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CHILD AWARE
Legislation
Fair Play or Fair Pay Rich, Famous and Infamous Florence Horsmann Hogan Child Abuse and Teachers Bank Bail Out Learning a Different Point of View Our Taoiseach - Brian Cowen LEGISLATION
To have progress for child protection is to promote change to current laws and legislation to protect children wherever they are in the following areas: greater penalties for child crime and rapists; mandatory penalties for abusers and for the concealment of knowledge about abusers; a school curriculum on child abuse for children; potential employers and citizens to have access to information from Police about abusers; public to be notified if abusers are now living in their area, or intend to do so. The nature of child abuse lies in a trinity of what it is: sexual, physical, and emotional. The latter brings with it the sentence of a lifetime. Existing laws only encourages abusers, and the recurring nature of the offenders of this type of crime. The need to conceal the actions of abusers within religious institutions and others, and within families, encourages it even further and widens the statistics of abusers by those who were and are complicit by their silence or actions. Greater awareness here is not only paramount but an urgency of high alert As a survivor of institutional abuse, and all too aware that over 80% of homeless in Ireland come from where I have been. I have otherwise been fortunate. Children are our future and those that are damaged from childhood abuse are everywhere. Many have learned to abuse from the knowledge of their own. Because of it, the crime itself is epidemic and shows no sign of abating.
Within the abuser lies only the articulation of hate and rage. There too also lies predator and primeval instinct. The challenge is to bring progress and justice to victims, and to halt both the nature of the abuser and the instinct of the predator, and to help heal the damage that they carry. It is when either cross that line to committing a crime against children and others, they must meet justice. They must also be met by laws that are there first to protect their victims and not their crimes. Barry Clifford May, 2010 THE RICH, FAMOUS AND INFAMOUS On having sex with children, Arthur C Clarke, Author of: 2001, A space odyssey told a newspaper reporter that he did not know how old his sexual partners had been, but that “most of them had reached puberty”. Asked whether it was morally wrong, he replied: “No. I mean, it depends on the country. You can’t have absolute morality. On that he is right if the support of Roman Polanski is anything to go by Whoppi Goldberg, actress and comedian, said: "I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't believe it was rape-rape Polanski was arrested Switzerland and faces extradition to the United States. He fled the US in 1978 before being sentenced for the crime and has been pursued by prosecutors ever since His victim, Samantha Gailey, told a grand jury that the director had plied her with champagne and drugs and taken nude pictures of her in a hot tub during a fashion shoot. She was thirteen years old at the time. Polanski then had sexual intercourse with her despite her resistance and requests to be taken home, she said. The director originally faced charges including rape and sodomy but they were dismissed following plea bargaining and where he admitted unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. More than 100 film industry figures, which includes Martin Scorcese, Woody Allen, David Lynch, Niall Jordan support his release and non-prosecution. One supporter, the actress Debra Winger, said it was a "three-decades-old case that is dead” Movie producer, Harvey Weinstein, said Polanski had been the victim of a "miscarriage of justice" Barry Clifford April, 2010
FLORENCE HORSMAN HOGAN Now, there is a name most of us can remember. Aside from being a media junkie she has little to offer in opinion anymore. Her Waterloo was the Ryan Report along with her own words. She talks about this survivor group and that religious group, but no names or numbers are ever given. Almost all commentary is a generalized one, and full of hearsay. She has constantly reminded us that she is a nurse, mother of three, and was in an industrial school from infancy up to five years old. At one point she claimed to be a writer. This is some of the stuff she wrote: "My Mother was a strange, smelly woman, that sang in the streets and danced in the church." "The nuns did all the work, cleaning laundry until their hands were weeping, sore and chaffed, and when the state grants did not come through, they would ask their own families and friends for money to see the orphanage through. I often think that the nuns should be there in diamonds and gowns being rewarded for the hard work that they did." "Children held in industrial schools were genetically defective and programmed to become alcoholics, drug addicts and mental depressives." What can I say, and she wrote a lot more than that. It must be said that she has remarkable recall for one that was barely five years old when she left the Industrial school, with a lot of insider information too. She might have got her dates and times wrong though about us been genetically defective and programmed to be disposed to become alcoholics, etc, while held in industrial schools. For many, that was their disposition after being in an Industrial school. Everyone reveals themselves in the fullness of time and in time still, they become boringly predictable. Barry Clifford April, 2010 CHILD ABUSE AND SUSPECT TEACHER BANK BAILOUT Our bank bailout bill just doesn’t add up.
The final cost of the US bank bailout is €65bn. The ESRI just announced our bank bailout will be €73bn.
America has a population of 350 million people. We have a population of four million people.
America allowed Lehman Brothers to go bankrupt, even though it was systemically important as the subsequent stock market crash proved.
We rescued Anglo Irish Bank, even though it was not systemically important. We now know it was purely a gambling medium for the country’s greediest people.
Per head of population, Americans now owe €185 and 71 cent each for the greed of its banking fraternity. By contrast, we now owe €18,250 per head of population.
In spite of these staggering numbers, the Government, which promoted this level of greed and which is now passing the colossal bill to the taxpayer, the public sector, the unemployed and poor, refuses to accept any responsibility or admit how badly it got it wrong.
They are still in power, still deciding the fate of a country they have broken.
To borrow a recent notable quote from a highly offended individual of delicate sensibilities: “I find this, more than anything, to be beyond the Pale.”
Jarlath Challoner,
Portlaoise, Co. Laois
LEARNING A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW
I felt it was time to know why I vote in a certain manner. What was my motivation? Maybe I was guided by certain facts that suited while disregarding or shutting out unpalatable truths about the candidates character. Was it possible to even become a good judge? Being able to cast a jaundiced eye on whatever carefully crafted canned information that was being fed to me. Was my judge merely an assimilation of other peoples’ ideas and opinions? It did feel comfortable to fit in. Well, just barely. Individuality, I felt, is a hard fought fight for more often than not it is a lonely road. At its end the price would be awareness. Its beginning started with the knowledge that truth is elusive and always in motion. Yesterday’s truth is today’s fiction and so on. Choices in politics can be arrived at with the same belief system that Jesus was the illegitimate son of Mary. That view is no more extreme than worshippers of all religions believing that all others are in the waiting room for hell. The bottom line is what is there to trade and what is in it for me? An uncomfortable truth that most describes the human race for me and all its living things. More predatory than prey, more instinct than thought.
Here is a small exercise to help show perceptions of truth against solid facts. It is how politicians work, on a need to know basis. The “truths” they tell are belied by the ones they did not tell.
Anyway, three men are running for political office, and the following are the facts given about their character to help decide your vote: The first candidate imprisoned over 35,000 citizens of his own country, which included women and children, in concentration camps without trial. He was also a prolific liar, while cheating on his wife for over twenty years with his long-term mistress.
Number two candidate was a chronic alcoholic who polished off a half bottle of whiskey each day and then some. A chain smoker who struggled with his obesity. This was not helped by the fact that he never rose out of bed before twelve o’clock noon.
The third candidate did not drink or smoke, save for an occasional glass of wine. Courage and determination were his trademarks. He was also awarded a medal of honour for saving an officer from certain death under a hail of gunfire during battle in the First World War. He loved dogs and children, married just the once and never had a mistress. My decision had to be made on the information given so far.
It came as a shock to know that the first candidate was three time president and most beloved leader of the USA, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The second was Winston Churchill, while the third was Adolf Hitler.
I came away promising myself to be careful what I wished for, who I voted for, and what I believe in. For me, the truth is still out there.
Barry Clifford May, 2010
PS: The 35,000 people Franklin D Roosevelt imprisoned were Japanese citizens during the Second World War.
Our Taoiseach – Brian Cowen
Ireland’s Taoiseach, the country’s head of government, is still the highest-paid politician in all of Europe. While Brian Cowen has only held office since 2008, his salary has already topped President Obama’s of the United States. During his first year as Taoiseach, Cowen denounced business leaders taking huge pay increases during the outset of the country’s financial meltdown. Unlike Obama it was a meltdown that he directly caused. All he had achieved by this action was to fill the shoes of one great liar. Better even than Haughey who had to resign because he could not think up any more lies to cover the ones he had already told. This man was Bertie Ahern. Because of that promotion Cowen also became eligible for a major pay rise of his own — a pay hike he took in stride. As a result Cowen earns also more than seven times what the average Irish family does per year. As his pay continues to rise and the average family's income keeps on falling.
Barry Clifford June 2010
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