Indymedia criticised at IAWM conference

by pc Sat Jul 03, 2004 22:24

the criticising of the iawm is necessary and it not infighting cos the swp are not "in" ie

when i hear people saying we should concentrate on the commen enemy
my commom enemy is anyone who is

anyone who lies cheats and backs-stabs to get where what they want

sound familiar to ya rbb?

by pirate Sat Jul 03, 2004 22:29

But the punishment does not fit the crime!
Say something sweet about us and we won't tell anyone about the Red Satanic Rights.

by beenthere Sat Jul 03, 2004 22:45

My, my! I never realised RBB was such a sensitive soul. If he cannot take a bit of criticism on a public forum perhaps he should stay in bed and not emerge from under the covers. I too have been attacked on indymedia ie, but I prefer to counter it with logical argument on whatever is being discussed on the site.

Perhaps politics is too serious an activity for RBB. Maybe he could get himself a more gentle hobby like bee-keeping or bungee-jumping.

by Dub SWP - SWP Sat Jul 03, 2004 23:30

Unfortunately as you neglect to give your name we will never know what criticism that was.
As for been sensitive, over a short period he has been accused of been a police front,a agent of the state, a careerest ,ect ect. There is no rational debate on this site, just hysterical rantings and a poisoned athmosphere.
His greatest sin seems to be proposing a different emphasis on anti war activity.Away from NVDA aimed at shannon toward the broader unity with others to the right of most of us on the left( Lab , Greens ect) but who are willing to work on a broad anti war front.
Agree or disagree, you would think it would be possible to work together .

Instead over a period, and this site is reflection of the trend, he personally, and the party have been vilified, our every statement and action wilfully misinterpretated or distorted. (Just look at the report on events in Clare, or statements from one individual which are attributed to the entire party ,in Shannon)
That migh be acceptable if those most vocal in denouncing us where honest about there own political directions , but they are not.
And listen ,pc, to have a diferent opinion to you or the wsm, or even god help us Ciaron OReilly, is not to "stab you in the back, "

by Brian Sun Jul 04, 2004 01:22

And listen ,pc, to have a diferent opinion to you or the wsm, or even god help us Ciaron OReilly, is not to "stab you in the back, "

Difference of opinion should be allowed and debated (something the SWP constantly shys away from), and yes, its not stabbing you in the back but attacking other Anti-War groups in the media and tearing apart the entire anti war movement because it wont walk the SWP line, thats what most people would call stabbing you in the back.

Truth hurts doesnt it!

by George Stapleton Sun Jul 04, 2004 01:22

How many people were there?

Also I hope people do see the irony in the SWP saying 'What we need is Unity', while simultaneously saying 'I'd never work with them'. In my opinion what we need is democracy and open debate.

by thatchers child Sun Jul 04, 2004 02:57

RBB can now proudly join the popular lineup of on the record demonisers of Indymedia:

1. dublin courts
2. shannon airport authorities
3. eoghan harris
4. brendan o'connor (boc)
5. michael mc'dowell

oh yeah and

6. Independent Newspapers

Lovely company Ritchie - Saw your lovely posters in Monkstown

God bless you all and goodnight

;-)

by all the young punks Sun Jul 04, 2004 03:07

"a poisoned reflection of the right"

would that be how the swp is portrayed here on this site?

or how indymedia is portrayed by rbb / iawm?

by curious george Sun Jul 04, 2004 04:41

The original article that proceeds all of this contains a few lovely ides, tee hee hee, the ultra left seem to have a problem with their new found support and are desperate to label us as right wing nuts so they can continue their vigil as lone crusaders of the left in the dark night that envelopes us all. bwa ha ha ha, go an shite, you do not own the issues, they speak for themselves and the rest of us are bored of the obsolete right/left dichotomy. You only try and alienate support so you can pretend you came up with the idea of dissent, yaay, go on honestly we believe that...... no we do really

by whinger Sun Jul 04, 2004 12:03

The SWP has a lot to fear from Indymedia, I have heard this website gets 20,000 visitors a week, and is accessed globally.

a lot more than their crap newspaper, The Socialist Worker. Asumming anyone actually reads it.

by Conor - Saucd Sun Jul 04, 2004 12:47

First off, I must declare my disdain for the Socialist Workers Party, its methods and structure (and think RESPECT is an absolute farce). I do think it has many very very good people in its ranks, who have a great deal to offer Socialism.

I think the Criticism of RBB & CO isn’t that “they have a different point of view than I do”, more that their methods can be, and often are Poisonous to a particular campaign. What figure hasn’t been criticised in an all too personal manner on this page? As another poster said, if RBB fancies himself as a public representative, he should come out and address all reasonable issues people have with the SWP, and leave the trolls to troll.

It’s a popular method of any careerist (which I personally think RBB is) to avoid any accountability or public discourse by automatically pointing the finger at the most ludicrous questions, and by a fanciful extension, refusing to answer ANY questions, queries, or concerns of comrades.

Why, for example, shun secularism ?

by jean le loup Sun Jul 04, 2004 15:07

why is it that the irish liberterian left went nuts at the swp for emphasising mass movement inclusion over NVDA in shannon? it was decided democratically at IAWM steering committee meetings and numerous IAWM delegate meetings that this was the direction the IAWM would take itself.

when those in the movement saw that their political tactics were not in the forefront they left to establish another group AWI. it seems like "well we didn't get our way and we think that our tactics are the best so we'll leave, so there"a flaunting of democracy you could say. either way one group is accusing another of the sin of inluencing a movement becuase it itself couldn't inlfunce the movement, a bit of a paradox. each side thinks its tactics are right i think it is not a question of whether you think SWP are back stabbing , police agents etc but rahter a fundamental political difference, one which unfortunately, in this forum only expresses itself in incessant whinging.

by Brian Sun Jul 04, 2004 15:22

first

"it was decided democratically at IAWM steering committee meetings and numerous IAWM delegate meetings that this was the direction the IAWM would take itself"

Nope, nope and nope, the SWP rigged elections inside of the IAWM so that the policy of the IAWM reflected the policy of the SWP.

second

"when those in the movement saw that their political tactics were not in the forefront they left to establish another group AWI"

Nope, nope and nope again. The people that left the IAWM not the movement (the movement isnt just the IAWM) did so in protest over SWP vote rigging and their general misbehaviour in the IAWM.

Other tactics such as NVDA have been tried, tested and proved the most accomplished by other groups such as the CW and the GNAW.

Look at the IAWM alternative, walk around Dublin all day and listen to speeches by carreerists like RBB telling people why they decided to come out.

Oh and my favourite, "Would you like to buy Socialist Worker"

by lady di chotomy Sun Jul 04, 2004 15:29

''rish liberterian left went nuts at the swp for emphasising mass movement inclusion over NVDA in shannon?''

no one I know of ever said it was an either/or issue - this is a false dichotomy and a familiar SWP rhetorical tactic.

Let's reverse the question and ask why the IAWM/SWP refuses to do any serious support and solidarity for people like Mary Kelly and the Pit Stop Plowshares?

The SWP always like to talk of solidarity but in the end its only solidarity for what furthers SWP party building. As for party building you can see how successful they were in the recent local elections.

by tom Sun Jul 04, 2004 16:15

"Barrett claimed 60% of the content of Indymedia was pointless debate between tiny factions of the left and he had no interest in participating."
So why doesn't he read it for the other 40%? The problem with R B Barrett's own paper is that there is never any debate in it atall - pointless or otherwise . The same goes for his party. And the SWP wants to mould the antiwar movement in its own image and likeness .

by jean le lenin Sun Jul 04, 2004 16:59

how did the SWP rig the elections in the IAWM?

why would RBB spend most of his life organising in a tiny revolutionary party, who have the most difficult way (through the ideal revolution) of gaining popularity or election if he were a careerist?

dichtomy: SWP is binary opposion to gains of movement, classical liberterian line: leninists= anti-christ (or christ you migh say), when SWP influnce IAWM to focus on mass protest and including labour green sinn fein parties, they are accused of rigging. my point is the actions of SWP are viewed through a fundamental political difference where ANYTHING a leninist does is underhand and nasty.

But this is not adequetly expressed and instead comes out in slander and lies in which it is hard to find concrete political criticisms. reflecting more the paucity of irish anarchism then anything else

by pc Sun Jul 04, 2004 17:43

im not fully sure what a leninist is and i think the swp is underhand?

is it not the policy of if not all authoritarian socialist atleast the swp to get "the workers in power" in _any_way_possible_ (ie incudling lieing cheating and backstabbing) is that not a policy which you could admit to yourselves

by me - . Sun Jul 04, 2004 18:12

could it be that the last comment explains why the swp ignore indymedia?

Indymedia is a great medium for discussion and news but it is DAMAGED by lies and spin.

by eeeekkk Sun Jul 04, 2004 18:24

who launched the lies and spin? is she fatally damaged? sink or swim?

by pc Sun Jul 04, 2004 18:34

its your misunderstanding that people don't have minds of their own

i got the above impression _not_from_indymedia_ but from working with and interacting with swp members on numerous occasions

by Kate Sun Jul 04, 2004 18:39

Im unaffiliated with any political party/ideology. i have gone to shannon and other protests for over a year now. Just a sheer observation but those protests not called by IAWM i have found to be the most organic and fair.

The stewarding of march's and a fixed set of nominated speaker i think is indicative of the IAWM general attitude as to its role as controllers and owners of the anti-war movement. On bush weekend AWI constantly consulted the crowd with suggestions and were open to them too.There is a real sense of it not being an organisation but an umbrella group facilitating objections to war

RBB has set himself up as a figurehead of the anti-war movement, yet his rhetoric and language in the media is always not inclusive/reflective of the diverse set of people who are opposed to war. His objections and speech's are always launched from a socialist perspective and while i recognise these are his beliefs, if he wasn't trying t push a socialist agenda he would be more selective with his words.

My personal beleif is that if the IAWM were truely an anti-war group they would be making every effort to work with AWI. The truth is that they see them as a threat. The fear is to losing status and the soapbox from which to preach socialist ideals. Don't get me wrong, i beleive socialism has alot to offer politics and soceity but using a serious issue like that of war for personal gain is something i think is deploreable.

by Anti-War Ireland member Sun Jul 04, 2004 19:20

I must admit that I'm getting a bit tired of this nonsense, promoted by some in the SWP (including Richard in remarks to the Irish Times in late February), that those involved in Anti-War Ireland are primarily interested in promoting the virtues of 'direct action'.

Anti-War Ireland is focused on mass mobilisation.

It is broad-based, democratic (we don't rig meetings), transparent and genuinely inclusive. There are some tactical differences between Anti-War Ireland and the IAWM (such as our greater respect for tactical diversity), but Fairview Against the War, the Cork Anti-War Campaign, the Mid-West Alliance Against Military Aggression, Clonakilty Against the War, and many individuals, left the IAWM (these people subsequently joined up with others to form AWI) primarily because of the appalling behaviour of the SWP. The SWP rigged a national meeting by busing in its members to act as delegates for non-existent IAWM branches in order to win votes, including one ending demonstrations at Shannon. It was a laugh, in retrospect, to see them head to Shannon on June 26th because they had used their manufactured majority to crush a proposal for such a demo at the national meeting in late January. However, AWI had organised a demo for the Friday night and the SWP had to do something or it would have looked entirely stupid.

Anti-War Ireland is NOT a 'direct action' group. However, we do believe that mass peaceful civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic on certain occasions. We are also fully supportive of those before the courts for 'direct actions' at Shannon and we support them in practical ways. Oh, and another bit of information: GNAW is NOT part of Anti-War Ireland, so perhaps the idiot element might give that particular piece of misinformation a rest as well.

The misinformation campaign projecting us as a 'direct action' group is utterly dishonest, though it's not rocket science to see whose agenda it serves.

AWI is broad-based and the demo at Shannon was attended by a Labour Party TD, a Socialist Party councillor, as well as anarchists, LP members, Greens, socialists, and lots and lots of people who are in nothing. Such is the diversity of the movement, of which AWI is only part.

by Sam Snort Sun Jul 04, 2004 19:39

And dont forget that after that national meeting that they rigged they ambushed two members of the steering committe (knowing that Fintan Lane, Tim Houican and Harry Browne wouldnt be at the meeting) and expelled them. Their crime - the two, Laurence Vize and Mick O'Sullivan (both members of the Fairview Group) were staunch opponents of the way the SWP were behaving within the IAWM.

The SWP are sneaky and underhand, and you should be 'paranoid' about them. All they care about is what's good for their party.

Cheers.

by Anonymous Sun Jul 04, 2004 19:42

How many actually attended this conference?

I suspect the SWP ordered all their provincial members to attend to give it a 'national' feel, but let's have some numbers.

How many attended? And how many weren't members of the SWP?

by Starstruck - UCD Left Sun Jul 04, 2004 19:58

There was about 100-120 people tops at the assembly.
Fairly mixed bunch of people from various parts of the country.
Not dominated completely numbers-wise by the SWP but there were several passionate and choriographed speeches by SWP members one who said that last Fridays march in Dublin "wasnt quite the red army" but it was great.(!)
Im not completely anti-SWP,they have as much a right to speak and participate as everyone else but it seemed clear to me that they may not extend this freedom of speech to others in the IAWM.
Pretty pissed off about berating an internet site which facilitates open discussion though.
Maybe they feel threatened.
Whatever about all that lets just keep working to stop this fucking war whichever way one sees fit.

by angryliberal Sun Jul 04, 2004 20:31

Starstruck made the point that everyone(including of course the SWP)should have their say in fighting the one-man black death of our times.Even reading this thread it is clear that there are two mutually antagonistic camps here and who does that please?The hacks and deranged of this isle who actually support bush in his quest to americanify the world.I'm not a fan of the SWP tactics,but how many peopel would have been at the marches without them?If people don't like the swp's attitude,as they see it a controlling agenda for publicity,then why bother to copy it by feeding their paranoia with infantile digs?

What the SWP said was a result of their own insular attitude,does anyone think that going on about it is actually going to solve anything or persuade anyone?

Fair play to the SWP for their part in organising the marches.
Fuck them for dragging their paranoia and childishness to the fore.
Well done starstruck.
Concentrate on that rat bastard in the whitehouse.

by Dave Lordan - RED SATAN MOVEMENT Sun Jul 04, 2004 21:55 dlordan at hotmail dot com

In fact i said that there were two media outlets in Ireland that attacked the IAWM last week, Indymedia and the Irish Independent. That's a fact, unless i missed something in the sun. I then went on to say how if you wanted to see how the most poisonous demented section of the left reflected the most poisonous demented section of the right you would look at indymedia.
The comments about the IAWM in the independent and indymedia are similar in tone and substance. I have spoken to people involved in Indymedia who are trying to improve the site and are trying to find ways of dealing with the interminable sniping and slandering that goes on so i know it is not the fault of tyhe people who put a lot of hard work into trying to develop the site. I did not mean in any way to offend them
Socialists are often the target of this abuse
Now you can hardly deny that the swp bashing reaches a McCarthyite pitch fairly regularly on this site. Most of it is of course anonymous which makes it pointless to respond to as far as i am concerned.
There are many perspectives in the movement and i think indymedia would be a lot better if it reflected them all. i know that means i should write more often for it myself and if i felt there was any chance of a fair hearing i would. I know i'm a big boy and i should ignore the name calling and the lies but to be frank it wrecks my head and i could do without it. I used to be a regular contributor and was very enthusiastic at the beginning but i like many others- not just socialists either, lost interest because of the bullshit.
Personally i've got limited time as an activist and i don't have the money to spend in internet cafes constantly trying to refute slanders and innaccuracies which are politically motivated.
Indymedia is a great idea, it works brilliantly in many countries across the world. In ireland it is marred by a disproportionate ammount of abusive, slanderous and one sided postings. I for one would be willing to help change that. We are all on the same side. None of us have the resources or the personpower to take on the system on our own. Lets rise above all the bullshit and work together in whatever way we can.
Ps. I absolutely refuse to even see anonymous responses.
Ps 2 I spoke several times yesterday and my words weren't choreographed. See people are socialists, anarchists, republicans, whatever because they want to be and they believe in what they are doing.

by pc Sun Jul 04, 2004 22:13

the follow up to stories is irish indymedia greatest strength, the recent re-stating of editorial/posting guidlines and collation of articles has improved (mostly) the site immensly

the initial artilces and posting are still the main point and content of indymedia.ie

yes you can ignore the rubbish comments so to say 60% of its sniping is not even partially true...

the bulk of the site is still reporting of actual events(althought been bit quiet of late), its very hard to post a sniping photo

look at this great deflection of criticism

we are not all on the same side alot of people don't operate on sides...

by Chekov Sun Jul 04, 2004 23:50

You complain about the slander that appears on Indymedia, yet you recently made a serious allegation of assault against an activist on this very site and have since failed to substantiate it when the facts were denied by the person in question and several other contributors.

Sometimes criticism should be ignored, sometimes it should make you question yourself.

by Laurence Vize - Fairview Against The War Mon Jul 05, 2004 01:58 vizel at utvinternet dot com

I’d prefer if Richard didn’t bring up his political problems with Indymedia at an IAWM meeting..
Lets examine the logic of his criticism. Most Indymedia comments on the IAWM criticise what they allege is the SWP’s undemocratic unrepresentative control of the organisation. That’s not a criticism of the IAWM as such but of the SWP.
The only commonsense interpretation of these remarks is that Richard regards the IAWM as THE SWP. That’s the only intelligent conclusion you can make. Criticise one and you criticise the other. I agree with this view. The root problem of course is that there is NO free discussion whatsoever in the IAWM. The members never get a chance to discuss anything because there are very rarely any members meetings. That is meetings which actually matter and make decisions. That’s left up to the Steering Committee who decide everything which goes on. An SC who have no democratic accountability whatsoever. None:
Lets compare the way they operated with the AWI posts on Antiwar.org
They were deleted on a constant basis why??? An advertisement for a vigil outside the US embassy and the advertisement for the Shannon Demo. Criticism of any type is routinely and consistently censored. Now you SWP people have zero credibility whatsoever when it comes to Indymedia. I would MUCH rather go through some bullshit posts and have the freedom to make up my mind about who to believe than reading Irishantiwar.org which is censored by a vested interest. That’s my choice and I think it’s a smart one.
Indymedia is not an anarchist forum as Richard said today. It’s simply an open forum, which operates under an open editorial policy.
The quality of debate on Indymedia is very variable. Sometimes very bad sometimes excellent. The SWP party line is that Indymedia is really ran by anarchists and that Indymedia is censored in their favour. A couple of weeks ago somebody wrote a post saying how the Citizenship referendum was a victory for the Aryan race. Another said that Iraq was now sovereign liberated etc etc. Now is anybody saying that the members of the Indymedia collective agree with these posts.?? I don’t think so. We all agree their right wing stuff, but why were they not deleted?? Because anybody can post to Indymedia. Right Wing Left Wing Trotskyites included. Also anybody can get criticised. Such is life.

Of course they reason that the SWP leadership is scare mongering about Indymedia is because they can’t control it. Nuts and nasty posts do happen but that’s the price you pay for real freedom of expression. The only real alternative is control by elites like the O Reilly & Murdock press.
The IAWM website controlled with its SWP webmaster saying whatever THEY want to have said and deleting posts they don’t like the look of which they do constantly. .
This is done by with no democratic reference whatsoever: The party decides while the other members of the SC either don’t care or tag along. When is this going to change? Is this the “Broad Front” the party goes on about??.
How can they criticise the state for taking down posters when they deny freedom of speech on our own website to us the members? I can just imagine the Fianna Failers laughter when complaints are made about state censorship to them.
Drop the obsession guys. Make your posts and give as good as you get. Speak your own truth. Engage in meaningful dialogue with the rest of the Irish Left on this open forum. Ignore the trolls.

by seedot Mon Jul 05, 2004 03:33

I think one of the issues here Dave is a difference in perceiving what Indymedia is, of comparing it to a newspaper with a centralised editorial line. This also informs the debate on anonymity here - a technical difference that appears cosmetic but is actually fundamental.

You got 3 comments above mine - I reckon I know the identity of all 3. Laurence supplied all his contact details, Chekov has a distinctive name and pc used to use his full name and has moved to initials. I use the name seedot but I spoke with you on Saturday, my name is Ciaran and i would prefer if a google didn't pop this post up against my full name.

Indymedia is on the Internet. Indymedia did not attack the iawm or anybody else last weekend. People used Indymedia to say all sorts of things, some critical of the iawm some critical of others. People also expressed a huge amount of solidarity here which was unusual.

Our rules for debate here are constantly evolving - we have tried to create as open a process as we can for figuring out where we draw the line on material on the site. You are welcome to contribute news or ideas on how the system should be structured.

But Indymedia is the Internet - and because of that has a different noise to signal ratio than much of what we have dealt with before. Sometimes ignoring the noise and looking at the power of the signal is a better approach. I use seedot because the author tag sometimes shouldn't matter - 'if you can speak the truth so that it can be understood, it will be believed'. Regardless of who you are.

Maybe Indymedia should have a poetry supplement. Cos as with the internet, Indymedia can also be as small and focussed as you want it.

by Observer Mon Jul 05, 2004 10:17

For still putting up with the SWP. Credit where its due, seen as how you advocate boycotting them everywhere else. Nothing like a bit of consistency.

by Joe Mon Jul 05, 2004 11:57

It is an old, old SWP method to compare any criticism of them with someone on the right criticising them? Being going on for at least 15 years in Ireland and I suspect longer. The logical conclusion of course is that all criticism is therefore bad (which was of course Lenin and Trotskys conclusion when they were in government).

In any case yesterdays Sindo included an attack on the front page on indymedia (bizarrly described this time as a 'human rights organisation'). Following the SWP 'logic' this must mean the SWP = Tony O Reilly!

by Curious Mon Jul 05, 2004 12:28

The Socialist Voice has criticised the SWP on many occasions, why didn't the SWP speakers have a pop at the SP. Afraid to lose another pillar perhaps?

by conor (wsm personal capacity) Mon Jul 05, 2004 12:48

Firstly I think it is time that people in the SWP woke up and dug the aroma of gently roasting beans.
Indymedia news wire contributions reflect the views of a huge number of different people who bother to post.
The problem is that a very wide variety of people from various political tendencies across the left have with the SWP predate indymedia and what is posted on indymedia reflects this wide spread and, very rapidly, growing disillusionment with that organisation.
There's no point just shooting the messenger !
Instead may be ask why are those views out there and why do they cross all political lines.
I think the SWP need to reflect very carefully on this if they wish to continue as a serious political force but that’s their business
I suppose!


Dave L: There are many perspectives in the movement and i think indymedia would be a lot better if it reflected them all.

A very good start might be

1. If members of the SWP actually got involved at an editorial level and in laying out the site etc
2. If they actually participated using their real names in the actual debates – as Dave does and fair play to him for doing this.

Like any forum, if you’re not in you can’t win. And if you’re not in and spend your time attacking the forum from without then you can hardly expect people to react very well !

Conor

by Akrasia Mon Jul 05, 2004 13:33

That is a very interesting question.

What would the turnout have been if the space given to the SWP events in the national media had been shared with the other anti-war organisations who had planned demonstrations instead of the SWP refusing to mention any 'competing' action or demonstration in any of their monopolistic dealings with the press.

We'll never know the answer to that question, but one can only assume that if the IAWM hadn't censored all mention of AWI/Grassroots events then there would have been a larger aggregate participation nationally.
(Indymedia, even though it's a 'biased anarchist propaganda site' allowed full coverage of any and all SWP/IAWM demonstrations that were posted here)

by k moran - SWP (personal capactiy) Mon Jul 05, 2004 14:49

i wouldn't always include my organisation on contributions because the responce is so rabid and your opinion is immediatley dismissed.

i have been a member of the SWP for four years now and being honest alot of the stuff said about us on this site is untrue. i understand that people don't agree with us on many political issues, but the debates on this forum often depicts us as third in a trinity of evil, capitalism, bush, SWP. which seems odd considering we share 95% of the goals and aspirations of indymedia readers. speaking personally as an activist i find the stuff on indymedia quite often insulting. i didn't join the SWP because it want the SWP to be a sucess IN AND OF ITSELF (what would be the point of that), but rather for me as a marxist, its the best vehicle to fight for a better world. means to andend, not an end in itself

i'll sit back and wait while a few annonymites respond with the usual vitriole...

by Anonymous Mon Jul 05, 2004 14:54

I'll stick to vitriol

by 'nother anon Mon Jul 05, 2004 15:04

It's an open forum where ANYONE can post, with or without their real name. So if people don't like what someone says about their favourite political party, then tough - if you put yourself forward in public you must expect criticism. Whether that criticism is justified or not is irrelevant, you just have to fight your corner on whatever issue interests you.
Indymedia is a valuable public resource and we are better off with it than without it.

by Akrasia Mon Jul 05, 2004 15:07

Be a bit more specific. What allegations against the SWP do you deem to be untrue? It shouldn't be too hard to find examples and we can discuss what the merits of each opposing point of view are, using facts and experience instead of rhetoric and ideals.

by conor (wsm personal capacity) Mon Jul 05, 2004 15:21

k moran: i'll sit back and wait while a few annonymites respond with the usual vitriole...

No other group on indymedia attracts anything like the level of sustained criticism the SWP does.

With reference to my questions above have you ever considered WHY the SWP is getting this level of hostility or that there might be some questions to be answered in the way your group goes about its day to day business?

conor

by Justin Moran - SF (personal capacity) Mon Jul 05, 2004 15:22

As some-one with little time for the SWP, though respect for certain individual members (Many of whom are regularly and offensively slated on this site), I have to agree with them that they get a hard time on Indymedia.

But so do other groups. Everyone gets a hammering now and again. Shinners, Labour, SP, even the occasional Anarchist.

The big error here is that Indymedia is founded not just on the principal of open access, but on the notion that the Left in Ireland, however you define it, is mature enough, responsible enough and comradely enough to seriously debate and engage on an internet forum, especially one, that allows annonymous posting.

As a long time reader and occasional, much less these days, contributor, I think the notion is discredited. Trolling, abuse, personal sniping is rife. Issues from years back are thrown in the faces of people trying to debate something so that before getting to that issue they must explain their party's decision on something completely separate.

These days, I don't use Indymedia for political debate. Frankly, I don't see the point. I occasionally drop in for a glance at the lead stories but as a side for serious political debate, it is worse than useless in that it wastes people's time.

Debate on the SWP's role in the IAWM is good. Debate on decisions SF took in Government in the North is good. Debate on the SP and the national question is good. And I have had very good debates, with Indymedia users, in the pub or on demos that I can't have here because some sad little sectarian troll is set to interfere.

Let's be blunt. Many of the users of Indymedia are not mature enough to use a site allowing annonymous posting and that is not ruthlessly moderated.

by e@m0nn (rudden (personal basis) Mon Jul 05, 2004 15:23

those concerned can

1. use comment function to point this out
2. use contact form to alert the editorial group / call for deletion

Again the above comenteer seems unwittingly to be collapsing the IAWM and SWP together.

Which of the two organisations percieve Indymedia to be rotten to the core and not worthy of reading or contributing to? It is getting very confusing already on this thread as the names are being interchanged by swp members.

Was Richard speaking with an SWP leadership or IAWM leadership hat on?

I think the unstated problem with Indymedia in general for the Irish Anti War Movement is that contributors use the site to point out that there is very little difference between the two - and use the site to force an unwelcome level of attention and accountability on the actions of the IAWM steering Committee.

Anyway hopefully attendees at the meeting will react the way any person with a bone of curiosity in their body would and will come and have a look at what is going on with the site and make up their own minds.

The SWP have (with the exception of a period at the beginning of the site when a prominent member worked on the ed group) decided long ago to largely abstain from using the site to put across their views and debate with their many critics - that is their choice. They have also made extensive use of the site to promote their events which is fine too. These are conscious choices and it is invidious of them to then blame the people who help make this an open space for news and debate for their viewpoint not being reflected in the contents of the site. Richard is trying to have his cake and eat it.

If IAWM or SWP want some of this cake then the way to get it is to contribute to the making of the cake. Publish your points of view. Use the comment facility, use the option of anonymity. Harrass the ed group through the contact button when material is published which is unsubstantiated. Join the working editorial list and see how transparently the site is run. Criticise how the site is run - suggest improvements - make suggestions - write features - call for deletions.

'Indymedia Ireland - A Dictatorship of the Doers'

by Ray Mon Jul 05, 2004 15:30

These are some of the things that have been said about the SWP on indymedia.
1. That SWP members were sent to the IAWM conference a few months back as delegates from branches that don't exist.
2. That the SWP-controlled IAWM deliberately organised protests to clash with protests organised by other groups, and deleted mentions of other protests from the IAWM website.
3. That the SWP is more interested in controlling protest than seeing protest succeed - they try to take over what they can, and undermine what they can't.
4. That the SWP is itself an undemocratic organisation, with a self-perpetuating leadership, elected in closed slates.*

Whenever someone from the SWP graces us with their presence, they go off on a rant about how criticism is McCarthyite, about how asking who controls an organisation is 'red-baiting', and how anyone who has ever used indymedia might as well be writing for the Sindo. After wearing themselves out with all that rage, they tell us - the same people who were practically HUAC members a minute ago - that NVDA is infantile left-wing extremism, that its important to make alliances with people on the right, that we should be more reasonable and moderate, like the SWP. Then they tell us that they have far more important things to be doing with their time - selling papers and collecting 'petitions' probably - than posting on the Internet.

Oddly enough, they never get around to addressing the substance of any allegations before they go...

(* oh, and their paper is crap, their speeches are interminable, their revolutionary posturing is laughable, their 'petition'-gathering is dishonest, and they have no sense of humour)

by on the one road Mon Jul 05, 2004 15:41

how can the people at indymedia "deal" with the back bitting that goes on hear with out effecting the free speach it empowers it's users with some people need to learn that you can agree with most of the people most of the time but you can't agree with all of the people all of the time leave indymedia as it is

by Brian C Mon Jul 05, 2004 16:07

If I recall correctly, Boyd Barrett was speaking on his own behalf when he expressed an opinion about Indymedia. He was giving a speech in his capacity as chair of the IAWM but then said something along the lines of "personally, I wouldn't choose to use the Indymedia website because..."

He said that he had looked at the site on a few occasions but felt that he had no reason to contribute to or regularly read a site that seemed to be 60% composed of bickering between small groups of left wingers. The general gist of his point was that Indymedia is dominated by exactly the kind of inward looking attitudes he thinks the left needs to move beyond.

by Anon and on Mon Jul 05, 2004 16:10

You can take the boy out of the SWP but you can't take the SWP out of the boy.

by conor (wsm personal capacity) Mon Jul 05, 2004 16:28

SWP Don't Get Fair Deal
by Justin Moran - SF (personal capacity) Monday, Jul 5 2004, 2:22pm


>As some-one with little time for the SWP, >though respect for certain individual >members (Many of whom are regularly and >offensively slated on this site), I have to >agree with them that they get a hard time on >Indymedia.

>But so do other groups. Everyone gets a >hammering now and again. Shinners, >Labour, SP, even the occasional Anarchist.

OK I appologise for sounding like a broken record. There is a fundamental point at issue here. Justin rightly notes that all tendencies, often deservedly, get a pounding

However the SWP are consistently attacked from all quarters. They are not usually about political view point but almost always about tactical and political dishonesty.

I would agree that some of this is anoymous name calling and deserves nothing but contempt.

How ever they are also consistently attacked by named individuals from a wide variety of political positions backed with hard evidence, date and times -Ray (above) being another case in point. I think they do have to ask them selves WHY?
I think they need to look at what people are saying and if the constant allegations of manipulation and dishonesty in campaign after campaign are incorrect then they should defend themsleves.

Indymedia is, as Justin says, quite an accurate reflection of the Irish left and there is much that is extremely depressing there. (Mind you i would also say it has improved a lot and tighter editing seems to work)

How ever when one tendency gets it consistently from all quarters they need to have a look at themselves..

OK I'll leave it there don't want to turn into the Vincent Browne of indymedia.


Conor

by eampeen crubben (poisinal cap.) Mon Jul 05, 2004 16:29

I meant K Moran not J Moran btw in my last post.

In reply to Justin and as someone involved in various political campaigning for years I have to pick him up on some things. (stuff in stars is Justin)

**Trolling, abuse, personal sniping is rife. Issues from years back are thrown in the faces of people trying to debate something so that before getting to that issue they must explain their party's decision on something completely separate.**

1. I completely agree that trolling and abuse is rife - I also understand as I'm sure justin does that that trolling and sniping is coming from maybe tops 8-10 individulas some of whom are in sf and some of whom are in sp etc etc - I however would argue that indymedia allows the reader to reach his or her own conclusions as far as this is concerned - allows the reader to point out trolling - allows the reader to put forward their understanding of things - I feel this is an infinite improvement on newspapers and party political papers where the average non-insider reader has no control over what they are fed whatsoever and no possibility of raising their concerns in such a way as to be able to speak to other readers. newspapers and political parties are chock full of trolls - worse than here and cleverer. As for issues from years back being brought into things - I think this is good and will get better as the years go by. Much more historical writing would be better. Where else is an understanding of what is going on in the irish left in the past 3-4 years to be found? In party papers? In the IT? At party political meetings? Well I tried all those myself for years and found out fuck all of use and three years of Indymedia has been to me an incredible education on the machinations of the Irish left. It's all still there in the archive.

**Debate on the SWP's role in the IAWM is good. Debate on decisions SF took in Government in the North is good. Debate on the SP and the national question is good. And I have had very good debates, with Indymedia users, in the pub or on demos that I can't have here because some sad little sectarian troll is set to interfere.**

Debate between insiders on street and pub is good for the insiders and having access to tidbits of news is good currency for insiders. What about the rest of us? This is elitist political thinking - leave the grownups have their debates in privacy - they will know what is best - we don't want them interfering with awkward questions (one mans troll is another mans carol coleman). What this leads to is a self-selected elite with insider knowledge.

I would argue firmly that more straightforward serious and publically accessible debate on political issues has taken place on indymedia ireland in the last three years than anywhere else and that it is such debate that those (mostly older politicos) critics of indymedia object to because they do not have control of the debates.

This is an (infinitely) big open room full of all kinds of dissident opinions - politicos from political parties have a rabid fear of such rooms. They used to be called 'The Midnight Court' and the brits supressed them with vigour. Now they're called pubs and they have to be liscenced and entrance is conditional on the consumption of sky news, memory impairing drugs and loud music. Would Justin or Ritchie support Mickey McDowell if he demanded that Indymedia get a licence?

Where else can someone in this country put forward an argument or a piece of news without asking permission of anyone and be sure that in all probability that SFers SPers WSMers SWPers PDers FFers Journos Broadcasters PDs Greenies will read it and take what they will from it? Is free speech only for the 'politically mature'? Only for a self perpetuating self appointed elite? That is the terminal logic of Justins argument.

As for *Let's be blunt. Many of the users of Indymedia are not mature enough to use a site allowing annonymous posting and that is not ruthlessly moderated.*

Same argument could be used against voting on basis that lots of electorate are not mature enough to be allowed to vote in secret. Who then would define mature? The leadership is the awnser to that. Let's get particular about this - what that was published today should be deleted on this basis?

'All power to the commenteers'

Cad a cheapann tusa Justin?

And as for 'The general gist of his point was that Indymedia is dominated by exactly the kind of inward looking attitudes he thinks the left needs to move beyond.'

How is a platform for free speech and alternative news used by tens of thousands inward looking? I mean for good or bad IMC Ireland is how the activist community worldwide get their window on the irish left. I'd like to hear any coherent argument that shows the site to be inward looking. I look at the front page and I see news about WWF a taking Article 133 to Court, I see a lookback at events in london 5 years ago, I see info about the ARN in Belfast, I see concern with the palestine issue etc etc etc - I could go on and on as you will appreciate. I think the real problem is that most political groups in the country are by definition inward looking as their primary concern is maximising their vote/exposure at the expense of all others and at a price of creating and building on hostilities. Indymedia simply reflects this - and is consciously used by political groups for this purpose - it does not create that situation - it does however make it transparent to anyone interested enough in coming to their own understanding of what is going on. The SP SF troll wars during the election are a case in point.

by paul c Mon Jul 05, 2004 17:04

indymedia has sh*te and it has gems
lose one lose the other

by Brian Mon Jul 05, 2004 17:32

side of Indymedia is fair enough, Eamonn. That we all agree with some of that is implicit in the mere fact that we are here to discuss it in the first place.

That said, I think that perhaps understandably you are giving every bit as one sided a view of Indymedia as Richard Boyd Barrett was. He chooses to accentuate the negative. You highlight the positive. The truth is somewhere in between.

You compare Indymedia to a large real world gathering for discussion. The problem with that comparison is that a sizeable percentage of the gathering here choose to wear balaclavas or masks, and then use their anonymity to abuse others. No "real life" discussion forum would be taken seriously if people did not have a vague idea of who they were debating with.

Conor describes Indymedia as an accurate reflection of the Irish left. It isn't, it's like looking at the Irish left through a circus mirror. You can gain some insight, but your vision is distorted and everyone looks uglier.

Amongst the relatively small number of regular contributors to the site, the anarchist and anarchoid milieu is heavily over-represented compared to their numbers in the real world. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Indymedia is after all a "dictatorship of the doers" and those are the people who have tended to get involved.

Part of the answer to a perceived slant resulting from that is indeed to encourage others to get involved but it isn't the whole answer. Neither is shrugging and saying that others are "afraid of debate". There is something far too self-satisfied about that as an approach. It's a way of saying "we're alright, it's our critics who have a problem", which in its own way isn't a million miles away from the dismissive attitude that the likes of Boyd Barrett might have about this site.

To make it clear, I do not regard the preponderence of anarchist and anarchoid posters here to be the main problem afflicting the site. It may be somewhat self-perpetuating in that newcomers and people with other political views may feel that the site is not for them but that can be overcome and many of the anarchist contributions are interesting and worthwhile. My biggest criticism of the site is that it was designed for one function - news and peer review - and has by accident developed a whole other function - that of a discussion board - which it was not designed to cope with. The Irish IMC is almost unique in the entire network in having this double function.

Dedicated discussion boards abound on the web, a good example of one with some similar preoccupations to those of many posters here is Urban75. Succesful dedicated discussion boards almost invariably have a different format and structure to this site. That includes things like thread presentation and subdividing forums by category. It also includes log in functions to deny people the possibility of easily inventing a new psuedonym for each post.

You see the biggest insight Indymedia allows into the Irish left is this. Indymedia offered a range of activists the option of giving their political rivals a shoeing from the safety on anonymity. People can have their cake and eat it too. They can attack other organisations without having to defend their own record. They can put the boot into people they may well have to work with on some other issue next week, safe in the knowledge that there will be no consequences. Without distinction of group, political faction or party, a range of Irish activists have grasped that tempation with both hands.

It's that which gives Indymedia its uniquely unpleasant atmosphere and it is that more than any other single thing that creates hostility towards this website.

What makes it frustrating is that the bile and anonymous shit-stirring co-exist with all the things that Indymedia does right. During the anti-bin tax campaign, for instance, you could get up to the minute reports here that you simply couldn't get anywhere else. The same goes for the Bush visit or for various campaigns before that. You can get an enormous range of useful, interesting and worthwhile articles here that no other Irish site has the resources to assemble.

As I said on a posting to the editorial list I don't get the impression that anyone involved in the editorial collective has any desire to see major structural pruning take place. That's fine, but it does make it all the more incumbent on those of us who wish the IMC well to think about how we can make it more welcoming to those who currently don't participate. I don't think that shrugging off what are for the most part honestly held negative views is a good start.

by Akrasia Mon Jul 05, 2004 17:54

Is because members of other 'factions' are not as prepared to debate in this kind of forum.

From my personal experience, more authoritarian political ideologists prefer heavily moderated and censored fora (forums) where members are required to stick to strict guidelines and are subject to sanctions should they say the wrong things. The forum on www.irishantiwar.org is an example of this. (on the few occasions i posted there in order to get a direct answer to IAWM policy from IAWM activists, I have had to do so 'undercover' and with severe restrictions on the things i would be allowed to get away with saying. Similar situations exist on young fine Gael and young PD discussion forums that i have visited in the past)

This is a personal preference of the individuals involved and it is likely that they would have a difficult time tolerating the relative freedom allowed on indymedia which is certainly a contributing factor to who will and will not contribute to discussion and reporting on this site.

by DD Mon Jul 05, 2004 18:00

No free speech for non-SWP types!!

by Chekov Mon Jul 05, 2004 18:17

First off Brian, you know that RBB and the SWP are fundamentally opposed to the ideas behind open-publishing and indymedia. The SWP (and SP) are hierarchical organisations and one of the ways in which this hierarchy is maintained is by controlling flows of information, who produces it and who sees it. The Indymedia model does not allow such control. The leadership line can be challenged and alternative versions of truth presented. This would present a fundamental challenge to the hierarchical structures of the SWP and SP (to a lesser extent) if they decided to embrace it. Therefore, I see no reason to take RBB's criticisms any more seriously than I would Rupert Murdoch's - they're just never going to like it.

Your comparison to Urban75 is I think interesting. Personally I find that the standard of debate is generally far better here than it is there where at least half of the posts would be instantly deleted if they were here as they are just in-jokes and slagging between regular contributors. Login functionality and the thread structure of bulletin boards produce relatively closed communities that have an inbuilt limit on growth. Indymedia is not about creating a community of the left, it aims to provide a public news service. We could definitely do better in keeping comments on-topic, but we do have to be flexible and allow debates to develop even when they refuse to follow the tidy paths that we wish them to.

The ability to anonymously criticise somebody who you may want to work with in the future, is in my opinion a positive. From the safety of anonymity we can be honest and not worry about the sensitive soul of the person who is being criticised. The ideas are more important than the author. And you should be able to defend your own positions from attack without resorting to the irrelevant comparison of the politics of the critic. Sure it means that we all get some personal abuse sometimes, but that's politics, and anybody who sees themselves as a revolutionary should get used to it - the ruling class don't limit themselves to name-calling when they are challenged. We have been working on cutting out most of the personal stuff anyway and it's rare that a personal attack goes undeleted nowadays once our attention is drawn to it.

It's also interesting to note that the bulk of the stuff that you say indymedia does right is actually done by the 'libertarians' and non-aligned people. I'd say that 95% of the up-to-the-minute reports on the bin tax, mayday and bush visit came from them. Meanwhile I'm very very sure that the bulk of the sectarianism and petty name calling comes from political parties. For example, the SF/SP ongoing dispute in South Dublin, the SP/LP feud in UCD and so on at tedious length. I'm not saying that libertarians are perfect - far from it - but the criticisms of indymedia always seem to come from the worst offenders.

by neddurc nnomae Mon Jul 05, 2004 19:00

(please note wrote this before seeing chekov contribution so excuse the overlap)

Brian said

***
You see the biggest insight Indymedia allows into the Irish left is this. Indymedia offered a range of activists the option of giving their political rivals a shoeing from the safety on anonymity. People can have their cake and eat it too. They can attack other organisations without having to defend their own record. They can put the boot into people they may well have to work with on some other issue next week, safe in the knowledge that there will be no consequences. Without distinction of group, political faction or party, a range of Irish activists have grasped that tempation with both hands.

It's that which gives Indymedia its uniquely unpleasant atmosphere and it is that more than any other single thing that creates hostility towards this website.

What makes it frustrating is that the bile and anonymous shit-stirring co-exist with all the things that Indymedia does right. During the anti-bin tax campaign, for instance, you could get up to the minute reports here that you simply couldn't get anywhere else. The same goes for the Bush visit or for various campaigns before that. You can get an enormous range of useful, interesting and worthwhile articles here that no other Irish site has the resources to assemble.
***

I have to say I regard the above line of argument as a leftist version of the way the irish government enforces a no politics rule on civil servants. If one wants to criticise a political group or party who are putting themselves out there in the rough and tumble for support - why should one have to reveal their identity to the whole country? If you want to requisition support in the political sphere of course you have to reveal your identity. I would maintain that members of the public who want to call such groups representatives on their attitudes and actions are entitled to the safety of anonymity just as voters are entitled to vote in an anonymous manner. The end of this line of reasoning if taken to it's logical conclusion is that all reporters and news outlets must by decree name their sources and their sources must be accountable to their higher ups for their utterances. This is how police states kick off. No anonymity on Indymedia I am sure would make it more not less likely that SP /SF /Green /SWP posters would post anything more than the most tame toe the line stuff here as they would face censure from within their parties.

I am presently arguing with you and I have no clue who you are but I see the validity of your points of view and the usefulness of responding. You might as well be anonymous. I argue politics in the pub with anonymous because I don't ask their names. I like hecklers and any decent open political meeting has them and they're mostly anonymous. SF have an anonymous army - should they be ignored because they are anonymous? The anonymity offered here is not compulsory and the best way to change it imho is along the lines of John Meehan and others who refuse to debate with anonymous.

As for here being 'uniquely unpleasant' - I just don't buy it. Readers come and stay. If it was uniquely unpleasant like for instance '100 days of sodom' maybe the readership would have gone down exponentially over time rather than up.

As for shrugging off views of critics - I personally have put shitloads of time into the site and this I feel entitles me to defend what has been made here against attacks from those with a vested interest in avoiding criticism. I have talked to various of our critics till i'm blue in the face explaining that the way to change the site is to contribute to it. This is not shrugging off views.

No appetite for change? How about positive change that does not take away something from users?

10 news posts from SP members for instance over the period of a week and a couple of prepared proposed features from SF in the same period would change the complexion of the site quite substantially for a week and change it much more positively than imposing a one nickname per ip address rule.

Likewise if the SP and SWP and SF and Greens all encouraged their members en masse to make use of the site to advertise events / convey news / debate / put forward their party views then this would over time become a real left wing resource which could compete with the media here on its own audience terms.

The reason this does not happen is because heirarchies within each of the parties prefer to keep a monopoly on the dissemination of political news / use this instrumentally to control their members / make sure to disempower those within their own ranks with competing and compelling opinions. As a longtimer here it becomes apparent that most left groups give lip service to the idea of the necessity for a non-corporate free press and simultaneously reject efforts in that direction that they dont control. In fact they do their utmost to damn such with faint praise and keep it away from the awareness of their non-professional members. The whole argument about anonymous abuse is overblown imho and a cover for this bigger argument.

by dunk Mon Jul 05, 2004 19:17

2 imc people were down to liberty hall

at one point it did get heated and there was some roaring, sorry but personally i believe this thing, indymedia, which is only 5 years old, is one of the most progressive systems on the planet today- its early days, the teething time. and when the "head" of the irish anti war movement encourages people not to use it that frustrates me.
indymedia is not just a website, it is that and more
free printflare papers were distributed to the IAWM crowd, some people took kindly to them, some were angry with us they viewed us as indymedia, when we are just a few of the many who help it-

there are some things that have to be improved, perhaps a "ranting section" should be set up for those that dont want to engage in serious and progressive debate

hopefully in the future there will be more screenings, workshops, forums.
keeping the virtual side going and also improving the real.
an open space for real dialogue is needed, and is starting to happen
this is healthy

i do think many of IAWM dont fully understand just what is or what indymedia could be
im offering to give a short workshop and film, to fill people in
i agree with dave, for the most part, with anonymity
i would encourage people to stand by their views in real world as they do in virtual

more later, this debate is badly needed, not just by and from us (indymedia, grassroots, ambush) but from SWP, IAWM and related crew- i do hope all parties and individuals will participate, including something from the "head" of the anti war movemtent
i hope it happens here on the site, but also with real open discussion in the real world
the mayday centre was a great space for this. there will be more

we will see....
thanks to above for offering their views

slán
dunk

by eeeekkkk Mon Jul 05, 2004 19:32

under heading 'Report Back from Liberty Hall Meeting'.

Subscribe to editorial list and then you can access editorial archives and follow and contribute to this and other discussions:

Follow this link:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-ireland-editorial

and yes it is OK to be a lurker and yes it is low volume and you can ask for a digest per day or whatever you are having yourself

by seedot Mon Jul 05, 2004 19:48

I know this debate has focused on political parties and both Chekov and Eamonn have mentioned the controlling impulses of leaderships as a reason the site is denigrated.

However I have heard the same arguments from others - from Trade Unionists, from bin tax and DAPSE people (you mention John Meehan, Eamonn (or neddurc – try and google that) and I have also debated anonymity with John frequently and can see his logic even if I don’t agree with him). What I do not believe is that all of these are looking for an excuse to attack Indymedia as part of some political attitude to information.

I think Indymedia and the internet in general is a culture shock to a lot of people. What I take for granted (flaming, trolling, anonymity, identity theft, swarming) is new to people who have not spent the last 10 years tied to a keyboard. So claiming that the only objections are politically based is a bit disingenuous. And I would agree with Chekov that much of the trolling is from people who are generally not involved in constructively contributing to the site and are often in the same competitively socialist milieu as those complaining about the site. We are sort of a safety valve.

But I am really sick of seeing peer review of news articles which are just childish. Yeah, I know the UCD kids have to learn to debate somewhere – but you are fucking up this site while simultaneously disgracing my alma mater (now I’ve shown my middle class liberal origins ;-). If this debate results in some stated policies, which then results in some trade union or other news, and the kids realize how stupid they look then this is a good thing. If this is just another restatement of yous are all paranoid control freaks and will never be cool enough for the mad wacky world of indymedia – then we just crawl back into our (oh so trendy) ghetto.

C.

by Brian Mon Jul 05, 2004 20:26

Two contributors have made points about the supposed "heirarchies" in political parties and the problem that free exchange of information poses for such organisations. This is something that I regard as simply incorrect.

The Socialist Party and its members take part in political discussions all the time. We do so at campaign events and public meetings. We do so in publications and less formally down the pub or on an internet discussion site. From time to time we invite representatives of other organisations to debate us in public (most recently the WSM and the Greens).

I make no concession whatsoever to the view that any criticism I make of Indymedia has anything at all to do with a fear of debate or of discussion or of information. That view bears no relationship to the facts and has more to do with the prejudices of the anarchist/anarchoid milieu than anything else. The thing is though, that people are entitled to choose where and under what circumstances they choose to take part in discussion.

I choose to take part in discussions here sometimes but I fully understand why many others do not. Most people, not just most members of political parties, would not take part in a real life discussion arranged as most debates here are. They would not choose to argue with a whole series of people wearing masks, occasionally pretending to be other people, and making the most venomous criticisms of others in a public hall. So why should anyone claim they are "afraid of debate" because they won't do so here?

A related point is the frankly insulting part about "leaders" trying to "control their members", a point of view which I can only hope is the result of ignorance. If only the Socialist Party leadership or at least a few wiser heads did play some role in our member's participation on Indymedia - some of the more crassly stupid arguments SP members have been involved in on this site might have been avoided! As it is, and as has been pointed out here on a number of occasions before, what SP members do on this site or anywhere else in their spare time is their own business. A few of us choose to use this site, the vast majority don't.

Now I do recognise that efforts have been and are being made to improve the content of the site. I also do recognise that part - part - of the solution is, as Eamonn and others have said, is to continue to encourage other people to get involved. But if that encouragement is to work part of it has to entail an openness to critical points of view. I don't often agree with Richard Boyd Barrett and true to form I didn't agree with his comments on Indymedia but I did see where he was coming from. And I don't feel the need to dismiss that point of view as being a result of him being afraid of debate because I know that it is a point of view commonly held amongst people who spend much of their time debating and discussing things.

The things that work about this site are, by and large the things that the site was designed to handle. That means news and it means peer review. Those are the strengths of this place. Serious debate is not a strength of the newswire for the partial reason that the newswire was never designed with that function in mind. So serious debate starts on occasion but it is quickly pulled into a mire of gossip and petty bickering and anonymous bile.

Sorry, I'm only about halfway through what I had intended to say and I have to go so I'll get back to this on another occasion.

by eomann ctuddwn Mon Jul 05, 2004 21:01

Brian - I am probably overstating my case in the interests of a clear argument about party heirarchies and their controlling attitude to information - but please don't try to say that the pointing out of the existence of heirarchies in Political Groups on the left here is a wooly unproven opinion on my part.

'They' are out there ;-)

Hope you do come back and see what you make of some of the positive suggestions I put forward in last post.

:-)

by R. Isible Mon Jul 05, 2004 21:16

The attempt to limit trolling by login mechanisms has several problems:
1. If done by one-login-per-IP then it means that people using a shared machine (household, university computer lab, net cafe), or even just a dial-up DHCP assignation from the same ISP will be denied login.

2. It would facilitate the tracking of individuals that would prefer to remain anonymous for good reasons (work vs. controversial opinions)

Being able to identify a particular poster as being the person they claim to be does have advantages though: it can allow us to direct our attention to someone that has established a reputation for not wasting our time, for being accurate (usually) or for having unique insights.

I am more concerned about individual posters being able to retain a consistent (anonymous or otherwise) identity in order to build such a public profile.

The trolls, one-time-name-users and impersonators I will then happily ignore. I will occasionally read their contributions, but mostly will focus my limited time on interesting posters (like Brian C and many others). That allows true, full anonymity for those that really need it and also a deservedly lower profile to people only interested in shit-stirring.

This can be achieved by individuals and parties that wish to establish a non-forgeable presence if they GPG-sign their posts. GPG is a public-key encryption system available for free on all major platforms (Microsoft Win98 - 2003, OS X, GNU/Linux, Solaris). If individuals and parties take the time to understand public-key encryption then they can establish an unforgeable method for others to verify that their posts come from them and not others.

In public-key encryption an individual creates two "keys" (uniquely related strings of random characters) one of which they keep private and the other which is published on a "key server". Using the private key they can encrypt or sign their communications. Recipients of their communications can decrypt or verify them using the public key.

I would like to see indymedia.ie act as a key server and allow people to post GPG-signed communications using the current web-interface. In the interim however you don't have to wait for us to do this. You can install GPG (or PGP the non-Free alternative) and publish your key on one of the M.I.T. public key servers. Then you can post under your identity with your digital signature included at the bottom of the post and if I'm interested in verifying its authenticity because it proves the Richard Boyd-Barrett is on the payroll of the CIA and Opus Dei then I can do so.

If you're lying about the above then I'll take your future comments as they deserve.

Finally, back to the general topic: I am in complete agreement with the posts which suggest that what's needed is for people to produce more original material. Write front-page articles. We're dying to feature them. We have _no_ bias against whomsoever as long as you stay within our Guidelines. If Richard Boyd-Barrett were to write a unique, original article explaining from his perspective the wonderfulness of the IAWM and the necessity for X, Y and Z then we'd probably publish it.

Don't complain about trolls and do nothing. Swamp out trolling by writing an article. Don't submit cut and pastes of articles someone else wrote. Hold off on writing short comments and integrate what you're thinking about into a longer article with links. Create. Do.

GPG on Windows: http://www.glump.net/content/gpg_intro/html/gpg_intro.html
GPG on GNU/Linux: http://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual.html
General concepts: http://webber.dewinter.com/gnupg_howto/english/GPGMiniHowto-1.html

by eabomm ctudren Mon Jul 05, 2004 21:36

'If Richard Boyd-Barrett were to write a unique, original article explaining from his perspective the wonderfulness of the IAWM and the necessity for X, Y and Z then we'd probably publish it.'

I think you meant we would probably feature it - he can publish it himself on the wire any time without any permission.

sorry for pedantry

by R. Isible Mon Jul 05, 2004 21:42

It's an important point. Anyone can publish anything any time they like (as long as it falls within the Guidelines). The editorial group may then choose to feature it. And I meant that we'd probably feature it. I know I'd argue strongly for it.

I notice that you're careful not to deny that RBB is on the payroll of the CIA and Opus Dei however? ;)

by paul c Tue Jul 06, 2004 01:50

i wonder if there is some way of encouraging/helping current readers to write original pieces...?

i've been looking around docs.indymedia.org to see how other indymedia's work, there is a huge volume of info there on how and what indymedia is and most interesting are the collaborative Group Projects

when looking at other indymedia's there is the lack of, story follow up, on alot of them... and its the best thing about indymedia.ie but thats what the bickering is getting in the way of

ps to brian et al, so the problem most people seem to have is with the discussions, something which is an accidental addition to the site so again indymedia.ie is doing what its supposed to correct ly and doing some other stuff to

by Ciaron - Dublin Catholic Worker Tue Jul 06, 2004 02:12 087 918 4552 or 01- 492 6100

OK....look it's virtual debate out here in cyberspace..pretty close to the virtual morality that predominates in Irish society as 64% of the population oppose the Bush visit and 10,000 troops pass through Shannon each month.

Want real debate with 3D people?.... come down to Speakers Corner on Sundays....we've been maintaining it for 8 weeks now. It's reliant on 3 people who don't mind talking into a vaccum to kick it off.......one of'em tours in a band and has just had a kid, one of'em is jail bait (and to the relief of all and sundry) will be off the streets for a number of years real soon and we've got Robbie. Once the kickstart happens more folks feel like joining and getting up....but no political group besides the Catholic Worker seem to be prioritising maintaining and expanding this very popular, accessible medium where the ordinary wo/man in the street is drawn into and participates in a rare political debate at the moment!

The virtual politics of IAWM rarely goes past the gentleman's agreement of "you can have your protests as long as we can have our war". The protest politics of the IAWM becomes therapeutic....as those young men and women passing through Shannon risk arms and legs prosecuting the war!

SWP
SOCIALISM...I see no evidence of it to go with the rhetoric, just a lot of free enterprising marketting...and I must admit as explained on the MACBUSH STREAM....Irish Anti War MOVEMENT was/is brilliant capitalist marketting. If you're anti-war in Ireland and you're not standing still - RBB is speaking for you.........call it a group an alliance a whatever...then you won't be so self deluded into thinking you can't see 1300 folks at Shannon protesting Bush's arrival and think you have the right/authority stop a 3 mile MACBUSH march on its way to Dromoland Castle on the Saturday morning or claim the AmBush of thePress Pack you had spent the previous week denouncing as your own tactical brillaince!

What IAWM/SWP and PANA and especially the NGO PA are politically a REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRATS...no more no less! Like any moderate peace/justice group with their chuggers (charity muggers) throwing shapes in the street want - is a passive membership that the professionals can REPRESENT. Direct democracy of course is another kettle of fish. An active grassroots IAWM would give RBB & co problems they can do without (like controlling them)...best they come out every 4-6 months on a march and stay at home writing their cheques to IAWM HQ!

WORKERS...the SWP leadership are predominantly academics and middle class (the worst class in terms of manners & integrity...... because the upper class who have arrived and the working class who ain't leaving don't have the upperwardly mobile , backstabbing, using your head as a steping stone aspirational vibe that is so evident with RBB & the MC). Will he use the anti-war movement to launch a more mainstream political career a few years down the track after building that moderate reasonable profile in the media (like Bill Clinton before him and Peter "Midnight Oil" Garret just last week)...well I'd put money on it! Will the likes of Lordan be left behind doing the shit work....well it's up to him!

PARTY....these people are to uptight to party! A really good party (and we have them at the DCW every Sunday) is a variety of people with different perspectives interacting beyond the circle of certainty that a paranoid political or religious cult won't stray from!

The issue I've got with the SWP is the lack of MUTUALITY (flipside of opportunism!)....you wouldn't accept it in a romantic relationship, you wouldn't accept it in your football team (I mean how often are you going to pass it to the guy who just never passes it back!)...and you definitely don't accept it in a movement that is serious about confronting state power. But then again they are anything buit serious about confronting state power.

The first week I moved to Ireland was when the anarcho-RTS crew were attacked by the Garda in Dame St. In the wake of the mass media coverage of the attacks, the SWP opportunistically called a demo at Pearse St. 3,000 people came in response to the violent media images and out of compassion for those who got arrested and hospitalised. At this SWP run demo we ended up being corraled and conscripted into an election rally as candidate after candiate took the platform....did they pass the hat for legal & hospital expenses for those busted & with busted heads. Nope!

Are they infiltrated by state security. Good question to ponder...if you know anything about infiltration! If the state had one priority for the anti-war movement in Ireland it is to keep the movement away from Shannon Airport where the rubber hits the road in terms of the U.S. war machine in Ireland. The IAWM have successfully fulfilled this agenda...you come to your own conclusions.

Spent last weekend with Starhawk...a pity not many of those involved in the libertarian efforts at Shannon and Dromoland took this opportunity to share time and space with this wonderful woman before she heads off to organise NVDA at the Republican Convention in NYC August 31st.

Do you yourself a favour check out her web site 9below) and catch her next time she passes through! We don't need more bureaucracy, media representatives, boring marches (when we had 100,000 and it made no difference!) We need the rituals of resistance, solidairty with those resisting the war nonviolently and directly inside and outside the military, people speaking out for themselves at speakers corners throughout the land (rather than standing at an authoritarian run rally like extras on a set where the leaders are merely morally posturing or building their career profiles).

There ya go...many thanx to the crew that keep indymedia going

by paul c Tue Jul 06, 2004 05:59

and they are all very different and operate under different local conditions go have a look below

i was looking for new to indymedia guides and came across vermont indymedia which both has a rating system for articles and an optional semi-anonymous login

http://www.vermontindymedia.org/

although i'd be very slow to encourage it here

by Derek Casey - occasional anonymous poster Tue Jul 06, 2004 12:14

In the red corner: boxing well above its weight, an old slow lumbering relic, slow to react to change and constantly trying to stay on its feet with persistent body blows.. its the SWP!

In the black corner: a young mouthy little upstart teeming with arrogance, bad language, disrespect, conflicting ideologies and a hugely inflated ego.. its Indymedia Ireland!
Following on from yesterday's thread about the furore at the IAWM "People's Assembly" on Saturday in Liberty Hall, and how the SWP dont bother contributing to Indymedia because they think its "sectarian" or "biased" (all media is biased), I think the SWP could easily contribute to the newswire if they wanted to. In fact they do already, RBB and Rory H always put up their bulletins from their front organisations announcing what they're doing, and nobody censors them (something that the SWP did not afford AWI on the IAWM site).

They never, ever post any reports of their demos, comments, stories or opinions on the newswire. They can only expect to get out of it what they put in. RBB and Rory always put the notices up but then never respond to any resulting comments. Now Dave Lordan can say a lot of the comments are just plain bitchy sectarianism or personal insults, and sometimes thats true; but many other times there are genuine questions to be answered, such as the above incident. Or the control of the IAWM, or the hijacking of the RTS aftermath in May 2002, or why they continually undermine the efforts of direct actions, or whatever.

Personally I would love to read an actual genuine piece by RBB, rather than a copy and pasted mailshot, about why they chose not to support direct action after F15, or why they didnt support the bin tax blockades, etc. I think if they engaged in a bit of human debate and discussion on the site, then maybe people would afford them some respect. I dont agree at all with the politics of Aoife Ni Fheargaill, Dave Lordan, and Brian Cahill of the SP, but at least they come on to the newswire and get talking about stuff, they respond to their critics. They are to be commended for doing this (and people have said this to them in comment threads).

I can imagine why some people get infuriated with the SWP attitude to Indymedia. RBB posts the IAWM Bulletin on the newswire, which elicits the usual now-familiar slew of questions and allegations. Even moderate questions are ignored with a wall of silence... you can almost imagine the tumbleweeds rolling across the page. And THEN, he comes back and adds in something that was left out of the original post, or updates it with a change. So obviously, he's reading Indymedia, but not bothering to reply to comments (same goes for Rory H with the AEIP posts).

Indymedia Éire, as Brian Cahill rightly points out, does function more as a BBS than a newswire, and is somewhat unique in that respect. I quite like that aspect of it. I think that SWP people who come and post their bulletins but then dont acknowledge responses to it are acting very aloof and snooty. It is a forum for debate - and there are genuine questions out there!

The SWP cant give out about sectarianism as they indulge in it themselves, for example the Kieran Allen leaflet labelling the Grassroots Mayday protesters as "Thatcher's children" after the "ruck at the truck" on the Navan Road. Its just that on Indymedia people have an open right to publish a reply.

I think thats what the SWP are afraid of - open criticism that they cant control. They dont have a public Yahoo group, or a bulletin board at their site, despite being one of the larger organisations on the micro-left. They have ignored IMC Eire as much as possible, I dont think I've ever heard RBB acknowledge its existence, and to be honest the fact that they actually talked about it at a public IAWM meeting left me shocked/bemused.

If their response to criticism, or even questions, is to walk away from it and bury their heads in the sand, then what do they expect the site to be but biased? Indymedia is an OPEN PUBLISHING NEWSWIRE and it is what the contributors make it. If they cant handle questioning from anarchists and others in Dublin, then how are they going to deal with debates against the FF'ers and FG'ers in this world if/when they become a large political party? (heaven forbid!).

Any time there's criticism of Grassroots, Indymedia, people who do the black bloc tactic, even the SP at this stage; people come out and defend their corner on the wire. The SWP can do the same. Its OPEN PUBLISHING. I dont buy the "hurt and wounded" antics, they are well able to debate, I think they are not willing to because they would have to respond to tough questions - hence the reason they dont have public mailing list groups or BBS's.

With regards to the anonymous thing, I dont understand that either. I've put my name to this, this time, because for some reason Dave Lordan thinks its important, and I want to hear a response from an SWP member for once - but who knows if its my real name? Maybe it isnt. Maybe I'm someone else. Maybe two people are writing this together at the PC. If the idea, the words, the arguments are valid and worth listening to (and responding to), then it shouldnt matter who its from, or what political party its from either.

To repeat a phrase - dont hate the media, become the media. Dont hate Indymedia, become Indymedia! Every ding-dong in town seems to know that they can post openly here, and there's a fair chance it will be left up on the wire - even if its something highly questionable (and offensive to lefties like ourselves!) like a Young Fine Gael press release or a message of welcome and support for Dubya from that McDowell-in-waiting Richard Waghorne. The SWP can come and post here too - if they are not happy with the existing content then they can contribute.

Please - lets have constructive and sensible responses to this.

(Eds - I put this as a new post because yesterday's thread is extending into 60+ odd comments and getting lost in the newsmire...)

by seedot Tue Jul 06, 2004 12:46

We had a look at setting up dada for indymedia.ie before Vinnie appeared with his code.

The logins and rating move it closer to a slashdot type community - which we weren't in favour of. But it also has some really cool media gallery stuff and photo stories. More complex to install and configure as well.

Just goes to show the impact technical decisions can have.

by Ray Tue Jul 06, 2004 13:22

As you mention in your post, the SWP don't have any sort of internet discussion forum. They've been set up by members occassionally, here and in the UK, but the leadership always closes them down.

The problem for the SWP is not so much criticism, as communication. They don't want their members from say, Galway and Dublin to be discussing things directly. Anyone who has ever been to their discussions, like Marxism, or their open meetings*, knows that the hierarchy always remains intact - a long speech setting out the party line is followed by a few minutes of questions, but little actual debate.

From what I understand of the SWP's internal life, there is little room for direct branch-to-branch communication. If Galway has a discussion document it wants to share with Dublin, for example, it must go through the various branch secretaries, regional organisers, and the central committee.

Direct communication threatens authority. Suppose the central committee comes up with a new position on Islam. If you are in the Galway branch, and all your information comes from the hierarchy, then all you will hear is that the party has decided upon a new position. If you have any misgivings you have no-one to share them with. Isolated, you go along with what you're told. If you have a chance to discuss this new position with other members, you might find that people in other branches share your misgivings. Together, you might start to question the line.

Similar problems arise if your only source of information on what's happening in other areas is the party paper. We've all seen how rapidly the SWP will inflate the numbers of people on demonstrations. Its likely that the same thing happens with reports of public meetings, new members joining (no mention of old members leaving, I'm sure), paper sales figures, etc. If the paper is your only source of information, you can't question this. If you are regularly communicating with people from other areas, you'll get an independent picture.

That's just the 'danger' from their own members. The influence of outsiders could be even worse. Is it any wonder the SWP discourage their members from participating in discussion groups, or using sites like indymedia?



* I was obviously very bad in a previous life, because I was at some of the SWSS's meetings in UCD, back in the day.

by Brett Tue Jul 06, 2004 14:28

70 messages and no Israel or US bashing
is this a record?

by dave lordan - swp/red satanist movement Tue Jul 06, 2004 15:20 dlordan at hotmail dot com

I think the discussion above is for the most part a mature and healthy way to correspond with each other.
I suggest that the editorial board of indymedia is widened to include reps from different tendencies. Not to tear the eyes out of each others head but to report on all of the different things we are involved in. Theres acres of important stuff at local level that socialists are involved in that never gets put up here. that is our fault by the way not the editorial boards.
Also to give two sides of the story.
I would say all of the accusations made by the anarchists ray and chekov about the swp are untrue and merely posted to divert the rest of us from the very positive discussion we are having.
I'm not going to engage with it. People should look at our website or attend the many activist meetings we organise around the country every week and make up their own mind.
Anyway i have a lot of experience in writing, particularly interviews and campaign reports, but also feature articles etc and i would be willing to help out in any way i can. Just tell me how.
I would like to restate my admiration for people like Eamonn, Dunk etc who are willing to get stuck in and build the movement. I have nothing but the highest respect for them. Like them, many socialists also make huge efforts to ensure that in this era of war and planetary destruction there is a hope of change in the future, before it is too late.
I am in the swp because i think our ideas and organisation, though imperfect like everyone elses, offer the best way to build a really mass challenge to the system. I think we have played a proud role in the anti war movement, throwing all of our resources into building what is now irelands broadest and most radical challenge to the orthodox for a long time. We are not the only ones doing it and i salute all of those who give their time and energy to the movement. But none of us should get so arrogant as to think we are divinely mandated or politically above criticism. It would be very big of those who are constantly attacking us to admit at least a shred of the positive contribution we have made. Now that would be a miracle.

by Ray Tue Jul 06, 2004 15:38

"I suggest that the editorial board of indymedia is widened to include reps from different tendencies... Anyway i have a lot of experience in writing, particularly interviews and campaign reports, but also feature articles etc and i would be willing to help out in any way i can. Just tell me how."

Its really very easy.

There isn't any editorial board of indymedia. There's an editorial list, that's open to anyone who wants to join it - just click the Subscribe link at the top of the page. If you're on the editorial list, you get to see why things are being moved or deleted, why some artcles are promoted into features and others aren't, and you get to have a say in those decisions. Join the list and you're on the closest thing to a board there is.

If you want to be an active editor, then go to the list, and volunteer. The other people on the list will decide if there's any need for another editor (there usually is, and you won't be waiting long for a vacancy), and whether they agree with your interpretation of the editorial guidelines - something that you demonstrate by taking part in the discussions on the lists.

Writing articles is even easier. See that big Publish link? Click on that, write your story, and there you are, an indymedia contributor. Write a really good article and it will be turned into a feature.

(If you want to go straight to writing the kind of feature articles that combine lots of links to give an overview of a situation, ask about it on the editorial list. Plenty of people there who can tell you exactly how to do it. )

There you are Dave, just a few simple steps that you can follow if you would like RBB and Kieran Allen to take you aside for a quiet chat about the evils of mixing with anarchists...

by redjade Tue Jul 06, 2004 15:47

''I think the discussion above is for the most part a mature and healthy way to correspond with each other.''

I totally agree - it is interesting that sometimes the stupidest of newswire debates & slaggings can end up useful after all - just need a little faith in the newswire and it usually ends up with some nuggets of usefulness.

''Anyway i have a lot of experience in writing, particularly interviews and campaign reports, but also feature articles etc and i would be willing to help out in any way i can. Just tell me how.''

speaking only as 1 of indymedia (on the editorial list, that is) I'd welcome your involvement.

I have tried to get SWPers involved in Indy before and have given up - actually there are SWPers involved in indymedia in their own ways. They do not like to be known 'as indymedia' because of the attacks they would get from both their party and on the newswire. So yeah, being SWP on the indy newswire is being an oppressed minority I suppose. But that is mostly because, unlike yourself, people are not brave enough to debate openly - and sometimes understandably so.

But if you decide to join the Indymedia Editorial group (and anyone can by subscribing to the list: http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-ireland-editorial ) please drop all assumptions about who we are, what we represent, or even if we are there to 'represent' the various orgs that we also belong to - when we wear our Indymedia Hat it doesn't always mean that we are working for XYZ org that we are also personally involved with.

As dysfunctional as Indymedia.ie often is the miracle is that the editorial board does a good job at keeping things broad minded and news and info for everyone in the left. So, don't assume we are all anarchists (i'm not) or that we are all out to get the SWP.

Indymedia needs to broaden, but not just ideologically but geographically and issue-ly and especially gender-ly (not many women involved!). This site has expanded its horizons a lot in the last year or so, and there is still much room for growth into reporting in areas that it has barely touched on.

see ya on the editorial list...

by Conor (petty bourgeiose cyber warrior middle class diletent) - wsm (personal capacity) Tue Jul 06, 2004 15:48

Dave: I think the discussion above is for the most part a mature and healthy way to correspond with each other.
I suggest that the editorial board of indymedia is widened to include reps from different tendencies.

Me: Here here – as far as I know that editorial board of indymedia is completely open so hop on board!

Dave: Also to give two sides of the story.
I would say all of the accusations made by the anarchists ray and chekov about the swp are untrue and merely posted to divert the rest of us from the very positive discussion we are having.

Me: Actually you may find if you care to actually read the posts that myself, Cheks and Ray have being making a lot of the running in the positive stakes as always as ever !

Dave: I'm not going to engage with it. People should look at our website or attend the many activist meetings we organise around the country every week and make up their own mind.

Me: Your page (www.swp.ie) looks nice but is completely static and top down - i see no local reports no fora fro debate

I won’t bother repeating any of the points about teh need for horizontal communication within organisations etc if you don’t want to “engage”

As to the IAWM page well we all no how fast “contributions” will be removed off that “open forum”

Dave: I would like to restate my admiration for people like Eamonn, Dunk etc who are willing to get stuck in and build the movement. I have nothing but the highest respect for them. Like them, many socialists also make huge efforts to ensure that in this era of war and planetary destruction there is a hope of change in the future, before it is too late.


Me: They’re like “the good” libertarians egh?

The rest of us will have to bath outside the glow of your admiration but we’ll blunder on as happy bourgeoisie dilettantes I suppose.


Dave: I am in the swp because i think our ideas and organisation, though imperfect like everyone elses, offer the best way to build a really mass challenge to the system. I think we have played a proud role in the anti war movement, throwing all of our resources into building what is now irelands broadest and most radical challenge to the orthodox for a long time.

Me: Any chance of addressing the points of fact on the IAWM raised by Ray above !

Silence
Echo echo echo..........



Dave: We are not the only ones doing it and i salute all of those who give their time and energy to the movement. But none of us should get so arrogant as to think we are divinely mandated or politically above criticism. It would be very big of those who are constantly attacking us to admit at least a shred of the positive contribution we have made. Now that would be a miracle.

Me: HERE HERE – in general as I said way way way way back in one of my negative sectarian contributions to this thread

Quotes self from earlier post with massive egoism!

“A very good start might be

1. If members of the SWP actually got involved at an editorial level and in laying out the site etc
2. If they actually participated using their real names in the actual debates – as Dave does and fair play to him for doing this.

Like any forum, if you’re not in you can’t win. And if you’re not in and spend your time attacking the forum from without then you can hardly expect people to react very well !”

Conor

by Davy Carlin Tue Jul 06, 2004 16:29

Ray, factual answer, although with a hint of sarcasm {we all do it at times} although the ' 'if you would like RBB and Kieran Allen to take you aside for a quiet chat about the evils of mixing with anarchists' pushes it over the edge

Redjade, Respect my man { I hope by using the word Respect I don't bring forth many issues}. Your points {in reply} where factual straight to the point and genuine, therefore many can and will take your points on board. D

by Ray Tue Jul 06, 2004 16:51

1. SWP members were sent to the IAWM conference a few months back as delegates from branches that don't exist.
2. The SWP-controlled IAWM deliberately organised protests to clash with protests organised by other groups, and deleted mentions of other protests from the IAWM website.
3. The SWP is more interested in controlling protest than seeing protest succeed - they try to take over what they can, and undermine what they can't.
4. The SWP is itself an undemocratic organisation, with a self-perpetuating leadership, elected in closed slates.

Oddly enough, [SWP members] never get around to addressing the substance of any allegations before they go...

by Brian Tue Jul 06, 2004 16:54

First an aside on hierarchy, in response to Eamonn:

My skeptical usage of the term "hierarchy" wasn't meant as a denial that there are hierarchical structures in political parties. It was meant to denote skepticism about the utility of the term as an analytical category. I don't accept that there is a concrete division between "hierarchical" and "non-hierarchical" organisations or organisational methods. To some extent or other pretty much every dynamic organisation in capitalist society will see some form of "hierarchy" emerge. It could be elected leadership, it could be the predominance of the loudest voices or the most experienced and active organisers. At a basic level any form of discrete organisation is "hierarchical" in that it posits a division between the organised in-group and those external to the organisation.

That goes for Indymedia, where your shorthand of a "dictatorship of the doers" is very appropriate, as much as it goes for political organisations. The important question as far as I am concerned is one of democratic structure and control along with encouraging an atmosphere of open discussion. Those are things that in my experience the Socialist Party has a fine record on and certainly our attitude toward them has little or nothing to do with the positive or negative views that individual party members have on Indymedia or on the subject of open publishing.

Anyway, this isn't really an appropriate occasion for this discussion, so I will get back to the point.

On Indymedia:

It is important to acknowledge that there have been steps forward in the editorial approach to the newswire. The "10 things I hate about group x" style posts are gone. When someone tries to drag the same issues into multiple threads much less tolerance is extended to them. Those improvements do make the site more generally useful.

I think that a gradual and careful further tightening of editorial policy with regard to abusive behaviour is something that would improve the newswire again. However, it is perfectly fair to point out that that is an argument to be won on the editorial list and if you don't take part then your opinion won't be heard.

I've looked at Eamonn's positive suggestions for the site and think that the general thrust of them is useful. Members of the Socialist Party (and SWP/Sinn Fein/Greens/whoever) should indeed post more in the way of original news postings and articles. Over a few issues of Socialist Voice, to give an example, maybe 40 different people will contribute an article. That's a fairly substantial pool of people with regular experience of the kind of reporting - on industrial struggles, campaign reports, community issues - that Indymedia needs more of. Similar pools of experience or expertise in particular fields can be found in many other political organisations.

Now it isn't likely that contributors from the various organisations that are under-represented here are going to suddenly flood in because an invitation is issued. As the pieces on this thread explain there are plenty of people who have reasonable and strongly held negative or dismissive opinions about this site. The best thing that those of us who are already here can do is to make a start in making the site seem more hospitable and more useful to those who don't currently see much point in it.

by Peter Tue Jul 06, 2004 16:58

Cynic that I am, I can't take any of this seriously. Dave Lordan has come on here in the past couple of days and played the martyr card, the McCarthy red baiting card, the don't respond to anonymous card, etc, etc. All the usual fare of the SWP.

The one simple fact is that this thread arose out of the fact that on another thread Mr. Lordan accused another activist of something he can't back up. He accused the same activist of the despicable action of shouting agent, something which he has failed to recognise he did in January at an IAWM assembly.

It's plain and simple the SWP accuse others of actions which they congenitally carry out themselves. Whether it was scaremongering about the Grassroots action in Shannon (through their IAWM front), acting sectarianly to Des Derwin (through their party), their attempt to rig votes by representing phantom campaigns (Dublin Anti-Bin tax campaign), demeaning the work of activists who were on the IAWM steering committee - Fintan Lane, Tim Hourigan, Harry Brown or the refusal to respond to points raised by the ISN (through their IAWM front), through scaremongering about Mayday (through their AEIP front), calling activists the children of Thatcher (through their party) or whatever next, the SWP never ever naval gazes and asks why it seems to piss off so many people.
It seems that these people will learn nothing because they are not capable of admitting that perhaps they could do things differently but then that's the problem with 'template' socialism.

by conor (wsm personal capacity) Tue Jul 06, 2004 17:18

Finally
by Brian Tuesday, Jul 6 2004, 3:54pm


First an aside on hierarchy, in response to Eamonn:

Brian: My skeptical usage of the term "hierarchy" wasn't meant as a denial that there are hierarchical structures in political parties. It was meant to denote skepticism about the utility of the term as an analytical category. I don't accept that there is a concrete division between "hierarchical" and "non-hierarchical" organisations or organisational methods. To some extent or other pretty much every dynamic organisation in capitalist society will see some form of "hierarchy" emerge. It could be elected leadership, it could be the predominance of the loudest voices or the most experienced and active organisers. At a basic level any form of discrete organisation is "hierarchical" in that it posits a division between the organised in-group and those external to the organisation.

Me: Surprisingly I would completely agree with Brian here. I think what is being described is what we sometimes refer to as the tyranny of the structureless - eg if no one is formally in charge then elites emerge and take over informally

However there are different ways of dealing with it. One is a pretty rigid formal leadership a la the SWP where the political committee or what ever it is called is dominated by a small group through out its life with other members coming and going.

The other is to tackle the problem directly at source and make it a continous organisational priority. This is why I'm in the WSM. Within the WSM all formal positions are electable and recallable. All positions are rotated regularly whether the position holder likes it or not! We also try to maintain a very high level or internal education/ political culture to try to minimise the inequalities that devolpment in knowledge, experience etc.

You cannot ever eliminate some level of hierarchy but our aim is to oppose and minimise it at all stages. We often go to quite great lengths to this!
This is why we would describe ourselves as a non hierarchical group. Its a process of becoming as oppossed to ever getting there. Obviously this can never be fully realised but itis our ambition.

Other groups that recognise and formalise hierarchy are surely hierarchical ne c'est pas?


Conor

by TMc Tue Jul 06, 2004 17:38

"I suggest that the editorial board of indymedia is widened to include reps from different tendencies" - Dave Lordan

I wish members of political groups would realise for once that not everybody is in a party! 'Reps from tendencies'? My tendencies are my own business.

Anybody can get involved with indymedia - just do it.

by Sean Tue Jul 06, 2004 17:50

I see a contributor mentions that the work of Fintan Lane, Harry Browne and Tim Hourigan was demeaned by the SWP/IAWM. Heres a better one about Fintan Lane: his case wasn't discussed even once by the IAWM Steering Committe while he was in jail. Not even once. They sent him no letter of support, no letter of support from RBB (even though FL was then PRO of the IAWM), and they did NO support work. The crowd in Cork squeezed a press statement out of RBB just after he was put inside - and that was that.

Mutuality from the SWP/IAWM? They dont even support their own. Mind you, they saw Fintan Lane as a 'troublemaker' because he had successfully won the vote at the Steering Committee for the blockade at Shannon on Dec 6th (something the SWP were COMPLETELY against) - but they acted to scuttle that too and were openly hostile to people involved in organising for it. And RBB went to a bin charges conference instead in Dublin (even though the bolockade was an IAWM event).

So many questions, so few answers, so little mutuality. No wonder people are pissed off with the SWP and their IAWM front.

by Chekov Tue Jul 06, 2004 18:05

QUOTE: "I suggest that the editorial board of indymedia is widened to include reps from different tendencies."

There are no reps from any tendencies who are indymedia editors. All editors are individuals who have chosen to contribute to the project. People who wish to take part are free to do so, regardless of what tendency they come from, but there is no question of any tendency having an automatic right to nominate editors. The indymedia editorial collective is a free voluntary association of individuals who agree to follow the collectively decided mandate, not a coaliition of representatives of different groups each pushing their own agenda. You and any other individual are free to publish articles, comment on other articles, argue for deletions, argue for new guidelines and so on. If you wish to participate as an editor, you are also free to put yourself forward.

And, Dave, could you please describe which of the things that I said are lies intended to divert the discussion? I really don't like the way that you throw around such accusations in such a casual manner without providing any substantiation. I don't believe anything that I wrote was untrue and I am willing to back up any of my statements and I know that I was not intending to divert any discussion - divert it where? divert it from what?

by Davy Carlin Tue Jul 06, 2004 18:25

Hi Ray

Just briefly on your points Ray

I} If this was the case then I will raise it within my organisation. I will also say openly if this was the case then I believe it is wrong and would disagree with such

2} I have already openly said that if this was the case, if persons where deleting advertised Anti War events then it was wrong. I also commended and welcomed those that where advertising all, and again will rise such deletions if the case within my organisation.

3} I have written and spoken on numerous occasions of my fundamental belief of putting the issue and unity foremost. Those campaigns that I work in I with others, we seek to put this to the forefront. An article to go up soon on the Blanket on Democratic Centralism and the left will go into this Ray in more detail. Again such issues I raise in all organisations and campaigns that I am involved in, and actively seek with others to promote such, as persons would know within such campaigns and organisations.


4} Any organisation that I work in, I and others seek to ensure that they are democratic and will attempt to hold any leaderships accountable to any undemocratic behaviour, again as many would well know within those organisations and campaigns who are reading this site.

Other wider issues are raised here about committees, slates, political sectarianism etc. Again I have set time aside to write an extensive article on my 'Practical experiences' with 'ALL' left organisations, and I will tell it 'exactly' as I have experienced it over the years. I am writing part six of the W/Belfast series at the moment and after that I will start on that article, that many will find, I believe, uncomfortable reading

There are many points I could agree with that have been raised above and again many I could disagree with. I presently do not have time to go through all as now limited access at work to net {management watchdogs} and involved in various campaigns as well as doing more extensive writing I have vowed to do as I fell important, and as importantly I have a life and also a relationship outside of politics


Finally for the moment at the end of the day the bigger question is can we work together? On many occasions through reading Indymedia it would seem that we all give our reasons {legitimate and otherwise} as to why not. So where do we go from there. Yet I have found in my own experience working with many others in Belfast that much work can be done and much agreement on practical issues can be found, and when it does good things can happen. Again I go into this in a coming article.

I suppose the stuff I was hit with by other political organisations that the SWP did this and that {before I was born} etc makes little difference now as the Belfast SWP in a way have created their own short history and that’s what other see. Yet and I finish on this as up to my eyes. If genuine activists have and do have concerns about 'any organisations' {or hear constantly of other genuine activists continually rising similar} then I believe that those concerns will only become re enforced if such activists see such behaviour themselves. Similarity if genuine activists do see any organisation working genuinely then no matter what the words of others are they will see for themselves such is untrue and I believe will respond to that.

Of course due to history such will take time, but why not start now? D

Have to go, Signing off

by Akrasia Tue Jul 06, 2004 18:36

Could you please explain why the simple straightforward accusations put forward by Ray are not worthy of addressing?

Your last post contained little other than rhetoric.

You simply claim that they are not true?
There are many eye witness accounts of vote rigging and of the IAWM censoring Anti-War events advertised by Grassroots or AWI and that the SWP/IAWM deliberately try to undermine Events and actions organised by groups other than the SWP/IAWM

by Chekov Tue Jul 06, 2004 21:42

(This was written before I read Brian's last mail. Unfortunately my computer crashed before I could send it. Some of it is adressed in his last comment, but I'll include it anyway since I don't have the time to redo it.)



Considering that your entire contribution to indymedia over the last few months has been to criticise the poor level of debate on the site, I think you should be a little more careful about what you write yourself. In addition to the points where I think you honestly disagree, there are a number of points in your last comment that strike me as quite disingenuous. To pick through it:

QUOTE: "Two contributors have made points about the supposed "heirarchies" in political parties"

RESPONSE: Your use of the word 'supposed' and your placing of hierarchies in quotes both serve to distance yourself from the outlandish idea that there are hierarchies in political parties. You know there are hierarchies in political parties, why mock the assertion?

QUOTE: "and the problem that free exchange of information poses for such organisations. This is something that I regard as simply incorrect."

RESPONSE: Then you live on a different planet to me. The idea that leaderships will often attempt to manage and control the information that their followers have access to is so obvious and proven that I really can't believe that an intelligent person could think it is 'simply incorrect'. I could give you countless examples of leaderships controlling dissemination of information to their followers ranging from ancient Athens to Fianna Fail, but to keep the subject matter immediate lets just talk about the SP and SWP.

There have been three splits that I know of in the SWP since I had the misfortune to gain an interest in such things. In all three (Rathmines, UCD, Belfast), the leadership's desire to control debate and to control the flows of information between members was cited as a major reason for the split. Similarly, all of the ex-SP dissidents who have graced our pages have cited such factors. The evidence for such behaviour is simply overwhelming.

QUOTE: "I make no concession whatsoever to the view that any criticism I make of Indymedia has anything at all to do with a fear of debate or of discussion or of information."

RESPONSE: You are making the mistake of identifying the attributes of the organisation with yourself. The argument is not about individuals' willingness to engage in debate, it is about organisational structure and its impact upon the use of open-publishing. Until very recently, leaderships of large, geographically dispersed organisations have enjoyed a huge facility to control information flows across the organisation. Although the degree of control enjoyed changes from organisation to organisation, it exists to a certian extent in all hierarchical organisations. A few common ways in which this control is exercised are: selection of editors of party publications, monopoly of contacts with external organisations, drawing up of agendas for conferences;, control over organisational resources like offices and printing presses, selective releases of information in order to shape debate and ensure an outcome that the leadership deems best for the organisation.

The Internet has had a big effect on this by dramatically lowering the resources required to mass communication. Suddenly any individual has the possiblity of reaching a vast audience - the success of their attempt depends on how interesting what they have to say is and requires access to a relatively small amount of resources compared to traditional forms of mass communication. All hierarchical organisations have problems with this. In order to realise the potential of the web, it is necessary to lessen controls over information flow and this is often uncomfortable to the leadership and organisation itself.

There is a very clear relationship between the levels of hierarchy and centralisation within an organisation or movement and the levels of Internet activity. Movements that have relatively flat structures and high levels of membership participation in decision making tend to embrace the net, those that have centralised command structures do not.

It is not very considered to simply dismiss this argument out of hand. If you think that there is no link between Internet utilisation and organisational structure, then how do you explain the fact that there are vast numbers of anarchist, libertarian and non-aligned leftist websites, discussion lists and bulletin boards on the Internet, many of them heavily used, while there are very, very few Leninist ones? I mean, as far as I know, neither the SWP nor the SP have an internal email discussion list (correct me if I'm wrong), while most libertarian groups have many - some of which are open to all. Leninist groups certainly have the resources and know-how to set up a mailing list.

QUOTE: "That view bears no relationship to the facts and has more to do with the prejudices of the anarchist/anarchoid milieu than anything else."

Again, I don't think that casually inserting demeaning terms like 'anarchoid' is very appropriate to your theme. Also, perhaps the disagreement springs from some deep difference and all else is froth, but if so, you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss other people's ideas as 'prejudices'. A disagreement in principle can often look like a prejudice to the complacent.

QUOTE:"The thing is though, that people are entitled to choose where and under what circumstances they choose to take part in discussion."

RESPONSE: Again, there is some disengenuity in asserting this obvious statement as if somebody had disagreed with it.

QUOTE "I choose to take part in discussions here sometimes but I fully understand why many others do not. Most people, not just most members of political parties, would not take part in a real life discussion arranged as most debates here are. They would not choose to argue with a whole series of people wearing masks, occasionally pretending to be other people, and making the most venomous criticisms of others in a public hall. So why should anyone claim they are "afraid of debate" because they won't do so here?"

RESPONSE: You shouldn't put quotation marks around phrases that weren't used. Nobody said that individuals who don't use the site are "afraid of debate".

I also fully understand why many people would people do not take part in discussion here. It takes a while to learn that Internet arguments have more bark than bite. Having said that, many, many more people take part in left-wing debates on indymedia than do so in real-world meetings, which is at least partly to do with the ability to be anonymous. Real-world political meetings are far more intimidating than Indymedia.

QUOTE "A related point is the frankly insulting part about "leaders" trying to "control their members", a point of view which I can only hope is the result of ignorance. If only the Socialist Party leadership or at least a few wiser heads did play some role in our member's participation on Indymedia - some of the more crassly stupid arguments SP members have been involved in on this site might have been avoided!"

RESPONSE: Again you use the device of putting certain words in quotes to make a reasonable point look outlandish. You know that political parties, including the SP, have leaders. You know that the leaders do in some ways control their members (by taking decisions on their behalf). This is not to say that they exercise absolute control over them - nobody would claim that. They can hardly dictate the content of their anonymous contributions on a web site. What the leaders can do is to express the opinion that their members should not contribute to the site unless given permission to do so (as I believe the SWP does) and/or denigrate the site in front of their members (as I'd say both the SP and SWP do). Since the leaders are not tyrants and are generally highly esteemed by the members, this will have a strong effect. Neither of these measures will prevent participation - the state couldn't even do that - but they do limit it and ensure that most participation is of a fairly poor standard.

You can dispute this analysis, but how do you explain the disproportionatly small level of contribution from the SP and SWP on a site that is dominated by left wing issues? With a couple of notable exceptions (yourself and hs), Leninists very rarely contribute anything more than event notices for their own events. Everybody that I have ever talked to about indymedia gives out about the trolls, but virtually all of the non-aligned and libertarian activists still think it's a great resource, while I've rarely heard anything but complaints from yourselves and the complaints generally only arrive when you're the injured party.

Indeed, for all the critique of indymedia and its supposed libertarian bias, the Leninist critics fail to ever ask themselve the question of why it is that anarchist groups generally have much greater involvement in the project than leninists, despite the fact that they are much smaller. The reasons commonly cited (trolling and levels of access) just don't stand up to examination. Anarchists presumably are no more inclined to read interminable threads about which political party is the biggest sell-out than anybody else and Leninist organisations have in total far greater man-hours which they could devote to the project if they so wished.

To conclude, I think that the criticism that we receive from RBB and the leaders of other hierarchical organisations really amounts to a disdain for our organisational model and a wish to replace it with something more akin to their own, where for example the leadership has the power to arbitrarily remove information without any accountability or openness. Therefore, although I do think that we have to be always open to criticism and looking for ways to improve the site, this particular criticism is not something that we should take seriously.

by Starstruck - UCD Left Tue Jul 06, 2004 21:45

Wow this really turned out to be a hot one eh?
I definitely think the issue of division in the anti-war movement in Ireland needs to be seriously addressed instead of the persisting "them and us" attitude.
Im an advocate of grassroots politics and direct action at demos but this isnt for everyone and we all know that.
That however does not mean we should operate at opposite poles and compete for numbers like two bloodthirsty Multinationals.
We had 1000 odd at our march in Shannon and the IAWM had 1500 or whatever thus Mr Boyd Barretts comment that the IAWM constituted 90% of the Iirsh anti-war community was clearly not reflective of the relative numbers in Shannon at least.

I dont like the wayb the IAWM has been manipulated by groups with other vested interests but i think we should all remember that it is the IAWM the AWI ,GNAW or the SWP or any other Irish group that we are doing this for-IT IS THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ AND PALESTINE and all othewr oppressed people who we are doing this for and any small compromises that we can make that would help them in any minopr way are worth sacrificing as far as im concerned.
yes maybe I am a feckin moderate in ways but objectivity is the key to success when deakling with a large problem such as this and if that means buying the ODD copy of the Socialist Worker then so be it.

by analogy repeater Wed Jul 07, 2004 00:36

How many times can you be expected to pass the ball to someone who NEVER PASSES BACK?
Compromise can't happen without trust and integrity.

Another oft quoted phrase is 'destruction is a form of creation'. In this case that might refer to the rejection of short term aspirations for a unified movement with those who are incapable of unity, and the rebuilding of something more solid, accessable and inspirational to continue a renewed struggle against a common foe.

"one must have chaos within to give birth to a dancing star" (Nietzsche)
An inevitable natural blaze may re-energise a decaying landscape,. Those who gain from weeds and thorns will attempt to quench this fire as to be a prominant thistle in a wasteland is better for them than to be a fresh sapling helping to build a new world.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."


The SWP organisation is a virus organisation. It has no ambition but to spread and take over any system it gets a foothold in, spreading disease wherever it passes. replicate itself. the "movement" virus. Building "the movement" as an end in itself until there is no where for the movement to go without falling apart.

by -Friedrich Nietzsche Wed Jul 07, 2004 00:38

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher regard those who think alike than those who think differently."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

by Dub swp - SWP Wed Jul 07, 2004 01:51

" SWP LEADERSHIP TELLS ITS MEMBERS NOT TO GO ON INDYMEDIA"
LIE. Not true. Its never been said to me and I am over 7 years in the party.
If SWP members distain this site it has more to do with the kind of shit posted before me than any non exsistant instruction from th leadership.
Secondly, there has been more debate , discussion and disagreement in the SWP then any other left group I know. Difference is we manage to keep in sight the real enemy; capitalism, and work together regardless.The paranoia,misquotation,misinterpretation,and misreaing of our words and actions by politically motivated groups here and elsewhere only serves to insure that most of our members and supporters will continue to by pass this site as there own experiences of the organisation are at total variance with the rantings and slander contaned here.

by Brian Wed Jul 07, 2004 02:04

Oh dear, Chekov. How long did it take before someone returned to claiming bad faith on the party of those who disagree with their opinions? While it is kind indeed of you to acknowledge that part of what I say is “honest disagreement”, your remarks about disingenuousness reveal more about your own prejudices than about the sincerity with which I hold an opinion. Why is it that you can’t quite seem to bring yourself to stick to arguing that I’m wrong without needing to imply that I’m being dishonest too?

Going briefly through the actual content of your posting, you might have done better to have edited your post after reading my most recent contribution where I explained my objection to the use of the term “hierarchical” as an analytical category. My problem is not with accepting that any particular political organisation has a hierarchy, my problem is with accepting that any dynamic political organisation does not. And that certainly includes Indymedia, aptly described above as a “dictatorship of the doers”.

Leaving that aside for a moment, your speculations about the democratic life of the Socialist Party read as if you think we are living in the age of carrier pigeons and the horse and cart. If I want to know what was discussed in say, the Limerick branch this week, I pick up a phone and ask somebody. If someone in Limerick feels the overwhelming urge to tell me what they were discussing this week they pick up a phone and do likewise. Or they send an email, or whatever the hell else they want to do. I’m sorry to disappoint you by contradicting what is obviously a theory that’s close to your heart, but the idea that the flow of information between members of our organization is hindered by our elected leadership is simply a fantasy. To the limited extent that our leadership bodies have any role in the exchange of information internally it is to facilitate and encourage it. I have no intention at all of being dragged into a prolonged discussion of something which has nothing to do with this thread, but as an aside there are a number of internal discussion email lists (and external bulletin boards) run by the Committee for a Workers International and its various affiliates, four of which I’m currently subscribed to.

I note your objection to my use of the term “anarchoid”, as “demeaning”. I use it to differentiate actual anarchists from the slightly larger and significantly less coherent milieu they currently co-exist with. I think that anarchists themselves do it by distinguishing between (narrower) anarchists and (broader) “libertarians”, but I’m not as inclined towards generous language. It may not be the term they choose themselves but as someone who as a matter of course uses the term “Leninist” to describe people who use the self descriptions “socialist” or “Marxist”, your complaints ring a little hollow. I’m not inclined to fight with anyone over something so trivial though, so if you like I will stick to their nomenclature of choice for the remainder of this thread.

The meat of your post, the regurgitating of a theory expressed above that the over-representation of anarchists as opposed to socialists as contributors to this site is at its core a result of division between “hierarchical” and “non-hierarchical” organizational forms, seems to me to take little or no account of the lengthy discussion which has taken place on this thread. Indymedia emerged on a global scale out of the broadly, ahem, “libertarian” side of the anti-capitalist movement. Your lot, so to speak, were here first, acclimatised to the medium first, and shaped the initial bounds and centre of the discussions. In so doing, people from that particular point of the political spectrum in general acquired more of a sense of “ownership” (if you’ll forgive the term). The opposite side to the same coin is that, for better or worse, people from other parts of the political left (let alone the right) felt less of a sense that IMCs were “for” them.

To its credit, despite the occasionally toxic atmosphere, indymedia.ie has made more of an effort to include others than many IMCs (note for example the openly exclusionary policy of the UK IMC). That is, in my view, a good thing. Your use of a partial failure to achieve that laudable goal as evidence that there is something wrong with those not yet as involved as some anarchists, is to my mind just the flip side of the smugness you would readily accuse the likes of Richard Boyd Barrett of – we’re alright, it’s those who criticise who have a problem. And to my mind it’s just as unattractive from you as it is from him.

You chide me for being too negative about the site, which only leads me to believe that you somehow filtered out all the things I said were good about Indymedia. I wish this site well, by which I mean not only that I wish it to increase its traffic but also that I wish its content to become better. Constructive criticism – and I think that the criticisms I have made have been overwhelmingly constructive – is a necessary part of that process. It’s all very well to tell critics to improve the site by contributing to it, but many people won’t contribute seriously until they feel that the site is worth contributing to. Something of a chicken and egg situation maybe, but not an insurmountable problem. You don’t have to agree with my opinions, but a considered response to an incorrect criticism is useful in and of itself.

The question again becomes what can those of us who do use this site do to make the place more inviting to those who currently don’t? Part of that, I readily concede is to keep making the invitation, part of it is also to improve the content of the site and make its merits more obvious than its flaws.

by paul c Wed Jul 07, 2004 02:58

ok dub swp you've rebutted one statement from one person now answer the other 4 question everyone is asking....

*holds breath*

perhaps in the melting pot that is life it was further inevitable that those with anarchoids tendancies ( anarchists, libertarians, anarco-hippys and individual individuals ) would be the ones to intiate an idea like indymedia.... and that those who associate with organisations we all understand as hierachal would not and would tend not to use such a network as much....

some interesting theory re internet usage there...

(eds delete previous two comments from me- ta)

by Ms Lux - League for the workers republic Wed Jul 07, 2004 04:00

Friends, Comrades,
Slumped in the air clogged basement of Liberty hall last saturday I witnessed the nucleus of a beautiful thing, ranting and roaring climaxed in the passionate guldering of Dunk's "we came to stop the fuckin war".

The air cleared, the dust settled and the common objectives of resisting and opposing the violent , viral spread of American Imperialism, and formulating a strategic and cohesive plan of action with a view to breaking the government on the issue of Shannon, slid calmly into focus.

There were those who attended for other reasons and to them I advise a lenghty period of pyschotheraphy, preferably of the Rogerian client centered kind.

Otherwise, I feel strongly that on the day in question, lines of communication were cleared, wounds nursed and egos mended, as the outcome has been one of the most productive, and constructive debates I have read on this site, which as a member of the IAWM and a socialist i unequivocally support.

I am not a member of the SWP and as an active member of the IAWM I have never found this to be a problem. I do feel however that Richard has received an almighty grilling on this forum, and calling Dave a pink divil, and a roly poly is bound to lift his fur slightly, all things given I think his outburst was pretty well justified.

However, I feel it important to state that the views expressed by individuals at public meetings are theirs and theirs alone.
The differing pholosophies and approaches of the various anti war groups provide a diverse atmosphere within which individuals can choose whom to work with depending on the suitability of ideologies. It is, in the final analysis, that simple, and should be viewed as a positive state of affairs.

The boys from indymedia who attended did so in good faith , and with a view to addressing certain issues, and whilst heated differences of opinion were aired there was much amicable exchange between IAWM members and indymedia in the street afterward, by which time everyone had simmered sufficiently.

What Richard actually said in relation to indymedia was that in his personal opinion sixty percent of its discussion forum was sectarian in fighting , and incidentally, whatever your stance, he's not wrong, he at no point discouraged people from using it. The boy wont be loosing any sleep over this stuff and chooses not to engage, and that frankly is his right , what amazes me is the ongoing obsesion with him, hes not the "head" of anything, hes the public representative of a mass movement which as anyone involved will know is democratic in tone and structure.

My suggestion to indymedia was that a guideline for posting should be issued that encourages people to place principles before personalities and not let abusive threads disintigrate unchecked, I dont interpret free speech to mean one holds the right to maliciously and systematically abuse another on a public forum, and they graciously took this on board, inviting the participation of certain individuals as a way to remedy the perceived imbalance.
All things considered, not least the heat, I think we did marvellously dahlings...

......and now to sleep perchance to dream
of golden heels and streets that teem
with scowling boys of three blade cuts
from every door would blast the ruts
and callas, air and blondie too...
I dream of such things ....Hush..Do you? Sweet Dreams All.

by me Wed Jul 07, 2004 05:39

when organisations are small they are more open and engage, witness international socialist and cwi smaller groups everywhere. When they get "big" or bigger, they turn arrogant, something the swp and sp could be accused of. If the WSM get big will they do the same? We'll see.

by Ray Wed Jul 07, 2004 09:47

"Indymedia emerged on a global scale out of the broadly, ahem, “libertarian” side of the anti-capitalist movement. Your lot, so to speak, were here first, acclimatised to the medium first, and shaped the initial bounds and centre of the discussions."

Do you know who actually set up indymedia.ie? There was no-one from WSM, or any other anarchist group involved. Of the three or four people who were (AFAIK) involved from the start, I think only one might describe himself as an anarchist (once or twice a week, something else the rest of the time) So, in Ireland at least, anarchists didn't 'own' the indymedia project from the start - and they still don't.

Besides, saying that anarchists are over-represented on indymedia because they started it only pushes the question back a little, doesn't make it disappear. Why is it that Leninist organisations, which are still a majority of the revolutionary left in the english-speaking world don't like indymedia? Why did it take anarchists to set it up (elsewhere), and why is it that anarchists use it more (here)?

The answer is pretty obvious, really. The difference between indymedia and the kinds of media that leninists _do_ like - papers, party websites, etc - is that indymedia uses an open publishing model, wher every participant is equal. Papers and party websites are controlled by the centre. Leninists like central control, and don't like broad participation, its as simple as that.

by Ciaron - Dublin Catholic Worker Wed Jul 07, 2004 10:29

My problem is not the with the expresion of opinion, whatever it is. I will always defend the right of free expression to all, whatever the opinion/how much I disagree with it (eg. the regular working class racist speaker at Speakers corner).

The problem is RBB/SWP/IAWM attempt to stop the expression of the MACBUSH theatre/the 3 mile march to Dromoland already underway. This failed attempt was executed by stewarding tactics to block and absorb an autonomous action. An action in your terms of reference (capitalist media coverage...CNN, NY Times, International Herald Tribune etc) and ours (creative, nonviolently confrontational, solidarity enducing, disruptive of the press pack that was rerouted into the AmBush) was successful! A success that would have been denied if RBB/SWP/IAWM stewarding tactics of blocking and absorbing MACBUSH had worked.

The deeper problem for your organisation is not your political vision for the world (the MacArthyist hype is a red herring!) it is the lack of mutuality/and the abundance opportunism that abounds in how SWP/IAWM operates.

I disagree with the Sparticus League political vison for the world, but when the anarcho-RTS crew were facing the courts for the '02 Dame St. May Day Masacreeeee - the Sparts turned up at the first support meeting wanting to know how to make a financial donation to the defence fund. When we were busted at Shannon, there solidarity response was similar again. These rituals of solidarity and support for movement activists hospitalised or before the courts are worth adopting if you want to be taken seriously by the rest of the movement. Otherwise you will be continued to be dismissed as opportunists and ambulance chasers. More interested in making mileage out of the war & the anti-war response than actually resisting Irish complicity in the war effort.

The SWP line on moi at the moment is that I am "crazy" a "loon". This is a concern when one recalls how the Soviet Union treated its dissidents (whether independent Marxists or radical Christians).define them as mentally ill & shove them in the psyche units.

God help us all!
Dios No Mata
Ciaron

by trot noodle Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:41

all this may be moot - SWP dying a slow death anyway?

can the Irish SWP survive without the UK SWP?

---
Weekly Worker #535, Thursday July 1, 2004

Blaming the Membership

Last weekend's national committee of the Socialist Workers Party was a pretty unhappy affair. The printshop is being sold off and the promised breakthrough on June 10 failed to happen. How did the leadership explain these results? Paul Fellows reports:
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/07/06/7184406

by Dove Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:51

"However, I feel it important to state that the views expressed by individuals at public meetings are theirs and theirs alone."

Fair enough to a point. If somebody expressed in a thread that they find it reprehensible for somebody to scream agent it is not fair comment if they have engaged in similar behaviour

"..hes not the "head" of anything, hes the public representative of a mass movement which as anyone involved will know is democratic in tone and structure."

Bollocks - who is this everyone? Nearly all the steering committee that were voted in at the national agm has left. And why? Because they felt that the IAWM was very far from being democatic in tone or structure.

"The differing pholosophies and approaches of the various anti war groups provide a diverse atmosphere within which individuals can choose whom to work with depending on the suitability of ideologies. It is, in the final analysis, that simple, and should be viewed as a positive state of affairs."

What does this mean? What is your understanding of the different idologies at play in the various anti war groups? To me one believes in demoracy and the other believes in the democracy of the SWP.

by conor (wsm personal capacity) Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:01

big up on the Nietzsche fans here's more

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you...............

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.................

Friedrich Nietzsche

by Chekov Wed Jul 07, 2004 14:33

QUOTE: "your remarks about disingenuousness reveal more about your own prejudices than about the sincerity with which I hold an opinion."

I quoted clearly the pieces in your comment that I thought were disingenuous and was careful to do so because I wanted to make it clear that this comment was not based upon my prejudices but on the text that you wrote. You continue to caricature my arguments and I will continue to point it out. The idea that leaderships can exercise some control over their memberships is apparently the same as saying that they can dictate every aspect of their lives.

QUOTE: "My problem is not with accepting that any particular political organisation has a hierarchy, my problem is with accepting that any dynamic political organisation does not. And that certainly includes Indymedia, aptly described above as a “dictatorship of the doers”."

This is a gross simplification of my position. The hierarchical nature of organisations is not a binary matter as you imply. Some organisations operate in extremely hierarchical ways, others are extremely democratic and most are somewhere in between. Even if you do think that the absolute elimination of hierarchies from organisations is impossible, you must surely realise that they exhibit enormous differences in the terms of democracy and hierarchy. The phrase "dictatorship of the doers" does not imply that there is anything about the hierarchical nature of indymedia - the doers are anybody who wants to do. This phrase is meant to express the idea that decisions about what stories we will cover, which ones we will feature and so on are not made by a leadership but by whoever goes to the trouble of writing them. Indymedia is a very, very non-hierarchical organisation.

QUOTE: "Leaving that aside for a moment, your speculations about the democratic life of the Socialist Party read as if you think we are living in the age of carrier pigeons and the horse and cart. If I want to know what was discussed in say, the Limerick branch this week, I pick up a phone and ask somebody."

You are again caricaturing my argument into a binary opposition of total control vs. no control. I was very clear in stating that advances in communication technology have challenged the control over communication that leaders of sizeable organisations used to have. However, with the resources at their disposal, leaderships can still exercise considerable control over information flows. Picking up the phone and asking somebody is not an effective way of transmitting information in any sizeable organisation. If a trade union leadership decided not to include any mention of a particular strike from it's publications, I'm sure you wouldn't be saying "ah sure they can always phone each other". Things like internal bulletins, mailing lists, party newspapers, websites and conference agendas are much better means of disseminating information within organisations and most of the people most of the time will get their news from these sources rather than through ringing up their comrade in limerick. Leaderships who enjoy effective control over these resources still enjoy a significant ability to control the flows of information within their organisations.

QUOTE: "I’m sorry to disappoint you by contradicting what is obviously a theory that’s close to your heart, but the idea that the flow of information between members of our organization is hindered by our elected leadership is simply a fantasy. To the limited extent that our leadership bodies have any role in the exchange of information internally it is to facilitate and encourage it."

Controlling information flows is not the same thing as hindering them. Political parties always want to encourage communication between members, but the leadership generally retains the ability to filter the information that gets transmitted in their mass media. I don't have any personal experience of the SP and don't really care about it, but I'm certain that it happens to some extent like it does in all hierarchical organisations. If it did not happen then the party publications and the leadership would be obselete.

QUOTE: "I have no intention at all of being dragged into a prolonged discussion of something which has nothing to do with this thread, but as an aside there are a number of internal discussion email lists (and external bulletin boards) run by the Committee for a Workers International and its various affiliates, four of which I’m currently subscribed to."

I'm only using the SWP and SP as examples since they are directly connected with this thread. I'm more interested in the general point and don't have much interest in going into details, but you seem to be rather confirming my point. You are effectively saying that there are no SP mailing lists beyond those run by the CWI international - which seems to me to indicate a vey high level of centralisation. Is the moderation policy and appointment of moderators directly decided upon by all members or is it set by the CWI leadership?

QUOTE: "I note your objection to my use of the term “anarchoid”, as “demeaning”. I use it to differentiate actual anarchists from the slightly larger and significantly less coherent milieu they currently co-exist with. I think that anarchists themselves do it by distinguishing between (narrower) anarchists and (broader) “libertarians”, but I’m not as inclined towards generous language. It may not be the term they choose themselves but as someone who as a matter of course uses the term “Leninist” to describe people who use the self descriptions “socialist” or “Marxist”, your complaints ring a little hollow."

You are using the term anarchoid to lump together a group of people who have a wide range of different political identities, from social democracy to environmentalism, but who prefer non-hierarchical directly democratic forms of organisation. I have only ever seen the term 'anarchoid' used by Leninists as a derisive and dismissive term to cover such people. The term "Leninist", on the other hand, is used to distinguish Marxists who follow Lenin's tradition from the large number of other marxists and socialists who don't. It would be simply inaccurate to substitute the term 'socialist' or 'marxist' for Leninist in what I wrote.

QUOTE: "Indymedia emerged on a global scale out of the broadly, ahem, "libertarian" side of the anti-capitalist movement. Your lot, so to speak, were here first, acclimatised to the medium first, and shaped the initial bounds and centre of the discussions. In so doing, people from that particular point of the political spectrum in general acquired more of a sense of "ownership" (if you’ll forgive the term). The opposite side to the same coin is that, for better or worse, people from other parts of the political left (let alone the right) felt less of a sense that IMCs were "for" them."

As Ray has pointed out anarchists have always been a small minority among Indymedia.ie editors. When the site first started there was one SWP editor, one Green party editor and no anarchists. The SWP obviously took a decision at some stage to scale back their involvement - due to the fact that it became obvious that they could not exercise any control over the information. This over-representation is also not confined to indymedia - it spans the whole internet. You can hardly claim that anarchists own the internet!

QUOTE: "To its credit, despite the occasionally toxic atmosphere, indymedia.ie has made more of an effort to include others than many IMCs (note for example the openly exclusionary policy of the UK IMC). That is, in my view, a good thing. Your use of a partial failure to achieve that laudable goal as evidence that there is something wrong with those not yet as involved as some anarchists, is to my mind just the flip side of the smugness you would readily accuse the likes of Richard Boyd Barrett of – we’re alright, it’s those who criticise who have a problem. And to my mind it’s just as unattractive from you as it is from him."

I do not dismiss criticism out of hand. In fact, if you follow the editorial discussions, you will find that I am one of the most censorious editors around and that I have agitated for tighter guidelines and less license for trolls. However, not all criticism comes from a genuine desire to improve the project. RBB to my mind has a clear ideological difference with open publishing and that is the source of his criticism, not a desire to improve things. Therefore, I'm not going to get too worried when he tells us how terrible we are.

QUOTE: "You chide me for being too negative about the site, which only leads me to believe that you somehow filtered out all the things I said were good about Indymedia. I wish this site well, by which I mean not only that I wish it to increase its traffic but also that I wish its content to become better. Constructive criticism - and I think that the criticisms I have made have been overwhelmingly constructive - is a necessary part of that process."

I actually didn't intend to chide you. I acknowledge that both yourself and hs have made overall positive contributions to the site. But the organisational attitudes emanating from the SWP and SP have been generally overwhelmingly negative towards the project.

Finally, to the anonymous SWPer above. Firstly you shouldn't put phrases in quotes that have not been used. Secondly, can I ask a question. Persumably, during your seven years in the party, you have heard the leadership talk about indymedia several times. Were the opinions that they expressed likely to make their members enthusiastic about contributing to the project and taking it seriously as an alternative news system?

by eamgen cruggen Wed Jul 07, 2004 14:58

designed to make site less 'abuse friendly'. One that I thought was a useful rule of thumb is used by www.sluggerotoole.com which is a political blog / arguing about NI affairs forum - their general guideline that seems to work well in what can be a fraught atmosphere is

'play the ball not the man'

Now I agree with this way of policing things more and more but it does get complicated. Anyone from sp / swp / iawm want to pick out a couple of representative examples from this thread or elsewhere of what they see as unacceptable so we can argue about something concrete and maybe get a new ed guideline out of this thread.

by hs - sp Wed Jul 07, 2004 16:08

Obviously this looks stupid as a comment, but I think if we all took more time to write articles rather than only comments things could improve. Often an article on x will be published but it will lead to discussions on x y z and his mother. This is good, but sometimes it could be better if a little more thought and effort was thrown in. if commenters took a little more time and wrote more well thought out articles, (instead of comments which can sometimes pass for rants) the quality of the site would go up. we could have more articles on more diverse subjects with maybe 10 or 20 comments. instean of article on A plus 100 comments on c d e f g and h. Anyway just an idea.

As for the SWP critisising Indymedia, fair enough anyone can critise anyone and if RBB doesn't want to read it its his choice. For the trolls thats part of life and just read the % thats good and ignore the crap, it'll go away eventually. (maybe)

by pc Wed Jul 07, 2004 17:08

im not sure how what others think of it but i think i've seen on indymedia's where people collaborate on stories a bit more.... i think when you consider writing an article for indymedia unless you take "to the best of my knowledge line" is a bit overwhelming to try and make sure that all your facts are right....(or perhaps theres gaps in your knowledge?) perhaps if there was some sort of thing where people could post up there ideas for stories (or half finished stories) and people could add to them then an original articel could be developed.... or even some one could go over all posts on one issue event and summaries it into artilce which would be quite illuminating...?

by John Wed Jul 07, 2004 17:43

I read the first 4 or 5 posts on this discussion and I really think that people should reflect before they write their posts because much that is written seems to inflame situations rather than help in solving problems.

Personal attacks on people like RBB are unhelpful. Calling someone a careerist is harsh in the extreme when there is no evidence that this is true. RBB is a member of the SWP. The SWP got involved with other groups to establish the IAWM. The IWAM was deemed by many anti war activists to be undemocratic. This was because the SWP were largely in control of the IAWM and decided (at a forum outside of the IAWM) to devise a strategy for the movement that many didn't like.

The SWP then entered into a struggle for control of the IAWM that they won but at a heavy cost. This led to the establishing of another ant war group AWI (?) This group has different approaches to internal organisation and internal democracy.

My point is that the SWP tactics have been devisive and have damaged the strength of the anti war movement and have also (so far) failed to ensure that the anti war movement established itself as a force to be recond with.

All of this dosen't mean that RBB or any other individual in the SWP is a demon or not a socialist or anything else. It just means that the SWP are prone to poor tactical decisions as an organisation. I would go further to suggest that these poor tactics are influenced by their crude interpertations Marxism and in particular their understanding of the nature of internal democracy within an organisation.

This is isn't just a failing of the SWP. The Socialist Party, Workers Party and to a lesser extent the CPI are guilty of similar shortcomings largely due to their slavish adherence to 'democratic centralism' a particularly odious mechanism of control within their respective organisations.

Having said that, I am under no illusion that the SWP, SP, WP & CPI membership and leadership are all progressive people who genuinely want an alternative to capitalism and a revolutionary change in Ireland that is socialist. Therefore any criticism of any of the above should be to point out how they could be more effective in building to a revolutionary change in Ireland and not personal attacks that target individuals. After all they are only taking these decisions because they believe them to be correct.

United we stand.........

by Jim Wed Jul 07, 2004 18:07

"Having said that, I am under no illusion that the SWP, SP, WP & CPI membership and leadership are all progressive people who genuinely want an alternative to capitalism and a revolutionary change in Ireland that is socialist."

Ok, fair play to John. I'm inclined to agree with his thoughts on this but I would say he is 'bending the stick' a bit too far on this one. I would agree that the membership and leadership certainly do want a revolutionary change in Ireland that is socialist. But I would disagree that they are progressives. Look at their MO and the way they have all treated dissent. Hardly progressive.

by R. Isible Wed Jul 07, 2004 19:04

The point is Nessie that I have to waste time reading comments made by your impersonators and then deciding whether or not it's you. GPG-signed posts which all contributors (especially posting as party-representatives) can do themselves _right now_ eliminates the problem of guessing whether or not it's Dave Lordan (SWP personal capacity) posting or some troll imitating him.

Those people and organisations that are complaining specifically about trolling based upon impersonation (and we have a fair few cases reported to us on [email protected]) can make sure that it doesn't happen completely on their _own_ without our intervention by GPG-signing their posts.

by Dub SWP - SWP Thu Jul 08, 2004 02:34 Dublin

In answer to some of these points;

RBB must not only be the devils disciple, but also have a huge amount of supernatural power if he could arrange for the IAWM buses to arrive just at the moment that you where approaching . Was it impossible to simply move ahead of the IAWM people without your rampage(I have no intention of retreading this debate, the point is , I believe your interpretation of the IAWM/RBB actions are WRONG )
Yet again you insinuate that we are some kind of police front.Comtemptable Bullshit. We have supported every workers struggle in this country over the years, raised collections and argued for solidarity across our union members.We have fought Church and state and confronted racism .
As I am certain many others have.
We have had several of our own members arrested in anti war,anti privatisation protests.You do not have a monopoly on confronting the state.
We are a revolutionary organisation. We make mistakes, we fuck up. But we want a workers revolution, not so we(or the leadership) can rule the world, but so ordinary people can take control of their lives and society.
As for questions about the internal debates on the IAWM;

1; I have ,on at least three occasions helped to organise delegations from my workplace to attend protests at Shannon, called by the IAWM and wholeheartley supported by us,and as our paper has consistanly highlighted its use, I fail to understand what the fuck you are on about on this one.

"2 Among the phantom groups memtioned was Ballyfermot. This group has consistantly tried to organise public meetings against the war in Ballyfermot, one addresed by Harry Brown. I am astonished by the claims that it is in someway unreal. The real issue here is that others feel that SWP members , even when they clearly have tried to build the local groups, are not entitled to represent these areas BECAUSE they are SWP members.Simply solution lads, bring more people to the assembleys and out vote us.

3.EXPULSIONS FROM SC;All but 2 members left the sc in order to set up AWI on their own steam. Those two where expelled for outrageous behaviour to others in the IAWM.Nothing more , nothing less.I personally will work with anyone, but I will not listen to personal abuse or sexist remarks for the sake of of anyone.


The more general debate here , aside from the slandering is interesting. Its based on NVDA verus mass protests.Ideally we want both. we want work stoppages againt this war. We have argued for them and our members have tried to organise them at the start of the war. We have defended the actions of the Catholic Workers and Mary Kelly. But , make no mistake we do believe that Thousands of people protesting down the street IS important, and can have an effect. To suggest that only the actions of a dedicated few matter is elitests and condensending to those thousands of people who begin to take action by first attending a protest.
This war will not be stopped by the actions of a few heros, but by mass mobilisations envolving millions, Feb 15 DID have a hugely positive effect .
Lastly. The SWP is not made up of middleclass people .I havent heard that one in years .Its members are overwhelmingly workers. If you knew more than the usual faces you see at protests you would know this.Not every member can make it along to protests. But in keeping with most of your postings about the party, it shows you know fuck all about us.

by Dub SWP - SWP Thu Jul 08, 2004 02:37 Dublin

What is GPG signing and how do you do it?

by Big Brother Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:12

True or delusional.
You decide!

by Newsvista Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:29

The secretary of the Irish Anti-War Movement, Sinead Ní Bhroin, has expressed confidence that the Irish government will withdraw refuelling facilities to the US military at Shannon Airport. Writing on the IAWM website, Ms Ní Bhroin said “We now have a lot of activity to action throughout the country and its amazing to have such a positive broad base of people to work with. All feels very exciting/positive/productive and I truly believe an end is in sight re the use of Shannon & Baldonnel by US military.” Ms Bhroin comments were written following the IAWM’s “People’s Assembly”.

Reporting on the Assembly – attended by approximately 70 people – Ms Orla Ní Chomhrai of the IAWM said, “Then Richard gave an introduction about the current situation in Iraq. Someone later proposed that this be e-mailed out and posted on the website and this suggestion was accepted. A few more decisions were: There would be a major drive to get the government to hold a referendum on neutrality by getting the petition together and getting thousands of people to sign it. That there would be an anti-war festival in Shannon in a few months time.”

Phonecalls to the Pentagon and Leinster House for a reaction to the IAWM’s programme of action and its confident prediction that US military refuelling is coming to an end met with no response.

http://irishantiwar.org/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0002O2&topic_id=1

by IAWM member Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:47

What happened to Colm. He used to be secretary. Don't remember reading anything in my IAWM bulletins about this change about.
Is this the same Sinead who ran for the Green Party in Ballyfermot? Have the Green Party affiliated?

by jack white - an ting Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:49

"The more general debate here , aside from the slandering is interesting. Its based on NVDA verus mass protests".,

what? where did you get that from?

i think if you paid attention you'd see that when people talk about NVDA vs Mass action its just to state that they shouldn't be seen as opposites, that it doesn't have to be ether/or. are you being thick or deliberatly disingenous?

by Kellerman Thu Jul 08, 2004 11:46

Members of the SWP who have offered a defence of themselves and their front, the IAWM, have shown themselves to be utterly incapable of recognising and admitting the enormous damage wreaked on the anti-war movement by their selfish and sectarian behaviour. “Yes, we make mistakes” they say, and then – like George W. Bush – can’t actually think of one when pressed. Well, I can think of one: the SWP has created a completely undemocratic front in the IAWM, yet their members can’t or won’t see it (and neither can several non-SWP people involved in the IAWM, such as the Green Party secretary of the IAWM). The SWP says it supports a “diversity of tactics” (“NVDA versus mass protests. Ideally we want both”, says Dub SWP above), yet their support for NVDA goes no further than a half-hearted defence of the likes of Mary Kelly. Where’s the call for NVDA, if the SWP/IAWM are so interested in it? They’re not. They just want marches. (I want marches as well, and I want civil disobedience. Equally.)

I suggest winding up this thread. Everything that can be said has been said and the SWP/IAWM has clearly learnt nothing. (And Dave Lordan has shown himself to be a liability, not the asset he obviously thinks he is.) Good luck to Ciaron O’Reilly. If this was Russia 1917, the SWP would have shot him by now. And the rest of us.

by Ciaron - Dublin Catholic Worker & Pitstop Ploughshares Thu Jul 08, 2004 12:04 087 918 4552 or 01- 492 6100

You ASK how did RBB know to abandon his march from Clare Castle and instead accelarate past the MACBUSH procession and have his stewards deploy (attempt & fail) to block & absorb MACBUSH. We were far from shocked and awed by this predicatable and boorish behavior.

ANSWER After we explained to the punctual 300 waiting in the Clare Castle car park the MacBush theatre concept, that a bigger demo would be along later if they wanted to wait, that we had no deal with the cops and we were about to take the street.....a guy demanded that we wait for the IAWM/SWP, accused us of "spltting the left" and jogged off to make his phone call to RBB.

My hunch (and I know it's only a hunch and it's reductionist thinking with a touch of historical perspective) is that the anti-war leadership in Ireland is heavilly infiltrated by the state. The state agenda is to keep the peace movement away from Shannon Airport where 10,000 U.S troops landed monthly on their way t o the invasion and plunder of Iraq. This has been secured by IAWM strategy over the past two years.I know others argue that the SWP don't want a focus on Shannon, because the organisation are only strong in Dublin and when things move beyond the pale they lose control. And the issue for them is to control the movement rather than resist the war.

The claims of militancy being a rebuttal to accusation of infiltration are mute. The (former police)woman approached by the Lancashire Special Branch to infiltrate the Liverpool Catholic Worker (1996) in the wake of the acquittal of Seeds of Hope Ploughshares - was promised that any criminal convictions picked up during her work would be erased. The guy who did infiltrate us was arrested during a civil disobedience action at British Aerospace Warton, charges were dropped before coming to court. He had a lot to do with closing us down in Liverpool and opearetd effecetively for 8 years as an agent in the English Peace Movement until exposed by the Sunday Times last year. So commited was he that he was attending a peace conference on the Saturday, the story broke on the Sunday morning, he didn't return for the conference and no one has been able to contact him since> Alan Pseudonym Fossey Rest in Peace!

You're not a worker orientated organisation, you focus on recruiting students and campaign surfing (you go to wherever the capitalist press say isd significant)..

You bodysnatch organic campaigns, asset strip and regard it as a success if you have picked up a few recruits on the way. When you leave for the next issue, you have left these campaign groups in worse shape than when you turned up in the first place. Some times groups like the East Timor Campaign in Ireland fend you off and end up liberating small countries!

Man I'm not obssessed with y'all...I think your protest politics are insignificant. At best therapeutic at worst moral posturing. As long as you don't try and deny me my civil rights you won't get any grief form me. You are not revolutionary...you like the other groups you work with are Representatiove Democrats who fear a grassroots anti-war movement in Ireland. You would prefer the movement waited passively at home, wrote their cheques and apeared on the streets every 4-6 months as a visual mandate for RBB to continue to speak on their behalf. The NGO's that makle up the NGO peace aliance are not pro-active on the war in similar way. They have they likewise have their media representative who claims a mandate from these inactive ( on the war) organisations! As long as this guy doesn't falsely slander us again (previously repeating and not retracting the state lies that CW5 assaulted & hospitalised a Garda rejected by the Garda prss Officer) he won't get any nonviolent grief off us either.

If you deconstruct the Phoenix slander, you will see a motive of boys ego. A guy who has spent years attempting to build his profile in the Labor Party on the back of the peace movement is resentful of the CW5/Ploughshares crew getting more media attention than him. And he's upset, so a bullshit leak to the Phoenix as churlish payback. Slandering 5 pacifists awaiting trial and facing serious time. Nice one dude, hope you sleep at night!

I've waisted a lot of this week fighting rear guard actions against this baseless slander, when I should have been working on solidarity with the four folks before the Ennis Courts tomorrow.(friday)

Do us a favour text (don't call) Lady MacBush/Kitty a message of support for court tomorrow!

Kitty is a single mum and has lost work/financially from ths stitch up at Shannon Airport on the day of Bush's arrival. Kitty was the only one ever to grace "Shannannamo" the temp prison built for the Bush visit.

FREE LADY MACBUSH- DROP THE CHARGES

Photo of Kitty (as Lady MacBush) on website below

by Solidarity - Free Lady MacBush: Drop the Charges! Thu Jul 08, 2004 13:41 Photo of Kitty/Lady MacBush on accompanying website! Solidarity texts to kitty c/- 087 244 266

Solidarity messages to Kitty/ Lady MacBush
087 2442666

by Akrasia Thu Jul 08, 2004 13:53

I would like to get down and support them

by Ciaron - Dublin Catholic Worker & Pitstop Ploughshares Thu Jul 08, 2004 15:34 087 9184552

11 am in ennis (brand new ) court...........GAA bar no longer!

As you are well aware wating for court is very much "hurry up and wait"....if you want to be updated during the day, text my number and I'll stay outside with the mobile 087 918 4552

by Ray Thu Jul 08, 2004 16:06

It get boring being proved right all the time

"Then they tell us that they have far more important things to be doing with their time - selling papers and collecting 'petitions' probably - than posting on the Internet.

Oddly enough, they never get around to addressing the substance of any allegations before they go..."

Still no replies to substantive questions from Dave, still no posts or articles on other subjects, despite his comments of a couple of days ago, and still no sign of him on the editorial lists...

by Anthony - Indymedia Ireland Editorial Group Thu Jul 08, 2004 16:09

A comment consisting of one long stretched out word and purporting to be from Dave Lordan was was posted at this time. It was hidden as it messed up page display by resulting in horizontal scrolling and such comments have zero news content. Such impersonations are also explicitly against editorial guidelines.

by finbar dwyer Thu Jul 08, 2004 16:09

David you don't have to post
putting yawn after posts about solidarity with people who are about to go before the courts is an example of why people are peeved with you lot. you don't seem to care about anyone who isn't your own

by conor (wsm personal capacity) Thu Jul 08, 2004 16:36

in absolute fairness I'd say thats an immitation dave Lordan
- If its the real one bang goes my remaining two nano grams of respect for the guy!

Conor

by OAP Thu Jul 08, 2004 16:41

after reading all the posts above my verdict is everyone involved in the wsm/swp/imc/iawm etc. should all step back and give themselves a long deserved rest! its all the same stale heads with old grudges and bitterness. new people new opinions new ideas is what is needed. we have reached a crux and its time for change. i brought friends of mine to the demo's in shannon they came to the campsite and really did'nt like the people who they encountered not mentioning any names but people have so much baggage and so little to say to new people, the same old people meeting up with the same old people. i know the people who attended the bush demo's do not represent the irish people thats not to say they dont agree with them but they dont want to be represented by a rag tag group of self appointed representatives.freaks and punks.
and as for the red satanist party go on holiday spend some time with the EZLN get out of dublin do something.
basically whats wrong with movement in ireland is the people involved all great people but way to much incest.....ha huh.........

by Joe Thu Jul 08, 2004 16:53

Urban75 gets a couple of positive mentions above so I thought people might be intersted in the thread at the link below. Most of it relates to the British SWP but it also includes discussion of a really weird report from the Irish SWP to the international on the situation in Ireland. Among other things its a report that invents fictional groups and fictional actions, very odd indeed!

Of course this all demonstrates the value of open publishing and comments. There is no way to correct these weird claims in the International Bulletin so 99% of the readers will remain unaware they are weird.

by The real Dave Lordan - swp Thu Jul 08, 2004 17:12 www.swp.ie

Not me that did the yawn. Imitation sincerest form of flattery and all that.
Don't answer so called substantive issues since thay have no substance. I think the swp bashers should try changing the record.
Greetings and solidarity to those facing the courts
Though as far as i am aware kitty is fighting her case completely independently as would be her wont. She's the kind a girl that would be distinctly unhappy being claimed by anyone including the catholic workers i'd imagine.
Like many other socialists i have been before the courts- 17 appearances in dublin district in last four years on three seperate charges-
and am well accustomed to police harassment. As many activists on this site will be aware i was the first person in history to be arrested for bullshit during a post genoa prisoner solidarity protest. I won all the cases in the end because the pigs are such bad bloody liars. But it is a drag being up and i sympathise with all who have to face them, activists and the hundreds of sick poor defenceless addicts and poor that go before them unnnoticed every day of the week.
Last time i was up there was three black prostitutes in shackles dragged up from the bridewell dungeon. They couldn't speak english and were denied free legal aid because one of them was caught with 700 euro in their pockets- obviously money for their pimp. All teh while the digusting pigs and teh judge were chuckling away at the poor women. There are a thousand tragedies a day in the district court. Maybe one of us should take a break from the bitching and go and sit there and write an article about it.

by Brian C. Thu Jul 08, 2004 17:20

can be found in the British SWP's latest International Bulletin (No. 5). The whole thing can be found at the following link, in pdf format:

http://www.istendency.net/pdf/bulletin_5_2004.pdf

"Really wierd" barely begins to describe it.

by Ray Thu Jul 08, 2004 17:22

(I'll leave all the boring stuff about organisational democracy aside for now)

You accused Ciaron from the catholic Workers of assault. Do you stand by that accusation? Are you prepared to back it up? Provide more detail?

by Peter Thu Jul 08, 2004 17:39

Do you deny shouting agent at people at an IAWM assembly in January?
You have said elsewhere that you find this behaviour below contempt, we have a right to know why you think you have an exemption from such behaviour.

by R. Isible Thu Jul 08, 2004 19:46

It's using some of the free, widely available software to create a digital signature for each piece of text you write. The links at the bottom of the URI below give more information:

by Slarti Thu Jul 08, 2004 20:42 slarti_mnini at yahoo dot co dot uk

Before I start, let me say that I think we should be generally encouraging the wider use of gpg. But in the context of indymedia.ie I'm not convinced it's the logical next step.

You're suggesting that people sign their posts to confirm it's them. The first thing that springs to mind is that the vast majority of people won't bother checking the fingerprint. Yes, it would allow the editorial list to be surer that someone was spoofing except that that brings me on to the second problem: In the absence of a login system, who is "them". Most people post under a pseudonym (as I am here) but most people will regularly use the same one (as I do). This is where most of the spoofing occurs. There would also be obstacles to people posting from internet cafes/libraries/work where gpg may not be installed, etc but that is something which should be fought so that's not my main objection.

If you want to stop (or drastically reduce) identity spoofing then surely the first step is to implement an optional login system in Oscailt. The objections to that above on this thread seem to relate to the idea that it would be in some way tied to an IP number which strikes me as a very bizarre idea. (A simple login/password system does not require any record to be kept of the IP number and there's no reason why two people can't login from the same IP.) Obviously you could also allow people to post from an un-logged-in guest account (or possibly, as they do, now under any name without logging in but with some indication of whether they have logged in or not - thus anyone can post as slarti but only I can post as *slart* or whatever).

Obviously this wouldn't be as secure as a gpg based system if looked at in 'security against sophisticated attacks' terms but it would be more useful, imo.

That said, I'm open to correction on the above analysis which is just my first impressions really.

Personally, I also think that threading the newswire could help make the bitchfests less of a problem. I don't know if it would increase or decrease the number of such posts in absolute numerical terms but if it allowed me to collapse/hide the rest of that thread but still read/post sensible comments on the original article then it might make them less destructive to the site as a whole.

by J. Thu Jul 08, 2004 21:26

Must be the longest thread ever on indymedia which might go to indicate how self-regarding contributors to this forum are. On the other hand, it's difficult not to get angry with the dissembling rubbish put out by the SWP/IAWM. The SWP have a lot to answer for with regard to their behaviour within the anti-war movement. Unfortunately they've shown no inclination to learn from the way they split the IAWM. If they can't work with people like Fintan Lane and Harry Browne it's clear they can't work with anybody.

And, by the way, I think Ciaron O'Reilly's remarks about Roger Cole are badly judged. How can you make such a judgement Ciaron when you admit you don't even know the man?

by eekkk Thu Jul 08, 2004 21:40

though longest for a little while - ucd election thread was longest as far as i remember - and least enlightening too as I Recall.

by paul c Thu Jul 08, 2004 22:12

- it seems that logins on other indymedia are mostly for remembering preferences.....?

- i feel sorry for non-swp people still working in the iawm, the iawm gets alot straight out criticism now cos most of the people we respect and think work on the level have left but remember loads of us used to be iawm members, and people were saying after the meeting on saturday that if sinead hadn't chaired the "conversation/arguement" might never have happened, but then again sinead seems to be defending the swp/iawm a bit too much... but perhaps cos she feels she's being attacked too

- i think the carole colemen thread is near 300 comments and still going

by Amused Thu Jul 08, 2004 22:18

Anybody you wants to know where Sinead stands can look here ->

http://irishantiwar.org/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0002O2&topic_id=1


:}

by paul c Thu Jul 08, 2004 22:52

oh i hadn't read that... i take it back!!!!! please

well although the sentiment of my posts still stands for me i take it back about sinead ( i don't know her) but she seems to as self -deluding as the others

nice open discussion there having between themselves there aint' it

by Anonymous Thu Jul 08, 2004 23:13

For those of you too lazy, or too 'sectarian', to check out the thread on this on the IAWM site, here's a brief - paraphrased - summary:

Orla Ni Chomrai (SWP): Great conference we had last Sat! 70 people! Brilliant.

Laurence Vize (Fairview Anti-War Group): Well, actually, no it wasn't, the attack on indymedia was disgraceful, though hardly unexpected. And, by the way, why were the notices for the Anti-War Ireland embassy vigil and the demo at Shannon repeatedly deleted from your website?

Sinead Ni Bhroin (RBB's PA and 'Hey, look how broad we are - we have a GREEN secretary!'): AAAAAAggggggghhhhhhh!! You're just a sectarian Larry. Leave the SWP and Little Richard alone! I'm telling you for the last time. I'm sick of this! Em, yes Oral, great conference. Magic.

Orla again (swply): Yes, it was brilliant wasn't it? First IAWM meeting I've ever been too - even though I'm an SWP member. The Kaiser asked me to come over from Galway to help give the 'massive' movement a sense of being, like, national. [Sub-text: other swpys came from Waterford, Tralee, etc. to do likewise. Ssssh!]

Sinead: It was brill. Too bad about those muppets who want to whinge on about the IAWM being an SWP front, and I really wish they'd leave Richard alone - he's so wonderful.

And on it goes...yawn. Geez, I'm such a sectarian, but for fcuks sake!

by change the subject Fri Jul 09, 2004 00:18

that iosaf ( either self-obsessed orbeing drawned to the dark side)

logged in and asked how they actually see the miliatary use is going relented by the gov

and orla pretends she didnt see it

by The bottom line_______________ - ______________________ Fri Jul 09, 2004 01:32

The SWP/IAWM dislike indymedia NOT because of so-called negative sniping (which does happen) but because it is an open forum that has highlighted serious problems with the way the SWP operates. The SWP does what it does best in the the dark.

The questions remain unaswered regarding their behaviour in the IAWM.

1. Why did they try to undermine the Shannon blockade on December 6th?

2. Why did they do NO support work for their PRO, Fintan Lane, when he was jailed for 60 days because of his involvement in a mass anti-war trespass at Shannon? They didn't even write to him!

3. Why did RBB organise a press conference behind the back of the same PRO, without his knowledge or permission?

4. Why did the SWP rig the national IAWM meeting in late January using fake delegates (all SWPers) from non-existent IAWM branches?

5. Why did the SWP ambush and expel two anti-SWP members of the IAWM Steering Committee - Laurence Vize and Mick O'Sullivan (Fairview) - knowing that Harry Brown, Fintan Lane and Tim Hourigan wouldn't be at the meeting (and didn't even know about the expulsion move)? They only told their supporters about the move beforehand - and it wasn't on the agenda that was circulated!

6. Why did the SWP/IAWM delete all notices for the Anti-War Ireland demo on the Friday night when Bush landed from their website? Repeatedly.

7. Why did the SWP/IAWM delete all mention of the Anti-War Ireland 18 hour vigil outside the US embassy from their website?

And now...

8. Why did the 'leader' of the SWP/IAWM attack a progressive left-wing open publishing website? Why?

Here's my answer: Because the SWP is innately sectarian towards those who question their priorities and behaviour. And because they operate in a sneaky, undemocratic manner and they don't want people to know.

That's what I think anyway. What about you Dave Lordan? Any chance you might try to answer the above questions?

by dave lordan - swp Fri Jul 09, 2004 12:35 dlordan at hotmail dot com

Isn't hilarious how those who won't put their name or organisation to their opinions accuse us of being 'sneaky' 'undemocratic' and 'not wanting people to know'
And so the personal abuse and unsubstantiated allegations which are tirelessly repeated by anonymous warriors with their own political agenda go on and on and on and on and on. Funnily enough they are the same list of crimes which are obsessively regurgitated by anarchists like chekov and ray every time the swp post something on this site. They have all been answered either on indymedia or at public meetings or other forums. I am not going to feed the trolls by going through it all again .
If i wanted to i could sit here listing the crimes of other organisations and sling a few accusations that would have a lot more subsatanc than the ones thrown at us. But i'm not that bored.

It is not the swp but the anonymous sectarians who are making a mockery of the good intentions of open publishing. To repeat myself if i can be excused the many people who are new to the movement, many of them more than happy to work with the swp, look at threads like this and are disgusted by the malodourous tone of a good deal of the so called commentary . This must piss off the people who want to see this site work.

by Ray Fri Jul 09, 2004 12:45

What, like this?
"I don't know what ciaron is like normally, but last saturday he behaved like a christian brother in dreadlocks.
He physically attacked three people
He verbally abused and threatened a number of others
He forcefully ripped a banner out of the hands of a group of young women, frightening the life out of them in the process"

Something you've been asked about repeatedly, on this thread. Something you haven't addressed. But, apparently, having a memory span longer than that of a goldfish is a _bad_ thing in the wonderful world of the SWP...

by conor (wsm personal capacity) Fri Jul 09, 2004 13:17

The Real Dave (poet of the people) : Isn't hilarious how those who won't put their name or organisation to their opinions accuse us of being 'sneaky' 'undemocratic' and 'not wanting people to know'
And so the personal abuse and unsubstantiated allegations which are tirelessly repeated by anonymous warriors with their own political agenda go on and on and on and on and on.

Sectarian me: Actually Ray another of the “sectarian anti party and anti union moralists" (see under Rory’s comedy reportage in the IST discussion bulletin http://www.istendency.net/pdf/bulletin_5_2004.pdf) has repeated a few specific allegation some of which were picked up by anonymous above – I’m thinking this is another area you don’t want to “engage” on.

Meantime serious and completely unsubstantiated allegations were made against Cioran O Reilly by Tu Fein any ways onwards and upwards

Dave: They have all been answered either on indymedia or at public meetings or other forums. I am not going to feed the trolls by going through it all again .

I haven’t seen or heard any of these – could you even direct us to a thread were an attempt was made to deal with them?
I’m interested to see what the latest twist on the truth is from the SWP high ups

Dave: If i wanted to i could sit here listing the crimes of other organisations and sling a few accusations that would have a lot more subsatanc than the ones thrown at us. But i'm not that bored.

Agh go on for those of us with a lower boredom threshold and time on our hands (what with been middle class dilettantes anti union pot smoking "moralists" and so forth)

Dave: It is not the swp but the anonymous sectarians who are making a mockery of the good intentions of open publishing.

Me: Anonymous sectarians like me Ray and Chekov ?

I think you’ll find the number of people who wander wide-eyed and innocent into working with the SWP is shrinking Nobody can be “new” to the politics of dishonesty and manipulation for ever !

Conor

by dave lordan - evil leninist brainwashing cult Fri Jul 09, 2004 14:09

In response in relation to ciaron. I stand by what i saw and what i said.
Everthing else is hack's hat and should be eaten with salt or without.

I was quite angry last week as is evidenced by the tone of my contributions last week on the other thread.
One think i do have in common with cioran is my hot-headedness.
But from the bottom of my atheist heart i forgive him. Its all over now and we should all put it behind us don't you think?
Conor/chekov/ray etc - men like myself with plenty of time- seem not to notice the ludicrous allegations about the swp made by Cioron. That does not surprise me

I seriously suspect the only people left reading this thread are me and the wsm/ ex wsm people and while you're all very nice and have good musical taste and all that i think, all of us being rather settled on our ideological convictions, that we are rather wasting our time at this point. So this is my last post on this thread.

by mark - wsm dgn personal capacity Fri Jul 09, 2004 14:28

as much as i normally dont partake in the eternal ' whats up with the SWP ' debate, cos it tends to be repetitive and wankalerily boring, i find myself today more provoked than usual...havin free internet access has notihing to do with it, i swear....
having personaly had little or no direct involvement with the SWP methods of decision making or otherwise being burned by the party, as so many of my fellow activists have, i have found myself in far too many meetings, gatherings or social occasions expending energy or wasting time as ive often felt, discussing the machinations of the SWP.....
for a long time this used to really really piss me ( and it still does!!!) but i have found that there many justifable reason why many many dedicated hard working and commited individuals are disillusioned, angry and vocally so, with the SWP...
This seems to be summarised and crystalised by the notion that the SWP party is more _important_ than the party members. Poeple commited to working and taking action for real and meaningful socail change, locally and globally, have been taken for granted, ostracised and basically came to a point of realisation that the SWP cares more for itself , ( weather this is external beauty, ie electoral success, or internal beauty, ie running a tight ship without dissent or challenge) than it does for the aspirations of real fucking people.

Why when a member of the IAWM steering committee was sitting in ljail could none of the SWP committee members write a single fucking letter of solidarity??? Am i alone in thinking thats a bit strange???

Why when activists decide that attempting to stop US warplanes taking off at shannon would be a logical, meaningful and empowering thing to aim for ( and fair fucks to mary kelly and the CW5...) that the SWP should condemn these actions as violent... Am i missing something here, am i not politically academic or somefink???

Why does the SWP continually side swipe at the growing grassroots movement,, such as suggesting that individual respondsiblity on protests/demos/manifestations is an irrespondsible notion, much less a workable evolving and empowering structure....

Basically i think the SWP as a party has a lot of souls earching to do.. it is my belief that there are many many individuals, perhaps even beyond the rank and file that have given and have a lot more to give in striving for a world that is about people in all thatbthat means...therefore it is obvious that a party or rather party leadrship that puts party interests first and the individuals who make up that party as a secondary thought is doomed in a movement that is about empowerment and realisation of the self as much as it is about communal stuctures and common equalities... Pretty much else is academic, the arguments over who said/wrote what will continue, and activist s will continue to organise, inspired by the creativity, hardwork and commitment of other people all around the globe (and found here on oir very own indymedia) and hopefully the eternal rage will be focussed whre it will be most effective. Fuck sectanianism and fuck all people and parties who sectarianise, but perhaps my energy is being wasted, perhaps they have already fucked themselves, perhaps we need not leaders to tell us, perhaps it is enough to start to do, to act for ourselves witheach others...but we all _know_ this already.... dont dbe caught in the belly gazing of political evolution... get out there and shake ur ass at all who try to contain our fires and desires..

by conor (wsm personal capacity) Fri Jul 09, 2004 14:41

Dave: .............seem not to notice the ludicrous allegations about the swp made by Cioron. That does not surprise me


Well I did and I will gladly put on the record that I thought Cirorans statements that the SWP were state agents are pretty ridiculous in my view

But you did make specific allegations of violence against the lad ..

Conor

by dave lordan - swp Fri Jul 09, 2004 16:00

This is getting spooky.
Cioran's aggression is forgotten. i wish him the best of luck in court.
Now anyone heading to oxygen?

by Kieran Allah - SWP -Socialist Wahabbi(1) Party - (1) formely Workers but there not to be trusted Fri Jul 09, 2004 16:39 (Tongue in cheek Street)

"But from the bottom of my atheist heart i forgive him."

Dave don't you remember the direction from the CC. No more of this atheist nonsense, we're all good Moslems now.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Home with the downies!!

Oxygen - Now don't forget the drink ban!!!

by Ciaron - Dublin Catholic Worker & Pitstop Ploughshares Fri Jul 09, 2004 20:12 087 918 4552 or 01- 492 6100

Bad news Dave, I'm heading to Oxygen tomorrow.

Glad to see the accusations are down from specific accusations of assault to an ambience of "aggression". Where will it be next week....hopefully to a post-modern appreciation about how middle class jackeens and working class australians relate when the former is denying the civil rights of the later.

Ched Myers "austrlaians are into aggressive intimacy!"

I did not accuse all swp members of being state agents. I shared a hunch that given the IAWM steering away from Shannon as a priority...this would dovetail into the state agenda. As a member of a community that was heavilly infiltrated, it would surprise me given the history of this political conext - if the state had not infiltrated the leadership of IAWM

If this sounds like paranoia, I recommend the excelent tv doc series last year on the role of speacial branch infiltration of the english peace movement.

We will be doing a discussion evening at the DCW in the not distant future.

I don't think I mentioned Roger Cole on any of my postings here.

by Starstruck - UCD Left/GNAW Sat Jul 10, 2004 00:30

Now that ive read what people have said on the matter of last Saturda i can only think of one humourous outcome.
Within minutes of my posting of the story we had SWP members commenting on the issue(something which is great and i welcome whole heartedly) after several members who would consider themselves high up on the chain of command said that they and indeed their party colleagues DO NOT visit the site.
Haha the irony of iy all.
Welcome to Indymedia chaps and chapesses.

by Ciaron - Dublin Catholic Worker & Pitstop Ploughshares Mon Jul 12, 2004 08:28 087 918 4552 or 01- 492 6100

See link for Sunday Times article on State infiltration og the peace movement.

Brough/Alan Fossey was deployed from Hull (where he acted as sec.of the Anti-Haws committee) to infiltrate the Liverpool Ctaholic Worker.

LCW was set up in the wake of the acquittal of the Seeds of Hope ploughshares that had carried out £2.5 million disarmament to BAe Hawks to be exported to Indonesia for the war on East Timor.

The LCW was an intentional nonviolent resistance community compromised of East Timores exiles and 1st. World solidarity activists. Our focus was on British Aerospace a major arms supplier to the Indonesian dictatorship occupying East Timor at the time!

by Ciaron - Dublin Catholic Worker & Pitstop Ploughshares Mon Jul 12, 2004 08:35 087 918 4552 or 01- 492 6100

See link........

by moonwolf Tue Jul 13, 2004 00:23

Do people have nothing else to do except talk about an irrelevant, obviously state infiltrated, pseudo political party? This really has got out of hand. Think of all the nvda you could get up to if these idiots didn't have you talking about them. I mean , lets face it how many of them are there, really?(not counting the directors of ops imported from the "mainland")

by Garoidh - Anti War Protestor Wed Jul 14, 2004 17:14

I sick of this infighting on the left. Just fucking grow up, you wouldnt hear this belly acking from a child. How can we build a movemnt when there is a whole artical on what some said in Liberty Hall. This is my last posting on this web site. You are all too interested in fighting amoung yourselves than building a movment.

by amoung artical movmnt Wed Jul 14, 2004 18:01

You can take out the gobshite (it was IMHO) reference if you want but the rest is true.

by dunk Thu Jul 15, 2004 14:32

agree with garoid

less of the bickering
be productive
be creative,
thats whats needed

if we spent the time now spent/ wasted on this shite on good stuff we would be more effective

ie
id like you to explore this idea, and try to make it happen
last night was irish social forum meet up, things are moving again

still its only a very small few
call for more/ all to get involved
do stuff

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64936&search_text=network%20project

can someone (from both sides) do a brief summing up of the main jist of the argument of this schism- IAWM (SWP?) -VS- GRASSROOTS/AMBUSH/DIRECTACTION/ANARCHISTS/AWI........

an indymedia workshop will be happening soon, what it is, what it should be, how it will be that....ideally anyone who wants a better world should use it and get more people aware of it and using it. i will be inviting IAWM specifically to attend, as im not sure all are aware of how good a resourse it can be/ sould be. as well as this one thing is
clear- a space for open dialogue is badly needed, for all sides and outsiders to learn discuss etc. so i hope the grassroots side will also come and all will engage in positive progressive debate/ dialogue

i still would like to see a "ranting section" set up on indymedia

goal- in 1 month richard boyd barret, as "head" of anti war moevement will encourage all of civil society to add to and use indymedia

anyway
enough of that, i have to eat

fair play to all who are doing stuff and taking action
its still only a small part of the irish population

how can this change

LESS NEGATIVE SHITE
MORE CREATIVE STUFF

by goldstein Sat Jul 17, 2004 01:19

God bless egos-it's like the spanish civil war(only without the killing, just childish namecalling) the "forces of the right" pose a grave threat, the "left" (everyone who apposes the right) respones with some sucess, then, having the tiniest of sucesses turn on eachother of control, without actually having achived what they set out to do! planning the victory celibration before scoring usually means you miss. As just an apposer of the war without disagreeing with the politics I find all this bickering to be misplaced energy. The current govt are fickle and after the heavy losses in the local elections will pander to the piblic (just look at the P.D.'s total change of direction and actually speaking out against the abuses of war) mass movement politics will work on 'em. The cockyness has been knocked out of 'em. Unity will achive what you claim to desire even if you have to stand beside someone you don't like to get it.

by paul c Sat Jul 17, 2004 02:29

Shouting we're all on the same side , or we suppose to be acting against the wars
is too easy
i admire your enthusaism dunk but its more complicated then that...

by shayne Mon Jul 19, 2004 08:31

We should be selling more parties and yelling boring shit into megaphones because WE NEED TO BE MORE REVOLUTIONARY AND DO WHAT WE ARE TOLD BY TONY CLIFF OE NOE HES DEAD OOPS.

by Anonymous Fri Jul 23, 2004 17:24

Totally agree with your sentiments Dunk.

Paul C – ref. Your comment - shouting we are all on the same side, it’s a I more complicated than that – I agree it is more complicated than that and there are many issues that need to be sorted out if possible.

But I think Dunk is appreciating that in his request:-

“can someone (from both sides) do a brief summing up of the main jist of the argument of this schism- IAWM (SWP?) -VS- GRASSROOTS/AMBUSH/DIRECTACTION/ANARCHISTS/AWI........”

If AWI and IAWM work completely separate, nay against one another, that would be crazy and unproductive. Sure, they are two separate bodies but I would hope they could work in some form together on certain issues. As far as I know AWI is all for working together. Lets hope the IAWM feel the same way.

Let us keep end goals and the wretched lives of those who we are trying to affect, whilst we carry internal analysis.

Also, if Richard Barrett claims that 60% of the content of Indymedia is pointless debate between tiny factions of the left and has no interest in participating – what about the other 40%. Is this 40% not worth engaging in??

Regards,

by Bafana Mon Jul 26, 2004 01:49

We should stop fighting among ourselves and work together to smash capitalism (as long as the SWP aren't involved).

by Padraic Mon Jul 26, 2004 19:37

The SWP aren't the problem, its certain individuals within the leadership of that organisation who are just congentially sectarian and unable to get on with broader forces (unless they're non-participating rubberstamping 'broader forces'). Witness how they behaved towars Anti-War Ireland in the build-up to the Bush visitation.

I reckon that minus one particular individual the SWP in Ireland would be much much easier to work with. Do the ordinary members ever get fed up with the sectarianism?

by dunk Sat Sep 04, 2004 21:22

imc films on last night
heres my feedback
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66327&condense_comments=false#comment85738

and i just posted to IAWM website
http://irishantiwar.org/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0002O2&topic_id=1
heres what i posted, its now up to them to allow this material to be read by the Irish anti war movement, i hope they do
i am part of that community (language and official names can become such a hastle) and would be upset if i was unable to be informed with this important stuff

Subject: Response to Report from the IAWM meeting


dia dhoibh

duncan crowley here, the guy who came down for this meeting from indymedia and dublin grassroots network

firstly well done to all for doing something to make the world better

i went down to the meeting as there are rifts between the differnent groups, that is plain. there does not have to be, it is stupid, we should be able to communicate openly with each other, resolve problems and from that get more and more and more people involved. and from that radically change the world

sinead

i am part of the imc-crew and helped set up the imc(independant media centre)-oxford when the uk site/ system decentralised

you state

"Indymedia as a concept is a fantastic idea. An open forum for the left to debate is something we all welcome. But the site as it is, thanks to the contributions of a small number of obstructive individuals is not an open forum for debate. "

i would absolutely disagree with your above post. it is an open forum for debate, and more it is a tool for info distribution, it is a machine for producing activists using media as the tool, form that we are making films, we are freely teaching others how to use vid recorders and audio equipment, we are getting more and more people to tell their stories, giving them the skills to tell them and the skills to get them to teach more.,

last night we put on indymedia films in the irish film institute, they were great. there was footage of your marches included.

we will be going around the country putting on films, we will soon be on the streets of dublin putting on films, we are informing more and more people about whats going on.

also it is very exciting, in my opinion the most exciting crew to get invovled with.

we must remember that it is only early days

indymedia, as a fantastic idea became a fantastic reality in only 1999 at the protests against the WTO in seattle, thats not even 5 years

its gone from 1 website and working group to 150+ sites/ groups in 90+ countries

indymedia ireland came to life after the protests in genoa against G8, so we are not yet 3 years old, so of course there are problems, i admit that, but to simply back off and not remedy those problems is, in my opinion, an absolute cop out.

richard boyd barrett, i respect, he does his job well, i dont agree with SWP in their methods but i respect that they put on a lot of free events to inform people, so well done, we (imc and dgn) could do with putting on a lot more,

anyway, when he was speaking as the "head" of the irish anti war crew and he said

"i have looked at the site a few times, i have never commented anything to it, and i never will"

that became a problem- i am hoping that in time you all will use the site, connect into the most progressive systme on the planet; indymedia, help us remedy little problems as they arise and change the world

last night we put on the films, tomorow there is the dublin grassroots meeting, maybe some people might come and add their views, all welcome. we carried out a very successsfull and hihgly enjoyable trespass into the airport and street theatre @ the armored cars, there were grannies and babies as well as punks, anarchists, farmers, and "normal people" like myself

i, as part of imc-ie would like you to combine your, IAWM, views of indymedia-positive and negative and why you dont use our network, resources, facilities, creative ideas.....

and from that post to us or, better still, post here on this site and on indymedia your "IAWM view on the problems with indymedia, from that we can put it on our paper and from that give it out freely

so thats about it, i encourage you all to look at and use use, tell us your gripes

as i ended up roaring at your meeting

indymedia is one of the most progressive systems on the planet- were all trying to stop the fucking war

slán libh

dunk

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66327&condense_comments=false#comment85738

dgn post re tomorows open free flowing discussion

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66388

by IFI attendee Sat Sep 04, 2004 21:38

If the IAWM, or should I say IAWM/SWP, are not interested in indymedia why did they go to the trouble of leaving some of their leaflets (about the Che Guevara meeting) on the table at the entrance to the indymedia screenings?

by an imcer Sat Sep 04, 2004 23:02

Does not imply anyone or any group is interested in or not interested in another. Why this constant sniping? This site should not for a constant stream of stupid unproductive provocations and rows. It's as time goes on more and more of an insult to the 1000's of positive contributions that make it what it is. God bless dunk for his positivity even if he is wrong about putting forward a cosy and all encompassing and fundamentally incorrect 'We' incorporating GN and IMC.

by paulc Sun Sep 05, 2004 02:00

it seems the swp haven't got the hang of the indymedia thing yet and they're still abusing it , posting they're events but not responding to question about them... as is the participartory point of indymedia

by Anthony - Indymedia Ireland Sun Sep 05, 2004 03:36

Saying the SWP abuse Indymedia because they refuse to answer questions is unfair. They are as welcome as anyone else to post details of their events and it's up to them to choose their level of involvement. The participatory nature of Indymedia can be enlightening and often works well for discovering relevant and pertinent information. Readers have the opportunity to get clarification of articles they read but the posters are under no obligation to answer the questions. Correspondingly, readers have the freedom to draw their own conclusions if answers are not forthcoming.

by dunk Sun Sep 05, 2004 12:25

imcer re "cosy and all encompassing and fundamentally incorrect 'We' incorporating GN and IMC."
i work with both these networks, im not implying they are the same, they are not.

my post is up on the IAWM site, so hopefully we will hear from them and recieve a short summary of the problems with indymedia and with that we can resolve them and improve things.
anyway talk in the real world with ye at grassroots meeting in town
ill be down @ moore st before hand, as its slowly getting destroyed.
anyway
slán

by paulc Mon Sep 06, 2004 02:09

Abuse is too strong a word... put they should play fair

by dun Mon Sep 13, 2004 20:41

see the african social forum in ireland stuff

by dunk Tue Sep 14, 2004 14:48

second attempt at ending divisions and demonstrating why indymedia should be endorsed by IAWM/ SWP....

went to the "chomsky chat"
audio clip included
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66514&condense_comments=false#comment86528

little by little
i also printed this article and brought it down, not sure who has it, who read it, what impact it will have
i hope more of the dgn/ imc crews do this

its a simple choice
but by boycotting talks, people new to the game take a long time to find stuff out

second, fair play to swp/ iawm for putting on those free open chats, better than no talks

imc and dgn events/ actions do rock, pity re their frequency.
so with that, as imc event. ill be at SARI over weekend
and at afro social forum in ireland with imc stuff. think more imc and dgn should come and have a presence, chat with people etc
anyone any ideas?