Letter to imprisoned Askapena comrades

Lagunak,

It was with great dismay that we in Ireland heard of your arrest and the ordeal that you and your families now face. We hope this offers you some comfort that we are thinking about you and we will not stop putting the pressure on our political enemies to end the repression of your countrymen and women, our revolutionary brothers and sisters. Every new wave of arrests brings more worries to Irish shores, another person who we have met, shared a drink with, or know intimately arrested. We remember you all, especially for the great hospitality you always show us on our travels. Remember you, and all the other Basque prisoners of war are in our thoughts. We love and cherish you all, and we strive for your swift and immediate release, and for the safety of all our Basque comrades to express them freely without interference or harassment from the servants of the Spanish state, We are especially angered that even in the face of recent developments in Euskal Herria, the Spanish seem resolute in preventing the democratic rights of the Basque people to agitate for their freedom. Remember comrades we are all proud of you. Please remember the words of one of our greatest Irish heroes Bobby Sands MP "Everybody republican or otherwise has their own part to play. No part is too big, no part is too small"

Thank you for playing yours. We promise we will never stop playing ours

Signed on behalf of Limerick Basques
Ross Taylor

A Drunken European leader

In previous rants we have been reminded about the state in which our country has found itself in these last few years. Scumbag millionaire has been thrown around at will on this blog, and I do realise now I have probably taken meaning from this phrase, and for this I do apologise... We now have to find a phrase that can truly summarise the contemptuous vile repugnant worms that have risen to financial prominence in the boom years of the Celtic Tiger....

Let me guess....
I'm really thinking hard now folks...

Does any body have objections to that phrase being BIFFO??!!

There it is folks... five letters that truly encapsulate this new breed of SAVAGE, CUTTHROAT, FUCKING PIRATES!!!

There must seriously be something wrong with the five million odd people living on the island of Ireland, that we just don't know about! Im deadly serious... Because right now we are the LAUGHING STOCK of the world... Do we have bad body odour?! Are our teeth rotting in our heads?! Are we just incoherently stupid?!

Ireland has reverted back to the 'stage Irishman' role in the theatre of world economics and politics... Everyone is laughing at us....

And our Taoiseach....
drunkenly mumbling incoherent gibberish on NATIONAL AIRWAVES!!!!!

If Nicholas Sarkhozy had the same contempt for the people of France, we would see riots in the streets of Paris, akin to the days of the French Republic!!!

The only other comprehendable world leader who shows this kind of contempt for public office is a dwindling, wrinkled old neo-fascist who in every sense of the way is running a dictatorship that one of his predecessors would be proud of.. (For those of you that don't know, the Italian PM, 80-odd year old Silvio Burlosconi owns state media in Italy, and is heavily involved in most of the nations major corporations, including possibly their largest sporting club AC Milan)

The sense of ignorance Cowen has shown this week is baffling... He and his Fianna Fáil cohorts are partying into the early hours of the morning in Galway, and floating round ideas about ATM taxes, whilst the country is on its knees!!!!!!

Unfortunately, this is the plethora of right wing politics...
Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Conservative Party, Spain's PP and PSOE...
They are elected to provide themselves with privilege, not to serve the people who voted them in (unless those voters are of course BIFFOS)

It makes a true left wing republican like myself want to cry

I can only imagine what all of our martyrs are feeling at the pathetic mess these BIFFOS have created for the socialist paradise Pearse, Connolly et al dreamed of

Ireland.... a paradise for millionaires

Ireland... Land of saints and scholars... home to pints of guinness and measures of jameson... Bono and Shane McGowan...

Bord Fáilte really wouldn't be doing their job if they told the truth... Tourists wouldn't be attracted to the awful truth....

Ireland :- LAND OF CORRUPT BASTARDS AND SCUMBAG MILLIONAIRE PLAYBOYS!!!!

Ivor Callelly, Séan Fitzpatrick.... the list goes on.

And the bane of our people, the source of all that is evil and rotten about Ireland... FIANNA FáIL

Oh how I cursse 1926.... the year that engine for political coruptness and deceit was born.

However I do also curse the rotten fact that they have led my country for the last 13 rotten years...

and all thanks to..... FUCKING IDIOT VOTERS!!!

Oh how I hate every single person who at the last general election put a number 1 beside the photo of the degenerate, greasy, slimy sleazebag who represented that shower of blood sucking, welfare cutting, banker supporting DEGENERATES!!!!

And why do they vote for these charlatans..... BECAUSE DADDY VOTED FIANNA FáIL!!!!

TIME TO GROW SOME FUCKING SPINES IN THIS COUNTRY!!

If daddy was an axe murderer would you go around slicing people like meat cutlets?!!!

NO YOU WOULD NOT!!
Yet you may aswell take a carving knife to the children of this country for what you are doing to their future by voting without a pair of testes (symbolic for our female voters of course)

Which brings me to part II of this rant....

ENDA KENNY!!! WHERE'S THE JOBS YOU PROMISED FOR A YES VOTE AT LISBONII??!!

Let me guess.... YOU TOLD THE ELECTORATE LIES!!!!!
http://www.anphoblacht.com/news/images/2009/10/08/yes-to-jobs-poster.jpg

You ignored the democratic will of the Irish people and sent a second hand treaty back to us where the RETARDS of our electorate duly rattified it....

Reasons why?

Europe has been good to us....

Not false, but very short sighted...

Europe has taken more from the pockets of Irish workers than reinvested into our infrastructure... The Common Fisheries Policy and the Common Agriculture Policy to name 2 draconian measures that have taken money from Ireland and sent it to Brussels...

Thanks to the EU nowadays Spain has more fisheries rights in Irish waters than.... wanna take a guess... FUCKING IRELAND!!!!

I'm gonna end this rant before I veer off into an anti-Spanish cascade yet again...

Keep watching!!

FUCKING FASCISTS!!!

By now everybody has gotten over the festival of soccer on show the world watched in South Africa. The Scottish Premier League started well for me... a 1-0 away win at Inverness Caley Thistle. Soccer is a great game, played all over the world and one of the most popular forms of expression known to us. I love soccer. The vast majority of Irish people would share my opinion, it's the third most popular game in this country behind Gaelic Games and rugby.

How so then are Irish people FUCKING RETARDS when it comes to supporting teams??!!

During the world cup, the one that the cheating, diving whinging and moaning 'Spanish' (editors note, the vast majority of the 23 man squad was Catalan and Basque) FUCKING ROBBED, the Irish people, with noble and educated exceptions of course, cheered them onto glory.

Gangs of drunken jackeens chanted olé olé olé whilst these bastards cheated their way to the final. The scene of the horrific shooting last week, McDonoghs pub in Bettystown FLEW A SPANISH FLAG!! (Editor's note thank fuck I decided after seeing that piece of shit flying to boycott them!)

I honestly thought of tearing it down and proceeding to wipe my arse with it in front of the drunken jackeen idiot clientelle.

The Spanish team were NOT deserving winners of the world cup, and should have been jeered and booed by every soccer fan with half a brain....

But of course in Ireland soccer fans ARE IDIOTS!!

Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal.

These are the teams who enjoy the support of these Irish MUPPETS! ENGLISH TEAMS!!!!!

If you retort by reminding me that I support a Scottish team, I SWEAR TO FUCK I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND IMPAIL YOU ON A RUSTY WWI BAYONNET!!!!! Celtic were founded by an Irishman, Brother Walfrid from Sligo, to provide chairty for the destitute immigrant community of Ireland. They take pride in their Irish heritage so much that they attend regular charity functions in this country for IRISH charities and they fly the flag over Parkhead, more fondly known as paradise.

These so-called 'big four' are English teams with NO CONNECTION WHATSOEVER to this country. Your €60 for the new home top probably pays for Colleen Rooney's failed attempts to become famous! STOP SUPPORTING THESE TEAMS!!

Chelsea have a known scum fanbase, with links to the BNP and EDL. Liverpool are a shower of flute toting Orangemen.

These Irish shitheads only go after teams with money and television attraction.

Celtic have character. The only team to have won the European Cup with a team not only from the same country, but the same city!!

YOU WOULDN'T DREAM OF SUPPORTING THE ENGLISH NATIONAL TEAM SO WHY THE FUCK DO YOU FILL THE COFFERS OF ENGLISH CLUBS WITH IRISH EUROS??!!

HOW'D THAT GOBSHITE GET ON THE TELEVISION

The title for this rant is quoted from the classic Irish comedy Fr. Ted, when Fr. Dougal is playing with the broken television screen and Fr. Jack coils in horror at Dougal's television...

All in the name of comedy right??!! Well friends, I am sorry to inform you that Jack's nightmare has come true!! Compared to these gobshites now on television, Fr. Dougal looks like a fucking university professor from the land of mathematics and really hard science!!

All I wanted was to watch the Braga versus Celtic Champions League qualifier.... My sky digital had different, EVIL plans for me... NO ROSS!!! NO BBC SCOTLAND WON'T SHOW THE CELTIC GAME!! EVEN THOUGH THEY BEND OVER BACKWARDS FOR FUCKING RANGERS!!!!! Not even radio Scotland covered the game.... Which is how I came to finding the most gut wrenching horrorible catastrophe I have ever seen on a television screen....

No it wasn't a replay of the 1966 world cup final, or the 'royal wedding' of Charlie boy and Diana.... IT WAS WORSE!!!!!

Brace yourselves....

PARIS HILTON'S BFF!!!!!!!

It was worse than a kick to the balls!! The girl is a FUCKING CHAV, A SCOBE, A NED..... call it whatever you like it still means the same.... SHE'S A TWAT WHO SHOULDN'T BE APPEARING ON THE CALMVISION OF A MENTAL HOSPITAL LET ALONE TELEVISION!!!

And the worst part was.... THE WANNABE WHORES (WHICH IS ALL I CAN CALL THEM) WHO ACTUALLY WANT TO LIVE A LIFE LIKE HERS!!!!!!!

I felt like crying...

I don't know how many girls around the same age (19-22) and the token CAMP GAY GUY!!!

REALLY IS THIS WHAT PEOPLE SEE AS ENTERTAINMENT TODAY??!!

The worst part was.... THE IDIOTIC LANGUAGE!!!!! They actually DID use abbreviations...

Like ttyl

I propose from the state of this rant we say ttyl to this fucking idiot Paris Hilton and arrange a worldwide boycott of her.... Maybe she'll cease to exist like the halloween characters in the Simpsons special...

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS TO THE WORLD WITHOUT PARIS HILTON!!!!!

Ross

Shell's police NOT Irish police

'If they want to hang me, let them and on the scaffold I will shout "Freedom for the working class!".

This quote from Mary Harris Jones (pg 31, nótaí do réabhlóidí) is in this commentators opinion, the most appropriate one we can attach to one of the most prolific Irish combatants against the multinational oil giants, Maura Harrington. I recently attended a talk from this woman in NUI Maynooth, and I stood back amazed at the sheer dignity which abounds this woman. She embodies the true revolutionary spirit of Irish women. For the last five years, she has unrelentlessly fought against the Shell/Garda occupation of Rossport, Co Mayo. It is people like Maura Harrington, and the Shell to Sea community in that small area of Co Mayo that we as young socialists should admire, and embody the spirit of resistence we know to be in existence in Co Mayo. As Sands said "It lights the dark of this prison cell, It thunders forth it's might, It's the undauntable thought my friend, That thought that says I'm right!". This thought has inspired Maura Harrington to embark on a hunger strike to demand the retreat of the Solitaire pipelaying ship, which did in the haze of a PR stunt with Shell claiming that it needed repairs. And now Maura Harrington has been found in 'contempt' of a court, which arrogantly found her 'guilty' of 'assaulting' a Garda, ordering her to pay €1000 compensation and twisting the knife by demanding she also pay €1000 to the Garda benevolent fund. Benevolence MY ARSE!!!! These same Gardaí have, since the start of their occupation, used heavy handed tactics, which many ÓSF activists have encountered, even throwing young lads in ditches! The judge presiding over this case also had the sheer arrogance to suggest Maura Harrington seek psychiatric help!! If it is a case that people who oppose exploitation, corporate greed, dodgy deals and golden handshakes then may I suggest an excellent shrink for ALL ÓSF activists and those Shell to Sea, Save Tara and Free Education for Everyone activists! Maura Harrington is now in prison, thus showing once again exactly who is protected by the Irish judiciary, Eamonn 'sorry Rossport five I've got a cushy government job now' Ryan, and the FF/Green government. IT CERTAINLY IS NOT THE IRISH PEOPLE!!! Batt O'Keefe is pushing for a dáil vote on the reintroduction of third level fees next month. If FF did the honourable, decent thing and acted for once in the interests of the people who elected them, and not the multinationals, one eight of the value of the Corrib gas could fund a world class education system and another a worldclass healthcare system. Time for action! Its time for us to stand once again in solidarity with Co Mayo and demand SHELL TO SEA!!

Civil Marriage NOT Civil Partnership!

Recently we have seen a Civil Partnership bill passed in the dáil. Granted a step towards equality but not WHOLE equality.. Marriage equality is a massive issue which affects gay people all over Ireland and Britain. The fact is, THERE IS NONE!!!

When Westminister passed law, enabling same sex couples to receive a Civil Partnership, the pro government media greeted this with great enthusiasm, and each and every magazine scrapped for the photographic rights to the Civil Partnership ceremony of Elton John. The Civil Partnership Bill was greeted with great enthusiasm- finally marriage for same sex couples was the general view from the voting public. It was seen as a positive step. I myself, was guilty of believing that this was finally equality for same sex couples.

The fact is, Civil Partnerships are a far cry from marriage equality! It is in fact true that elderly siblings can take out a Civil Partnership, to protect their inheritances and next of kin status!

Marriage is a beautiful thing. After all, it is a magical thing to see two people who love each other, commit their lives to each other…isn’t it??!! The bonds of matrimony are one of the strongest bonds which can formed between two people, second only, in this writer’s opinion, to that of a child and parent.

So why is it that same sex couples cannot receive these bonds? Is our society still so polarised that we still believe that the only ‘natural’ relationships are heterosexual relationships?? These were the points raised to me by the nervous bride moments before she took the plunge. She told me of her desire of a white wedding, the traditional sort. Fairly common desire for women I think. One male witness expressed his belief that matrimony is about the love between two people. I think its safe to say that love is not just confined to heterosexual sections of society, that it is a HUMAN EMOTION!!

Of course it is!! So why can same sex couples, even if its just for one day, experience the same thrills as a heterosexual couple?? Why can’t a gay bride to be have her dream of a white wedding??!! The issue of heterosexual marriages and relationships was never an election issue, or a political kite for the likes of Tony Blair and Brian Cowen to fly!! Why should same sex relationships come under such scrutiny, and be a tool for political point scoring??!! The reason, in my humble opinion, is that without inequality, the elite, be they clergymen, businessmen or politicians, would not have ANY of the comforts they now take for granted. My comrades all over Ireland in the LGBT movement now confide in me that it is also a human right, rather than a heterosexual right, to want to start a family. The nature versus nurture debate will definitely be a lengthly one, but surely in the face of all that is said, a nurturing childhood is more preferable to a natural one!

My friends, OUR revolution will NEVER be complete until we the youth take the last shreds of inequality out and strangle them with the entrails of bigotry, hate, sectarianism, and racism!

The gay people are our builders, our teachers, our doctors, our nurses, and all the other people we turn to when we need help. They DESERVE equality. It is up to Ógra Shinn Féin and Sinn Féin to demand that they get it!! Visit www.marriageequality.ie for more info.