What you want to say… Open Thread, 17th October, 2012 October 17, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.
That rather wonderful US comedy “Bob’s Burgers” has gotten
renewed for a fourth season.
http://www.avclub.com/articles/bobs-burgers-lives-to-see-a-fourth-season,86791/
Gene: It’s the documentarian who hates Dad and puts wigs on cows!
Tina: Werner Herzog?
You were right about Fringe! Now watching series 4. I’ll take it as read that you’re right about Bob’s Burgers.
I’ll make an effort to watch it. Thanks Starkadder.
I think you’ll like BB – it has a nice line in humour and
it has a warmth reminiscient of the first few “Simpsons”
series or “King of the Hill”.
Sounds even better!
The ULA will be holding a public meeting with a SYRIZA MP on the situation in Greece this Friday in Wynne’s Hotel, Dublin at 8pm. It promises to be hugely informative for anyone on the left. Is there any chance it could get a post here to help spread the word?
https://www.facebook.com/events/277527975697377/
*Ignore the image used
Article from the Financial Times on the miners strike in South Africa show’s increasing signs of nervousness among the more intelligent wing of the bosses
“Two months into a strike that has seen tens of thousands of miners down tools and demand better wages, there is no sign that the mood is softening. Instead the indications are that workers are becoming more militant and better organised.”
and
“Complicating efforts to resolve the crisis, the traditional unions have lost their leverage over workers, who are instead setting up independent strike committees aided by socialist movements.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/91b10ab2-16ab-11e2-957a-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fglobal-economy%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct#axzz29ZG5TNWC
The Black Economic Empowerment scheme was not thought up by the ANC leadership: it actually emerged in the 1990s from the upper echelons of the South African mining industries, and the local branches of the multinationals. The idea was to buy off the new political elite who would come to power after 1994. I think we will soon be able to see what exactly it was they bought.
Well it certainly bought the leaders of the NUM!
Interesting supplement on women’s rights in today’s Irish Times
Including the usual nonsense about Constance Markievicz
the Constitution looks to me like there are feck all rights at all; so where do these ‘women’s rights arrive from.
What do you mean JRG?
The American Progressive Labor Party (anti-Kruschevite and Maoist as I understand these things) has produced an analysis of what became of the USSR and other states in the two decades after the collapse of the regimes there. Lots of facts and figures to back up their case. This won’t be to everyone’s taste – and some will love to hate it- but I thought I’d put it out there. I’ve pasted a wee extract below.
After the Fall : 20 Years Later In The Former Soviet States
In East Germany the 1990 currency union changed the
exchange rate from 4½:1 (4 ½ GDR marks was equal to
one West German mark) to 1:1 overnight creating a 450%
price inflation for East German goods. The increase in
prices destroyed the GDR’s export market which made up
39% of the overall GDR economy, therefore bringing the
whole economy down with it. A trusteeship was then set
up to manage the publicly owned infrastructure of East
Germany. The trusteeship sold the property as cheaply
and as quickly as it could, selling some factories for as
little as one mark. All of the industry and infrastructure
of East Germany had been owned by the working
class, but after the trusteeship’s fire sale 85% of it was
owned by West German capitalists, 10% was owned by
miscellaneous foreign capitalists, and 5% was purchased
by East German capitalists.19
In total 3,400 factories, 520 large construction companies,
465 cooperatives, and thousands of small businesses were
all privatized. Tired of competing against East German
industry the West German capitalists closed many of the
factories and businesses that they purchased.
http://progressivelaborparty.squarespace.com/storage/magazines/the-communist/complete/The%20Communist%20Winter%20%2712%20.pdf
“after the trusteeship’s fire sale 85% of it was
owned by West German capitalists, 10% was owned by
miscellaneous foreign capitalists”
“Tired of competing against East German
industry the West German capitalists closed many of the
factories and businesses that they purchased.”
Surely this does not make sense. They would have kept the most efficient and profitable open.
Yes, unless the East German industries would only have been comeptitive under socialist relations of production. Not sure if that constitutes an explanation, though. I have the booklet that the article refers to. I’ll hoke it out and see what they say in the original.
It would appear that Proinsias de Rossa has been elected to chair the board of TASC. http://www.tascnet.ie/showPage.php?ID=3299&PHPSESSID=f87d0bb52a050df1f45df7bca5ef770d
TASC is, according to its website ‘an independent think-tank dedicated to addressing Ireland’s high level of economic inequality and ensuring that public policy has equality at its core’.
Did any newspapers report this development with the headline ‘De Rossa New TASC Master’?
(I’ll get my coat)
Coincidentally, the first thought I had when I woke this morning was that TASC really needs a useless liberal adorning its board if it ever wants any real credibility.
Shortall apparently voted against the Government last night on the Home Help/carers motion. Not huge news perhaps, but still surprised that there is pretty much no mention of this in the media today.
Live video stream of Greek general strike (in Greek, I think):
http://www.zougla.gr/zouglatv
Not much to see at the minute.
Nick Griffin’s twitter account has been suspended after he posted the address of the gay couple who were refused a room at a B&B.
He seems to be suffering a full mental breakdown. It’d be hilarious except for the poor couple whose lives are at risk.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/18/bnp-nick-griffin-address-gay-couple
In other news an Oireachtas group is to visit Marian Price, who remains interned at Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’s pleasure.
Gene Kerrigan
Gene Kerrigan, formerly of SWM, iirc.
I’ve often heard it said that a “Where are they now?” list of people who were in the WP in the 80s would be fun. A similar for SWMers might be too.
Labour held a “celebration” of their 100th anniversary yesterday in Blanchardstown. The featured attractions included right wing Minister Joan Burton and useless bureaucrat David Begg. Patrick Nulty was also there. Not many others were. The crowd of less than 50 were outnumbered by CAHWT protestors, some of them with placards saying “100 years and 1 million miles from Connolly and Larkin”.
It’s important to demoralise Labour. They should meet a similarly hostile reception every time they hold a public event.
Why is it important to demoralise Labour?
A bit redundant when the latest poll has them losing 20 seats and FG seem to be immune to karma.
That’s it RID. It’s a curious line. Labour is weak to start off with. The worst crisis we’ve had in decades, Fianna Fáil collapses, and even though they get an historic best it’s actually pretty rubbish given they can’t even get 40 TDs. It’s getting weaker. And given their policy approach they’re going to be enormously weak. But here’s the thing. How does this profit the further left for whom exactly the same holds true in relation of the worst crisis etc…etc and the sum total is 5 seats for the ULA, a smattering of leftist Indo’s and so on.
Maybe it’s me but I can’t see the LP as anything other than a diversion. The real problem now is Fine Gael (a possibly renascent Fianna Fáil) and so on. That’s where the bulk of the electorates votes go and will I think continue to go. And beyond that fundamentally the real problem is an Irish electorate that will invariably put its votes in the care of the centre right and the right.
It reminds me a bit of the X case debates where there was much scorn poured on LP TDs. All very good, but they still weren’t the real problem on the issue, their vote numbers were far too small to make up any difference even if they were minded to. It was the faceless FG and FFers who would never in a million years vote for X let alone anything more liberal.
This obssesssion with the LP seems curious. If we were in the UK I’d understand it readily – there the LP is much much larger and has real political heft (though I suspect the chances of the further left making much of an impact on it – as seems to be the case in practice – is minimal). If it’s political calculation, that an LP weakened to disintegration (ain’t going to happen any time soon I’d bet) might be supplanted by the left, then I wonder. Seems to me SF is better placed to pick up their voters, or some of them, and ironically so would both FF and FG to a lesser extent.
Precisely. The LP shouldn’t be the focus. Nor should SF. The primary class enemies are FG/FF. Demoralisng the LP might satisfy the jilted feelings of ex-Militants but it does nothing to build a Left alternative, no more than picketing SF functions.
The reasons to maintain a consistent, hard, line on Labour are not particularly complex or esoteric.
1) Labour are the weak link in the government, the element more likely to flinch on particular issues for reasons of self preservation. Fine Gael can hold support on the basis that brutalising the lower orders is right and proper and indeed gives right thinking properties people a thrill of pleasure. Labour can’t and they know it (something which has so far been partially demonstrated by individual TDs heading for the exit).
2) The element of the Labour vote which hoped for something other than Fianna Fail policies from them is a key potential source of support for the actual left. Sure, SF will undoubtedly gain more but this is a central place where the left can make gains too. The notion that it makes more tactical sense to concentrate on FG or the remaining FF support is simply bizarre – we simply are not going to see a large scale shift from FG to the socialist left any time soon (or to SF) and the FF rump support is a hard core. Of the main right wing parties, Labour is the most vulnerable by far.
As for the benefits of demoralising Labour, whether or not they can turn out activists will play a role in determining the scale of their meltdown. They will for instance be scrapping for the last seat in a number of constituencies. Small numbers of votes can have a very big impact in that situation.
If we want to build a left of significance, savaging Labour is an important part of that process.
On two other issues mentioned:
1) Labour voted against legislating for x and are deserving of exactly as much “scorn” for that as FG or FF. They add to that however a sin of their own, rank hyopcrisy, and it’s also worth noting that they are more vulnerable on this issue because of their more socially liberal support as compared to the other right wing parties.
2) If SF were currently in government implementing massive austerity in the South we’d certainly be protesting at their meetings too. And indeed once they are, we will be.
There is no real ‘weak link’ in this government. Labour won’t walk (or if they do only a limited number will go), indeed you’ve been the very one to argue that they won’t. And also you’ve been the person to argue that they’re wedded to neo-liberalism through and through. Why would they walk? You yourself have said that the ones who have left are pretty much the only ones who would.
That’s fine about getting some votes from ex-LP members, but the problem is that it still remains a small enough number. Even a doubling of the current number of furthest left TDs in the Dáil would be a grand total of ten ULA (actually, it would now be 8). I’m not sure what timescale we’re looking at here, but even a doubling every election every five years would require decades before there was a significant left. Twenty years to get to 64 TDs. Again though the problem is that you won’t get 64 TDs on the LP vote. As it stands today the max would be 34 or so. As it historically has been 16 to 20. And I think we’d all agree that some of those votes will cleave rightwards to FF and centre leftish to SF.
BTW, given the ULA has already had one TD leave and the SP one TD leave I’d be pessimistic about the chances for this ‘left of significance’ manifesting itself any time soon.
Tactically rank hypocrisy is neither here nor there. Pouring scorn at the LP still doesn’t make a blind bit of difference if the object of the exercise is maximising the numbers who might come in on X legislation eventually. That requires changing hearts and minds in FF and FG.
And of course the SP doesn’t believe in a parliamentary road to socialism in any case, so regardless of whether or not it will take decades to build up the numbers of TDs what’s the point of decimating the LP from the SP’s perspective? Where is the project going?
” If SF were currently in government implementing massive austerity in the South we’d certainly be protesting at their meetings too. And indeed once they are, we will be.”
Ah, the apogee of political ambition …
Without being glib the last five years makes me suspect that the Irish electorate is unlikely to go down the non-parliamentary road to socialism. It’s adherence to the institutions of the state seem relatively unshaken. But if that’s the case I’m puzzled how all those FF and FG voters, some 50 per cent plus of the population can be converted to socialism. Actually I’d love to know how they could be converted to traditional social democracy.
“Actually I’d love to know how they could be converted to traditional social democracy.”
Indeed. There’s a starting point for a journey and a project that has a whiff of reality about it.
Exactly, or even just as a start an outline of how things are intended to progress across the years.
“There is no real ‘weak link’ in this government. Labour won’t walk (or if they do only a limited number will go), indeed you’ve been the very one to argue that they won’t. And also you’ve been the person to argue that they’re wedded to neo-liberalism through and through. Why would they walk? You yourself have said that the ones who have left are pretty much the only ones who would.
1) I expect more Labour TDs to desert over time because that’s what self interest dictates. If I was a Labour backbencher (and had the politics that necessarily implies), I’d be finding an issue to jump on.
2) I don’t expect Labour to walk out of this government any time soon. I do however believe that they are significantly more likely to flinch on individual issues, again because that’s what self interest dictates.
3) I do however think that there is a fair chance that at some point in the future Labour will pick an issue to jump on. That’s the smart thing for any junior government partner to do, and I would expect Labour to learn from the Greens experience. That said, I wouldn’t go so far as to say “I expect” them to eventually walk, because the usual party interest is counterbalanced by the fact that quite a number of senior Labour leaders are probably going to retire. Either way, they certainly aren’t going soon and its not really relevant to my point.
4) Yes, Labour are wedded to neo-liberalism through and through. Nothing I’ve said presumes anything else. I don’t think that Labour are more likely to flinch on any given issue because they have some secret left wing conscience, I think that they are more likely to flinch because they are weaker and because that’s what their electoral interests dictate.
On your broader points, I don’t necessarily disagree with a lot of what you are saying. I have no illusions that a mass socialist left (whether “parliamentary”or otherwise) is going to be easy to build or that it will be built overnight. It will in all likelihood be a difficult process, involving setbacks and significant obstacles. And let’s be clear, it isn’t as if anybody has succeeded in building a mass socialist left in Ireland in previous generations (and again whether committed to a “parliamentary road” or otherwise).
I also agree that Labour’s meltdown will benefit Fine Gael (as people go for the real thing rather than the pale imitation) and Sinn Fein (who are a lot better placed and whose populism is easier to peddle) more than the left. But the left will benefit from it too.
Bringing change on X involves forcing Labour into it like the other main right wing parties, as they’ve already demonstrated their opposition in practice. And showing the not insubstantial section of their audience who care about abortion that they are useless hypocrites is worthwhile in and of itself.
smiffy:
I try to take a ruthlessly realistic approach to politics in so far as I can. Sinn Fein are going to grow substantially in the near future. If the arithmetic falls their way they will go into government. And if they do so they will, as in the North, be a a right wing, business as usual party. Meanwhile, even assuming growth on the part of the left, it will in the short and medium term be an oppositional force. There’s no lack of ambition involved in understanding that – for ambition to be meaningful you have to ground it in an understanding of the possibilities open to you.
LATC:
I’m not sure what you are getting at with the “parliamentary road to socialism” stuff. Neither Labour nor the Socialist Party advocate such a thing. As for the benefit of Labour imploding, it is something that the left can gain support out of, winning over (a minority of) seriously disgruntled former Labour voters. It is not going to have a transformative effect on the left, but you take your chances as you find them.
And likewise, I too agree with much of the above, but I’m still not clear as to why the focus on Labour? Particularly given that the gains from it appear to be marginal and decreasing (given its own decreasing share of the vote and popularity). Such an approach seems to also have a number of major problems in that it ignores the fact that even if the LP goes in steps SF into much the same area, albeit with a more populist and more left (than LP) rhetoric (and in some instances policy) and that those who have voted consistently over the past ten years for the LP weren’t voting for a left party – at least by your own yardstick. That being the case how is it easier to pull them left than say a tranche of FFers (who are probably numerically greater)?
The remaining Fianna Fail vote is extremely hardened and in the short term is pretty much immune to the blandishments of any other party. There have been very many situations where it made tactical emphasis to place more emphasis on them than on, say, their junior coalition partner of the day.
Labour’s likely meltdown doesn’t in and of itself represent an enormously game changing opportunity, but it does represent an opportunity. It would be foolish to pass that up in favour of a strong concentration on Fine Gael, where to put it mildly the opportunities are more limited. Plus, in terms of individual issues, Labour’s weakness and its different electoral considerations really do make it more likely to flinch.
Whatever about the FF vote being ‘hardened’ I find it very unlikely that the LP vote is more likely to stray. A number of reasons suggest that. Firstly the historic average across the last twenty years has been 10 or so per cent, so those who’ve stuck with the LP have stuck through thick and thin and as the party has jettisoned more and more of social democracy. Indeed by my lights and most likely yours it hasn’t been a genuinely social democratic party since the 1980s (whatever about its functional profile as an adjunct of FG).
Given that its current polling is just 4 per cent above that and that those votes appear to have been gifted from FF when that party collapsed only the 4 per cent seems to me to be seriously in play. That 10 per cent if they put up with Rabbitte, Quinn and dear God almighty that anti-paragon of social democracy Spring are hardly likely to jump ship just because its back in government yet again. And if they are likely to jump ship it seems inconceivable that they’d go to the ULA.
I’d think it would be FF/Indo’s of the left (as distinct from ULA) and FG in that order that they’d go if the party collapsed. And since it has fallen to 12 TDs (and 6.5 per cent) in living memory without vanishing I can’t see why it couldn’t stagger on with as many or less.
And that still brings me back to the point that it’s that 4 per cent who came in from FF who might be open to other options – except… except… they came in from FF so they’re unlikely to be keen to go much more leftwards, are they?
Whatever about the FF vote being ‘hardened’ I find it very unlikely that the LP vote is more likely to stray.
The Labour vote is going to “stray” in every direction and it’s going to do so in a big way. The Fianna Fail vote is likely to stay static or grow.
More generally, I think that the framework in that comment assumes too much in the way of relatively long term, conscious, ideological commitment to the outlook of their party of choice from the Irish electorate. We’re in the middle of a crisis. Lots of people are going to be disgruntled and will be more open to drawing new political conclusions as a result (in many cases right wing ones, sometimes populist ones, and in some cases potentially left wing ones.) It’s going to be politically volatile for a while.
The rump FF vote is unusually tribal and unusually committed. They are the ones who stayed put after FF destroyed the economic future of the country after all. And they are out of government, which is very important at the moment. Those people are amongst the hardest people to convince to shift political allegiances in the country, in any direction.
The Labour vote contains some people who very much support them as liberals, but it also contains a range of much softer elements, floating voters, people who expected Labour to “protect the most vulnerable” (as they would claim to do), people who expected Labour to “protect public sector workers” (as idiot newspaper columnists constantly claim they do), people who like their local candidate for whatever reason etc etc. At the same time, they are in office and are going to keep doing thing that are very unpopular.
That doesn’t mean that the Labour vote is about to convert to revolutionary socialism en masse, of course. It just means that an emphasis on Labour makes more sense than an emphasis on Fianna Fail.
More generally, I think that the framework in that comment assumes too much in the way of relatively long term, conscious, ideological commitment to the outlook of their party of choice from the Irish electorate.
The problem is precisely what you say above, but the actuality of how people function in relation to that tends in practice at least hitherto generally away from the left. Of course I don’t for a second think that people regard themselves consciously, in the main, as attached to the orthodoxy, but attached they are. And time and again their votes flow mostly not to the further left but to parties of the orthodoxy – or as in the case of SF and left Indo’s to somewhat oppositional parties. And as I noted above, for those who did go to the LP from SF, why would they feel they should go further left? The gap – a self-admitted gap on your part – is just too great to shift from the mildest strand of social democracy to there.
And there’s the point that we’re five years in and the greatest fracture of the Irish political system in several generations has still not seen any serious flow to the further left. The largest progressive shifts were towards LP, SF and left social democrat Independents in that order at the last election. And certainly there’s no data suggesting increased support for it in the period since 2012. I simply don’t see any evidence for the electorate drawing the sort of political conclusions you seem to believe they will. Indeed even if the left got say, 1 or 2 per cent of that vote that would what, deliver a couple of extra TDs perhaps at best? I don’t think that’s unlikely by the way one way or another whatever happens to the LP, but it’s still not clear how the situation of the left would be substantially improved by it.
But all of that aside, the potential LP vote is still tiny as regards providing any momentum for a societal shift (and all of this discussion puts entirely to one side the troubles of the ULA and SP over the past Summer which is hardly something likely to increase attractiveness to others).
Which still brings one back to the central point which has become somewhat obscured in this tangent to the discussion. What’s the game plan in the medium term? How long to persuade a majority, or even a functional minority who currently must by analysis of the polls vote for FF and FG towards that much further left of social democracy position?
Which they most certainly are. I’d go a bit further too. If one looks at the polls there seems a solid enough bloc of support, over 50 % for right of centre parties. If we throw the LP into the right of centre category that bloc of support strengthens.
Now say the LP was pursuaded to leave government, a prospect I find almost unbelievable, even on current figures FG would require no more than 7 extra TDs including its current lot to have a majority including the Ceann Comhairles position. A few rump LPers (I’m looking at Cabinet members) plus Ross and Donnelly, and perhaps another one or two Indo’s would easily do the trick.
That doesn’t work? They call on FF for supply and confidence measures.
And they(FG) are still cruising to the next election sufficiently strong to make up numbers as a minority govt. supported by FF or as a coalition with FF or some other combination.
And if the LP isn’t a left wing party then why focus on them more than on FF or FG?
I’m not trying to be depressingly gloomy about all this – or let the LP off the hook, but there seem to me to be some pretty huge structural problems which need to be addressed.
I was going to post a reply to this but I said to myself ‘f*ck it – I’m too tired – and the entire argument will just go over WbS’s head anyway and we will be back making the same points again tomorrow’ – so goodnight, sleep well, and here’s hoping something happens tomorrow to make the LP fall asunder.
That’s fairly gratuitously insulting to me JRG to be honest, come back some time when you’ve learned some courtesy but not before then.
Ah, the apogee of political ambition …
In case some of you missed this:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1020/1224325504143.html
“SOCIALIST PARTY TD Joe Higgins was entitled to use a Dáil allowance to cover travelling expenses outside Dublin, Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin has confirmed.
Mr Howlin has written to the Dublin West TD saying his claims for travelling expenses to attend anti-household charge rallies and meetings throughout the country were allowable under new rules laid down in 2010.”
It would appear that Deputy Higgins and Daly have been vindicated.
I always felt that was trumped up (and vindictive) nonsense against them. Totally unfair. FFS, they’re politicians who are committed to those causes! Good news anyhow.
Not that this will get much attention in the bourgeois media.
lol
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/gallagher-retreated-to-monastery-after-failed-aras-bid-3265664.html
I asked him to say a prayer for me while he was in there and he said no problem, all it would cost me was a five hundred euro consultancy fee.
George McGovern RIP.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1021/breaking14.html
This little blood pressure raiser was dropped by Decca Aikenhead in her interview with Peter Hitchens in the Guardian:
Just as Marxism only makes sense if you believe basic human impulses can be eradicated in the interest of a greater good, the same is true of Hitchens’s faith in the power of the law to defeat a basic human instinct for intoxification. “I’m not a utopian! I’m not a perfectionist!’
Can some one find the bit where Marx recommends the eradication of basic human impulses? Thanks in advance.
It’s in the same passage he advocates mass murder, bestiality, and the bank guarantee, obviously! Gee, SoS, you need to be more of a careful reader of Marx.
Gerry O’Hanlon R.I.P.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/obituaries/2012/1020/1224325506941.html
http://archive.org/details/TheHistoryShowEpisode10NearFm Latest episode of the The History Show on Near FM. Interview with Conor McCabe about the history of the southern Irish economy since partition.