As we approach the holiday festive season, does anything make most of us as grumpy, as the prospect of donating 40 hours of our life each week, to a task we don't enjoy, usually for the profits of others.
Here a Moore street vendor trying to enjoy a smoke at work, but then again this great old school Dublin market, is under threat from yet another gaudy British high street style shopping centre. We fought for years for our indepedence, and now that we have it, we replicate their society as best we can.
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to hell with nationalism! I want a Federally United States of Europe with real Social Democracy and the rights of Working Middle and Working Lower Class people strongly protected by the Federal European Government! I want Democracy to be about a choice between good and better! I want rich people in Ireland, the UK and elsewhere in Europe to S--T THE F---K UP! They can have a larger slice of the cake so long as we get enough of it OURSELVES! And eventually I want ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT without racism, without ethnocentrism, without ignorance, without hatred, without those diseases that can easily be prevented, without freakin fanatic zealots denying us the means to avoid senseless overpopulation! I want a world where robots and computers do most of our work for US, and we get paid almost the same for no longer being forced to work at senselessly menial jobs! I want to live in an Ecological Semi-Paradise, where human activities and technologies enhance nature and not the other way around! I want to live in a world where what one adult does with other adults, as long as it is truly consentual, is NO ONE ELSE'S FREAKIN BUSINESS! I want a world that is safe for families with children! And that is safe for those who, for whatever reason, do not have families or do not want children! As well as for those who do want children but are not traditional in their adult lives! I want a world where nationalism (including tribalism and clanism) is dumped as the massively failed experiment it was! I want a world where we are ready to protect our planet from boulders hurtling towards us from the outer reaches of outerspace! I want a world that is WISE ENOUGH to meet sentient and wise beings from other worlds! SO THERE! Independence?!? It's most (albeit not all) the RICH OF THE WORLD, devoid of national ties, who SUCK THE BLOOD OF THE PEOPLE! You don't have to be a FOOLISH MARXIST to know that! Social Democracy, Non-Nationalism, Humanism, Spiritualism, Universalism! The rest is just baloney myths used to DIVIDE and then CONQUER and ENSLAVE the Peoples of The World! LeonardoDaNiepce · 2008-12-23: 04:21

does this post not belong in your own blog - each to there own. b thebaz · 2008-12-23: 04:33

Hey....it's 'their' and not there LeonardoDaNiepce · 2008-12-23: 04:41

There is an old saying: "Those who prefer not to hear the opinions of others imprison themselves in their own silence!" - The Free Advice Man! LeonardoDaNiepce · 2008-12-23: 04:43

You know; I do listen and pay attention to practically every decent photographiste and amateur photographer here...as well as to those who correctly use this site to express their personal lives' feelings, sentiments, thoughts and what not! I have many Irish friends, past and present. Of Catholic upbringing and otherwise... South and North! People who never accepted The Troubles as a meaningful way about things. I love Irish culture and music. And many Irish women are very externally beautiful indeed! But it is one thing to have used a sense of national cultural and ethnic pride to fight oppression from another group of humanity, and another thing to get in the way of a greater, better, stronger, happier Europe! LeonardoDaNiepce · 2008-12-23: 04:53

Just to let you in on a semi-secret: I was once intimate with Sinead O'Connor, when she was staying for a while in NYC. She's lost her looks... Too much stress I suppose... LeonardoDaNiepce · 2008-12-23: 05:00

You are absolutely right to resist "another gaudy British high street style shopping centre". Here in the UK every town looks the same as the next one; all dominated by the same few big chains. It would be a dreadful shame if Ireland were to go the same way. I saw an item on the news today that Debenhams is to open up a branch in Tehran. If I am ever lucky enough to visit Iran, I'd hope to see something different to what I can see at home. Jarvo · 2008-12-23: 06:00

If you need to pull me up on my spelling you really have lost the point !! Because I do not like the Conservative right wing in Ameica, as personified by George Bush, does that mean I do not like Americans ? Just in yesterday's post I was hailing an Englishman , who along with Cartier Bresson and Picasso are me trinity of Artistic inspirations . I have many great English freinds , and England has given us some of the great treasures of the world. I just think it ironic that we fought for years for Independence, now that we have it , we destroy our identity in copying a cheaper crasser architecture from abroad . The jibe could also be made at America, whom I also admire culturally, and have great hope for , now that the clown in the White House is no more. thebaz · 2008-12-23: 08:02

Wonderful photograph as always. As evidenced here politics always leads to disunity. makaid · 2008-12-23: 08:45

amen to that Makaid - and thanks ,its really the image I want to get feedback on :-) - rather than spelling or my political opinions thebaz · 2008-12-23: 08:48

Never doubted that you have a humanist side to you! You would be surprised to find out how much we share in common! Just in case you did not know this: most British Stupidmarket chains are not really managed or even owned by real English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish persons! They're owned by Germans, Italians, Gulf State Emirs, Russians, etc.... As for modern-day mainstream architecture in the UK (not talking about very special projects now): most of it SUCKS! But it cannot be on account of anything truly English! Wren, Alsop, Foster: excellent architects, nice works! What you are talking about is some clique of greedy b--st--ds who decide to sell out their own communities and allow unscrupulous yuppies and technocrats and kitsch-sters to ruin everything! LeonardoDaNiepce · 2008-12-23: 09:03

As for political opinions! I'm a true-to-the-punch pundit Philosopher! Politics is one of my main preoccupations. If there were enough seriously critical and relatively self-critical and objective thinkers like me then you would not be facing such a situation in the first place! LeonardoDaNiepce · 2008-12-23: 09:05

By the way, though I am personally against smoking: I bought the very first issue of Cigar Aficionado magazine so many years ago and a few copies thereafter! People who smoke cigars most certainly do have special character! But I am not fond of Fidel! He sold out a long, long time ago! And for him to make buddies with Milosevic: that was the straw that broke the camels back for me! Castro is a menace to his own people! Has been most of his life! Batista was a real monster! Che was a terrorist: plain and simple! What the world needs more of are Gandhis, Einsteins, Maria Montessoris, Mandelas, Asimovs, Sagans....in effect; people who value life so much that they would not be foolish to assume that violence really works to rid the world of the Stealth Terrorism committed by many, certainly not all, of the wealthy elite! Stealth Terrorism and Direct Terrorism are both monstrous injustices to all humanity and never accomplish anything but further suffering, destruction and death! Murderers! Oh! And this crap about romanticizing Pirates! My G-D; how can it be that the world so soon forgets! "Pirates of The Carribbean" is a bunch of Cahooyee! Pirates, just as they are today, murdered hundreds of thousands of poor sailors and naval recruits! They ruined countless lives and created great misery! Sure...there were a few real Robin Hood types, every now and then! But for the most part Pirates and so-called Freedom Fighters were and are simply terrorists! Terrorism cannot ever be excused! Were the majority of anti-Fascist Partisans fighting Hitler's henchmen, fighting the Nazis and the Fascists of Mussolini, Franco, Tojo, Horthy, etc., .....were they also terrorists?? OFCOURSE NOT! There is obviously a certain set of circumstances required before violence is truly justified in self-defense! LeonardoDaNiepce · 2008-12-23: 09:16

What an interesting "conversation", leading to nothing. Great picture anyway!! Unchained · 2008-12-23: 11:41

one of the beauties of the internet is free speach - and I am no politician, I am a visual person with creative ideas and thoughts - a writer never - but I like to write my odd thoughts on the world as i see it , along with the odd poem - but my photography is always up for discussion thebaz · 2008-12-23: 13:06

Great portrait! Judith28 · 2008-12-23: 18:39

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