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What you want to say… Open Thread, 7th June 2012 June 7, 2012

Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, European Politics, Irish Politics, Northern Ireland, The Left, Uncategorized, US Politics.
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As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.

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1. yourcousin - June 7, 2012

To reiterate, fuck Walker.

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RosencrantzisDead - June 7, 2012

+1

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CL - June 7, 2012

Organized labor has suffered a serious defeat in Wisconsin. This will embolden and encourage governors in other states, both Democratic and Republican, to attack workers and their organizations.
Already in NYS the Democratic Governor, Cuomo, has aligned with capital in its class war on labor.
Obama refused to help the struggle of the unions in Wisconsin; he has further dispirited his base while the Republican base is energized.
The odds on a Romney victory have shrunk from 6/4 to 5/4 on Paddy Power. Wall St. has moved to the Romney camp.
Unlike ’08, Obama now is having difficulty raising money in small donations. The coalition he put together in ’08 is fracturing.
Because of the Citizens United decision, capitalist predators, such as the Koch Bros have no restriction on how much they can spend to support their war on workers. The prospect that the most right-wing administration in U.S history will take federal power in November is now a real one.

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Ed - June 7, 2012

This is a classic case of defence being the worst form of attack – Obama and the Democrats wouldn’t support the push against Walker, supposedly because they didn’t want to appear ‘partisan’ and alienate the ‘moderates’ and ‘independents’. The Republicans knew exactly what was at stake, pumped huge amounts of money into Wisconsin, and now they have some wind in their sails. The classic story in the States – Republicans do everything they can to motivate and energise their base, Democrats do everything in their power to demoralise and demobilise their own supporters.

Decent piece by Gary Younge on this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jun/06/wisconsin-democrats-come-up-empty

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EamonnCork - June 7, 2012

It would be hard to sum up the whole thing better than Ed has done here. Deeply dispiriting.

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CL - June 9, 2012

‘But the big picture is disastrous for Democrats and progressives. Walker beat Democrat Tom Barrett solidly, 53 percent to 46 percent, in a campaign fueled by unprecedented levels of corporate money. The Tea Party, which became relatively isolated during the Republican presidential campaign, is back in the saddle. Its triumph in Wisconsin will embolden advocates of slashing social programs and deregulating the economy to become even more adamant during the coming national budget debates.’- Tom Hayden
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Heartbreak-in-Wisconsi-by-Tom-Hayden-120607-937.html

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2. makedoanmend - June 7, 2012

I trying to draw up a list of tory and cameron gaffs and policy u-turns.

One story I can’t verify is the one he supposedly told about a couple in his constituency who claimed they’d foregone all the pleasures of life, including having children, so they could buy a home. They complained that the council house scroungers down the road had loads of bairns. It wasn’t fair.

It was claimed afterwards that cameron’s constituency has no council housing. oops if true.

Anyone know of a verifiable source? would be much appreciated.

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makedoanmend - June 7, 2012

tried google, btw, no luck.

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RosencrantzisDead - June 7, 2012

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/06/13/where-did-those-council-houses-come-from-mr-cameron/

It would appear it is only technically true – council houses have been transferred to housing associations or registered social landlords.

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Michael Carley - June 7, 2012
3. makedoanmend - June 7, 2012

Many, many thanks for the links lads/lassies. cameron’s stories always have a smidgeon of factuality, but one can’t help feeling that he isn’t at all worried about mere facts. It’s the propagation of a meme (in this case the council home scrounger meme) that is more important. The facade of truth suffices to drive the ideology whatever the actuality and dynamics of the facts as they occur on the ground at any given time.

S/he who writes the story writes the reality. If you have the power to guide the story through actual policy, you create a self-fulfilling story – almost prophetical.

It’s sort of like a boss who wants rid of an employee for any old reason. They announce the employee is incompetent. They then assign types of work and work loads that the employee is incapable of completing. Once the employee fails to complete the assignment, whether through lack of a skills base they were never employed for and/or through sheer volume of work, they are exposed to the original claim.

Such seems to be the tory modus operandi but on a broader social/cultural scope. More subtle but more devastating in scale.

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4. sonofstan - June 7, 2012

Well worth a listen if you get a chance:

Liza McKenzie talking about contemporary working-class life in inner city Nottingham. Honest, unsentimental, engaged (about 5 mins in)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b01jhdh1

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5. CMK - June 7, 2012

Strange sight on Tuesday: a group of men taking down ‘No’ posters for Libertas and ‘Yes’ posters for Fianna Fail. The same company apparently putting up posters for both of the capitalist sides to the debate. So much for Monsieur McGurk’s releases thanking the Libertas ‘grassroots’ for all the work they did.

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ghandi - June 7, 2012

Stranger sight was Caroline Simons at a meeting in Rutland Street on the financial crisis last night.

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LeftAtTheCross - June 7, 2012

Doh! There I was thinking Conor mcCabe was talking about Summerhill in Meath…clearly I’ve been living out of Dublin too long.

http://dublinopinion.com/2012/06/07/oh-wont-somebody-think-of-the-printing/

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ghandi - June 7, 2012

Just read that now, very strange meeting, move the deck chairs around, no attempt by those present to link it to the wider context. Parochial – leave our CE scheme and (and our power ) alone and we’ll be ok. Most there were not local and all except a few worked in some project or other. Nial Ring argued that Andy Storey’s figures were wrong and told the Argentinian that they should stick to cows and horses. Quote of the night was when the Argentinian referred to Ring and a “British Imperialist” . Link to meeting here
http://www.afri.ie/public-meeting-on-on-the-financial-crisis/

and here http://www.debtireland.org/events/2012/06/06/financial-crisis-linking-the-local-and-the-global/

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RosencrantzisDead - June 7, 2012

Sounds like the Libertas-ites are on the move again. This cannot be good.

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dilettante - June 7, 2012

In all fairness, the ‘poster war’ doesn’t really suit the left (even though we can do it cheaper because it’s the activists and not the poster companies, we still lose because we have far less money).
Shouldn’t we be looking for a more equal way of designating poster space?
Anyone up for taking a kind of Crotty for postering case?

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WorldbyStorm - June 7, 2012

Great idea.

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dilettante - June 7, 2012

Thanks WbS
(but on reflection is should be more of a McKenna case)

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6. Dublin Marxist Reading Group - June 7, 2012

The Dublin Marxist Reading Group is commencing a reading of The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.

The first meeting will take place on the evening of Thursday the 21st of June in a central Dublin location (see e-mail address below for more information).

The section chapter entitled First Manuscript is the reading for the first meeting (that is from the sections ‘Wages of Labour’ as far as ‘Estranged Labour’ inclusive) – page numbers will be different in different editions.

The entire work is on-line here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm

Please contact us at grundrisse.dublin(AT)gmail.com if you are interested in joining the reading and discussion.

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7. Mark P - June 7, 2012

I presume everyone has seen the Golden Dawn Nazi lose it on Greek TV, throwing a glass of water over a woman from SYRIZA before hitting a woman from the KKE repeatedly?

These scumbags really don’t bother with the “respectable” mask most European far rightists try to adopt.

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WorldbyStorm - June 7, 2012

They’re something else, even for the far right. Just abysmal. Fair dues though to both the SYRIZA and KKE MPs for smoking out this guys true colours.

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Mark P - June 7, 2012

It’s the difference between the “Euronationalist” far right, who have to various degrees adopted a more respectable pose for tactical reasons, and the old school street fighting Nazi goon far right.

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Mark P - June 7, 2012

And yes, fair dues to both the SYRIZA and KKE reps, the SYRIZA one for apparently reducing the Golden Dawn nutcase to frothing rage and the KKE one for bravely and immediately standing up for the SYRIZA rep after the goon threw his water.

I remain saddened by the KKE’s general approach during this election, where their main fire has been concentrated on SYRIZA.

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LeftAtTheCross - June 7, 2012

The KKE are basically saying that the system is rotten and that SYRIZA’a efforts to patch together a solution within the bounds of EU membership and within capitalism are simply kicking the fundamental issues to touch. And yet the Trotskyist Left are criticising them. I’ve seen comments from different Trotskyist groups / sympathesisers criticising teh KKE for being “reformist” and being “ultra-Left”. Which is it? Or is their real error that they are “Stalinist” and therefore to be criticised no matter what?

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Mark P - June 7, 2012

Do you really need me to go through my view of this again, LATC?

The KKE make many absolutely correct criticisms of the limitations of the SYRIZA programme, about the fudges it contains on important issues. I do not criticise them for making those arguments. Frankly it’s a little disingenuous to defend them against people who share those criticisms by repeating those criticisms as if they are what is at issue.

What the KKE are themselves being criticised for is the way in which they are raising their point of view, their tactical approach, which is sectarian, isolationist and has so far succeeded in undermining support for their own views far more than it has succeeded in winning people over from supporting SYRIZA.

The KKE are quite openly treating SYRIZA, rather than the pro-memorandum establishment parties, or even the neo-Nazis, as the main enemy, the focus of their attack. This is quite understandably seen as bizarre by working class supporters of SYRIZA. It is counterproductive.

It would be perfectly open to the KKE to put forward a series of minimum conditions for cooperation with SYRIZA, including things like EU membership and radical anti-capitalist demands. That would force the SYRIZA leadership to make clear their attitude on these issues, putting pressure on them to accept or reject the proposals and either move leftwards or, alternatively, prove the KKE’s point about their unreliability to much wider parts of their support base. By seeming to actually glory in isolation and concentrating on premature denunciations of shabby compromises not yet made, the KKE are undermining themselves rather than demonstrating the reformist proclivities of SYRIZA.

On the separate issue of whether the KKE are reformist or ultra left, it’s a cliche but “ultra-leftism and opportunism are opposite sides of the same coin”. The KKE in the past have made the most abject compromises to be in right wing governments with the main right wing parties. Currently they are taking a sectarian and ultra-leftist approach to SYRIZA. They are, in my view, quite capable of flipping back under the pressure of events.

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WorldbyStorm - June 7, 2012

I think the minimum conditions point is a good one Mark P. There’s also the point that the KKE approach isn’t winning friends and converting people to it. Now that’s fair enough, the latter isn’t the purpose of politics, or shouldn’t be, but if anything its making KKE less popular. Yet at the same time there is a rupture or divide between SYRIZA and the pro-memorandum parties and its pointless for KKE to act as if there isn’t.

I think it’s also fair to note that even SYRIZA is nowhere near gaining 50 per cent of the vote and its cautious EU line and pro-ish euro line are perhaps as radical as people will accept – not least in the context of the fact that six months ago they weren’t poilling anywhere near their current ratings. There are limits to what is achievable even in the chaos that is Greece – at least at this point.

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dilettante - June 7, 2012

Hmm…
SYRIZA = SF ?
KKE = ULA ?
(in terms of positioning rather than ideology)

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WorldbyStorm - June 7, 2012

Should we even go there?

But it has a bit of a feel of that. Though I’d have thought SYRIZA’s oppositionalism had different (and perhaps more durable roots) to that of SF?

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Mark P - June 7, 2012

Could you give some content to that analogy, or is it just a way of saying that the ULA is more radical than Sinn Fein?

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dilettante - June 7, 2012

Hard to get a real sense of where exactly SYRIZA are. They seem very fixed on trying to form a government – and on staying in the Euro (shades of SF?).
Such a government would inevitably cause problems for some of the further left friends (not only the KKE – also some within SYRIZA).

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Mark P - June 7, 2012

SYRIZA are a party of the Greek workers movement and more narrowly of its historic communist movement. It is vastly to the left of Sinn Fein’s populism.

It does have in common with SF a tendency to fudge difficult issues. As for its coalition strategy, at the moment it is aiming for a government of the left parties, but it could of course end up in a government involving one or more of the ruling class parties and that certainly would cause internal strife.

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dilettante - June 8, 2012

As far as I understand SYRIZA is “is a coalition of left-wing and far-left political parties” (Wikipedia) and that the largest party (Synaspismos) is a “party of the radical new left” ‘whatever that may be – probably closer to our very own Democratic Left than anything else?).

I don’t really see how it’s electoral manifesto is significantly to the ‘left” of SF (except in that it doesn’t seem to be as well worked out – but that’s not necessarily a left thing)

Not too sure why you’re so touchy about it. Have the CWI decided to rejoin SYRIZA?

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Ed - June 8, 2012

“the largest party (Synaspismos) is a “party of the radical new left” ‘whatever that may be – probably closer to our very own Democratic Left than anything else?).”

I would have thought the equivalent of ‘our very own’ Democratic Left would be their Democratic Left i.e the old right wing of Synapismos. Don’t think there are any direct Irish analogies for what SYRIZA is right now. The comparison flatters SF too much, I think.

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dilettante - June 8, 2012

Fair enough Ed
But in positioning terms it’s certainly not the ULA!

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Mark P - June 8, 2012

I’m not touchy about it all. I just don’t think that your analogy is of any relevance, because it rests on a false assumption that Sinn Fein is a party of the left, rather than a populist party in the Fianna Fail tradition.

SYRIZA’s major components are essentially all descended from splits in the KKE, Maoist, Trotskyist or Eurocommunist and at the very least think of themselves as communists or situate themselves in that tradition, whatever we may think about their actual politics. It would be a mistake, by the way, to see them as akin to the Irish Democratic Left, who were borrowing belatedly from the most right wing strands of Eurocommunism to justify their slide to the right. Greek Eurocommunism was the most left wing variant, and what’s left in SYRIZA (as opposed to the Greek Democratic Left) is the most left wing strand of that in turn.

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dilettante - June 8, 2012

Mark,
You obviously missed the bit where I said “in terms of positioning rather than ideology”

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Mark P - June 8, 2012

No, I didn’t. That’s why I asked you to expand on your comparison because I couldn’t make sense of the distinction you were drawing between the two.

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LeftAtTheCross - June 8, 2012

Mark, what I find interesting is tha Trotskyists go out of their way to attack the KKE for its position vis-a-vis SYRIZA but at the same time I don’t hear any huge enthusiasm coming from Trotskyists in support for SYRIZA’s proposals and approach. Or maybe I’m missing that piece of the jigsaw. Does the Trotskyist Left endorse SYRIZA’s proposals and approach to the elections? It seems a long way from the principled oppositionism of the ULA for example.

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neilcaff - June 8, 2012

I’ve found there is a certain circularity when trying to discuss Greece and the KKE with supporters of the KKE like LATC. It goes like this.

Left critic of KKE: Why won’t the KKE even discuss the issue of co-operation with SYRIZA? Why, in the context of a consensus of pro-austerity parties and the rise of violent neo-nazis does the KKE see SYRIZA as the main focus of attack?

KKE ally: *blank face* Raise secondary issue either attacking SYRIZA or program of party that left critic of KKE comes from.

Left critic of KKE: Answer secondary attack, repeat main point re KKE.

Ally of KKE: *blank face* Raise secondary… etc, etc.

At the risk of continuing the merry-go-round, the difference between SYRIZA and SF in terms of coalitionism, is this. SYRIZA is offering a coalition with anyone who is anti memorandum, Sinn Fein is not, rendering all it’s anti-austerity rhetoric pretty much meaningless.

The first example can be the basis for principled co-operation between parties of different views. Note how I say BASIS. I don’t say the KKE should automatically sign up with SYRIZA or give them a blank cheque. It would be correct for them to test out SYRIZA first, through discussion, negotiation, placing public demands on them, criticizing the weaknesses in their program and so on.

The second example of Sinn Fein is simply cynical posturing and should be recognised as such by anyone with a memory stretching back more than 6 years. Remember that “left” party the Greens that used to talk a good fight but wouldn’t rule out coalition with right wing parties?

Now, to return to the main issue. Can any supporter of the KKE explain the logic behind refusing even to meet with SYRIZA?
Do you REALLY think it’s correct for the KKE to hold rallies and press conferences where the main slogan behind them is: “Don’t trust SYRIZA”?
Is there any circumstances under which you think the KKE can work with SYRIZA?

I don’t expect an answer from LATC any more than I do from supporters of the Communist Party of Britain who I’ve discussed this with. The reason for this is you take your cue from the KKE and the depressing thing is I don’t the KKE really know the answers to these questions either.

The sad fact is they’ve been presented with a situation outside their schema of rising austerity equals rising KKE, become completely disoriented and the leadership has simply retreated back into it’s comfort zone of isolationism. For the leadership of the KKE, much like the Troika, there is no Plan B.

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LeftAtTheCross - June 8, 2012

Neil, at the risk of continuing the merry-go-round of talking past each other…

…I’m not privy to the KKE’s inner workings and clearly I couldn’t answer on their behalf why they won’t discuss with SYRIZA. I just read and interpret the statements as you probably do yourself. I take their position at face value that the SYRIZA approach is a dead end in terms of resolving the crisis in Greece. Personally however I find much in the SYRIZA proposals very progressive in the sense that I would be more than happy if an electoral alliance in this state was in a position to win a parliamentary vistory on the basis of such a programme. But this isn’t Greece and the present circumstances, and the political history, and the future possibilities can’t be transposed from there to here.

I am genuinely interested though in how the SYRIZA stick is being used by international Trokskyism (if there’s a less loaded term to use there please let me know, I’m not trying to be sectarian here) to beat the KKE over the head. It simply seems a bit disingenuous to attack the KKE for their alleged ultra-Leftism and lack of support for SYRIZA’s proposed reformist electoral path to socialism when at the same time those Trokskyist groups would be equally scathing of such an approach elsewhere.

Or is it simply the case that the international Trokskyist Left views the SYRIZA approach as being correct in the present Greek circumstances? That’s a genuine question. I’m just trying to better understand how much of the differences between the KKE and SYRIZA comes from the legacy of sectarianism within the international and local Greek far Left, and how much of it is “ideological” in the sense of transcending the sectarianism.

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Pedro - June 8, 2012

On a issue closer to home – what about the “certain circularity” of the trots relationship in Ireland with a big time tax evader – a relationship which goes all the way to the bedroom?

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LeftAtTheCross - June 8, 2012

Pedro, that’s trolling and adds nothing to this discussion whatsoever. Take your shite over to politics.ie please.

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Jim Monaghan - June 8, 2012

I am for a United Front between all the anti-austerity Greek left.
Further I think the far left now in a front that cannot get electoral positions should have negotiated with Syrizia for some places and strengthened its left.
I think the main responsibility for a United Front approach lies with the KKE. It should have negotiated with Syrizia and indeed sought to strengthen its approach. I.E. a minimum program with obvious things like leaving NATO.
If after negotiations Syrizia refuses to budge,. then it could be said that the KKE tried an failed to get an minimum acceptable program.
Do I trust Syriziqa? I don’t know. Many leaderships have failed their electorates.
Am I worried?
Yes, I am.
Trotskyists go in for parallelles, maybe too often.
In Greece the crisis cannot go on for ever. If the left do not step p to the challenge of power then ??
So I am for a United Front with a minimum program. The KKE have refused to even discuss this. They have a “ourselves alone” attitude. After Syrizia fails maybe their turn. Given Greek history, I wonder.
So I am not demanding the KKE give up and tail Syrizia. I am calling for discussions on a minimum program and a United Front. Less relevancy I would say the same top the small left groups.

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Mark P - June 8, 2012

LATC asked: “Mark, what I find interesting is tha Trotskyists go out of their way to attack the KKE for its position vis-a-vis SYRIZA but at the same time I don’t hear any huge enthusiasm coming from Trotskyists in support for SYRIZA’s proposals and approach. Or maybe I’m missing that piece of the jigsaw. Does the Trotskyist Left endorse SYRIZA’s proposals and approach to the elections? It seems a long way from the principled oppositionism of the ULA for example.”

There is a huge excluded middle in the way you are posing things here, LATC.

From the point of view of the Committee for a Workers International, there is no question of endorsing SYRIZA’s programme as its own, or of glossing over the many failings and ambiguities in that programme. Xekinima, the CWI group in Greece, takes a friendly but critical attitude towards SYRIZA (and also towards the KKE, although the utter hostility of the KKE towards everyone else on the Greek left makes that more notional). And the critical part is just as important as the friendly part.

The CWI doesn’t criticise the KKE for pointing out the flaws and compromises in the programme of SYRIZA, far from it. It criticises the KKE for taking a sectarian attitude of unrelenting hostility towards SYRIZA, treating SYRIZA as the main enemy and raising those criticisms in a manner which is more effective in isolating the KKE than it is in convincing anyone in SYRIZA. When we argue that the KKE should present a series of demands as a minimum basis for cooperation with SYRIZA, that’s a tactic for dealing with the dubious and contradictory parts of SYRIZA’s programme – putting pressure on them to clarify the ambiguities and either move leftwards towards the KKE’s position or themselves be the ones to reject cooperation. Instead of engaging with SYRIZA, and crucially with the millions of Greek workers who are looking towards SYRIZA, they are sealing themselves off behind a wall of denunciation.

Xekinima’s engagement with SYRIZA has been consistently critical. Unlike the KKE, which is in activist terms larger than SYRIZA, Xekinima is a much smaller organisation (although still pretty big by the standards of the Irish left) and isn’t in a position to be taken seriously if it tried to make cooperation contingent on the larger party accepting a list of minimum demands. However, when inside SYRIZA it argued over and over again for a more leftwards course, against what it saw as the compromises and confusions in its programme and also for SYRIZA to make overtures to both the KKE and Antarsya. Currently formally outside SYRIZA, they still take the same approach.

I can’t really comment on the attitude of “international Trotskyism” other than the CWI because, quite frankly, there are nominally Trotskyist group with just about every imaginable approach towards SYRIZA, from grouplets who mimic the KKE’s isolationism (as farce rather than tragedy), to groups which are inside SYRIZA and take what the CWI would regard as an overly uncritical attitude.

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Mark P - June 8, 2012

As an aside on that last point, out on the wildest shores of “international Trotskyism”, the Spartacists think that the KKE’s stance on SYRIZA is entirely correct!

(I don’t know about you, but that would certainly give me pause).

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LeftAtTheCross - June 8, 2012

Mark, thanks for that clarification. I’m not looking for a row here, but honestly it does sound a bit like “SYRIZA won’t listen to us ‘cos we’re too small, the KKE are big enough and they might listen to them, but the KKE won’t talk to them and now we’re pissed off because the KKE isn’t doing our bidding for us”. Your description of the situation is good, I do appreciate you clarifying it, but is there a bit of a smack of entryist thinking there, trying to get the bigger organisation to do your work for you? Not saying the CWI wants to enter the KKE or anything, just that the habit of criticising other for not doing what you’re unable do do for yourselves rings a bit hollow.

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Mark P - June 8, 2012

It’s not a question of “doing our work”, it’s a question of advancing the position of the working class in Greece.

Mass organisations, like the KKE and SYRIZA clearly have both greater opportunities and greater responsibilities than organisations of a few hundred like Xekinima. There is no point in Xekinima trying to behave as if it is itself a mass organisation. In the short term, the decisions which shape the political future of the working class in Greece will be made by the two mass parties of that class.

Pointing out that one of those parties is behaving in a sectarian and counterproductive manner, while the other is fudging key political questions, is unfortunately not some idle point scoring exercise. Being smaller than another party doesn’t make you wrong – which you, as a Workers Party member, should be well aware of.

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LeftAtTheCross - June 8, 2012

“Being smaller than another party doesn’t make you wrong – which you, as a Workers Party member, should be well aware of.”

Ho ho. No it doesn’t, but being correct and being able to do something about it are clearly two different things. The KKE are in a position to act, they have earned that right. The sniping from the sidelines is tiresome.

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Mark P - June 8, 2012

That wasn’t meant as a dig, LATC, just a reminder that dismissal of a political group’s view on the sole grounds that it is smaller than another is hardly a position befitting anyone on the Irish left. Xekinima are heavily involved in working class and immigrant struggles in Greece, in a manner out of proportion to their numbers. They are also part of the Greek socialist movement. Advocating what they see as a way forward for that movement is hardly “sniping from the sidelines”.

You say that the KKE have the “right to act” because of their size. I almost agree with that, but I’d put it another way: Their size and social weight give them a responsibility to act to better the position of the Greek working class, and unfortunately at the moment it seems to me that they are instead acting in an irresponsibly sectarian way.

As for whether criticism is “tiresome”, I’m sure it is. But whether it’s irritating or not doesn’t determine whether it’s necessary or correct.

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LeftAtTheCross - June 8, 2012

No problem, I didn’t take it as a personal dig, I did credit you with the self-awareness that none of us here are members of mass parties (yet).

I agree with your rephrasing of the point I was making. It is about the responsibility to act, but where we disagree is over whose call it is to decide on how to exercise that responsibility. I contend that it is the KKE’s right to decide as they will how to exercise it. Xekinima are saying that they are acting irresponsibly, ok fair enough to express that opinion, but fair enough also for the KKE to disregard it.

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Mark P - June 8, 2012

Well, certainly.

Xekinima are well aware that they can’t force the KKE to act in a less sectarian manner any more than they can force SYRIZA to take a clear stance on the issues they fudge. All they can do is make their case to the members and supporters of both of those organisations in an open and friendly but critical way. Ultimately both SYRIZA and the KKE will make their own decisions, for better or, unfortunately, for worse.

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8. Oireachtas Retort - June 7, 2012

Minister Bruton getting very flustered every time someone suggests he’s not pro-business enough in the Dáil just there

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WorldbyStorm - June 7, 2012

I didn’t catch that. I guess the transcript tomorrow will reveal all… 🙂

Though isn’t it amazing how that charge could be levelled at this of all governments?

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9. Gearóid - June 8, 2012

‘If the aim of neoliberal capitalism is to create a world in which no one believes any other economic system could work, then it needs to suppress not just any idea of an inevitable redemptive future, but any radically different technological future’ http://www.thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars

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10. Mark P - June 8, 2012

On a completely different note, I officially retract any and all carping statements I’ve made about the wordpress comments system here.

I’ve been commenting on a couple of blogspot blogs with the “disqus” comments system, and it’s so astoundingly badly designed and prone to mixing things up that it made me positively nostalgic for wordpress’ little quirks. Like inserting responses in seemingly random places in discussion threads!

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WorldbyStorm - June 8, 2012

Yeah WordPress is clunky but it’s okay. Other platforms… Not good.

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11. Roasted Snow - June 11, 2012

Who would really stand by Ireland? It’s not a difficult question.

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12. Popealot - June 11, 2012

Funny how the Spanish phase of the European section of the global finanacial crisis is seen as ‘a problem with the banks’ rather than the state.

It just goes to show what an own-goal, even in terms of capatilist power-politics, the bank guarantee and it’s continuance by FG/Labour was.

Things are moving fast in Europe – and it is increasingly obvious that the gluing up the one negotiating lever was as dumb as nuts.

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