The war on free expression

Most accounts of the Troubles begin at October 5 1968 – the day a civil rights march in Derry was battered off the streets. One of the march demands was the abolition of the Special Powers Act, which entitled the Stormont Government to ban any demonstration it didn't like the look of.

(Mary Hopkins' 'Those Were the Days' was No. 1 at the time. We thought they'd never end.)
Did Gerry Kelly, John O'Dowd or Michelle Gildernew of Sinn Féin recall October 5 as they sat with Jeffrey Donaldson, Nigel Dodds and Stephen Moutray of the DUP piecing together the proposed Public Assemblies, Parades and Protests Bill? The measure requires organisers of any public gathering of more than 50 people to give 37 working days notice to a new Public Assemblies, Parades and Protests Body.
The instant demonstrations against the Israeli assault on Gaza would have been illegal. Likewise walk-outs and meetings against ward closures at Northern hospitals. Or solidarity rallies with Maura Harrington of Rossport following her imprisonment for objecting to the oil multinational's Government-approved theft of natural resources.
Under Clause 43, any police officer will be able "to arrest without a warrant any person suspected of committing an offence under this Act." Penalties include a fine of up to £5,000 or jail for up to six months or both.
Where did this misconceived measure come from?
At Hillsborough last February, the DUP refused to endorse the devolution of policing unless the Parades Commission was gotten rid of. So SF agreed to a six-person SF/DUP "working group" to devise a replacement. The group delivered draft legislation covering not only parades but public gatherings of all sorts. No explanation of this extension of their remit has been forthcoming. Perhaps it was just down to the authoritarian instincts of the DUP and SF surfacing after three years in government together.
The working group had two "expert advisers" – Sean "Spike" Murray, former commander of the Provos in Belfast, and Mervyn Gibson, ex-RUC Special Branch officer and chairman of the Loyalist Commission. Just the lads to decide what civil rights we are to be allowed.
I have let it be known that if the Bill isn't withdrawn, I will organise a civil rights march in Derry on October 5 coming. Perhaps the DUP and SF will send in the cops. Bring it on.
As Orwell said in Animal Farm: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

A Catholic Herald columnist has offered to pray for the recovery from throat cancer of my old mate and implacable enemy on questions of war and peace, Christopher Hitchens. Is this a cunning plan to ensure that the cantankerous Hitchens snuffs it?
Or is it that Catholic Herald columnists don't read Hot Press, the ignorant sods? Haven't I explained that in peer-reviewed experiments in which ailing folk were divided into three groups – some were prayed for without knowing it, some knew they were being prayed for and some weren't prayed for at all. The group which fared worst were those who knew that somebody was storming heaven on their behalf. Makes sense. If you're told as you lie in bed fighting cancer that the Nazareth nuns are saying rosaries for you on the hour every hour, you are bound to believe you are worse than you thought, with dire consequences for your ability to will yourself to live.
If you have a relative or friend at death's door, do them a favour and do not on any account say a prayer.

Government Ministers keep assuring us that they have the nerve and stomach to "take the difficult decisions" called for by the crisis resulting from the incompetence, greed and mendacity of the parasite elite which has been running the economy for the last 20 years.
By this they mean slashing the incomes of the poor, cutting community facilities, closing hospitals, cancelling school refurbishment projects etc. But these are not "difficult decisions". They are easy decisions. They represent going with the flow of the capitalist consensus.
A hard decision would be telling the banks to frig off and mobilising the people to fight them.
Meanwhile, the low-life sections of the media continue to lionise the class of people who have gotten us into the mess, as witness the soft-soap coverage of a golf tournament organised by the tax-avoidance kid, aka JP McManus.

Latest score: Peace-mongers 3, Merchants of Death nil.
The clinching goal was scored by the magnificent seven of Brighton, who have just been found innocent of occupying and trashing the EDO arms factory on the edge of town. This followed last month's acquittal of the Raytheon Women for the second occupation of the arms giant's Derry factory.
The women's victory was the last straw which broke Raytheon's back. Internal documents show that the bosses of the killer outfit, outraged by the women's result, decided to get out of town.
Raytheon is the world's third largest arms company and the biggest supplier of missiles to Israel. Hugely influential in Washington, it has a $20 billion annual turnover and 40,000 workers in 40 countries. But Diana King, Róisín Barton, Goretti Horgan, Jackie McKenna, Sharon Meenan, Betty Doherty, Róisín Bryce, Helen Deery and Julia Torrojo saw them off.
Shows it can be done.