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THE ANTI-AUSTERITY Alliance (‘AAA’) registered as a political party and held an official launch event during the week, promising to fight water charges, property taxes, cuts in government spending and the like. It’s a relatively vague platform that nevertheless speaks to some basic instincts of Irish voters who will want to give the traditional midterm lashing to the government in the local and European elections in May.
The AAA is however simply a front operation for the Socialist Party, who have a serious brand image problem in Ireland in that most people think that hard-line Trotskyites don’t make for good government. There are people involved in the AAA who have never been in politics before, and the hopes of the founders of the AAA is that people who are disaffected with parties like Labour will come vote for them on May 23.
Fundamentally and at its core, however, people who will be asked to consider voting for the AAA are being asked to vote for members of the Socialist Party who do not have the courage of their deeply held convictions to run as socialist candidates in favour of bringing full communism to Ireland.
Headline candidates for the AAA include Councillor Ruth Coppinger in Mulhuddart, who ran for the Socialist Party in the Dublin West by-election following the death of Brian Lenihan. In Castleknock, Cllr Matt Waine tops the bill – he was co-opted onto the council to replace Joe Higgins, who went instead to Europe as an MEP. When Joe was returned to the Dáil in 2011 he was replaced without election by his assistant Paul Murphy, also an AAA man.
Indeed, when you look at the spread of 41 candidates that the AAA is fielding in the local elections an interesting pattern emerges: firstly, every sitting councillor who is running as an AAA candidate was elected as a Socialist Party candidate in 2009 or subsequently co-opted to fill the seat of a Socialist councillor.
When you crunch the numbers, on average the AAA is running fully 72 per cent more candidates in local electoral areas where the Socialist Party has an existing seat on the council.
There is a clear and politically cynical reason why this is the case. Political parties habitually run more candidates in constituencies and wards than they can win seats. The reason for this is to help sweep up votes mainly on a geographical basis. The lower tiered candidates sweep some votes in their area, get eliminated in the count and then transfer heavily towards their party colleagues who are destined to win a seat.
Not only are the Socialist Party councillors looking to hide their affiliation by presenting themselves as more palatable AAA candidates, they are using the ordinary folks who will run for and support them as vote getters to ensure that they are returned to the council. And even if they manage to raise their vote count, many of the non-incumbent candidates are themselves card-carrying members of the Socialist Party.
The idea of using ‘fronts’ is a well-worn tactic from the playbook of hard-line left wing groups. They either create or infiltrate an existing group and steer it towards achieving their aims.
In essence, the Socialist Party has acknowledged that its hard-left ideology is not palatable to a majority of Irish voters. Sure, we like good talkers like Joe Higgins and they do a good job when we need a solid protest over something, but we really don’t want them elected in any great numbers.
The Socialist Party is a hard-core left wing organisation. Its members are true believers in full communism as distinct from any form of ‘compromise’, such as trying to run a social welfare state in a capitalist system such as we do.
I’ve always found members of the Socialist Party an interesting breed. Every one of them I have met is truly committed to the ideology, and while I’d debate its merits I can appreciate their sincerity. I have worked with Socialist Party members on meaningful local issues, such as raising a ruckus when the government considered shutting down Blanchardstown Hospital’s A&E department.
The AAA however strikes me as fundamentally dishonest. If a voter asks, I am sure a candidate will reveal that he or she is a card-carrying Socialist, but many voters will probably not think to ask. Most voters might just assume that the Socialists will run as Socialists and the AAA people are something different. Even in the comments on this website and elsewhere, there were folks wondering how Joe Higgins and Co will feel about someone encroaching on their territory. Well, that’s not quite the story.
It is one thing to vote against austerity, but most voters – as the record of elections has shown – are averse to voting for hard left parties and candidates with a few exceptions, mainly built on the back of a strong personal local vote for constituency work. Most Irish voters do not want people who believe in collectivised farms running a branch of government.
Using the AAA banner is a way for Socialists to soften that cough and pick up votes from people who wouldn’t otherwise consider a candidate from a party with their ideology. The electoral approach of running a lot of candidates in areas where existing Socialist seats are is a sweeper strategy designed to keep weak incumbents in seats by force of numbers, pure and simple. Every party does it, but clearly the Socialists do not believe that running five members of their party with their logo on it would achieve the same result.
At the very least, Socialists running under the AAA banner should include the logo of their original political party in their literature in proportion to the catchy AAA logo. People should know what they’re voting for.
Aaron McKenna is a businessman and a columnist for TheJournal.ie. He is also involved in activism in his local area. You can find out more about him at aaronmckenna.com or follow him on Twitter @aaronmckenna. To read more columns by Aaron click here.
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“its members are full believers in ‘true communism’” …….really? Any way of proving that?
If that was the case wouldn’t there be an, i don’t know, communist party?
Dead right David. Should be the fascist party
Socialist parties have historically been intertwined with communism since the growth of parliamentary politics in the 19th century.
Ok Dave, let’s be straght with each other here.
What do they want? Read their material:
-Planned Economy
-’Direct allocation of goods’
-Price controls
etc
Now, all economies are planned to an extent like with the NDP etc but what happened when the state tried to plan all the economic indicators? It was called Gosplan and it was a disaster in the USSR
Direct allocation, by eliminating markets and choice the state is just allocating you the goods, know who tried that? Not even the Soviets were barmy enough to try that who did? North Korea…cue the famines.
Price controls interfere with supply and demand and can lead to other problems.
Sorry Dave, we’ve seen this movie before, like all the movies out these days it’s just a bad remake with nothing original in it, we need NEW innovative ideas fit for the new globalized hi tech 21st century, not re-runs of failed agendas from the 1920s 1960s and 1980s
Ryan, I never gave my opinion one way or the other. My comment was just to highlight a lazy comment not based in fact. Was just highlighting it.
It’s made up of socialist parties, there are people who’ve argued to me in all dead seriousness communism was either state socialism and not what they want, that socialism = as much democracy as possible but I try to live in the world of facts and in reality everyone using that label, either one in fact, that’s gotten into power has become a despot worse than what they replaced.
Having talked to them over the years, if something on the scale of OWS had exploded worldwide and there had been something akin to a revoloution, and after it we’d decided we wanted neoliberal capitalism to be replaced by socialism rahter than social democracy I honestly don’t think that if you put the likes of RBB into the cabinet they’d know what to do…I really don’t…I think they’d be uncomfortable actually in a position to DO anything.
You can see it when you talk to them, everyone I know in politics under 40 who one day wants to be a minister can tell you with excitement what they wanna change , often in nerdish detail, when you ask these heads they refuse to commit to anything saying things like ‘it would be undemocratic to write a blueprint for what a socialist state shoudl look like’ er…why? I’m writing a blueprint for what I think the country should look like, it’s just a proposal and you can see if people agree or not, in whole or in part, it’s not dicatorial, but it’s like they’ve never thought thru what they want in any serious detail.
They’re not the soloution we need, we’ve been there done that with both these tired rightwingers in big glasses and expensive suits talking to us about ‘the markets’ like they are a living creature judging us, and we’ve been there done that with the guys telling us it’s the capitalists maaan we need like socialism.
We need something NEW
They’re hiding under the bed, them evil Communists. One morning you’ll wake up and Vladimir Putin will be Taioseach with Kim Jong Un as Tainiste. Then you won’t be able to go to Mass on Sunday because religion will be outlawed and everyone will go to Hell.
(I remember people who actually believed that tripe back in the day).
Just noticed the author os also a business man austerity must surely be up his street
Wasn’t he also a senior campaign advisor for Shane Ross? Handing out leaflets in Dublin west? Can you confirm Aaron? Journal?
This guy’s havin a laugh surely.
Has says that hard-left infiltrators are not voted for in this country, and infiltrators should mention their political pedigree on their election leaflets.
I dare say certain members of the present cabinet might have some objections to that.
Aaron is/was managing director of komplett Ireland. In the old days round here he used to write article after article explaining how the answer to our budgetry woes was for everybody not like him to put their hands in their pockets and contribute more. As you can see from his column above, he hasn’t changed much.
A businessman that supported austerity would have to be a moron. Austerity = less spending power = less customers money coming through his till.
A smart businessman should be promoting pro-growth policies alongside anything that promotes education. But we seem to have dullards in IBEC who confuse the state budget with an individuals budget, they’re not meant to work the same way.
There are no “hard-left infiltrators” anywhere anymore. Communism died with the Soviet Union. There’s just a lot of pi**ed off people screaming for justice and the business elites don’t like it.
You might have been right pre-1989. Today’s Russia and China are big business and North Korea and Cuba are dead in the water. There’s no Communist superpower anymore.
*state capitalist
Joe Higgins, Ruth Coppinger, Mick Murphy, Mick Barry and others have all got very significant votes running as Socialist Party candidates. There is no “branding issue”. The Socialist Party “hiding” its politics would be throwing out a tried-and-tested tactic for success. You’ll see further evidence of this in May when Paul Murphy runs as a Socialist Party candidate.
This “sweeper for incumbents” conspiracy theory is a bit far-fetched and convoluted, the truth is so much simpler and more convincing for anyone who’s actually been around the AAA. The Socialist Party is running as part of an alliance of activists that’s arisen out of the Household and Property tax campaigns.
And what’s this about “When Joe was returned to the Dáil in 2011 he was replaced without election” – - replacing MEPs by the list system is the rule. There is no bye-election facility. Surely you must know that. If you do know that, why are you presenting it in a way that leaves it open to the idea that it was some kind of sinister manouevre?
They get elected in smatterings but if you actually talk to their constituents they don’t believe in planned economies or denationalization of sucra they have what’s called a ‘personal vote’
They think for example Joe Higgins is a good opposition speaker, holds the govt to account, and is not corrupted by money, and seems like his hearts in the right place, so they vote for him.
Now if we had a Presidential system and Joes policies could actually become living statutory instruments and policies that would affect them in practice day to day do you think he’d make it to that job?
It’s been well known SWP practice to take society’s that are nothing socialist and try to hyjack them, that’s why people are always wary of these kinda parties like PBP.
When I was in UCD the GeoPolitics lecterers and a few students decided to set up an anti-war society. It was specifically and exclusivly targeted at the US Drone Strikes in Pakistan and not even all of them just the ‘selective strikes’ and the ‘double tap strikes’ where they shoot targets without really knowing who they are and murder first responders when they come to their aid (double tap). In comes the SWP heads in droves throwing their weight around, trying to get into the leadership positions, trying to broaden what it was about to include what I considered to be general anti-Americanism and when they were told this is meant to be a non political thing thats any war not Antiamerican they subjected us to a tirade about how we were not being part of the solution if we didn’t support the ‘wider struggle’ which to them is the socialist revolution that’s gonna break out any second now.
Before anyone starts saying well if I’m so sure whats to be done why don’t I do something, I am, I’m writing a booklength proposal for a new republic and will be starting a campaign to end special interest money in politics, thats the kind of surgical campaign we need, targeting the real problem (the power of special interests) and something that everyone of all shades can support. You won’t get middle class support with a socialist outfit, the term socialism is a dead brand, PR poison becuase nearly every country that’s ever used the brand has ended up with a low quality of life and or state oppression.
I read this nonsense before I saw who the author was – Aaron! I should have known!
Where was the similarly themed articles in regards to the far right winged reform alliance being x-ffs and x-fgs. The journal is as always unbiased.
Paul Murphy MEP is a Socialist Party candidate, not AAA. Which undermines your whole argument, about having a branding issue as opposed to being part of a genuinely broad organisation that came out of the fight against Household and Property taxes, which is what the AAA is.
Murphy, dear oh dear. If nothing good can be said about someone then best to say nothing at all. ……silence
Kettle, pot nicole !!!
You own a kettle mike?
Yes nicole, but it seems you don’t.
Bet yours is full of holy water
People can change Aaron, I used to be right wing Steve, then left wing Steve now I’m more centrist Steve. Socialists/Communists give me the willies though.
Welcome to the centre Steve.
Pull up a chair & let’s make consensus!
Beautiful, Steve. This reminds me of Rocky 5 when he gave his change speech after turning around a hostile Russian crowd. I’m gettin pretty emosh right now.
The ff/fg/lab hacks & trolls will be over this like fly’s around sh1t.
Should make good Saturday reading.
The Shinners too Mike. These goons will eat into your vote. You must be somewhat worried?
I rest my case, a nice sh1t stirring reply from reilly.
I see the right wing nationalists are here. Good man Mike you never miss a shot eh
You listed every party but SF. Yet AAA will most likely attract their vote. You might vote for them? Or unlike us FF/FG/LB hacks and Trolls you’ll continue to sit on the fence bitching…
Nicole, you really are a labour muppet .
oreilly, your spot on.I will sit on the fence until an honest party runs for election.
Unfortunatly we only have a collection of self serving , arse covering ‘yes’ people with only their own careers as a goal.
Does that include SF Mike?
I’m sure you will fit well in the fence sitting brigade Mike. Seems Lucinda would suit you fine. Good right wing catholic ethos will suit you fine. Blue Shirt with a green hat
It’s too early for the shinners, they sleep in on a Saturday.
There you go nicole, it seems people were right about you and your blind stupidity … enjoy your loyalty to a soon to be unemployed party of liars and sleveens.
And a yellow belly.
what’a legend
Idiot
The free market isn’t working for everyone, it is there to make the rich, richer and the poor wage slaves in over priced housing that is not any where near the value they payed for it. The system is still broke and the band aid it has put on the gun shot wound won’t last for long. The fact that people should be realizing is the methods in building houses have vastly improved so therefore should it not be cheaper to buy a house now than ever before. But no we let the great marketeers over inflate property prices in order for us to be ripped off.
The fact is capitalism is the broken system. A new system is due but whether it is socialism or something that isn’t a marketing label only time will tell. So labels are something we use to fight each other now. Instead we should be joining together to find better ways in improving all our lives. Surely we can pull certain aspects of both capitalism and socialism and combine them into a better system that serves all of the people. But if we continue to label ourselves then we are just continuing the same mistakes of the past.
System is perfect the best people get most and that is only right as they earn it
Ironman so you think Irish water CEO and rehab CEO earned their money?
It’s not capitalism itself that’s broken, it’s the type of capitalism we are using: neoliberalism.
If there are common sense rules on financial markets, basic regulations, good labour law, a decent welfare state like Scandinavia etc and you have a happy medium.
It’s been working for them forever, we’ll still need to tweak it and reform it as we go along (refusal to do reforms what brought Thatcher in in England) but I still think social democracy is the happy medium.
There are ways to manage inequality too without resorting to communism.
The reason we can’t get to social democracy thru the ballot box is special interests have a stranglehold on our democracy thru quid pro quo donations we need to switch to publically financed elections.
Look at your life, and most peoples, once they have a job they live a good quality of life. The only people in serious trouble are the homeless and the very poor, and they just need money and a job. These are easy problems to fix if we have the will.
There are succcesful models out there working well now, today even in middle of a recession, we don’t need to go reinventing the wheel.
It’s a pity that the one sided austerity argument is being hijacked by this group of losers. We need real socialist alternative and not these populist fools with their cartoon economics. All they want is to get elected and then do nothing only attack everyone that is really trying to represent the working class. The Socialist Party and the SWP are the greatest bullshiters I have ever heard. Cartoon politicians with cartoon economics. The AAA should be called the Anti Anything Anarchists
You write with such authority and a level of indignant arrogance that leads me to believe that you are in fact a Blueshirt fascist.
Tut tut Gerry Ryan ( nice AAA handle ). We need politicians on the left that will actually change something. Now if you have any evidence of anything the SP or SWP or the PBP have actually achieved please post it here in the journal. As I said cartoon politicians with cartoon economics. It’s people like you that allow the blue shirt fascists prosper. But that has always been the way with extremists.
If you think they’re a joke, you should have a look at their comrades in the SWP on the next island. Currently being run as a sort of Stalinist harem for the leader.
Waiting Gerry……
Not a handle actually and not hiding, my reply was based on the language chosen in the original post and I still think the language used is fascist.
It’s naked in its aggression and ignorant in my opinion.
Answer the question Gerry….
it did’t take long for somebody to get called a fascist.
Wow Aaron this is just poor. Where’s your article on labour candidates hiding their logo ? Has FG helped your businessman career?
What activism are you involved in exactly?
What a load of sh!te
The old Left is still struggling to get over that fact that their classical method of doing things – taking state power to restructure society in a collectivist manner – is either dying or dead already.
This includes state-socialists such as Joe Higgins and his army of teenage Bolsheviks, as well as social democrats who still believe in the delusion that they can return to welfare state capitalism and a paternalistic social policy.
The Occupy movement, the Indignados, the Arab spring, and other such movements for social change have shown that the Left needs to renounce taking state power at all as a vehicle for reform and instead build it from the bottom up through decentralised networks of autonomous groups which operate through horizonalism and participatory democracy; not the party and trade union bureaucracies of the past.
The statist Left (state-socialists and social democrats) has always lacked the imaginative and innovative thought of the libertarian Left (anarchists, radical Greens, autonomists) when it comes to devising new organisational forms at the micro and macro level, as well as in terms of visions for what a post-capitalist society should look like.
ie: a voluntary confederation of self-governing communities; administering themselves through directly-democratic neighbourhood assemblies, self-managed cooperatives, and affinity groups.
These institutions can be built right now without waiting for Lenninist crackpots to bring them into effect.
Waffle post of the day, congrats!
Dead right Padraig
If there is anything I said that isn’t actually true lads, please point it out.
The bit In the middle and the bit towards the end,,,, the start is a bit grey. Apart from that it’s very convincing
It’s 100% opinion. Different to truth.
Okay then, what exactly do you think the truth is?
If you believe yourself to be correct, then educate my opinion with facts instead of posting what amounts to to little more than “nuh-uh!”
Another saturday, another column from Aaron, the well heeled businessman, having a problem with anything which might make our society a fairer place.
Really, thejournal, I don’t know exactly what deal you have in place, but it cheapens your organisation.
Well-heeled?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
From his website “My name is Aaron McKenna, and I am a businessman, community activist and nationally focused politician in Dublin West. I am the director of European e-commerce at Case-Mate, an American company that has invested in Ireland. Between 2008 and 2012 I ran the e-commerce company Komplett.ie. As a business leader I have been successful in growing my companies, building efficient organisations and creating employment.”
Do you reckon he’s one of those poverty stricken company directors Seamus?
I feel this site should be commended for having at least one alternative (to their usual) viewpoint.
Let us not criticise the medium because we don’t like the message. I say that as someone who calls out bias and obvious agenda waving here whenever I see it.
Behold the fruit of the well-heeled “business leader”
http://komplett.ie/Komplett/site/KomplettHome.aspx
vistit the above link with google chrome, click on the warning triangle that appears next to the URL. Then click the “connection” tab. Perhaps this needs to be brought to the attention of the director. :-)
A fairer place? Where and when has socialism ever done that?
And if the best response you can come up with is digs at the author, it just shows how hollow and insecure socialists actually are.
That socialism has (finally) been so discredited that its adherents have to hide behind front groups is the point of the article. Not that anyone was ever really fooled, but you never know.
Hopefully the day will come when somebody calling themselves a Socialist will be greeted with the same revulsion as if they’d introduced themselves as a Nazi. It’s not far off.
Engels and Marx were at times consumed with Europe’s racial hierarchy. They described the ‘Volkerabfalle’. Those groups they believed were Europe’s ethnic trash.
While both despised the Russians and would have been horrified that there glorious revolution began there.
Engels placed the Germans, Italians, Poles and Hungarians on the top of Europe’s racial hierarchy. Amongst the Volkerabfalle he described the following.
” these residual fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character, just as their whole existence in general is itself a protest against a great historical revolution”
‘Such, in Scotland, are the Gaels, the supporters of the Stuarts from 1640 to 1745.
‘Such, in France, are the Bretons, the supporters of the Bourbons from 1792 to 1800.
‘Such, in Spain, are the Basques, the supporters of Don Carlos.
‘Such, in Austria, are the pan-Slavist Southern Slavs, who are nothing but the residual fragment of peoples [...]. That this residual fragment [...] sees its salvation only in a reversal of the whole European movement,..”
Frederic Engels, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 1848
So, let’s see: if a candidate with socialist convictions does not run on the Socialist Party ticket, this is a smokescreen for a hidden agenda? What a silly premise. Sinn Féin works for a democratic socialist republic; does that mean Sinn Féin is bogus and should disband and become part of the Socialist Party? Socialism is a fairly broad concept: social ownership of infrastructure and means of production can take lots of forms, and no one party has a monopoly on this ideal.
SF are not going to start nationalizing the means of production, let’s be real here.
Parties play games with these names to pretend they are something they’re not, it’s stupid and childish.
Labour call themselves democratic socialists instead of social democrats, that’s a case in point.
The former is meant to be looking to phase out capitalism and the latter is meant to be trying to find a happy medium between the two ala Scandinavia.
Now in PRACTICE how has labour behaved? Not like either of them, but like a European conservative party, making welfare harder to get, abolishing universal education, using a right wing model of healthcare insurance etc
But they voted to say recently they were democratic socialsts…they’re not…they’re not even social democrats, and SF are social democrats at best. They will not be nationalizing key banks and pharama etc they’re just not.
Lets be adults here and stop pretending.
I totally Agreed I am not a card carrying socialist Party member because I do not agree with certain aspects however I am a member of the AAA as an independent community activist. And there are several councillors on councils who are members of the AAA but are not Socialist Party Members nor have they ever been. So your Article is full of mis- truths.
Sinn Fein should sue the AAA for plagiarism; total copycat of SF economic policies.
Perhaps an AAA-SF coalition would work?
(pronounced “As if”)
Zzzz
Why are these “socialists” the only ones against tax?
They have the never ending spending line covered…. But unlike every other socialist on earth, they are also against taxation.
Strange at best.
Downright dishonest in reality.
It wasn’t the socialists that gave you the universal social charge, the tax on your home, the water charge, the communications charge, the tax breaks for the corporations that have run for quite a few years and created–gasp–millions of jobs. No, it wasn’t the socialists.
So maybe your worries are misplaced, huh?
We are in agreement.
All these socialists oppose, yet are all for ever expanding government spending.
Voodoo economics.
Exactly, never heard of a socialist against taxation..how do they expect their dole payments, rent allowance and medical cards to be paid for?
Socialists are against unfair taxes. Socialists are against small homeowners paying the same amount of tax on their dwelling as wealthy landowners with huge estates.
Your own Enda K said–”We know it’s not a fair tax, but it’s the best we can do”.
So socialists are against unfair taxation.
We are against low corporate taxes in the face of an austerity that is breaking the backs of the working class.
“But they create jobs!”
They create emigration. Where are the jobs?
They’re in fecking Australia, my friend.
Here’s one for ya.
What”ll they call themselves when the giveaway budgets resume…
They can’t be any worse than the liars cheats and blackmailers we have at the moment
Oh I beg to differ:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Stagnation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_north_korea#Crisis_and_famine
Wanna see 200% inflation? Wanna have ques around the block for basic food stuffs like bread? Wanna see what happens when you have some agency in Kildare Street with the power to decide how much glass and steel is produced or imported? Down to the gram?
Want you and your neighbors to have to invent your own black market because there isn’t a functional national market?
Then give these guys an overall majority, you’ll see all of that and worse since we produce so few things here ourselves and have to import loads.
What have got at the moment kenny and his crew crusifing Jo public and looking after their mates
I get that, and I agree, what I”m trying to say is it CAN be worse, there IS worse policy formulas out there than austerity, if we did what many in the SP want, we’d have it.
Aaron,
We’ll take that poor attempt at a hatchet job as a compliment whereby the vested interests are worried that we’re gaining momentum. We’re not trying to hide that the Socialist Party is a key component of the AAA. We’re lucky to have them in fact. The last SP newsletter delivered to 40k homes in Dublin West had a page devoted to the AAA and Paul Murphy has clearly endorsed the AAA and vice versa. I’m an AAA activist in Dublin 15 and I don’t think we’d have got off the ground without the SP. All the effort invested in battling the Household charge and Property Tax would have been wasted had the AAA not been formed with the help of Joe Higgins, Matt Waine and Ruth Coppinger who have put a huge amount of time and effort into the AAA. In addition, the SP is risking diluting its own vote running under the AAA banner.
Here’s what the AAA stands for:
• Abolition of the Property / Home Tax. No to Water taxes, metering & to privatisation and profiting from water.
• Defend our council & public services. No more cuts or erosion of workers’ pay & conditions.
• Our Councillors will not go into coalitions or make deals with the austerity Parties (FF, FG, LP) & will not participate in junkets or the gravy train.
• We support a united movement of all those affected by home taxes & austerity. We oppose divisions based on race, nationality, gender or age.
• End the bailouts of banks & bondholders. No to all Austerity – ordinary people have paid enough
• Tax the Wealthy as the alternative to austerity: For progressive taxation on the wealthy and corporate sector.
• Public investment to create jobs, stop emigration and provide housing and socially useful infrastructure.
• Planning for the community, not for developers or vested interests.
• For mortgage debt write-down to real house values to keep struggling families in their homes. The banks should be run in the public interest & to assist in economic recovery.
• Save our health, education and social services – reverse the cuts and restore staff levels.
http://antiausterityalliance.ie/
Socialism seems never to have gained a real foothold in Ireland. There is a solid majority who vote for for the right wing parties and for the good of Ireland. Ireland is in many ways quite similar to America in that the two biggest parties are basically to the right. This isn’t going to change anytime soon.
The vagaries of the Irish electoral system may even allow a few left wing independents in govt. Any socialist party will always be in a minority in govt in Ireland and any socialist policy would therefore be greatly watered down. Can’t ever see the good people of Ireland giving socialists a real mandate to run the country, they just don’t trust them.
Nothing like a foolish yank to stimulate some good chat. US is the only country in the world where religious right fascists can get elected to the highest office in the country. Sarah Palin makes Lucinda look like a commy abortionist
Hey, it’s not me who you need to convince to vote socialist, it’s your fellow Irish citizen who consistently vote for either of the two right wing parties in Ireland. Why do Irish people not vote for socialists? That is the issue.
While I have no time for Sarah Palin, who is the fascist elected to the office of President? You are confusing right wing with fascist.
America, built on the bones of the indigenous people, financially nourished by the blood of African slaves, spreading democracy by invading nation after nation, overthrowing their democratically elected leaders and stealing their resources through neo-colonial policies–America, the biggest drug consumers in the world, organizers of the war on drugs that kills thousands of people every year all around the world—America, where the last person elected president spent one billion dollars to get the job—America, where tens of thousands of people are slaughtered every year in needless gunfire–America, where criminal minors and the mentally ill are murdered by lethal injection by the state–America has the neck to send forth its ill-educated political theorists to teach the Irish people about politics.
Thank you so much we will be eternally grateful for you sage wisdom.
Your friend Mr Bush. No doubt the Irish people have voted right wing parties to power. It’s the historical legacy and lack of a real left alternative is the problem. The progressive left are extremely short of ambition. Hopefully the emergence of Sinn Fein as a left party will help. If the part of labour that is left and socialist could unite it would perhaps give some hope to dislodge the cosy right dominance. The cartoon left spend all their time attacking the left and trade unions. They have never and will never achieve anything, well apart from fulfilling their egos and pockets with taxpayer money. The US is run by large corporations. Obama is the best of an extreme right political system.
And I agree totally with Seamus.
Quite a diatribe. Even if all you say is true, you conveniently ignored the issue I highlighted. Why have majority of Irish people consistently voted for the right wing parties? Please try and give a rational explanation and avoid bringing the rights or wrongs of the US into it.
@ Nicole, not like a pseudo left wing looper to throw insults at people they don’t agree with or to insult those from another country by calling them foolish, just by the fact they come from a country that you don’t like. Substitute “yank” for “homo” and you would be apoplectic with rage and faux insult. The guy made a valid point about the vagaries of our electoral system and the innate conservatism of most Irish people, and you choose to insult him. Says more about you than our American friend.
@Jurgen, they can’t, they have to insult the US, because the left here, as in most countries, are as corruptible and as insincere as the right. They have an irrational hatred of the US, based on their own funny idea of communism, a system that failed and put its people under its feet harder than capitalism ever has. But with people like Paul Murphy and Brendan Ogle, the left seem to think that the USSR was some of socialist utopia. I am only surprised that Israel hasn’t been drawn into their argument yet.
The third largest political party in Ireland is a socialist party,
The largest political party in Northern Ireland is a socialist party.
Here you go, my bright shining political analyst… educate yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinn_F%C3%A9in
Insult the US? I was simply stating well-documented historical facts about America.
Verifiable facts. Facts and not slurs as you are so happy to fling about.
Well, for starters, Jurgen, a majority of the Irish people vote for right-wing parties because of where they get their information. The major media are owned by the right wing and the current government. Independent News & Media, which owns the Evening Herald, Irish Independent, Sunday Independent, Sunday World, the Irish Daily Star, and a dozen-plus regional papers, is owned by billionaires: the O’Reilly family and Dennis O’Brien, who have zero interest in seeing more assets in the hands of the people of Ireland. And that’s just the papers. Same story with the radio and TV.
There are no “rights” in the US. I did explain the right wing voting due to the historical context that Ireland was left with following our national struggle. I agree totally with Seamus above. What a shot hole country the US is.
Yank us a term of endearment! I thought it was being nice. I could have called it one of the greatest murdering countries in the 21st century. I didn’t.
Well don’t you think you should go about trying to convince Irish people to vote left wing then? Ranting about America will not achieve that, or am I missing something? None of you have given me any plan of action to achieve a socialist govt in Ireland.
Really, can you not just focus on this instead of the usual insults flying around.
I think you’ve already demonstrated that your toes don’t touch the bottom in this pool, homey.
Traditionally, Irish people have had a healthy distrust of the big state doctrines required to allow collectivist ideologies like Marxism and Fascism to dominate Irish politics.
For the most part Irish voters have favoured those candidates that have promised to meddle lest in their day to day lives.
Yale university professor, James Scott, recently described the spontaneous and unorchestrated distrust and truculence of increasing number of Americans towards rising statism as “Irish democracy”. Modelled on the anarchic disposition displayed by the Irish during a number of historical episodes.
Jurgen, could you help me understand your perspective? Some of your comments suggest to me that you are frustrated with a lack of momentum in socialist movements here in Ireland. Others suggest that you despise socialism. Knowing your point of view isn’t essential to a debate about Irish voting patterns; but I am curious.
Jennifer Goheen, your basically suggesting that the Irish people cannot make up their own minds and that these rich billionaire businessmen sit in the background hatching cunning plans. Have you ever considered that us dumb electorate just don’t like what the left have to offer? The notion of everybody equally poor together is far less attractive than the notion of working hard and being rewarded for it….
Have you been to the US? Are you enjoying using your apple phone or mac book or Microsoft laptop
With it’s intel chip? Do you like your nike shoes? DKNY handbag? Do you enjoy sipping a cola with you mcdonalds burger? Did you enjoy House of Cards on Netflix that you pay for with your Visa card? Are you really such a xenophobe and such a hate filled soul that you don’t realise that America is a wonderful aspiration but has many problems? Kinda like ourselves? You should broaden your horizons a little, you are clearly full of irrational anger. Maybe you should move to North Korea, hear it’s nice there.
Jennifer, I moved to Ireland from the US in the mid 2000′s when the company I work for established a presence here. I’m interested in politics, and I am struck by the similarities with the US in terms of how essentially conservative the Irish public are. If ever there was a time for a real shift away from either right wing party, it was in the aftermath of the economic crisis. Yet, the other big right wing party was voted in.
I make no secret that I lean to the right, I vote Democrat which is also an essentially right wing party, though less so than Republicans obviously. As someone who works for a US corporate, I do also have a further interest as there is a concern that a socialist tinted govt could change the corporate tax rate in Ireland. Not the headline rate, the actual rate. I regard that as fundamentally damaging to Ireland not to mention my company.
I do not despise socialism, perhaps it is time for some change in Ireland. But when there are the foaming at the mouth types such as some on here, if they represent socialism then yes, I have no time for such views. The fundamental point is such views repel ordinary Irish voters. Socialist parties already have the angry vote, so why don’t they try to appeal to the moderate, ordinary voter? That is what they need to do to get into govt – failing to appeal to that voter is fatal, and that is why I think they will not get beyond a junior position in govt.
All those things may be true Seamus, but they have advanced society and technology massively. We would be lost without them. Also, what has socialism done for humanity except for keep people in perpetual poverty
O’Reilly, it is easier for people to make an informed choice when they have accurate information. That information is lacking when most sources of information are owned by people who have a stake in influencing voters to think they will be defrauded by the left, not by the billionaires. And yes, rich billionaire businessmen most certainly do sit in the background hatching cunning plans to make sure people who work the hardest have the LEAST to show for it.
Jennifer, why do you assume people don’t know what the left stand for? It’s because they do know that the left are kept in check. As for the hardest workers can you define that please? Are you suggesting that the low paid work harder than the higher paid? That the cleaner on 20k a year works harder than the exec on 100k?
Yes, O’Reilly, I do believe that the people who try to get by on 20K generally work harder than those making five times as much. I also believe that most people desire to labor to better themselves, but most poor people do not have opportunities to make better money in spite of their efforts.
Well, Ben, I guess you could say that socialism had a hand in the birth of this nation. You could say that socialism elevated the masses of the Cuban people who were mercilessly exploited under the thumb of Bautista’s dictatorship and American gangsters.
You could make an argument that the apartheid regime in South Africa fell to a socialist revolution.
Quoting Nelson Mandela:
“It is true, as I have already stated, that I have been influenced by Marxist thought. But this is also true of many of the leaders of the new independent States.Such widely different persons as Gandhi, Nehru, Nkrumah, and Nasser all acknowledge this fact. We all accept the need for some form of socialism to enable our people to catch up with the advanced countries of this world and to overcome their legacy of extreme poverty.”
If you do a little reading about Nasser, Nehru, Ghandi, Mandela, Connolly you will find that they espoused socialist principles and started the march out of poverty for those they represented.
I earn a multiple of 20k, I work damn hard for it. My boss earns many multiples of it. He works hard. We deserve it. I worked hard at my education too. We all work hard. Someone earn more than others. It’s life. Don’t be so naive.
How hard you work has nothing to do with how much your status in society. At “multiples of 20k” you are just above the bottom level in society, and you think you’re soaring with the eagles. There are people who work much harder than you all over the world as well as in Ireland, and they make 1/10th of what you make. So their hard work is worth less than your hard work? If that’s true, then your equation of the value of work is meaningless.
If you boss cut your wages in half and kept them for himself, and called it austerity (“Well, you know we all have to make sacrifices, Jason.) Would that mean you were working less hard? That you deserved it less, or were lazy?
That’s life. accept it.
I take it then that there will be no socialist govt, or even a majority socialist party in power in Ireland for quite some time.
None of the supporters of socialism on here have even attempted to show how a socialist govt would happen. No realistic plan, no prospects. It appears Fina Fail and Fina Gael have nothing to worry about. In common with most countries Irish socialists can’t even agree among themselves. Yet another turn off for the moderate Irish public.
That may be the case, or it may not be the case, Jurgen I can say that the socialists are making steady gains in response to the punishment meted out to the Irish people by the banksters and their allies.
Its a battle of inches sometimes.
Nice having a lively discussion with you. Hope you enjoy your stay here. You might try getting outside of temple bar and talking to other people besides tourists.
I gotta go. Working on a fiddle tune “The Pig Ankle Rag”. Hard to make those long double-stops happen just right.
You like Pete Seeger?
Seeger is just OK for me, no surprise to you that I dislike his support of the commies though! Seamus if you didn’t indulge in the usual left wing anti American ranting I think we could indeed have had some proper discussion.
Steady progress ain’t gonna cut it when socialist are all so divided. I note – again – none of you have a plan to get into govt and effect change. Can’t happen when your govt partner is larger and right wing. But, best of luck! Thanks, I will enjoy my time here, I’ll be around for 2 more years at least. By the way, my company is based well outside of Dublin so don’t hang out in T bar!
Jurgen, you are correct and maybe the one thing we have in common with America is the importance of stability in our collective psyche. Socialists will never be given a mandate in Ireland because, even though we will rail against the governments we have and the things they have done, we are never going to create more centralisation, more oppression, and more poverty. We really aren’t that stupid as a people.
Who is Aaron McKenna banging in thejournal there that he gets to push his right-wing bollocksology on here every day of the week? Either that or he knows where the bodies are buried.
Socialism always works until you run out of other people money to spend.
Won’t be your money Conor..
it will be all our money Nicole, again insulting people. Can you not make a valid point without resorting to insulting those that you don’t agree with?
Insulting people Jason? You mean like the fascist right and the cartoon extreme left? Or because I dare to call it like it is? Does my comments not fit with your cosy right wing FF and FG view? I will have to be more sensitive to you and your fellow right wingers (Whingers)
Why won’t it be my money Nicole and who’s money will it be?
This is like the vulture giving out to the hyena over the scraps ..lol Jason ..lol youse giving out about insults ..lol Oggie has heard it all now ..lol
Capitalism always works until you bail out your banks. Spending a fair amount of other people’s money doing so, aren’t they?
Maggie T whist G’lad
College politics
Nobody likes Austerity but after the excesses of Fianna Fail, it has been necessary and there is no alternative. A Socialist Party will never form a Government in Ireland so the most Socialists can hope fir is to have a few Councillors and TD’s elected in a few urban areas. Right now Austerity is unpopular so it is understandable that hard-left Socialists jump on the Anti-Austerity bandwagon and run for election as the Anti-Austerity Alliance. In reality their policies are not much different from those of Sinn Fein, another socialist party that very strangely opposes a property tax although traditionally Socialists all over the world have supported taxes on property and capital as a means of redistributing wealth from those who have it (in the form of property or capital) to those who don’t have wealth. A socialist party that does not support a property tax is not an authentic socialist party.
There is no such thing as austerity it’s called paying your way in life, lefties just too lazy to comprehend
The European Central Bank is on record as saying austerity slows recovery.
Bunch of socialists, I suppose.
It’s mad how every ex IMF chief, the German founder of the euro and the majority of university studies show austerity to be bad for economics and it widens the gap between rich and poor. Funny how socialists are always right
Usual bull from the rich
really i guess your a expert on this subject and would you support the Tories in England?
did the journal just turn into fox news ?
Maby arron who wrote this shit column, is afraid of a tax on the wealthy it mite hit his wallet
The peoples front of judea? Rent a mob? Piss off SWP!
Aaron McKenna have you asked any of the candidates in Dublin 15,as you mention that area, are they all members of the Socialist party?
SF/IRA won’t like this, they have completion in the magic beans school of economic thought- priceless :D
I think ironman would sooner have the religious right run the country. I bet he lives Lucinda’s new party. Well half party.
He’s the doubler of wee Willie Frazer.
Just interested to know if there are any “well known candidates” outside of Dublin.
Yeah brain box Mick Barry is in Cork. Santa Claus has a better chance if being elected. Really nice guy tho
To be fair to Paul Murphy of the SP he has a manadate to be an MEP. When people vote for a MEP they vote for the candidate and their replacement list. Actually is not a bad idea.
Still think the SP and now the AAA are nutters but Murphy has a mandate to br an MEP.
Red Mick, a well known candidate, I don’t think so.
Well red mick is well known in Cork. I’m sure 39 to 45 people must know him. Nice guy tho
What the hard left is really interested in is protest politics. Intellectually many of this crew never developed beyond college debating society rhetoric. There is an ironic comfort in the knowledge that you will never be in power or have to make any meaningful decisions. We should all be grateful that this is the case.
Aero McKenna and many of the typists here could learn a lot from this giant of the left who has just announced his candidacy in Galway City Centreal war http://mentioningthewar.blogspot.ie/2013/11/ziggy-announces-candidacy-for-2014.html
Makes a change from the usual suspects, the SWP, being behind it.
Who care, just a bunch of freeloaders who think the world and everyone in it owe them something- idiots one and all
Did you just describe a banker? Or maybe a stock broker? Certainly not an activist
Wasn’t it Jack London who said, “A gentleman is a person who makes his living without doing any actual work.”?
I don’t want to be the one to point this out, but in the above article the writer repeats a paragraph. I would have been killed by my teacher if I made a mistake like that. So how did this article pass the scrutiny of the anti-Socialist, not to mention the Socialist speil checkers? Yes, I did say ‘speil’.
At the end of the day Socialists preaching Anti-Austerity simply means they want whatever needs to be paid to be paid by others they see as rich (generally those with jobs these days). The average working person in Ireland is simply being screwed over again and again.
I didn’t think there was any doubt that the AAA is the Socialist Party and that PBP is the Socialist Workers Party?
have your say