Bourgeois democracy can not only lie, it can also invent
crimes for which you can be punished.
The Government is going ahead with the hate crime bill, shorn of its
hate speech elements. This follows its
stinging defeat in the family and care referendum in which it also lied about
the implications of what it was proposing when asked whether these had been
raised within it as a concern. (read more)
For someone whose sentences were long and intricate, putting every thought through a dialectical wringer, Fredric Jameson gets quoted a lot. His most-quoted sentence comes in two versions. The first, “It seems to be easier for us today to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the earth and of nature than the breakdown of late capitalism,” later restated to, “Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.” (read more)
In
a recent letter to our site a supporter of Socialist Democracy denounced the
left group People Before Profit (PbP) for responding to an attack from a local
columnist by declaring that the organisation; “Isn’t
interested in rehashing historical arguments that have long been debunked.”
The
correspondent took this to be a repudiation of the whole theory of Marxism, a view supported by the declaration of PbP
that what was important was that they could coordinate with others to get a
crowd. Since then, a series of other events have demonstrated that this retreat
from socialism is real. (read more)
Cancel culture is one of those terms often bandied about by people who neither understand what it actually is and who its victims are. Some, mainly on the Left, have wrongly claimed that its targets are all very powerful people with money, fame and recognition and they are not really cancelled because they continue to write books, articles and use twitter. (read more)
The UK’s new Labour Government under PM Keir Starmer has announced that the annual Winter Fuel Payment introduced by the last Labour administration under Gordon Brown will be ended as a universal benefit. Where 11 million
pensioners were previously eligible now the payment will be means tested for around 1.5 million. (read more)
The current governmental crisis in France stems back
to the European elections of June 2024. There was a substantial growth in the
vote for right wing parties and a collapse in the vote for traditional
capitalist parties. In France President Macron found his party achieving 15% of
the vote, with the far right on 30%.
When
Macron called a snap national election, the results were even worse for him. (read more)
The 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in April 2023 was met with jubilation and celebration in Belfast. Past and present taoisigh (Irish government leaders), British prime ministers, US presidents and a raft of academics were brought together by the local universities and media in an extended celebration.Yet all is not well. If the decay of the agreement is of concern, the universal failure of academia, of the press, the trade unions and political parties to acknowledge such decay is astounding. John McAnulty provides that missing critique and suggests how Ireland will move beyond this historic inflection to fulfill the revolutionary implications of its initial struggle for freedom.
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10 April 2023
25 Years On: in the debris of the Good Friday Agreement
The 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement is being
marked by assemblies of the great and the good. Joe Biden rushes through the
North, avoiding attention to the barren political landscape. On RTE television
the ghost of Bertie Ahern dominates, while the high point will be the upcoming visit
of Bill and Hilary Clinton and Tony Blair to a celebration at Queens
University.
No-one will remark on the unsavoury character of
these saints of peace. Even less will anyone notice that the fine mansion that
they built is now in ruins. (read more)
Defend a woman’s right to tell
the truth - 20/10/21
People before Profit student
society calls for ‘no-platforming’ of feminists and LGB rights activists -
25/03/21
Puberty Blockers: An
unregulated live experiment on children - 17/04/21
Vulnerable children being seen
at Gender Clinics - 06/03/21
On the Reactionary Roots of
Queer Theory - 28/02/21
A new front in human
liberation, or a medical scandal in the making? - 09/01/21
Amnesty International Ireland opposes the right to free speech -
06/11/20
Gender Identity Ideology, the Trans Rights
Movement, and
homophobia - 27/09/20
Socialism, Feminism and transgender politics -
07/09/20
All COVERAGE
Socialist Democracy Statement on Coronavirus pandemic - 28/03/20
The promise and reality of vaccination -28/03/21
Herd immunity - myth and reality - 30/11/20
Coronavirus pandemic - a deepening health and economic crisis - 28/07/20
Protest, class conflict and Covid 19 - 06/05/20
Unionism’s silent shift on the pandemic
- 16/05/20
Ideology and Science - 05/05/20
Big Pharma in Ireland - 24/04/20
Europe and the pandemic - 09/04/20
All COVERAGE
Rayner O’Connor Lysaght Presente!
Tributes from
International
Viewpoint
Irish
Labour History Society
Socialist
Voice
Sráid
Marx
Emancipation,
Liberation & Self-determination
Workers
Liberty
Irish
Republican Marxist History Project
The
Pensive Quill
Irish
Left Archive
Obituray from the Irish Independent
A selection of writings by Rayner can be found online at:
Socialist Democracy
Arguments for a Workers' Republic
The Encyclopedia of Trotskyism
Red Mole Rising
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