В Исландии пишут новую конституцию — через Интернет
На фотографии группа 25 членов Конституционного совета, в состав которого входит инвалид (о демократии), которую Исландцы выбрали всеобщим голосованием .

Конституция страны создаётся с участием граждан, общающихся с Конституционным советом через Facebook.

Как бы нам ни хотелось, прямая сетевая (электронная) демократия вряд ли установится сразу. Между ней и современной якобы представительной демократией могут быть промежуточные стадии. Пример — работа над новой конституцией Исландии, к которой через Интернет может подключиться любой гражданин старейшей демократии мира.

Переписать принятую после провозглашения независимости от Дании конституцию 1944 года (копипейст датской; где было «король», вставили «президент») исландцев побудил экономический кризис; новое правительство сочло, что старый основной закон не даёт надлежащей защиты от разрушения окружающей среды и международных финансовых спекуляций.

Исландцы всеобщим голосованием выбрали 25 членов Конституционного совета из 522 кандидатов, начавших законотворчество с изучения 700-страничного отчёта о пожеланиях, которые 950 случайным образом выбранных жителей страны (Национальный форум) набросали за день (6 ноября 2010 года). Заседания Конституционного совета, начавшиеся 6 апреля 2011-го, транслируются напрямую на его сайте и на его Facebook-странице. Граждане могут присылать Совету свои предложения через Facebook (учётные записи есть у двух третей из 320 тыс. исландцев) или зарегистрировавшись на сайте.

Пройдя один уровень модерации, отсеивающей произведения исландских троллей, пожелания и замечания становятся предметом обсуждения. В работе граждан с Советом также используются Flickr, Twitter и YouTube.

Среди «пользовательского контента», уже попавшего в проект конституции, который, скорее всего, будут утверждать и парламент, и общенародный референдум, — гуманное обращение со скотом. В проекте зафиксировано право граждан на экологически чистую среду, на доступ ко всем документам правительства (браво!), а также указано, что собственником ресурсов Исландии (включая рыбу в экономической зоне) является народ. (Рыболовецким компаниям придётся сказать «прощайте» дешёвым лицензиям на вылов.)

Конституция, которую получит Исландия, наверное, станет классикой конституционного права — как американская или западногерманская, а также образцом для стран более отсталых. Вспомним классика В. В. Ерофеева: «Предложение: перевести целиком на русский язык конституцию ФРГ».
https://www.facebook.com/studentsportal/posts/112162122236804

Irish Dan is a former Sinn Fein activist and National Executive member, involved in the Irish Revolutionary Movement from 1969 up to recent years.
Part one, general background.

Ireland is burst, broke, finished, kaput! This story has dominated the World Media for over two years and has reached a deafening crescendo in recent days. Like most of what we read in the media ,it is lies, disinformation and propaganda. The facts are far different!

Ireland as such was not broke, our runaway squander mania banks were! The international financial markets are attempting to get the Irish Taxpayer to foot the bill.

I have never seen Irish people from all walks of society so totally fustrated, annoyed and disquieted. Over 50000 protest on Dublins streets.

Now all of that is giving way to raw anger and a grim determination to get this shower of inept politicians out at all cost. As a people we are collectively better than this and we know it !

Fianna Fail have been in power with the exception of a few brief interludes for eighty years. They have doled out appointments from school janitors to Superior Courts Justices in public life and and awarded contracts to the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, provided they help fund the party of course.

FF rewarded supporters by stuffing public service supervisory boards with cronies, all was a ‘brown envelope stuffed with cash, no questions asked’ culture. Few of these supervisory boards did their job and the party individuals did what the party wanted, hence the current stymied, non-functioning, unaccountable mess. The banks were but the most blatant example of this rampant corrupt cronyism.

Part two, Ireland the real financial and other productive situation.

We are a population of around four and a half million people in the Irish Republic. We have a pension fund of seventeen billion Euros invested and untouched. That was always ring fenced, earnings from that could comfortably service around four hundred and seventy thousand pensioners, (Central Statics Office )
CSO Quicktables
Our head of Government is still paying himself over twice President Obama’s salary and our Parliamentarians in this country of four and a half million are still paid well ahead of the US. Congress and Senate members. There was a very smug financial round robin at work here for decades. The politicians did not actually award themselves high wages, goodness no,. The politicians pay rates were pro rata to Senior Civil Servant rates of pay. Guess who set the civil servants rates of pay?
We are getting 10 billion which the European Central Bank deems sufficient to re capitalize our banks for the whole Irish lending economy Irish cash flow. Irish nationals have one hundred and ninety billion invested in foreign assets at this time.
Domestic savings now stand at 12.3%. Inward investment for real assets and industry remains strong. Industrial cost are down 7% and still falling. Industrial output is up 12% on two years back and this year like as not 16 % up on last year. Our balance of payments are actually moving to surplus, tax revenue is on target month on month for most of this year.
Ireland had around eight months funds still in reserves to run the country before going to the markets in late Spring or early summer of 2011 to sell more government bonds and refinance.
Do this look like the Ireland you have been reading about ?

Part three: Banks, bondholders and bullshit !

If Ireland was in a relatively good situation then why all the International badmouthing, market rumors and undermining of Ireland’s position ? In a word Bondholders! They risked their capital in a building and property bubble that they knew was little more than a ponzi scheme. They did so as they knew that when the bubble burst they had enough financial clout to force Ireland to guarantee their bonds.This is where the media disinformation and distortion of real situation came from.
So who are these primary bond holders that the Irish Taxpayers and Unemployed workers are now bailing out ? One such outfit is Millhouse. The owner is Roman Abramovich (link) he owns Chelsea football club in England and he is Russia’s fourth richest man ! In 2005 he was one top fifty wealthiest people in the world.

Hardly surprising then that the New York Times found the idea preposterous and stupid beyond the power of words to describe. Irelands bailout isWorse than a Crime says NY Times columnis. This is from the article…

Nobel Economics Prize winner Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist is the latest U.S. commentator to say Ireland has made a major mistake in agreeing to underwrite bank losses

According to Krugman, the Irish story began with what he describes as “a genuine economic miracle”.

He says the speculative frenzy that followed was “driven by runaway banks and real estate developers, all in a cozy relationship with leading politicians”.

When the property bubble burst the Irish banks were faced with huge losses resulting from the reckless loaning.

He describes the Irish Governments bank guarantee in plain terms: “The Irish government stepped in to guarantee the banks’ debt, turning private losses into public obligations”………

There is the whole Irish crisis succinctly summed up,

So who are the rest of these Anglo Irish Bondholders that the taxpayers are expected to bail out ? Here is some of the list leaked in the recent past. List of bondholders in Anglo Irish Bank leaked

Once the list is examined and a few of the bond holders investment vehicles googled, the full extent of the conspiracy to discredit Ireland is realized. Like the Russian, these bond holders are part of a vast interrelated, interfacing global financial web involving, trusts, hedge funds, financial investment cartels and goodness knows what else.

It is not about Ireland! It’s not about the small change here. Ireland, much to the chagrin of their EU partners guaranteed the primary bondholders full payment two years ago and set a precedent. The European Central Bank and IFM are now de facto also guaranteeing Portugal and Spain as well as Ireland.

International capitalism now has a new set of rules as formulated by the European Community. Invest in a bank and take your profits. Irrespective of how stupid or reckless a bank behaves, the taxpayers are made to pick up the losses.

Part four : The revolt has started

The independent newspaper group publish a daily, evening and weekly newspaper. These papers were the bible and cheerleaders for the rampant, unaccountable, light touch regulation capitalism that got us into this mess.

To-days main headline ‘Default! say the people. The sub head ‘Irish negotiators raised defaulting but ” Europe went completely mad’

The Indo group not only support the establishment, they are one of its principal pillars. When they come out with a headline such as given, it is a case of ‘there goes the mob, I am it’s leader, I must follow’ If they are changing tack, it is not out of principle, it is but an acknowledgment of something that can no longer be ignored. If they want to keep market media share they must reflect the mood of the people.

I saw another indication on Friday afternoon when the Sinn Fein candidate standing for an election romped home. Sinn Fein, a radical left party with less than 10% in National opinion polls to the fairly recent past, got close to 40% of the vote. Sinn Fein expected to take the seat in Donegal by-election result.

Small parties do not win by-elections as in multi seat constituencies to fill one seat the candidate must overcome the main parties FF or FG who have enough votes for two quotas. This time Sinn Fein romped home without a final count, with the bottom two candidates eliminated and their votes distributed, the two conservative party votes combined was in low 30% while Sinn Fein had close to 40%.

That said it all ! This had been one of the safest government seats in the country

The Sinn Fein candidate had a simple message.

1) the government must vacate office now and allow an election for the people to decide what is to be done…

…burn the bondholders, they took the risk and should pay the price.

tax from the top down not the bottom up to pay for the austerity budget. Make what is referred to here as the builders, bankers and wankers pay for their excesses and blunders, not the ordinary tax payers.

For those out of work the situation is simply appalling. Ordinary voices from Ireland. Many of these young householders came straight from college to a job, a car and within a year or two, a house. A few prominent figures, economists, politicians and other public figures did warn of the looming banking crisis and coming crash but they were not listened to.

In 2006 our Banks got a full examination from the European Central Bank and all was passed without qualification. Our then Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern TD, speculated in a formal address at a State Function as to why those sounding warnings…. “did not just commit suicide instead of depressing everybody”.… Days before the general collapse the banking authorities were still saying publicly that all was well and that they had enough liquidity.

We went to bed one night with everything as normal. The Minister of finance was told after close of business that Anglo Irish was about to experience a run. In the darkness of the night and without consultation of full government or parliament, the foul deed was done and we awoke to find that the Government had bailed out the Banks.

It was crony capitalism at its worst; public servants had been intimated into silence, dissident voices like mine were shouted down. The government had only one policy, lie to the people, lie and lie again. The Minister of Finance was a leading lawyer, well used to taking a dodgy client and presenting a glowing case before the courts for his brief.

The emperor has been shown not to have any clothes, but by the time that was realized he had left the the public without any clothes either !

The fight back has started, in my next blog I will go into detail of the bail out deal and the institutional corruption running through the system. In this we in the Western World are all in the same situation because the same faceless unaccountable financially corrupt powers are the hidden hand. They do not want solutions to peoples misery. They want to maximum return on their Capital and the conditions of chaos, fear and unrest to achieve that.

The ordinary working Irish taxpayer should not have to guarantee the Irish investment wealth of the fourth richest man in Russia at the expense of their jobs, their families, their schools teacher staff, their hospital services, and the very fabric of everything that makes for civilization.

No we cannot and we will not !

The fight back is on. When European civilization floundered with the collapse of the Roman Empire it was this little Island in the fringe of Europe that took the light of learning and Christianity back into mainland Europe. We gave a lost Europe leadership before and we can do so again.

Ireland was one of the few countries that was given a choice to vote on the last European Union Treaty……. it rejected it on the first referendum and send shock-waves through Europe. Europe demanded a second referendum and all the stops were pulled out. It was passed in all regions save one Donegal. This was the same constituency that Sinn Fein won.

Riverdance set the feet of Europe dancing…now we must light the spark that will set the feet of Europe protest marching !
http://truthrss.com/2010/12/01/revolt-ireland/

100,000 protest on Dublin’s streets
Over 100,000 took to the streets in Ireland protesting the government’s economic policies and their cutbacks on the poor and the elderly.

Organizers claimed over 100,000 but police said only that the crowd exceeded 50,000 and a major rally was held in O’Connell Street.

The protest was organised by the Irish Congress of Trades Unions, who have said the austerity measures are too harsh that are being adopted following the IMF bailout.

The ICTU leadership said: 'If they go ahead with their plans, they will do irreparable damage and turn this country into a social and economic wasteland.'

Marchers assembled behind the banners of their unions but it appeared many member of the public were also taking part.

March organisers also provided whistles to demonstrators to use as a way to protest.

Union leaders Jack O'Connor and David Begg, and singer Christy Moore are set to address the march.

Three demonstrators sailed down the Liffey in a curragh and flew several banners in support of the marchers.

There is a massive media presence, with camera crews from all over the world present.

Police say they are expecting a peaceful protest, but are poised to handle any trouble.

Chief Superintendent Michael O'Sullivan, said: 'While our policing plan is primarily focused on crowd safety, it will also aim to prevent any disruption. In addition, we will gather evidence of any unlawful or criminal behaviour which might occur with the intention of bringing those responsible before the courts."
http://www.irishcentral.com/news....79.html

В Ирландии прошли досрочные выборы в нижнюю палату парламента. По предварительным данным, на них побеждает оппозиция. В первом интервью после победы лидер оппозиции Энда Кенни назвал итоги выборов «демократической революцией».

На внеочередных парламентских выборах в Ирландии побеждает оппозиция. В настоящее время обработано уже более 70% бюллетеней.

Победу одерживает партия «Фине Гэл», она уже получила 59 мест, Лейбористская партия Ирландии (ЛПИ) показала лучший результат за всю историю с момента своего основания – 31 место, партия «Фианна Фойл», возглавлявшая бывшую правительственную коалицию, теряет свои позиции, сохранив к настоящему времени 14 мест. Уверенно себя чувствуют малочисленные партии и независимые кандидаты, кроме Партии зеленых, которая не получила пока ни одного места.

Партия «Шинн Фейн» уже утроила свои показатели по сравнению с прошлыми выборами, гарантировав себе 13 мест. Социалисты получили три места, независимые кандидаты – 11.

Премьер-министр Брайан Коуэн уже поздравил лидера партии «Фине Гэл» Энду Кенни и членов его команды «с выдающийся победой». Он заявил, что «это был трудный день и его партии («Фианна Фойл») придется смириться с результатом выборов, так как поражение является частью политической жизни».

Выборы в дойл, нижнюю палату парламента, проходили досрочно из-за политического кризиса, охватившего в начале этого года Ирландию на фоне экономических сложностей в стране. На 165 мест в дойле претендовали 564 кандидата.

Впервые в выборах принял участие известный политик – лидер партии «Шинн Фейн» Джерри Адамс, который в прошлом году ради такой возможности сложил с себя полномочия депутата британского парламента.

Глава правительства Брайан Коуэн в середине января из-за обострившихся внутриполитических противоречий покинул пост лидера правящей партии Ирландии «Фианна Фойл» и не выставлял свою кандидатуру на прошедших выборах.

После подведения предварительных итогов лидер крупнейшей оппозиционной партии в Ирландии Энда Кенни заявил, что его партия «Фине Гэл» добилась огромного успеха и завоевала большинство в парламенте.

По его словам, избиратели предоставили правоцентристской партии «Фине Гэл» недвусмысленный мандат на формирование стабильного и сильного правительства с четкой программой.
Поступают сведения о том, что традиционная партия власти, правившая Ирландией на протяжении жизни нескольких поколений, потерпела сокрушительное поражение.

Нынешние досрочные выборы проводились по ее инициативе после того, как правящая коалиция, в которую она входила, завершила переговоры с Европейским союзом и МВФ по предоставлению Ирландии займов на общую сумму 85 млрд евро, передает ВВС.

Ирландия стала первой из европейских стран, попавших в ситуацию долгового кризиса, в которой состоялись парламентские выборы.

Лидер партии «Фине Гэл» Энда Кенни не раз говорил в ходе предвыборной кампании, что он попытается добиться пересмотра уже заключенных с МВФ и ЕС соглашений, прежде всего снижения процентной ставки по выделенным Дублину займам.

В первом интервью ВВС после победы он назвал итоги выборов «демократической революцией», особо подчеркнув, что граждане Ирландии смогли выразить свою волю не на улицах, а на избирательных участках.

Партия «Фине Гэл» надеется заручиться большинством в парламенте, который состоит из 165 депутатов. В Ирландии введена система пропорционального представительства, что означает, что на основании высказанных избирателями предпочтений партия может не набрать 83 места, необходимых для формирования однопартийного правительства.

Наиболее вероятной сейчас представляется перспектива формирования коалиции с Лейбористской партией, вышедшей, по предварительным сведениям, на второе место, хотя партия «Фине Гэл» может пойти и на союз с независимыми членами парламента.
http://www.euromag.ru/ireland/7289.html