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Paul
O'Connor, writing in Sinn Fein’s RM mail distribution
service, has highlighted the imbalance in the state
attitude to those disobeying the law, pointing out
that Liam Lawlor has spent time in Mountjoy but, tellingly,
not for corrupting the planning system. And those
at present planning corrupting the economic wellbeing
of the already ailing poorer sections of society through
the bin tax have secured the jailing of Joe Higgins
and Clare Daly. Both socialist political prisoners
may gain solace from Henry David Thoreau who felt
that 'under a government which imprisons unjustly,
the true place for a just man is also a prison.' While
this may have been a case of rallying morale, making
a virtue of necessity, Thoreau himself did serve time
for refusing to pay his poll tax in 1846. The rich
were at it then too, pursuing strategies of displacement
which would ensure that the worst effects incurred
in the course of financing the public purse would
be passed onto the poorer sections of society. A case
of the slaves being forced to pay for their own chains.
Even 79 year olds are being dragged before the Dublin
courts. Pensioner Joseph O'Brien claimed it was a
fate that should never have befallen him, as he had
not obstructed any refuse collection.
Debra
McCorkle writing in Alternet on the recent
jailing of Tommy Chong of Cheech & Chong fame offered
the following overview:
For
the mere price of nine months in jail, he can spend
the rest of his life as a hero for libertarian ideals.
He doesn't have to kiss John Ashcroft's ass. He
doesn't have to be a liar and a hypocrite. Like
those who went to jail and endured the blacklist
during the McCarthy Era, Chong can maintain his
integrity in these increasingly right-wing Big Brother
times. He can use this imprisonment to publicize
the punishment inflicted by our government for a
non-violent crime which has harmed no one.
All
very honourable and principled and more dignified
than taking the white feather. It is hardly surprising
that few, if any, are coming forward to assert that
both socialist prisoners of the Irish capitalist state
have lost any of their integrity through being imprisoned
or have had their radical edge blunted. But the problem
here is that Joe Higgins and Clare Daly, unlike Tommy
Chong, have harmed someone or something. It is not
that they are depriving the state of a massive amount
of income. It is because they are Marxists who belong
to the Socialist Party which seeks to mount an anti-systemic
challenge to the existing order. Some measure of this
can be gleaned from Vincent Browne who, in yesterday's
Irish Times, brilliantly exposed government
hypocrisy on the matter. Trawling back though what
the government hoped everyone else had forgotten he
flagged up the type of activity the present government
minister Tom Parlon was involved in a matter of years
ago while heading the Irish Farmers' Association:
On
January 1st, 2000, the Department of Agriculture
and Food imposed additional meat inspection fees
on meat companies, to recover the full cost of meat
inspections. The meat factories sought to pass on
this additional cost to farmers. The IFA picketed
meat factories in protest. The effect of the picketing
was the closure of meat factories around the country
and the lay-off of some 3,000 workers. An order
was made by Mr Justice Diarmuid O'Donovan in the
High Court requiring the picketing to stop. The
IFA announced they would defy the court order and
did so. The IFA leader, Mr Tom Parlon, said there
would be "total resistance" from the farming
community if any farmer was imprisoned for defying
the court order. Hundreds of farmers took part in
pickets at 30 meat plants, in defiance of that order.
No arrests were made. Mr Parlon further announced
that no meat product would be "allowed"
to enter or leave the factories until the matter
in dispute was settled.
Tom
Parlon, since then has become a Progressive Democrat
parliamentarian. Clearly he posed no challenge to
the prevailing economic orthodoxy and was quite happy
to fight his battles for a bigger slice of the cake
within it. Consequently the government is today equally
happy to have him as one of its ministers. He does
its bidding and will remain on the right side of Mountjoy's
walls. In November last year the Socialist Party in
a press statement claimed that 'Parlon's plan for
wholesale privatisation of public assets reflected
a right-wing ideological obsession.'
Because
this obsession is resisted those elected representatives
at the forefront of such resistance are jailed, prompting
a comment from Tony Gregory in relation to Joe Higgins
that 'it is a disgrace that anyone of his commitment
and ability, is not released, if only for Dáil
sitting times so he can carry out the work he has
been elected to do.' The most vulnerable sections
of the Dublin population on top of being subject to
a financial squeeze by the state are now deprived
of proper elected representation. In this context
the bin tax and the jailings are two prongs of the
same state strategy of displacement. In an economic
and social milieu where the hegemonic political strategy
ensures that wealth is redistributed in the most inequitable
fashion, are Joe Higgins and Clare Daly guilty of
anything other than seeking to ensure a more egalitarian
redistribution by means not approved by the government?
The
behaviour of the Dublin Government in persecuting
Joe Higgins and Clare Daly confirm what Kelly Candaele
and Peter DreierIt, writing in an American newpaper
last December, observed - it 'almost calls for resurrecting
the phrase "ruling class," a notion once
popular in left-wing circles that claims that the
primary function of the highest levels of government
is to protect the interests of the very rich.'
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