Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘Colm Breathnach’ Category

“Will Sinn Féin in 2024 still just be the “attack dog” of opposition, or will a vision of what it will look like in government be clearly articulated?” Una Mullally, Irish Times, asks a very relevant question

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In the early days of 2024 thoughts turn to the next general election in Ireland which will create the 34th Dáil Éireann no later than February 2025.

Before that, in May 2024, voters in the 26 county bit of Ireland elect local authority councillors and members of the European Parliament.

All reliable opinion surveys suggest Sinn Féin will be the biggest party after the next Dáil general election, and that the current FFFGGG (Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Greens, Gombeens) coalition may stay in office.

The post here looks at relevant statistics :

Irish Elections Projections

Sinn Féin does not rule out coalition with the right-wing parties, and – once we ignore silly point-scoring – we can see that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens do not rule out coalition with Sinn Féin. Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin is explicit on this point :

Fianna Fáil Leader Micheál Martin opens the door to coalition with Sinn Féin

The prospect of such a government should send shivers down the spine of any self-respecting supporter of the radical left in Ireland.

Fianna Fáil (FF) and Fine Gael (FG), two tweedledum and tweedledee capitalist parties, have controlled every government running the southern 26 county bit of partitioned Ireland since a 1921 Treaty was signed with the former occupying power, Britain. A carnival of reaction followed on both sides of the Irish border.

Faced with a false choice between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the only rational policy for the left was and is: no coalition, on principle, with any right-wing party. 

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International Women’s Day 2023 in Ireland – Show Solidarity With the Women of Ukraine – Wednesday March 8, The Spire, O’Connell Street, Dublin

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On 8 March, Wednesday, #IWD an International Women’s Day march assembles 17.30 at The Spire, Dublin.

The Irish Left with Ukraine, part of the European Network with Ukraine will attend will attend to show our solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance and the Ukrainian feminist resistance.

. #IWD2023March

Links : https://www.facebook.com/groups/irishleftwithukraine @EuropeanWith https://ukraine-solidarity.eu/

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The Strange Rebirth of Stalinism – Colm Breathnach (Independent Left)

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THE STRANGE REBIRTH OF STALINISM

THE STRANGE REBIRTH OF STALINISM

The editors of this blog offer recommended reading – an article By of the Irish Left-Wing organization Independent Left.

Source : https://independentleft.ie/rebirth-of-stalinism/

A more colourful literary description of this phenomenon was offered by Yuliya Yurchenko at a November 2022 Dublin public meeting organised by Irish Left With Ukraine. The Ukrainian Marxist and Feminist offered us the idea that the USSR is dead – it is not coming back. The worst features of the dead ☠️ USSR have been imported into a new capitalist-imperialist-genocidal monster headed by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. The good bits have been discarded and killed off permanently. Think of Stephen King’s horror story Pet Sematary :

A well-tended path leads to a pet cemetery(misspelled “sematary” on the sign) where the children of the town bury their deceased animals.

A cat called Church dies, then :

after Church is run over outside his home around Thanksgiving. Rachel and the kids are visiting Rachel’s parents in Chicago, but Louis frets over breaking the bad news to Ellie. Sympathizing with Louis, Jud takes him to the “sematary”, supposedly to bury Church. But instead of stopping there, Jud leads Louis farther on to “the real cemetery”: an ancient burial ground that was once used by the Miꞌkmaq Tribe. There, Louis buries the cat on Jud’s instruction. The next afternoon, Church returns home; the usually vibrant and lively cat now acts ornery and, in Louis’s words, “a little dead”. Church hunts for mice and birds, ripping them apart without eating them. He also smells so bad that Ellie no longer wants him in her room at night. Jud confirms that Church has been resurrected and that Jud himself once buried his dog there when he was younger. Louis, deeply disturbed, begins to wish that he had not buried Church there.

WHAT IS STALINISM?

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