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Spirit of Contradiction >>
national | miscellaneous | news report 
Thursday May 09, 2002 16:13
by Mark R - None
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Comments (23 of 23)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23If you are getting politiscised you should check out Socialist Youth on http://socialistyouth.cjb.net
Postings like this have exposed SWP approach to ths event. Leave young people alone, people can protest and not hold stong political views. We all have a duty to ensure there is no violence tonight for of young people that may be attending.
a better bet would be to check out as many sites as possible, both Irish and international, and parliamentary and non-parliamentary; and remember understanding is much more important than believing, whether it be a person, a website or a party.
do what you want but stay away from the swp.
if you join them you'll lose all your friends.
Jeezus, the guy logs on and says "Im not really into politics" and immediately someone tries to recruit him and then everyone else warns him off another sect!
Hope you make it to the protest Mark, it's good to see someone acting on their conscience.
for gods sake, all anyone has been doing on here for the past few days is bitching about the SWP and about their recruitment policies....therefore to defend your self from this image mark wouldnt it have been smart to resist the temptation to brainwash more young minds for at least a few days....but then again maybe your not that smart.
look this mark guy is from the socialist party,
not the swp. the socialist party is more honest. he has just given the young guy the website address. it's ok. the swp will harrass every 15 year old who happens to come along tonight, you'll see.
To anyone going along to Pearse Street tonight - please keep it peaceful! Don't do what all the biggots in this country expect us to do, which is react with violence. Please, please, please, keep it mellow!
Unfortunately because the Gardai contain criminal elements no-one can guarantee this. Probably all will be fine because there will be a lot of media coverage and a lot of people there. The Gardai would be very foolish to commit any more assaults on peaceful protestors.
I would encourage you to come along and bring a group of friends. No-one that I know, that I have talked to or heard about is interested in violence, but then you see, I don't know any Gardai personally.
If you read any of the posts on this site, read what people were up to at RTS (a fun party, good music, good people) then you'll realise that the image of the "violent protestor" is a lie and that 99.99% of the people that turn out tonight will be peaceful protestors.
So, Mark, don't believe the hype, turn up with some mates so that you can look out for each other, bring your parents and brother and sister if they believe in democracy.
It is very important for people to turn up to show that we don't accept the violent attacks made by the Gardai. If there's anyone out there wondering whether or not they should then they should ask themselves this question: "If I don't turn up then my absence may be taken to mean that I agree with the Gardai battering defenceless people, do I want to make it clear that I don't agree with it?".
Cheers,
Phuq Hedd.
this guy is from the socialist party who i have seen and spoken to at many demos, and have never once had to try and wriggle out of getting recruited. SWP have no TD's the SP have joe higgins - a bloody honest and hard working politician. And what the hell with all the anti-SWP stuff?? even thought they can take a junp for all i care, again distinguishing between SP/SWP is essential.
Eoin Maher
that's right. i don't bother voting but joe higgins is ok and the socialist party people don't harrass you.
re: Mark
Yeah Fuck off with your poxy parties - almost as bad as the pigs. The working class laugh at your muddled cretinous ideas even - if by some freak of fate - they were to come into contact with them. Stick to the colleges and your "theorist" mates. Twat.
obviously this guy has been sent in to provoke,
this is not a sincere criticism.
Seeing that Garda Donal Corcoran has been assigned to desk duties for the forseeable future a whiparound should be started for him. He will lose a considerable amount of overtime,so it would be a nice gesture if we all put a few euro into an envelope and adress it to Donal c/o Mountjoy Garda Stayion, remember there is no stamp required. once again fair play to Donal he played a blinder I only wish I had been beside him with my hurley 'UP THE DUBS'
The reason there is so much anti-SWP feeling is that they constantly undermine broad consensus protest with their relentless party-building. It's obvious that the welter of anti SWP feeling here is not groundless.
It's nice to see some other people pointing out the differences between the Socialist Party and the SWP.
One of the reasons why the SWP can get on my nerves is that when they pull some cynical stunt to pick up a recruit, or set up yet another front organisation, or start shouting about the spirit of Genoa at a bin tax meeting full of pensioners we sometimes get tarred with the same brush.
There are some pretty obvious similarities between the Socialist Party and the SWP. Our names are quite similar. We are all revolutionary socialists. We both produce newspapers and magazines.
But there are a lot of differences too. For starters we don't reduce everything to the next recruit and the next paper sale. We don't have an appallingly undemocratic internal structure, where decisions are made by a few at the top and dissidents are expelled. Our membership is mostly working class and most of our political work is done in working class communities. We actually have a small amount of real electoral support and some influence in a few trade unions.
We differ on a lot of "theoretical" stuff as well, most of which is important, but for most people those are the differences which people encounter first.
A few years ago the SP got irritated enough about it to actually produce a pamphlet about it, which is available on line at the link below.
Now correst me if i'm wrong but was the SP apart of the Labour party in the UK got kicked out of the Labour Party in the UK moved over to Ireland and set up a party with in a party in the labour party.
Now that is undemocratic.
Consider yourself corrected. Militant Labour, the predecessor of the Socialist Party was founded in Ireland more than 30 years ago. Militant Labour in England was purged from the Labour Party a bit more than 10 years ago. I'm not sure what the hell you are talking about.
To think freely is to be political,The best advice is don't take advice,Politics:Never trust a stranger,live life in harmony with yourself and all around you,don't believe anyone you don't know who claims to be your friend,always ask questions- always- about everything, and go your own way...This is POLITICS,FREEDOM.The truth is it has become a dirty word because like every good idea it is used by the power hungry to gain control and now today Politics has become synonymous with all that is wrong with the world.
Remember listen to your heart-Be true-Be strong- Be free
I knew people would complain about that, but honestly I was going to say that maybe other groups should put up their links as well for the lad to make an informed descision but my boss walked in and I was using the internet on her computer!
Firstly, I'm not a SP member or supporter, but I have on mnay occasions defended SP members, such as at stalls against cops, litter wardens complaining about leaflets creating litter etc.
I may not have the same politics as the socialist
Party, but I defend their right to express their views and give info to young people interested in politics. Don't patronise the young guy- all assuming he hasn't the intelligence to make up his own mind.
As for the SWP bashing. GROW UP Mr. Cahill- you fucking idiot!
It seems that people like Mr. Cahill would rather spend more time criticising the SWP rather than talking about real politics. I don't think the SWP bashing has anything to do with what Mr Cahill says, but more to a childish political jealousy. The SP has "real electoral support"???? What? So what? So have many organisiations but that means nothing. You are a revolutionary orgnanisation- no? An elected TD means shit if he thinks that that is more important than making links about Genoa and other such events to things liek Bins charges etc and building real working class support. His remark
"start shouting about the spirit of Genoa at a bin tax meeting full of pensioners" says something significant about his politics- somthing I noted before with some SP memebers- it is side stepping the issue of the fight for socialism and talk of revolution, apart from being patronising towards pensioners. So in your eyes a pensioner could have absolutely no interest in Genoa. In his eyes he might scare a potential member, so hence water down your politics to recruit.
IF ANTHING IS CYNICAL THAT IS AND NOT THE UP FRONT TATICS OF THE SWP.
Oh yes and the infamous SP leaflet. Grow up! It stinks of desperation when you waste your energy knocking other left wing groups so much. why don't you join the Spart. League- you'll have much more fun there knocking the left!
Have fun while others continue to build something real to fight for a real future.
Thanks comrade,
J.
Check this out http://www.broadleft.org/
Or more to the point, look at this http://www.broadleft.org/trotskyi.htm
Divisions on the left are why the right is strong.
First off why don't you try engaging with any of the points made rather than just hysterically ranting and throwing abuse?
I am well aware that there isn't normally much point in arguing with the SWP. It amounts to nothing. It has no support in the trade unions or in working class communities and it has no hope of ever gaining any. It is a classic sect, reducing everything to paper sales and recruitment. There are millions of working class people in Ireland. A couple of hundred sectarians mouthing the latest line from London and desperately pretending to be three or four different organisations don't really matter in any way.
Its only role of any significance is to recruit some nice, well meaning young people and turn them off socialist politics for ever. It's a pity, but there often isn't much that can be done for those who get sucked in. A year or two of being kept in total ignorance of what is happening inside your own organisation, of being constantly whipped up to do a bit more leafletting and postering and being told all the time that a big radicalisation is just starting is enough to drive most of the saner nice young students away from activism permanently. Only a few escape the wreckage. Depressing really.
But in one way, J. of the SWP is accidentally right. I do criticise the SWP too much. Not because we could all be working together harmoniously (no left wing activist should ever be naive enough to think that it is possible to work harmoniously with the SWP) but because they just aren't worth the energy.
J. amidst the ranting and the crassly insincere appeals for "unity", does highlight an interesting issue: how do you raise ideas about changing the world with people who aren't already on the left.
Most people are not socialists or anarchists or political activists of any kind. And there is a massive gulf between thinking that, for example, the bin tax is a rip off and thinking that the solution is a socialist revolution. Trying to bridge that gap is a big part of what any left wing activist is trying to do.
So when a group of pensioners attending a bin tax meeting is confronted by a paper wielding full time party official ranting about the spirit of Genoa are they likely to (a) be filled with that spirit of Genoa themselves and hit the streets to form a Churchtown black block or (b) not want anything more to do with these lunatics?
As far as I am concerned you start from where people are, not where you want them to be. That doesn't mean that you avoid raising the ideas of socialism or the working class - that's integral to everything we do (as opposed to say the liberal nonsense of the ANL), but it does mean avoiding crass raving about the need for a revolution tomorrow.
Anyway, I'm rambling.