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CPOI Press Statement: Noonan letting the cat out of the bag October 8, 2012

Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics, The Left.
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8 October 2012

The statement today by the minister for finance, Michael Noonan, calling on the European Central Bank to make a “declaration of intent” about some kind of solution in relation to the Anglo-Irish Bank promissory notes is a clear sign of desperation by a government that has neither the political will nor the courage to challenge this illegitimate and odious anti-people debt dumped on the backs of our people.

The Irish establishment have been claiming almost every time they come back from these jamborees that they have struck a deal; but no sooner have they their backsides back in their Mercs than their “deal” unravels.

This is the first time that any Irish minister has publicly admitted that there is strong link between the government’s budget strategy and the repayments of this odious debt. This he did when he stated: “It would help me doing the budgetary arithmetic if something could be arranged” in relation to the promissory notes.

The sick, the poor, pensioners, those who need and use government services and all working people are paying and will increasingly pay an unbearable price for a debt that is not the people’s. Our people are being crucified to pay the debts of bankers and speculators and to keep the EU and Irish elite in the wealthy life-style they believe is theirs by right.

There is no shortage of capital in Europe: it is estimated that nearly €3 trillion is accumulated within the EU that cannot be invested do to the fact that there are to few investment opportunities outside of financial speculation. All this unused capital is in the hands of the very same banks and speculators that demand the payment of this odious debt.

How can the Labour Party stand over massive cuts in spending while making the people pay for this corporate debt. What we need from this government is a declaration of intent to stop paying this debt, to repudiate it as an anti-democratic imposition on our people by the external troika in co-operation with our own internal troika.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND

Comments»

1. ghandi - October 9, 2012

Matt Treacy’s new book on the CPI has just been released hot off the press see lulu.com here

http://www.lulu.com/shop/matt-treacy/the-communist-party-of-ireland-1921-2011/paperback/product-20438728.html

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Mark P - October 9, 2012

That should make things fun in the comments sections around here for a while.

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Ed - October 9, 2012

“… particular emphasis on the relationship between the Irish Communists and the IRA.”

Really? I never would have guessed …

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eamonncork - October 9, 2012

Lulu.com? Ah, go on.

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2. Branno's ultra-left t-shirt - October 9, 2012

‘Lulu.com? Ah, go on.’ Don’t it make you wanna shout?

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3. smiffy - October 9, 2012

That’s Christmas sorted, so.

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4. steve McCann - October 10, 2012

have the CPI co-operated with this book

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5. tumbles - October 25, 2012

Is the permission of the subject required 🙂

Interesting book. Doubt there shall be any threats of legal action or accusations of lying or recommendations to stick to the day job now 🙂

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6. dark warrior - October 28, 2012

very informative book

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7. steve McCann - October 28, 2012

ill hazzard a guess that the book will suggest the big bad commies infiltrated the republican movement as there was no republican socialism before the late 60s and that mellows, o donnell, gilmore, tadgh barry and jimmy gralton were imaginary figures

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8. tumbles - October 29, 2012

Read the book 🙂

Republican socialism by the way is a different animal to Stalinism. Three of the four people you mention were CP members which they concealed at one time or another from the IRA.

Just saying 🙂

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Ed - October 30, 2012

He mentioned 5 people.

Rigorous scholarly approach in evidence as before.

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9. Niall of the Nine Hostages - October 29, 2012

I presume Seanie Lemass and Phelan have read it. Maybe AP/RN might review this book eh Tumbles? Why did they not bother with your other opus? Is it because the dreaded commie Coughlan has advised the republican movement on European issues for some time? I’m putting the book on the Christmas list, I quite like fiction stuff and love the idea of sending away to ‘Lulu’.

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10. tumbles - October 29, 2012

Coughlan’s stuff goes straight into the bin I’d imagine.

Will he be threatening this book with legal action I wonder 🙂

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11. tumbles - October 29, 2012

And of course the “dreaded commie” thing is laughable. The Dublin government bought Coughlan’s August 1969 pamphlet with a view to distributing to their embassies! The Brits hoped that “Johnstonism” would prevail over the Provoes. And yet eijits like yourself stilll beleive that the state was trying to destroy them 🙂

Same sort of people are defending the murder of South African miners as we speak. And with the same sort of bullshit about “ultra leftism”.

Stalinists were never any different.

Anyway, Treacy’s book is the definitive history of the CPI 🙂

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12. Niall of the Nine Hostages - October 30, 2012

How do you know I’m a Stalinist not a figure from the Celtic twilight like yourself? You might want to ask Jim Gibney and Tom Hartley whether Coughlan’s stuff goes straight in the bin. Anyway, will AP/RN review your book or will it go the way of the sports page?

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13. tumbles - October 30, 2012

Will htey review your book?

Or has that “Jack had a ball. Jane has a doll” stuff been worked to death by now 🙂

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Seán Ó Tuama - October 30, 2012

Tumbles, fuck the Stalinist nostalgics,I promise to buy your book when next in Dublin. There are unfortunately too many people on this site for whom it is is unacceptable to criticise any aspect of the Stalinist tradition in Ireland.

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WorldbyStorm - October 30, 2012

That last comment is frankly unsupported by the evidence Seán (unless you mean by ‘too many’ a ‘small number’). I’d hesitate to break it down into numbers but I’d think that most people who comment on here would probably come from non-Leninist traditions on the left (be that social democracy, republican socialism or whatever) with a strong showing from Trotskyist inclined commentors.

And I’d point out that ‘tumbles’ – whose function on here seems to be to promote certain books, but elsewhere seems all too happy to diss this site unapologetically – despite my calling him out on it previously – is no pal of the Trotskyist traditions on the left in Ireland either, and I say that as someone with no axe to grind in relation to either Stalinism or Trotskyism, coming myself from a republican socialist position.

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Seán Ó Tuama - October 30, 2012

That tumbles may be no friend of Trotsyism does not worry me much.

What worries me is the tendency of his many critics here to dismiss him and accuse him of Mc Carthyism merely because he points out the extent of the influence of figures close to either the Irish CP or the CPGB on developments in SF in the sixties and seventies.

I was involved in politics in that period and I think that that influence was strong and I think , negative.

In any case, I feel that to dismiss any investigation of this topic out iof hand as being McCartyite, as some commentators are doing, and as you say not only those of a Stalinist bent, is simply an attempt to close down the debate through abuse.

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eamonncork - October 30, 2012

Nobody used the word McCarthyite Sean. I think what got people’s goat was the fact that Tumbles is apparently the author of these books and referring to himself in the third person while coming across as incredibly facetious. Both those points would make me reluctant to buy any book of his. And it’s a bit much for someone whose first sentence is, “Fuck the Stalinist nostalgics,” to then complain that people are attemtping, ‘to close down the debate through abuse.’
And personally I have a problem with people using Stalinist as a general term of abuse for people on the Left. There’s something, well, a bit McCarthyite about it.

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eamonncork - October 30, 2012

And having said all that, a couple of the digs at Tumbles seem mean spirited but they come from people who don’t seem to be CLR regulars at all but have just turned up to take part in this particular little private war.

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Garibaldy - October 30, 2012

Does the fact that Niall of the Nine Hostages raised the possibility he is not what others would call a Stalinist not figure in everyone’s considerations?

Tumbles has made an assumption, an assumption that he is prone to make, seeing “Stalinism” in everything. Including, as WBS has hinted at, in incorrect statements that the threads posted here relating to Rethinking the Republic were removed.

And I doubt there’s a need for Seán to wait until he gets to Dublin to buy this 1st volume of the history of the CPI (although that it was a first volume that goes up to 1969 wasn’t clear to me when I followed the link posted above the day it was posted). Lulu.com ships all over the place. Although I see from another site that there has been a problem with the print size and that Lulu was unclear when it would be available in a better size. Someone else said the problem was fixed however.

And btw, I’ve never seen anyone here say it is unacceptable to criticise what I presume is meant by “any aspect of the Stalinist tradition in Ireland.”

I’ve come to the conclusion reading recent things here and elsewhere that a good deal less hyperbole would be a most useful thing.

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14. dilettante - October 30, 2012

“There is no shortage of capital in Europe”

They’ve hit the nail on the heas (on this at least).

There are very few banks in Europe that could continue to exist without government guarantees. Governments should start to tell banks to invest the money (and where).

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15. shea - October 30, 2012

i don’t have a credit card and never got in to the buying on line thing. will this be stocked in any shops in dublin, the shop in the aprn building at least?

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16. Davy Byrne - October 30, 2012

Someone who knows Matt Treacy should tell him that posting on-line talking about himself in the third-person and describing his own work as ‘definitive’ does not add much to his credibility.

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Ed - October 30, 2012

If this could be combined with a quiet word about the excessive use of smiley faces in posts, that would be no harm at all.

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EamonnCork - October 30, 2012

For some reason, all those smiley faces remind me of this character.

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Ed - October 31, 2012

🙂

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17. tumbles - October 31, 2012

Mean spirited does not quite describe someone being threatened with legal action by so-called lefties.

Bring it on as they say…..

This book is based on CP archives. So unless they are going to clain that the CIA got into them about 30 years ago and falsified records it shall be a peculiar argument.

Point is too that the Stalinist influence on republicanism was uniformly bad. They used same ad hominem arguments against Mc Cann and Devlin and the people in Derry in October 1968. After a march they tried to stop.

As for Trotskyism if there is a choice and only one them I am with the South African “Trotskyist” miners being murdered by the SACP.

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WorldbyStorm - October 31, 2012

And yet I note that you don’t, as ever, bother to concern yourself with the points I made above choosing yet again to promote the book(s) by stirring it up under a cloak of anonymity and then going elsewhere and slagging off this site. Frankly I don’t care if you continue to do the latter, it’s a free world, but you are not welcome to continue doing the former on this site.

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WorldbyStorm - October 31, 2012

And by the way, just for the record, this site was strongly against the threat of legal action and said so at the time and subsequently – and so were commenters here as well.

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lean meadows - November 3, 2012

1968 – NI communist party members criticize McCann and Devlin. I guess they blotted their copybook there alright.

However, on the sinn fein/IRA side we’ve got, oh, Enniskillen, Le Mon, Warrington, Bermingham, Manchester, etc, etc, etc.

The idea of a Sin Fein party hack pointing to the communist movement as a negative influence on Irish republicanism is bordering on obscene given the blood that’s on Sinn Fein’s collective, grubby hands.

all those deaths, all those bombs, and now they share power with the DUP.

Never have so many been killed by so few for so little.

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18. tumbles - November 3, 2012

The book is out there. Being launched in next few weeks. People may judge as they will.

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WorldbyStorm - November 3, 2012

You’re kind of proving my point – from the second last comment above – here ‘tumbles’.

Self-promotion on the CLR, dissing elsewhere. No sign of an apology for the latter.

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Ed - November 3, 2012

Judgements have, I’m sure, been made.

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Norton - November 3, 2012

given all the smiley faces and the fact that he talks to himself online, hard not to think of sean tumbles this way

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19. tumbles - November 7, 2012

Read the book chaps! Launch in next two/three weeks.

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WorldbyStorm - November 8, 2012

And yet again, more self-promotion. To continue to do so when asked repeatedly not to do it and in the absence of an explanation, let alone an apology, for comments you’ve posted elsewhere about this site smacks of a significant lack of self-awareness, and discourtesy – at the very least.

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20. Branno's ultra-left t-shirt - November 8, 2012

Are we all invited?

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21. D_D - November 8, 2012

Milotte, Mike. Communism in Modern Ireland : the Pursuit of the Workers’ Republic since 1916. Dublin, Ireland, 1984. Now out of print.

An official history from about the same time does not seem to available now. It’s not mentioned in this bibliography of CPI publications:

http://www.communistpartyofireland.ie/leabhair-en.html

A short on line history:

http://www.communistpartyofireland.ie/pairti.html

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22. Tom Redmond - November 8, 2012

D-D,
The only official history of the CPI was the “Outline History ” published in 1975 and edited by Johnny Nolan. ( It is mentioned in the list on the CPI web site which you indexed.) . It is a popular profile of struggles rather than analylicit
al.

While Emmet O Connor, Charlie McGuire etc and the latest Irish Socialist Republicanism 1909 – 1936 by Adrian Grant all detail aspects of different periods we still need an official history – all 90 years – warts and all !

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D_D - November 8, 2012

Thanks Tom. Should have gone to Specsavers.

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23. Loveyou longtime - November 8, 2012

Tumbles will certainly present the warts, boils, blemishes with a nice dash of complete fantasy

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24. tumbles - November 10, 2012

Well Tom there is a warts and all history.

As for self promotiion WBS, horses and mouths for someone who does an incompetent job doing the shinners print. Better out soucrcing is my advice 🙂

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WorldbyStorm - November 10, 2012

Tumbles, I think you had better think long and hard about that statement you just wrote there.

Firstly for referring directly and in such a way as to identify for any who would care to know about an aspect of an off line employment.

Secondly for making a statement about the nature and quality of the work completed in that employment.

Thirdly the implication that the job should be ‘outsourced’ i.e. is effectively saying the job should be made redundant with all that would imply.

You might also care to consider that as someone in his late forties I’m not some kid afraid to go and make a formal or informal complaint (whichever is most appropriate) about the above statement to a relevant party – and that I personally find it particularly offensive in light of the fact of my original willingness to assist from the off in ensuring that the original book was as widely read as possible, to the extent of continuing email communication between us over months and what I thought was our friendship, was thrown back in my face subsequently by public comments attacking this site on other forum on the Internet.

Given that I’ve generally been regarded as (correctly) being a fairly openly pro-SF voice on this site and elsewhere over the years such behaviours as expressed above and those comments attacking the site elsewhere are inexplicable.

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Ed - November 10, 2012

The smiley faces are back … dear god I wouldn’t read this book if it was the last printed matter on Earth. All that money Tumbles spent on the course in How To Lose Friends And Alienate People has been to good effect.

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25. tumbles - November 17, 2012

🙂

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