Dublin Opinion

The fallout from the Lisbon vote has proved very distracting and I haven’t had a chance to mention some of the things that have gone up on Irish Left Review in the last week, all of which are well worth reading.

First of all is Damian O’Broin’s very convincing essay on how the environment and global warming is an ideological issue. There is now an acceptance that something must be done, but it seems that beyond the lip-service there is very little thinking going on:

“We’re living in the Convenient Honeymoon Period for the moment. The last two years has seen the broad acceptance that i) climate change is happening and ii) that human behaviour is responsible. We have also seen climate change move centre stage in public debate and public consciousness. To deny anthropogenic climate change now is to set yourself up as either naïve, contrary or in hock to big-oil. Public hearts and minds have been won over, and people agree that Something Must Be Done. The trouble is, most people haven’t really thought through what that means. And once they do, there may be a lot fewer people looking for that Something to Be Done.”

So we have to cut emissions, and it has to be radical. But from an ideological point of view we have to realize that the tools that we use, such as imposing a carbon tax, have to be fair and equitable while also being effective at cutting emissions. Damian provides an overview of the options being mooted and points out their limitations.

But he has an idea, and it’s a good one. A way of cutting emissions that will not cause further damage to the environment or escalate food prices – as in the case of biofuels – and which will not hit the most venerable in our society but actually reward those who actively reduce their energy use.

Read the whole article here.

WorldbyStorm of Cedar Lounge Revolution has already pointed readers towards Michael Taft’s analysis of the Lisbon Vote, but I just thought I’d mention it again.

Michael argues that we can’t let the right dictate what the No vote means, because that will only further marginalize the Left who are in favour of the EU but who are still capable of being critical of certain aspects of it. As Michael says:

Those of us who truly want the 21st century to be European do not have the luxury of hiding behind the referendum result and insisting that Europe stop. Nor should we allow ourselves to be led by right-wing parties as they set their own agenda to deal with the current fall-out. Most of all, we cannot allow the neo-liberal, neo-clerical axis of Libertas and Coir to define the nature of the No vote.
The Left’s challenge is to forge a new progressive consensus that can address the legitimate concerns of those who lined up on whichever side. And within the divisions of the progressive camp lies the seeds for its success.”

In his piece Michael argues that Labour, instead of following the right’s tactics could have actually taken on the concerns of its own members and more broadly done something that has been so elusive in contemporary Irish politics: earned people’s trust.

Read the whole article here.

In a very substantial piece Seanachie of Pleasures of Underachievement provides a magnificent survey of Israeli and Iranian cinema. He points out that while their style and traditions are different – Iranian cinema is often wedded to the Persian traditions of story telling while Israeli cinema is closer to the more traditional narratives of European and American cinema – they are similar in that both have film industries that have been remarkably inventive and productive in recent years and their work functions in reaction to the stimuli of society and the flow of history.

Many of the films featured have links to trailers for the films on YouTube, so it provides a unique opportunity to become familiar with films that perhaps you may not know that much about, from the founding text of Iranian Cinema The Cow, by Dariush Mehrjui:

To Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir, the animated film about the Sabra and Chatila massacres, and which got some good reviews at Canne this year.

Read the whole thing here.

Finally, in case you missed it, Fine Gael’s Lisbon strategy proves that Enda Kenny has a hotline to Hitler.

By the way, if anyone has any suggestions about Irish Left Review, either what they think could be covered, or how things could be improved, let me know in the comments or email us at dublinopinionATgmail.com.