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What you want to say – 23 October 2019 October 23, 2019

Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.
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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. tafkaGW - October 23, 2019
Paul Culloty - October 24, 2019

The Spanish online website El Diario has a piece here – it highlights that 1% of the Chilean population own 26% of the national wealth:

https://www.eldiario.es/internacional/Huelga-Chile-reclamar-denunciar-violencia_0_956104431.html

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tafkaGW - October 24, 2019

Thanks Paul.

I’m seeing 20 dead, including a 4 year old child, over 200 injured and over 2,500 injured by the 20k troops and police put on the streets by Pinera.

Pinera has climbed down on the fare hikes and promised some improvements on the minimum wage and health care. It remains to be seen whether any of that will materialise.

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2. greatbigeejit - October 23, 2019

To answer questions put in last week’s open thread, yes councillor D O’Cofaigh and former councillor C McKenna are with the new CWI splinter from the SP. Yes, there is a third split, not publicly unveiled yet. That third split is northern based and includes most of the prominent trade union people formerly in the SP.

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WorldbyStorm - October 23, 2019

Is that the more traditional Militant one there’s been talk of, the one in the North? On paper none of these groups really seem that far from one another. It will be interesting to see their future trajectories.

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greatbigeejit - October 23, 2019

Yes. It’s a group with something like the old Militant orientation of patient work in the “mass organisations”, meaning in current circumstances the unions.

In terms of formal politics, there isn’t very much between the groups. RISE is probably the most distinctive in that it has much less commitment to CWI tradition orthodoxies and has a different organisational model (they would say democratic, the SP would say horizontalist). CWI Ireland will be very slightly “greener” in terms of the national question than the SP and will in theory prefer more of the working class community stuff the SP used to primarily focus on and less of the Rosa style feminist stuff, at least if they gather enough people to make an impact. The third group as mentioned above is based in the northern trade unions.

The SP remains quite a lot bigger than any of these groups and is now very politically homogenous. The other groups might say devoid of anyone prone to critical thinking. What it really wants to do is concentrate on party building through recruiting young people out of social movements. It’s all too aware though that its toehold in national politics is under threat though so it has no choice but to get back to focusing heavily the kind of constituency campaigning its leadership has been trying to partially wean it away from for years.

There’s no reason of course that all of these positions couldn’t be accommodated in the same organisation but the SP is not and doesn’t pretend to be that kind of organisation.

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WorldbyStorm - October 23, 2019

Right, it’s interesting how tenacious that Militant tradition is – though in a way that’s the most deep rooted.

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3. roddy - October 23, 2019

The SP “remains a lot bigger” is somewhat relative.I would hazard a guess that their entire membership in the North could be dwarfed by a couple of SF cumann.

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greatbigeejit - October 23, 2019

Yes, sure, there are many more organised nationalists than there are organised socialists of any stripe. We are all aware of that and it has nothing much to do with the discussion.

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4. roddy - October 23, 2019

The thing is socialists who leave the SP suddenly find Irish Nationalism not to be so bad at all.

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gypsybhoy69 - October 28, 2019

But DOC’s trajectory is a lot more interesting than that. He found Irish Nationalism to be not all that bad before he joined the SP. Ex member of SF who was very dismissive of the SP back in the early 2000’s. Close links to the McManus’s in Sligo IIRC. If Marxmail has archives it’s worth looking at to see how green he was back then. Strikes me that the SP and SF both seem to go a bit blank on his past.

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WorldbyStorm - October 28, 2019

Those sort of swings in a political career are interesting. It would be fascinating to get a sense of what pitched him one way and then the other.

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greatbigeejit - October 28, 2019

There are quite a few ex-SF members in the SP (and its splits). The journey usually follows one of two paths. The first group thought of themselves as socialists or Marxists while in SF but eventually came to the conclusion that SF’s politics and development were antipathetic to socialist goals. Once you’ve drawn the conclusion that SF’s role is actively harmful rather than tactically mistaken, the SP is a more logical endpoint than left groups that are softer on SF. The other subset are community activists in the South who found the SP’s more class based version of community activism more congenial than SFs. Donal was one of the first type.

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WorldbyStorm - October 28, 2019

Interesting, and what about travel in the other direction. I can think of one person who was briefly close to Militant and Dermot C in particular who wound up in SF for a long long time, albeit broke with them rather messily a few years back.

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greatbigeejit - October 28, 2019

That’s a good question. I can only think of one long term SP member who became a long term SF activist but I don’t know what his reasoning was. There must be more, but although I can think of two now SocDems, there are very few SP people who join more mainstream parties in general. If they stay active in politics it’s usually as independents or community activists or with some other left group. Back in the Militant days you’d get a few leaving but staying in Labour.

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WorldbyStorm - October 28, 2019

In a way the trip to the SDs is stranger than any other. SF, well left radicals can fit in comfortably enough (some would say too comfortably). PBP or similar makes a sort of sense. Community activism likewise. And of course there were those who went to the WP in more recent times. But the SDs would be quite a shift of ideological gears.

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5. Jolly Red Giant - October 23, 2019

Like that is a good thing

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6. tafkaGW - October 24, 2019

Kurdish comrades are calling for a boycott of Turkish goods.

How do you recognise one?

The bar code begins with 868 or 869 and/or have “Product of Turkey” on the label.

Incidentally, Israeli products begin with 729 and/or have “Product of Israel” on the label.

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tafkaGW - October 24, 2019

And of course don’t use Turkish Airlines, holiday in Turkey etc.

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7. Paul Culloty - October 24, 2019

FG MEPs ensure that a motion relating to search and rescue operations for Mediterranean refugees is lost by two votes:

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WorldbyStorm - October 24, 2019

Hmmm…

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tafkaGW - October 28, 2019

And they voted with the extreme right on this. Including Farage’s minions.

Had the BLP pulled it’s finger out a bit at the last Euro-elections this could have been won.

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Daniel Rayner O'Connor - October 28, 2019

Is Sean Kelly’s burgerfest online? Does he eat neatly?
(Refs: Nero fiddling while Rome burns.)

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8. Tomboktu - October 24, 2019

Dining in an off-season restaurant in an Irish university city this evening. At the other occupied table are rwo academics, an American and a South Asian. From snatches of overhead conversation, it seems the American is visiting, the South Asian is based here.

They’ve discussed selecting PhD students, college entry here versus the US, the (high) calbre of first year students, some research results, and colleagues. And they’ve chatted about Ireland, the hinterland of this city, bookshops and the next US presidential election.

I’ve noticed that the American never asks a question.

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9. Aonrud ⚘ - October 24, 2019

Good to see these christian union views don’t represent the views of the christian union.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-50174437

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WorldbyStorm - October 25, 2019

Hahah… I can imagine some cursing social media and its pervasiveness.

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10. roddy - October 28, 2019

SP leadership figure in the North,Harry Hutchinson defected to PBP a few years back,then NI labour and the last place I saw him was alongside Tommy McKearney at some new “peoples Dail”.

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WorldbyStorm - October 28, 2019

In a way that sort of journey would in say Britain or on parts of the continent take place inside a large broad based Labour or left SD party. In Ireland we have to go from one party to another.

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11. ar scáth a chéile - October 28, 2019

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