the Mount Misery property today?  No, it’s not Obama.  It’s Donald Rumsfeld.  Yes, the former Secretary of Defense (key architect of the U.S. military’s program of torture carried forth at Gitmo) now actually owns part of the Mount Misery estate.

No wonder then that the statue/ memorial to Douglass (soon to be unveiled here in Cork) stared to behave strangely – making noises and shaking and so on, and so forth.  Sheer indignation and anger at the hypocrisy and downright slight to the great exponent of liberty was the cause.  So no Obama for Cork, afterall, but a small if not unimportant victory for truth and liberty all the same.

Related Articles:

• “Sometimes You Are Most Disgusted with Those Who Seem to Be on Your Side” (slog.thestranger.com)
• Frederick Douglass’s Irish Liberty
• Obama invited to Cork 

Q & A on the Worms That Saved The World…

A: For as long as anyone can remember there’s been a walk out along the headland to the Old Head of Kinsale lighthouse in Cork.  It’s actually a very well known walk and remarked upon in many tourist guides to the area – there’s fantastic scenery right along the entire route.  But in the late 90s some developers purchased the headland itself and announced plans to put a luxury golf course on the area that they owned.   They blocked off access to the walk and declared that a walking path and their plans for a golf links were not compatible. To be blunt about it, they wanted it all for themselves and their clients.

A: A campaign got underway to defend the public’s right of way and the public’s right to access.  It was called the Free The Old Head Of Kinsale Campaign.  It organised some large public trespass demonstrations.  These were tremendous and inspiring and I was on a number of them.  But the developers had the Gardaí [G: Guards] on their side.  And, as it turned out, the courts too.  For a while it seemed like we might be able to regain access to the walk but in the end a High Court ruling broke the resolve of the campaign and access was lost. For the present, anyway.

A: While this was going on I had two young daughters to mind.  I was aware that there were few enough children’s picture books around that were any bit different.  There are lots of good books that look at the natural world in a respectful and sympathetic way, but there is lots of material around too about kings and queens, and princes and princesses and all that stuff.  The big problem is the imbalance in books available to a parent or a reader.  A lot of material out there simply reinforces quite traditional values – there is no question about that.

A: I am not sure how exactly the idea of the worms story came to me.  But it could’ve been the fact that one of my daughters had a real grá [G: love] for making these elaborate homes for worms out in the garden.  She would gather lots of worms and put them in lunch boxes with earth and leaves and all sorts of things.  Probably rough enough for the worms but I did noticed that they never really hung around for long!  When she returned to check on them, the worms were always long gone.  I also read at one stage about the problems on some golf course with the chemicals they use to keep weeds down.  And then I had this picture in my mind too of seeing a water feature on a golf course in the States once – the water was a strange ultra blue colour!   Looked bizarre, to me.  All these things set me thinking.  So I got a rough idea for a story.  But that was all it was for a long time: this community of worms having to suddenly contend with a golf course and all that involves.

A: Although I knew Spark Deeley, it wasn’t until I saw her book, Into the Serpent’s Jaw, on sale at Solidarity Books in Cork that I thought to approach her about working on the idea.  Into the Serpent’s Jaws is a beautiful book with really engaging illustrations in it.  So Spark agreed to take a look and went off with the bones of the story.  When we met up again, she had these wonderful illustrations done.  They were really brilliant and I knew from that point on that this was going in the right track.  We began working on more illustrations and then on finalising the story line.

A: That’s where we are at now.  Spark has completed about eight or so illustrations for the book.  They have transformed how the story looks and feels.  In the meantime I have worked on finalising the story line.  There’s a good bit to do still, but we have started to approach publishers with samples.  Truthfully, we need a sympathetic publisher because the ideas at the centre of this story are different and, you know in their own way. they are subversive too.

A: Publishing is unbelievably conservative  – what I’ve seen of it anyway.   Whereas this story is outside the box.  Why, you ask?  Well the story really is about solidarity and community – that’s a big part of it.  It’s also about why sometimes we have to stand up for ourselves, and why sometimes when we do, it is best if we do it collectively.   I think  the ideas in Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid have also managed to get to the story, which is wonderful.  Oops, now I’ve really give the game away!

[Note:the above are photos of illustrations by Spark Deeley.]

Bradley Manning …Stop, spread the word!

The video below, from German TV,  tells the story of one of the infamous war crimes committed by the US military machine in Iraq.  The brave individual who stood up and exposed this dreadful crime – Bradley Manning – has been targeted by those same authorities that gave the green light to this atrocity. Currently Bradley is under a 23 hour lockdown imprisonment in a high security military prison in the Quantico, Virgina in the United States.  His conditions of incarceration are harsh:

• He is held 23 hours in each day in solidarity confinement.
• His cell has no window and he is not allowed to see daylight at any time.
• He is not allowed exercise.
• He is allowed for one hour each day to walk in chains in an empty room.

The documentary explains that Bradley Manning is being punished severely for speaking out.  His situation is grave.  Recently, however, it worsened with the news that the US army had filed 22 additional charges against Bradley.  These include a new charges of “aiding the enemy” – a capital offense under Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

There are a few things that you can do.  Most of all, inform others about Bradley’s story and encourage them to do the same.  You can do this easily by sharing this video below and/ or by directing people to the web site for Bradley Manning.   There is further information here as well as an extensive What You Can Do section.

Related Articles

• Bradley Manning
• You: Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks’ alleged source, faces 22 new charges (washingtonpost.com)