Our blogroll… September 3, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
…needs looking at. Some of those sites are now defunct, and it might be worth categorising them. What will be done is to put together a left online periodicals heading. I’ve made a start with the very handy An Phoblacht online, Look Left – needless to say, and the People’s Movement News Digest. If you think your formation, fraction or party should be here any suggestions gratefully received. As are any wider suggestions. When the site started those of us then involved put together lists of what was thought should be onboard (ah, the agonising over Lenin’s Tomb… đ – it’s staying by the way), but to be honest things have moved on, this is about those involved now, and so time to wipe the slate cleaner and start mostly afresh.
Let the culling commence…
Speaking of An Phoblacht on-line, and in print – and generally I like the make-over, a nice mention of the Cedar Lounge here. I’ve also been asked to mention a Special ‘Best Of Edition’ of An Cruiskeen Lawnmower .
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
When you’re changing your blogroll, please don’t forget Politicalworld.org, now holding more than 60,000 posts after our first 6 months, with subforums for all functioning political groups who request one.
Machine Nation is now sadly defunct, but on line as a resource, with a lot of threads well worth the visit.
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C.Flower, ye of little faith, đ look at the list on the right hand column under ‘discussions’ and you will see one entry only for the excellent Political World where it has been for a while now. Thanks a mill for mentioning us on yr thread – appreciated
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Oh, by the way, 5intheFace featured the Cedar Lounge Revolution as Political World’s “Blog of the Week” last week – comments and contributions to the thread would be welcomed.
http://www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php?p=62872#post62872
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*OOops* Thanks for the very nice link đ
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I suspect PW will remain in splendid isolation under that. I can’t think of any other board that comes close…
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Why agonise over Lenin’s Tomb? Genuine question.
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surely Irish Left Review is a left online magazine?
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IIRC One of the then contributors wasn’t happy with the tone of it. It can be combatative in their comments section. I saw the point but didn’t see the harm in linking.
Dead right Conor, I was probably tricking the magazine bit over the online AP and LL at least being printed, but from our links section to magazines section it shall go.
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“tricking”???? See what tiny touchscreens and predictive testing do… Reifying…Reifying the magazine bit over the online…
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I regularly check in to http://anticap.wordpress.com/
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Why is their masthead in upper case?
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We should have links to yourfriendinthenorth and thegreatunrest. I’ll pass the links to WBS.
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Thanks for the plug for the lawnmower and the many visits from the lounge.
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tis no problem… very welcome.
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well, I’ve just started a blog to analyse opinion polls (and already had a link to here ‘cos I love it here so much….) would be nice to see a link back!
http://irishpollingreport.wordpress.com/
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Brilliant, thanks Dotski. Sorry about that, there’s no way of knowing whose linking back…
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Nice site too.
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cheers! no, wasn’t really expecting ppl to check it out until the next poll really, it’s just been set up – I just linked here and a few places I like myself.
thanks for the kind words, though!
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It might be worth adding some blogs to the roll that have been discussed a few times in different threads:
Nina Power’s blog:
http://infinitethought.cinestatic.com/
Owen Hatherley’s blog:
http://nastybrutalistandshort.blogspot.com/
Mark Fisher’s blog:
k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/
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Cool, nice one.
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WBS, you should really put a cat amongst the pigeons and organise the links by political category as you see fit. Ultra Lefts/Namby-Pamby Liberals/Unreconstructed Stalinists/Loony Libertarians/Ethnic Exceptionalists etc…
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Or… you could organise comments between those who have something to say, and those who have something to say but don’t want to use their real name in case it hurts their future career prospects.
you can take the boy away from his middle-class respectability, but you can’t take the middle-class respectability away from the boy…
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If we’re going Four Yorkshiremen, there’s not much middle-class respectability in my neck of the woods, old boy. But thanks for playing anyway.
I wasn’t having a go at you or anyone else, FWIW. You’d need to be seriously paranoid or humour-deficient to read that as other than a light-hearted comment.
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Not sure who that’s directed at Conor. I’ve never really bought into the idea of lack of anonymity as being the touchstone of credibility here or anywhere else (although I cross post articles from the CLR under an entirely legitimate version of my own name). If the ideas are any good then that’s mostly all that matters – and of course the nature of the interactions. Far too many people use anonymity as a shield to attack others from behind.
People have lots of reasons to post above and beyond career prospects – although sometimes it’s not career prospects that are important but current careers. If I was going back to the beginning I’d use the Donal Mac an Eala formulation on P.ie (as I have elsewhere), but that was then and this is now and despite the embarassment at acknowledging as I did to LeftAtTheCross the other weekend in real life that er… yes, I was wbs, but really my name was etc, etc…
Considering most people who I work with who have any interest or knowledge ofthe CLR either have a damn good idea of who WBS is, or already know it’s not – thankfully an issue for me.
As for D_D’s comment, wasn’t that just an easy going joke for a Saturday morning?
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It was a bit of a cutting jipe I suppose, so apologies.
But you have touched on something there, WBS, which has been on my mind recently, and it has to do with anonymity and the web. Now is not the time nor place to flesh it out, as the post is about the blogroll, but I really don’t see how it is beneficial for the Left in Ireland in the medium to long-term for those Left voices to be anonymous. (That’s not directed at particularly any one person, just something that’s on my mind.)
I’ve probably said too much here, as I don’t want to kick off a topic, but maybe next month or something we can come back to this.
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Well it really depends on who those left voices are and what their expertise is.
I kind of know what you mean and I’ve too been thinking about it too, hence I’ve raised the flag of my own name in a few places… but in some ways I wonder is that a distraction. There’s a certain playfulness that using a handle can bring… i.e. you can write about 3D cinema, the deficit and The Saints without changing gear in a way that when one writes about music or whatever it can seem terribly earnest under ones own name. The other thing I notice is that my tone of writing changes when I write under my own name, it takes on a less chatty, more ‘academic’ style, probably because a lot of it is for academia and that filters through. Not sure that’s an improvement.
The other question is, to what purpose? The ILR and TASC are groaning in a good way under the weight of people writing under their own names (I’ve thought of retrofitting the WBS handle there to DMaE) but again…
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I really donât see how it is beneficial for the Left in Ireland in the medium to long-term for those Left voices to be anonymous.
You have a valid point there Conor of course.
Do people have the courage of their convictions to stand up and be counted under their own names? Clearly I don’t myself.
Like it or not, many people in society view Left-wing opinions as eccentric, radical dangerous. People I know seem to feel threatened by overtly political discussion, angry and not in a positive way (there’s an element of psychological projection of their own frustrations onto people who vocalise an anti-orthodoxy view, a lightning rod effect). I’m referring to people that I know in work and socially, yes middle-class in the sense that their class consciousness is undelevoped or repressed, but middle-income wage earners, not actual or aspirant capitalists by any means.
Personally I am concerned about my work situation, yes. I work in a small world where professional reputation is very important, everyone knows or at least knows of everyone else in this particular field, and where voicing Left views could unjustifiably cause “contamination” of that reputation. I’m personally not willing to out myself from the closet in that climate.
I acknowledge that other people have more courage in that regard and they have my highest respect.
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As I said, it’s not about blogging as such, it’s about the presence of the Irish Left on the web, and by extension, the presence of the Irish left in Ireland. Blogging is part of that, but the debate about anonymity is wider than blogging.
and Progressive Economy is a great example of anonyminity – an saoi, sli elie – in fact, it once posted an article written by ‘anon’.
anyway, sure,we’ll come back to this hopefully.
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It’s not the place for the discussion, but just to clarify: The reason I don’t use my real name is that, while none of you would recognise it, the local bureaucrats certainly would (at least the surname, which belongs to a long line of local agitators.)
I have a lot of vulnerable and elderly relatives who are dependent on the infinite mercy of the state, and I’m not going to land them in the shit for the sake of a blog (if I were actively involved in politics, I’d have to take that risk, of course.) If you think that sounds paranoid, trust me, it’s very relevant to the experiences of the actually existing working class in places like this. I trust that’s satisfactory.
To get back on topic, the Left News Twitter feed is a good source of worldwide left news and blogs (although some of it is a bit off the wall.) Follow http://twitter.com/left_news
Through the above, I came across the very worthwhile http://www.sunflowersocialists.org/weblog/ and their Red State podcast. It’s SPUSA party-line, but there are some very interesting interviews with heavy-hitters William Wharton and David McReynolds in episode 1.
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leftatthecross, very valid points you are making there. what I’m thinking now is, in five years time, in ten years time, do we still want to have a mainly anonymous presence on the web – that’s the Irish left who write/contribute to web sites. If we can somehow move away from the personal for a bit, and ask ourselves, is that worth pursuing?
and you are right. There are going to be sacrifices, but there’s no way on this earth that Ireland is moving in any way leftward without them.
There needs to be an organised presence, not in terms of a maxist-leninst cadre, but so that when discrimination is faced, it can be resisted by the group as a whole.
I was over in the States last year at a working class studies conference, and the great thing about it was that it was mostly working class academics – people who had worked in steelmills and went back to college, or fell into academia through their trade union activities – and when I told them that in Ireland there is around 34 per cent union membership and about a 20 per cent broad-left vote, they were just so jealous. One woman, who had spent three years in Las Vegas agitating to organise the hotel workers there, and did it, was just going ‘what we could do with those percentgages.’
You can see that I’m still a bit all over the place with this one, still thinking it through, but you’re right about the risks in Ireland with being associated with the Left. But maybe we have to start asking ourselves whether that is ever going to change unless we start doing something about it, but doing it in an organised, self-protecting, way.
I mean, the Irish right has somehow managed to make a labour movement with 34 per cent membership and 20 per cent vote base feel isolated and individual. and if we feel that way, what chance have we of bringing others over to our side?
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Got to say that I think this is overemphasizing the net presence. I don’t want to do down what I or others do on the net, but the reality is that very little of that is going to make any functional difference to the political situation in Ireland – it’s for the most part a sort of interest/pastime – whereas what I and unfortunately all too countable and few others who drop leaflets, canvass at locals or generals, or contribute posters or policy development will make at least some difference and it’s the work done on a week by week basis across years that builds up a left presence in various places.
This stuff we do is more about energizing those who are already leftwing, which is no bad thing in itself, but it’s not us who have to be convinced, it’s the people who never read a blog, never read a political book. Maybe Facebook, but I don’t know, I don’t know if political expressions there are like advertising and simply ignored.
I think one of the problems we face is recognizing just how marginal the web is to political activity and even to broader influence. D_D’s thoughts on Circumlimina about a newspaper, while obvious problematic in terms of how it could be generated are much much closer to the truth. That’s how, just as with the old Irish People, it’s just possible that left thinking might permeate, a radio station too, the stuff on DCTV is in that sort of vein.
But the net? Blogs? I’m dubious.
And another thing, let’s not absolutely overstate the risks of being associated with expressing left views [Which is not to disagree with either LATC or D_D, and of course the party matters, there’s no particular problem being a member of the LP, it’s further left that eyebrows start being raised]. I never made a secret of the fact I canvassed for Gregory or helped out on subsequent local campaigns, or indeed was a member of DL or WP back in the day. But blogging is slightly different because there we’re expressing our own take on these things and in a very very public albeit limited coverage forum.
I see what you’re saying Conor about the right making the left feel isolated, but truth is much of that 34 per cent is broken up into different and competitive factions (most of it is FF voting or was) and fractions, that the centre right has the entirety of the media both state and private in its hands.
Blogs aren’t going to change that and anonymity in that context seems to me to be something of a sidewshow. It’s back to the streets and not in protests but in activism and communities and knocking on doors and getting that message out.
Finally the thought struck me that paradoxically it could be of benefit to me to go more public – the Left Archive could be reshaped into a more academic operation with relative ease. The commentary too given requests to put stuff in publications. And yet there’s something I’m not sure I like about that. A couple of years ago someone commented snarkily that I was gagging to be Fintan O’Toole and I just thought, fuck it – they really don’t get what it’s about.
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Well, when people these days want to find something out, they google it. and you got to ask yourself, in five years time are LESS people going to be using the net for information and analysis? In fifteen years time are we going to have a Left in Ireland going “well we never really got into that whole internet thing ‘cos it was a bit of a waste of time. didn’t have a future as far as debate and analysis goes.”
The web, as far as I can see, is what you put into it.
With this point:
“the reality is that very little of that is going to make any functional difference to the political situation in Ireland ”
Well, fair enough. But I think you’re making yourself redundant here and are covering it with the old chestnut “well the reality is…”
The reality is that we’re experiencing a rollback in reforms at the moment, which means there was a time then the reforms were rolled out.
And those reforms were rolled out with all of the structural problems and FF voting patterns you alluded to there. The picture’s a bit more complicated.
“I think one of the problems we face is recognizing just how marginal the web is to political activity and even to broader influence.”
I find this very hard to understand. The web is a conduit for information. It’s like saying mobile phones are marginal to political activity. you can use it to send a dirty photo or plan a revolution.
The newspaper circulation figures which came out this week were very interesting.
The Irish Times was around 104,000. The Examiner, 54,000. The Evening Herald, 61,000. Or thereabouts.
Now, it’s quite normal for a website to have 50,000 hits a week. It is a reasonable, achievable aim, no?
I mean, there are obstacles, it would need planning, energy and resources, but… 50,000 hits a week? Let’s say that in five years time, something to aim for?
The web is what you put into it. That’s what I believe anyway.
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Haven’t be done anonymity on here before? (I don’t mean “so Conor needn’t bother”, I mean “I’m sure we have, if anybody can remember where there might have been interesting things said”.)
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Well, it’s an developing process. But I’d rarelycriticise someone for being anonymous. If they’re reasonably ok in terms of interactions that’s all that matters.
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I’ve never really thought about this as an issue one way or the other: I use a makey- up name, but one that contains my first name, mainly because it seemed to be the form on message boards, but I’ve no issue with people knowing who I am -Stan Erraught – if anyone still needs to know. I’m cursed with a unique name as far as I can tell from auto-googling, so anything I write or do is pretty traceable – again though, I wouldn’t want to work for anyone who was bothered by my politics.
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“auto-googling”
Wasn’t that in Shortbus?
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had to google that : )
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ooohhh! PLEASE I AM NOT ASKING FOR PEOPLE’S NAMES.
I’m not saying that cedarlounge has to be names only – I’m talking about the Irish left’s presence on the web. This is a left-wing site, so by default it’s part of the Irish left’s presence on the web. BUT PLEASE NO NAMES!!!!!!!!
And even with that, I haven’t really thought it through. This is just thinking out loud here.
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I know you weren’t.
I’m not totally sure what you’re getting at to be honest – I don’t really see what difference it makes whether someone uses his/her real name or not on the ‘net- and perhaps as much leftist/ radical activity has been conducted through history under the mask of anonymity/ pseudonymity as now.
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Conor, I’m not suggesting we stop googling or turn away from technology, but what I am suggesting is that there’s more to this than on-line.
I guess the model in my head is fairly straightforward.
The net is used to generate discussions between already extant leftists – and within reason attempt to build up informal alliances – and with luck pull a few more people in. How many more people is open to question, but I’d think it would be relatively few. There’s a broader more amorphous influence, people who are tilting left, and a lot of these wouldn’t be the people who comment say here, but more people who read (who are absolutely as important and I wish they’d say something the odd time because they’re really valuable to our own site but also to the proliferation of ideas) and take on board ideas, use them in their daily conversations. I don’t even know how we could gauge that, but again I think it would be somewhat limited. This may change for the better, our influence (ie the lefts) may increase, or it could be that with yer Pings and Facebooks, etc, it’ll become even more marginalized as it tries to expand in a space that is ever more crowded with social media.
The way I personally try to engage online is putting my own arguments up where I can and linking to people, Michael Taft, you, the ILR, whoever where I can’t (Now given the relative popularity of this site under the pseudonyms that both myself Garibaldy, smiffy of yore, etc have had I find it difficult to believe that anonymity or pseudonimity is dragging us down or that somehow we’d be doing better if we revealed our real names).
Then with luck the discussion and the interactions help those involved to work even more effectively on the ground in campaigns, elections, helping out friends who do so, whatever. I’m not suggesting that only in canvassing is the soul of socialist man and woman to be found – but I would say it’s a huge help and it’s the fundamental way of getting our message out. But there’s lots of ways people who’re not involved in the sharp end can help out. Commnunity and residents groups one estates, apartments, etc are less political, but they deal with basic issues that people come across. Local campaigns, etc, etc. You don’t have to be a socialist to want the swimming pools to be kept open but your presence on those campaigns is great.
That’s why it’s a two pronged strategy.
The SP know this better than most. They’re rightly enthusiastic about getting JH back into the DĂĄil and with luck a few more to sit with him. They’re not hitting the keyboards to do so.
And there is a slight problem with your elision of newspapers and political activity. They’re two separate things. Yes, newspapers get copies purchased, I’m never really sure if hits equal full views, I doubt it, but a newspaper doesn’t win an election per se. It has an entirely different function. It can set an atmosphere, but it doesn’t do the hard work at the coal face. I think we’re lucky with the articulacy of left wing sites in this country, but we’re not news media.
Now none of this, and I’ve written a post about the dearth of economic expertise on the Irish left which I’ve never posted, is to deny huge gaps in the output of left parties particularly on the policy side and of course the net can be part of that. ButâŠ
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Feel free to disregard, but http://www.ograshinnfein.blogspot.com is regularly updated gets a fair few hits and is occasionally interesting enough (can often be mundane too, but nonetheless)
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Absolutely, that’s on the new list.
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cheers
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Some commentators are in employments where even though officially you’re free to engage in political activity, in practice being associated with even vague leftism (or Green-ism) would be a significant career blight.
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EWI, I want to echo that, I certainly don’t want to give the impression that expressing political views in the workplace is a breeze.
Ironically, and I’m very dubious about the use of the term in this conversation because it’s being used in a perjorative way and in truth people can’t be blamed for the class they’re born into but more where they stand in relation to working people, those in higher middle income workplaces are much less likely to get any gip for political expressions of views than those in median or lower middle income groups. The ‘Green’ lawyer or architect is (in general, not in specific) less liable to get hassle than the SF office worker.
From my time in the WP I well remember people getting serious hassle (whatever their class background) for being members with workplaces being notified. I’ve heard similar stuff about SF people more recently.
Of course the big no no is unionization in many areas – that’s where the serious serious hassle arises (and by the way is another crucial area for people to be involved in if they don’t want to go the party route). Myself and another two guys unionized a group of companies in the early 2000s and the way we did it was to go to middle management as well as the general staff because once we got sales reps etc in we were able to pitch much further. So again the middle income stuff works counterintuitively and useful allies can be found even if they won’t go with you all the way (it took quite a while to peel some of them off to the mgmt side by which time there were sufficient people onside to force LRC/LC involvement. And in fairness some stuck with the union through thick and thin).
Outside the workplace it’s a bit different, but there are a whole host of reasons why people might want to keep on the qt. Partners also have employers. If people have kids and mortgages they may be worried of some form of blowback in employment, or just hassle. These are not insignificant worries. Indeed LATC puts it very well indeed.
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I’m now at http://www.danielsullivan.ie/blog, though I release I’m not necessarily part of the consensus here, I do try and be somewhat constructive most of the time.
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Duly noted DS… đ
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