Oscar come home...

Thursday afternoon was chilly in Pere Lachaise. Wandering up from seeing Jim Morrison , it was quite striking to know that the next grave to be seen was Oscar Wilde

. Meself and himself took a casual stroll and came to the grave side and it struck me how lost perhaps it felt to see him away from his home soil in a dark graveyard where he is along side some people whom are not even in the same league as him. Oscar died destitute in Paris after contracting cerebral menengitis and subsequently was buried in Pere Lachaise. Oscar suffered severely in his life for his homosexuality after being prosecuted for sodomy after the Marquess of Queensbury more or less accused him of it and in a subsequent ill judged move by Wilde who tried to sue and failed, this turned the tables on Wilde.




Should we look for an apology? Well the British pardoned Alan Turing, why not Wilde? Oscar should come home to a land that is different to what he knows now. "We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars" hold especially true now, this quote has the finger on the button as regards the state of this nation but it is his words from De Profundis (something I have tried reading but cant get into but the prose is extremley moving)





Quote:


When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realising what I am that I have found comfort of any kind.
Oscar we have not forgotten who you are....

Gay Rights Russia

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...tTN_story.html





Gay rights have suffered a set back in Russia . A new bill says that it is now against the law to promote gay culture to minors in what could be seen as a set back for gay rights. Im not a fan of gay pride myself but they should be allowed march where they like, whats the harm?

Marxism and Trotskyism in a modern context

Marx’s ideas if studied in the language at the time may seem to be fairly simple and irrelevant but that is because of the use of the language of the time. Marx consistently refers to the bourgoise and the serfs and plebeians but in a modern context all this has changed. The proletariat as he referred to would not recognise they are being exploited and would be able to seize power from the bourgoise. Just who constitutes the bourgoise and the working class these days? Marx was very right in his prediction that we have the ability to seize the power of the bourgoise and bring about change. The bourgoise now days we can take to be the banks and the politicians who are inextricably linked to one and other. Loans , political donations and cronyism all sought to undermine the working man (the proletariat) in this modern age of capitalism , the fourth stage which Marx remarked we are going through. The sheer indifference and apathy of the working man to his plight is certainly evident throughout the scorn poured on the left from all sections of society . The working class rising up though has become apparent through the occupy movement which shows its power in being able to use social media and mass gathering to show that we will not be stopped as the working class and with it being a global movement it also shows an element of Trotskyism. From my understanding of Trotskyism is that we need a global labour and Union movement to take back the power and empower the working class man once again, the Occupy movement have done this and are continuting to evolve. Indeed as per the Industrial revolutions people were forced to change as a result of their conditions and what was then could very well be now as the rolling chains of industry continually force people to live on the margins as exemplified by the cut in social welfare that is coming in this years budget. Perhaps I may have somewhat simplified but any input or criticism is welcome 





Sourceshttp://www.e-ir.info/?p=14937





http://www.scribd.com/doc/73467038/1...t-Perspectives

Ideas to help struggling families

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...e-2941229.html





I read this and felt my heart strings being tugged. The Indo to me is gutter press, I dont like its journalism but this piece above I thought was fairly good. The article goes into how much people will be losing if they have child benefit cut.





If people were to adopt a family (could be phrased better I admit) or perhaps help out people who were struggling to buy food or other basics or perhaps cook a hot meal and include a struggling family or person in their locality when they cook. A network could be set up and people give their details and people willing to cook put their names in as do people whom are struggling. Would form friendships and perhaps reinforce that sense of community that has been lacking recently?

The League of Ireland fans

Many thanks to my friend K for his insight into League of Ireland fan groups. He told me the following of course all of this is paraphrased but a lot of it makes for engaging reading.

The club in discussion has two fan groups and both are seperate. One group is a group of young lads whom have developed a bad name for themselves. They have been warned about their conduct about their conduct on buses and other public transport and at a recent match within the Leinster province were intent on causing trouble. They lack and sort of leadership and the parents are doing their best at dragging them, no way are these lads being rasied. 

On the other hand, the older fan club is full of the older discerning lot, plus thirty they come across as a clique and crusty old lads whose idea is to bandy together like a gaggle of geese or aul ones at a bingo hall on a Friday night . They berate the club but add nothing to it constructively.

My friend went on to make the point, we need to look at the dynamics and get the two groups working together and I agree whole heartedly. Divided they are conquered , united they fall. They would be better off being barstoolers if the truth be known....!

Anarchopacifism - lets play the capitalists at their own game

Mulling over an idea. What about if we were to try and play the capitalists at their own game? Capitalism is an ethicless ideal, the exploitation of people for their own financial gain making a two tiered society but say we were to play them their own game? A number of people create a company to challenge the dominance of current corporations such as Chiquita (who whinged when the Honduran govt was going to raise the minimum wage by 60 percent , people there are in dire economic straits more info here http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/07/...latin-america/). We pay decent enough wages but we dont aim for profit which allows us to have minmum profit margins and anything we do make we pour back into the poor countries. I know there is the idea for co-ops and places like that but the problem with that is in places where there is military dictatorships co-ops are seen as a bad idea as the govt is in the pay of some corporations as happens in places like Colombia. Any company created could move in to pay decent wages to the workers and muscle in on the money being made by these corporations . Its guerilla captialism with an ethnic twist, hit the corporations where it hurts, financially.

Pansexuality - We are all slightly bent and straight...

Pan sexuality can be defined (merci a Wikipedia)


Quote:


Pan sexuality (also referred to as omnisexuality or polysexuality) [1] refers to the potential for sexual attractions, sexual desire romantic love, or emotional attraction, towards people of all gender identities and biological sexes.
People I believe have the ability to fall in love with anyone. This is not some lecture on the merits of hippy style free love but on the ability everyone I think has to fall in love with certain people. Heterosexuality and homosexuality only describe your sexual attraction predominantly to a person but pansexual takes into your account to fall for someone (and I’m not talking about falling head over heels in love with someone). Alfred Kinsey the famous biologist (there is a great film made of his life with Liam Neeson) described it on the Kinsey scale with 0 being completely hetro and 10 being completely homosexual. There are flaws in his work as the sample sized used was very small but he found a proportion fell nowhere near the complete end of either scale. Based on this it could be easily believed that we are all veering towards one gender or another or possibly be bisexual but these are just labels.




I believe the love as described by the Greeks can explain it fairly well. The four different types described as

Agape - sacraficial love, I think in this modern context this is more or less tough love.



Eros-someone you want to spend you life with, may not be or may be sexual in nature.



Philia-love for a friend eg loyality, comradery



Storge-affection for a son or daugther from a parent




People can be pansexual from their admiration for a particular sports star (Kevin Doyle is a great player, look at his athleticism) to sexual attraction to someone but what predominates in pan sexuality is that there is not necessarily a sexual attraction but an emotional attraction, you feel as if a person has been a part of your life for a long time, what would you do without them? This could go a long way towards explaining platonic friendships that become very deep friendships (non sexual but deep in an emotional way)

A case for Open Borders

I have long been an advocate of this policy and believe its something worthwhile exploring. Here is a different if somewhat very simple look at things. People in a capitalist society and conditioned to be consumerists, to work like slaves for basic wage and in turn this money then leaves the worker whom spends his disposable income on useless stuff that he may want but inherently made not need. This leads me on to a second point which forms the crux of my opinion on what is preventing open borders. When people accumulate all this wealth and their material goods (a lot of capitalist societies produce materialistic beings) they will fight to keep what they have which is a standard of living way above what is par for the norm and this in itself creates an injust and inhumane society. An open border is something which they see as a threat to both themselves and their way of life and this coupled with their extreme insecurities and superiority complexes makes for one giant barrier which while big is not so big as to be torn down.




How do we implement an open border? From the start we need to educate our children in the schools and try and get a number of influential people on board, I’m not talking about currently established leaders but those whom have excellent leadership skills, are diplomatic and trustworthy, where these come from I do not know but I’m sure some way can be created to identify them. These people can then in each country/region of the world where there is extremes such as fundamentalism seek to address moderates in that country and appeal to the working class in such a way as to combat the influence of extremism and fundamentalism and appeal to the people through the offer of a better way of life. In Ireland we would need someone to try and make people drop their materialist values and go back to their humanity and thinking of others. We would end up with a standard of living that is still well above average but takes into account the needs of everyone else.




Over the years we would promote a bicultural model similar to that of Singapore where housing developments would be mixed and people fully explored to promote each their own culture while actively taking an interest in each other’s culture. The Canadians have great legislation in place called the Canadian Multiculturalism Act which was borne out of the ideals of Trudeau in Canada (more info please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Multiculturalism_Act ). It goes some way towards promoting this bicultural model.




The ideas I have outlined are not perfect, they are not the ideas of some happy clappy hippy but someone who believe humanity can benefit from a change in thinking, a giant session of cognitive behavioural therapy if you will. Feel free to criticise (constructively may I add) and to add your voice on what is right or what is wrong about the above.

A woman tells us her ten year old daughter is a lesbian...

http://raisingqueerkids.wordpress.com/






At heart Im a liberal, I believe that we should live and let live but does this apply to children? Well one woman thinks so as she asserts her daughter could very well be lesbian. People would imagine at ten years of age that a kid would be more interested in Santa Claus and all things that he would bring her at Xmas or when her homework has to be done but her parents beg to differ. As long as the child is not harmed I don't take issue with it however it is the responsibility for the parent to ensure the child is not going to expose herself to any dangers as people are cruel. Its a very brave step for mother and daughter and I sincerely wish them the best of luck.