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The IAWM's dismal leadership national |
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news report
 Monday April 28, 2003 15:57 by Dec McCarthy
 or how the anti-war campaign made me a sectarian an analysis and critique of the role of Trotskyist groups played in the IAWM A character in Dermot Healy’s novel “Sudden Times” remarks “Politics makes me dizzy. They're cat. If you're paranoid about government then the psyche is unsettled. You're not well. Next thing is you're standing in Saint Columba's in your pyjamas talking to some bollacks about the phallus and chewing something to bring you down. No sir. No way”. Well after months of regularly attending the Irish Anti-War Movement’s marches and particularly after months of listening to the speeches of the leading lights of the IAWM I can sympathise with these sentiments. My head is buzzing with cant and rhetoric and I have that bluesy dejected feeling you get when you know you have just lost a chance that won’t be coming around again for a long time. Now credit should be given where credit is due. The IAWM did invaluable work mobilizing people. They played a central role building a very large anti-war movement. They undertook all those necessary but thankless tasks that make any social movement happen -postering, distributing leaflets, setting up local branches, holding meetings and the like. They called for marches and faithfully shunted their megaphones, placards and banners to the demos. They created a media profile for the anti-war movement and Richard Boyd Barrett in particular made a very good fist of making the anti-war position clear and coherent on the national airwaves. Groups such as writers against the war produced with incredible speed an anthology of writings against the war. Local groups like the Fairview anti-war group, and I‘m sure many local groups I do not know about, excelled themselves in organizing anti-war activity in their area. Finally and most importantly, the IAWM can claim with considerable justification to have been the main moving force behind the largest march in Irish history about an international issue. It was an extraordinary day and the IAWM can be proud of their role in making it happen. However, despite this unprecedented show of public support for the peace movement the IAWM failed to achieve any of the realizable aims that they set themselves. The IAWM was incapable of devising an effective strategy to disrupt the logistical support offered by the Irish state to the US war machine. Then when Bush and his cronies shored up in Hillsborough and worked themselves into a lather of self congratulation the Irish anti war movement was given a opportunity to show the world that we were not taken in by this revolting spectacle that aimed to legitimize their warmongering. Once again, the leadership of the IAWM failed to rise to the challenge. Why did the leadership of the IAWM do so little with so much support? The answer lies in the politics of the Trotskyist groups that effectively ran the IAWM namely the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party (who played the more low key role of the two groups). Their approach to politics can be characterised as a peculiar and off-putting blend of opportunism and dogmatism. Both of these tendencies are clearly discernable in the direction the IAWM took over the past few months. The scale of anti-war sentiment surprised everyone and perhaps understandably the Trotskyists in the IAWM did not want to lose their hard won credibility by doing anything too radical. The anti war movement gave them unprecedented access to the media, the unions and a large swathe of potential new recruits so despite a revolutionary anti-capitalist analysis of the causes of war the SWP and the SP became strangely timid. They displayed a prissy respect for legality that would usually only be found amongst the faithful at a PD Ard Fheis. The result was a paralyzing lack of nerve. This makes good sense when a movement is in its infancy but after February the 15th and after the government signaled in its own inimitably unclear way that they were going to blather a bit and then continue to offer full support to the US war effort the IAWM should of gone on the offensive with a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience. However, the IAWM decided to continue to rely on demonstrations to stop the war. I have no problem with marches and I think they are important but it was abundantly clear that in this case marches alone were not sufficient. These events became highly ritualized and banal events and created the sense of a peace movement Ground Hog day. The pervasive atmosphere of these events was not of anger or sorrow but of aimlessness. The only discernible difference between each march was that the speeches seemed to become longer and the march routes shorter as if verbiage from union bureaucrats and parliamentary parties could halt the juggernaut of US imperialism. This lack of courage and imagination damaged the development of the anti-war movement in qualitative terms if not perhaps in quantitative terms. Once the state announced that it was happy to ignore public opinion, I think other tactics should have been considered but politicking was deemed more important than taking effective action against the war. This lack of nerve had to be balanced with some radical posturing to keep their own members happy. Empty gestures became the order of the day from early on in the campaign. In February organizers had decided to march down Grafton street on a Saturday afternoon. The Gardai said this was not on but the IAWM said that they would march up Grafton street anyway. Following some totally meaningless and ludicrous grandstanding by the SWP at the end of Grafton street the class warriors shuffled off. There was similar nonsense on the day the bombing of Iraq began outside the British and US embassies. At the end of the demonstration, the IAWM initiated a road blockade. But the sharper eyed of the demonstrators noticed that the road had already been closed off by the Gardai making the gesture entirely pointless. The IAWM did eventually shift their emphasis to civil disobedience, announcing that they intended to blockade the Dail. A large number of people turned up and refused to be intimidated by a show of strength by the police. The atmosphere was angry and resolute and in media terms it proved an effective way of highlighting the government’s complicity in the US war effort. However, the way the event finished showed once again that the IAWM leadership was unwilling to take even the smallest risk to register their disgust at the war. The protest was called off after some meaningless concessions from the cops. As people moved off for some more edifying speeches a dozen cars came out of the front gate of the Dail. No doubt the life of a public representative is stressful enough without being unduly delayed from getting home for cocoa. This type of choreography was followed to its ignominious end in Hillsborough where an attempt was made by protestors to circumvent police lines by jumping into an adjacent field. The response of the stewards to this made the day of the PSNI. In the following days a number of SWP members left the organization revolted by the “if in doubt do nothing” stance of their party.
The marginalisation of other elements of the anti-war movement is in keeping with the Trotskyist analysis that capitalism can only be defeated by one big, centralized organization with the “correct ideas”. Any social movement that these groups can manage to dominate will function according to this model. This hostility to diversity became acute after February the 15th. Flushed with their own importance the Trotskyists in the IAWM behaved as if they owned the 150,000 people who turned up to protest against the war. It was noteworthy that they showed no interest in events, pickets and demos that they did not call for themselves. It is also worth noting by the by that many of the most interesting and imaginative initiatives of the peace movement came from outside the orbit of the IAWM. For instance the establishment of the peace camp, the smashing up of the US planes, the plane spotting, the blocking of the entrance of the Dail on Day X and the cacerolazo were all forms of protest devised by small groups outside of the IAWM . There is of course a ludicrous side to all of this. There is the laughably predictable second rate political machinations and the committee room shenanigans, the inability to count correctly how many people attend any given event, the whiff of desperation that marks their recruiting techniques, the dull rhetoric and the incessant paper selling The US state is in the process of marking out a new, aggressive and very dangerous geopolitical strategy. The little caesars of the state department intend to reshape the world as they see fit and they do not care how high the pile of corpses will be. Opposing them effectively will demand more effort and courage than we, the IAWM and the broader anti-war movement, have shown to date. Radical politics, such as it is, in Ireland is still dominated, in both form and content, by Trotskyism and this is a serious obstacle to successful opposition to capitalism and imperialism. The spectre of outdated, formulaic and authoritarian politics haunts the Irish left and we have to develop more open and attractive forms of politics and thinking in response to this. We cannot let radical politics in the hands of those who have a veritable Shidas touch-everything they touch turns to shite. The last significant event called for by the IAWM was a march in Shannon. The numbers had dwindled into the hundreds and the IAWM leadership led the faithful into an enclosed area, a sheep pen of sorts, to listen to the same old collection of shop worn clichés. So one last question- is it going to be two legs good, four legs better next time round?
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Comments (28 of 28)
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 23 24 25 26 27 28Hear hear....let's wait for the usual rants, raves and 'don't split the movement' appeals to come flying in....
Such analysis and criticism is vital and all the more so because it is constructive. Let us all reflect on what we did right, wrong and the could do betters... God knows we need to.
My view iS tinted of course (as I agree completely with the above) but the following sentiments were relayed to me on more than one occassion during this campaign:
>> "We are sick of the same of slogans, shouting our heads of, repeating the mantras of out of touch 'we are the workers' cries".
>> "I don't want to join a political party, subscribe to a doctrine, dogma or ideology. I don't want to be patronised, enlightened or lectured. I want to protest and stop this war. I don't need a 10 page newspaper rammed down my throat to do that. It's damn offputting".
>> "I can't stand being told 'our' plan in advance of any consultation. It's like swapping one bunch of leaders for another. They might be somewhat better but just as disempowering".
>> "Hillsborough made me vomit. How could Richard B.B tell us to leave the protest, that we had showed them, and that our buses were urgently waiting to bring us home to mammy and daddy."
>> "A fake alliance isn't necessarily better than no alliance. Indeed an alliance (or 'movement' as it was called) that doesn't appear to have a strategy, a way forward, a plan beyond the slogans is more than useless, it's counterproductive".
------------------------------------------
"In February organizers had decided to march down Grafton street on a Saturday afternoon. The Gardai said this was not on but the IAWM said that they would march up Grafton street anyway. Following some totally meaningless and ludicrous grandstanding by the SWP at the end of Grafton street the class warriors shuffled off. "
It was in December actually. Dec 8th to be precise. The day all the cluchies do their chrimbo shopping.
And you forgot to mention RBB's posteuring press release were he related this to the Reclaim the Streets and the erosion of protestor rights.
Richard if you're reading this. It wasn't about protestor rights it was about "1000s" as you claimed would turn up (actual figure around 500) trying to shove their way up grafton st, causing a potential public order nightmare, and innocent passberys getting injuried!
fuck off
appreciate the correction King Mob -I tried to check the on the IAWM website and started to go back throught the newswire on Indymedia but I couldn't find it
the swp is on the way out. they had their opportunity, they made a mess of it. but we need to organise and not waste our time with them.
I think the article poseted above is very good. We should recognise that the IAWM was sucessful in mobilising numbers that we just haven't seen protesting against war ever before in Ireland. It took a lot of work and resources. I think we should also bear in mind that the IAWM was going to make some mistakes along the way, not least because everything was moving so fast.
But there are some puzzling questions that need answering. Why did the IAWM posture for meaningless direct action, while failing to support effective direct action against the war?
In December the IAWM had a symbollic stand off with the cops demanding the right of protestors to marhc up Grafton Street. Given that marching up Grafton Street would have taken us away from the direction of the U.S. embassy that we were marching to, what on earth were they playing at?
At the same time, we were repeatedly told that direct action at Shannon would have been premature?
There is a huge risk that the tens of thousands who came out to anti war demos will feel disempowered, rather than empowered from been led up the symbolic protest path by the IAWM.
Yes not everyone, is going to engage in non-violent direct action at Shannon, but why can't we ensure that direct action is at least effective and meaningful when it is attempted?
I think you've said it all, No doubt it will cause fireworks but i'd be very surprised if any of the replies will be half as coherent and/or well thought through
maybe it is true after all that it ain't how big it is but what its what you do with it that is important. Judging by the responses so far it seems like the Trots have told by Kieran that they can't go out to play with the rough children from indymedia anymore
I reckon that the complete failure of the Feb 15th march, attended by record numbers of (competely passive) protestors, to achieve anything at all is the greatest argument for direct action that this island has ever seen.
i reject the idea that the IAWM blockade of the dail/various embassies was direct action for the antiwar cause. blocking the streets is only direct action in the context of an anti car protest like RTS or critical mass. blockading the dail is still and indirect plea of "masters save us!" and is shockingly close to coup d'etat posturing...as if their were a bunch of maoists trying to storm the dail instead of ignoring it and building alternatives.
i loved the DA down in shannon. it was by far the most significant protest i've ever been to. it wasn't reliant on specialist tools, just numbers...and having the DA protest saboutaged by the trots meant that those numbers didn't materialise and the day passed off uneventfully.
it's interesting that the IAWM saboutaged the shannon DA in the name of "building the movement" (i know, i heard RBB denounce DA on the bus journey down) when it had already reached record support...through such action they also imply that radical movements should be watered down for the middle ground, instead of trying to radicalise the middle ground and bringing them over to the cause (eg. by appealing to their reason and inviting them to attend a DA).
i love something that a guy from england said after their antiwar protest experience from the last few months:
"loudhailers at protests aren't the problem, it's the fuckers that use them. Those that elect themselves to sell us out."
couldn't put in better myself about the IAWM.
-Ocean
It would be interesting to see an analysis of the anti-war movement from the SP or SWP, especially the SWP since they played such a major role in the IAWM, both in the leadership and, in all fairness, as the primary activist force who did a hell of a lot of the on the ground work.
Perhpas they think that indymedia is too irrelevant/sectarian/full of cranks/a conspiracy against them or whatever, but if not here, then where? For all it's flaws we have to admit that there is nowhere else in Ireland that even comes close to indymedia for allowing debates between people from different political backgrounds. Granted there are many childish squabbles, but generally childish name calling looks like childish name calling and doesn't convince anybody.
So SWP/SP c'mon let's hear from yez. Staying schtum and pretending that reading indymedia is beneath yez is silly. You are quite happy to post your announcements here, why not respond to criticisms? Even 'bourgeois' parties like SF and the Labour party are pretty good at responding to articles on indymedia. Nobody's going to buy the line that you think it is beneath ye.
last night i sat in my bedroom and i wondered what might have been if instead of marching past the GNAW in Shannon, If RBB had stopped the march, stood along side the direct actionists and Voiced his support for what they were doing. If he had Made an announcement calling for anybody who was willing to join with them in solidarity under the pink or white flags to do so. That could have been a single turning point, a single moment of strength that would have united the movement and made a real positive difference. RBB could still have continued his march to the Airport with whoever was ideologically or practically opposed to the Direct Action but it would have been in a spirit of solidarity, not opposition.
Instead he did the opposite. According to above reports, he used his highly visible position on the buses to discredit and slander the GNAW people and their proposed action. If there have to be leaders, they should at least act responsibly with the ultimate good of the cause at their heart.
Ref. Badman:
I would indeed imagine that the Swp/Sp think there are far too many cranks and sectarian attitudes on this newswire - and this may be putting them off in engaging in these type of debates.
But it would be nice to see a response. Has anyone actually tried contacting both respective parties for a response?
I always thought bourgeois meant, basically, middle class people or people who owned property. Most SF members, along with their elected representatives are hardly bourgeois, they are neither middle class nor own property. Whether Sinn Féin is a party FOR the working class is a different kettle of fish from whether they are a party OF it. They're certainly the latter, have my doubts about the former.
I'd say a lot of Labour people are the same while obviously there is a mass of trendy D4 middle class Labour supporters. And frankly I think the SP tend to be the best replying to stuff, if only because there's so many of them on it and they tend to get attacked the most. Justin and Eoin seem to be the only Shinners on it much.
The quotes meant... 'you are now entering into the mindset of the trotskyist' ;-)
And as for the SP being good at responding, I was refering to quality, not quantity. I don't think that the typical "how dare you question us, you're just a [enter insult here]" counts for much.
An interesting article on russias emerging policy to the New World Order....
"There are signs of consolidation in Russian society. A new era is anticipated for the country after parliamentary elections in December 1999 and presidential elections the following summer.
Nato's air war against Yugoslavia boosted the maturation in Russia of a national concept of security. Terrorist acts in Moscow and other Russian cities have helped revive a feeling of mutual belonging and solidarity. The country survived the initial shock and numbness after counting the dead and braced itself for change. Instead of panicking, it resolved to alter the dismal course of events.
In the northern Caucasus, Russia is in a state of undeclared war with local and international terrorism. Its military doctrine is being put to the test. The army is expected to become a symbol of national unity once again instead of national disorder".
ANATOLI and ALEXEI GROMYKO
read the rest at :
http://www.gromyko.ru/english/cwd/nuclear.htm
intersting military policy analysis
The SP played a crucial role in sabotaging DA at Shannon. Domnic Haugh ,SP, was raving about the danger of the army and gardai firing into an armed crowd. Along with Michael O'Brien , SP, he kept stressing the need to have medics present. This was calculated to keep people away from the DA.
In Shannon itself, Joe Higgins TD, SP, called GNAW "Virtual Warriors", at the very time they were face to face with the army, cops and the SPs friends in the Airport police.
Despite all their rhetoric about workers strike action being the key they refused to support an anti war lobby of the ICTU Conference. They were afraid their Bureaucrat friends might be upset and stop speaking from IAWM platforms.
These are the SP lies about why they wouldnt support an anti war lobby of the ICTU conference.
Lie 1: They were concentrating on fighting the new Wage Deal.
* Unions had already decided their position on the Wage Deal.
Lie 2: They didnt know the lobyy was going ahead.
* The lobby was widely advertised by flyer and on Indymedia and Irish-Left.
Lie 3: They wanted to get a speaker at the conference.
*Actually at an IAWM conference the SP, SWP and GP voted against a lobby of the ICTU conference. The SP claim this was because they wanted to get a speaker at the conference. They then did nothing about getting a speaker.
If these groups SWP/SP are so bad why are they in such positions of responsibility.Surely better options would easily replace them.
If Shannon and the DA associated with it was such a great idea then the SWP?SP/Greens etc would have been swept aside by the militant masses.
I would agree that a lot of mistakes were made by everyone.
I do'nt know of any magic formaula which would have brought the movement forward after the 100,000 march.Let us be honest noone had a formula if they are honest about it
I think we need an honest and friendly debate between and in all tendencies about what to do next and what not to do next. But slagging will only solidify the differences and make harder if not impossible necessary cooperation in the future. Demands that everyone else support uncritically initiatives of other groups are not the way forward.
For all their faults 99% of the membership of all the groups are sincere about trying to change the world but when I look at the bitterness of some of the slagging I would wonder about the world that might insue.
I wish the GNAW meeting tomorrow and hope that it is constructive and I hope theb internal debates in the SWP and SP cause and opening out to the rest of the Left and an end to sectarianism.
What about the other parties and groups are they immune from criticism or constructive engagement.
Bush and Blair and the EU are plotting their next war.Here the same faces are planning to fool us all again with the samo/samo lineups in the next elections. Now is the time to have a dialogue on the positive as well as the negative in the recent campaigns
Jim Monaghan
Even the most junior members of the SP will consciuosly lie about their activities in the IAWM, about John Throne, about Militants history, any subject you care to mention.
You might address why you think they spread the scare stories about Shannon. Do you think any member of the SP believed that the Gardai or Army were going to fire into an unarmed crowd?
Why do you think they avoided lobbying the ICTU conference?
Why do you think they resort to personal abuse whenever they are confronted with their lies and sabotage?
It is not sectarian to point out the actions and inactions of the rrrrrrrevolutionaries.
The media gave them the voice of the movement. Most people would recognise the name of RBB or Joe Higgins, very few would know Ciaran O Reilly or Andrew Flood, the soundbytes on the 6 clock news were politicians, not activists so their words carried greater weight with the unsuspecting public. This meant they had a far greater responsibility to make sure they thought through each statement and had clear honest motivations
The analysis is a little shallow, it doesn't really say anything except the ant war movement was a failure (which I don't see it as) no anti war movement anywhere in the world stopped the war. this is the problem, you talk of people being too idelogical at least I think thats your point, but in the end alot of anarchists are speaking quite arrogantly telling people what they should do and they are "reformists" etc. If they wanted to organise any sort of direct action no one stopped them. Really the problem for me is that you are making the same mistakes as the "workerists" of italy who I think you were referring too. They too started out to be closer to the people and more to the point but in the end were more out of touch than the party, more centralised and alot more arrogant. To change society you need to work with big numbers not just those who you have decided are "revolutionary" enough. This is what the SP is trying to do. The point is direct action is a stratagey used all over the world, not an idelogy. This confusion is well confusing. Reading this you would think anarchism is simply about direct action and no more, in my opinion you are doing yourselves a disservice.
Jim -I agree with a good deal of what you are saying. You are right there is no magic formula for making social movements work and we should celebrate the positive achievements of the anti-war campaign. I tried to indicate in the article exactly what I think the IAWM did well for exactly that reason.
I am not a natural sectarian. I dislike political dogma from any quarter and generally believe that finding common ground is more important than being “pure, right and alone”. Until recent events I regarded the SWP and even more so the SP as groups with whom I had many ideas in common but I was not wholly convinced by their analysis or their style of politics. I still believe that I have more in common than not with most of the members of these organizations but I do not trust or admire their leaders. I think that are so mired in their own little world with tidy explanations for everything under the sun that all social and historical events have become something to politick about and recruit through. That pisses me off and I am no longer willing to accept their radical credentials at face value.
I attended and supported nearly all the IAWM events because the war made me feel sick in my guts, nervous and explosively angry. I wanted to make my voice heard and like many people I was willing to support any group which facilitated this. I kept a lot of my more negative impressions about the way the IAWM was managed to myself while the campaign was in full swing. Now I think we need to work out what went right and what went wrong.
I did not intend the article as a rehash of the exhaustive debate about direct action following March the 1st. Direct action and civil disobedience are to my mind valid and useful tactics but the general gist of the article was not about that but about the way Trotskyists operate in social movements. These parties have a massive influence on the far left in the UK and Ireland and I now genuinely believe that the way they operate has an inimical effect on radical politics. This is not because I think their wrong about Kronstadt or the nature of the “degeneration of workers state” or whatever but because they suck up all the energy, creativity, anger and good intentions of people who come to politics for the first time and do nothing with it. Stasis inevitably leads to disenchantment and burn out.
I don’t imagine that it will be possible to avoid working with the SP and the SWP on issues in the future. The left is too small and weak for that but I do think people should be highly sceptical of the motives and the intentions of these parties. I do not think it is worth keeping schtum about serious political differences for the sake of some completely illusory “left unity”. I see the criticisms that I made of the SP/SWP as a challenge for the left in general-lets come up with something better. If we don’t then we will all lose out.
To hs- I appreciate you responding to the article. The article did not counterpose mass protest and the practice of civil disobedience. Ideally, these practices should complement each other. I never thought we were going to stop the war but I do think we could of done more to make our voices heard. I think that we should of at least have tried “to stop the world to stop the war” as the IAWM slogan went. I repeat- this could not be done solely by marching particularly when the state has ignored the largest street demonstration in decades. The movement needed some teeth and instead got milk and water.
I believe that this is the result of tendencies within Trotskyist politics that effectively disable social movements. Now I may have done this badly or unclearly but I will restate my postion-parties that claim to be revolutionary pursued an opportunistic line in the Irish anti-war movement, engaged in a lot of radical posturing and justified this with dogma. I believe this weakened the anti-war movement because ineffectual protest is disheartening and people felt the point of the protest was lost in all the empty rhetoric. Of course we need numbers but effective mobilization is something different from a meander through town,
So here are a couple of questions that I would appreciate if you responded to -By what criteria do judge the anti-war movement as a success ?.
Do you think we did enough and if not what do you think should have been done?.
When were the SP and SWP going to make good on their promises to build for strike action against the war and what if any steps were taken to ensure this?
Just as an aside-I don’t regard what I wrote as “anarchist” I didn’t refer to Autonomia or workerists in the article where did you get that?
To any perplexed indymedia readers- a friend has let me know that I was being a bit obscure with the “rolling donught” analogy in the article above. I apologise for being unclear. The figure of speech was intended to convey extreme opportunism but seemingly just confused matters.Confusion is after all confusing.
HS repeats a couple of very odd phrases I've heard since March 1st from SP members which suggests that they are handed down by the leadership as an explanations for the SPs role in undermining the direct action.
The first of these is the idea that anarchists counterpose mass protest and the practice of civil disobedienc'. This is crap and they know it, the articles we published over this period almost all argued against doing just that. One example from a pre-March 1st article "Marches have and will continue to have an essential role in building opposition to the war and bringing new people into the movements. But it is now clear that we can do more, that we can take action against this war"
http://www.struggle.ws/wsm/news/2003/shannonDA.html
The second of these is really odd and this is the statement that 'direct action is a tactic not an ideology'. This ones is weird as the SP seem to be arguing with themselves on this one. Does anyone claim that direct action, on its own, is an ideology? This gibberish seems to have no meaning outside of the need of the SP leadership to say something that sounds like an excuse to those who know no better.
These two lies (and in terms of the leadership of the SP they are thought out lies and not simply misunderstandings) are all that we are given as an excuse for SP's opposition to direct action at Shannon. This isn't the first time I've called them on these lies either, indeed on the night of March 1st I'd a rather drunken row with one of the Trokria about lie number 1. At the time I was willing to accept this was a misunderstanding but March 1st was a long time ago and the simple repetition of this lie by one SP member after another makes me conclude otherwise.
Browsing the other threads that discuss the SP on indymedia it is notable that other people also accuse the SP of lying to cover up shameful behaviour in other contexts. This is hardly unusual in left (or indeed right) politics, sadly its the rule rather then the exception. What puzzles me is the willingness of the ordinary members to allow themselves to be used in this way. In particular in this case where they have the option of just not saying anything. Why post something you know is not true?
Only had time to skim through the arguments but I see valid points being made on both sides.
I am glad D. McCarthy recognized the invaluable work of the IAWM and recognition that there is no magical formula.
Also I take note of HS's remark that no anti-war protest anywhere in the world succeeded in stopping the war - and it was also going to be difficult to the extreme in stopping the use of Shannon here.
The forces that be, that we are all trying to take down here are mighty indeed and must not be underestimated.
Don't always like harping on about unity, but to have any chance whatsoever of bringing these forces down, we all must try to stay united where ever possilbe. To that end I was glad to see the ISF pushing ahead, as per the posting on this newswire. Hopefully more and more organisations and individuals from all diverse areas of Irish social life will get involved.
I see the ISF, ESF, WSF as being the way forward against these massive powers that be.
Saying all this I welcome the critical comment of Declan McCarthy and I think the leadership, direction and motives of any of the leading "protest" parties must always be questioned and analyzed.
some SWP fokes spent time making banners and fair play to them. but RBB and Co knew there was much more to it than that, sure people spent time making old fashioned banners and with more success.
How many SWP members blockaded the Dail?
How many SWP members helped expose Shannon for what it is?
How many SWP members did court or prison support for anyone arrested for protesting?
all talk and no action.
"trendy"
I love that insult. So cutting.
HATE THEM SWP AS WELL. NOW THE GREENS LP AND SF (STILL SO COOL TO BE SEEN WITH) I WOULD ENTER THEIR GOVERNMENT ANY DAY. AS A ONE HUNDRED PERCENT ANARCHIST OF COURSE.
Disgusting LP Yth, GP & SF, some of them actually took part in Direct Actions. Must be condemned.
and agree with most of it but the responses have degenerated into nonsense. More writing rather than just typing would be good Mr Garcia. Why do the SP never answer direct questions?