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That quote from Connolly was from the period when he had not yet gone completely reformist, but he couldn’t half waffle when he wanted to.
The article was praising the words “sinn fein” not the organisation of that name of which he is critical:
“Thus the Sinn Féin body of the Argentine Republic, as recorded in the Gaelic American, states that Sinn Féin demands freedom for Ireland on the basis of the Act of Renunciation in 1782. This is absurd. The act by which the English Parliament renounced the right to make laws binding on Ireland left untouched the power of oppression, political and economic.”
Of course in the end he was executed for his leading role in a failed bid to set up a capitalist republic in Ireland which also “left untouched the power of oppression, political and economic” and for which he is a “national hero”.
Watched the deluded idiots in parliament square last night as they waved the union rag and sang god save the queen and imagined that they had just won freedom and independence. They hadn’t, only some sections of the capitalist class had.
But there’s hope yet. Not all Leave voters are that stupid. Here, according to Katy Balls in today’s i paper, is what focus groups have found about what those in the north and midlands who switched to voting Tory:
”When it comes to these new voters, there is a sense from focus groups that a lot of them hear conversations on trade deals and feel as though it doesn’t help them personally — it’s a preoccupation of the rich.”
Pity they didn’t realise earlier that the whole Brexit saga was essentially about trade arrangements and so just “a preoccupation of the rich.”
Why should we worry who the Democratic Party’s candidate for the presidency is going to be? Let them stop Bernie if they want. Why should we care!
Writing in today’s Times one of their columnists Philip Collins, once Tony Blair’s speech-writer and who doesn’t normally talk sense, put it rather well:
”In the course of their everyday lives most people are not going to notice Brexit either way. They will have a blue passport and a coin and Brexit will retreat to the list of questions to which the British public pay little attention even though, as the trade talks unfold, there is a lot more Brexit to come … Brexit has been a pathetic spectacle which has encouraged and stoked the worst in British politics. It will be a pleasure to see the back of it.”
Doesn’t Sinn Fein also claim to be “socialist” in some sort of vague way, based on advocating workers cooperatives as “an economy that works for workers”:
https://www.sinnfein.ie/files/2019/Workers_Co-operatives.pdf
Incidentally, their basic policy implied by their name of We Ourselves on our own has been adopted by the British government and comes into force this evening (even if, ironically, SF were in favour of Britain staying in the EU).
I know the Irish Labour Party is a pretty pathetic organisation but hasn’t it been the junior partner in various coalition givernments?
Actually, when you read the article, the “alternative reality” is not the Netherlands not being in the EU but if the EU’s anti air pollution laws didn’t exist.
Obviously, as air pollution respects no frontiers, some sort of inter-governmental agreement in particular with Germany with its heavy industry was required to deal with air pollution in the Netherlands, and the existence of the EU and its decision-making procedures facilitated this. However, the same regulations could have been negotiated bilaterally been the two states.
So it does not follow that had the Netherlands not been in the EU more people would have died. Not that the article actually says this — it merely says that if EU anti-pollution laws had not applied there — but appearing in the anti-Brexit Guardian readers would be expected to draw this conclusion and extend it to assume that with Britain now out of the EU more people will die here.
But this assumes that Britain will not follow the content of EU anti air pollution laws or will water them down. Theoretically possible but highly unlikely as, while Britain might be free to make its own “sovereign” decisions from tomorrow (actually it won’t be till 31 December at the earliest as it has to follow EU rules till then), it would not be free of the economic reality that the economies of Britain and the EU are interdependent and can’t be separated, at least not without severe economic disruption which no government of capitalist Britain would dare risk despite electioneering and pre-negotiation rhetoric. Wait and see.
Apologies for pissing on your parade but there are council regulations that have to be met — they already told us what material to use for the fascia and A-boards are in theory banned in Clapham High Street with a fine if you are caught. Still, local churches can get away with billboards outside their premises saying god needs you, so we might get away with it. Dealing with these questions is what we have an EC for.
Advice on head office window is always welcome from any part of the world, as it would be on heating problems there. We did of course used to have until a few months ago a member with expertise on this ….
Forgot to add BD that there haven’t been dead flies in head office window for decades. When you saw one it must have been when you were down to see Newcastle last play in the Cup Final.
More of the same. From an article by Simon Nixon, their chief leader writer in today’s Times:
“Theresa Villiers this week introduced a bill in parliament that legally guarantees Britain will leave the fisheries policy. But the government will have little choice but to negotiate a deal that looks remarkably similar to it.”
So, they put us all through this Brexit fuss just to change the way that decisions are made, not the content of the decisions. Talk about much ado about nothing.
That’s right. A lot depends on “climate sensitivity” (crudely, the degree by which average global temperature rises as a result of more CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere) but this is not much more than a guestimate. So the assumptions on which scientists base their calculation about global warming could just as well be on the high side as the low. The trouble is very few of us on the forum, if any, are going to be around to find out which.
“Perhaps Summer School may be a better choice.“
Precisely. That’s what we should be (should have been) doing, as opposed to your idea of broadcasting to people all over the world detailed discussions about what alternative heating arrangements to make for a building in London because the boiler has broken down.
Present arrangements are adequate. It was just that, due to circumstances, they weren’t being applied fully. Now they are.
“Is there any good reason why EC meetings should not be videoed by some sort of Skype system and placed on the web?”
Yes, plenty.
First, it would be a waste of resources; if we are to do this sort of thing the priority should be our externally oriented propaganda meetings and not those concerned with internal housekeeping.
Second, these videos would be deadly boring. Three hours of undisciplined discussion, with EC members repeating themselves or what other EC members have already said, about renewing our insurance, breakdown of heating at head office, subcommittee terms of reference, calls for nominations, reports or conference agenda items, even if in the end the EC generally reaches a sensible conclusion. Nobody would watch more than one.
Third, it is not necessary. Adequate arrangements already exist via the minutes on spintcom to inform members, and even non-members, of what the EC discusses and decides.
So, no, we don’t need an EC You Tube channel neither to inform members nor to show to non-members that we are an open, democratic organisation.
I take your point about some of them not having been available before to non-members but the only ones they (and Dave) won’t have seen before are those from August to November as he published from January to July here. Not checked but some of these might have appeared as messages on spintcom, old and/or new.
In any event, for the functioning of party democracy, it is members having speedy access to them that is important and relevant. Providing access for non-members is just icing on the cake to show that all our internal workings are open to public scrutiny, which is a different principle.
Even if we didn’t publish the minutes on the internet they would still have been public in that non-members still had the right to see them by writing for paper copies or visiting head office to consult them. We don’t really need to mollycoddle them. Only party members have that right.
“it’s relatively rare in my experience for the adopted minutes to depart significantly, if indeed at all in the vast majority of cases, from the draft versions.”
You must have suspected when you wrote that that you were giving a hostage to fortune and that I would check my recollection (from seeing EC Minutes at my branch meetings) that, on the contrary, it is relatively rare for the draft minutes not to be amended before adoption.
I did check and only 2 of the 12 draft Minutes were not amended, some significantly. For instance, the January minutes were amended in February:
“Amendment and adoption of the minutes of the January 2018 meeting (p. 8)
Elaborate upon item 2(d)iii in regards to the payment received from next door within the January minutes.
(The contractors next door wish to erect scaffolding which would need to extend onto our land and this to remain in place for up to 20 weeks. Cde Chesham had negotiated a payment to us for the inconvenience in the sum of £100 per week, amounting in total to £2K. This amount has now been paid to us.)
Noted in the treasurers report commission.
Chesham/Shannon–RESOLUTION: “That the amended minutes be adopted.”
(Agreed)”Surely this financial agreement and payment counts as significant.
And the August Meetings were amended in September to:
“Amendment and adoption of the previous meeting minutes (p. 12)
a) Note from the Assistant Secretary (29 August): There appears to be a typographical or chronological error in the recording of the breaks, the first of which is recorded as “Meeting adjourned for break at 3:30PM – resumed at 3:45PM”, and the second as “Meeting adjourned for break at 2:19PM – resumed at 2:30PM”. – Actioned
(b) Re §7(a), the Assistant Secretary requests the minutes be amended to indicate who moved the Notice of Business – Actioned, moved by M.Browne
5(a)ii To read that Comrade Chesham verbally confirmed his resignation from the EC.
3(b)iii to confirm the request of funds by the WSPUS as having been withdrawn.
Notice of business to state M.Browne as having been the mover.
RESOLUTION: Kennedy/Browne -“That the minutes be adopted.” (Agreed).”
I would have thought that the resignation of an EC Member was also significant.
I agree of course that draft Minutes are better than none, but it is not as if these had not been seen before. They will all have been sent to branches and, most of them at least, to those individual members who have elected to receive them either by post or by email. They have also been published on the files section of Spintcom.
I am sure you will agree that it would be much more transparent to have published last year’s minutes as adopted than leaving it up to those interested to have to always check with the following month’s minutes to see if nothing (or rather what) was changed in the one they are looking at.
