Category: Uncategorized

Review: Divide and Conquer or Divide and Subdivide? How Not to Refight the First International

Post author By Anarcho
Post date October 22, 2017

This pamphlet is by the author of the best biography of Bakunin, Bakunin: The Creative Passion, Mark Leier and covers the Marx-Bakunin conflict in the First International.

It shares a cover picture with Wolfgang Eckhardt’s The First Socialist Schism: Bakunin vs. Marx in the International Working Men’s Association [Oakland: PM Press, 2016], which raises the question whether this pamphlet is a (short) response to that work. It does not read that way, but the thought does cross the mind. Unlike that book, it does not attempt to go into the details of that conflict between the syndicalist and social-democratic tendencies within the International (personified, for better or for worse, in Bakunin and Marx). Instead, it aims to learn from history rather than repeat it

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US ambush video crew at March for Choice turn out to be extremists who want death penalty for women who have abortions

Post author By andrewnflood
Post date October 12, 2017

The March for Choice saw another another sinister anti-choice video crew in operation. The last time on investigation they turned out to be an far-right crew who subsequently worked with Tommy Robinson, ex leader of the EDL. This time the accents were American rather than British and on investigation we discovered they are an extremist anti-choice church, one of this crew has even told media they want women who have had abortions to be executed. [Video report]

As with the previous crew their method is to try and get participants to agree to be interviewed without revealing their extreme anti-choice views. As you will see in the video when challenged as to who they are they tried to vaguely pass themselves off as a TV studio and then Facebook stream. When people agreed to be interviewed after a few sympathetic appearing questions they were suddenly ambushed with very hostile language in the hope that their targets either don’t notice or get flustered. The goal is to then broadcast edited footage of flustered or hostile pro-choice people to try and dehumanise us and urge their own followers to fanaticism.

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Mind the Gap!

Post author By Anarcho
Post date October 6, 2017

The 2017 snap-election was notable for many things, not least the Tory party itself proclaiming that its policies have not worked. Well, it did not quite say that – the problems it admitted existed seemed to have no cause, they just were. No mention of who was in office for the past seven years nor whose ideology had dominated the political landscape since 1979. No, the problems were just there and without any origin – beyond ritualistic invocation of “Labour’s recession” (that is, the global crisis which originated in the American financial markets).

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Delete the 8th – no restrictive wordings

Post author By andrewnflood
Post date September 29, 2017

The delaying is almost over and a date for a referendum to finally overturn the 8th amendment has almost been confirmed. But – as expected – the government are now publicly threatening to present a wording other than the one needed – a vote to remove the anti-choice Article 40.3.3.

The media are reporting that the government are instead trying to somehow present a referendum that would include the terms abortion could be accessed under. Essentially the overwhelmingly old, male and conservative government do not want to follow the recommendations given by the very body they set up to avoid such responsibility. The creation of the Citizens Assembly was clearly imagined by the government as a way a new, very restrictive, anti-choice regime could be created in the aftermath of the referendum and presented as ‘the people’s will’.

However it turned out when 100 random people heard weeks of expert testimony they decided the reasonable moderate position was the one where restrictions on pregnant people would be removed or at least minimised. To the anti-choice extremists in power this was unexpected, they were only willing to concede movement on the very edges of the extreme anti-choice laws under which pregnant people and doctors face a 14 year jail sentence.

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Anti-choice dirty tricks – fake posters removed in Dublin

Post author By andrewnflood
Post date September 28, 2017

With the referendum not even definitively announced the anti-women bigots are already up to dirty tricks. This image of fake posters removed from Dublin’s Pearse st this morning was tweeted by Sharon ✨ @sharmander_says a couple of hours ago. If you spot similar posters we suggest you remove them and message us a photo and the location and time they were spotted. We would also be very interested in any information on who put these up.

This just underlines the importance of a massive turnout on Saturday’s March for Choice, Parnell sq, 14.00.

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The 1803 rebellion Ireland and Robert Emmet

Post author By andrewnflood
Post date September 27, 2017

The 1803 rebellion followed only five years after the rebellion of 1798. 1798 involved tens of thousands under arms, rising across the country over months and the liberation of parts of Wexford, Wicklow and Waterford for long enough for a republic to be declared. It was smashed by the British empire with great brutality directed at those under arms but also the civilian populations. As many as 30,000 may have died.

Despite this Robert Emmet who was the brother of one of the 1798 leaders reorganised and with Thomas Russell and others attempted another rebellion in 1803.

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Review: Romancing the revolution

Post author By Anarcho
Post date September 20, 2017

This is a very interesting and useful work. It takes you back to when Lenin and Trotsky were unknown and how this change as the British left tried to understand developments in the Russian Revolution. Inspired by C.B. Macpherson’s claim that the USSR while not a democratic system of government could be viewed as representing a “Non-Liberal Democracy” as it aimed to eliminate classes, Ian Bullock’s book utilises an impressive amount of primary sources to show “the myth of soviet democracy in the early appeal of the Russian Revolution”. (5) As such, it is should be of interest for libertarian socialists as well as scholars particularly as it is full of interesting facts: for example, the Scottish section of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) voted to join the Communist international and for prohibition at its January 1920 conference. (194-5)

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Wealth transforms class interests – the example of Conor McGregor

Post author By andrewnflood
Post date September 15, 2017

It’s not everyday you get to watch two multimillionaires knocking the shite out of each other but tonight it’s going down. One of them is Irish to boot, Conor McGregor is probably already worth over 50 million, if the fight goes ahead he is thought to be gaining at least another 75 million.

This puts McGregor firmly in the capitalist class, 50 million invested anyway smartly should be bringing in at least 3 million a year off other people’s labour – very much more than enough to comfortably live off. We know he is doing this as he set up his own investment company in 2016, Congregor Investments Ltd.

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Dunkirk – was a 1950s English nationalist retelling inevitable?

Post author By andrewnflood
Post date August 4, 2017

Nolan’s Dunkirk amounts to a nostalgic remake of a 1950s WWII film where the brilliant cinematography & immersive sound fails to make up for the nationalist myth making and glorification of war.

I approached it ready to suspend political criticisms in the name of entertainment but found this impossible because both characters and story are weak and one dimensional. The story is only somewhat salvaged by the clever device of the three converging timelines that blend into a single story near the film’s end. So if you see it at all make sure to see the 70mm film on as big a screen as you can because viewed at home on a small screen or laptop the film has nothing to offer.

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Absolute boy – The Youth Revolt that led Corbyn to a victory of sorts

Post author By andrewnflood
Post date July 21, 2017

Corbyn’s strong showing in the June 2017 UK elections has given a big morale boost to the left. A considerable youth vote, self-mobilising in larger part as a reaction to the ‘me and mine’ selfish society revealed by the Brexit vote seriously set back Tory plans for a fresh wave of Brexit required austerity. Activists used social networking to overcome what had previously been seen as an all powerful smear machine of the billionaire print press. Very few outside the radical left expected this outcome, what drove it and more importantly where can it lead?
[ This is a long read so you can also listen to an audio of the text ]

This piece is not going to answer that in terms of assumptions and assertions but as far as possible through hard numbers. 66% of 18-24 year old’s voted Labour, only a quarter of that, 18% voted Tory [p4]. 27% of those 18-24 year olds said the NHS was the most important issue for them, even though they are least likely to need it [p40]. For the over 65 age group this was flipped, only 23% voted Labour and over twice as many (58%) voted Tory [p4]. In fact, given the way the UK election system works, if only 18-24 year olds had voted, Labour would have been heading for 500 seats. If it had only been those over 65 voting the Tories would have had over 400 seats.