Labour Members’ Forum
An egg from Maman Poulet 14th February 2012
Labour members meet to talk about policy alternatives
As they approach their first year in Government the Labour Party have held carefully choreographed meetings of party members before their equally carefully choreographed conference in Galway next month.
Last night about 200 members met in Stillorgan to question Eamon Gilmore on the party’s actions in government on subjects including the Vatican Embassy, tax breaks for investors and the like.
Independently of the head office verbal dances, a grass roots members meeting is being held in Dublin this Saturday. Entitled the Labour Members Forum, the organisers have sent out word far and wide.
A group of grassroots Labour members from a broad range of constituencies have come together to start a discussion about how we as members believe our party can deliver on the values of the Labour Party. We are organising a Labour Party Members’ Forum, “What can Labour do in government?” on Saturday 18th February in Wynn’s Hotel in Dublin. The Forum is aimed at grassroots members of the Labour party, to hear and debate alternative policy solutions to Ireland’s social and economic challenges.
Speakers confirmed include Dr. Mary Murphy (NUI, Maynooth), Michael Taft (UNITE), Mags O’Brien (SIPTU), John Douglas (ICTU), Orla O’Connor (National Women’s Council of Ireland) and Tom Healy (ICTU).
Labour Party Head Office seem to have themselves in a quandry as they try to find who has organised the meeting with a very interesting line up. A little birdie tells me it kicks off at 10.30am and runs all day in Wynnes Hotel. Maybe head office will send along someone to take notes. More information from Labourmembersforum(@)gmail.com
Postal vote for election of nonaligned to ULA sub-committee
The following email went out to ULA members, or some, yesterday:
From: “United Left Alliance” <contact@unitedleftalliance.org>
Date: 15 Feb 2012
Subject: ULA sub-committee election
To:
Dear all,
As announced in our previous email a sub-committee is being established to:
– recommend interim arrangements for representation of unaligned members on Steering Committee,
– discuss future development of ULA including the development of participative structure,
– consult all members on these issues and
– report to Steering Committee who will report to conference.
The Steering Committee has agreed that 2 comrades who are members of the ULA but not members of any of the founding organisations, should be part of the subcommittee.
To that effect, we are proposing to set up a postal vote where all such members can take part in the election of two individual ULA members onto the subcommittee. The subcommittee will have eight members in total.
A postal ballot is not ideal but the Steering Committee felt it was best if the individual members on the subcommittee were elected by all such individual members in the ULA.
The Steering Committee to contact by email/letter all comrades on our membership database to ask if they would like to participate in this election to the subcommittee.
As we want to establish the subcommittee as soon as possible, could you get back to us by or on Thursday 23rd of February as to whether you wish to participate in this election and make sure you include your full postal address so you can be sent a ballot paper.
Please note this is an election of members to the subcommittee on structures. The election of individual members to the Steering Committee will take place at the ULA Conference in April.
In relation to nomination: Nominees must not be members of any of the founding organisations – the People Before Profit Alliance, the Workers and Unemployed Action Group (Tipperary) or the Socialist Party. Nominations can be by ULA branches or by individuals, in which case the nominee should be proposed and seconded and again should be communicated to the ULA office by Thursday 23rd of February.
Please note:
- · If you want to participate in the election of two ULA members, who are not part of any of the founding groups, onto the subcommittee on structures, get in touch with your full address by Thursday 23rd of February.
- · Nominations for this election can be made by ULA branches or by individual members, a proposer and seconder and should be sent to the ULA office by Thursday 23rd of February.
Thanks,
United Left Alliance
That little birdie again: ULA conference 28th April
Tomás is reliably informed that the ULA conference has been reset for Saturday 28th April 2012.
France: The NPA in Crisis
Both the SWP internal communication of 6th February and a commentator on it reffered to the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (New Anti-capitalist Party, NPA) in France. It has truely suffered the dramatic decline in membership mentioned. The NPA is particularly significant for those of us who promote a new pluralist radical left and it deserves consideration beyond hostile and misleading soundbites.
We reproduce below an article on the NPA, complete with comments, by Jason Stanley, from the January/February 2012 issue of the US magazine Against The Current, an analytical journal for the broad revolutionary left sponsored by the Solidarity group there. It is a model, for any online discussion, of informed substance, civility, commitment and calm.
France: The NPA in Crisis
— Jason Stanley
FRANCE’S NEW ANTI-CAPITALIST Party (NPA) is in crisis. While only two years ago many on the international left talked about the NPA as one of the brightest lights on an otherwise dim revolutionary horizon, today the Party is hemorrhaging members and struggling to stay afloat. Read the rest of this entry »
Belfast to Boston Via Afghanistan
Eamonn McCann has written a fascinating account of former Royal Ulster Constabulary Officers who urged a legal assault on the Boston Archive in order to settle old scores :
Norman Baxter’s Long Crusade
Well worth reading :
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/13/norman-baxters-long-crusade/
Mr Baxter was part of the police team that unsuccessfully investigated the 1998 Omagh Bombing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8356020.stm
Over 100,000 rally in Lisbon against austerity – Irish Media Please Copy
Left-wing sources brought this event to our attention – no comment so far on any mainline Irish Media that we have seen.
While Reuters report that “Over 100,000” people packed into the city’s main square, another report says 350,000 were present.
http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120211/wl_nm/us_portugal_protest
Here is a photo :
Lisbon Rejects Austerity - Irish Media Please Copy
An open email to Eamon Gilmore – Film to Follow The Ghost Writer?
http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/an-open-email-to-eamon-gilmore/
A great idea – how about a few more such letters?
The author of this open letter says that the Labour Deputy Gilmore – second in line to Fine Gael Taoiseach Kenny – employs a well-paid adviser Mark Garrett who worked for an American firm – McKinsey and Company – connected to a failed coup attempting to depose Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2002.
Incidentally, do you ever ask Mark Garret about his period working as…. External Relations Manager for McKinsey and Co, the international firm of management consultants.
Does he know anything about the influential people Venezuela? Remember when the McKinsey office in Caracas, Venezuela, was used in the 2002 coup against President Chavez.
A wikileaked cable told us of a Gilmore conversation with a USA Embassy representative in which the Labour Party leader disclosed his public opposition to a second Lisbon Treaty Referendum, was a pose.
The labour leader is looking like a fabulous Yankee asset – interesting ghosts these days in Leinster House!
The intriguing story of the Irish Labour Party leader makes you wonder if Roman Polanski might be tempted to make a film, using a story akin to his recent thriller The Ghost Writer, where the Tony Blair-like character is played by Pierce Brosnan.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-bradley/the-ghosts-of-tony-blair_b_509269.html
Life is often much stranger than fiction.
John Meehan
Action on ‘X’ Public Meeting in Gresham Hotel on Tuesday 21st February at 7.30pm
Action on X
Public Meeting on February 21
Speakers include:
Vincent Browne, Journalist and Broadcaster
Anthea McTeirnan, Journalist and Reproductive Rights Activist
Dr Fiona De Londras, UCD School of Law
Mick Wallace, Independent TD for Wexford
Ailbhe Smyth, Feminist Open Forum
http://www.facebook.com/actiononx2012
In the meantime Eamonn McCann has written a good article on this subject for the Belfast Telegraph :
X’ marks spot for changes to anti-woman irrationality
He captures the spirit of those days well
As concern for the girl and outrage against her ‘internment’ grew, and demonstrations began outside embassies and consulates in Europe and the US, the case was hustled into the Supreme Court in record time.
The former diplomat Eamon Delaney, now a journalist in Dublin, has described younger staff members at the New York consulate photocopying leaflets for demonstrators outside who were running short of supplies.
Read the entire article here :
Defend Our Schools Protest on February 23, Dáil Éireann, Kildare Street @ 3.30pm
Defend Our Schools Protest on Thursday February 23
Tomás Ó Flatharta 