The scandalisation of the faithful and organised religion (7/2009)

A profound transformation in the relationship between the labour movement and the faithful is a prescient necessity. Socialists seek to meddle in every matter of common interest under the sun and ignore the source of public charity, biblical  scholarship,Catholicism and the Poor Laws. Christian democrats draw from the Christian tradition. One possible origin of the doctrines, writings and observations of the pedagogues of the 19^th century was the Acts of the Apostles. There charity manifested itself in those who “sold all their possessions and gave the money to the poor”.

 Secular matters are temporal and are governed by the Old Testament. In the Old Testament we read of the early call to nationhood of the Jews under King David. Some imagine that social democracy is inimical to Christianity or, more accurately, the Judaeo-Christian tradition. This is untrue. The long, slow, difficult transition from nomadic existence to political existence and stability is fraught with many wars, pitfalls and lurches backwards into slavery and exile in the early Jewish tradition.

In modern times we witness a transition between Kantian free thinking and primitive materialism in 18^th century Germany and France to Rousseau and Voltaire’s atheism in Regicide France. Later came anarchism, socialism, syndicalism, existentialism, Stalinism, Trotskyism and ecology, a socially impairing and tragic course which made France prey to foreign invasion and conquest. France has spread its errors to the furthest corners of the globe and has become a land of thieves and criminals. There the police make no effort to enforce constitutional rights on property, the person and attrition. In Ireland people must shed their long held views on cooperation with civil policing.

Stalinism has fallen and we are now faced with the collapse of capitalism. We must return to a society which perished at some time between the rise of the Norman Church –State dichotomy in 1066 and 1214.The  anti clerical views of the Irish media in the 21^st centaury is not a sign of progress but a sign of moral ill health. Only a tiny fraction of those Catholic clerics accused of scandalous behaviour of the quarter  of them charged have been found guilty by the courts.

The “evidence” for these allegations was the result of suggestions of impropriety by “spiritists  and mediums” (Isaiah) or, as we know them today, psychiatrists and Humanists. There is no higher form of humanism than the Christian humanism of the Bible.

Revolution? Revolution means “a turning around” or “turning backward”. Such a social revolution is a turning away from violence and atheistic barbarism.

Teutonic mists. The wealthy Germans and the poor Irish: 2 (05/07/12)

There are many myths in England about the generosity of the Nordic and German Welfare States. The reality is that the bureaucracy eats up the wealth of Germany and the unemployed are destitute and homeless. The Northern European system of the Danish and Norwegian systems makes for predictability in social relations. The Swedish welfare state is a myth.

In Germany the Hartz 4 social reform made under Hans Muentefering cut social assistance (Sozialhilfe) from 124 Euros a month to 90 Euros a month. Only the Christian Democrats opposed this manoeuvre by the Social Democratic Party. Rent allowance is also paid to the needy in Germany. As in Britain, there is a financial incentive to claim Disability Allowance (Behindertegeld). 

The German Christian Democrats, Lefts (Linken), to which Sinn Fein is allied, and Social Democrats showed their faces to the disabled by allowing experimentation with the stem cells of aborted foetuses. The German Disabled Federation condemned this diabolical scheme.

In Ireland those not qualifying for unemployment assistance which is not limited to the German qualifying period of one year receive 196.40 Euros a week indefinitely as long as they are capable of and available for work. Social assistance is paid at the same rate as unemployment benefit.There is generous rent allowance.

People do not understand that the equivalent of the National Manpower Service, the government Careers Advisory Service, abolished by Thatcher in the UK, employs one hundred thousand bureaucrats in Germany and delivers only a couple of hundred jobs to  graduates. The bureaucracy soaks up the wealth of Germany.

In Sweden the unemployed single mothers are reduced to dire poverty by the

non-existent social state which is so widely praised in Britain Ireland and the United states. Swedish social democracy is an illusion shared by many Marxists.

In Germany Unemployment Benefit is set at the rate of a half of net wages for the duration of six months to one year. Their system is communal and there is no guarantee of Social Assistance in small towns because the Germans are a parochial people.The only positive aspect which is not shared by any other country other than Russia is the ten thousand Euro state gift for the birth of a child. 

The collapse of the German family and The Contraceptive Mentality required urgent action by the Christian Democrats after the 2007 General Election.

The employer- trade union conferences award unemployment pay in Denmark and Norway. In 2003 Denmark paid an unemployed worker 90% of their previous wage according to sectoral wage agreements administered by the Lohnorganisationen.

Clearly the payment is for a limited period since we learn that there is compulsory referral for retraining by state welfare authorities. No social security payments are made if retraining is refused.

The wealthy Germans?  The socially responsible Swedes? The generous Danes?

Teutonic mists and myths!  

19.7.2021

In June 1981 I took a working holiday in Germany after completing my first year Law examinations at Queen's University Belfast and went to work in Germany while Thatcher directed the British economy into anarchy and chaos at the injunction of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales. I soon found work in Meiller-Kipper in Munchen-Moosach where I was paid the IG Metall Tarif and the work in the store was much the same as in Stuttgart-Mettingen working for Daimler-Benz (June-September 1980).I found the fickle claims of the German Sozialstaat were only for students on stagiares and waged workers. While I earned 420-460 marks a week,a poor unfortunate English immigrant was only entitled to 16 marks a week and would come to the campsite looking for beer bottles which he could sell for the Flaschenpfand.

This uncaring society is technically gifted but suffers from a profound social and moral deficit which manifests itself in the same hatred or resentment towards the bottom of society,the migrant and the stranger all over-developed societies have suffered for forty years... I went back to the building trade after four weeks and got a job in Koblenz paying 999 DM for a 56-hour week working in panel-fixing at heights (Montage) for seven weeks.16:999...is that what The Guardian calls "a very generous social state".Having successfully passed my examinations I returned to Queen's in October having decided not to return to Germany.

Christian Democracy and Social Democracy (28/11/12)

Marx once wrote in the context of a revolutionary programme drawn up by the Eisenachers that the programme of the Social Catholic movement (‘Das Zentrum’) was the origin of most of the practical programme of social democracy. By social democracy was meant in the 1860s the drive to disposess all independent businesses. He condemned those who called for agitation against Das Zentrum.

In the 1930’s Das Zentrum was known as the People’s Party and under Von Papen gave their votes to Hitler. Von Papen was murdered soon afterwards. He gave his votes to Hitler because of the danger of Stalinism.

In 2004 the Hartz Four changes of the SPD meant that income support was cut from 124 Euros per month to 90 Euros per month. Germany is a rigidly bureaucratic country and the differentials between workers and unemployed grew.

The Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union opposed this heartless manoeuvre and subsequently came to power.

.....

7.7.2025

Social democracy can not cater for the needs of the poor or orphaned child because it is based on rampant materialism no more than US Republicans hear the cry of those seeking social justice or the poor and indigent. The latter base their policies on the greed of the very wealthy and on a tiny minority of super-rich.

In Europe and Catholic countries and societies which are influenced by Church social principles or social centrist principles of government,the needs of the widows and orphans traditionally come to the fore.

However, the Fall of Soviet socialism has undermines the system of public charity and social endowment. That system has partly or largely ceased for the poor. Many poor people have been thrown back on their declining resources for the most part in proportion to the declining share of wealth allowed by businessmen to the poor.

Strict discipline in the Irish Church’s social action (2/2013)

The ugly face of liberalism has declaimed the Church as child molesters and thugs who operated laundries and industrial schools. An attempt is being made by the Irish Labour Party in the South of Ireland to drive the Church out of education which would be gravely detrimental to the education of workers'  children and the general quality of education.

Let us be clear.

The Church afforded sanctuary,comfort and solace to orphans and abandoned mothers in the Magdalene Laundries which where operated until 1992 in the South. 

Abuse has been greatly exaggerated.

In the era before social security payments became a legal right, strict discipline was required to prepare young Irish boys for a life as migrant labourers and tradesmen in England, Scotland, Australia and America.A ferocious religious and racist bias was directed at the Irish Catholics because of their religion and nationality in all these jurisdictions.

It would seem that the Christian Brothers and religious supervisors were often brutal but this was no less than the brutal, demented employers on whom their charges would be placed in a place of servitude, demanded.

Without a strict preparation for the world of work, Irish orphans would not have survived.

The Irish emigrants' world of the 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s is not to be judged by contemporary standards. Ireland was wretchedly poor and its emigrants unwanted.

You won’t hear that on the BBC or RTE or other schmaltzy radio or TV news broadcasts or from a shoneen politician such as Mary Harney, Hugh Coveney, Leo Varadkar, Mervyn Taylor or Alan Shatter.

The motto of all right-thinking people in those situations? Spare the rod and spoil the child!