Background: Dana Rosemary Scallon became a US citizen shortly before running for president of Ireland in 1997.

The red herrings: Dana’s sister claimed during court proceedings in 2008 that Dana had actively decided not to bring that fact to the attention of the electorate. Dana claims that dual citizenship is possible, and points to De Valera, who was a US citizen by birth.

The real issue: While US courts have recognized dual citizenship in certain situations for some time, the process of becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States involves an oath renouncing one’s other citizenships:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

There’s a legal question here: adopting US citizenship through naturalization is understood in US law, at least, to require the surrendering of other citizenships (whether or not the other countries recognize that act as taking place.

There’s also a moral question: this is a formal oath, sworn by someone who proclaims herself to be a devout Christian, which includes the phrase “without any mental reservation.” Either Dana perjured herself, or… actually, I’m not sure there’s an ‘or’ here.

Dana’s not going to be president (she’s currently 100/1 on Paddy Power) in large part because so much of what she claims to stand for – an insular and shallow version of Irishness, dog-whistling to Irish conservatives still smarting over equal pay for women and the decriminalization of homosexuality – is unpopular and increasingly a marginal perspective. However, she has wrapped this up inside a constitution-toting package, proclaiming the defense of the Irish constitution as her primary platform, and it turns out she’s already sworn to defend that of another country, and she claims not to even remember that oath? Really? Irish law – where citizenship is automatic for those, such as Dana, who are born abroad to parents born on the island of Ireland – may not recognize the renunciation of Irish citizenship, but surely Dana feels a shiver when she contemplates the oath she swore before god.

This week the Irish government got that wrong. They lied when asked if there were any discussions with the IMF or the EU – or at least finessed their answers to mislead (rather than merely obfuscate or avoid).These developments can be seen as sensitive – because they are. Any information provided might influence short-term economic developments, affecting the availability of funds for Irish businesses, or whether a business will decide to proceed with an investment in the country. However, providing false information also has an impact – and arguably a longer-term negative impact on the reputation of the government and the state.

At a time when statements/leaks were flowing freely from other governments, the EU, and elsewhere – and when the development (while gut-wrenching for those of us watching from afar) was not farfetched, I cannot understand what it was thought might be gained by having the news dragged out like this.

And now, of course, government ministers are claiming that the only two things that can’t happen are that corporation taxes should rise from their current level [1] and that the government cannot fall. An election, or a change in personnel within the government, would signal uncertainty, which would make this process more expensive (as markets treat uncertainty as risk) and damage whatever authority the government still retains in its negotiations.

[1] The issue of corporate tax levels is an important one, and more nuanced in Ireland than elsewhere. As an island nation (with accordingly higher distribution costs), which built much of its growth (before the property bubble) on inbound foreign investment, having a tax rate lower than the rest of Europe has been cited by multiple observers as one of the keys to the country’s economic success. Beyond the palaver about English-speaking, well-educated populations (both true, but of diminishing significance/value), corporate taxes (and, until recently, high levels of European structural investment) were key elements in the country’s economic growth. However, whether this is the one issue of government policy that should be retained, untouched, beyond the reach of the bureaucrats who are about to take over running the country, is less clear.

1. Citizen Production – report on events
2. Citizen Dialogue – engage in discussion on forums
3. Citizen Action – move to action, arranging events, etc.

The website is wholly in Mandarin, so the labelled guide provided (in one of the slides) was useful! Some stories from the site are picked up and given wider coverage on Taiwan TV – which users (in the study) valued for the validation it gave, in terms of attention to an issue that might not have got previous coverage, and validation of their own concern.

As I write this Pradip Thomas has started his response (as discussant). His claims:

1. Citizens’ Journalism is here to stay
2. Mainstreams are integrating elements of it, in order to retain audiences
3. Arguments based on Habermas’ rational public sphere are ‘overblown’ because decisions in the real world aren’t based only on rationality. (One speaker had done a content analysis that noted prevalence of incivility, etc.)
4. There are individual participants in Taiwan, but many are linked with NGOs, etc.
5. Crisis: How can the media be involved in finding a dignified closure to crises. (This in response to a Finnish speaker who critiqued the coverage of crisis situations by Finnish media.)
6. We need better theorizing of ht nature of interactivity, including “Why?” – who gets what out of it? What do audiences/the corporate sector get out of it?

The Canadian decision has been criticized by groups such as Amnesty, who point to that pattern of discrimination:

“Last year there was a big pogrom against Roma in the north of the Czech Republic in Janov. And the whole incident has still not completely been resolved and there are no conclusions yet,” Dasa van der Horst, the head of the Amnesty International branch in Prague, told Czech Radio.

And now – as expected for a while – the EU has weighed in. However, one hopes that apart from putting pressure on Canada to reinstate the visa waiver, member states (and the Commission) are taking the opportunity to put pressure on the Czech government, and push for greater action to combat discrimination and prejudice against the Roma community.

The technologies in use have changed through the years. When I started tallying, we collated the master tally on paper; within a few years, most parties were using Excel or similar. Sometimes someone would bring in a small portable television, and people of all parties would gather around it when there was a particularly momentous development relayed through RTÉ. In the last election or two there was an increasing amount of SMS messages and calls to friends in other count centres, as well as some activity on sites like politics.ie.

Fast-forward to this election, and how things have changed. Although I’m missing hanging out at the count, and the catching up with old friends that that entails, there’s been a constant stream of data online. I gather from disgruntled voices that RTÉ’s web presence has been far better than their (intermittent) broadcast coverage, so I’ve been able to keep up on the running totals of seats won by each party, and to drill down to individual councils if and when I desired.

Even better has been the coverage at IrishElection.com, where they’ve been collating a mix of twitter-style feeds and original content. Moderated, so none of the to-and-fro sniping and off-topic rambling you get on the more traditional web forums, but still with a bit of character to it. As Simon McGarr, in common with several others has noted, “it has outperformed any other source of information and original reporting in the entire country.” Pointers outward to various analyses of progress in different areas, or other bits and pieces. Also – and this brings us back to the technology issue – the feed includes pointers to Alexia Golez’s live video snippets from the Dublin count centre. Using Qik’s phone-to-web tool, she’s able to provide real-time streams of the results, which are then archived online. I leave the window open, and whenever she starts to ‘broadcast’ it starts up in my browser.

Between all of this, I’ve been able to keep a steady stream – or at least a steady drip – of information coming my way, and to have a mix of solid reports and the rumours and analysis that are such an integral part of the process. However, there’s only so much that the internet can do, which was why I was grateful to the friend who thought to call me late last night, after coming home from the Galway count (which finished around 3:30am), to give me an update from there, and share the free-ranging discussion and speculation that I was missing.

Some other thoughts:

• Some political junkies have complained about the lack of live coverage on RTÉ television, in particular, but also on the other broadcast outlets. I think there’s a role for more regular reports, but the play-by-play is mainly of interest to insiders and junkies, and will be of limited importance, compared to the final results, or the overall trends, once those results are finalized in a day or two. It seems reasonable to taper off the constant live coverage as the results from the counts turn to a trickle, while continuing to provide data on the web, or by SMS/twitter, as RTÉ, at least, has done.
• One shortcoming with the generally useful and comprehensive RTÉ data: they’re only reporting first count totals and candidate status (elected/eliminated) on the web, and then collating total party numbers by council and nationally. I don’t see why they couldn’t be including individual count totals (for the second and subsequent rounds) in their database, particularly since their reporters need to be listening to those numbers when they’re announced, in order to then report on who was elected or eliminated. It would allow those of us who want to drill down into the numbers to use the data for more sophisticated analysis, and build a pool of data that RTÉ could have available for future election coverage. The front end is fine, but I find myself wondering “why was that candidate eliminated?” and “how did those transfers scatter?” RTÉ, with their comprehensive coverage, are in a position to provide that information in a timely fashion.
• I should note that ElectionsIreland are now providing count-by-count updates for the European results. I’m guessing reporting the locals in real time was a bit beyond their reach yesterday. Another indication of what the organizations with paid staff can do, which the volunter-run spaces can’t….
• If RTÉ are the people who should be providing the comprehensive numbers, the web seems to be a better space for the analysis and speculation to thrive. It’s the junkies who want the ongoing coverage, and they are also often best placed to provide the speculation. Better that than constantly-revolving talking heads on TV (though the . A fair division of labour, it would seem to me….
• Counts have always been spaces where there’s been some interaction between the various political camps, as acquaintances (or even friends) who fall on different sides of the party line will often overcome those differences to swap updates and discuss campaigning experiences. That’s also the case in the online space, where activists are discussing updates in a shared space.

Of course, there’s also the substantive matter of the elections themselves. This looks to be a poor election for the left across Europe. We’ve seen a drop in support for PES parties over the past while, and that continues in this election.

Ireland looks to be an exception. Even though Ireland drops from 15 to 12 MEPs, we’re going to go from 1 Labour/PES representative (de Rossa in Dublin) to at least two (Childers in Ireland East), and possibly a third (my old Labour Youth colleague, Alan Kelly, in Ireland South). That last result depends on whether Alan can stay ahead of Toireasa Ferris of Sinn Féin – he was 500 behind her after the first count but is already 300 ahead after the second (thanks ElectionsIreland!). Given that they’re both on around 66,000 votes, and the quota’s over 124,000, there’s still a long slog to go, but I’m optimistic.

Joe Higgins, Socialist Party candidate, looks likely to take a seat in Dublin, and unseat Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald. Four seats out of twelve for the Left/centre-Left is good for Ireland. Fianna Fáil have had a bad election, dropping from 300 local council seats to something around 200 (196 at time of writing, with 67 still to be declared). The seat gains have been split fairly evenly between Fine Gael and Labour, though Labour is still sitting in third place, at 125 as I write. Fianna Fáil will also likely end up with 3 MEPs, tied with Labour and behind Fine Gael.

Declan Ganley, US defense contractor, and founder of the Libertas rag-tag band of reactionary candidates, is polling better than one might hope in Ireland North-West, but still looks out of the running for a seat. Looks like that will stay with the same 1FF/1FG/1IND split, though with a personnel change in Fianna Fáil that will necessitate a by-election sometime soon, if there isn’t a general election in the interim.

Speculation in some quarters that the Greens might pull the plug on the government, after a disastrous showing – they’re sitting at 3 council seats, down from 18 after the 2004 election. I don’t see that happening. They’re so tied into the government’s fortunes that they would be annihilated in a general election. More sensible from their perspective was Ó Brolcháin’s call for FG and Labour to make a proposal to the Greens for them to pull out of government, and create an alternative coalition without having to go for an election, though I’m not sure I see that happening either. It’s worth remembering that we’re heading into the summer months, and once we reach the Autumn, any parliamentary developments will require fresh events to provide impetus for the Greens to pull out of government, or whatever other changes we see.

We have to call this kind of abuse by its proper name – torture. We must also call the organised exploitation of unpaid child labour – young girls placed in charge of babies “on a 24-hour basis” or working under conditions of “great suffering” in the rosary bead industry; young boys doing work that gave them no training but made money for the religious orders – by its proper name: slavery. It demands a very painful adjustment of our notions of the nature of the State to accept that it helped to inflict torture and slavery on tens of thousands of children. In the light of the commission’s report, however, we can no longer take comfort in evasions.

I haven’t yet been able to bring myself to read the report itself.

In Hungary, an earlier policy to give money to schools for the mentally disabled, to which a disproportionate number of Roma were sent, was abandoned when it was realised that it encouraged segregation.Now funds are focused on mainstream schools which accept more Roma – though they impose limits of 25% Roma in a class.

There’s a lot to note in this excerpt, and the article more generally, but I’m particularly interested in how integration works. Segregation is seen as problematic (though we’re not told for which reasons in this case) and integration is now favoured. However, this is only in cases where the number of Roma in a class is kept low enough that it is the Roma children who must acclimatize to ‘mainstream’ society. The notion that a non-Roma child might be placed in a majority-Roma setting (or even a setting with more than 1/4 Roma children) is viewed as so appalling a prospect that it is prevented by government policy.

Later in the article mention is made of the problems for parents and Roma communities when schools in Roma-majority villages are closed, with children being bused out of their communities:

But in far-flung villages with a majority Roma population, Roma and non-Roma parents alike are upset when local schools close and children are bussed off each day to towns.

The links between the parents and the schools are broken.

An alternative policy, supported by opposition parties, would be to improve the facilities and standard of teaching in existing schools.

I should mention that my mother is engaged in research on parental involvement in education among the Irish Traveller community, and this article seems (to me) to provide some interesting parallels to some of her initial findings.

The keynotes, by independent journalists from Oaxaca and Palestine, were humbling and inspiring. I look forward to downloading the promised audio soon and making it available through A Critical Ear.

The food… the food was abundant and delicious. Props to the various caterers and restaurants used. The scenery, in Portland and on the train journey from and to Seattle, was beautiful and refreshing. Powell’s was a rare treat (as was a return visit to Left Bank Books in Seattle this afternoon).

Finally, the KBOO studios were impressive and inspiring. Their audio archive – with 40 years of public affairs tapes, cassettes, and more, from independent and radical sources – is the sort of place I’d love to have an opportunity to ensconce myself in for a considerable period.

More detail when I return to Urbana and am able to compile some of my notes and recordings from the event. Until then, a fair summary is: inspiring and useful. Both Portland and GRC demand return visits.

Approximately 225,000 people left New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina flooded most city neighborhoods in August 2005. A sizeable number came from the 9th ward. Some 1800 people died during the floods; later, hundreds more succumbed to stress-related ailments. [Saul Landau]

My parents visited the US recently, and we took the opportunity to take a road-trip south through Memphis to New Orleans. Landau’s ZNet commentary of 20 July summed up much of our experience – though NOLA is such a riot of sounds and sights, a veritable sensory overload, that it’s difficult for anything to do justice to the devastation of the Lower Ninth, the opulence of St Charles Avenue, the energy (and in places the timeless beauty) of the French Quarter.

Last week at the end of my regular A Critical Ear show on WRFU I interviewed my father about our visit. It’s available now on Radio4All. I hope some of you will find it interesting, as we talk about the balance between bearing witness and voyeurism, the shame of how Katrina (and its aftermath) was handled, and more.

Here’s some more excerpt’s from Landau’s powerful piece – it’s available to subscribers to ZNet. (Consider signing up here):

The French Quarter vibrates with sounds and smells of perpetual Spring Break. Was a film crew shooting the young men and women, drinks in hands, screaming “let’s party.” No. The celebrants were acting goofy on their own, as they routinely do in Ft. Lauderdale and Cancun.

Just inside the Hustler Club doorway, two women wearing forced smiles and a few strings, stood beside the barker, trying to lure “partying” crowd members inside. “Look at the rack on these babes,” he pointed at her uncovered milk producing organs.

…

Four college-age kids, reeking of booze, shared the hotel elevator. “Join us, you’re not too old,” a young man invited. “We’ve got more,” pointing to his paper cup containing a rum drink. “We also got you know what in the room,” making an inhaling sound and putting two fingers to his lips.

The next day, we drove through the once densely populated 9th Ward, now a semi rural looking expanse of empty streets and stray dogs. Amidst boarded up houses and empty lots, we heard sounds of wind and birds chirping. Downright bucolic!

…

Shirley Jackson, president of a neighborhood council in ward 9, pointed to the vast acreage of empty lots. “Every lot used to have a home on it,” she explained. Since the government has not helped, she continued, volunteers have to do the job. She runs a mini tractor helping high school volunteers from Concord Massachusetts with their land clearing project. She pointed to a pseudo sculpture she’d erected on the site where her house once stood — a few concrete blocks in a pile.

…

A woman from Needham Massachusetts explained that she and other volunteers had come down to help “because these people need it. That’s all. Just being good neighbors.”

…

General Services Administration records prove that for two years FEMA didn’t distribute needed goods to Hurricane victims and then gave 121 truckloads of material to other agencies. http://www.planetizen.com/node/33442

First, the picture to the left is of Labour TD Joe Costello, who for the last 5 years has run a weekly protest outside the Mater hospital, calling for better healthcare.

Second, potentially good news for grad employees in private universities in the United States, as a bill in introduced in Congress to guarantee them the right to join unions and be represented by them.

Finally, it’s been a hard time for those fighting for the undocumented Irish in the United States, with our own Taoiseach essentially throwing them to the wolves during his visit in March. However, the ILIR isn’t giving up, and Kelly Fincham is quoted in their most recent release as calling for increased ambitions and “a solution which reverses what Senator Kennedy described as the one of the unforeseen consequences of the 1965 Immigration Act: the ‘dramatic and significant’ discrimination against Irish immigrants.”