Discussion

1. Comment by: Hugh Green

   May 12th 2010 at 11:05

   There are plenty of criticisms that can be levelled at the SWP but a) they participated in the organisation of the march and b) if it hadn’t been for the fact that some of their number pulled the stunt of trying to get into the Dáil there would be hardly any coverage of this in the media. The conclusion to be drawn is that if people don’t like the way they do things, they should figure out their own stunts.

   Sure, maybe a centre-left formation would be in many ways preferable to a centre-right formation. However, the head of the Socialist International is overseeing the administration of savage punishment on the Greek working class, as a lesson to workers throughout Europe. Do people seriously imagine that a centre-left formation in government in Ireland is going to do anything different? In this situation, there is no point in talking about ‘true democracy’ if the people who take the place of FF-FG are going to end up meting out the same punishment by pointing to their ‘democratic mandate’ to so do.

   Now, I’d have some degree of respect for a political grouping that explicitly said, “you know what, people, we’re going to preserve the capitalist system that permits this savagery and we’re going to lock everyone into the dictates of a system that demands 3% compound growth forever. Because there is no alternative. So vote for us and suffer the consequences because in the end it’s all in a good cause.” I wouldn’t vote for it or support it, but I’d respect its honesty.

   But in its stead, in the context of a new centre-left formation, what we’ll get is “we want a fairer Ireland, with all Irish people standing together”, and a sugar-coated dose of the same medicine and the preservation of the same structures. That’s what your ‘flag made up of humility, honesty, fairness and solidarity’ will signify.

   Read this and catch yourself on.

2. Comment by: Conor McCabe

   May 12th 2010 at 12:05

   Pathetic. (The protest, not the comment.)

   This has to be the first protest in Europe this year where the protesters were in danger of being trampled over by the media filming them.

   and did the guards baton the demonstration before or after the SWP supporters started using their flagpoles as weapons? Looks like the Swmmers got their retaliation in first.

   And if they had stormed the Dáil, what were they going to do? Call on the Irish navy to blockade the port to protect the revolution?

3. Comment by: LeftAtTheCross

   May 12th 2010 at 14:05

   Conor, very droll as always.

   Hugh, you’re spot on in everything you’ve said there.

   One comment on last night’s march. It was good to see families amongst the crowd, and for want of a better phrase “ordinary people”, i.e. those not obviously affiliated to any of the various Left organisations (who were busily running around tryig to sell each other their newspapers). Possibly like the author of the piece posted above the bulk of these people aren’t socialists or even social democrats, but the fact that they got off their backsides to march in the rain aganst the bank bailouts is a positive development.

   The silliness of the SWP/Eirigi actions was a useful publicity stunt perhaps, but it does run the risk of alienating people who are only beginning to become politicised. Thankfully there were no serious injuries. Unfortunately we can probably expect a heavier Garda presence an next week’s follow-up protest. It’ll be interesting to see whether there will be any behind the sceces discussions between the protest organisers and the Gardai in terms of more self-stewarding of the event as an alternative to heavy policing. One would suspect not.

4. Comment by: Tomboktu

   May 12th 2010 at 21:05

   I asked two friends to come to it, and they did because it was fronted by a trade union and an organisation named the Right to Work Campaign. The advertised speakers were also non-party: a journalist, the Community Workers’ Co-operative, an academic, the author of Regeneration: Public Good or Private Profit. All three of us work in the public service, and one of my friends is a manager in the civil service, and he took the risk to attend a political event because the event was flagged as being organised by NGOs and a union, and there was no material to say it was a party event. The addition of two party speakers to the ticket at the Dáil could cause him some problems at work, and he won’t be back next week.

5. Comment by: CMK

   May 12th 2010 at 22:05

   What should be done instead? If the ‘far left’, who seem to be the only part of this society willing to do anything about the crisis, are to be excluded because they might alienate ‘the middle ground’ of Irish society, who/what is/are going to take the lead in resisting the cuts and austerity? The Unions currently trying to browbeat their public sector members into accepting a neo-liberal travesty? The very few journalists and academics who dissent from the consensus? Community Development workers, dependent as they are on state funding? The Labour Party?

   It was tactically stupid to try to ’storm the Dail’ as if it were St. Petersburg in 1917 but I’m extremely wary of any attempt to marginalise the SWP/SP/PbP, as without them there just doesn’t seem to be any other force in this society (not that it’s much of a force) willing to resist.

   Who/what entity is going to politicise those who sense there is something deeply wrong with the government’s policies? Again, the only candidates are the various far left grouplets. The far left may be crass, prone to tactical errors, unwilling to work together, split ridden and rough edged in it’s approach but it’s all there is here to oppose the consensus.

   As was noted I think on the Cedar Lounge Revolution, we just don’t have a radical social democratic force that while not advocating a break with capitalism, would still advocate real, radical reforms that would scare the shit out of Irish capitalists. So, sadly in a way, it’s the far left or bust.

   Hopefully, I’ll be able to make a couple of these demonstrations.

6. Comment by: Pope Epopt

   May 12th 2010 at 23:05

   Well, sure, the storming of the empty Dáil wasn’t the best of spur of the moment tactics, but I find it very heartening that this is a rolling series of demonstrations, which can grow.

   The possibility of social democracy has been thrown into the maw of the bond markets, so street protest and civil disobedience is all we have left, outside of public sector union militancy.

   But Hugh, Donagh, and LeftattheCross have made the essential point. This will only have a chance of working if it is welcoming to the disenchanted masses outside of the existing far leftist parties.

7. Comment by: Conor McCabe

   May 13th 2010 at 00:05

   There’s a great little moment in the video clip above, where a class warrior beckons to the assembled masses to join him in storming the Dáil. About three or four step up, while the rest of the demonstrators, the other thousand or so, are standing there going, ‘moron’.

   Nobody’s marginalising the SWP and Eirgi. They’re doing a fine job of that themselves. And to throw back on us the ineffectiveness and sheer stupidity of their thoughts and actions I think sums up the cul-de-sac they exist in, talking to themselves about themselves and how great and class warrior-esque they all are, and that if one thousand people looked on last night at them storming an empty dail protected by about a dozen guards who are themselves a hairs-breath away from forming a union, then it’s those “people” and “the unions” and “the left” that are at fault and not the SWP.

   The SWP have on their website that Greece came to Ireland last night.

   Funny. I didn’t realise we had a two-day national stoppage and nightly mass demonstrations involving all sections of the working population.

   I mean, the SWP head off to storm the Dail and the only ones who are with them are Eirigi? Shouldn’t the SWP reflect on that?

   and as far as getting media coverage! Jesus wept! We should be putting our energies into developing alternative media distribution, not storming Dails hoping to get 30 seconds on RTE.

   Was this the SWP’s plan, to storm an empty dail and get onto the pages of Ireland’s right-wing media where they will be laughed at and ridiculed without fail? and when any of this is pointed out the retort is “well have YOU any better ideas? Huh, huh?”

   Well I have but I doubt the SWP will hear them seeing their ears are currently blocked by the cheeks of their own arse.

   Or is that Eirigi’s arsecheeks? Can’t tell.

   Storming the dail… fuck me I mean it’s the perfect example of the SWP mindset. EVERY revolution in the past twenty years, the people stormed the tv and radio stations first.

   But they didn’t have tv and radio stations in Petrograd so why the fuck would you want to do that?

8. Comment by: Hugh Green

   May 13th 2010 at 08:05

   We should be putting our energies into developing alternative media distribution, not storming Dails hoping to get 30 seconds on RTE…

   Storming the dail… fuck me I mean it’s the perfect example of the SWP mindset. EVERY revolution in the past twenty years, the people stormed the tv and radio stations first.

   I think this is an important point. There was some fella on Joe Duffy yesterday who claimed to have, er, breached the defences of the Dáil the other night, -it might even have been the one you’re referring to above- and he was saying that when he got through he felt like it was 1916 all over again. Ridiculous and insane, but it’s worth pointing out that in 1916 they staged the rising at the GPO, not simply because it was a nice big building in the middle of town, but because it was the central co-ordinating point for communications throughout the country. So it’s not as if there isn’t precedence for this sort of thing in an Irish context either. But there seems to be some belief that permeates all levels of these groups that it’s by pulling stunts like ‘rings around the Dáil’ (which petered out quare and quick) or getting a bop over the head from the guards that this will be a catalyst for revolutionary change. Well, good luck with that.

9. Comment by: Conor McCabe

   May 13th 2010 at 12:05

   The gas thing is that the Dail is NOT a building, it’s an assembly of representatives. Leinster House is the building where the Dail meets, but it is NOT the Dáil. If the SWP and Eirigi had taken Leinster House, they would have had in their possession a quite fancy and well-manicured meeting room, but not much else. The Dail would have probably retired to Farmleigh and kept on passing bank legislation while the class warriors texted their friends and twittered the world.

   It’s like the GPO, as you were saying. The building itself, the activities within the building, served a certain function in early 20th C. Ireland. similarly, TV radio studios have the necessary equipment to enable whoever has control of it to broadcast nationwide.

   The thing that makes me laugh the most, though, is the line that the attempted storming of Dail buildings “represented” the anger and frustration of the working people of Ireland.

   And the working people of Ireland showed how much the actions of the SWP represented them by not joining in and not having anything to so with them.

   The logic must be “LOOK! THE WORKING CLASSES ARE COMPLETELY IGNORING US! WE MUST REPRESENT THEM A LOT! FUCKING TONNES OF REPRESENTATION! KEEP PUSHING LADS!”

   The SWP. One more boil on the arsehole of logic.

10. Comment by: Pope Epopt

    May 13th 2010 at 17:05

    EVERY revolution in the past twenty years, the people stormed the tv and radio stations first.

    Point of information, Madam Chairperson. This is soooo last century!

    You’d need to storm the Internet Service Providers, the mobile phone routers etc. etc. many of whom are multi-homed with disaster recovery systems in place. A pretty tall order.

    I’m trying to make a serious point in a facetious way - strategy must change as technology changes.

    It works the other way as well - the powers that be need to control multifarious sources of information - it’s not just a case of controlling / buying off the TV stations. Although, on reflection that seems to have worked for Berlusconi.

11. Comment by: Conor McCabe

    May 13th 2010 at 17:05

    There’s something like 26 community-based non-profit radio stations in the South, and I think three TV stations. An interesting strategy would be to try to get those systems of communication to link up as a way of getting alternative arguments out there. Basically, making programmes, organising fact-based events at a community-level, getting the message out there that not only is there a better way of getting through this crisis, there is a more sane way.

    Or…. we could just try to storm the Dail, get 30 seconds on RTE, and call it a victory.

12. Comment by: Donagh

    May 13th 2010 at 17:05

    Or…. we could just try to storm the Dail, get 30 seconds on RTE, and call it a victory.

    Or think there is more too it because of the momentary irritation that it causes overpaid TV and radio presenters.

    Yeah but getting the message out is hard work…the slow graft of looking at facts and analysing the situation accurately and getting it across to people. Who wants to do that when you can storm the Dail with flagpoles?

    it’s not just a case of controlling / buying off the TV stations. Although, on reflection that seems to have worked for Berlusconi.

    Someone mentioned to me recently that elements of the Italian left are trying to challenge Berlusconi by setting up their own mainstream TV station. They’re doing it however, in collaboration with Rupert Murdock.

    Turns out that Murdock and Berlusconi are not the best of friends. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/fourth-estate/2009/10/murdoch-war-berlusconi-italian

    The Italian guy who told me this slapped his forehead while he did so.

13. Comment by: Mark P

    May 13th 2010 at 19:05

    Shane’s comment is not something I have much time for. The socialist left is small, but it is, as CMK notes, the only force in Irish society which is willing to give a lead in opposing the current consensus. A consensus which in its essentials if not necessarily all of the details includes FG and Labour as much as FF and the Greens.

    If this mythical new “centre” which opposes the neo-liberal consensus actually existed it almost by definition wouldn’t be of the “centre” in the Irish political spectrum.

    As far as the bit of pushing and shoving at the Dail gate is concerned I think that quite a lot of people are placing entirely too much significance on three dozen people trying to push past ten cops to get into an empty car park.

    It suits the right wing media to talk about lunatics “storming the Dail” and oddly enough it suits the SWP to allow themselves to be portrayed as lunatics “storming the Dail” because it feeds their self image and gives them an attractive (to some) whiff of cordite. The “Athens has come to Dublin” stuff on their website is beyond silly but it does give an insight into the way their excitable little heads work.

    It’s the sort of stunt that had the potential to go badly wrong, (as Conor notes if they’d actually got into Leinster House, what was going to happen then?) but as it stands it seems that nothing very much did go wrong apart from a few people needing a couple of stitches. The bit of publicity the pushing and shoving gathered will, I would guess, encourage more people to come than it will scare off (although we’ll see one way or the other next week).

    So in concrete terms I wouldn’t be too worried about it. As far as the future is concerned I’d be a bit worried that it will encourage the SWP to continue trying to “take the initiative” or as they no doubt see it “show leadership” by pulling stunts on demonstrations without wider discussion which result in more serious consequences.

    And more generally the entire “Right to Work Campaign” is an example of the worst kind of front group building - they didn’t even bother to discuss it with their “partners” in People Before Profit before trying to present the wider left with a fait accompli. As an aside, the observant may have notices that they wouldn’t allow a Socialist Party speaker on the platform, despite the SWP/PBP/RtWC earlier agreeing to one in return for Joe Higgins speaking at their press conference.

    Finally can anyone remember what was the name of the short lived front the SWP tried this same weekly march thing with a few months ago? That one was put back in the office drawer after nobody turned up on the second week. My guess is that the second weeks showing for the new front will be a bit more impressive.

14. Comment by: Hugh Green

    May 13th 2010 at 20:05

    they didn’t even bother to discuss it with their “partners” in People Before Profit

    Would this not be a bit like Peter Parker not bothering to discuss some matter with Spiderman?

15. Comment by: Garibaldy

    May 13th 2010 at 22:05

    Conor has an interesting point about the TV and radio stations. The Greek Communist Party, for example, has its own TV station, and IIRC the other big European communist parties like the Portugese have their own radio stations - in fact, IIRC, the Portugese have their own operating system for PCs as well. An international left radio station was something the communist and workers’ parties were looking at but it never materialised due to various difficulties. Maybe it is time to revisit it. Party newspapers aren’t the force they once were, and are unlikely to be ever again.

16. Comment by: Mark P

    May 14th 2010 at 13:05

    Would this not be a bit like Peter Parker not bothering to discuss some matter with Spiderman?

    For the most part, yes. But to be fair to the PBPA there is a small crew of independent left types affiliated, the usual suspects for left unity stuff plus Joan Collins and the people around her.

    The SWP push them out front when they need to provide an acceptable non-SWP face for the PBPA. And then ignore them when it comes to things the SWP finds more advantageous to run alone… like the “Right to Work” campaign.

17. Comment by: Tomboktu

    May 15th 2010 at 10:05

    The SWP push them out front when they need to provide an acceptable non-SWP face for the PBPA.

    And, I would point out, in this case the face pushed out in front was Unite, which influenced the decision of my friends to participate.

18. Comment by: irishelectionliterature

    May 15th 2010 at 22:05

    Who is organising the protest is a hugely important, how many times have we heard if ‘anyone decent organised a march I’d go on it.’

    As said earlier we’ll see what impact the stunt last Tuesday will have next Tuesday.
    Boyd Barret was playing down the whole storming of the Dail when interviewed on the Radio by Pat Kenny and others. Ivan Yates rant at him wont have done him any harm either.

    I would be far from alone in thinking that the current government strategy is not working and is just digging us deeper and deeper into ruin.
    Its probably too late but to get a sizable public movement the message needs to be as basic as
    ‘Its Not Working’ …. not what appears to be an SWP/ Eirigi led campaign.

    Only for Sky News saying this crowd had ‘Stormed the Dail’ we would have heard even less of the march.

19. Comment by: Shane

    May 18th 2010 at 12:05

    The gist of my comment was that all sections of society should be encouraged to protest together. To have a collective movement at the moment would be far more powerful and effective than a number of disparate groupings bickering and ranting at each other and trying to out-flag each other.

    And importantly, no one group and no one country is going to do this on their own. This is an international fight against huge banks and financiers who don’t recognise borders and who are gradually converting tax revenues into their own private revenues through bond speculation and the on-going transfer of state departments to private companies. It won’t be long before we national Police services being tendered out to the likes of Veolia and Halliburton.

    This all started generations ago and it will take generations to repair.

1. May 13th 2010

   The Centrists United, Will Only Occasionally Be Defeated! « Circumlimina