Trees and Bees

25,000 more diseased trees had to be destroyed in County Down again recently.  They were of course from imported saplings, As we said before it is time for us to be producing our own trees from seedlings. Very easy to do and would employ some local people in the process.

As we pointed out in Issue 4, our honey bees are vanishing at an alarming rate. Bees have been around forever and they are crucial for pollination: crucial for our food production. Perhaps the G8  people have discussed this and have come up with a strategy for dealing with this environmental travesty. If not, it will be left up to small independent bee keepers like County Antrim’s Jimmy Cousley to facilitate their survival.

The State of our Local Economy

Willie Drennan 

Someone needs to write a book about the approach of our governments to the local and global economy. Well someone probably is writing that book as I write this rants, but until it’s out there and a best seller nothing is going to change very quickly. The most likely outcome of the G8  Summit in Fermanagh is that our wealthiest  nations will continue their policies of expanding the wealth and control of global chieftains at the expense of investment in , and promotion of local independent, but inter-dependent, sustainable enterprise. 

Our government at Stormont will follow the paths of their government partners in London and   Dublin to ensure that those who play along will be rewarded. Their policies will continue to stifle  small private sector incentives. Here is one tiny example. Unlike the large conglomerates who own   the other newspapers in Northern Ireland, with the support of government, The Ulster Folk are discouraged. The Ulster Scots Agency dishes out its Ulster Scots paper ‘free’ of charge while  other public purse funded outfits, such as the Belfast Welcome Centre don’t want to sell our paper.  This is a small, but excellent example of  government approach to the local economy. 

The State of our Democracy.

Willie Drennan

Since the last issue of The Ulster Folk the state of democracy has taken a turn for the worse. There is still no serious consideration by our present political to set up the most basic conditions for true democracy by facilitating an official opposition. All countries need this to ensure basic accountability and transparency in government: something seriously lacking at Stormont where they have postponed the next election for an extra year and given themselves a pay rise while the rest of the country is experiencing wage cuts.

On the bright side so many people are now understanding the extent of the failings of our present  political structure and it is inevitably only a matter of time before it all gets sorted. 

G8: A missed opportunity for Northern Ireland?

While we’ll never ever really know if the cost hosting of the G8 will ever pay back Northern Ireland in real   financial dividend: there was perhaps another type of opportunity missed. That was the opportunity for those Ulster Unionists and Irish Nationalists who distrust the policies of the world’s leaders to get together to say so. Instead the public protest was dominated by those with anti-Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, agendas.  We had a rare opportunity to agree on something and we missed it.

Identity in Confusion?

Willie Drennan

The problem is the media and government agents want to label and stick everybody in one of their boxes. They want to categorise everybody into groups where they can be pigeon-holed  and controlled.

For the record I am primarily an Ulsterman, who is an Ulster-Scot, Northern Irish, Irish and British. I can go further in geographical terms and claim to be European, a Northern Hemispherian (I may have just mad that word up) and a resident of Planet Earth who shares the space with all kinds of other people, animals and energies. 

 I am a libertarian-type, liberal-thinking Leftie: independently minded and with leanings to the Right.  I am an unorthodox, non-conformist dissenter and stand strongly and clearly for independence of speech, thought and identity.

The Twelfth Day

Willie Drennan

Growing up in Northern Ireland I looked forward to the Twelfth of July in the same way as I did Halloween and Christmas. As a child and a teenager, in pre ‘troubles’ time, I was aware that my Catholic friends and neighbours didn’t really celebrate the 12^th, but the fact that they would watch the parade, occasionally help collect materials for the bonfire,  or dance a jig under the Orange Arch suggested to me that it wasn’t really a big deal.

It wasn’t really until I left Northern Ireland to travel and work in other countries at the age of 21 years, that I realised the 12^th Day was projected across the world as a bigoted anti-Catholic event.  I couldn’t really understand this as the majority of those who participated in the Twelfth, that I personally knew, were not bigots: l but I had to do some soul-searching. For a period I was made to feel embarrassed and guilty for having ever enjoyed the music and fun. I could recall songs being sung in drunken exuberance that were most certainly offensive; but I arrived at the conclusion from examining other cultures with a very open mind, that every culture, class and creed has their extremist elements.

When I returned to NI in 1997 I was shocked at the level of animosity in the media, and among the middle-class good and great, towards the 12^th.  They were going on about narrow-minded bigots and I wondered when narrow-minded bigotry was not narrow-minded bigotry.

There are different aspects to this celebration and it means different things to different people. There are religious, political, cultural and social elements but - love it, or loath it - it is an exceptional indigenous cultural festival that Tourism Ireland should be promoting world-wide .  Here’s hoping for a sunny, spirited, peaceful, dignified Twelfth Day 2013: celebrated in a respectful manner and with due consideration for everyone in Northern Ireland.

Gee Eight!

Willie Drennan

 The G8: whose idea was it  for Northern Ireland to host it? How long will it take to reap return on investment costs for infrastructure and security? What costs will there be in relation to property damage and hospital bills? These are the questions many are asking in Northern Ireland, as well as: how many participants or protestors will come back To Fermanagh for holidays or conferences? One answer to that one might be: fenced-in security zones look and feel the same the world over; in the same way as malls and shopping centres are universally identical.

While it may be delusionary to think that somehow Northern Ireland, or the UK as a whole, might someday reap financial benefits from the hosting of the G8: it at least gives us the opportunity to tell our local politicians that enough is enough.  It offers us the opportunity to tell governments that we are wising-up, we are catching them on and that we no longer want to vote for global, big corporation controlled politics. 

 One thing for sure nothing will emerge from this G8 conference that will help establish sustainable regeneration of our local economy:  those who currently control the world’s wealth will not suddenly throw it all away to local independent inter-connected enterprises. They won’t allow small-time independent thinkers, who chose not to be subservient to the system, to disrupt their global grip on power and wealth. Post G8, our local Stormont politicians will still go off gallivanting across the world over advancing the global economy to the detriment of our local independent growth. We will still be buying cheap foreign clothes, food and furniture instead of creating an innovative low-carbon, low dependence, locally-centred economic strategy.

The best we can hope for out of this is a greater exposure, through social media and independent bloggers, as to how we are led like sheep to fulfil wealth expansion for the almighty global landlords.  It really is time for people to send out the message to the powerful that we have caught them on and we all want change. There is no excuse any longer to believe everything the government and their media tell us. 

G8 Protests: Is there any point?

          

People have every right to street-protests, marches, rock concerts and parties. There are very legitimate reasons for protest against global control of our economies by the few, the great, the wealthy and the powerful. There is justification in exposing international exploitation: of poor workers in poorer countries, the manipulation of mindsets and bribing of the masses in wealthier nations. These are the people responsible for creating the artificial global economic boom that sucked in so many. When the boom’s bubble burst, as orchestrated, these are the people who walked away with power and wealth intact leaving millions to flounder in subservience to the system. 

Protesting can be good, partying and bonding in celebration with kindred spirits is good. But once it turns to violence that damages local property and further disrupts our local economy then the plot gets lost: the genuine message of the protest is diluted enabling the G8 folk to write-off protesters, and complainers as irrational delinquents. This has led many to ask if there is any point protesting against the G8 at all: is it actually counter-productive?  

If I thought it would help in any way I to sort out our economic woes - or even if I was just confident that I wasn’t  in any way enabling either the Gee Eighters or opportunistic rabble rousers - I  would strap on my Lambeg drum and join the angry mob.