ULA nonaligned election to Steering Committee: Alan Gibson
On Saturday next, 28th April, the nonaligned members of the United Left Alliance will elect two of their number to the Steering Committee. There are three candidates: Alan Gibson (Cork), Joe Loughnane (Galway) and Therese Caherty (Dublin Central).
In three posts we bring you their election statements. The first is from Alan Gibson. It is a PDF at the following link:
http://revolutionaryprogramme.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/alan-gibson-election-statement.pdf
Socialists of America, Unite! on May 1, 2012
Socialists of America, Unite! on May 1, 2012
Reposted from Louis Proyect: the Reluctant Marxist, 12th April 2012
Occupy spreads like wildfire, setting America ablaze. From large cities like New York City and Los Angeles to small towns like Martinsburg, Virginia and Mobile, Alabama, occupiers are consistently organizing, planning, discussing, and taking direct action for the 99%.
Not since the 1960s and 1930s have so many people taken militant action against the state and capital.
No matter what we think of Occupy’s calls for a general strike on May 1, the important thing is that those calls are resonating on a scale not seen since the days of the free speech fights and the call for “One Big Union” by the Industrial Workers of the World.
It is with this in mind that we, the undersigned, call on all socialists, regardless of organizational affiliation or lack thereof, to unite in joint action on May 1, 2012.
In places where there will be large permitted May Day marches like New York City, there will be a multi-tendency contingent with socialists from a variety of organizations and independent socialists as well. In places without May 1 marches, mass meetings or socials to celebrate May Day might be more appropriate.
Regardless what form it takes, on May 1, 2012 we should act together.
To be clear, we are not saying that socialists who are in unions, campus groups, or other organizations leave or separate from the contingents/actions those organizations are planning.
We are saying that whatever locally based action socialists take on May 1 should be united in order to maximize our visibility, impact, and influence.
Any individual or organization may sign this call by emailing may1socialistunity@gmail.com and/or “liking” our Facebook page.
For more information on how to link up with this initiative or organize a joint action in your area, contact may1socialistunity@gmail.com.
Signed*:
Ben Campbell, Occupy Wall Street
Bhaskar Sunkara, Editor, Jacobin magazine
Billy Wharton, Socialist Party USA
Bob Turansky, Solidarity
Clay Claiborne, Venice filmmaker and The North Star
Chris Cutrone, Platypus Society
Chris Maisano, Democratic Socialists of America
Carl Davidson, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
Dan La Botz, Solidarity
Jason Schulman, New Politics magazine, Democratic Socialists of America
Fernando Gapasin, Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Manuel Barrera, independent revolutionary socialist
Michael Hirsch, New Politics magazine
Steve Early, Labor journalist, organizer, and member of Newspaper Guild/CWA
Zak, Occupy Wall Street Class War Camp
*Organizations listed for identification purposes only.
Organizational endorsements: John Reed Society; Platypus Affiliated Society
X Case on the Political Agenda
“Anyway, enormous thanks are owed to the TDs who put this together. The fact that they forced a debate on the issue is a major achievement.” –
Stephanie Lord.
That is the key factor for activists. The Dáil debate was supported by Action on X, which mobilised support outside Leinster House and brought the issue to public attention. We can rely only on ourselves, the politics of mass mobilisation – and work harmoniously with the TD’s who introduced the bill – more power to them all.Plus Plus Plus to Ming Flanagan – as pointed out by EamonnCork on the Cedar Lounge discussion “By the way Ming Flanagan’s vote in favour of the bill perhaps gives the lie to people on here who persistently characterise him as some kind of rural conservative in disguise” –
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0420/1224314970161.html?via=mr
It almost seems petty to consider who voted and who didn’t on the Abortion Bill this week. But, it’s an exercise with some utility.
First up, consider that ten of the Technical Group, and four of the ULA (out of five), voted for the Bill. Nine of SF’s 14 voted (though Pearse Doherty was at the funeral of his father). Patrick Nulty, who appears to be becoming a one man tribune of a strand of Labour thinking that has now all but vanished also voted for it. I can’t divine any great rural/urban divide in SF, or pro-choice/anti-abortion divide either. TDs who might seem to fit in either camps voted for the Bill.
Of the Technical Group, Stephen Donnelly voted for the Bill, and that great social liberal, Shane Ross? And what of Thomas Pringle? Finian McGrath was missing in action too, as was Tom Fleming – perhaps less unexpectedly.
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Abortion Legislation Proposed in Ireland – Historic Days
Clare Daly, Joan Collins, Mick Wallace, Action on X, CONGRATULATIONS.
Labour Party pro choice campaigners, many of whom campaigned with courage on this issue since the infamous 1992 X Case, need to reflect on the price they are paying for coalition with Fine Gael.
Here’s a thought on foot of today and tomorrow’s events. The list of those voting will be most interesting, as will the names of those who don’t turn up in the Chamber. It will also be useful to match that against votes subsequent to any attempt to introduce legislation on foot of the report released later this year.
Of course the Labour Party has headed off some of the implications of the above by not allowing a free vote, though will any members of the LP break ranks. As interesting will be others from other parties.
RTÉ reports the following:
Speaking after a silent pro-life protest at the Dáil, Caroline Simons of the Pro-life movement said tonight’s private members bill is not about medical treatment for women but about providing for abortion throughout pregnancy.
She said doctors have practiced with no diffculty for the last 20 years since the ‘X-case’…
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ULA Public Meeting : NO To Austerity, Build a Radical Alternative – Tuesday April 24 @8.00pm, Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square
Dublin Central Branch
Public Meeting
NO To Austerity, Build a Radical Alternative
Tuesday April 24 @8.00pm, Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square
Speakers : Joe Higgins TD, Joan Collins TD,
Sheila Judge (DEIS campaigner)
Boycott the Household Tax
The Campaign to boycott payment of the Household Tax has won magnificent support. The anger expressed at meetings and protest shows people are prepared to face the government down.
The United Left Alliance (ULA) fully supports the Campaign. Our members, councillors and TDs support the boycott of the tax and stand with those resisting the charge.
Labour & Fine Gael Bail Out Bankers
Labour and Fine Gael promised to stand up to the EU-IMF. Labour even threatened to ‘burn the bondholders’. Now they have made a conscious decision to bailout bankers and speculators and every dirty trick in the book will be used to threaten people to force them to pay this unjust tax.
VOTE NO to Austerity Treaty on May 31
Austerity is being imposed to pay off the gambling debts of the banks. The government wants to enshrine these policies in the Constitution by signing up to a European Treaty that will restrict the ability of states to fund public investment to create jobs. The passing of this treaty will lead to ever more cuts in health and education and more misery for the majority of people. It must be opposed.
Wealth Tax Will Fund New Jobs
The ULA is opposed to all forms of austerity:
making ordinary people pay for a crisis that was not of their making. Ireland is not broke and austerity is not inevitable. The richest 5% have a combined wealth of €219 billion. A wealth tax on these resources and a refusal to pay bank debts could generate billions for a programme of job creation.
Build A Radical Political Alternative
The growing opposition to austerity must be linked. The ULA believes it is time to build a radical political alternative. The ULA stands for the creation of a new party for working people that stands for democratic public ownership of the resources of the economy that can guarantee a decent standard of living for all. It does not believe that there is a just or sustainable solution to the current crises based on the capitalist market and bowing to the power of speculators.
We believe there needs to be a wide debate, involving all those groups and individuals opposed to austerity, about the best way to build a new organisation to represent working people, the unemployed and the marginalised.
Come to the Public Meeting, join the debate and get involved in the fightback.
The ULA, formed in November 2010, is an Alliance of People Before Profit , the Socialist Party and the Tipperary Workers and Unemployed Action Group. It has five TDs, an MEP, and councillors throughout the country. It is now building branches in all areas to provide active opposition to the austerity policies of the government.
For more information contact Donal at 087 7552559 or Colm at 087 2947100
United Left Alliance at http://www.unitedleftalliance.org/
Will this be the ICTU position on the Austerity Treaty?
The paper below on the Fiscal Compact (Austerity) Treaty, dated 12th April, was prepared for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions executive by General Secretary David Begg following the ICTU executive committee meeting of 9th March.
It seems that the blackmail clause is necessary for David Begg too. In a paper which is 80% a useful demolition of the Treaty from a social democratic point of view, an excuse that the wording does not really copper fasten austerity and, especially, the projected inaccessibility of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) for a second bail out following a rejection, leads to the conclusion, encapsulated in the final sentence:
“While the treaty is wrong from our economic and social perspective it becomes hard to oppose it unless a satisfactory alternative to the ESM can be advanced.”
It appears that his will be the leading proposal to go before the relevant ICTU executive meeting for deciding a Congress position on the Treaty.
The email that brought in the paper had the subject heading, “Is this travesty just going to go unchallenged?”
–ooOoo–
ULA members: aligned or nonaligned…?
The identification of the nonaligned, in the run up to the election of two nonaligned representatives to the Steering Committee of the United Left Alliance on 28th April, has led to some discussion at ULA Branch level.
The category of nonaligned is a little complicated. And may be even more complicated again if, for instance, somebody joined the Socialist Workers Party and then the ULA since the ULA was set up without ever joining the People Before Profit Alliance; indeed it would be difficult for someone recently joining the SWP in the Dublin Central area to join the PBPA before joining the ULA as the PBPA in Dublin Central has not been meeting or operating since the the establishment of the Dublin Central ULA.
The nonaligned category is a field trip for the political anorak already. Members of the PBPA who are not members of the SWP are not nonaligned because it is the PBPA, the Socialist Party and the South Tipperary Workers and Unemployed Action Group that are represented on the Steering Committee and to which you would or would not be aligned. So there are members in the ULA of long established political groups such as Socialist Democracy and the Irish Socialist Network who are nonaligned. ISN members have been welcomed into forums of the nonaligned. A looser but veteran political grouping such as Declan Bree’s group in Sligo (the Sligo/Leitrim Independent Socialist Organisation?*) are not represented on the Steering Committee and therefore are numbered among the nonaligned (if they are ULA members), as are a single supporter (or associate) each of two organised tendencies not otherwise represented in the country. One of the latter is running for one of the nonaligned positions.
The ULA Steering Committee, as I understand it, recognises all these as nonaligned because they do not belong to any of the three founding groups who make up the ULA Steering Committee. There is a great deal of political agreement among the nonaligned but it is a technical category and includes some who differ sharply with the general vision for the ULA of most nonaligned people.
A case could be made, if someone had the nerve to make it, that SWP members who are not PBPA members are nonaligned. The case against that would be that as SWP members they are represented on the ULA Steering Committee by the PBPA delegates, the SWP being represented on the PBPA Steering Committee. The nonaligned are being offered representation now because they have not been represented so far.
And how it fits into all this I’m not sure, but I believe that, until recently anyway, the South Tipperary Workers and Unemployed Action Group had no members in the ULA. There may have been a view that the whole of the STWUAG had joined the ULA en bloc and were represented on and participated through its membership of the ULA Steering Committee. And there is a certain logic to this as long as the ULA continues to be considered as an alliance or federation of three blocs. How new recruits directly to the ULA slot into this is being partly addressed through the nonaligned election of two reps to the Steering Committee.
To round off your enjoyment of this Friday pipeful I draw your attention to the obvious absence of some members of some, and maybe of all three, of the founding organisations from any meetings or activities of the ULA. It is reasonable to assume, and may be a good pluralist thing, that some members of some of the founding organisations are not, and do not see themselves as, members of the ULA.
But we’ll all be marching together tomorrow in Galway.
Won’t we?
Des Derwin
* Declan’s lively website (http://www.declanbree.com/news-currentissues/) mentions many affiliations but not the ULA.
ULA Galway: Counter Conference 13th -14th April
Invitation
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Challenging the Sell-out of Labour
Building a real political and economic alternative
Counter-Conference
NUI Galway 13th – 14th April
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2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Irish Labour Party. To mark the occasion and to challenge them on their absolute betrayal of the working class, the Galway branch of the ULA is hosting a Counter-Conference to coincide with the National Conference of the Labour Conference. The Counter-Conference will be held in NUI Galway on Friday 13th and Saturday 14th April. Speakers will include opposition TDs, trade union leaders, campaigners, academics and former Labour members. ULA members and supporters, and indeed the general public, are invited to attend and to participate.
It is fitting for working people to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of the Labour Party. The organisation that Larkin and Connolly established in 1912 has been corrupted beyond recognition. The leadership of the Labour Party has turned its back on working people, on women, on the elderly and on the unemployed.
The Counter-Conference will provide a space for political activists, former Labour members and supporters, trade unionists, working people, campaigners and all those affected by unemployment and austerity to gather together to build a new movement for ordinary people.
Further details available from:
www.ulagalway.org/counterconference
085 8461013
Tomás Ó Flatharta 