REPUBLIC OF COVID

During the 2020 Covid lockdown, I was – like most people – confined to my home and garden. I had my dogs and cat for company. There came a day when I wondered why I was not unhappy in my confinement. The answer was obvious: ICT. I had internet and communication technology at my disposal such that it was possible to talk with my friends, read widely, stay abreast of all that was happening, research to my heart’s content and contribute to discussions.

But hang on, it’s not just a matter of equipment and access to the technology. There’s more; without an education, security, income and leisure, it would not be possible to function as described. In short, lockdown was better than tolerable because I was well-placed to enjoy, let’s call it, a life of the intellect or as Jurgen Habermas might have put it years before, a life in the bourgeois public sphere or bluntly indeed, the life of an active citizen of a republic.

Here’s the proposition: Deprive a person of adequate income, security, free time, a good education (such that research is a meaningful, familiar activity) access to masses of information and contending arguments and they cannot possibly function as a republican citizen. In the 21^st century lack of internet access and the ability to use it is deprivation of the same order.

Taken a step further, here’s another proposition: If the mass of citizens are not so endowed, there cannot be a republic. Yep, it’s a very old-fashioned notion.

On-line around this time I happened upon Dr. Vittorio Bufacchi , a philosopher at University College Cork. I was delighted to find that he too was not greatly troubled by confinement and was linking that experience to his education, background and equipment. He used his time to good effect and produced a book, Everything Must Change, which argues that the pandemic period should serve as a great hiatus, affording the time and opportunity to consider the making of a more sane, decent and egalitarian society.*

It is now unfortunately the case that media coverage and everyday discussion of the making of a different society post Covid 19 has just about fizzled out. However, there may still be another impetus. For all the antagonism to politics and discourse, there are those – perhaps relatively few – who continue to take mass democracy seriously, who would restore a meaningful public sphere, and who realise that means responding to the material needs of participative citizens.

It’s a faint 20^th century hope adrift in the very different 21^st century and that’s work for another day.

_______________

* https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526158772/

LUCAN: THE POWER TO REMODEL OR CONSERVE

Lucan is a well-loved, handsome, relatively pristine, old County Dublin town. That is to say, it looks a lot like it has done since the arrival of photography; there has been no dramatic change in a century or even centuries.

It’s not an important heritage site in the great scheme of things but it is a bit special and certainly worth conserving. Neither should it be regarded for its traditional appearance only; its vitality relies on small businesses.

It’s probably fair to say that were it located in a mainland European country, it would be valued and minded by citizens and public authorities. In a changing world they would seek to ensure that the likes of Lucan would survive intact as heritage, local amenity and visitor attraction.

What Lucan needs right now is loving restoration. That’s not just a matter of appearance. It’s also to do with commerce because the number and range of shops has been allowed to decline. Along with others, the small clothes shops, the TV and hi-fi shop, the locksmith, the newsagent etc. have gone. The town is being ground down; it needs a commercial intervention such as would create conditions conducive to local shopping. That’s not a radical proposition; it’s not uncommon in Europe. It’s a matter of achieving a public good in a town surrounded by large and fierce – often multinational – competitors.

The problem in the near future is that the managers of South Dublin County Council have a development plan for Lucan, not a conservation plan, a development plan. If implemented, it will alter the appearance and character of the town.

Incredible as it might seem, the only controversy around the plan isn’t about conservation; the one dispute is over the number of parking spaces in the development. Now, that controversy is not to be dismissed. In particular, there is a pharmacy and a surgery opposite the village green and it is dismissive cruelty to tell elderly, infirm or ill people that they can park 300 yards away. However, the development point is that wherever they park in future, it will not be in old Lucan but in a created space whose appearance is becoming the ubiquitous standard across Dublin.

The SDCC plan involves the imposition of a style. Two common and undemocratic ploys are used to push that end. Firstly, public consultation in any meaningful sense is prevented by putting all effort and considerable resources into delivering public support for the one and only plan. That is to say, conservation is not up for public discussion because it has been put out of the question. The new look is promoted with artists impressions, p.r and glossy leaflets. At first sight it appears attractive. Then it looks familiar. Indeed, it’s almost comical at this stage: brightly coloured paving, lots of building material, seats, people strolling. Check it out: It features in three locations for Lucan (Town, riverbank and Demesne entrance) and have a look too at the front plaza planned for the remodelling of Dalymount Park!

Secondly, the operative buzz-phrase is “public realm”. That sounds wonderfully democratic, echoing “public sphere” and “public discourse” In reality what it signifies is the idée fixe of a group of planners.

Criticism of this dogmatism is dismissed as a failure to understand how the planning/council/consultation system works. It’s obvious how the system works; the problem is that it works for managers and that’s a perversion of public service. It’s also a fascinating glimpse into the quiet exercise of power and might provide a worthy topic for a post-grad student.

It is high time that citizens who live in Lucan and surrounding areas told SDCC that old Lucan is worth preserving. This could have been the focus of consultations from an early stage but it was decided that development/change was the agenda.

Of course there are wider issues at play. In the general area all proposed movement between between SDCC and Fingal CC looks to Lucan’s Liffey bridge. Once this becomes the overriding concern, the town becomes a mere thoroughfare. Were the town an area for conservation, the more radical, obvious and expensive solutions would have to be faced. Wider still, Ireland is just about beginning to accept rural conservation; the notion that conservation should apply to towns has yet to be entertained. That is to say, if old towns and villages are to survive in any meaningful sense, it will be by treating them as living places of conservation.*

___________________

* ” … when it comes to landscape, we are forced to choose which man-made environment and historical period is to be protected. We then go about doing so in the knowledge that it will require effort, maintenance and money. Similarly with villages, towns and societies, there can be no question of hiding behind nature, commercial viability or the market generally. Decisions have to be made about what is to be protected, preserved and that will mean – again – effort, maintenance and money.” – from an old blog about conservation at https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2018/11/21/post-office-closures-towns-and-villages-are-no-different-to-other-forms-of-conservation/

“TELL THE FRONTLINE STAFF TO STOP WHAT THEY’RE DOING”; THE COST OF INFORMATION

It is facile to entertain all calls for information. The production of public information ought to be a matter of controversy, including the cost of its production, its relative importance and its effect on the productivity of frontline staff.

Too few people realise that information is seldom free and that its price varies; this makes it easy to demand or “call for” more information. Very occasionally, information can be gathered/obtained easily and may as well be made freely available. More often, there are high or even prohibitive labour costs and a compelling case has to be made for its production.

Put another way, in a republic when information relates to public policy, it is vital that citizens do more than simply demand more information. Acceding to all demands risks tying down “frontline” workers and destroying the very practice that needs to be efficient. Participative citizens therefore must involve themselves in deciding what information is worth the expenditure of resources.

Those who operate management information systems are routinely asked if it is possible to produce all manner of interesting reports. The answer is invariably, “yes but…” It is the “but” that gives pause for thought, thought about cost, priorities, disrupting the routine work of staff, abandonment of other reports etc.

Management information is a product. Sometimes it is cheap, just a matter of dipping into a computerised system. Sometimes it’s prohibitively expensive; busy staff have to reduce their routine work in order to gather or input data and clearly productivity goes down. Indeed, additional staff may be required.

In a well-run organisation a management-information specialist doesn’t make the decision to produce information. She lays out the commercial realities and demands that priorities be decided. Bluntly, if the operation of the enterprise is to be adversely affected, the information gleaned must be of the utmost importance.*

What the specialist does is push senior management for a decision based on cost and on relative costs. It is vital that the decision and the basis for it be noted. Similarly, in a large or public service organisation which is subject to public pressure to produce data, it becomes essential that citizen discourse focus on relative costs. This cannot happen if media report simply on “calls” for ever more information. There is a need for journalists and media producers who not only understand and appreciate the economics of management information but see it as a matter of public interest, something for which they must create space in the public sphere.

__________

* An altogether greater risk is that conventional management will be usurped and the very purpose of an organisation will be changed to that of information production. This radical outcome deserves separate consideration.

RTE’s DECISION TO “OUT” THE COVID 5-G MYTH TURNS A SPOTLIGHT TOWARDS PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM

The Covid-19 public health emergency has pushed Irish broadcasters into a significant, perhaps fundamental, change in reporting. The system which underpins coverage of political controversy is dictated by the Broadcasting Acts. In essence the requirement is be fair to what might be termed stakeholders and to provide balance. In other words, editorialising is not permitted. That was the stable, well-understood practice for decades.

No matter how unproven, unscientific or wacky a view, if it was held by someone notable or could be used as counterbalance to create controversy, it would be presented without comment.

The idea that a view could be marked out as suspect, wrong or even dangerous nonsense was foreign to the practice of reporting. The 5-G conspiracy theory in a time of crisis for public health changed that.

Now, for years 5-G has been a staple among believers in alternative therapies/medicine, a state or world government or “big pharma” trying to dominate, poison or exploit “the people”, through vaccines, fluoridated water, chemicals sprayed from aircraft (chem trails) and a whole range of other strange fantasies.

5-G refers to a fifth generation of mobile communication operating at a higher frequency than earlier systems. The higher frequency reduces range and therefore to achieve coverage many more sites with aerials are required.

Electro-magnetic radiation (i.e. radio signals) or non-ionising radiation has long been confused with ionising or “atomic” radiation and this confusion has caused unnecessary fears.* Because some who have stoked these fears are qualified in science, it is implausible that they do not understand; it is more likely that their purpose is exploitation. In other words, 5-G is the latest in a long line of scare stories but it took a truly bizarre turn when its adherents linked it to the coronavirus outbreak. They tried to have people believe that the appearance of the virus in Wuhan coincided with and was caused by the switch-on of a 5-G system. The story spread among the credulous and scared them to the extent that they began to attack communication towers and the technical staff who attended to them. In the middle of a pandemic this was getting out of hand and something had to be done. In communication terms the public had to be informed that this was pure bunkum.

The national broadcaster, RTE, acted. The 5-G conspiracy theory was explicitly labelled as untrue. Three points need to be made at this stage. Firstly, RTE acted correctly. Secondly, a complainant might be successful in saying that RTE was wrong to editorialise and in breach of a statutory obligation. In the circumstances it is unlikely that anyone will complain. Thirdly and crucially, the decision to say that the 5-G conspiracy was untrue could not have been based on new data. To be blunt about this, if the 5-G conspiracy was untrue in April 2020, it was no less untrue in, say, April 2019.

This amounts to a troubling realisation: that a health emergency forced a national broadcaster to tell the truth. It is of course entirely possible that the causal link was not so direct: that until the emergency the broadcaster did not know the truth. In other words, that controversy during the emergency prompted or forced the broadcaster to check the veracity of the years-old 5-G myth. There is no need to pursue truth any further down this philosophical rabbit hole because a much wider problem for political communication has been opened to examination.

The conventional view among journalists and broadcasters now is that social media are the font of all nonsense and that public discourse requires dependable, professional journalists who will seek out, interrogate and tell the truth. Given that it took an emergency on the scale of a pandemic for news from just one source in Ireland to break with convention, find and tell the truth, it is clearly not the case that social media have a monopoly on spreading nonsense.

If the 5-G lie were were an isolated issue, nothing further need be said but that’s not the case. Journalism and broadcasting has a long history of neutral reporting of lies. Anti-vax is a case in point. In the late 90s Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a bogus study linking MMR vaccine and autism. Eventually he was forced to retract and he was struck off but not before mass media reported it extensively. It would have been reasonable to expect that his disgrace would signal the end of such nonsense but it merely signalled the beginning of a movement which has been damaging public health vaccination programmes for years. Serious illnesses like measles, once thought eradicated, have begun to reappear and cause deaths. In Ireland the proposal to vaccinate young people against HPV was resisted. This anti-vax movement gained ground when mass media reported utterly unproven claims of vaccine damage as if they were true. It left a suspicion that journalists and broadcasters were unable to distinguish between causation and correlation. The public health vaccination programme was saved when a dying young woman whom the vaccine would likely have protected, spoke out. Nevertheless, anti-vax remains and thrives. Even the disgraced Andrew Wakefield has been re-cycled as a media spokesperson.

Here’s the point. Support for wicked harmful nonsense did not originate in social media or even with the internet. Much of it predates social media. The public sphere was poisoned by professional reporting.

Broadcasters may choose to hide behind the legal obligations to avoid editorialising but they could – if competent in the most basic science – have questioned, investigated, found the truth and at least avoided reporting harmful nonsense.

The decision finally to label the 5-G scare as untrue merely highlights the extent of the problem. The truth claims of homeopathy are at least as daft and its practitioners have been claiming to cure or help to cure covid-19. There is no indication that RTE or anyone else will label homeopathy untrue and that observation can be extended to a whole range “miracle” cancer cures and much else.

Yes, the Irish Broadcasting Acts may need amendment but what is at issue is more fundamental. It goes to the core of what citizens might expect of their broadcasters and particularly their national broadcaster. It is entirely reasonable that Broadcasters be required to have both the interest and the technical ability to identify arrant nonsense. It is out of the question that myths, fantasies and general raiméis be passively reported as if they were true.

_________________________________________

* Radiation is said to be ionising when it has sufficient power to crate ions, i.e. to shift electrons out of an atom. That power is related to the type of radiation and there is no evidence that electromagnetic radiation (radio signals) has this effect. The suspicion that it might is related to a paper published by The International Agency for Research Into Cancer, a part of the World Health Organisation. The paper refers to a particular cancer, to extensive use of a mobile phone held to the ear, and is clear that it is not making a finding of fact. (The paper can be accessed here: https://www.iarc.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr208_E.pdf) Moreover, it was published in 2011 when all mobile phones were held to the ear. It might be worth adding that ionising radiation is not bad; modern medicine in the form of X-rays etc. relies on it.

TIME TO PUT A SERVICE FOR THE ENGAGED CITIZEN INTO THE BROADCASTING ACTS

In Ireland there is a problem at the very core of the legislation and guidelines that govern broadcast coverage of public controversy. Despite their public service objectives, the Irish regulations are not overtly concerned with what citizens require. For that reason reform will have to involve a basic change, overturning the familiar practices of decades.

The difficulty with regulation as it stands now is that it serves those who appear on radio and TV and helps keep producers and journalists out of conflict with these contributors. In brief it could be put like this: if a broadcaster is fair to public figures and institutions, and is balanced in offering a rival perspective, everyone will be content. That “everyone”, however, does not refer to the audience, to citizens.

Now, broadcasters are highly competitive and commercial, and with on-line media ever increasing in importance, they will become more so. Whether state funded or not, they seek to maximise audience numbers. Their tendency merely to be commercial is constrained by a set of legal public service obligations. One of those obligations ensures that public controversy receives coverage, i.e. that news and current affairs feature strongly in their output. In other words, it is long accepted that coverage of public controversy is a public good which broadcasters must supply.

That coverage in turn has to be commercial, and in two senses. Firstly, public controversy is not the most obvious crowd pleaser. Secondly, there is nothing democratic about a small audience and there is a drive – while staying within the regulations – to attract as large an audience as possible.

The question that arises is who are the audience for public controversy. The easy answer is the Demos, all the citizens of the state. The difficulty of course is that many citizens are not interested while others are very interested and demanding. This reflects a traditional dilemma for public service broadcasters. Going back almost a century there is the requirement to achieve a viable content mix of entertainment, information and education. Much later came the realisation that there was a demand for two very different types of news service: one comprehensive for participative or republican citizens and another mainly entertaining but ringing an alarm bell if anything really serious was happening – for passive or liberal citizens who didn’t want to be bothered by politics.

It might be interesting to speculate how it came about that with everyone so aware that there was a dilemma concerning different audiences, the obligations for the treatment of public controversy came to focus so much on the establishment: the public figures and institutions, and the broadcasting/journalism profession. That, however, will have to be work for another day.

There is no feeble, uncontroversial way to put this: It is certainly undemocratic, if not completely ludicrous, to base public service obligations in relation to public discourse on the requirements of spokespersons and broadcasters. However, reform to make those obligations serve citizen requirements will mean deciding – at least within a part of overall output – to serve one audience rather than another.

Lest there be any confusion something needs emphasis at this point. There is not the slightest intention here to replace familiar, entertaining political coverage in news and interview form with a more serious minded approach. No matter how serious and demanding a citizen might be, without exception they like the entertaining approach and want it to continue.

Nothing is radical or odd in having a typical audience member in mind when broadcasting. It is commonplace to talk of addressing younger, older and all manner of different audiences; existing legislation requires service to minorities. Indeed, it would likely be daft even to consider the possibility that a broadcaster or journalist ever creates output with no one in mind. Occasionally it can go further with management providing a detailed profile of a typical member of a targeted audience.

However, when it comes to politics and public controversy, something strange happens: it is very often assumed that there is an undifferentiated audience, a Demos waiting to be addressed. The character, interests, outlook and political-communication requirements of that audience is assumed to be known.

Certainly an audience is being addressed and well-served but it is not the entire people. It is a part, the part that shares the general political outlook of the broadcasters, an outlook more basic than left-right division. Equally certainly the rest of the people have little choice but to make the best of what’s delivered, and because journalism generally can be poor and partisan, broadcast journalism tends to be recognised as relatively good.

Reform of legislation, therefore, will involve two radical breaks with tradition. Firstly, it will move to address the needs of the audience rather than programme participants. Indeed participants in a broadcast programme will be chosen on the basis of how best to serve an audience rather than the present practice of being fair to potential participants. Secondly – and it must be emphasised that this refers not to the entire service but to the delivery of broadcast politics – it will move to serve the needs of a particular type of audience rather than the entire national audience many of whom might express little or no interest in complex politics. The audience to be served in this case will very likely be a minority: those who are participative or republican citizens, those who want to be part of the public sphere, discussing all matters of political controversy and seeking broadcast coverage that will facilitate them, seeking the full range of perspectives, opinions, arguments and data to enable the republican citizen to explore, discuss, contribute and come to meaningful judgement on all matters affecting the republic.

There is nothing strange or new in seeking to serve the thinking, participative citizen; that’s always been the basic idea. What is new is the explicit recognition that all citizens do not share this participative level of interest and that serving any citizens by looking after the concerns of public figures and media staff is, well, frankly daft.

While republican reforms will replace decades-old rules designed to please – perhaps, appease – politicians, activists and journalists, it will not be necessary to have new complaints procedures to aid compliance; existing staff and processes will be fine as long as everyone involved understands the enormity of the change.

There are essentially just two entwined changes. Firstly, legislation needs to recognise the existence of republican citizens and to oblige the broadcaster to serve their specific political communication needs. Secondly, since the republican citizen is an active and conscious participant in the public sphere and wants to come to judgement on political controversies, legislation will oblige the broadcaster to deliver the necessary range and quality of data and – crucially – arguments.

1. Recognition that two distinct types of political journalism will need management

There are opposing pitfalls which have to be recognised. While no one wants an end to entertaining news and speculation about political celebrities and events, this admits a risk of trivialisation. A sensible approach would be to acknowledge the difficulty and place a formal onus on the broadcaster to deal with it. The stark reality is that there is a difference between the journalism which deals with political news, speculation, personalities and gossip and that which deals with political values, ideologies, theory and outcomes for citizens. The broadcaster can be made explicitly responsible for maintaining and managing the distinction in the interests of citizens.

2. The broadcaster will be obliged to deliver a service to the engaged/participative/republican citizen. This will mean a) an obligation to deliver arguments and to be responsible for their quality; and b) an obligation to have the selection of programme contributors determined by how best to deliver those arguments.

It is important to be clear on the enormity of the change required. The overwhelming majority of journalists see their role as merely reporting and assume little responsibility for the informative quality of what is reported. To burden the broadcaster (and by implication the staff employed) with responsibility for public discourse is a radical departure. This can be said despite the existing obligation to public discourse and journalists’ claims to public service because up to now it has been accepted that news delivery is sufficient.

Explicit Guidelines

* Coverage must address all political controversies and there can be no question of editorial picking and choosing other than that motivated by a commitment to the citizen seeking the fullest engagement. For fear a controversy might be overlooked, citizen initiative/suggestion will be sought and in the event of disputes, the matter can be considered as a Broadcasting Complaint.

* Appearances on politics programmes will be determined by contribution to a debate rather than any affiliation.

* Developed viewpoints which challenge a prevailing orthodoxy will be treated as especially useful.

* Complexity beyond the traditional notion of balance will be assumed and the fullest range of viewpoints will be sought and presented.

* Verifiable truth will be an overriding consideration.

* Interests will be explored, uncovered and made clear. That is to say, it will be assumed that different proposals will have better outcomes for some rather than others and it will be accepted that such information is vital for the citizen. In other words, when a policy or policy suggestion becomes a matter for discussion, the likely winners and losers will have to be made plain.

When discussion involves incomes or incomes policy, a contributor’s income if known will be stated; if not known, that will be stated.

* It would never be satisfactory in a democracy that those charged with nourishing the public sphere would dismiss an enquiry by recourse to simple “editorial judgement”. Excluding the vexatious or frivolous, all requests to explain an editorial decision or policy will be answered fully. Any dispute arising may be referred to the complaints procedure.

* Suggestions (accompanied by data) that a pattern of editorial decisions amount to an effective editorial policy will be similarly treated.

* A very short list of morally repugnant viewpoints will be developed, the purpose being to state that they will never be normalised. On all occasions where a programme contributor holds such a view or is a member of a group/party holding such a view, Broadcasters will be required to make that clear. For example, without a broadcaster’s clarifying comment, a racist will not be permitted to present themselves as normal by contributing to a discussion on, say, health.

* Broadcasters will not allow reliance on authority (e.g. religion) but will demand argument.

* Broadcasters will not permit contributors merely to “call-on” government to take action. In money matters this will demand clarity on priorities and funding either by a corresponding level of cuts to named spending or of new revenues.

* Broadcasters will ensure that mathematical, scientific, economic and other claims are competent.

* Broadcasters will ensure that alternative/complementary therapies are rigorously questioned and that they are not granted equivalence with science or medicine.

* With such a long tradition of politics being regarded predominantly as news and speculation about the activities of politicians, the change to more demanding – perhaps, theoretical – politics will have to be effected without undermining the traditional and frankly entertaining approach. There should, therefore, be two distinct editors: a politics editor charged with taking care of the republican citizen and a political affairs editor looking after news about politicians (leadership challenges, speculation about elections and the like) for a more general audience. (An early draft of this piece referred to the latter post as a “political gossip editor”!) It hardly needs to be said that the broadcaster will be required to indicate which service a programme or programme segment is offering and mixing the two, while inevitable in practice, will not be encouraged.

Something blunt needs to be said before closing.

This change is likely to be shocking for journalists/presenters who have built a career on a kind of anti-establishment. Everyone approves the interviewer who is seen to ask difficult questions but too often this has been a service to those who want to be outraged, who are antagonistic to politics itself, who are poorly informed, who prefer gossip, catch phrases, familiar story frames and an absence of complexity, maths or science. In future an anti-establishment service will have to mean insistence on higher standards of contribution.

Charlie Hebdo: While trying to understand, don’t forget the nature of the crime

When those men went into a Paris workplace and gunned down the staff, they committed a crime against humanity. Yes, in that they reduced human beings to mere messages, they were terrorists but it was also a crime against humanity – an act so vile that no talk of war, blasphemy, recent or ancient wrongs can be allowed into consideration.

Too much of the subsequent discussion focussed on freedom of expression, its defence and its limits in a democracy. Part of the discussion revealed some sympathy if not for the gunmen themselves, then for their perspective. This part was anxious to talk about the level of abuse a well-off elite might be permitted to direct at a minority or to what extent religion might be permitted to put topics beyond public discourse or ridicule. With all this in full spate there was little explicit mention of the chasm between expression and blood soaked flooring but at an intuitive level that seems to have been grasped and made clear in the willingness of people who would never utter an offensive word, to express themselves, “Je suis Charlie!”

In other words, faced with a crime against humanity, decent people were prepared to side with vulgarity, insult and profanity. It may not be discussed very often but the majority of people know that there are transgressions so heinous as to offend humanity, so heinous as to exclude nationality, race, religion, conflict and even war from consideration.

Robert Fisk wrote that he knew from the outset that Algeria would figure in this atrocity.* However, he called it for what it was, a crime against humanity, a crime beyond justification but linked to the Franco Algerian War of the 50s and 60s and the Algerian civil war of the 80s. While he emphasises the struggle with imperialism, he reminds the reader that those years were marked by crimes against humanity including the French bombardment of villages. Many of the perpetrators and their associates are likely still living and not on anyone’s wanted list.

There’s been a considerable amount of “whataboutery” too from those either supportive of the murderers in France or anxious to characterise media and people in the developed west as selective in their condemnation. While this is a familiar tactic of those anxious to spread the blame, make light of the offence by pointing to something worse or undermine the hunt for perpetrators and their accomplices, it does highlight something that needs to be addressed.

Many crimes against humanity are not covered by world media. That does not mean, however, that humanity has no interest in pursuing the guilty. What it does is point to the need for an international institution to which a citizen of any country can bring for investigation a crime against humanity.

Far too often the victims of crimes against humanity are forced back into festering resentment in local identity or religion. This will be their only course unless humanity can intervene to make it clear that the crime was against every living, breathing person and that the perpetrators, their commanders and supporters will be hunted for the rest of their lives. They may be protected within their country or by a peace agreement but humanity – as represented by the wider world – wants them in the dock and when possible will have them arrested.

______________________________________________________________________________________________
* http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/charlie-hebdo-paris-attack-brothers-campaign-of-terror-can-be-traced-back-to-algeria-in-1954-9969184.html?origin=internalSearch

Citizens need to talk about a contentious suggestion which is reported regularly by an uncritical media

The activists who organise resistance to the installation of water meters regularly put forward a contentious proposition in the media but journalists/presenters seldom – perhaps never – challenge them.

They contend that work within, passage through or policing of a housing estate requires the consent of the community. It’s a familiar concept in Northern Ireland but is new to this part of Ireland. Moreover, “community consent” is determined by activists not all of whom live in the particular community.

The model put forward is of communities under siege from something akin to an occupying force and dependent on cadres which know what’s best and will protect them. It is a model which has simply no relevance to Ireland today.

The protesters mount a token blockade to prevent water meter installers’ trucks gaining access and then they obstruct the installation of meters. They offer little resistance, however, and allow the Gardaí to push them aside. Given the small numbers of protesters and Gardaí, it might seem odd to treat this seriously. It may, however, be a growing phenomenon, beginning to border on dangerous. There are already activists who regard a residential area as their territory and will attempt to drive off rivals and those who belong to the political parties who generally support the state.

It would be easy to dismiss all this as the actions of fantasists in thrall to anti-state struggles which occurred and still occur in Northern Ireland but there is a component to this which reflects badly and damages the credibility of the left. It too attracts the fantasist but of a slightly different kind. Unfortunately it has roots in Marxism and makes Marx appear ridiculous at a time when his work should be relevant.

There is a tendency particularly among Marxists with middle class origins to both misunderstand working class and romanticise anything that seems popular. When, therefore, a significant number of people take up a position, there is an assumption that they are progressive as long as they can be labelled “ordinary working people”, that they need to be led and if they are opposing the state, so much the better. At its most benign this draws some leftists into the routine form of Irish populism. However, the romance of involvement in something that looks a bit like revolt draws them close to and into competition with the fantasists mentioned earlier, those who want to do battle with the state.

All in all, the notion that the Irish people are at war with their own state needs to be questioned and discussed publicly in Irish media. It is an abandonment of public service merely to report on or give coverage to a proposition so contentious. It is an abandonment too of citizens who do not think they are opponents of the Irish state.

Managers are better at politics than county councillors

My long-time friend, Eamon Tuffy, socialist and former county cllr, reminded me recently that it’s no longer clear if South Dublin County Council has a county manager. That post now seems to be Chief Executive.* It might be argued that this makes no difference. However, it is certain that the change was discussed and decided upon. In other words, there are reasons.

The change was, moreover, not done in isolation. There are now “Directors of …” and the council is adamant that it will redefine citizens as customers.

What we are witnessing is our local county council taking part in much wider phenomenon: corporatisation. **

Too many local politicians want to be community workers and to avoid bringing politics into … well, politics – and they’ll try to convince themselves that words don’t matter.*** Words do matter and these changes will appear over and over in media in order to drive home their acceptability and the acceptability of the political changes they reflect.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
* http://www.sdcc.ie/the-council/about-us/management-team
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatization
*** https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2014/07/21/if-the-county-council-is-not-a-little-parliament-what-is-it/

It is a mistake to consider those who use beheading to reach an audience more depraved than those who use bombs for the same end

When I taught Political Communication at UCD, one of the topics that students found most interesting was, “Terrorism: Violence as Communication”. It was based on a well-established approach within the study of terrorism which emphasised communication as a key defining feature. A popular way of putting this was that terrorists wanted a lot of people watching rather than a lot of people dead.*

The recent murders by beheading of James Foley, Steven Sotloff and David Haines remind many people of the similar murder in 2002 of Daniel Pearl. There are different ways to approach these murders.** Firstly, they could be discussed as evidence of a change in the status of journalists who until relatively recently were not targeted by terrorists. Secondly, the murders could be located within a history of beheading particularly within Islamist tradition. Thirdly, they could be viewed as part of the “genre” of statement or confession before violent death. A fourth approach, however, would be to see the murders as old-style terrorism, i.e. violence as communication, and much like the modus operandi of the likes of the IRA (killings to suit the news cycle and supported by professional media relations), the Unabomber and the Oklahoma bombers (killing to get media coverage of a message), and indeed the perpetrators of 9/11, the most spectacular and expressive murder-for-media.

It’s worth noting that the difference between the 2002 and 2014 murders by beheading is due primarily to changes in technology. When Daniel Pearl was murdered, the web was young and the murderers were reliant on older technology to distribute their horror video, and on journalists and editors (gatekeepers) to publicise it. Technical advance has made coverage of the murders of James Foley, Steven Sotloff and David Haines different, and not just in terms of superior sound and vision. The net has liberated his murderers from traditional mass media gatekeepers; now the audience can access the horror message directly and it can be stored, copied and multiplied with ease.***

There remains, however, a fundamental similarity between the killings and it is this that categorises them along with the older 20th century terrorism or rhetorical violence. The grisly, scripted, stage-managed murder – from introduction through slaughter to aftermath – guarantees attention. The complex message or messages can then reach the desired huge audience and the smaller support or potential recruit audiences. Job done but in the welter of communication something radical is being said of the victim.

The victim is central to the production but has a peculiar unchanging value. Living, dying and dead the victim is never a person but rather a component part of the medium, as necessary and disposable as USB memory sticks, magnetic tape or paper. This is worse than slaughter; it is beyond the reduction of a living creature to meat. At no stage is the victim other than material used to make a point. The point remains after the body parts are cleared, after the media equipment moves on, and as the managers of the killers consider their next production.

Beheading is particularly gruesome, medieval and exotic. The killers and their media managers know this; that’s why it was used. It would be a mistake however to consider them more depraved than those who bomb. The victims’ deaths serve no strategic purpose; neither can they be described as an unfortunate consequence of hitting a target that might be considered important. Whether by blade or bomb the calculated reduction of people to the level of disposable newsprint is depravity beyond war criminality.

______________________________________________________
* To make study possible a great deal of effort goes into defining terrorism. This is because it is a contested term. It has been reduced first to a term of abuse (“If you call me a terrorist, I’ll call you a terrorist.”) and then to a synonym for bad (“We need to say who are the real terrorists.”).

** http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/08/20/from-daniel-pearl-to-james-foley-the-modern-tactic-of-islamist-beheadings/

*** There’s been some thoughtful work done on the theatrical killing of Daniel Pearl, which could now be reviewed in the light of the murder of James Foley. Davin Allen Grindstaff & Kevin Michael DeLuca, The corpus of Daniel Pearl, Critical Studies in Media Communication Volume 21, Issue 4, 2004, pages 305-324. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0739318042000245345

If the county council is not a little parliament, what is it?

I couldn’t say that I know Kenneth Egan, the Olympic boxing silver medallist, but I’ve spoken to him a couple of times and I’ve heard him on radio and TV. He’s a decent man who would like to give something back to boxing and to his hometown. When I heard that he intended to be a Fine Gael candidate in the 2014 local government elections, I knew that the smart asses would attempt to flitter him. They did.

He was characterised at worst as a fool and at best as naïve, knowing nothing about politics. Well, he’s certainly not a fool. He readily admits that he knows little about politics and that he’s with Fine Gael because they were first to ask him.

Kenneth Egan was open and honest about his intentions. He wanted to do community work. He reckoned that being on the Council would facilitate this. He was elected.

A cursory reading of the 2014 local election material – leaflets and posters – reveals that he was not at all unusual. Local election material was of two familiar – almost ritualistic – types. Firstly, there were lies that national controversies like property and water taxes could be resolved at local level, and futile Labour/FG efforts to counteract the lies. A variation on the lie was that the County Council was irrelevant and that the election was a method of sending a message to national government. Secondly, there was canvassing to secure employment/recognition as a community worker. Completely absent from the election material was any suggestion that the council would be an assembly which would debate politically, a chamber in which local issues would be addressed from the standpoints of competing ideologies and political values.

A consideration of the role of lies and indirect messaging in election campaigns and how mass media encourage or at least facilitate them will have to wait for another day. Here the intention will be to consider the election of community workers to local government.

At first glance politics and community work are quite distinct and it is tempting to view the routine approach to local elections as a misunderstanding or even as a kind of corrupt populism but it might be better to treat it more seriously. There are two possibilities: 1. that candidates believe local government to be non-political; and 2. that the community-work approach reflects a political perspective to rival, say, both liberalism and socialism. Let’s look at the two possibilities in turn.

1. Belief that local government is non-political has its equivalent on the national scale where clientelism thrives. Here candidates compete to provide some sort of service while trying to avoid anything divisive, like a political argument or an overall political perspective. There is a view that a national interest exists which supersedes all divisions including the entire structure of economic inequality. Many people dispute this view and it is particularly rejected by the left. However, its equivalent in local government goes largely unchallenged. Leftists seem to be as committed to the notion of “the community” or “local people” as anyone else.

After the recent 2014 local elections Labour councillors formed a second coalition with Sinn Fein and others to govern South Dublin County. A party member objected on Facebook to involvement with SF. The last part of a Labour councillor’s reply is revealing, “In local government, the people are the focus. My community is what matters to me.”

It is true that power has been shifted to the county manager. It is also true that it is difficult to identify particular council votes that split along ideological lines. The problem is this: If the council is not a battleground of political values, then it has little function. That is to say, if it manages by reliance on a shared view, then it is no more than a supervisory management board and it could or should be replaced by a smaller board or even by an individual. The small board or individual could be charged with being the community’s representative to counterbalance the career managers. Whether or not election is necessary to choosing the counterbalance will be put to one side for consideration another day but the point is that if the council is not riven by political values, there is no reason to continue with its present quasi-parliamentary form when something a great deal smaller would suffice.

2. There is a danger that commentators and political scientists will fail to take the community-work approach seriously, that they will refuse to consider it as a political perspective – a complex, functional, conservative whole, very suited to maintaining privilege in today’s conditions.

A Fine Gael TD (MP) of my acquaintance – a very decent, hard-working person – argues that ideologies are divisive and unnecessary. He sees his election to the Dáil (parliament) as voter recognition for the years of hard work he put in as a county councillor. In other words, voters promoted him to a higher grade. He takes his role as public representative seriously but it is a role which many would dispute or indeed decry. He attends meetings, holds advice clinics etc. He is, to use the familiar term, “active on the ground”. His activity has a purpose: it is how he establishes what his constituents want. Once he’s established that they want something, his role is to do what he can to help them get it. He will write letters/e-mails, attend and speak at public meetings, lead deputations to government ministers or to senior managers in state services or companies. He uses his status and influence to apply pressure for the delivery of some local demand. He might operate similarly on behalf of a family or an individual provided it did not contradict what the community generally wanted. This is his political perspective; this is politics for him. He is aware of course that many criticise him on the basis that all of his activity is about nothing more than ingratiating himself with voters in order to be re-elected. He agrees that his activity “on the ground” is necessary to re-election but he also enjoys doing it, sees it as his function as an elected representative and supports the whole as a sensible, working political system. He is not in the least odd; he’s mainstream.

This is an old, conservative perspective perhaps best understood as the Fianna Fáil tradition of constituency service. They insinuated themselves into each and every locality and organisation and developed a reputation for “getting things done” or “delivering” and indeed bizarrely for being anti-establishment. Leftists behave no differently but they tend to have a different rationale for precisely the same activity. Leftists tend to be in thrall to “working people”, “ordinary people” or increasingly seldom, “the working class”. Like my Fine Gael acquaintance above, leftists sincerely want to advance popular demands but they also want to lead “working people” who are viewed as essentially progressive.

I know quite a few Labour county councillors. They are thoughtful and acutely aware of inequality and the class-divided nature of Irish society. They live to change that society by way of gradual reform, i.e. the parliamentary route. They realise that there is little or no conflict over political values at council level and that they must do community work. Some have ambitions to be elected to the Dáil and see the county council as a stepping stone. Again like my Fine Gael acquaintance above, they work “on the ground” hoping that voters will promote them. They are aware too that promotion to the Dáil will not mean elevation to a realm of political conflict with a constant clash of political values because re-election will to a great extent depend on that same work “on the ground”. There is no easy escape because not only is that the established way of things but the vast majority of electors shares the political view expressed by my Fine Gael acquaintance. Some voters, candidates and elected representatives may adopt a bogus anti-establishment swagger by talking in terms of the “political class” being pressured by “working people” but it amounts to the same stable conservatism: politics reduced to getting facilities or services for one group of citizens/constituents at the expense of others. Community work – together with protest, agitation and pressure – has become part of the management of dissent, a way of avoiding differences over political values.*

It is very different at party meetings. At times a meeting can inhabit another world, a world in which class, oppression, equality, legitimacy, power and their likes have real currency. Here’s the thing: A prospective council candidate seeking support at a Labour convention or – I presume – any other left party’s convention simply could not say that socialism was irrelevant and that they were putting themselves forward as an excellent community worker. The tradition (It may be a myth at this stage.) has to be maintained that community work, leading protests, etc. are directed towards socialism or at least a more equal society. The thought that they might be directed towards maintaining the system would be unbearable for most socialists.**

There is little point in suggesting or debating reforms at this stage. That is to say, there’s not much point in talking about elected county managers or elected supervisory boards because the overwhelming majority – including most of those who would see themselves as anti-establishment – support the system. There is a more basic argument to be addressed first. The republican approach which would include both liberalism and socialism views democracy as a matter of citizen participation in debates about the direction of the republic. It’s a tiny minority viewpoint. Given the forces opposed, it could be termed deeply unfashionable or even eccentric but it is old, basic, democratic and worthy of support.

Yes, council elections are for the most part about appointing/ recognising community workers. Voting for community workers or local-delivery agitators – even when they belong to ideological parties – is at best mildly democratic but in any republican sense might better be seen as counter-democratic.

It would seem time to recognise that a county or a city council is not a little parliament and making an explicit difference between the two might help to revitalise citizenship and push parliament back towards its neglected deliberative role.

________________________________________________________
* This is not the place to consider the possibility of a post-political age.

** https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/now-that-almost-everyone-is-anti-establishment-whither-dissent/

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear “competitiveness”? Yeah, me too but what’s the truth?

Here is Tom Lyons, Senior Business Correspondent at the Irish Times, reporting on a new league table on “competitiveness”:
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/ireland-moves-up-to-15th-in-competitiveness-rankings-1.1804264

The headline reads, “Ireland moves up to 15th in competitiveness rankings”

He tells us about his source: “The World Competitiveness Yearbook is compiled annually by Swiss-based business school IMD and measures how countries manage economic and human resources to increase prosperity based on statistical criteria and a survey of 4,300 international executives.”

Here’s the problem. For citizens the debate about competitiveness has been about keeping wages low so that Ireland can compete with low wage economies. Tom’s report, however, tells us that Ireland is ranked at 15th, while China, India and Brazil are ranked 23rd, 44th and 54th respectively.

He also notes that Japan has moved up to 21st place and quotes the W.C. Yearbook: “helped by a weaker currency that has improved its competitiveness abroad”.

Clearly competitiveness is not primarily to do with low wages. Indeed it may have little to do with wages.

It might be argued that it is unreasonable to expect Tom Lyons writing for specialists in the Business and Technology supplement to explore or even mention this but “competitiveness is not primarily to do with wages” is a mere eight words. Moreover, an article could be written in the main newspaper itself advising citizens not to confuse professional measurements of competitiveness with data for use in debates about the minimum wage and other low earnings.

In universities as elsewhere opposition to admin. staff is naive

I wrote recently about how concern over commercialisation of the universities was masking the larger problem – and frankly, the scandal – that is the usurpation of conventional management. A relatively new elite have changed the objectives of the universities to their own interest. In doing so they have used a familiar lexicon to disguise their efforts, to make them appear efficient and business-like. They have misused access to information systems to invert the relationship between management information and management objectives.*

My reason for returning to the topic so soon is that reaction to the original piece, while oddly favourable, has missed the point. Many of those who’ve spoken to me about the piece assumed that it was taking sides in the entirely bogus debate that is frontline workers versus administrators. It’s worth emphasising that what has been done to university management is common to many – perhaps most – organisations. I’ve had lecturers and post grad workers say to me that I was right to comment on the growth of admin. staff and the decline in academic staff. I made no such comment.

With the rise of electronic and the decline of paper systems three things were inevitable. Firstly, many of those who operated the paper systems would have to go or adapt. Secondly, the electronic systems would require technical and user support staff. Thirdly, the increase in data production would create a need for more administration. In short, it’s not in the least paradoxical that more efficient systems would demand staff increases. All of this can and should be managed. Change is not a recent phenomenon and has always had to be managed. The contrived specialisation of the likes of “change management” is as much a fetish as the production of management information for its own sake.

Setting frontline workers – be they doctors, firefighters or academics – against administrators suits those who are the real problem. They will side with the frontline workers and condemn administration in the language of efficiency. If successful, they are so well entrenched that it is they who will decide which administrators will go and what is best done by contractors. Thus, aided by their apparent critics in academia, their grip on universities will tighten at the expense of poorly paid staff and those remaining managers who might have offered some opposition.

_______________________________________________
* https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/cui-bono-the-commercialisation-of-universities-is-more-complex-and-durable-than-many-critics-imagine/

136 words to show how a journalist used 18 words to reinforce an orthodox view

Here’s a tiny example of a journalist supporting an orthodox position: “Of course, licence-fee funded broadcasters are rightfully subject to more scrutiny on how much they pay ‘the talent’, …” – Laura Slattery, Media and Marketing in The Irish Times, April 3rd 2014 *
The notion that income paid out of public funds should be subject to greater questioning is today a belief of the majority. I would argue that one role of the journalist is to prise open majority beliefs. Instead Laura decided to reinforce twice by inserting “of course” and “rightfully”.

Among other options, she could have said:
“Unfortunately, licence-fee funded broadcasters are rightfully subject to more scrutiny on how much they pay ‘the talent’, …”
or
“Unfortunately, licence-fee funded broadcasters are alone at present subjected to more scrutiny on how much they pay ‘the talent’, …”

___________________________________________
* http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/media-and-marketing/bottomless-pockets-can-lure-more-presenters-from-rt%C3%A9-1.1747361

What Irish socialists can learn from the very existence of The National Competitiveness Council

It’s no wonder that market liberalism is almost unquestioned in Ireland. Liberals know how to use state power and institutions. Socialists in government need to watch them and see how it’s done.

Have a look at this: “The National Competitiveness Council was established by Government in 1997. It reports to the Taoiseach on key competitiveness issues facing the Irish economy and offers recommendations on policy actions required to enhance Ireland’s competitive position.” – http://www.competitiveness.ie/aboutus/

The establishment of a state council has institutionalised competitiveness as a permanent objective of government.There’s a lesson to be learned: The establishment of a state council is a way to institutionalise X as a permanent objective of government.

The Labour Party is now in Government lumbered with political argument from a state council for competitiveness. If the left is capable of learning how to use the state, this is what we need to see before this government leaves office:

“The National Council for the Reduction of Inequality of Income was established by Government in 2015. It reports to the Taoiseach on key issues causing economic inequality in the Irish economy and offers recommendations on policy actions required to reduce inequality of income in Ireland.”

Respect for a religious ethos cannot include tolerance of teaching controversial viewpoints as uncontested truth

A news report in Saturday’s Irish Times has prompted me to return to the question of schools having a religious ethos *. While of course this applies to all religious schools in Ireland, the campaign in favour of fostering ethos ** is led by the Catholic Church.

The difficulty with addressing “ethos” is that it is never clear what is meant. If it means that any doctrine can be taught to children as long as it is said to be a feature of a religion, then ethos must be rejected. No responsible citizen would approve a rule saying that anything can be taught to a child as long as it is cloaked in religion. That would be a parody of religious tolerance.

In the short newspaper report a number of features of ethos – or more accurately Catholic ethos – appear. It is surprising, however, that no doctrines which appear regularly in public controversy are mentioned.

This news report suggests i) that teaching the existence of God and life after death is now threatened, ii) that if religious education is removed from the “public sphere” it could develop “in a more fundamentalist way”, and iii) that religious education is a part of the humanities and like other “creative subjects” is threatened by vocational/professional training as opposed to education.

Looking at these in order, it should be said at the outset that while there are those who oppose teaching about God and an afterlife to children – and they offer cogent argument against it – it doesn’t cause anything like the concern about teaching contentious opinion as fact. Ireland is a free and open society in which anyone may argue. However, teaching young children and arguing one’s case are entirely separate activities. All Irish children should be protected from noxious opinion presented as truth to be learned. To be blunt, any Catholic can and should argue the Church’s position on homosexuality, gay marriage, contraception, abortion etc. but all children must be protected from being taught those arguments as fact. It hardly needs to be added that this applies to all other religions which might want to teach in such a way.***

On the second point, it is accepted that there are many religious people who fear that their ordinary decency is threatened by extremists who wish to portray a particular understanding as the real or only interpretation. However, the fears of decent people for the future of their religion cannot be relieved at the expense of children.

The third point wants to pitch religious teaching in the camp of creative thought. It is true that religion and religious thinkers have contributed to the development, spread and maintenance of humane, decent values but to go on then to suggest that teaching a fixed doctrine to children is compatible with open debate and creative thinking is self-serving.

We want children to emerge into adulthood as thoughtful, iconoclastic and creative. We certainly don’t want them lumbered with cruel, divisive opinions held as doctrine. On the contrary, we want citizens ready and eager to debate the future of the republic. Whenever ethos is mentioned in relation to teaching children, the package must be opened and if necessary the bearer told that some of its contents relate to adult debate and not to children.
___________________________________________

* http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/catholic-schools-should-remain-true-to-ethos-despite-challenges-1.1708941

** I tried to find a plural for “ethos” and discovered a controversy. I was attracted to the view that it is a word that doesn’t have/need a plural but you might like to anglicise and use “ethoses”, “ethosses” or stick with the Greek and use “ethe” but if you opt for “ethoi”, it would appear that Greek scholars will be annoyed.

*** https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/faith-schools-and-the-teaching-of-values/

Miriam on Sunday illustrated a paradox: that balance can mean taking sides

Miriam O’Callaghan’s radio programme this morning (Sunday, 2nd March 2014) had three interviews*. One with Jimmy Guerin, the brother of murdered journalist, Veronica Guerin, whose acknowledged killer, John Gilligan, was injured last night when attackers attempted to murder him**. The second interview was with Jerry Hall, the model and actor. The third interview was with Tommy McKearney, convicted murderer, IRA member and hunger striker.

The Jerry Hall interview served as something of an insulator between two poles of editorial policy. The man suspected of the murder of Veronica Guerin, received no sympathy. There was absolutely no doubt that the editorial approach was condemnation; there was no desire to understand or to find redeeming features in John Gilligan or his actions. However, from the introduction when Tommy McKearney was described as “on active service” with the IRA, the third interview was not about murder but about exploring how this “gentle man” had come to murder/kill postman, Stanley Adams, his subsequent participation in a hunger strike and his thoughts on Northern Ireland.

At the close of the programme Miriam read out texts from listeners who thought that the Tommy McKearney interview lacked balance; they wondered why a family member of his victim or someone opposed to the IRA had not been interviewed. No text appeared asking why a family member of John Gilligan had not been interviewed. Here’s the thing: Balance is a fine convention in the coverage of a public controversy; it applies to two sides of a story, to contending political arguments. Paradoxically, however, when one decides that balance is applicable to an issue, one has taken sides in a most basic debate. That is the debate about what is a matter of public controversy and what is not, i.e. what is political and what is not. There is no way out of making an editorial decision so basic.

In the case of Miriam’s programme the editorial decision was that Veronica Guerin’s killing was not a matter of public controversy – was not political – but that the killing of Stanley Adams (Postman and a member of the UDR) was a matter of public controversy, was political. From the moment that balance is thought to apply there is no way back; the realm of politics has been entered – a realm of acceptable discussion – and in this instance the killing of a postman was brought within the consensus of what is acceptable as a matter for discussion.

___________________________________
* http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A10256460%3A15946%3A02%2D03%2D2014%3A
** http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/02/veronica-guerin-suspect-shot

Limited outrage: Discussion of the CRC scandal avoids the central problem

“Former CRC boss got more than €700k pension package from charity fund”*

This has nothing to with theft. This has nothing to do with proper governance. This has nothing to do with private funding versus state funding. This has nothing to do with paying for exceptional talent. This has nothing to with capitalism.

This has to do with rich people looking after those similarly situated. While too many on the left rattled sabres at the richest 1%, quietly the majority of the rich – say, the top 10% of earners – were establishing and maintaining excessive pay, bonus, expenses and pension norms while pretending to be “middle income”** and very likely joining in complaints about the 1% rich. The movement started in private companies and spread to the elite in state employment.

I have argued for a long time that €50k p.a. is an exceedingly good pension and that all public service pensions and pensions in organisations funded or part funded by the state should adopt this figure as the maximum permitted. Some years ago it was objected that a court had decided that a public service pension was a private asset and could not be touched. Public service pensions, however, have since been reduced. That leaves the real objection: Rich people, the top 10% of earners, the ruling class, the elite (Give them whatever title you prefer.) don’t regard €50k p.a. as a great deal of money or as creating sufficient inequality to maintain elite status or lifestyle.

It’s long past time the 80% or 90% of earners insisted on straight talking and a grasp on reality. €50k is a fabulous pension and above that it quickly becomes ridiculous.
_______________________________________________________________
* http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/former-crc-boss-got-more-than-700k-pension-package-from-charity-funds-29922420.html
** https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/middle-income-and-a-distortion-of-public-debate/

Patronising Russell Brand is not a good idea

Reaction to Russell Brand’s manifesto in New Statesman* has been almost exclusively of three types: supportive, dismissive, or patronising. Because the level of support for his position is so large the dismissive and patronising reactions will not do. What is needed is engagement with his perspective. It needs to be examined and subjected to the level of critique due to all public arguments.

New Statesman is attracting a great deal of criticism for publishing Russell Brand (RB) and allowing him to edit an entire edition. This is not deserved because the journal has performed a service in giving this political perspective space, respect and above all attention. The political perspective offered by RB is not at all uncommon. It would appear to be shared by at least a significant minority of people and possibly by a majority. It is the perspective which dominates mass media and social media. That it has been expressed by Russell Brand should neither increase nor decrease its importance.

His presentation of the position goes something like this.

He builds a case for casting aside the whole Westminster model including representative democracy. The starting point is “most people” and the observations that they don’t give a fuck about politics, view all parties and politicians as the same and hold them in equal contempt. He reckons that all political “agencies” are irredeemably and totally corrupted by big business. The conclusion is that “the current paradigm” should be renounced.

He holds a particular contempt for the Conservative Party and the smaller more extreme right wing parties but contempt for their opponents is only marginally less. Paradoxically for someone with such strong anti-state/anti-politics (ASAP) views, he has a positive attitude to leftist values, and leftist figures and achievements of the past.

He lists very real inequalities, poverty, deprivation and exclusions from decent living. Things are so bad and reform so impossible that only a revolution will do, a spiritual revolution. Now, he is not alone in using “spiritual” in relation to revolution; Rosa Luxemburg, the late 19th – early 20th century Marxist philosopher, does so too. However, he is quite explicit that the revolution is not about the overthrow and replacement of institutions and that “spiritual” refers to individual rather than collective change and to some kind of conversion rather than persuasion by argument.

He holds that media, public relations and polling combine to delude the people, keeping them apathetic rather than angry.

There are problems with all of this but first it is necessary to deal with those who would patronise him and those who share his views. RB has defenders on the left who appreciate the publicity he has given to the scale of the problems we face and to some of the issues that they too might prioritise. Moreover, they may share his view of the importance and wisdom of “most people”. They say that because he is not a politician, practiced in argument or particularly well-educated or informed, he cannot be expected to offer any solution or be subjected to analysis. Now, RB himself tries to exploit this (Indeed, he invites patronising admiration.) by saying that because he knows so little, little can be expected of him. In this position and that of his supporters who seek to patronise him there is acceptance of elite authority – a reliance on one’s betters (Yes, very likely the same betters already rejected as complicit in the problems.) to devise a solution. It is a rejection of the ordinary citizen’s involvement in great debates. It is a rejection of the notion that anyone may express a view in public and when they do, they invite criticism and counter argument. The patronising of RB’s views is an example of a modern form of censorship in which, “everyone is entitled to an opinion” has come to imply that a speaker’s opinion should not be questioned. It is tolerance turned on its head and made to mean the opposite. RB’s views deserve the respect of being challenged, particularly so because those views are commonplace, shared by so many people.

The overriding problem with the perspective now associated with RB is that it is for the greater part right wing. There are three important overlapping right wing perspectives which dominate. Firstly, though it might seem daft at first sight to associate RB with right wing dogma – given his apparent hostility to the establishment and in the UK to the Conservative Party – he is embracing an old and familiar approach to citizenship. Opposition to the state, and rejection of ideologies and of traditional forms and accepted norms for public debate signal opposition to the republican or participative model of citizenship. This is a model with which most leftists would identify and support. He opts instead for a variation on the liberal model of citizenship which cares little who is in charge or what is done as long as a level of comfort is guaranteed.** It should be admitted and then emphasised that a level of comfort is increasingly denied to many, many people and they are sorely, justifiably aggrieved.

Secondly, the ASAP thrust is meat and drink to those whose views can be loosely identified with the highly individualistic Freeman movement. Because of its anti-state, anti-tax, pro-property and standing-up-for-the-little-guy approach this is particularly attractive right now. In Ireland its largely bogus attempts to prevent debtors’ property – especially houses and lands – being seized are proving attractive because so many people in debt are in need of some relieving faith.*** These same characteristics give it credibility at protests and either confuse leftists or tempt them to turn a blind eye to the reality of a political perspective which in other circumstances they would oppose.†

Thirdly, it is plain that “New Age” thinking or what is frequently termed Mind, Body, Spirit (MBS) approaches are central. Indeed, for the edition of New Statesman which RB guest-edited he invited Deepak Chopra – among others – to write a short piece about revolution. Moreover, he talks admiringly of “sacred knowledge” in various pantheistic myths and seems to think that these myths were killed off because they were “socialist, egalitarian and integrated”. Clearly he believes at least some of the huge range of MBS doctrines. He may also realise the importance and influence of the New Age/spiritual/MBS constituency among his supporters. It is this that provides the quickest line of retreat from ordinary understanding of revolution into the radically individualist notion of a spiritual revolution.

It is worth returning to his view that the media are to blame for deluding the people. He may well be right but the delusion supports rather than hinders his perspective. To be fair to RB, it is true that journalists are generally loud in their condemnation of rioting and violent protesters and that they seek out examples in order to make a largely peaceful demonstration newsworthy. It is also true that what little analysis of disorder there is takes place months later in documentaries aimed at a small, more thoughtful audience. However, for decades the media have been deriding both politicians and politics,†† presenting an overall view that is remarkably similar to that of RB and – significantly – to that of the majority of citizens. It may be very hard for many of those accustomed to condemning the “mainstream media” to grasp the extent to which routine media output supports the denigration of politics, the acceptance of an elite political class, the reduction of the citizen to supplicant seeking favours, and the rejection of a demos in favour of minorities competing for resources at each other’s expense.††† It is a view which is incompatible with leftist thinking but many leftists decline to tackle it and instead either make common cause with its adherents, attempt to lead it or patronise it by asking no questions.‡

RB has performed a service in underlining the extent to which there are problems beyond the competence of any one state. The world, organised in competing states and federations and pinning almost all hope of a better life for citizens on economic growth, faces an existential threat in Global Warming. Moreover, within and across developed states there is a refusal to face two looming issues. Firstly, not only are there more people now but they are living much longer. The very idea of a pension rests on the assumption of employment until 65 and death soon after. That is plainly not how things are. Secondly, almost all policy assumes that a good society has full employment in decent jobs. The enormous productivity wrought by technology means that plainly this too is not how things are.

Russell Brand and the huge numbers who think similarly are disappointing not only because they are right wingers under their socialist fleece but in rejecting reform in favour of a vague hope they bring to mind a hoary old joke told too many times in Ireland:

A tourist stops and asks a local for directions to be told, “If I were you, I wouldn’t start from here at all.”

_____________________________________________________________
* http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/russell-brand-on-revolution
** http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/citizenship/
*** http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/lawyers-advise-against-use-of-groups-claiming-secret-formula-to-circumvent-law-1.1396641
̾† http://freemanireland.ning.com/
†† https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/the-politicians-one-way-that-journalists-limit-debate-in-the-republic/
̾†̾†̾† https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/now-that-almost-everyone-is-anti-establishment-whither-dissent/
‡ https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/rulers-peasants-journalists-and-activists-a-note-on-vincent-brownes-piece-marking-rousseaus-300th-birthday/

For anyone who takes an interest in citizenship this may be the most informative recorded phone message so far

I’ve been lazy and far too slow to write about the way in which automated systems are being designed to exclude citizen participation. As some of you may know, I was banned from FB for a period because of a particular comment I posted and I still cannot see how the comment could have caused any problem whatsoever.* I’ve failed to get an explanation from FB by way of their on-line reply forms. I discovered that they have a phone number in Dublin. I called and was met with the familiar, “Press 1 or 2 or 3 …” runaround. Selecting 1 produced a recording telling me that I was dealing with an on-line company and that I should use the on-line forms which I’d already found were ignored. OK, so many large organisations – including the HSE ** – take the view that dealing with citizens is done by way of mass media only. However, while the HSE press office will respond to a citizen, FB make it absolutely clear that they will talk only to accredited and “legitimate” journalists. If this interests you, from Ireland call 01 5530550 and select 3 to hear what for me is an extraordinary message.
______________________________________________________________________________
* https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/on-being-silenced-on-facebook-and-unable-to-discover-why/
** HSE is Ireland’s Health Services Executive.

What’s the score? Switzerland 1:12; Ireland 1:3. The ratios matter less than ensuring that inequality of income becomes a matter of public controversy

Michael Taft writing in Unite’s Notes From the Front reports favourably on Switzerland’s 1:12 initiative and other moves to reduce inequality of income.* This is really good stuff from Switzerland and it’s the sort of approach the Irish Labour Party and the left generally should be taking: Link top pay to the minimum wage or the pay of low paid staff members. Moreover, every initiative, every policy, every budget should be evaluated with reference to inequality of income. I might add that every cut in public expenditure should be similarly evaluated. Since 2012 this kind of equality audit has been Labour Party policy but it’s a well-kept secret and labour’s critics on the left show not the slightest interest in it.**

The notion of limiting top pay to a multiple of the lowest pay appears in the thinking of even the British Conservative Party.

I put forward an argument that the first cut in the public service pay bill should be a cap on pay and extras of 100k and a 50k ceiling on pensions. It was met with hostility to the extent that I couldn’t get my own branch or constituency Labour Party to put it on the 2012 conference agenda.*** How about now putting it to a plebiscite now?

There were other proposals. One was to call the bluff of those who said that increases in the minimum wage would close businesses especially in the hospitality industry. The suggestion was that the minimum wage would be payable only within companies whose top earning staff member or director had an income of less than, say, three times the minimum wage; all other firms would pay the minimum wage plus, say, three euro per hour. Another was that state contracts would be confined to companies whose top earning staff member or director had an income of less than, say, three times its lowest paid staff member or, say, four times the lowest paid staff member in any of its contractors.

The multiples can be debated and indeed changed periodically. The important point is that inequality of income becomes a matter of public controversy.
___________________________________________________________________
* http://notesonthefront.typepad.com/politicaleconomy/2013/10/a-few-referenda-ideas-that-just-might-succeed.html
** https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/inequality-of-income-can-labour-put-it-on-the-public-agenda-and-achieve-some-reduction-while-in-government/
*** https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/prioritising-public-spending-and-reducing-income-inequality-in-the-public-sector-a-motion-which-failed-to-make-the-agenda-for-the-labour-party-conference-2012/