Sunday 25 March 2007

The Plough Vol 04 No 09

The Plough
Vol. 4- No 9
Sunday 25th March 2007

E-mail newsletter of the
Irish Republican Socialist Party


1) Editorial

2) Jailed for wanting a better society

3) Unfair Media?

4) Philip Agee

6) From the Media
a. Activistism-Left Anti-Intellectualism and its Discontents
b. Bolshevism, the Road to Revolution,


7) What’s On?



Editorial

In this edition we carry a rather long piece by three comrades from the USA entitled “Activistism-Left Anti-Intellectualism and its Discontents.” The article while dealing with the anti-war movement has something to say to us in Ireland whether in the anti-war movement or in republican opposition groups. Many young comrades come into political activity wanting to do something and so sometimes rush into a frenetic round of activity including pickets, marches meetings etc. In the course of all this action they sometimes forget what it is they are actually trying to achieve and when the energy runs out and they “burn out” they sometimes walk away from political struggle disillusioned. They would have been better to think, read and explore the revolutionary ideas of Marxism. We also carry a letter from a reader complaining about references to RSF in the Plough Vol 4-7. To give the readers a better understanding of the issue we have reprinted the original statement by the president of RSF along with a response to the letter. We are also happy to reprint an article from a comrade from the CPI, which is directly relevant to republicans and gives an excellent definition of what is a political prisoner.


Jailed for wanting a better society


“A political prisoner is a person who is being jailed for wanting a better society and fighting for a better life for the people” (Fidel Castro, 1997).

By Hermann Glaser-Baur

The 17th of March is connected to St. Patrick by most people on these shores and to St. Gertrud by many on the continent.

When asked about March 18th a majority on both sides of the waters would probably have to think twice. The old and politically important significance of the day has been “forgotten”; the bourgeois media are trying their best to keep it that way.
Until the 1920s the 18th of March was commemorated as “the day of the commune” because of the start of the uprising in France on March 18th 1871. 25 000 people lost their lives and over 3 000 died in the prisons of the French ruling class after the bloody defeat of the commune. Remembering them and the almost 14 000 revolutionaries who were sentenced to life-imprisonment was a central task of the commemorations and when the 4th world-congress of the Communist International decided in 1922 to found the “red-solidarity” movement (in some countries it was called “red help”), the 18th of March was chosen as the world-wide day of solidarity with political prisoners. Despite repeated attempts to ban it, illegalise it and brand mark it as an invention by the “enemies of the state” and terrorists, the 18th of March remained a day of many huge demonstrations of solidarity with political prisoners all over the globe. Saco and Vancetti’s lives couldn’t be saved but others were and the huge impact of the “red help” made it one of the first organisations to be banned by the German, the Italian and later the Spanish fascists.
It took until the 1980s until the German “Rote Hilfe” had been re-built and in 1996 they decided (along with Libertad, an anarchist group) to re-vitalise the tradition of the day of the political prisoner. Much needed it is, in a time, when Guantanamo Bay is only the tip of an iceberg of jails in which people are stripped of any human rights, tortured and murdered.
In Germany, to give but one example, Christian Klar, one of the early members of the “red army fraction” (often referred to as the “Bader-Meinhof group”) has been imprisoned for more than 24 years. His request for pardon is likely to be refused by the German president because he sent a message of solidarity to this year’s Liebknecht-Luxemburg gathering in Berlin. This is been viewed by the authorities as prove that he is still an enemy of the state.
Imagine: One of the leading “democracies” of the world denies a man pardon after 24 years in isolation- and high security prison, simply because he dared to send greetings to a gathering of 80 000 people who came to remember two working class leaders who had been killed by elite soldiers of that very state.
Klar’s case is in the centre of the “red help” publication for March 18th this year.

The term political prisoner has been given a strange tinge here in Ireland. People on either side of the sectarian divide would view members of “their” community as POWs and political prisoners whereas those on the other side are often looked upon as gangsters.
Communists have a much clearer definition: “A political prisoner is a person who is being jailed for wanting a better society and fighting for a better life for the people” (Fidel Castro, 1997).
Those people need our solidarity on March 18th and beyond – world-wide.





Unfair Media?
For release
1ú Márta/March 2007

Press Release/Preas Ráiteas From Republican Sinn Fein

Republican Sinn Féin candidates not given fair media coverage
Statement by the President of Republican Sinn Féin Ruairí Ó Brádaigh

Publicity regarding Republican Sinn Féin‚s six candidates in a similar number of constituencies in the current Six-County elections have not been given fair coverage by the print media not indeed by radio or television.

The excuse is that this occurs because the establishment refuses to recognise us as a party‚, regarding our six candidates as six Independents‚ and treating them as such. Minority viewpoints are getting scant or no coverage with the notable exception of Robert McCartney and his UKUP who is himself standing as a candidate in six different constituencies.

Republican Sinn Féin is organised throughout Ireland with a national office in Dublin and another office in Belfast, a monthly newspaper published without a break for 20 years and a coherent political philosophy as our election manifesto indicates.

A prime issue in this election is the question of English policing here. Our election workers continue to be harassed by the RUC/PSNI as they go about their work.

On last Sunday February 25 our Director of Elections Michael Lavelle was stopped in Lisnaskea, his car was searched and he was generally harassed. On Wednesday February 28 as he and the election campaign‚s Director of Finance JJ McCusker were returning from Belfast, following a tour of constituencies, they were again stopped on the M1 near Dungannon, had their car searched and were generally harassed.

On both occasions the election workers made their positions and responsibilities clear. Will Martin McGuinness and other Provo candidates who accept the British police in Ireland, in order to, “Teach them manners” (Their words) speak out now and condemn such tactics or do they condone them as an integral part of British rule which they have agreed to and seek to administer through Stormont?

Ends.
Letter on Comments On Republican Sinn Fein


Hi,

I don't believe your negative comments towards RSF candidates is very helpful in regards to seeing a united Ireland free of British imperialist rule. How can you make statements like?

" Republican Sinn Fein’s complaints that they were denied proper coverage in the media is really a pathetic attempt to hide the reality that they have little support from republicans within the nationalist community. Their obsession with “English” as in their statement of Friday 9th of March, 07 “To consolidate English rule” and “by unscrupulous English governments.” is a blatant attempt to appeal to a reactionary form of nationalism playing up people’s dislike of the English, a view shared by many people world wide. " (The Plough Vol 4-7)

You should know above any other about media control and it's effects. Is it not the imperialists that are in control of the media? I must ask do you have a problem with the fact that some people have a real aversion to the "English" being in and controlling Ireland. Is it not a fact it is none other than the English that conquered, enslaved and continue to do so to this very day. It is not a fact that the English are the prime target in Eire simply because it is England that continues to be Eire's master. I think it is pathetic, after doing your best to demean RSF and their candidates; you would then throw out a false olive branch stating that we need to consolidate.
At least RSF hasn't completely given up their stance for an armed struggle in Ireland as everybody else including yourselves have. I would think this might be a proper time to quote Mao,
"the power of politics is always won over the barrel of a gun"

sincerely,

Joe Mc Daid

PS. This is coming from a person that is a life long supporter of Fidel Castro and sees Che Guevara as one of the greatest men in the history of man. I have fought against imperialism my entire life. Che didn't believe in giving up the armed struggle.

EDITORIAL RESPONSE.

Joe’s comments are welcome as they provide an opportunity to openly discuss some issues that are sometimes left alone.

1/ First as regards the media it is true that they are controlled by pro-imperialist elements. But so what? They were also controlled by the same elements when provisional Sinn Fein first entered the electoral field. Despite negative media coverage PSF vote rose and rose because they tapped into a nerve within the nationalist population. They engaged with the people. Republicans have always had to deal with a hostile media. So that’s nothing new. RSF’s vote was small because they have little support. In West Belfast even the Workers Party did better than them.
The IRSP experience of RSF itself has not been positive. Their members have in the past mistakenly accused us of supporting the Good Friday Agreement. They refuse to work jointly with other groups. Recently on a white line picket they refused to acknowledge the presence of IRSP members on the picket. They refused to engage as an organisation with concerned republicans on policing debates. This elitist and superior attitude towards other republicans needs to be attacked politically and does Joe think we should simply suppress differences and not mention them. Lets have a bit of honesty here.

2/ We make no apology for attacking the use of the tern “English” Words are also weapons and these words downplay the actual role of Imperialism in its world role. To use the term English is to reduce the struggle in Ireland to an anti-English one. Many of our best elements of the English working class have supported the right of the Irish to self –determination. It also downplays the role British regiments played in the suppression of republicans including those made up of Scots and Welsh soldiers.

3/ As regards the question of armed struggle perhaps Joe can clarify RSF’position. I understood that they have no links with anyone else. They claim to be a stand-alone party with no links to anyone else. They themselves are not engaged in armed struggle to my knowledge but do support republican prisoners who have engaged in armed activity. That being the case one would think they would support all republican prisoners. But they don’t. Perhaps Joe could explain why they are selective in which prisoners they support. Might that also stem from an elitist attitude?
The IRSP position is that there is no basis for armed struggle at this time. And we have spelt this out clearly on many occasions. Those who elevate armed struggle to a strategic level regardless of objective conditions just do not understand revolutionary politics no matter how many posters of Che they have on the wall. One cannot separate either Che or Mao from their politics. Both were committed communists and both also engaged in building socialism as well as having engaged in armed struggle. Armed struggle with out politics is the road to defeat demoralisation and destruction.

4/As regards olive branches Joe the position of RSF as regards joint work is forbidden by Ard-Feis resolution so our suggestions were not directed at them but to other republicans and socialists. If on the other hand RSF began to reach out to others then we have no doubt that the IRSP would be prepared to sit down and openly and honestly discuss areas of agreement and differences with them.

PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE - Announcing the Visit to Ireland of Philip Agee




Gerardo Hernandez

Antonio Guerrero

Ramon Libation

Fernando Gonzalez

Rene Gonzalez




Free THE MIAMI Five





Irish National Campaign seeking Justice for the Miami Five




Campaign Update 11 March 2007



PRESS RELEASE

Announcing the Visit to Ireland of Philip Agee



After blowing the whistle on the dirty tactics of his CIA bosses in the
70s, Philip Agee was forced into exile. Thirty years on he has found a safe haven in Cuba, but his fight to expose the complicity of Washington in terrorism goes on.

Free the Miami Five and Cuba Support Group Ireland are pleased to jointly sponsor the visit to Ireland of this former CIA undercover agent and author later this month.

Agee is in Ireland to bring attention to the case of the Miami Five and to promote a new film by Bernie Dwyer and Roberto Ruis called "One Man's Story: Philip Agee, Cuba and The CIA". This is a follow up to the filmmaker's previous successful tour of Ireland with their "Mission against Terror" film, also on the case of the Miami Five.

We are pleased to confirm that all public meetings will be chaired by very distinguished human rights academics, attesting to the global profile of the case of the Miami Five and the miscarriage of justice that has seen them spend eight years in jail in the USA for seeking, through entirely non-violent means, to prevent terrorist crimes against
Cuba.
The following is the tour itinerary:


BELFAST Peter Froggatt Centre, Queens University Belfast, 1pm Friday 30
March 2007

- Chaired by Professor Denis O'Hearn

DUBLIN Walton Theatre, Trinity College Dublin, 7.30pm Tuesday 3 April
2007

- Chaired by Professor Ivana Bacik

GALWAY Town Hall Theatre, 8pm Thursday 5 April 2007

- Chaired by Professor William Schabas



Admission free, all welcome.









A shameful
injustice

Philip Agee



Saturday March 10, 2007
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2030677,00.html



There is a wave of progressive change sweeping Latin America and the
Caribbean after the many lonely years in which Cuba held high the torch, with free universal healthcare and education, and world-class cultural, sports and scientific achievements. Although you won't find a Cuban today who says things are perfect - far from it - probably all would agree that compared with pre-revolutionary Cuba, there is a world of improvement.

George Bush, the antithesis of this process, is now in Brazil at the start of a mission to lure five countries away from regional economic integration. However, the many thousands in the streets demonstrate the region's vast repudiation of Bush and what he stands for, something polls reflect unanimously.

All Cuba's achievements have been in defiance of US efforts to isolate Cuba; every dirty method has been used, including infiltration, sabotage, terrorism, assassination, economic and biological warfare and incessant lies in the media of many countries. I know these methods too well, having been a CIA officer in Latin America in the 1960s.
Altogether nearly 3,500 Cubans have died from terrorist acts, and more than 2,000 are permanently disabled. No country has suffered terrorism as long and consistently as Cuba.

The Cuban revolution has always needed intelligence capabilities in the US for defence purposes, even before it took power in 1959. Such was the fully justified mission of the Cuban Five, who have been in jail since 1998 after being convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in Miami, where they had no chance of a fair trial. Their sights were set exclusively on terrorist operations against Cuba - activities ignored by the FBI - and they neither sought nor received any classified government information. Their cases are still on appeal, and will be for years, but their biased convictions rank with the legal lynching in the 1920s of
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the anarchist immigrants, among the most shameful injustices in US history.

Current US policy can be found in the 2004 report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba (updated last year with a secret annexe). A fundamental goal - the same, I remember, as in 1959 - is the isolation of Cuba to stop this bad example spreading. If successful, this would mean no less than annexation by, and complete dependence on, the US, in fact if not in law. Other goals still intact are to foment an internal political opposition and economic hardship, leading to hunger and despair.

Yet nearly 50 years of US economic warfare hasn't worked, even though
Cubans estimate the cost to them at more than $80bn. After the freefall in the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economy began to recover in 1995. By 2005 growth was 11.8% and in 2006 12.5%, the highest in Latin America. Exports of services, nickel and pharmaceutical and other products are booming, and the US has not been able to stop this.

In the end efforts to isolate Cuba have failed. Last September Cuba was elected, for the second time, to lead the Non-Aligned Movement of 118 countries, and two months later the UN voted for the 15th consecutive year to condemn the US embargo, by 183 to 4.

In 2007 Cuba has diplomatic or consular relations with 182 countries, and Havana hosts seemingly endless international conferences. In recent years Cuba's resorts have been attracting more than 2 million tourists annually. Far from isolating Cuba, the US has isolated itself.

More than 30,000 Cuban doctors and health workers are saving lives in 69 countries, many in difficult areas. Meanwhile 30,000 young people from dozens of countries are studying medicine in Cuba on full scholarships. All come from areas lacking doctors.


Cuba's literacy programme, known as "Yes I can", has been adopted in nearly 30 countries, with thousands of Cuban volunteers teaching. The scheme, conducted in Spanish, Portuguese, English, Creole, Quechua and Aymara, has helped some 2 million people to read and write, most of whom continue their education afterwards.

Thanks to this international assistance, Cuban prestige and influence - and international solidarity with Cuba, - have never been greater. It was to defend these worthy programmes that the Cuban Five, unjustly convicted, went to Miami in the 1990s. Freedom for them should be the cause of everyone for whom human rights and justice are important, both in the US and around the world; and that cause can be supported in 300
Free the Five solidarity committees in 90 countries.
Philip Agee, a former CIA secret operations officer, is author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary. He travels in Cuba and Latin America as a campaigner, and manages an online travel service to Cuba.



For more detail on Philip Agee see: "The Spy who Stayed out in the
Cold":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1986660,00.html

For a review of the film "One Man's Story: Philip Agee, Cuba and The CIA" see:
http://www.cubasupport.com/PhilipAgeeTour.html

WHO ARE THE MIAMI FIVE?

Five Cubans who were trying to stop Miami based terrorist groups from carrying out violent actions against the people of Cuba. They were found guilty of charges ranging from murder to espionage by a court in Miami, which relied on the evidence of convicted terrorists. All are innocent of the charges brought against them. Extensive intimidation of jurists by these same terrorists was a feature of the trial. They are currently appealing their convictions.

CAMPAIGN AIMS

The release and exoneration of the five victims of this obvious miscarriage of justice.

CAMPAIGN DEDICATION

The campaign is dedicated to the memory of the 3,478 Cubans killed and
2,099 maimed at the hands of US-based terrorists groups since 1959.

CONTACTS

Campaign Chairperson: Eleanor Lanigan - 087 2426755 Secretary:
Simon McGuinness - 087 2360234
POST: 282 Clontarf Road, Clontarf, Dublin 3
E-MAIL: freemiami5@eircom.net WEB SITES: www.
freethefive.org, www.
FreeForFive.org, www.cubasupport.com

________________________________________________________________________





From the Media

ACTIVISTISM

Left Anti-Intellectualism and its Discontents

by Liza Featherstone, Doug Henwood & Christian Parenti

http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/featfeatherstone_activistism.shtml

"We can't get bogged down in analysis," one activist told us at an antiwar rally in New York a while back, spitting out that last word like a hairball. He could have relaxed his vigilance. This event deftly avoided such bogs, loudly opposing the US bombing in Afghanistan without offering any credible ideas about it (we're not counting the notion that the entire escapade was driven by Unocal and Lockheed Martin). But the moment called for doing something more than brandishing the exact same signs˜ Stop the Bombing and No War for Oil˜ that activists poked skyward during the first Gulf War. This latest war called for some thinking, and few were doing much of that.

So what is the ideology of the activist left (and by that we mean the global justice, peace, media democracy, community organizing, financial populist and green movements)? Is the activist left just an inchoate "post-ideological" mass of do-gooders, pragmatists and puppeteers? No. The young troublemakers of today do have an ideology and it is as deeply felt and intellectually totalizing as any of the great belief systems of yore. The cadres who populate those endless meetings, who bang the drum, who lead the "trainings" and paint the puppets, do indeed have a creed. They are activistists.

That's right, activistists. This brave new ideology combines the political illiteracy of hypermediated American culture with all the moral zeal of a 19th-century temperance crusade. In this worldview, all roads lead to more activism and more activists. And the one who acts is righteous. The activistists seem to borrow their philosophy from the factory boss in a Heinrich Böll short story who greets his employees each morning with the exhortation "Let's have some action." To which the workers obediently reply: "Action will be taken!"

Activists unconsciously echoing factory bosses? The parallel isn't as far-fetched as it might seem, as another German, Theodor Adorno, suggests. Adorno˜who admittedly doesn't have the last word on activism, since he called the cops on University of Frankfurt demonstrators in 1968˜nonetheless had a good point when he criticized the student and antiwar movement of the 1960s for what he called "actionism." In his eyes this was an unreflective "collective compulsion for positivity that allows its immediate translation into practice." Though embraced by people who imagine themselves to be radical agitators, that thoughtless compulsion mirrors the pragmatic empiricism of the dominant culture˜"not the least way in which actionism fits so smoothly into society's prevailing trend." Actionism, he concluded, "is regressive.... It refuses to reflect on its own impotence."

It may seem odd to cite this just when activistism appears to be working fine. Protest is on an upswing; even the post-9/11 frenzy of terror baiting didn't shut down the movement. Demonstrators were out in force to protest the World Economic Forum, with a grace and discipline that buoyed spirits worldwide. The youth getting busted, gassed and trailed by the cops are putting their bodies on the line to oppose global capital; they are brave and committed, even heroic.

But is action enough? We pose this question precisely because activism seems so strong. The flipside of all this agitation is a corrosive and aggressive anti-intellectualism. We object to this hostility toward thinking-not only because we've all got a cranky intellectual bent, but also because it limits the movement's transformative power. Our gripe is historically specific. If everyone was busy with bullshit doctrinal debates we would prescribe a little anti-intellectualism. But that is not the case right now.

The Real Price of Not Thinking

How does activist anti-intellectualism manifest on the ground? One instance is the reduction of strategy to mere tactics, to horrible effect. Take for example the largely failed San Francisco protest against the National Association of Broadcasters, an action that ended up costing tens of thousands of dollars, gained almost no attention, had no impact on the NAB and nearly ruined one of the sponsoring organizations. During a postmortem discussion of this debacle one of the organizers reminded her audience that: "We had 3,000 people marching through [the shopping district] Union Square protesting the media. That's amazing. It had never happened before." Never mind the utter non-impact of this aimless march. The point was clear: We marched for ourselves. We were our own targets. Activism made us good.

Thoughtless activism confuses the formulation of political aims. One of us was on a conference panel during which an activist lawyer went on about the virtues of small businesses, and the need for city policy to encourage them. When it was pointed out that enthusiasm for small business should be tempered by a recognition that smaller businesses tend to pay less, are harder to organize, offer fewer fringe benefits and are more dangerous than larger businesses, the lawyer dismissed this as "the paralysis of analysis." On another panel, when it was pointed out that Alinsky-style community organizing is a practical and theoretical failure whose severe limitations need to be recognized, an organizer and community credit union promoter shut down the conversation with a simple: "I just don't want to discuss this."

The antiwar "movement" is perhaps the most egregious recent example of a promising political phenomenon that was badly damaged by the anti-intellectual outlook of activistism. While activists frequently comment on the success of the growing peace movement˜many actions take place, conferences are planned, new people become activists˜no one seems to notice that it's no longer clear what war we're protesting. Repression at home? Future wars in Somalia? Even in the case of Afghanistan, it turned out to be important to have something to say to skeptics who asked: "What's your alternative? I think the government should protect me from terrorists, and plus this Taliban doesn't seem so great." The movement failed to address such questions, and protests dwindled.

On some college campuses, by contrast, where the war has been seen as a complicated opportunity for conversation rather than sign-waving, the movement has done better. But everywhere, the unwillingness to think about what it means to be against the war and how war fits into the global project of American empire has also led to a poverty of thinking about what kind of actions make sense. "How can we strategically affect the situation?" asks Lara Jiramanus of Boston's Campus Anti-War Coalition. "So we want to stop the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan˜what does it mean to have that as our goal? I don't think we talk about that enough."

We're not arguing for conformist ideologies. The impulse to resist hierarchy and mind-control is one of the more appealing and useful facets of the new activism. Consider the campus anti-sweatshop movement, which includes members of the International Socialist Organization, SDS-type radical democrats, anarchists and plain-vanilla liberals. This movement's willingness to embrace radicals and non-radicals alike has been a strength, attracting both policy wonks and people who like to chain their throats to the dean's desk. Such flexibility is usually commendable. What bothers us about activistism as an ideology is that it renders taboo any discussion of ideas or beliefs, and thus stymies both thought and action.

Thoughtful people find censorious hyper-pragmatism alienating and can drop away from organizing as a result. But that's not the only problem. It's important to encourage better thinking, says Jiramanus, "so hippie-to-yuppie doesn't happen again." As she points out, without an analysis of what's really wrong with the world˜or a vision of the better world you're trying to create˜people have no reason to continue being activists once a particular campaign is over. In this way, activistism plus single-issue politics can end up defeating itself. Activistism is tedious, and its foot soldiers suffer constant burnout. Thinking, after all, is engaging; were it encouraged, Jiramanus pleads, "We'd all be enjoying ourselves a bit more."

Increasingly, there are activists who treat ideas as important. "We need to develop a new rhetoric that connects sweat-shops˜and living wage and the right to organize˜to the global economy," says the University of Michigan's Jackie Bray, an anti-sweatshop activist. Liana Molina of Santa Clara University agrees: "I think our economic system determines everything!" But about the student movement's somewhat vague ideology, she has mixed feelings. "It's good to be ambiguous and inclusive," so as not to alienate more conservative, newer or less politicized members, she says. "But I also think a class analysis is needed. Then again, that gets shady, because people are like, 'Well, what are you for, socialism? What?'"

The problem is that activists like Molina who are asking the difficult questions that push into new political terrain are very often forced to operate in frustrating isolation, without the support of a community of fellow thinkers.

From Whence Came This Malady?

Steve Duncombe, a Direct Action Network activist, author and NYU professor, says his fellow activists "think very little about capitalism outside a moral discourse: Big is bad, and nothing about the state except in a sort of right-wing dismissal-state as authoritarian daddy."

Activistism is also intimately related to the decline of marxism, which at its best thrived on debates about the relations between theory and practice, part and whole. Unfortunately, much of this tradition has devolved into the alternately dreary and hilarious rants in sectarian papers. Marxism's decline (but not death: the three of us would happily claim the name) has led to wooly ideas about a nicer capitalism, and an indifference to how the system works as a whole. This blinkering is especially virulent in the US where a petit-bourgeois populism is the native radical strain, and anti-intellectualism is almost hard-wired into the culture. And because activistism emphasizes practicality, achievability and implementation over all else, a theory dedicated to understanding deep structures with an eye toward changing them necessarily gets shunted aside.

Marxism's decline isn't just an intellectual concern˜it too has practical effects. If you lack any serious understanding of how capitalism works, then it's easy to delude yourself into thinking that moral appeals to the consciences of CEOs and finance ministers will have some effect. You might think that central banks' habit of provoking recessions when the unemployment rate gets too low is a policy based on a mere misunderstanding. You might think that structural adjustment and imperial war are just bad lifestyle choices.

Unreflective pragmatism is also encouraged by much of the left's dependency on foundations. Philanthropy's role in structuring activism is rarely discussed, because almost everyone wants a grant (including us). But it should be. Foundations like focused entities that undertake specific politely meliorative schemes. They don't want anyone to look too closely at the system that's given them buckets of money that less fortunate people are forced to bay for.

Nonprofit culture fosters an array of mind-killing practices. Brainstorming on butcher paper and the use of breakout groups are effective methods for generating and collecting ideas and/or organizing pieces of a larger action. However, when used to organize political discussions these nonprofit tools can be disastrous. More often than not, everybody says something, breakout groups report back to the whole group, lists are compiled-and nothing really happens.

What is to be Done?

Our point is not that there should be less activism. The left is nothing without visible, disruptive displays of power. We applaud activism and engage in it ourselves. What we are calling for is an assault on the stupidity that pervades American culture. This implies a more democratic approach to the life of the mind and creating spaces for ideas in our lives and political work.

We're not calling for leadership by intellectuals. On the contrary, we challenge left activist culture to live up to its anti-hierarchical claims: Activists should themselves become intellectuals. Why reproduce the larger society's division between mental and physical labor? The rousing applause for Noam Chomsky at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre was hardly undeserved, but ideas don't belong on pedestals. They belong in the street, at work, in the home, at the bar and on the barricades.

We put out this call˜to indulge a bit of activistism lingo˜because the current moment demands some thinking. With still-wide approval for Bush and his endless war, waving one's Stop the Bombing sign from ten years ago won't build a mass movement.

The movement is also undergoing a fascinating rhetorical shift, as activists reject terms like "anti-globalization," which emphasized˜not very lucidly˜what they're against, in favor of slogans like "Another world is possible," which dare to evoke the possibility of radically different economic arrangements. What would that other world look like?

Activists must engage that question˜and to do so, they have to do a better job of understanding how this world really works. Intellectuals briefing activist groups on some aspect of how things are often face a tediously reductive question: "That's all very interesting, but how can we organize around that? What would be the slogans?"

The spirit we wish to inspire was expressed a few years ago by a Latin American graduate student. Seeing one of us holding a copy of Aijaz Ahmad's In Theory, he exclaimed with all seriousness:
"That book is like having an intellectual grenade in your hand. Hasta la victoria."
In many other countries, activists' tiny apartments are stacked with the well-thumbed works of Bakunin, Marx and Fanon. We'd like to see that kind of engagement here. And judging at least from the European experience, it would pay off even in activistism's own pragmatic terms: Protests in major European cities routinely dwarf our own, and activists there have far more influence on mainstream discourse and even government policy. In the long run, movements that can't think can't really do too much either.




Bolshevism, the Road to Revolution,

(This book was launched at the book fair in Cuba and is 758 pages long andwas sold for 50 Cuban pesos. Alan Woods has visited Cuban previously to launch REASON AND REVOLUTION, the book which he wrote together with his long-time comrade Ted Grant, published here last year.

(On March 6, Granma daily ran a FOUR-PAGE LONG FEATURE ANALYSIS of Iran and U.S. war threats against it, also written by Alan Woods: http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/news/art19.html Keep in mind Granma is an eight-page paper and this took up half of the paper.)
==================================================================

GRANMA
February 16, 2007

http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs1175.html
A CubaNews translation by Ana Portela.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.

original:
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2007/02/16/cultura/artic06.html

An instructive book for today’s revolutionaries.
OCTAVIO BORGES

The title, Bolshevism, the Road to Revolution, by the British writer, Alan
Woods, presented at the Cuban XVI international Book Fair, 2007, is an instrument of struggle for today’s revolutionaries.

Published by the Friedrich Engels Foundation in Spain, the text revives original sources of Marxism and demonstrates important means to conduct a revolutionary process and the fundamental need to count on a solid vanguard party.

Woods explained that, after the fall of the USSR, reactionary forces pronounced the death of socialism, communism and Marxism and an opening up of a period of peace and prosperity, which was soon broadly disproved by reality.

There is nothing left of these bourgeois illusions today, he emphasized, adding that, although fierce campaigns of lies still continue against Marxism, its ideas are still very valid today and so necessary for the new generations who want to change the world.

According to the considered opinion of the British researcher, any person who does not know history has no choice but to act in ignorance. For this reason, it is absolutely fundamental for new generations to fully know the theories and practice of Marxism, among which are the need for a party to lead the masses.
He pointed out that this book is for the present and future and explained that the Bolshevik Party that led the Russian Revolution was very democratic, alive and bonded to the working class and not the monster of totalitarianism which the bourgeoisie presents it as.





What’s On?



We won’t pay campaign-Anti-Water rates campaign
7.30pm Monday 26th March
Larne Leisure Centre
Bawnmore, Belfast
7pm Wednesday 28th March
Millgreen Youth Centre
Shankill Rd, Belfast
7pm Thursday 29th March
Shankill Leisure Centre


Coiste na nIarchimí

In Partnership with the Belfast Film Festival presents
Societies In Transition: Policing For The People

Queens Film Theatre
20 University Square, Belfast
Thursday 29th March
10.00 a.m.

Screening of highlights from Barry Curran’s documentary for Northern Visions/NvTv, ‘Sinn Féin and Policing’ featuring interviews with Gerry Kelly (SF), Alex Atwood (SDLP,) Anthony McIntyre (journalist)
and Jude Collins (Broadcaster)

The film will be followed by a panel discussion between

Jim Auld - Community Restorative Justice (Falls Road)
Tom Winston - Alternatives (Shankill Road)
Dawn Purvis - (PUP MLA and member of Policing Board)
Jennifer McCann - (Sinn Féin MLA)
Admission Free - Everyone Welcome








Here are the films that will be screened here at an Chultúrlann as part of
the Belfast Film Festival.

7.30pm, Monday 26th March - Sacco and Vanzetti, Tickets £4.50/£3.50
IRISH PREMIERE

7.30pm, Wednesday 28th March - Mise Éire, Tickets £4.50/£3.50
Scannáin ar stair 1916 le léacht beag riomh le Fiontán de Brún
Historical film on 1916 with a short lecture before with Fiontán de Brún
10.00am & 1.00pm Thursday 29th March - Mise Éire Schools Screenings,
Tickets £3.50 7:30pm Thursday 29th March - Frongoch £4.50/£3.50

7.30pm Friday 30th March - My Country My Country, Tickets £4.50/£3.50
Scannán faoi cogadh Iraq a bhain Oscar
An oscar winning film about the Iraq war
Jameson BoxOffice: 02890330443 or you can now book tickets online at www.belfastfilmfestival.org




___________________________________





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The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have re-launched their website.
It can be viewed at www.rsym.org.
Republican Socialist Youth Movement. www.rsym.org




An Glór / The Voice
News sheet of Belfast Republican Socialist Youth Movement
January 2007
Circulation: 400

- Brit police never acceptable
- Maghaberry Prison protest continues
- Assets Recovery Agency, a question of money
- Support the Turkish death fast
- Ard Fheis rejects any move towards INLA decommissioning
- Volunteer Davy McNutt RIP

http://www.rsym.org/pdf/magazines/anGlor1.pdf



The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have produced a short video on the situation concerning Shannon airport and its continued use by American troops and the CIA. The video can be viewed at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH0WqJb95l8 .


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It is the policy of the Plough to acknowledge information and articles from other sources.



The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have re-launched their website.

It can be viewed at

www.rsym.org



An Glór / The Voice

News sheet of Belfast Republican Socialist Youth Movement

January 2007

Circulation: 400



- Brit police never acceptable

- Maghaberry Prison protest continues

- Assets Recovery Agency, a question of money

- Support the Turkish death fast

- Ard Fheis rejects any move towards INLA decommissioning

- Volunteer Davy McNutt RIP

http://www.rsym.org/pdf/magazines/anGlor1.pdf



The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have produced a short video on the situation concerning Shannon airport and its continued use by American troops and the CIA. The video can be viewed at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH0WqJb95l8



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Wednesday 21 March 2007

The Plough Vol 04 No 08

The Plough


Web site http://www.theplough.netfirms.com


Vol. 4- No 8


Wednesday 21st March 2007


E-mail newsletter of the
Irish Republican Socialist Party

1) Editorial

2) Coalition Against Water Charges

3) 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE TREATY OF ROME

4) RSYM Statement on Noel Maguire

5) Trade Union News

a. ATGWU insists ESB break-up will not benefit consumers
b. Solidarity with Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions


6) Letters
a. The Perspectives of the IRSP

b. Is the SEA prepared to engage with the IRSP?


7) What’s On?


Editorial.
This edition carries material from the Coalition Against Water Charges and we advise all activists to read and absorb the material therein. All over the North meetings have been held on this issue and there is no doubt that it is one current issue that has the potential to unite people as never before. Unfortunately there are a number of so called “campaigns” on the water issue set up so that this or that group could claim “leadership” of the struggle. Real leadership is however something that is not achieved by self-proclamation but is earned during the actual course of not one but many struggles. Some groups on the left seem to think that they and they alone are the real leaders of the class struggle and refuse to even acknowledge the existence of other socialists or Marxists or republicans. They do socialism a grave disservice. We say this not in a spirit of political sectarianism but in a spirit of regret. The forces for socialism are so small, squeezed, as we are between two major sectarian blocks that the prospects might seem bleak to reach out to the majority of workers and convince them that the struggle for a socialist republic is worthwhile.
But the IRSP has optimism in the working class and we approach each issue from the perspective of does this or that action or position advance or hinder the forward march of the working class. For that reason we reject nationalism. As republicans we bitterly resent those in the PRM who embraced the same narrow nationalism that republican had for generations rejected. Irish nationalism today stands as a reactionary tool to divide people just as unionism does. That is also one of the reasons why we rejected the Good Friday Agreement. We certainly do not deny the progressive nature of the struggle for an independent Ireland but we have always argued that the struggle for independence neither can nor be achieve without the struggle for socialism. We reject any struggle for a capitalist united Ireland.
In saying that we recognise that there is a huge task ahead of us all to win the majority of workers to our socialist perspective. We certainly will not do that by embracing the same kind of political sectarian approach that others have. We have made political criticism of other republican and socialist groups. But that has never been a barrier to us co-operating on issues on the ground. For in struggle is how we all learn.
For that reason it was good that Fred Weston from the International Marxist Tendency could briefly address an Ard-Comhairle meeting of the IRSP and share his groups perspective on Ireland today and pass on some of the lessons learnt from international struggles.
We cannot ignore international issues and that is a reason why we include material on the European Union. National independence under capitalism has all but disappeared as the advances of Globalisation transform the world. The lessons of struggles worldwide have to be absorbed by the militants of the Irish working class. We may act locally but we need to think globally.

Coalition Against Water Charges

The government’s case for charges.

The government set about the introduction of water taxes a number of years ago. Their arguments for the introduction of the charges were as follows:
• That the Water Service was in desperate need of upgrading.
• That the service was rundown and dilapidated, many of the pipes having been laid over 100 years ago.
• That leakage of clean water was close to 30 per cent.
• That the demands on the service, because of population growth and the growth of new water based appliances, dishwashers, washing machines etc were going to increase.
• That the European Government directive on water, demanded a certain standard in cleanliness of water and this had to be implemented by 2010.
Few people could disagree with the idea that the water service needs an upgrade. All sorts of difficulties exist with the present system: Sewerage is pumped out into the sea, water is sometimes of poor quality and leakage is high.

The government argued that they had no funds to upgrade the service and would need to find funds from another source. They suggested charges and consulted on this.
At the consultations, the government argued:
• That we, the public, didn’t pay for water.
• That there was no allocation in the rates bill for water.
• That according to the European Framework Directive the water service had to be self-financing.
That the only way to get the funds required for an upgrade was to introduce charges
The government’s case is flawed.

• We do pay for our water through the regional rate.
•We pay approximately 40% of our regional rate to the water service.
•While there may no longer be a direct allocation on the rates bill that is where they get the money for the service.

• The European Framework Directive does not say that the water service has to be self-financing; all it says is that there had to be an adequate contribution.

• There are any number of ways the government could get the funds to pay for the upgrade of the water service. They have found billions for other projects.

• The government is committed to the privatisation of public utilities.
•That is the real reason behind the introduction of the charges.
The government has said a number of times that it considers privatisation a more efficient and cost effective method of running public services.

There is no evidence to support this view if anything all the evidence points in the other direction.

When privatisation takes place:

• The service becomes less efficient.
• There is less money spent on infrastructure upgrades.
• Staff numbers are reduced.
It is the view of Communities against Water Taxes that:

• Water is a basic human right and that it should be provided for all citizens through a publicly owned service.

• It should not be sold off to major multinationals or even locally owned companies where the sole reason for running the service becomes a commitment to maximising profit.

In England and Wales where privatisation has taken place the water service has increased prices dramatically.
The quality of water is poor and many people have to reduce the amount of water they use to reduce their water bills.
This often means not flushing toilets, having baths or showers and generally putting their health at risk
•We are suggesting that people refuse to pay their water bills.

•We know this is a big decision for many but it is the only decision that people can take which can defeat the government’s campaign.

•The government is going to introduce any number of measures to force us to pay.

•At the moment it is not a criminal offence to refuse to pay. The government is looking at introducing new legislation to take people who don’t pay to the magistrate’s court where we would need a solicitor to represent non-payers. CAWT is preparing a legal fund if this eventuates.

The more people who don’t pay the more likely it is we can win!
We at CAWT are saying that no-one should have to pay twice and that water should remain in public hands.

We oppose Peter Hain’s privatisation agenda.

We are suggesting that a mass campaign of non-payment will force the government to find the money somewhere else.

Water Charges were defeated in Dublin and
The Poll tax was beaten in the UK using this method


Coalition Against Water Charges
Water Tax is a Double Tax
Yet we already pay for our water through our local rates 37% of our rates bill currently goes to the Water Service. That’s why water charges are a double tax. The average household at present pays £225 per year towards water and sewerage services. If the Water Tax is not beaten water charges will rocket. The water company will be privatised and the demand for rising profits will lead to massive water bills. No household will be exempt from water bills — not pensioners, the unemployed or those on benefits. The reduced tariff for people on benefits could be scrapped in 2 years time.

The Water Tax can be beaten but not without a battle. If households refuse to pay, money cannot simply be deducted from wages. This can only be done by taking people through the courts. If we stay united they cannot take tens of thousands to court. Amass non-payment campaign would make the water tax dead in the water! We urge households to unite and ensure that no-one is left isolated. This means building a grassroots campaign of non- payment in every community. Non-payment and a legal campaign defeated the poll tax. 40% of people refused to pay. The courts and the system were totally clogged up and paralysed.

The Water Tax cannot be implemented if tens and hundreds of thousands of families say: “The

Water Tax is a Double Tax — Don’t Pay Water Charges!”
H OUSEHOLD WATER bills averaging £100 per year will begin coming through your door on 1st April 2007. In 2 years this will treble to £334, at least. THE Water Tax can be beaten. The poll tax was defeated in Britain in 1990. In Dublin water charges were abolished in 1996. Both were defeated by a mass non-payment campaign and a legal campaign to defend non-payers.
Don’t Pay Water Charges

email: watercoalition@btconnect.com www.waterchargesnonpayment.com




(1) 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE TREATY OF ROME - TEN POINTS WORTH BEARING IN MIND
Anniversary: Sunday next, 25 March 2007


1. THE EU'S MYTH OF ORIGIN: The myth of origin of the EU is that it was a peace project designed to make war impossible between France and Germany. The truth is however that it was the American Government's insistence on German rearmament to meet the needs of the Cold War that precipitated the European Coal and Steel Community in 1950, which was the foundation of European integration. The pooling of coal and steel under a supranational authority, the precursor of the Brussels Commission, was crucial in overcoming French hostility to rearming its ancient enemy. Jean Monnet, America's man in the affair, saw it as a way of pursuing the project for a supranational Europe, which he had been nurturing since World War 1. It was the Cold War, not the EEC - later the EC and EU - that kept the peace in Europe between the end of World War 2 in 1945 and the end of the USSR in 1991. During that time neither America nor Russia would have permitted a war between the member States of either rival bloc. After 1991 war broke out again in Europe, in Yugoslavia and Chechnya.


2. THE DREAM OF WORLD POWER OF THE EU'S FOUNDING MEMBERS: The six founding members of the original EEC had all been, apart from Luxembourg, imperial powers, with colonies and dependencies in Africa and elsewhere. France, Germany, Italy, Holland and Belgium were defeated and occupied during World War 2. After that war they found themselves in a world dominated by the two superpowers, the USA and USSR. Their traumatised political classes were still nostalgic for world power. They decided that if their countries could no longer be Big Powers in the world on their own, they would seek to be a Big Power collectively through the EU/EC. One formula for understanding the EU is this: Take five broken empires, add a sixth one later - Britain - and try to make one big neo-colonial empire out of it all.

3. THE NEED TO REPATRIATE LAWS FROM BRUSSELS TO THE MEMBER STATES: Two-thirds of all legal acts in the 27 EU Member States now come each year from Brussels. Only one-third originates in each Member State. This shows the loss of national democracy and independence entailed by membership of the European Union. The first step in remedying the EU's widely admitted democratic deficit is to repatriate policy-making powers from Brussels to the Member States. Any new EU Treaty should provide for this. Despite much rhetoric about subsidiarity from the EU Commission, there is not a single example in the 50 years of European integration of a national power that was surrendered to Brussels being repatriated. What is known in EU jargon, as the "acquis communautaire" is sacrosanct. That is why some call it the "doctrine of the occupied field". What Brussels has once occupied, stays occupied.

4. THE PUZZLE AS TO WHY NATIONAL POLITICIANS WELCOME THE GROWTH OF EU POWERS: Government Ministers and aspiring Ministers welcome the transfer of powers from the national level to the supranational because it means a big increase in their own personal power, at the cost of a diminution in power for their own Parliaments and fellow citizens. At national level if a Minister wants to get something done, he or she must have the support of that country's national Parliament. Remove that particular policy area to Brussels however, where laws are made primarily by the EU Council of Ministers, and the Minister in question, who is part of the executive arm of government at national level and responsible to an elected parliament, becomes a powerful legislator at EU level - one of an oligarchy, a committee of lawmakers, making laws for 500 million people as a member of the exclusive club of the EU Council of Ministers, which is irremovable as a group. Simultaneously senior national civil servants, who prepare EU laws in interaction with the Commission bureaucracy, are freed from questioning by their fellow citizens. There is an intoxicating increase in personal power for the politicians and bureaucrats concerned, and a corresponding reduction in the power of their fellow citizens, national Parliaments and countries.


5. THE EU CANNOT HAVE A STABLE DEMOCRATIC BASIS BECAUSE A EUROPEAN PEOPLE, AN EU "DEMOS", DOES NOT EXIST: Democracy means rule by the people, the "demos". There cannot be a political democracy without a people, a "demos", a national community, a "we", whose members feel sufficient solidarity and mutual identification with one another as to induce minorities freely to obey majority rule. Minorities are willing to do this because they regard the majority as their majority, that is, as belonging to their own people and national community and as having the democratic legitimacy and authority which derive from that. This normally requires that people are able to communicate with one another in a common language, and share the same territory, culture, historical experiences etc. That is why democracy can exist at the level of Europe's ancient national communities. There is however no European people or "demos" that transcends and is superior to Europe's many nations and peoples, and one cannot be artificially created from above by Brussels. The EU can therefore never be a genuine democracy. Cooperation between Europe's countries can only be built from the bottom up, with the free agreement of the peoples, not from the top down at the behest of political and economic elites who aspire to build a European superstate which they see themselves as running.


6. THE EURO CANNOT ENDURE WITHOUT A POLITICAL AND FISCAL UNION; YET THE LATTER IS IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE THE NECESSARY EU SOLIDARITY DOES NOT EXIST: All independent States have currencies of their own and all currencies belong to independent States. A currency is necessary to enable a State to influence its rate of interest and exchange rate in the economic interests of its people. The interest rate is the domestic price of a currency and determines the cost of credit to citizens. The exchange rate is the price of the currency in terms of other currencies and is a key influence on a country's economic competitiveness. Abolishing one's national currency and replacing it with the euro means that a country surrenders control of its rate of interest and exchange rate to the European Central Bank in Germany, which is independent of all government control. The ECB's prime concern is not the welfare of the country in question, but what it decides is in the interest of the eurozone as a whole. In practice this means the interest of the eurozone's largest members, Germany and France. The euro is a political project designed to give the European Union one of the key features of supranational statehood, using economic means that are quite unsuitable for that purpose. "The two pillars of the nation State are the sword and the currency, and we have changed that," boasted Commission President Romano Prodi in 1999. However there is no example in history of a lasting currency union that was not part of one State, and therefore also part of a political union and fiscal union, with the common taxes and public services which all national States possess. The existence of such common taxes and services serves to compensate to some extent the poorer regions of a national currency union for their inability to balance their payments with others by utilizing their own interest rate and exchange rate. Yet there is no possibility of the EU having common taxes and public services because the solidarity that is needed to underpin these - the solidarity that induces richer regions to finance transfers to poorer ones within each individual country - does not exist at the EU level. The euro-currency therefore cannot last. It is only a matter of time before the strains that stem from its member countries being unable any longer to control their own interest rate or exchange rate must force some countries to leave the eurozone.

7. THE EU'S EROSION OF NATIONAL CITIZENSHIP: All independent States have evolved over generations the right to decide who are their citizens, in order to maintain their labour standards or their social cohesiveness as communities. They are free to decide for themselves the rules they apply for giving rights of citizenship to people born in other countries. But in the European Union such fundamental features of citizenship as the right to residence, to work, to buy property, to receive social maintenance when dependent, and to vote in local elections, are automatically extended by supranational EU/EC law, following a transition period, to whatever proportion of the population of the other 26 member countries decides to settle in a particular country. Thus rights of EU citizenship displace key rights of national citizenship as part of the effort to turn the EU into a supranational State, in which European citizenship and allegiance to a new country called "Europe" will transcend and be legally superior to one's national citizenship and allegiance.


8. THE PROPOSED EU CONSTITUTION AIMS TO MAKE US REAL CITIZENS OF A NEW EUROPEAN UNION IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL FORM OF A SUPRANATIONAL EU STATE: The Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe proposes to do this by five precise legal steps: (1) This Treaty would repeal all the existing EU/EC Treaties and thereby replace the existing EU and EC with a new European Union that would be founded like any State upon its own Constitution; (2) It would transfer the powers and institutions of the existing EU/EC to this new Union, which would have the authority to decide all areas of public policy for its Member States either actually or potentially; (3) It would give this new Union legal personality so that it could act as a political entity in its own right, distinct from and superior to its individual Member States, whether as regards their domestic or foreign policy. At present it is the EC, as part of the current EU, that has legal personality; (4) It would make the Constitution of this new Union and the laws made under it superior to the Constitution and laws of its component Member States; (5) It would make us all real citizens of this new Union, and not just nominal or honorary EU citizens as at present, so that EU citizenship would be constitutionally superior to the citizenship attaching to one's own country or State. That is why the proposed EU Constitution or any replacement Treaty based upon it that would seek to replace the existing EU/EC by a new Union with its own legal personality should be opposed by democrats across Europe, irrespective of their views on other things.


9. WHY PEOPLE SHOULD SUPPORT THE INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT IN DEFENCE OF NATIONAL DEMOCRACY: The thrust of the EU integration project is to erode the democracy of the nation States of Europe. Internationalism presupposes the existence of nations. The champions of EU integration are seeking in effect to erode the democratic heritage of the French Revolution - the right of nations and peoples to self-determination - in order to clamp a form of financial feudalism on Europe. Hence democrats in every EU country, whether they are on the political centre, right or left, have a common interest in taking part in the international movement in defence of national democracy against the EU.

10. FURTHER EU ENLARGEMENT DOES NOT NEED AN EU CONSTITUTION: Enlargement of the EU beyond the 27 Members provided for by the 2002 Treaty of Nice can be done in the Accession Treaties of the new States concerned, as was done with previous EU enlargements. It does not require institutional changes or a Constitution that would centralise the EU further and make it even less democratic.


(These points have been issued by the National Platform EU Research and Information Centre, 24 Crawford Avenue, Dublin 9, Ireland; Tel.: 00-353-1-8305792; Please feel free to copy, pass on and adapt them as desired, without any need of reference to its source.)

RSYM Statement on Noel Maguire 20/3/07

The Republican Socialist Youth Movement support entirely the campaign to re-patriate Noel Maguire, an Irish Republican POW denied his human rights as a political prisoner.The collaboration of the Free State government in this regard has been sickening to say the least. It is open season for collaboration with the imperialist forces of Britain and the USA.

The case of Noel Maguire is just one case in a long line of political hostages, all of this at a time when the struggle for Irish freedom is something, we are told, that is a thing of the past.

The Good Friday Agreement is a cul-de-sac and compromise that ensures the Noel Maguire case is not an isolated incident. There will be many more men in the position of Noel as long as Britain occupies the north of our country.

We wish Noel, and all Irish Republican prisoners of war the best for the future. Their struggle is ours and we will campaign on their behalf.

Ni saoirse go saoirse lucht oibre.



Trade Union Issues
ATGWU insists ESB break-up will not benefit consumers
[Published: Wednesday 14, March 2007 - 07:54]
One of main unions at the ESB has claimed the Government's plans to break up the company will be bad for both workers and consumers. Earlier this week, Natural Resources Minister Noel Dempsey announced plans to transfer control of the national grid infrastructure to a new semi-state company, Eirgrid.
Mr Dempsey said the move would boost competition and benefit consumers.
However, the ATGWU says the move is unjustified and will not reduce consumers' bills by one cent.The union, which is due to publish its formal response to the plan today, says breaking up the ESB will damage the company for no good reason and workers will not stand by and allow it to happen.
Tr

Zimbabwe: Solidarity with Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions - for human rights and the rule of law

The crisis in Zimbabwe has its origins in the misdeeds of President Mugabe's autocratic regime and its mismanagement of the economy. The economy is on the verge of collapse, with officially confirmed hyperinflation at 1,700% per year. The country’s GNI shrank by 54% in 2000-2005 while unemployment today stands at over 80%. Protests against the regime have been led by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU - the ITUC affiliate in Zimbabwe), student, youth and church groups. Since the disputed re-election of President Mugabe in 2002, there has been a steady deterioration in human rights and the economy, reducing Zimbabwe to a land of penury and starvation. In 2005, more than 30,000 arrests were made and hundreds of urban dwellings were demolished under the guise of "a clean-up campaign" aimed at workers in the informal economy who had been increasingly turning to the trade unions. In September 2006, a large number of trade unionists and human rights activists were arrested and brutally assaulted following a peaceful protest over the state of the economy and shortages of essential medicines. Alarmed at the growing willingness to oppose the regime openly, including from within the ruling ZANU-PF party, the regime has banned political protests for three months, especially to prevent protests against the Government's economic failures. But the ZCTU and others have responded by stepping up their criticisms and protests, and a general strike has been announced for 3-4 April. Over the weekend of 10-11 March, the security services violently attacked opposition leaders and on 13 March, raided the offices of the ZCTU to seize materials about the strike.


=====================================================================From the Media



Letters





Dear Comrades,


The comprehensive coverage and detailed analysis in The Plough, Vol 4, No 7, was interesting and heartening. With the votes counted in the latest Assembly elections the perspectives of the IRSP stand fulfilled almost to the letter.

As you correctly point out (and predicted in your earlier material) the electorate in the north could grasp only the immediacy of the objective situation and were overpowered in this sense to embrace the sectarian camp they felt was best placed to represent their particular interests.

The present epoch is undoubtedly a difficult one for the working class in the 6 counties for obvious reasons - indeed it is unique. However, the skillful exploitation of the people by the myriad of personalities will in the last analysis prove to be false.

You are correct when you make the point that the lefty groupings are in real danger of becoming “sects”. Similarly, the coming period will vindicate your well-founded criticism of the Good Friday Agreement as events unfold - a position the IRSP have held for years. The consciousness of the class, as is always the case - is lagging behind events to a certain extent.

Yet, where candidates like Eamon McCann in Foyle and Peggy O’Hara stood on an uncompromising, bold, socialist programme, the favourable electoral results were an indication of a changing mood which will develop as the crises unfold in the future.




Your editorial, while far from exhaustive, covered all the points necessary at this stage and offers concrete proof that there is no substitute for the correct theory, ideas, principles and grasp of history when applied to the objective conditions. It was mature and developed, shining through and exposing the compromise politics being served up to the people of the north as being the only way forward at this time.
In fact, the way forward as proposed by SF and others will prove backward. I was also pleased that IRSP resisted merely denigrating Republicans and Nationalists but clearly and honestly documented the truth about the facade of promulgation explaining why it is doomed to fail the working people of Ireland.

Yours for socialism,

Kenny McGuigan

Glasgow

Member of National Union of Journalists (Personal Capacity)





Dear Editor
Re"editor's reply" to my letter about the SEA in The Plough vol4-7

You end with a question: Is the SEA prepared to engage with the IRSP? At the moment I can only answer this in personal capacity and my answer isn't any different from what it would have been one, two, three years ago: Of course I would engage with anybody who is wanting a broad left alternative and overcome the hindering, backwards sectarian divide. I can't give the answer for the group SEA but will make sure this communication gets to the members and supporters.
Communist regards
Hermann






What’s On?


Thursday 22 March, 7 p.m. International Women's Day event

Doffers and Dockers: Belfast Industrial Struggles, 1906-7
Speaker: Theresa Moriarty
(Author of biographies of Delia Larkin of the Irish Women Workers' Union and
Mary Galway of the Textile Operatives' Society of Ireland). Chairperson:
Dawn Purvis (T&GWU). Linen Hall Library (Fountain Street)
Organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions




We Won't Pay Campaign Meetings
Larne
7.30pm Monday 26th March
Larne Leisure Centre
Bawnmore, Belfast
7pm Wednesday 28th March
Millgreen Youth Centre
Shankill Rd, Belfast
7pm Thursday 29th March
Shankill Leisure Centre


Coalition Against Water Charges

c/o ,4-6 Donegall Street Place Belfast 028 90247940
email: watercoalition@btconnect.com www.waterchargesnonpayment.com
Sat. 31st March @1.00pm
Assemble: Art College, York Street, BelfastDemo
Coalition Against Water Charges
Don’t
Pay
Water
Charges

BLOWING THE LID ON THE WAR ON TERROR

PHILIP AGEE
Former CIA Agent talks about his experiences in Latin America as an undercover operative

With a screening of a documentary film by Bernie Dwyer and Roberto Ruiz:
‘ONE MAN’S STORY: PHILIP AGEE, CUBA AND THE CIA’
(32 mins, Irish-Cuba Co-Production)

Friday, 30 March 2007
@ 1.00pm

Venue:
Room 209
Peter Froggatt Centre
Queen’s University Belfast

&
@ 7.00pm
Venue:
Linenhall Library
17 Donegall Square North
Belfast
BT1 5GB

Everyone Welcome

Sponsored by:
Free the Miami Five Campaign,
Belfast Trades Council
Centre for Global Education
& Cuba Support Group Ireland











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The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have re-launched their website.

It can be viewed at

www.rsym.org



An Glór / The Voice

News sheet of Belfast Republican Socialist Youth Movement

January 2007

Circulation: 400



- Brit police never acceptable

- Maghaberry Prison protest continues

- Assets Recovery Agency, a question of money

- Support the Turkish death fast

- Ard Fheis rejects any move towards INLA decommissioning

- Volunteer Davy McNutt RIP

http://www.rsym.org/pdf/magazines/anGlor1.pdf



The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have produced a short video on the situation concerning Shannon airport and its continued use by American troops and the CIA. The video can be viewed at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH0WqJb95l8



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http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/



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A website that offers a central place to go on the Internet to find good quality items with a distinct Republican Socialist theme. Proceeds from sales from this effort go towards the IRSM and it’s various projects.

http://www.angelfire.com/folk/irishshop/index.html



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Standing Order Form

Monday 12 March 2007

The Plough Vol 04 No 07

The Plough

Vol. 4- No 7

Monday 12th March 2007



E-mail newsletter of the

Irish Republican Socialist Party







1) Editorial



2) Trade Union Issues



3) Bloodshed in Athens



4) From the Media



a. What Socialism can do



b. A shameful injustice



5) Letters

a. From Noel Maguire



b. The SEA is not an SWP – Front!



c. Editor’ reply



6) What’s On?





Editorial



The votes are counted. The talking begins to form a local administration for Northern Ireland/Six Counties. The winners prepare for power while the losers lick their wounds. But in a telling remark a newly elected DUP Assembly member said that the differences between the DUP and the UUP were that the DUP had “the personal touch.”



Indeed it will become increasingly difficult as the years go on to differentiate between the five main parties, the DUP, Sinn Fein, UUP, SDLP and Alliance. Already they are lining up to put their snouts in the trough of Chancellor Gordon Brown as they seek sweeteners in the form of “a peace dividend” of £1 Billion to share power with each other. In the past they have introduced pro-capitalist policies in the form of public private partnerships and there is no clear differentiation in the economic policies they have advocated. Of course the reality is that they will introduce and implement the economic policies dictated by the British Government and which have their origins in the policies of the international capitalist bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank. Those with the republican traditions who still harbour illusions in the radicalism of Sinn Fein should note the pathetic performances of Gerry Adams on TV in the 26 Counties/Irish Republic when he floundered when pressed on specific policies to deal with issues such as health.



When the IRSP took up a principled position of opposition to the Good Friday Agreement we were vilified by some on the left and by Sinn Fein (P) as warmongers and anti –peace. But we clearly indicated we opposed the GFA because it endorsed the British policy of divide and rule. It institutionalised sectarianism, cemented British rule in a part of Ireland, and endorsed partition. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. Condition after condition was put on Sinn Fein, which saw massive decommissioning and eventually endorsement of the PSNI.



Faced with a set up that forced them into choosing sectarian camps the vast majority of the voting population choose to vote for the party that seemed the strongest to represent their sectarian interests. Hence the great success of the DUP and Sinn Fein in the elections taking just under 60% of the seats available. But before getting carried away supporters of Sinn Fein should note the actions of the PSNI during the elections. The arrest of a candidate outside the count, and the arrest of the husband of a Sinn Fein councillor was the PSNI sticking two fingers up to those Shinners who talked about putting manners on the Police. The reality is that the boot is on the other foot.



However there was little joy for anti-policing candidates or indeed candidates from the left. Below we print their votes. It makes sorry reading.



Republican Sinn Fein

West Belfast: Geraldine Taylor..........427 votes (1.3%)

Mid Ulster: Brendan McLaughlin..........437 votes (1.0%)

Upper Bann: Barry Toman..........386 votes (0.9%)

East Londonderry: Michael McGonigle..........393 votes (1.2%)

Fermanagh South Tyrone: Michael McManus..........431 votes (0.9%)

West Tyrone, Joe O Neill..........448 votes (1.1%)



Dissident Provos

North Antrim: Paul McGlinchey..........383 votes (0.9%)

Newry and Armagh: Davy Highland..........2188 votes (4.4%)

Fermanagh South Tyrone: Gerry McGeough..........814 votes (1.8%)



Other Republican Independents

South Down: Martin Cunningham..........434 votes (0.9%)

Foyle: Peggy O Hara..........1789 votes (4.4%)



Workers Party

West Belfast John Lowry (Workers Party)..........434 Votes (1.26%)

East Belfast Joe Bell (Workers Party)..........107 votes (0.35%)

South Belfast Paddy Lynn (Workers Party)..........123 Votes (0.40)

North Belfast John Lavery (Workers Party)..........139 (0.46%)

Lagan Valley John Magee (Workers Party)..........83 Votes (0.19%)

South Antrim Marcella Delaney (Workers Party)..........89 Votes(0.23%)



Socialist Party



South Belfast Jim Barbour (Socialist Party)..........248 Votes (0.81%)

East Belfast Thomas Black (Socialist Party)..........225 Votes (0.75 %)



Labour

South Down Malachi Curran (Labour)..........123 Votes (0.26%)



Socialist Environmental Alliance

Foyle Eamon McCann (Socialist Environmental Alliance).........2045 Votes (4.5%)



People before Profit

West Belfast Sean Mitchell (People before Profit..........744 Votes (2.17%)





It is clear from these results that there is little or no support for those republicans who cling to the old certainties that the Provo movement once clung to. Indeed it is extraordinary that the group we refer to above as the Provo Dissidents only realised within the last year what the implications of the Good Friday Agreement were. Did they really believe the Provo internal propaganda that they were moving the struggle forward by recognising the police, decommissioning the IRA (P) and implementing pro-capitalist policies when in power?



Republican Sinn Fein’s complaints that they were denied proper coverage in the media is really a pathetic attempt to hide the reality that they have little support from republicans within the nationalist community. Their obsession with “English” as in their statement of Friday 9th of March, 07



“To consolidate English rule” and “by unscrupulous English governments.”



is a blatant attempt to appeal to a reactionary form of nationalism playing up people’s dislike of the English, a view shared by many people world wide. But what about not only British Imperialism but also world imperialism? And it ignores the reactionary nature of the ruling classes in Scotland and Wales who have embraced Imperialism, as indeed did the Ulster bourgeoisie. But their position is fundamentally wrong because they ignore or downplay the class struggle. They have forgotten every thing James Connolly wrote about, especially the bit about the flags and post boxes! “Imperialism would still rule you” The national question will be solved with the victory of socialism and not before.



Both the Workers Party and the Socialist Party performed poorly and in some cases it looked as if only their relatives voted for them. Splendid isolation may protect the purity of one’s politics but seemingly cuts no ice with a working class deeply divided and stuck into two sectarian camps. Ignoring or downplaying the reality of the sectarian divisions by abstract appeals to class unity in party statements and papers without actual action and unrelated to actual conditions on the ground is just another form of left liberalism. Both these organisations are in grave danger of simply becoming sects.



But from a socialist perspective there were some bright spots. The vote for Eamon McCann in Foyle showed the value of campaigning on real issues following long sustained work on class politics. While the IRSP has strong reservations about the stance of the SEA on key issues such as Imperialism, the national question, and broad fronts we applaud their work on key class issues. That is also probably why the People Before Profit got such a comparatively high vote in West Belfast. They emphasised the issue of water charges, which will affect every working class family if implemented. That obviously has struck a cord with much right across the sectarian divide. That discontent must be built upon.



The vote for Peggy O Hara was extraordinary given that there was no electoral experience from her team but the enthusiasm and dedication of her workers tapped into an emotion that needs to be built upon. The alliance between the IRSP/32CSM and Concerned Republicans shows what can be achieved among republicans on a platform that dealt with key issues of concerns for republicans but avoided a knee jerk anti Sinn Fein bashing approach. The comparative success of the Peggy O’Hara campaign has led some republicans to believe that a new Irish republican alliance (ira) can be build as a political party. Such a venture would ignore the ideological differences that exist between the existing forces. For its part the IRSP will continue to do what it has been doing over the past 11 years, while others stood on the sidelines, building a credible left revolutionary force advocating the Connolly /Costello road to revolution. The gradual build up organisationally of the IRSP in Derry over the last five years undoubtedly added to the vitality of the Peggy O’Hara campaign. It has established a base that can be built upon. Now the IRSP need to push positive policies approaches and ideas from an anti-imperialist and socialist perspective rather than get diverted down cul de sacs.



The overwhelming victory of Sinn Fein is not a cause for despair for republicans or socialists. Rather it is an opportunity for the left to take stock and also take advantages of the stance and compromises that that organisation will have to make to exercise power. In the south of Ireland nearly one third of the electorate vote for a range of parties and individuals that can be broadly classified as “left”. As the economic conditions worsen in both parts of Ireland, as witnessed by the loss of 900 hundred jobs in the Munster area announced last week, the discontent of the masses will become evident. Already a number of rises in the interest on mortgages in both parts of Ireland has dramatically increased the cost of living for thousands. Spiralling house prices in the North has meant that 4 out of five houses now sold go to property speculators. Dublin houses prices mean that locals cannot afford to buy in Dublin. Young married couples are finding it increasingly difficult to secure suitable accommodation. The privatisation of public utilities and the cutting back of all the gains of the working class over the past ninety years is on the agenda of all capitalist Governments. The coming election in the South will make no fundamental changes regardless of which coalition is stuck together. The new Government will carry out the policies of globalisation at the bidding of the capitalist classes.



Now is the time for the left and republican left to build alliances that can channel the coming discontent into political advances for the working class. The door is now opening for the resurgence of the left because with new administrations looming in the North and South with no essential differences in policy but to implement pro big business policies the left can now become, in the unions and on the streets and hopefully in the electoral field a real opposition to the pro-capitalist policies of the new regimes.







Trade Union Issues



Friday, March 09, 2007

One of Ireland's leading trade unions is calling on politicians to stop focusing on tax cuts and promise measures to help manufacturing workers face job losses. The call comes following the news this week that almost 900 jobs are to be shed at various factories in Munster over the coming years.

The ATGWU is calling for an emergency jobs summit to be held to discuss the situation, which it says should be an election issue. "What it needs is a political focus and I wish the politicians would stop talking simply about tax cuts and focus on this issue," spokesman Mick O'Reilly said today.



Bloodshed in Athens

Riot police turns the student’s demonstration into bloodshed in Athens on 8/3/07



Growing popular opposition voiced by students against the government’s reactionary plans to privatize education in Greece brought many to the street protests planned on 8th March 2007 in Athens. However, the government who is hell bent on carrying these policies dispatched its riot police against the 30,000 strong mass students’ demonstration. The riot police launched brutal attacks against the demonstrators using fire grenades, tear gas and asphyxiating rockets, and savagely beating the participants arrested dozens of the protestors.



The riot police launched unprovoked attacks against the students, injuring many and arresting dozens of the protestors. Those arrested were illegally, refused permission to meet their lawyers for several hours. The injured were also refused medical care for many hours.



The attempt of the government despite the widespread collaboration of the media to criminalize the students’ struggle, has failed miserably. The same day other demonstrations were organized in Thessaloniki, late in the night and then in Athens during the next day in solidarity with the arrested students and in order to protest against the state repression. Notwithstanding the heavy handedness and open brutality shown by the police, thousands of people joined the supportive actions and even the media were obliged to be more careful and were forced to reflect aspects of popular opposition to the government policies on education expressed by the students.



The students are resolved to continue with their struggle and have called on the workers and other sections of society to support their just struggle.



Athens 9/3/07



From: ILPS Greece





=====================================================================



From the Media



What Socialism can do.



HAVANA, Cuba — Jose Gomez bounds around the patio of a sunny vacation cottage near the beach, giggling as his mother gently tosses him a soccer ball.

The energetic 2-year-old from El Salvador is one of thousands of poor Latin Americans who have received free eye surgery thanks to Miracle Mission, an ambitious program started by Cuba in 2004. ‘We’re doing it for free, so it’s not for economic reasons. It’s for moral reasons, to help these people who otherwise could not afford this care,’ said Dr. Lazaro Vigoa, deputy director of Miracle Mission at Havana’s Pando Ferrer Hospital. “My husband is a fisherman, and we could never afford this surgery,” Gomez’s mother, Julia, said of her son’s successful treatment for a droopy eyelid. “We’ve been in Cuba for 15 days, and everything has been paid for.”



Cuba’s eye-care program, financed in part by its close ally Venezuela, has become a huge enterprise, employing hundreds of Cuban health care workers who have treated a half-million patients over the past three years.

Cuba has staffed medical clinics and other social programs in Venezuela for years, an outgrowth of the tight bond between Cuban President Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s socialist leader. In exchange, Venezuela provides Cuba with about 90,000 barrels of oil per day, about half its daily needs.

With a recent, dramatic international expansion, the program has also raised Cuba’s profile on the world stage, showcasing Cuban medical expertise while providing badly needed care in poor countries. Cuba has opened clinics and patient screening facilities in 27 nations from Africa and China to the Caribbean and across Latin America.



The effort is a humanitarian gesture and an important goodwill diplomatic tool for Cuba, which lost its prime political and financial benefactor when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. In what many analysts regard as a U.S. attempt to counter such Venezuelan and Cuban efforts, President Bush — who is on a weeklong tour of Latin America — announced plans last week to direct millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Latin America to expand health care, teach English and improve housing.



Despite the important oil imports from Venezuela, Dr. Lazaro Vigoa, deputy director of the Cuban program, dismissed reports that the program has become a big moneymaker for Cuba.



“It’s a big headache for the Cuban government, not a money-maker,” said Vigoa, who practices at one of Havana’s main hospitals, Ramon Pando Ferrer. “We’re doing it for free, so it’s not for economic reasons. It’s for moral reasons, to help these people who otherwise could not afford this care.”

Cuba has long been proud of its health care system and has sent doctors to countries around the globe for decades as part of an outreach program that resembles the U.S. Peace Corps program.



The eye-care program is the brainchild of Castro, said Vigoa, who formed the idea after hearing that participants in adult literacy programs in Venezuela had such poor vision that they couldn’t see their reading lessons.

Although Miracle Mission has taken the partnership to a global level, the program’s rapid expansion has drawn some criticism. One international news report suggested that the quality of care was being sacrificed in a bid to run up impressive statistics, a charge that Vigoa disputed.



“We monitor the surgeries to make sure there are no problems,” he said, showing a visiting reporter a control room with a bank of television monitors that carry live feeds from the hospital’s 34 operating tables. “Our philosophy is first-rate care.”



Foreign patients typically receive examinations in their home countries and are then scheduled for surgery in Cuba. Most travel on Cuba’s national airline, Cubana. Once in Cuba, they are bussed to one of several hospitals providing the surgeries. Some stay at hotels that have been converted into patient housing, and others stay at Tarara, a seaside resort about 20 miles from Havana.

Although some Cubans reportedly resent the red-carpet treatment given the foreign patients, Vigoa said his hospital operated on more Cubans than foreigners in the past year.



Katia Triana, who lives outside Havana, said Cuban doctors suggested that her daughter Katherine’s detached retina might be best treated in Chile.

“The trip to Chile cost $7,000, but I didn’t pay a cent,” she said.

“This has been wonderful for my little girl.”



With 800 ophthalmologists already trained and hundreds more enrolled, Miracle Mission has become the biggest Cuban health program.

“We’ve grown rapidly, but we’re prepared for it,” said Dr. Reina Martinez, who runs the Tarara facility. “We have treated patients who have been blind for years. It’s very emotional when suddenly they can see again.”

FROM: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/world/03/11/11cuba.html

By Mike Williams INTERNATIONAL STAFF Sunday, March 11, 2007)









A shameful injustice

Cuba’s 50-year defiance of US attempts to isolate it is an inspiration to

Latin America’s people.

There is a wave of progressive change sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean after the many lonely years in which Cuba held high the torch, with free universal healthcare and education, and world-class cultural, sports and scientific achievements. Although you won’t find a Cuban today who says things are perfect - far from it - probably all would agree that compared with pre-revolutionary Cuba, there is a world of improvement.

George Bush, the antithesis of this process, is now in Brazil at the start of a mission to lure five countries away from regional economic integration. However, the many thousands in the streets demonstrate the region’s vast repudiation of Bush and what he stands for, something polls reflect unanimously.



All Cuba’s achievements have been in defiance of US efforts to isolate Cuba; every dirty method has been used, including infiltration, sabotage, terrorism, assassination, economic and biological warfare and incessant lies in the media of many countries. I know these methods too well, having been a CIA officer in Latin America in the 1960s. Altogether nearly 3,500 Cubans have died from terrorist acts, and more than 2,000 are permanently disabled. No country has suffered terrorism as long and consistently as Cuba.



The Cuban revolution has always needed intelligence capabilities in the US for defence purposes, even before it took power in 1959. Such was the fully justified mission of the Cuban Five, who have been in jail since 1998 after being convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in Miami, where they had no chance of a fair trial. Their sights were set exclusively on terrorist operations against Cuba - activities ignored by the FBI - and they neither sought nor received any classified government information. Their cases are still on appeal, and will be for years, but their biased convictions rank with the legal lynching in the 1920s of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the anarchist immigrants, among the most shameful injustices in US history.

Current US policy can be found in the 2004 report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba (updated last year with a secret annexe).



A fundamental goal - the same, I remember, as in 1959 - is the isolation of Cuba to stop this bad example spreading. If successful, this would mean no less than annexation by, and complete dependence on, the US, in fact if not in law. Other goals still intact are to foment an internal political opposition and economic hardship, leading to hunger and despair.



Yet nearly 50 years of US economic warfare hasn’t worked, even though Cubans estimate the cost to them at more than $80bn. After the freefall in the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economy began to recover in 1995. By 2005 growth was 11.8% and in 2006 12.5%, the highest in Latin America. Exports of services, nickel and pharmaceutical and other products are booming, and the US has not been able to stop this.



In the end efforts to isolate Cuba have failed. Last September Cuba was elected, for the second time, to lead the Non-Aligned Movement of 118 countries, and two months later the UN voted for the 15th consecutive year to condemn the US embargo, by 183 to 4. In 2007 Cuba has diplomatic or consular relations with 182 countries, and Havana hosts seemingly endless international conferences. In recent years Cuba’s resorts have been attracting more than 2 million tourists annually. Far from isolating Cuba, the US has isolated itself.

More than 30,000 Cuban doctors and health workers are saving lives in 69 countries, many in difficult areas. Meanwhile 30,000 young people from dozens of countries are studying medicine in Cuba on full scholarships. All come from areas lacking doctors.



Cuba’s literacy programme, known as “Yes I can”, has been adopted in nearly 30 countries, with thousands of Cuban volunteers teaching. The scheme, conducted in Spanish, Portuguese, English, Creole, Quechua and Aymara, has helped some 2 million people to read and write, most of whom continue their education afterwards.



Thanks to this international assistance, Cuban prestige and influence - and international solidarity with Cuba, - have never been greater. It was to defend these worthy programmes that the Cuban Five, unjustly convicted, went to Miami in the 1990s. Freedom for them should be the cause of everyone for whom human rights and justice are important, both in the US and around the world; and that cause can be supported in 300 Free the Five solidarity committees in 90 countries. Philip Agee, a former CIA secret operations officer, is author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary. He travels in Cuba and Latin America as a campaigner, and manages an online travel service to Cuba.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2030797,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1



Philip Agee

Saturday March 10, 2007

The Guardian







Letters



A statement by Noel Maguire

Friends and comrades a chairde,

As many of you know already, my latest application for repatriation to serve the remaining years of my sentence in the country of my birth, has once again been refused by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

I am at a loss as to why the Dept continues to refuse me my rights. Under the European Convention on the rights of prisoners to serve their sentence in country of origin, I qualify on all counts. My wife and two young children live within an hours journey of Portlaoise and Mountjoy Prisons, and my brother, sisters, uncles and aunts all live within visiting distance.

I have no relatives in Britain and I have not seen my children for six years

I have received numerous communications from the Dept of Justice - and the Irish embassy here - but at no time ever have I been given a clear-cut satisfactory explanation for my applications being refused. Furthermore I am now informed I cannot apply again until January 2008. This is contrary to the legislation agreed my all EU member states - that a prisoner can at any time apply for repatriation to country of origin.

I am an Irish citizen, hold a valid Irish passport, and to all intents and purposes I qualify for repatriation in law. My co-accused have all been repatriated and I believe my continued detention here is victimisation - if not illegal.

I appreciate all that is being done for me outside these walls by good

Comrades and friends at home and abroad who believe my incarceration is a

Travesty of justice

Noel Maguire

HMP Full Sutton,

York. YO41-IPS.

06.03.2007







THE SEA IS NOT AN SWP - FRONT

Comrades,

you may call this “letter to the editor” or reply to an article or whatever you like. Plough Vol.4-No 6 “reformists, policing and the state”



No doubt, the issue of policing has caused a lot of debate and continues to do so. But all I can read from Gerry’s article is a criticism of one group’s position to the matter. It is known that you don’t like the SWP (in many aspects that makes two of us) but do you not think under a headline as “wide” as that one, you should have looked at the SDLP and SF’s position first? But be that as it may, I am more concerned with your repetition of the wrong “theory” that the SEA in Derry is a front organisation of the SWP. Why they don’t stand under their own party’s banner - I don’t know. “People before profit” is - so the general belief in left circles - a “front” (I have problems with that definition and would prefer to talk about a group with strong influence of.) of the SWP, which was founded in the Republic. I don’t know the Belfast group well enough to judge their position on the SWP.



THE SEA IS NOT AN SWP - FRONT, AND SHOULD YOU REPEAT IT A HUNDRED TIMES, IT WON’T MAKE IT ANY MORE TRUE!



Having been formed as a pressure group against an incinerator for litter, it is now being supported by all sorts of (more or less) progressive people, the majority of them not SWP. If I had any doubt about that, I would withdraw my support today. Yes, the SWP people are there and it is their good right to be. But do you really think - to use but few examples- a credible, longstanding union activist like Eileen Webster would join a “front” of the SWP?

Would you think the railway workers who formed “Into the West” to try and struggle in a more organised way against the destruction of the Belfast - Derry train route (at least partially successful so far) have no better plans in life than to support such a front? They are very down to earth trade union men and women who saw that the SEA was the only force in Derry who really cared about their cause.



Do you seriously believe that Marion Baur (who stood in the last election for the SEA), a woman who has been an active Communist and in her country of birth, a member of the executive of her union( a trade union with a membership almost the size of the population in the 6 counties)- in short an experienced political activist for over 20 years- would go for an SWP front?

I could continue this list and it includes myself.

The SEA (and I have no doubt, the SWP people might wish it to be “their” outlet) has always drawn people on bread and butter issues rather than communal conflict and that makes it not the only but certainly one of the few workable broad fronts (emphasis on broad) in this divided part of the world.

I don’t think it is the end of the line.



I would like to see candidates of my own party in this election and remember my prediction - it will be the case soon. Maybe more valuable because more efficient would be a broad left alternative. It should include the SEA, the SWP, your own party and my own - indeed any serious force in favour of change towards a better future (which can only be a socialist one). But for now:

Have we done enough to get there?

Have we looked further than “the point of our own noses” and our own often too narrow politics?



Have we seriously tried to put the common ground before the divisions?

You know the answer as well as I do and until we get there, there is not a thing wrong with supporting one of the very few - many faults it may have - attempts to work on issues which are crucial to the working people of the six and indeed all 32 counties:

· Opposition to water charges

· Support for the trade unions and defending their rights

· Struggle against racism

· Placing environmental matters where they should be, in the centre of politics

· Fighting against the war-mongering US-, British-, and indeed all other capitalist powers



You know what that is?

The election manifesto of the SEA in short words.

Should we sit and wait for the big, broad, all united left alternative, or should we try and struggle around what’s there already? Do you think the presence of the SWP is going to keep me from that?

Communist regards

Hermann Glaser Baur

(Active member of the C. P. I. and obviously still a supporter of the SEA)



Editor ‘s Reply



Comrade Hermann,



Thank you for your response to “Reformists, Policing and the State” If you read the article again you may note that at no time was there any mention made that the SEA was a front for the SWP. I completely accept what you say about the SEA. Like you I believe in genuine broad fronts but you surely recollect that at a conference of the SEA two leading cadres of the SWP stated that they would not work in any broad front with the IRSP. The rest of the SEA did not demur from that position. For from it being an issue of in your words of “you don’t like the SWP” it is a serious political difference that is at issue here. In rushing to defend what was not under attack you completely ignored the issue that was central to the article, policing and its role in the state. That is an issue that should not be ducked and we believe that that is precisely what McCann and the SEA by extension did. The issue of policing is not a communal issue for in our own contacts within the protestant working class we know that policing is an issue that concerns and affects them also. Are the left only to deal with safe bread and butter issues? Do we ignore equality, poor housing discrimination and other issues, which could be construed to divisive? That certainly could not be the position of communists.



As regards the issue of” sitting around” Hermann should know full well that over two years the IRSP tried to engage with a wide range of political organisations and of course most of them ignored requests for meetings.

Nevertheless the IRSP will continue to engage with those prepared to engage with us. Is the SEA now prepared to engage with us Hermann?

Fraternally

Editor.







What’s On?



The New Lodge Community Empowerment Partnership is holding a Respect week from 12th-16th March including an unveiling of a Rosa Parks mural and a migrant workers day.

On Monday evening they are planning to show the Rosa Parks film, but as of yet it hasn;t been delivered. If anyone has a copy, could you contact Dessie Donnelly @des_donn@yahoo.com? If you are interested in getting a programme contact

Leo Morgan at the Ashton Centre 90742255



We Won't Pay Campaign

Upcoming meetings

Fivemiletown, Co. Tyrone

7.30pm Thursday 8th March

Valley Hotel

Ballymena

8pm Wednesday 14th March

Adair Arms Hotel

Larne

7.30pm Monday 26th March

Larne Leisure Centre

Bawnmore, Belfast

7pm Wednesday 28th March

Millgreen Youth Centre

Shankill Rd, Belfast

7pm Thursday 29th March

Shankill Leisure Centre

. Successful local meetings

. Well done to the organisers of recent meetings held in Lisnaskea, Irvinestown, Enniskillen, Crumlin, and Donegall Pass where local We Won't Pay groups were established.

. If you want to set up a local group in your area, contact us.











Thursday 22 March, 7 p.m. International Women's Day event



Doffers and Dockers: Belfast Industrial Struggles, 1906-7

Speaker: Theresa Moriarty

(Author of biographies of Delia Larkin of the Irish Women Workers' Union and

Mary Galway of the Textile Operatives' Society of Ireland). Chairperson:

Dawn Purvis (T&GWU). Linen Hall Library (Fountain Street)

Organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions





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The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have re-launched their website.

It can be viewed at

www.rsym.org



An Glór / The Voice

News sheet of Belfast Republican Socialist Youth Movement

January 2007

Circulation: 400



- Brit police never acceptable

- Maghaberry Prison protest continues

- Assets Recovery Agency, a question of money

- Support the Turkish death fast

- Ard Fheis rejects any move towards INLA decommissioning

- Volunteer Davy McNutt RIP

http://www.rsym.org/pdf/magazines/anGlor1.pdf



The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have produced a short video on the situation concerning Shannon airport and its continued use by American troops and the CIA. The video can be viewed at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH0WqJb95l8



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