Tomás Ó Flatharta

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Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) 2023 Conference Unanimously Passes Resolution in Solidarity With Ukraine

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We reported on debates about Ukraine at the ICTU 2023 Conference in a recent post :

Trade Unionists for Solidarity with Ukraine -Russian Troops Out of Ukraine Now – Irish Congress of Trade Unions Conference Official Fringe Meeting – Maginnes 3, Lyrath Hotel Kilkenny – Tuesday July 4 2023, 17:30

Des Derwin and Gregor Kerr, members of Irish Left With Ukraine, proposed and spoke in favour of the motion below :

Gregor Kerr speaking in favour of the motion :

The motion was carried unanimously. We look forward to practical trade union action flowing from this decision.

Trade Unionists for Solidarity with Ukraine -Russian Troops Out of Ukraine Now – Irish Congress of Trade Unions Conference Official Fringe Meeting – Maginnes 3, Lyrath Hotel Kilkenny – Tuesday July 4 2023, 17:30

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Trade Unionists for Solidarity with Ukraine –
Russian Troops Out of Ukraine Now

ICTU BDC Official Fringe Meeting

Maginnes 3, Lyrath Hotel, Kilkenny

Tuesday July 4 2023 17.30

Zoom Link : https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82438977972?pwd=NlR1dVVra0VoNkRXTFFjYnY4SHZKdz09

Speakers :

Gregor KerrIrish National Teachers Organisation delegate to ICTU BDC, member of the ICTU Global Solidarity Committee (Personal Capacity)

Nataliya Levytska , Deputy Chair, KVPU (Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine)

Sergey Movchan, member of Solidarity Collectives Ukraine

Denys Pilash, political scientist and historian representing Sotsialnyi Rukh (Social Movement Ukraine)

Chairperson : Nóirín Greene, Former ICTU Executive Member

We stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and their defence against the illegal and brutal invasion of February 2022. We want an immediate stop to the bombardment of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure by the Russian Federation and to war crimes and human rights abuses in the occupied territories.

We are for the speediest possible end to the war, based on

  • The immediate withdrawal of all Russian forces
  • Self-determination for Ukraine and restoration of occupied territory
  • Ukraine’s right to appeal for, and be provided with, the military equipment needed to defeat the invasion.
  • Approval of any ‘peace deal’ by the people of Ukraine

We extend our solidarity to Ukrainian trade unionists and socialists who continue to promote

and defend workers’ rights. We oppose the introduction of new labour laws in Ukraine which

have undermined trade union and worker rights.

We support a socially progressive reconstruction of Ukraine, with trade unions and civil society

playing a central role. We therefore support the cancellation of Ukraine’s foreign debt and

seizure of Russian assets to help fund state and society-led reconstruction with fully state-

funded welfare state and a low carbon sustainable economy.

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Britain: The Lecturers’ Union and the Betrayal of the Intellectuals – The anti-imperialism of amoral idiots

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Many certainties about global politics were transformed on February 24 2022 when the Russian Federation began a genocidal imperialist invasion of Ukraine, a country in the heart of Europe with a population of 44 million people. The imperialist invaders have forced at least seven million people out of their homeland. This was a seismic shock to many parts of the existing international anti-war movement, which failed to see this catastrophe on the horizon. In itself, that is not a problem. The future cannot be foretold with perfect accuracy, we only have 20-20 vision about the past.

But, what to do?

Readers of this blog will be aware of activities sponsored by Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU) and the heroic work of Ukrainian activist and academic Yuliya Yurchenko.

This is her take on the behaviour of the British “Stop the War Coalition”, which has parallels in Ireland and other parts of the globe :

Yuliya Yurchenko, a Ukrainian senior lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Greenwich, described the attitude of the ‘anti-war’ left, “who somehow manage to simultaneously recognise Russia’s right to ‘defend its interests’ while denying the right of Ukrainians to defend their very lives or assert their national self-determination”, summing this up memorably as “the anti-imperialism of amoral idiots”.

These issues have erupted inside a British trade union, the University and College Union (UCU) which has a reported membership of about 120,000 people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_and_College_Union . The report below makes for often ghastly reading. All the same, effective left-wing solidarity with Ukraine is essential – we urge readers to engage.

Article Source : https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article66925


Many academics in both Ukraine and the UK are horrified by the Putin-enabling posturing of far-left factions within the UCU

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The Neutrality Policy of the Irish State – A rational defence strategy is required

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The left campaign to defend the current Irish foreign policy of Neutrality should be supported – (more accurately the campaign should be styled Non-Alignment, in the sense of 100 per cent opposition to membership of NATO or any other imperialist military alliance).

Opponents of the Dublin government’s attempt to move closer to NATO got lucky.

Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin set up a public “consultative” forum examining Irish foreign policy – which is designed to push the Irish state closer to NATO. President Michael D Higgins launched an effective public attack

Irish President Michael D Higgins Mocked a British Empire Dame from Waterford, Louise Richardson – Is this Expert a good choice to chair an Irish Public Forum on the Neutrality Foreign Policy?

Higgins forced the issue into the mainstream media. Otherwise, the Forum would have taken place with much less publicity. Opponents of the government cannot rely on a lucky break like that every time.

The Irish State has ignored its responsibility to police our skies and our seas. It allows other states – primarily Britain – to do that job. Today, in 2023, international global tensions have risen to an alarming degree, and a very serious imperialist and genocidal war is occurring in the heart of Europe, in Ukraine. Russian imperialism is threatening the Irish state’s balancing act. Putin’s regime has openly threatened military action against the Irish state. That should not be laughed off or ignored. That is the reason the Dublin government is under pressure to get involved with a military alliance.

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Bizarre Things that American Con Artists and Clare Daly MEP Believe or Don’t Believe

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Joan McKiernan, who has been a socialist activist in both the United States and Ireland, reports. Joan also writes for Against the Current https://againstthecurrent.org/joan-mckiernan/

When I was teaching college sociology, I used to do a session on the bizarre things that Americans believe or don’t believe. Like, only 60% of Americans believe in evolution. 10% believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, to mention a few notable examples. Long ago, Mark Twain remarked, “It is easier to trick the average person, than it is to convince them that they have been tricked.”  

I should not have been surprised then during the Trump era and the pandemic, we saw so many Americans accepting untruths, refusing masks and vaccines, refusing to believe that Covid was real, even as they went to their deaths. And during these years after Trump’s defeat, so many still refuse to accept facts, electoral counts, data. We are told there are alternative versions of facts! 

So now we have the same lack of truth applied to support for Ukrainians resistance against the Russian invasion and destruction of their country. Recently, this was seen in this article, The Con Artists Who Blame Ukraine Aid for America’s Social Problems, in which independent presidential candidate and anti-vaxxer, RFK Jr., Green Party candidate Cornel West, Glenn Greenwald, and other Putin apologists are making disingenuous, pseudo-populist arguments against U.S. support for Ukraine. Rather than looking at capitalist exploitation, the Trump tax cuts, unemployment and low wages for the majority, they are blaming the Ukrainian support for all of the US social problems.  
https://newrepublic.com/article/173902/ukraine-war-cost-russian-propaganda-rfk-jr-greenwald  

The Con Artists Who Blame Ukraine Aid for America’s Social Problems

The reliance on untruths, twisted thinking and re-writing of history is no longer just an American characteristic. This week Irish member of the European Parliament, Clare Daly, came out with her own bizarre explanation of how to deal with the Ukraine war. She says, “The US sat down with the Taliban.” praised the role of United States in the Irish Good Friday Peace Agreement and said the international community should try and do something similar in Ukraine.  She accuses the West of giving arms in order to keep the war in Ukraine going! 

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The Con Artists Who Blame Ukraine Aid for America’s Social Problems

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We thank Joan McKiernan for drawing our attention to a very useful article. The issues it raises also affect political dialogue in other parts of the world, including Ireland. Sections of the left repeat, in many cases unwittingly, pro-Putin populist propaganda currently promoted by North American celebrities who sometimes dress in left-wing clothes. The author (Alaric DeArment) demolishes the apparently plausible claim below :

A scene of squalor unfolds as the camera moves along a city street lined with apparent drug addicts to the soundtrack of Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.” A caption reads, “While American citizens live on the streets and take drugs not to feel the pain, the United States would rather finance a proxy war against Russia,” while a bar graph says the U.S. has sent $46.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

Read on, to see what is fundamentally wrong with the above approach. Article Source :

https://newrepublic.com/article/173902/ukraine-war-cost-russian-propaganda-rfk-jr-greenwald

Howie Hawkins writes a very useful introduction :

The article below highlights a big problem the Ukraine solidarity movement faces. These influencers who are pitting Ukrainians against Americans have far more reach than we do. Glenn Greenwald has 300,000 substack subscribers. Jimmy Dore has 1.2 million YouTube subscribers. RFK Jr’ s celebrity status reaches millions.

Dore and these anti-Left influencers give expression to a conspiracist-minded populism that explains social problems as caused primarily by evil elite cabals rather than social structures. Their audiences are very susceptible to the conspiracist themes in Russian propaganda that these influencers amplify. 

The anti-Left “populist” influencers are also proudly “anti-woke,” which is to say hostile to anti-racist, feminist, and LGBTQ movements, saying that they divide the working class, which in their mind is white male when in fact it is majority women and people of color. It is their anti-woke rants that divide workers by race, gender, and sexual orientation. For example, see this ignorant denigration of Juneteenth by Jimmy Dore and his sidekick.

I don’t have any easy recommendations for us to deal with this phenomenon other than to keep organizing, speaking up, and building our own media.


Find out more about Howie Hawkins here : https://tomasoflatharta.com/2020/03/05/every-state-is-a-battleground-howie-hawkins-green-party-usa-presidential-candidate-in-2020-standing-on-the-ecosocialist-left-against-the-democrats-and-republicans/

The Con Artists Who Blame Ukraine Aid for America’s Social Problems

RFK Jr., Glenn Greenwald, and other Putin apologists are making disingenuous, pseudo-populist arguments against U.S. support for Ukraine.

A scene of squalor unfolds as the camera moves along a city street lined with apparent drug addicts to the soundtrack of Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.” A caption reads, “While American citizens live on the streets and take drugs not to feel the pain, the United States would rather finance a proxy war against Russia,” while a bar graph says the U.S. has sent $46.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

The video , on TikTok, is but one of the countless posts across social media that convey the same underlying message: By helping Ukraine defend itself from bloody subjugation by Russia, the U.S. is depriving its own citizens of critical aid. This pernicious narrative has spread in part thanks to fringe yet popular media and political figures who already had a history of littering the discourse with Kremlinesque talking points, and who now have weaponized and monetized the perception that the U.S. has been too generous to Ukraine and too stingy to its own people.

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The war unleashed by Putin’s regime threatens its stability. Why? Because of Ukrainian Resistance

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Andrew Murray, a leading spokesperson of the British Stop the War Campaign, has attempted to write an explanation of the Prigozhin Coup.

A Ceasefire is more important than ever

A schoolchild can demolish this writer’s approach :

My comments are in bold italics and red.

John Meehan (JM)

I deploy a technique well known to effective teachers. One of those teachers explained that, even when you are dealing with the brightest pupils, you need to repeatedly state necessary concrete practical action and analysis so it gets through to the listeners and readers.

Andrew Murray (AM) :

“The case for a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict is made all the more compelling by the events in Russia.”

John Meehan (JM)

The “events in Russia” have been caused by Ukrainian resistance. There is a “compelling” case to continue and deepen this resistance.

AM :

“The mercenary Wagner group launched an armed insurrection to depose the leadership of the Russian military. Had it been successful, Russia’s military, including its vast nuclear arsenal, could have fallen into the hands of an enraged oligarch.”

JM:

Russia’s “vast nuclear arsenal” is already in the hands of an enraged oligarch – Vladimir Putin.


“The adventure is a product of the failure of Russia’s war to achieve its objectives in Ukraine. Indeed, Wagner boss Prigozhin has belatedly declared that the whole invasion last year was unnecessary and predicated on lies.”

JM:

Precisely. The co-leader of the invasion has declared – unlike Stop The War (Britain) – that there was no threat to Russia from NATO, and no plans by Ukraine to invade Russia.

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Will Unite the Union stand with Ukraine?

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This post comes from our comrades in the British Ukraine Solidarity Campaign. The author is Sacha Ismail. Source : https://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/2023/06/25/will-unite-the-union-stand-with-ukraine/

Will Unite the Union stand with Ukraine?

By Sacha Ismail

Sharon Graham UNITE General Secretary speakng at a picket – the refuse workers strike in Coventry – strikers had raised Ukrainian flags.

If delegates to Unite the Union’s upcoming biennial policy conference (11-14 July, Brighton) want to support

• withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine
• Ukraine’s right to self-determination
• strong links with Ukrainian trade unions and socialists
• clear demands for strong rights for all refugees

they must support the text submitted by my branch, London and Eastern 524.

Delegates to the first Unite policy conference since Russia invaded Ukraine should vote to push for the UK’s largest private sector union, involved in many of the most successful industrial disputes of the last year, to stand in clear solidarity with Ukraine and its labour movement.

Only one motion on Ukraine has been submitted to the conference (from the Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Process and Textiles ‘Regional Industrial Sector Committee’/RISC for North East, Yorkshire and Humberside). It seems to me, at best, highly politically ambiguous. The substantial amendment submitted by London and Eastern 524 (Central London Voluntary Sector branch) seeks to ensure a strong pro-Ukraine stance. (You can read the text of both below; document with all motions and amendments here.)

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Ukraine excommunication. Brokenhearted . Not

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Guest post by Des Derwin

The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB, ) have the merit of consistently applying the ‘proxy inter-imperialist war’ position. If only for that there is value in reading this, Social imperialism is betrayal (Weekly Worker, Issue 1428, 2nd February 2023).

But even they, for all their bold declaration of ‘revolutionary defeatism’, can’t bring themselves to say they want Ukraine defeated, Russia to occupy Kyiv ‘this time’ and the Russian occupation regime to be extended to the whole of Ukraine, crushing the labour movement in Ukraine and the democratic and civil rights still surviving there.

Who cares that they have irrevocably broken with us and the likes of us. We should break with them and the likes of them. If socialism still has two souls ours is not theirs. 

Written by siptuactivist

May 30, 2023 at 9:15 pm

Mick Lynch – Rail Marine and Transport Union (Britain) – participates in solidarity with Ukraine

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Recently Mick Lynch visited Ireland, speaking at a well attended Robert Tressell commemoration in Liberty Hall, headquarters of Lynch’s political hero, the Easter 1916 Rising rebel James Connolly.

Mick Lynch understands that all on the left must stand with Ukraine.

Who on the Irish left comes anywhere close to this internationalist and revolutionary policy?

‘”The general secretary of the RMT rail union, Mick Lynch, refuted the government official’s accusations towards Ukraine: “I was in Ukraine when the Russian tanks invaded, and ASLEF deputy general secretary Simon Weller was also there to talk to the railway workers when the Russian bombs fell on Ukraine. And we are involved in the solidarity campaign with Ukraine.”‘

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