Socialist Democracy

Union battle marks a new move forward towards water privatisation

19/03/23

A recent dispute between the SIPTU leadership and their members in the water service marks a new offensive against workers as the government, with the support of the union leadership, begins to reverse the concessions made to the mass water charges campaign some years ago.   In August last year Cork workers protested that the SIPTU leadership had reneged on a service level agreement that retained their status as public sector workers.   (read more)

The Windsor Framework - NI Protocol reformed but not abolished

18/03/23

At the end of February, the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, along with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, unveiled the Windsor Framework, an agreement between the UK and EU aimed at resolving the issues of contention arising from the NI Protocol.  The controversy around the NI Protocol had been ongoing since it came into being in 2019.  (read more)

ICC issues arrest warrant against Putin as part of US-NATO propaganda campaign for regime change

17/03/23 (WSWS)

On Friday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, for alleged war crimes. The move is transparently political. It takes place as the US and NATO powers are orchestrating a massive escalation of the war against Russia over Ukraine, and amidst ever more open statements from government officials that the aim of the war is regime change in Moscow.   (read more)

The Voice of the Iranian Revolution

04/03/23

Four months into the ‘Woman, life, freedom’ uprising, the need to boost and broadcast the real voice of the Iranian revolution is ever more urgent. On the internal front, in the face of a deepening and expanding apparatus of repression against the revolutionaries, we should double up our efforts to raise the voice of freedom. Externally, with the intense activity of the usual mechanisms of biased, self-interested representation and advocacy from above, we should intensify our struggle against the distorted and one-sided reflection and translation of this voice.   (read more)

Turning the Greatest Anti-war Novel Ever into Bourgeois Propaganda

16/03/23 (Left Voice)

Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front opens with an astounding five-minute cold open: in the French countryside, a German soldier known only as Heinrich is forced to climb out of his trench and charge, against gunfire and mortars, toward the enemy. As his comrades fall left and right, we don’t even see what happens to the faceless young man. After the title, we see Heinrich on top of a pile of dead bodies. The camera then follows his uniform: it is cleaned, repaired, and returned to Germany, then promptly handed over to the next wave of recruits.   (read more)

Solving the drugs issue in Colombia

08/03/23

The drugs issue in Colombia supposedly occupies the time of and is a concern to the government. It has been an important issue for all the governments and as was to be expected it is one that has come up again in the dialogues with the ELN, despite this organisation denying any links to the drugs trade. In the peace process with the FARC, agreement was reached on the issue. What was agreed to in Point 4 of the Havana Accord was abysmal and showed that the FARC did not understand the problem nor the possible solutions.  (read more)

Videos

Gender identity ideology

Presentation by Orla Ni Chomhrai on why socialists should oppose a dogma which undermines women's rights, gay rights, free speech, and science.

18 October 2021