Shell's Lackey's In The Media Out In Force Again

national | environment | feature

Tuesday July 07, 2009 14:10

by Joe Higgins MEP - Socialist Party

info at joehiggins dot eu

The government, official opposition and the media are all towing Shell's line

Joe Higgins making his point to Gardaí in Rossport

The sinking of fisherman Pat O Donnel’s boat and the arrival of Shell Oil’s pipe laying ship, The Solitaire, in Broadhaven Bay, Mayo, has brought the Corrib Gas field very much back into the news.

Some media are once again highlighting the high costs of the Garda operation to protect the Shell operation. Occasional articles appear denigrating those who are opposing the Shell operation in its current form. There are frequent dark hints about ‘subversive’ forces driving the opposition.

It was always thus when mere peasants or proletarians dared to oppose the powerful vested interests of the economic and political establishment . One hundred years ago when Big Jim Larkin arrived from Liverpool to organise the downtrodden manual labourers of Belfast and Dublin, his message of hope to them was demonised as a subversive plot to destroy society.

Related Links from Indymedia.ie:
Message to an Bord Snip Nua. Resolve the Recession. Tax Shell! | Reports that Pat the Chief's boat was sunk last night | Massacre of Indigineous Amazonians in Peru - 25 dead and counting | The Pirates of Broadhaven Defeat Shell’s Armada | Prison van carrying Maura into Montjoy blockaded for 20 minutes by Dublin S2S | Shell security attack Willie Corduff after illegal Glengad compound dismantled | Scuffles At Mountjoy As Maura Harrington Is Jailed |

Related Links outside of Indymedia.ie
The website of Shell-to-Sea - CorribSOS.com
Keep the pressure up: Contact ALL TDs, Senators, and MEPs in Ireland and let them know how you feel about Shell in Rossport - Contact.ie

Event Notice: 'Power Struggle' -the Niger Delta and Corrib Gas Film Screening and Panel Discussion
Galway, Town Hall Theatre, Thursday 9th July, 2:00 PM

The newspaper of William Martin Murphy - the media tycoon of that era - never lost an opportunity to portray Larkin as the devil incarnate and ‘Larkinism’ as the devil’s philosophy.

Linked to the abuse of Larkinism were constant denunciations of socialism. Larkin’s collaborator, the socialist pioneer James Connolly, well understood how the establishment propaganda machine worked when he satirised their methods in a simple but brilliant pamphlet, ‘Socialism Made Easy’ written in 1909. It is worth quoting the following passage at some length as it resonates forward a full hundred years to the present day.

‘Socialism is a foreign importation. I know it because I read it in the papers. I also know it to be the case because in every country I have graced with my presence up to the present time, or have heard from, the possessing classes through their organs in the press, and their spokesmen upon the platform have been vociferous and insistent in declaring the foreign origin of Socialism.

In Ireland Socialism is an English importation, in England they are convinced it was made in Germany, in Germany it is a scheme of traitors in alliance with the French to disrupt the Empire, in France it is an accursed conspiracy to discredit the army which is destined to reconquer Alsace and Lorraine, in Russia it is an English plot to prevent Russian extension towards Asia, in Asia it is known to have been set on foot by American enemies of Chinese and Japanese industrial progress, and in America it is one of the baneful fruits of unrestricted pauper and criminal immigration.’

Sure enough, recently, when Dublin Bus drivers were forced into industrial action because management short circuited changes without exhausting the usual procedures, sections of the media sought to find ‘militants’ and ‘socialist agitators’ to be at work. Apparently workers do not have the wit to take a stand unless dark forces are manipulating them.

And so, back to the Corrib Gas field and the questions that the media should be asking in the present situation. Why are members of the judiciary so willing to throw the book at those fighting the Shell project as evidenced in the jailing of an activist, Maura Harrington, for a month for an alleged offence that might usually merit a caution? And why should the High Court threaten young fisherman, Jonathan O’Donnell, with indefinite detention unless he effectively gave up his protest against the Shell project? Which big banker or developer has had such threats in another context?

How could an Irish Government hand over an entire quantum of natural gas to a massive multinational corporation with not a cent in royalties extracted for the benefit of public services and the Irish people? And how could this be done without having an independent assessment of the wealth of gas present in this field but instead took the word of the prospecting companies in whose interest it would be to majorly understate the extent of the reserves?

These issues need to be investigated rather than scapegoating those who are protesting against the whole arrangement between the State and Shell Oil. And what about the very real fears for their physical health of local people through whose surroundings the Shell oil pipe would pass? Can anyone say they are being hysterical in view of pipeline ruptures that have occurred with deadly effect in other parts of the world? And are fears for the environment not justified in view of a major payout by Shell related to environmental destruction in the Niger Delta, even if the company denies liability?

Answers to some or all of these questions will come in the future but probably too late to stop the gifting of a fabulous natural resource for nothing to one of the biggest private corporations in the world. Because, instead of tearing up the existing contract, the likelihood is that a Fine Gael/ Labour government would as slavishly adhere to it as the current Fianna Fail/Green Party Coalition.

Independent?