Archive for the ‘International Political Analysis’ Category
Manus O’Riordan has passed away
Here is a preliminary tribute written by Des Derwin, and a report describing his funeral
Trade unionist, socialist, historian, researcher and singer Manus O’Riordan has died. A keeper of the memory of the Spanish Civil War, and of the music of the movements.
Trade unionist, socialist, historian, researcher and singer Manus O’Riordan has died. A keeper of the memory of the Spanish Civil War, and of the music of the movements.
It is only hours, according to Facebook, since Manus O’Riordan posted on his page. It is less than three months since he stood with the wide spectrum of the left at fellow historian Rayner Lysaght’s funeral. Manus shall have as great a send off. Since then I spoke to him briefly near Hart’s Corner, where he lived and where he had some memorials erected. (Manus O’Riordan is pictured carrying a banner honouring Irish anti-fascists who fought against Franco in the 1930’s Spanish Civil War – in Glasnevin Cemetery at the funeral of Rayner Lysaght https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2021/07/05/rayner-lysaght-has-passed-away-limerick-soviet-historian-a-parent-of-modern-irish-trotskyism/
I differed profoundly with Manus on many issues and strongly agreed with him on many others. In the ITGWU and SIPTU he always showed the greatest respect to me and to my minority views. He cooperated on labour and anti-imperialist history with all those on the left providing a historical forum.
In the past fortnight I finally completed noting my political reminiscences of my own father, who was a one-time colleague of Manus’ father.
Passing on and passing it on. RIP. Des Derwin September 27 2021
Update : the funeral of Manus O’Riordan, Glasnevin Cemetery, Friday October 1 2021
Some images from the funeral of Manus O’Riordan. Friday October 1 2021. Among the attendance was Tara, carrying the shopping bag of the occasion. It can be bought at the Bang Bang Café, Phibsborough. Also present was Michael D Higgins, President of Ireland – currently popular with nearly stream of the Irish Left after refusing to attend a religious ceremony in Armagh celebrating a “Carnival of Reaction” 100th Anniversary : the partition of Ireland in 1921. There were many displayed Trade Union and left wing banners at the funeral, honouring a dedicated historian of the Irish working class. See also https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2021/09/29/the-fascist-origins-of-fine-gael-in-the-1930s-manus-oriordan-one-of-his-last-posts/
2021 General Election Result in Germany – Preliminary Notes – Will Berlin go Red-Red-Green?
- These are the official numbers :
- Preliminary official result
- Distribution of votes
- 24.1% CDU/CSU (Christian Democrats)
- 25.7%. SPD (Social Democrats)
- 10.3% AfD (Far-Right)
- 11.5% FDP (Liberals)
- 4.9% Die Linke (Left)
- 14.8% Greens
- 0.1% SSW (Danish Minority)
- 8.6% Others
Distribution of seats
Total seats
735
- 196 CDU/CSU
- 206 SPD
- 83 AfD
- 92 FDP
- 39 Left
- 118 Greens
- 1 SSW
A Red-Red-Green coalition is just short of a majority 206 +118+39 = 363
https://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/s-9097
Do any readers know the politics of the single SSW member?
“Do minorities have their own parties?
In Germany there are four state-recognized minorities: Sorbs, Danes, Frisians and the German Sinti and Roma. There is only a special party for the Danes and Frisians in Schleswig-Holstein, the South Schleswig Voters Union (SSW). It is standing for election to the Bundestag for the first time in 2021. The SSW has a good chance of gaining a seat, because it is exempted from the 5 per cent clause as a protected minority. This means that the calculated average number of votes needed for a single mandate is sufficient for the party to be represented.”
https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/politics/the-german-federal-election-facts-about-the-bundestag-and-electoral-law
The far-right party, the AfD, are shunned by all other parties (including the Christian Democrats and the Liberals).
German voters made very positive decisions about housing in Berlin elections
Voters in the German capital, Berlin, alongside casting ballots for the makeup of the new German parliament and for their local legislature, also took part in a referendum on whether to force large real estate companies to sell off most of their housing units.
With Berliners casting more votes in a day than the city ever had, there was chaos and delays at several polling stations. About 34,000 helpers were working at more than 2,250 polling stations across the city.
Therefore, final results on the nonbinding referendum are not expected until Monday.
After counting 27% of the ballots, a clear margin was already emerging: 56.9% had voted in favor and only 39% against the proposal.
“This is just an extrapolation, we won’t get the final results until tomorrow! But even this number shows that Berliners have had enough of speculation and mad rents,” the movement to expropriate Berlin housing corporations said on Twitter.
The measure required a simple majority to pass as well as a “yes” vote from at least a quarter of all eligible voters, but, even if it does pass, that would only force the incoming Berlin city-state government to debate the proposal.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-berlin-locals-vote-to-expropriate-real-estate-giants/a-59315431
Die Linke (Left) suffered a significant electoral reverse. It gained 4.9% of the National vote, losing 4.3% compared with 2017. By comparison the SPD and the Greens gained 5.2% and 5.8% respectively. The big losers were the Christian Democrats (down 8.8%). The AfD Nazis also lost ground (down 2.3%). The free-market Liberals, the FDP, held their ground (up 0.7%).
Here is a Die Linke pre-election statement :
Janine Wissler, Chairperson of DIE LINKE party, declares on the occasion of the Global Climate Strike on 24 September 2021:
A supporter of die Linke chairperson Janine Wissler
“On Sunday, we are facing a General Election. The coming federal government will be the last one that still has a chance to prevent the worst in climate protection and still achieve the 1.5 degree target. As the Left, we say: stop the politics of lost time. In the last three years, the many committed people at Fridays for Future have ensured that society, politics and business can no longer ignore the climate issue. Their fight for climate justice is making history.
DIE LINKE stands in solidarity with the climate movement. We call on our members to participate in the climate strike! We have requested the recognition of the climate emergency in the German Bundestag and are on the ground with MPs as parliamentary observers at climate protests.
With an “Immediate Programme for Climate Justice”, we want to set the course for a change in climate policy after the Bundestag elections. Our goal is climate neutrality by 2035. The Left Party is the guarantor of consistent and socially just climate protection:
We want to complete the coal phase-out by 2030 at the latest and introduce compulsory solar on roofs. In addition, we want to expand wind power, for 100% renewable energies by 2035 at the latest.
For us, a socially just mobility transition means: We want to expand public transport and make it free of charge. Making Germany a rail country: Railways must become a real, low-cost alternative to cars and air travel. No more fossil combustion engines from 2030. A moratorium on new motorway construction and finally enforce a speed limit.
We want to push ahead with the ecological refurbishment of buildings by investing billions and protect tenants from burdens by abolishing the modernisation levy.”
on behalf of Antje Dieterich
Press Office DIE LINKE Party Executive Committee
Press spokesperson Matthias Hinze – office 030 24009-543 matthias.hinze@die-linke.de
Deputy Press Spokesperson Götz Lange – Office 030 24009-674 goetz.lange@die-linke.de
Deputy Press Spokesperson Antje Dieterich – Office 030 24009-544 antje.dieterich@die-linke.de
German comrades will have to deal politically with this interesting electoral result. John Meehan September 27 2021
Roy Greenslade – Agent Of Influence – TPQ – Anthony McIntyre Explores a Strange Story
Anthony McIntyre offers a useful review of the Roy Greenslade story. At this stage I agree that the retired Professor is probably telling the truth, denying any role in an alleged IRA plot to kill the journalist Liam Clarke in 1988. We should all accept that denial unless any new facts are brought forward casting doubt on the former journalist’s statement. Read the rest of this entry »
Roy Greenslade – Destroyed Communities and a powerful man who said “sorry”
Facts, stubborn things, are the friends of good journalists.
Smears, slippery things, are the friends of anti-journalists.
Anti-Journalism
Roy Greenslade, then editor of Robert Maxwell’s Daily Mirror, ran a smear campaign against Arthur Scargill, leader of the British Miners’ Union (the NUM) in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Ten years later Mr Greenslade said sorry. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Roy_Greenslade
The unimpressed film-maker Ken Loach wrote a caustic letter to the British Guardian on May 31 2002.
Read the rest of this entry »Dear Roy Greenslade, it was good to read your apology about the Arthur Scargill story (Sorry, Arthur, Media, May 27). I wonder if you remember our film for Dispatches, which exposed those lies in, I think, 1991. It seems a bit late to come clean now.
Bombing will not go softly: on Andreas Malm’s ‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’.
[Guest post by Des Derwin]
I have written a long critical essay on Andreas Malm’s new ecosocialist book ‘How To Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire ’ (Verso, 2021).
It was written quite independently of Alan Thornett’s review on the Global Ecosocialist Network website, and before I had read it. It concurs with his review in almost every aspect, though his response is expressed more forcefully and briefly than mine. The exception is Alan’s enthusiasm for James Hansen’s fee and dividend proposal, which strikes me, at first glance, as less realistic than the ‘Just Transition’ demand. The paper is here:
Ernie Tate’s “Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s and 60s”
Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s and 60s, Volume One, Canada 1955-1965By Ernie Tate268 pages. Resistance Books. $15.00 Revolutionary Activism in …
Ernie Tate’s “Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s and 60s”
Ernest (Ernie) Tate was born in 1934 in the Shankill Road, heart of Protestant Belfast. In 1955 at the age of 21 he migrated to Canada and within a year had become a member of the Canadian Trotskyist organisation, the Socialist Educational League.
Louis Proyect writes a wonderful tribute to Tate, one of the founders of the British International Marxist Group and the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in the 1960s, who has died from cancer at the age of 86 at his home in Toronto. He played a vital role in a campaign that would re-shape the British far left.
Read the rest of this entry »For a European shutdown in solidarity from below against the pandemic – For a ZeroCoVid Policy in Ireland
Irish Action – German Action – European Action – ZeroCoVid is the way forward.
The CoVid-19 virus does not recognise borders. Sign Circulate and Promote this Zero CoVid Call :
The appeal says: “We need a common strategy in Europe immediately to fight the pandemic effectively. Vaccinations alone will not win the race against the mutated viral variant – even more so if the pandemic fight continues to consist of actionist restrictions on free time without a shutdown of the economy.” Similar initiatives emerged a few weeks ago in other countries, notably the UK and Ireland, see for example Zero Covid The Campaign to Beat the Pandemic or the article “Covid is a Class Issue”.
https://zero-covid.org/language/en/
Paul Murphy is a RISE TD for Dublin South-West, part of the Solidarity – People Before Profit grouping in the Dáil. See below, one of many articles written and circulated by Paul Murphy promoting a Zero CoVid policy for Ireland and further afield.
Read the rest of this entry »Incivility in Irish political life…
This is a great Cedar Lounge Revolution Post
“Stephen Collins is very exercised this morning about a problem in Irish politics…
https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2021/01/22/incivility-in-irish-political-life/
“[Biden’s] plea to American politicians to “stop the shouting and lower the temperature” could well be applied to Dáil Éireann where aggressive grandstanding by Opposition TDs like Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and Richard Boyd Barrett have become the norm. Trump thrived on fomenting bitterness and division, constantly attempting to create conflict between “us and them”. A key element of the strategy was to portray political opponents as part of some ill-defined “elite” as distinct from the “ordinary people” he claimed to represent. It is no accident that the Trump social media strategy has been adopted here by Sinn Féin and a variety of extremists who dominate exchanges with aggressive and hate-filled messages which tend to drive more considered voices to the margins. Irish politics has steadily become more Trumpian in recent years and there is no sign that is about to change.
Joe Biden President of USA – Donald Trump Departs – Extreme Right Criminals Celebrate
One correspondent is not impressed with many displays of forelock-tugging on Irish mainstream media outlets. Joe Biden is an Irish-American, who frequently quotes Irish poets and writers such as Séamus Heaney WB Yeats and James Joyce.
Joe Biden is an incubator of Trumpism.
“I wonder did he read any poems written by Black men in American prisons, seeing as he was the main architect of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 which enforced mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses. Due to that and other ‘catch-all’ crime laws, Black men (also women) make up about 15% of the population but 40% of the prisoners.”
President Donald Trump sent QAnon-style goons on their way to Washington DC’s Capitol Hill on January 6 2021 trying and failing to overturn a convincing Joe Biden General Election victory in November 2020. Trump lost by a margin of over 8 million votes, a gap of more than 4.5 per cent, and turnout reached record levels. Many of the QAnon-style Trump-goons so far arrested and charged over the Capitol Hill assault on the US Senate and Congress are serving or retired staff in the state repressive forces – Army, Air Force, Police, National Guard and so on. What protection is the US state offering to the people attending the Joe Biden Presidential inauguration on January 20 2021? It is a version of putting the fox 🦊 in charge of the chicken 🐓 coop – 25,000 members of the National Guard occupy the city of Washington DC, whose population is overwhelmingly non-white, politically and socially hostile to Trumpism, and supportive of the magnificent Black Lives Matter Movement. No wonder the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had to desperately “vet” the repressive forces instructed to “protect” the Joe Biden inauguration.
Read the rest of this entry »Connolly Youth Movement Disaffiliates from the Communist Party of Ireland
Rumours about sharp disagreements between the Connolly Youth Movement (CYM) and the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) circulated publicly on various platforms, notably the Cedar Lounge Revolution. https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2020/12/02/what-you-want-to-say-2-december-2020/
The CYM has disaffiliated from the CPI – a public statement is here : https://cym.ie/2021/01/18/cym-statement-on-disaffiliation/?fbclid=IwAR2rMRnPz2RhVRn8x6Q3GPBTmysFeX26swCJKaVpsOyvWpyupMsLloOSQmk
One correspondent observes :
An interesting political development. Whilst I would not overstate it in any sense, it is true that the CYM has presented itself as a generally vibrant group and has garnered a lot of recruits particularly (though not exclusively) through leaning into a particular online aesthetic and social circles.
Read the rest of this entry »Their attachment to the Communist Party and, partly, its selection of recruits, has resulted in it inheriting a framework of analysis which led to a fundamentally left-sectarian approach (“anti-Trotskyism”) and self-imposed isolation from a significant section of the socialist left. It is no joke to say that some in the CYM spend almost as much (if not more) time attacking other socialist groups than they do attacking our common enemy.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 