In Reply to: re; bertie ahern posted by Evelyn on November 22, 2004 at 23:17:44:

Well you could ask somw real socialists

http://www.swp.ie/resources/leaflets/Bertie_socialist.doc
http://www.socialistparty.net/press/debatebertiessocialist17-11-04.htm

Bertie Ahern, Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fail, has become a socialist …. . A plain, practical socialist – and Fianna Fail is really a workers party!
He must know where the wind is blowing. And he is trying to get ahead with a new ‘caring image’.
But before being accepted into the socialist movement, there are many questions he will have to answer.
He says that socialism means the equality where both the rich and the poor enjoy the state owned Botanical gardens.
But why stop there. Shouldn’t the rich and the poor equally enjoy the health service as well as the public parks? So when is a universal free health service going to be introduced?
And if people have an equal right to enjoy public parks, then surely they have even more important right to proper accommodation.
Maybe Bertie does not realise that over 50,000 families are on the housing list. As a ‘practical’ man, he will surely take some sensible socialist measures – like taking building land out of the hands of the speculators. Or ordering a crash programme to build social housing.
Even allowing for his late political development, Bertie MUST know that socialism has to do the re-distribution of wealth. So the banks will in for a real shock when Comrade Taoiseach tells them that they will taken into public ownership – and their huge profits used to benefit the country.
Tony O Reilly, and the rest of the ‘tax exile’ gang must be also shaking in their boots. The bad old days of ‘taxes are for the little people’ are over. Ireland has woken up to a socialist Taoiseach – the rich are going to finally have to pay up.
As a new admirer of Che Guevara, Bertie will at last have found the courage to stand up to George Bush. The 30,000 US troops who pass through Shannon airport each month will be told to go home. Socialist Ireland will not stand for the massacre of Falluja.

Or will he really……

Is this not the same Bertie Ahern who told the Irish people that he was an anti-war politician after they marched in their tens of thousands on February 15th 2003?
Can it really be that our new ‘socialist’ Taoiseach is at it again – trying to be popular without believing a word he says ?

• You could ask some real socialists