Solidarity Books @ Cork

Solidarity Books is a new bookstore on Douglas Street in Cork.  Directions with a google map are here. It is an initiative by Cork anarchists to provide a bookstore in the heart of Cork – a place where you will be able to get those many and varied publications that the ‘corporates’ like Waterstones won’t stock.  In terms of books alone, the shop is a very welcome addition to the scene in Cork – which, to not put too fine a point on it, is diabolical.  Sure you can pick up the odd book on Chomsky and that’s not a bad place to start but if you are looking for anything else around town… forget it.

At one time there was two or three left leaning bookstores in Cork.  When I was growing up there was a great shop over on South Main Street which had a wide range of radical books.  You could get all the cheap editions of Marx’s works as well as a range of generally critical publications.  I got my treasured copy of ‘Ireland and the First International‘ there – although I recall being very disappointed to read in same that the Cork branch of the International Workers Association has sided with Marx rather than Bakunin on the crucial issue of how the International should be organised!  Well, let’s face it, that wouldn’t happen today.  Anyway there was a few shops in the past and the range of books was, while not huge, it was varied.

So very nice to see  new shoots of life springing up.   At the shop there’s a section on anarchist/ libertarian and socialist books.  There is a very good  current affairs and Irish politics section and there is a second-hand book section.  Expansion in the range is planned, of course, in time.  For the moment though, small steps.  Also you can get many of main left papers there and so th shop provides those groups with a very valuable outlet for their publications.  Great stuff.

One other aspect of the venue is that it also doubles as a meeting place.  It’s a roomy space with great light and the aim is to provide an affordable meeting venue for organisations and groups.  So far Shell 2 Sea, Hands Off The People Of Iran and the WSM are meeting there, but they hope to expand on this – space permitting – in time.   Other events and meetings are intended for the new venue.  So far meetings on the Haiti crisis and a political film night have been ongoing.   Best place to find out about what’s upcoming is to check Facebook

Email contact for the shop is solidaritybooks@gmail.com

Opening times are: 12-7 pm (Mon to Saturday).

Worse than Bernie Madoff – Shell’s Robbery in Ireland

More cutbacks in the public services are planned.   Already hospitals have been hit by ward closures, and procedures have been axed; in schools up and down the country, cuts are being made that will have long lasting effects on many young children and their families.  Why?  Supposedly to pay for the financial mess that successive governments have made of this country.

But consider this.  The Irish State has given to Shell Oil a vast volume of gas off Ireland’s west coast.  For free!   Shell walk off with a vast resources and meanwhile the general public suffer cut after cut.   Is this worse than “Bernie” Madoff.  For sure it is.

Take a look at the above satirical video – which goes through the murky business that is at the heart of this gas robbery.

There is ongoing resistance to what the Government and Shell are doing in Mayo.  Keep up with the latest info at the Shell 2 Sea site or at the WSM news page.

the hand of god …

Latest story on my web site ties in with the horrendous details revealed by the recently published Ryan Report.  I wrote the story back in the late 90s after meeting a friend of mine from school.  We both ended up taking about our school days and about the fear we felt.  I would go further now …  one of the important things about the release of the Ryan Report is that it allows us all to be more honest about that period and what we were subjected to.  It is not an easy place to go back to – that has to be said.  But what I would say now is that it was not fear that I felt but rather terror – I was scared out of my wits so much of the time.  So the story comes from that.

But now since publication of the report I think of how lucky I was.  I was in secondary school when I suffered at the hands at the Christian Brothers but at least I could get away at the end of the school day.  At least.  I shudder now to think of those who encountered the Christian Brothers and the nuns and were at their mercy 24/7.

Today so many have marched in Dublin in solidarity with those who have suffered.  It is great to see.  Something at least.

To the story…

The Obama Lie

So, we must be over a month into the Barak Obama presidency.  A lot of hope and a lot of optimism, right?

Last night I watched Obama sign into law his new ‘stimulus’ package to revive the US economy.  Heady stuff – but I won’t go into that right now. Instead I am thinking about a different matter: a short news bulletin on Friday last which reported that a drone aircraft had dropped two missiles in a remote area of Afghanistan.  It seems that the missiles, according to reports carried by CNN and others, killed at leat twenty people.

By all accounts the targets of the attack were members of the Taliban AND it was claimed that two such ‘target’ Taliban members were actually killed in the attack. Well, I’m still okay at my mathematics, so that leaves how many? Let’s see now, two from twenty leaves eighteen – that’s right 18 – doesn’t it? That is, eighteen others, who were never targets, were also killed in the attack.  I have got that right, haven’t I?  Please get back to me if I did the calculation incorrect.

So, eighteen people murdered in cold blood, by two bombs dropped from pilot-less aircraft.   Is this the new era so?  The Obama era that was supposed to make such a difference.  And this is not to even get into the rights or wrongs of the state assassination of two suspected Taliban members.  You know old adage: who gives anyone the right to be judge, jury and executioner?

No, for the moment, I am just going to focus on the eighteen people that were killed.  Were they women, men, children?  Does anyone know?  Does Barak Obama know?  Or more to the point, did he know about this attack and about the possible collateral damage?  Well, what do you think?  Did Barak say it was okay to kill 18 people/ civilians as part of the operation to get the two Taliban activists.  And when you think about it, given that there is a strong chance that he did know, then what does it say about this new era?  I ask you?

Waterford Glass Workers’ Interview…

This excellent interview, published on Indymedia, was conducted by WSM members in Waterford today.  They went to the Waterford Glass plant at Kilbarry where an ongoing occupation by the workers has stopped the receiver, appointed by Waterford Wedgwood, in his tracks. This action by the Glassworkers is the first major act of resistance this year against the onslaught by the Government and media against workers wages and conditions.   The workers at the Glass have been treated disgracefully but they have a fine tradition of struggle and giving solidarity themselves.   Their occupation deserves widespread support and as the interview shows, they are indeed getting that…

Solidarity with the Glass workers!

Interview with Joe Kelly, Waterford Glass worker

Oh No … Not A Crime Novel

I was interested in A Poisoned Mind by Natasha Cooper for one main reason.  It was about the chemical industry and since I have recently completed a novel about same I was intrigued to see how someone else might tackle the subject. Few enough books tackle anything related to the chemical industry anyway, so for that reason alone it seemed worth a look.

The blurb about Poisoned Mind seemed like something I was just after – even if was mining my seam.  There’s a chemical explosion and a man dies. At a center of the book is the contest between the widow and the chemical company for damages and liability.  Who will win and will justice be done?  All well and fine, I suppose …

However, I soon realised that Poisoned Mind is just one in a series of books involving ‘the hotshot barrister Trish Maguire’ who it turns out was once from the ‘wrong side of the tracks’.  Although it does quickly emerge in this case that Trish is working not for the victim of the blast – that would be too easy in a way – but rather for the chemical corporation itself.  Ah, lawyers!  For this pleasure she suffers twangs of guilt aplenty. Anyway, I started.  Nothing like a page turner for Xmas … mmmh!

First off it was difficult to get away from the heavy hand of the narrator/ writer who insisted on a face-moving, on the surface view of all matters. Okay, it is crime fiction.  We were into the complications of the impending court case very quickly … a David and Goliath test with Trish working ably for Goliath. The widow/victim, Angie, who is a down-at-heel farmer, also has to contend with an estranged son and a now contaminated farm.  I won’t go into too much detail here suffice to say that some of her farmland was loaned to a waste disposal company; the company located storage tanks on this land and it was one of these that exploded and ruined her farm, after killing her husband.  For the most part Angie seem just about knocked out by the tragedies that have befallen her … except that is for the goodness and kindness of FADE … an environmental group who, it soon emerges, are not all that they seem.

Anyway, as I said, the writing style that is applied to this book/genre does it no favours.  Characters had pretty stylised reactions to events – and we never go anywhere beyond the immediate needs of each character and their role in the plot.  Apart from Trish herself that is.  She must do her job and manage her home life despite being driven, overworked and overburdened.  There is a subplot to do with Trish and all this but enought said.  The other main character, Angie, is sad and a victim.  The members of FADE, while nice, seem immediately naive and are led – easily, it seems – by a manipulative character Greg whom Angie doesn’t like.

So on the main plot – hopefully that will retrieve this book.  Not really unfortunately.  It turns out that the in this case, as mentioned, the chemical industry is the chemical waste industry and the company in question had some bizarre arrangement with a farmer to locate some of its storage tanks on his land – to supplement his income the farmer John checks the tanks regularly for the company.  And so something went wrong and John either didn’t do his job or their was sabotage and one evening Jhn was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the tank blew up …

There is much that could be knocked about this book – and genre – but as I am a writer myself and I understand what other writers are up against in the market, I am prepared to desist – to a point.  However I do strongly object to the portrait of the environmental group.  It seems to me that if a writer is to tackle serious subjects and attempt to portray people in a real light then there is some onus on them to convey the material honestly.  Instead we meet a group – FADE – who are no more than a bunch of well-meaning fools, whom, as I said, are very easily manipulated.   This might all be fun and games for the writer and the genre except for the fact that it panders to the worse of prejudices and, I dare say, plays to a neatly conservative social and political agenda too – which, well, enought said.  I myself have had a limited involvement with environmental groups over the years but I have yet to meet anything like the buffons who populate this book. On the contrary in fact.  As they say in Cork: really like Natasha!

And as to the chemistry and the chemical industry … well there was little of it in this book to sate my appetite.  In fact there was very little.  And just a few morsels would have done me!

So overall, very disappointing.  I wish the writer well but please Natasha could the business of politics be not so cut and dried and so cosy the next time.

Recommendation: give it a miss.

Muntazer al-Zaidi

My hero.  It take courage to act and this man must have wondered about the consequneces … but in the end he had to do it.  Well done…