Big Business Out to Buy a 'Yes' to Lisbon
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Saturday August 29, 2009 13:14
by Joe Higgins MEP - Socialist Party
info at joehiggins dot eu
Treaty is good for big business, bad for workers
If they're saying yes, I'm saying no!
The pro-Lisbon political parties do not need to raise funds for the 'Yes' to Lisbon campaign. Big business is directly funding their side of the debate. The announcement that Intel and Ryanair will spend hundreds of thousands of euro to try to achieve a Yes vote in the upcoming Lisbon Treaty represents an unconcealed attempt by big business to shape politics in its favour.
Ryanair alone says it plans on spending over half a million Euro advertising for a pro-Lisbon vote, together with Intel that means up to a million Euro for a 'Yes' by only two private corporations.
Related Links:
Lisbon Treaty: Three Strikes, You’re Out | VOTE NO to Lisbon - Raft on the Liffey Launch | Irish Friends of Palestine Against Lisbon put their case to the public in Dublin's Grafton Street | Green Party U-Turn on a Democratic EU | The Lisbon Treaty and the Triumph of Technocracy | Debut of Irish Friends of Palestine Against Lisbon outside Dublin EU Parliament Offices | 13 Things the Lisbon Treaty Would Do | The Legal guarantees on Lisbon Treaty will not change treaty - a propaganda stunt to mislead voters | Dáil shouldn't have inferior Lisbon Treaty powers to German Parliament, controlling ministers | The Lisbon Treaty, Alan Shatter and the guys in hoods! | Lisbon Treaty News: German Constitutional Court delays Germany’s ratification of the Lisbon Treaty | No EU Guarantees Can Change Thrust Toward Militarisation in Lisbon Treaty | The Gurantees: Comment by Jens-Peter Bonde | Spoofing the Irish media and public with Lisbon “guarantees” that guarantee nothing | Supposed ‘hard fight’ to secure guarantees on Lisbon Treaty: a clever tactic to mislead says McKenna | Lisbon: Round Two - A bosses charter, with or without 'guarantees' | The Lisbon Assurances - A Closer Look
Socialist Party's Website - SocialistParty.net | Other No to Lisbon Groups can be found here.
Credibility of Donations Legislation Lies in Shreds
This shreds any credibility of the legislation limiting corporate donations to political parties. Hard pressed working people or community activists who might launch a 'No' to Lisbon campaign would have to register with the Standards in Public Office and would have to account for every penny received in donations but billion Euro corporations have to do neither.
How long will we wait for denunciations of this in the same terms and from the same people who questioned Libertas's funding last year?
Of course, it comes as no surprise that a big business like Intel supports the Lisbon Treaty. This Treaty is above all a Treaty for a big business Europe where the profits of big business come before the interests of working people.
Intel stands to profit handsomely from Lisbon's militarisation drive.
Intel in particular stands to profit from the further militarisation of Europe which Lisbon drives along. Intel is a manufacturer of key components of military hardware including deadly missiles and guidance systems. The Treaty stipulates that "member states shall undertake to progressively improve their military capabilities" and that a common defence policy "will lead" to common defence, in other words, the creation of an EU combat force. Intel would profit handsomely from this further development while poor people will be injured and killed in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.
While militarisation and the primacy of big business may be good reasons for Intel to advocate a yes vote, they are also very clear reasons for ordinary working people to reject this Treaty.
Intel's selfish motivation in intervening into this debate is crystal clear. A further question that must be asked is the relevance of Intel's record fine from the European commission of €1.06 billion. Intel is currently appealing this fine to the European Court of First Instance. One wonders whether by spending hundreds of thousands on the Lisbon Treaty they aim to be seen as "good Europeans" and improve their chances in their crucial upcoming case.
I wonder if Intel management had a thorough and democratic discussion among its thousands of workers on the Lisbon Treaty inviting in speakers from both sides of the argument."
Who's Keeping Dodgy Company Now?
'Yes' advocates quite opportunistically tried to smear myself and 'No' campaigners on the Left with the fact that some far-right groups like UKIP were also calling for a 'No' despite knowing that we loathed the politics of such groups.
However, we are entitled to ask: By the logic they tried to apply to us, do they now feel degraded by the fact that they are 'in the same camp' as a company that supplies parts for the killing machines of the armaments industry (Intel) and another which prides itself on its contempt for working people at all opportunities and also want to charge people for using the toilet in mid air? (Ryanair)"
Further push for the No campaign
This should act as a further push for all of us calling for a NO vote. With only five weeks to go, everyone who opposes the militarisation and privatisation agendas in the Lisbon Treaty must pull out all the stops in campaigning against the treaty.
Related Links:
- Assist with Joe Higgins & the Socialist Party's anti-Lisbon campaigning: http://www.joehiggins.eu/get-involved
- Get involved in the broad left No to Lisbon Campaign: http://www.sayno.ie
- Keep track of the latest articles from Joe on Lisbon throughout the campaign: http://www.joehiggins.eu/lisbon
Caption: Video Id: MiSlhoboCQo Type: Youtube Video
Joe explaining why you should vote no in 60 seconds
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Comments (18 of 18)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18.
You'd have to be a spacer to Vote Yes
Only Cowboys are Voting Yes
Still Voting No to Lisbon
Axis of Eejits for Lisbon
There was a time when we used RuinAir, before we were fully aware of the shameful way they treated disabled passengers, the degrading exploitation of workers, and climate change. Possibly the tipping-point was the extortionate hidden extra charge (€10- 'development charge') to leave Knock Airport, which affected many pilgrims to Knock, some elderly and with medical conditions. If RuinAir are for it, be sure that there are hideous hidden conditions that mean us no good...
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National Remembrance Day - Dublin, 2006. pic © Michael Gallagher - poster free to use. Please credit the pic (where possible) to photographer if used.
The Irish people say NO NO and NO again
how many times do we have to say, LISBON TWO AMEN
They ignore our voting rights and treat us like puppets
But we will be heard, we wont be led by muppets
THE IRISH PEOPLE SAY NO WE HAVE ALREADY SAID
NO MEANS NO MEANS NO
THE LISBON TREATY IS DEAD.
Curious. Matt Cooper interview with MOL (rynair) wants us to vote YES Fair enough no problem with that, but my question is: When Matt asked him why yes?, he said simply "jobs in IIreland". Fair enough with that, but is he talking about employing irish? anyone know..
'Jobs in Ireland' - the magic carrot to get our votes for Lisbon. As though a job, however trash it is, justifies selling out our rights. If we're to have jobs, they have to be proper jobs, with proper pay & conditions - not quite what Mr O'Leary wants.
February 24th 2005 Ryanair signed a deal with Boeing worth 4.5billion€ fora a new fleet of aircraft. That proved three things :
* a clear commitment to the arms industry and war economy of which Boeing is a central player.
* an utter disloyalty to the European project by choosing to buy US made aircraft which could have been produced in Europe.
* a clear preference for non-unionised workforces. Ryanair waited till Boeing had broken its trade union laying waste to the working classes of Seattle. Between 2003 and the cutting of the deal with Ryanair, over 70,000 workers were laid off by Boeing. Then Ryanair used RTE to pretend that its deal would create 2,500 jobs in Seattle. http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0224/ryanair.html
Ryanair doesn't create jobs it offers paid places on cabin crew courses it runs, advertised as leading to a training qualification which will be recognised globally. Despite the fact that only Ryanair recognise the certificate. In January of this year I couched a young woman who wanted to be an air hostess in Barcelona. She had studied tourism and was familiar with the two main computerised booking systems but wasn't sure what she should say at the selection interview for a well publicised "recruitment drive" in the Spanish state. I got her to learn a load of lines which I reckoned would go down well at an interview relishing the responsibility to safeguard the security of passengers under all eventualities. (Perhaps I had been watching too much of the TV series "Lost" at the time). Anway - she got selected out of an initial group of 1,400 applicants which had seen hopefuls fly into Girona from as far away as Italy. (Obviously those girls hadn't caught the eye of Berlusconi and werent getting into to TV).
Then the fun started. This young woman had to relocate from Barcelona to Girona at her own expense without any assistance and find lodging so she could do a 12 hour 5 days a week course. She paid for the first month under the constant duress that only the lucky few and best of the best would make it all the way . One weekend I got to see the confidential Ryanair training handbook. It's a hefty tome which explains amongst other things that is Ryanair's policy to never negotiate with terrorists and helpfully offers a profile on the sort of people who might hijack aircraft. Apparently they come in three easy to define types: religious nuts, the psychologically unbalanced looking for attention & more old fashioned terrorists who just want their mates out of prison. The poor unfortuanates who had paid for this course and had for the majority moved themselves to the city of Girona from all over Catalonia or the Spanish state would learn each Friday which one of their number wasn't being invited back to class the following Monday. Not a single failed trainee gets a refund on the training course payment . By the end of the first month the young woman (let us call her in the finest journalistic tradition "Ms A.") had not been dunked in a seacrash simulator or taught how to persuade a cabin load of passengers to put on their life jackets or put on an oxygen mask. Ms A. was invited to continue her training for a further month at an additional cost of training fees, tuition costs, living expenses and nutritious sandwiches. The co-ordinators tempted Ms A. with the delightful prospect of working as a ground crew member for the finest budget airline on Earth in either Dublin or London. By this stage she had not satisfied the ryanair tutors that she could make the grade on make-up or cosmetics and they were beginning to frown on her habit of going to classes in normal shoes. That weekend she returned to Barcelona and bought her first pair of high heel shoes. I had no problem in telling her that I thought she was one of the saddest idiots I had ever couched for a job application. Sure you could be talking about "the farm" as CIA Langley's training ground is known. At the end of the second month, complete with new shoes and wonderful advice on how to spot potential hijackers in airports (the local security authorities distribute photographs of these types which ought be examined regularly), the wonderful company Ryanair, which subverted the national symbol of Ireland dropped the bombshell.
She could have a job after one more month as promised (the third month) in either Dublin or London but would be contracted and thus paid from Catalonia, meaning Ryanair would pay just above the average minimum wage for the service sector in a state whose average wage and cost of living is less than a third of either Dublin or London . They offer no assistance in finding lodging in either Dublin or London but expect (obviously) their employees to be at their posts whenever their shift begins.
If you're coming out after tax and deductions for uniform etc. the princely budget sum of 800 euros a month, how do you find a cheap room in Dublin and get to its airport at 5am every morning? Do you have enough left over for sandwiches? It's probably just as easy as finding digs in Luton or Stanstead.
Ms A. finally gave up on Ryanair and learnt that their recruitment policy is as shit as their advertising which is as shit as their worker relations (witness their lawcases in Belgium and the conflict with the Irish pilot's association). Ms. A, won't even use the word Ryanair now and has happily worked in a hotel for the summer and is now beginning a masters thesis in the history of tourism. She wasted almost 3,000 euros on the scam and sham which is Ryanair's pretence to create jobs. Because Ryanair would have pretended that her job, that she would have paid for, was one created in the Spanish state as well as one created at whichever desk they had put her - Dublin or London.
It's like O'Leary's legendary taxi-meter in his car, put there so he can use the bus and taxi lane and get quicker through Dublin's traffic.
I suppose he created a job there too.
stars in your eyes, hoods on their heads & bombs in the air
Maybe one of the images from these comments would be better as the front page illustration instead of those big corporate logos?
Michael O'Leary of Ryanair backs the Lisbon Treaty- how do Labour Party supporters sleep at night?
"Intel stands to profit handsomely from Lisbon's militarisation drive.
Intel in particular stands to profit from the further militarisation of Europe which Lisbon drives along. Intel is a manufacturer of key components of military hardware including deadly missiles and guidance systems."
The chances are good that Intel's gadgets are INSIDE the computer on which THAT was written.
Intel represents RATIONAL SCIENCE and RATIONAL TECHNOLOGY,the super high IQ of the Information Superhighway of the Twenty First Century.
Not forgotten and long discredited Marxist wishful thinking.......written down using Quill Pens during the Nineteenth Century.
P.S.
The reason we in the West,the Free World, build such fearsome defense weapons is BECAUSE Marxists have a "Hidden Articles Bin".......for those who don't agree with their wishful thinking .
It's called FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
Not much chance of THAT on Indymedia.....where viewpoints are carefully "harvested" in accordance with the "Party Line".
I know...........YOU have the Hidden Articles Bin for this.
But................WE build the fearsome computerised weapons...with.... "Intel Inside."
.
Brilliant IQ at work there.
I believe Karl Marx wrote that with an early version of a fountain pen & not with a plume or "quill". By the time Marx was scribbling, the Dickensian notion of quills was already beginning to go out of fashion. But it is worth noting that nobody bothered to patent a fountain pen though many versions were available till later in the century and the development of idea property based capitalism . So an Intel worker boasting a high IQ indeed (how does such a bod suffer the mediocre sameness of day to day working corporate life?) has informed us that inside our computers lurk Intel parts and our opposition to Lisbon is thus daft to say the least in the most polite way.
Why I too had that idea, I remember seeing the telly adverts of the Inteluber-technician bunny peoplein their silver or shiney jumpsuits prancing around a microchip to the repetitive beats of house music sometime back in the 20th century. very passé. very yesterday.
At the end of that century the EU met up in Lisbon and laid out the groundwork for the Lisbon Process which would they told us guarantee several things :
* a union of European states without disparity of income or quality of life.
* a union of European states with near complete employment
* a union of European states which would have achieved all that within ten years by promoting a knowledge based labour market.
I believe that Intel and other corporations who entered the idea patent stage of capitalism delighted in the benefits of that and for those reasons many uber-technicians had jobs created for them in Ireland.
Now you tell me -
with only one year left to go on the promise list of the Lisbon process without even directly touching the Treaty named after the same city :-
do you think we have an EU with less disparity of income, quality of life than 9 years ago especially considering it has expanded from the Atlantic to the Urinal in the meantime?
do you think we have an EU of near complete employment, why I whose super high IQ has never helped me get nor keep gainful employment let alone get out of bed to don the yoke of mediocrity hazard to comment that there are even less uber-technicians in employment in Ireland now. Perhaps they have put their uber-technicians silver Pentium jumpsuits in cold storage or donated them to the third world where most Intel parts end up regardless of their toxicity. I doubt either fountain pens or quills were so ecologically unsustainable. To the point until Monsieur Bic gave us throw away biros I doubt we really had entered so deeply into the plastic eternity of the instruments of writing's history.
Now before I finish airing my thoughts and leaving an early morning carbon footprint of useless froth, let me end my ramblings where I began.
Regardless of whether Marx wrote "The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people." with a plume or a non-patented fountain pen - we have passed through the idea property patent stage of capitalism most recently applying it to genes and sharing of date or information to the current stage of capitalism which is the supposed human resources / labour market .
I may never be an uber-technician nor an uber-anything but I do know every morning in my anarchist heart (not Marxist) that I am neither a resource nor a commodity to be traded. I am a worker who: needs a job, who loses jobs, who finds jobs, who keeps jobs, who bores of jobs. But I am neither a HR unit nor a "thing" to be bought and sold, trained or formed under either the Ryanair or Intel model of late capitalism which has nothing more to offer me and my working peers than the systematic stripping of much of the progress made in labour rights since only the literate wrote with plumes or even chalk. How many hours a day did those uber-bunny technicians work? Did they get health care too?
Vote No!
if only because as a jolly smart and intellectually rigorous uber-worker you remember that the first integrated circuit or microchip technology was shared globally not hidden behind silver jumpsuits and patent infringement law.
Bruno asks you "are Intel bunny people uber technicians IN oder AUS?"
So Intel and Ryanair are calling for a yes vote.
Libertas did the same in reverse (and undoubtably had some impact) first time around.
Point is, there are dodgy characters (stand up and take a bow, Coir) on both sides of the debate. Criticising one side because of some fellow travellers is not going to get us anywhere.
It's okay for for our Government to keep on having referendums until they produce the answer our Government wants.
"This is democracy working at its most fluid." according to Mr Justice McKecknie.
See at http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0903/eulisbon1.html for RTE's report on today's High Court hearing.
Pull the other one Justice: "This is plutocracy and despotism working at its most fluid" -- that's what I'd say.
Distribute Widely Please
the executive is without control - the parliament is weakweak und the judicative depends from the executive. Is this democracy?
The buisness-lobbyismus-capital is Brüssel. Here ist the powerful executive ... Think for yourself.
Today in the Irish Examiner Pfizer another multi national company decided to jump into the Lisbon debate saying that a no vote would hit US job creation.
Pfizer recently aquired Wyeth which employ quiet a lot of people in Ireland. Once again the question needs to be asked "What exactly are these businesses doing getting involved in the Lisbon debate?"
He is in bed with pfizer amongst others. See this great "expose"
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/94173&comment_limit=0&c...60075
In fact he's in bed with so many dodgy business interests ( read: acting against the interests of us, his employers, and we don't pay minimum wage either! ) That it's really a wonder his political "Cox" not rotted off. ( Although I'm certain his business friends are helping him keep it up! )
He's also getting lots of facetime on RTE lately.
read the article before listening to anything this bastard or anyone from pfizer has to say on "democracy"
Europe is going off the rails and heading in a bad direction. Help put it back on the right track VOTE NO on friday.
Not because you are against Europe. But because you are truly for Europe.
Hey guys,
I really respect the campaign the left ran-particularly the socialists and anti war movement, however Intel employs over 5,000 people in Ireland...how many do indymedia and the left? Bar a handful in Connolly Books I doubt many.
I understand where ye guys are coming from-don't get me wrong the likes of Michael O' Leary and Brian Cowen celebrating this gives me the shivers.
Good work lads 32% of the electorate STILL agree on NO and that is a big chunk,
Shane