All Too Common

From Solidarity Times - Free the Media, Be the Media a piece claiming attack on the Yes camps posters ahead of next week's referendum.

In a pattern all too common across rural Ireland, hundreds of Yes posters were torn down in an organised fashion by what had to be No activists, across Country Cork last night. This anti-democratic rage typifies the No campaign which has so much wealth that it is printing 10 No posters to every Yes poster. All across Ireland the few Yes posters there are to distribute have been torn down, in one case we have heard of in the west they have even been discovered in the houses of No campaigners.

As well as being an organised assault on democracy, showing the contempt the No campaign have for the people of Ireland, the shortage of resources often means each of these stories is heart breaking. We heard from the couple who had driven to Dublin to pick up the these posters which they had paid for themselves with donations they had collected.

She told us:

This morning no fewer than 8 messages came in to our Facebook page telling us our posters had been cut down and destroyed all over the county.
We paid for those posters ourselves with donations. G. drove to Dublin to collect them, a 6 hour trip. Himself and a lovely bunch of volunteers spent all Sunday putting them up right across the county. And the No side organised an attack on them right across the county.
Why, they have at least a million posters across the country. We put up about 500 at the weekend.
Can you please think long and hard what will happen if these people win and get more power. Do you want Mattie McGrath and Ronan Mullen, the Healy Raes, the Sherlocks running the country? Catholic fundamentalism, is that what we want to go back to? Say goodbye to contraception, sex education, divorce, marriage equality so.
You might not care about this issue, you might not like abortion but this is not about liking abortion, it's about trusting women to make the best decision for them and being compassionate and not judgemental.
Don't let this be another Trump or Brexit. Please, please get involved in the final days of the campaign, vote yes, abstain if you can't but please do not hand any power to these people.


10 comments:

  1. "In a pattern all too common across rural Ireland, hundreds of Yes posters were torn down in an organised fashion by what had to be No activists, across Country Cork last night. This anti-democratic rage typifies the No campaign which has so much wealth that it is printing 10 No posters to every Yes poster. All across Ireland the few Yes posters there are to distribute have been torn down, in one case we have heard of in the west they have even been discovered in the houses of No campaigners."

    okay - im in the west - theres way more yes than no posters around. and whats more - anybody living in the south who is reading this will tell you the same. ur a shower of desperate muppets whoever ye are. i didnt read past this paragraph btw. as i said a hundred times already - the one constant in this referendum is you guys constantly lying deceiving and manipulating and then accusing us of doing exactly that. its actually pathological - which truly is the scary thing.

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  2. My wife was telling me about the weekly yes camp stall in Drogheda today - the No camp stood across the street shouting "whores" and "murderers" at them. Intimidation that does nothing to enhance public understanding of the issue.

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  3. was it this whore they were calling a whore?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un23nZRXVHg

    heres her speech in full -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9S5QAsLebA&t=1s

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  4. Grouch, I would've probably been selfishly cheering on this 'hoe' twenty years ago I.e more fool her if she thinks it's empowering women. However we all learn til the day we die and personally when I became a father to two daughters my outlook changed. One thing I am sure of is that it's far braver for a woman to oppose abortion these days than to endorse it. Then again going against what our corrupt rulers want is always brave.

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  5. well said wolfe, and the really scary thing is someone actually pays her!

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  6. Wolfe Tome,

    I am not so sure why that would be the case. It seems to understate the size of the No Lobby. They are not isolated. I think it might be true in places where the sentiment is overwhelmingly Yes. But that would apply also to Yes people in areas where the sentiment is overwhelmingly No. The anonymous pressure of the group is most likely at play wherever we go.

    My daughter tells me about the school discussions - nobody seems reluctant to express their view. Plenty of young people willing to make the case against abortion.

    The animosity in the debate at a public level is not reflected on the ground in my view, where people in both camps remain friendly with each other. There is rivalry but not real hostility that I have seen. As a former prisoner often pointed out to me friendships are much too valuable to be undermined by something as sordid as politics.

    I don't feel either that the pro life camp feels threatened or silenced by the corrupt rulers as you refer to them. The only people I have seen resorting to threats up to now are the bishops, threatening to excommunicate people if they vote Yes.

    I expect the Yes Camp to win but it is not over until the pregnant lady sings. If they do win I hope they desist from gloating or rubbing the noses of their opponents in it. There is a lot of genuine, well meaning sentiment out there opposed to abortion solely because of the harm they feel it brings rather than being a mere reflection of an invidious attempt to inflict religious opinion on others.

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  7. AM, if the drive for abortion is favoured and cheered by the media and its allies then it would be professional suicide to declare ones opposition within or even outside those circles.The media is a very powerful and can wield its influence to make life difficult for people and their employers. I haven't heard of bishops threatening excommunication but I guess the church will always contrive a way to undermine itself- the enemy within? Personally I'd wear excommunication as a badge of honour.
    Btw, tv3 tonight had a debate last night re abortion. I found the Australian woman very revealing as she was for abortion. Her take basically was that it was unfair for a woman from a poor background to be 'forced to carry a child' even though she hadn't the wealth to look after it as 'no country' in the world was going to pay for babysitters etc. That's it in a nutshell for me I.e eventually working class women will be shamed or obliged to abort a child due to their lack of finances; to do the opposite will be viewed as irresponsible and selfish. The rulers will soon eradicate poverty and thus save tax payers monies for more worthy ventures such as Royal visits etc by encouraging the peasants to cull themselves. 'Work will set you free' will never be more apt.

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  8. Wolfe Tone

    Since abortion is a reality in the Republic of Ireland (as it is in Northern Ireland) but has always been exported across the Irish Sea, there "is no drive abortion" nor are those wishing to remove the Eighth Amendment "pro-abortion". What the referendum is about is the return of the abortion to where it properly belongs, the legislature and what he pro-choice movement is calling for is for the current Irish abortion sector to be regularised so that women can access abortions, aftercare and pregnancy counselling in a free, legal and safe environment.

    There is no Malthusian drive to encourage "the peasants to cull themselves". That is classic race suicide, pronatalist sensationalising. You talk of "shame"; that is the individual and collective burden that generations of Irish women (and not a few Irish men) have been made to feel over their bodies, sexuality and reproductive lives. As the Magdalen Homes survivor said on Channel 4 News tonight, on Friday Irish women have the opportunity to emerge and leave behind the dark.

    REPEAL THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT! UP THE REPUBLIC!

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  9. Wolfe Tone,

    I fail to see how this can be stood up. If it were right we would expect to see at least one of two things. Nobody speaking out because it would be professional suicide to do so. Or the professional suicide because they spoke out. People are speaking out in their thousands against Repeal. I have heard nothing yet of professions ended. Not one case has come before me in the union work that I do. And I handled a pro life worker case in the past so they would not shy away from coming.

    Moreover, if the case is made (I am not sure you are making it) that the media is involved in a conspiracy to suppress the home life argument and the proof is the putting to professional death of all who speak out, then the media emerge pretty ok if no effect flows from the cause.

    No woman should ever be pressurised to have an abortion regardless of her economic situation. The denial of choice here is egregious. But the denial of choice is always egregious, either way. Working class women in Ireland at the moment are being denied the ability to have an abortion by their economic disadvantage. It is easier for the better off to go to Liverpool.

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  10. AM, the very fact that all political parties and their friends in the media are pro abortion will certainly make for the people who may be anti abortion working in that sphere, feel like a very cold house. Common sense and logic tells you it may be best to keep the head down as the cronies that run political and media bodies are a cynical lot I.e they like their 'own' around them. Now they may not blatantly sanction an anti abortionist for their abortion views but there's more than one way to skin a cat. There way things are evolving I wouldn't be surprised in the near future, it is called 'hate crime' if you oppose abortion.
    P.s did you see Regina Doherty on last night coming all across as some compassionate caring person? I minded how compassionate she was when she scoffed all the victims of British state violence here in the north, not so long ago. "They brought it on themselves" was her words. Now do tell, is that the utterings of a person who truly cares about her fellow human beings? Alongside her was the state sponsored NGO Amnesty I representative. This group used its soft power to prepare the ground for NATO to bomb thousands of innocents in Libya and lead the charge for the same thing against Syria. The knock on effects of their soft power antics resulted in the refugee crisis in those regions. But it's ok as Amnesty can now campaign for their plight(they played their part in causing it) and kerching! They still rake on the monies allthewhile people think they are a caring organisation. So forgive me if I treat with caution the likes of what these people champion. On their world it appears to be a case of 'good is bad and bad is good'.

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