u/Robotobot

Zios can't out-think the Fink!

Cé mar atá sibh, a chairde!

I'm from Meath, but for the first time in over 10 years I made it up to your fantastic country and loved my time there having the craic fishing, swimming and driving the back roads.

One of those stops was Rossnowlagh! And the thing that it seems to be known for, is the Orange Order march and being the biggest of it's kind in the Republic.

I'd like to think, and was leaning towards it, that if the Orange Order and those who sympathise with their worldview or background as unionists/British would wish to exist and find a role for itself in a future united Ireland as a sort of historical society, protestant Christian fraternity mix of things I'd be totally fine with that. But it's clear that is not remotely on the cards given how the Orange Order just over the border behaves.

Now, it kind of seems like what the Rossnowlagh march means for those , is to strut about in "enemy territory" and show the fenians who's boss and whose claim to Ulster is God-given and absolute. Or at least, that it's easier now to lend some believability to this being partly the motive behind the Rossnowlagh march.

Surely the orange lodges in the Republic, if they were as respectfable and committed to as they're often given credit for online and in the media, they would be going out of their way to get onto the media to condemn the members of the very same organisation that they belong to for tormenting the residents of the Garvaghy Road.

Does anyone on this sub have some personal proximity to this that they can give some insights into the Rossnowlagh march and those that do it, and what their thinking is?

Go raibh míle maith agaibh!

Context: 33M, diagnosed last April

I am curious about other people who don't feel much if any instinct or desire to socialise.

I tried and tried especially in my twenties, and I found maintaining social networks and friendships with anyone other than my best friend (who died when I was 25 which was a trauma for me) complicated and exhausting. I have also had past intimate relationships, but now am separated from my wife, so relationships and stuff are very far down on the list, even for a natural loner like me.

I have tried AsIAms adult support group, the zoom one, and it doesnt really do anything for me, though I am glad it is there for others. It's just not my thing.

I have tried to connect with other autistic people, but found it hard too. I just dont really click with normies or with other autistic people I've come across. And it's probably the same for them towards me.

I'm debating with myself as to whether I should continue trying and whether being a loner is natural - because the impression I get is that it is considered unnatural and unhealthy by others.

I am not a misanthropic or cynical person by any stretch. I feel for the autistic people for whom loneliness takes a toll on them, I just don't feel like myself unless/until I'm by myself.

Id love to hear others experience.

Government still thinks we're all bluffing 😂

So Unite and the Prison Officers Association have both overwhelmingly voted in favour of industrial action. Fórsa, SIPTU and the INMO are expected to vote the same.

Thoughts?

We've all heard of the Jason Arday debacle.

But specifically with the Jason Arday situation, I've no problem with saying now that I no longer trust academia or the "academic" left anymore. I'd like to articulate on that a bit, knowing full well I will devolved into ranting - full disclosure.

The academic class wants popularity, recognition, speaking fees, book deals and all-expenses-paid conferences and consulting gigs. They see themselves as being completely unaccountable to the rest of society, and as these chosen people who have succeeded in transcending the concerns of us normies. The Dublin Bus drivers serves to transport them to their workplace, but whose mind is incapable of the higher thought of the academic caste.

And let's face it. The past 15 years or so they have been behaving like a caste and a cult using leftism to spread a postmodern new-age religion completely detached from the thoughts, worries, concerns and aspirations of working class people - burying these things unceremoniously in abstraction, word-play, subversion, distraction and irony so nothing materially beneficial to as many people as possible can come to be.

I'm sick of them being treated as the priestly caste of a new age religion that has successfully wormed it's way into modern leftism. Jason Arday and the academiots who have defended him to the hilt until the evidence was beyond insurmountable that he was a fucking fraud have shown their true colours as swindling, dishonest, compromised, decadent, delusional worms they are.

Addendum: Siptu, INMO and others are also ballotong. Also, ambulance workers have accepted a pay deal seeing up to 23% for certain classes of worker.

I am happy to see people getting a decent deal, but a bit sour about the lack of cohesion it implies.

Cant have it every way, though, I suppose.

If you were to sum up your position on economic justice in 5 points, what would those points be, in no particular order of priority?

For me:

1. Workers benefitting from developments in technology and productiviity through shorter working time so people have time for family, hobbies and other non-work aspects of their lives. As much of it as possible.

2. Prices of necessities for all people are stable, affordable and subsidised. Food, leccy bills, medical prescriptions etc. and that life events like sickness or starting a family are not career-ending or lead to financial ruin.

3. People with disabilities being able to be financially independent and have opportunities for training, employment and advancement.

4. Protection of retirement and trashing the policies and practices which have been progressively whittled away at so we can be profitable little lemmings until the day we croak.

5. That working people can have reasonable expectations to have a family, a home, a vehicle and a life that isn't based on working just to survive.

Would love to hear your points!

Edit: typos from my sausage fingers

Just watched this video and found it to be a great foray into the many ways that critical thinking has eroded. I found the therapy-speak part particularly good given that I have been in and out of the mental health system.

Before October 7th, I was very much what you would call a European Federalist type. Having gone on Erasmus, and having the opportunity to learn some more languages and everything, I really was fixed on this notion that the EU was imperfect but fundamentally well-intended and I could always be leveraged into being quiet about by the notions of European unity and cosmopolitanism and muh European project.

And to be honest, it really gave me a superiority complex. I did genuinely think that we, as a totality, were THE paragon of human rights and progress.

That extended to Israel. I was by no means a pro-Israel person prior to October 7th, but I was somewhere in between apathy and leaning more towards Israel - having fallen for the veneer of "democracy" and social "progress" that it claims to be the champion of in the Middle East. Which I think a lot of people prior to those events were.

We were still getting over the sociological effects of covid (we still are, I believe), and I think anything that signified civility and stability and social liberties, even in the cling-film-thin veneer way that Israel does (for its Zionist Jewish population), was enough to sway people like myself at the time into the "out of sight, out of mind" approach.

Nowadays, given the absolute stain on humanity that is the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians being given so much leeway, endless amounts of chances and impotent rebukes of the EU leadership that barely qualify as mild chastisement, the framing of a fucking GENOCIDE as self-defence or anti-terrorism, and this constant covering by top EU leaders for a regime which is raping and shooting children and bombing journalists and paramedics. And the EU-Israel Trade Agreement STILL HASN'T BEEN FUCKING SUSPENDED!

The only things that Israel produces are weapons, orphans, amputees, refugees and corpses. Excuse my digression, I know they're low-hanging fruit.

The essence of what I have to say is that now I can't unsee the unelected, seemingly invincible EU bureaucrats and diplomats like Kaja Kallas and Ursula von der Leyen as the skin-walking, corpo Israel-worshipping ghouls they are trotting out the same old lines and even going so far as to say "Europe stands with Israel" when multiple member states do not, at least on a cultural and societal level.

And now I also can't unsee the Germans enthusiastically providing endless amounts of weapons to Israel and running interference for Israel at the EU level and not connect it to the ravaging of our natural resources by continental trawlers (as an angling man, I do like the sea a lot), being forced into rules we (the Irish public) didn't agree to, getting skinned alive when the economy goes bad, nobody being able to afford a house where they come from, and having the EU leadership tell us that all this is fine and normal and that bugs are actually very tasty once you get used to the hardened snot-like consistency.

The can of worms for me is well and truly open to the point that said worms are spilling all over the fucking floor. And i want to put it out to others - what was the black pill for you on the EU?

Edit: typo

If you set out to buy yourself a reel that would serve you the rest of your fishing days, what is the price-range you would pay?

I am restoring and upgrading my own penn senator 113H 4/0 reels, and while they're old they have a cult following in terms of hot-rodding, a reputation for toughness, durability and ease of repair. I have been fitting carbon drag washers, replacing the reel frames and power handles, and will be upgrading the gear sleeves and bearings too. Setting them up for another lifetime of service, essentially because I know that they will be "lifetime" reels.

So I'm curious what price people are willing to pay for a "lifetime" reel purchase.

So I passed the driving test a few weeks ago, and have just been reflecting a bit on it.

A lot of the systemic problems aren't being solved exactly because people want to forget the process and how arduous it was, and in doing so inadvertently forget about the people still caught up in the system waiting for tests. And behind each person on the wait list there's months of lessons, money spent and an absolutely insane, unpredictable wait period.

Driving isn't just being able to operate a car. It's me being able to bring my aging parents to appointments. It's the parent bringing their children to school. It's the worker who would otherwise have a 2 hour each-way commute to work if public transport were even an option to them. Not having access to prompt testing and repeats is more time in adequately staffed RSA centres (upper management treat the testers like shite btw) has real-life consequences for those people.

While still fresh in your mind, please do email your TDs and raise these issues and the effects that the RSA management's incompetence and government apathy have had on you and on people getting through their driving test.