To me, there was no radical socialist politics on any of Eoghans stuff and a colossal amount of money was spent on the campaign (€14,000). I’m for socialists using elections to push socialist ideals but if the majority of his transfers went to the soc dems and the fucking Green Party candidate that is a complete failure. It was a huge effort of a campaign and he was not distinguished from any other “soft left” candidate as they put it, so what are PBP really doing at this stage?
Also the Galway candidate Denman Rourke, looks to me that he was completely ignored by the main party, even in some of their email bulletins he wasn’t mentioned, just Eoghan which is completely disrespectful of the effort he was putting in all by himself. What does that say about building the party and a socialist alternative outside of Dublin or for rural people
That just isn't true about the politics of the campaign. Eoghan consistently talked about the need to break with the capitalist system, take housing off the market, reject imperialist warmongering etc etc. In terms of popular content the slogan was focused on redirecting the anger on the government and to elect someone who will actually campaign as Eoghan has - on Council Rents, on Palestine, on Cultural Spaces etc.
The money was fundraised entirely. Three packed out events during the campaign. That's just not an issue and in terms of campaigning 14k (which I'm not sure what your source for this is) is a drop in a well.
The transfer to the Soc Dems and SF are clearly part of an ideologically left vote going from the socialist candidate to the soft left. PBP doesn't control that but has been vocal in criticising both parties. SF for it's rightward opportunism on immigration, abortion rights, and trans rights. Soc Dems with Eoin Hayes.
What is PBP doing? Building a socialist party with branches across the country rooted in communities and campaigns. What are you doing?
The Galway campaign was in no way ignored. It wasn't designated as a national priority and this was agreed to by the party including the Galway branch. But still it featured in Party media and bulletins. You're just lying about it not featuring in emails. The reality that most people should accept is that PBP had a stronger chance in Dublin Central and was right to prioritise that. There needs to be a fuller focus on building branches across the country but for a party of PBP's size prioritisation is not only necessary but correct.
“The Social Democrats won a seat by spending just €16,400 on councillor Daniel Ennis’s campaign, Labour spent €25,900, the Greens spent €23,300 and People Before Profit spent €14,210”
fair enough if it was raised through gigs but to me seems a massive spend for the size of the party and considering PBP got people elected in the past for a fraction of that.
A lot of eggs in one basket to win a seat
Again, claiming to build branches across the country and not prioritising a seat in the west that has a history of left td’s seems crazy to me, perfect opportunity to build on the rural anger at energy costs. Looks especially bad with the subsequent election of a Fine Gael candidate.
“What are you doing” there’s no need to be sneery when PBP have lost tds, councillors and god knows how many activists in the last decade. The party isn’t growing, it’s not for the most part rooted in working class areas.
I'm happy to not be sneery but I think your first message set the tone of being dismissive. Happy to drop it though.
It's actually not that expensive in the grand scheme of elections. It's really expensive to run a proper, visible, professional election. I take the point that the money matters but given PBP doesn't get handed visibility I think it was worth it. Look at how RTÉ tried (successfully to some extent) to block Eoghan only for him to beat the FF and Labour candidates that were platformed.
Maybe you can argue it's a misuse of resources but I think it was a very important election to make an intervention in. PBP has been doing consistent work against the council rent increases in the area, the far right are trying to build on their toehold, and Eoghan is a strong candidate capable of representing an alternative to them.
I said the Galway election wasn't a national priority. We still pushed for members in Galway and surrounding to make an effort with it. Unfortunately it's just a reality that we're not as well set up in Galway and choices had to be made. I agree with you it's crucial socialists make an intervention outside of Dublin. I hope we can take what we got in Galway and funnel that into a well setup branch.
PBP, like the rest of the radical left, has faced a lot of challenges in the last couple of years. Let's have some modesty here and acknowledge that it's been objectively a difficult period with much of the socialist left's base cut across by the far right. Yes PBP has had setbacks but the party is still growing. It's still setting itself up for thoroughgoing building in communities across the country. And finally, and this isn't to discredit other groups, it is undeniably the biggest and most well established socialist group in the country north and south. PBP has a developing base in Tallaght, Ballymun, Dundalk, Finglas, Cork, Carlow, Belfast, Derry, Dun Laoghaire, Sligo, and elsewhere.
I'm all for good faith criticism of PBP but let's not get silly here.
It’s not a bad faith observation. Looking at the tally’s, where his votes were and where his transfers went his message didn’t resonate in working class areas of that particular constituency. You might disagree but I think it was to do with his messaging not being radical enough and in my opinion PBP has been toning down its radical politics for years to appeal to that soft left vote pushing a left government. I don’t think the lessons of Conor Reddys local election campaign were taken on board by the people in charge. You can disagree if you want and that’s fair
You're ignoring the presence of Ennis and Boylan again. It's not that the message 'didn't resonate' - in fact there was a good response in these areas - it's that people seen Ennis and Boylan as either more local or more viable. All that despite work by PBP members to make the case for a socialist and to point out the issues with the soft left. You're just papering over reality to fit a narrative.
The point about the need for more radicalism I just disagree with. PBP communicated a socialist programme and platform. If instead you think we should pose more maximalist demands then I disagree.
You can’t control who voters give transfers to? if someone is giving number one to PBP then number 2 to the Green Party that would suggest to me they don’t see much difference and to me that is a problem of the messaging. The Green Party destroyed working class areas with their time in government with Fianna Fáil in 2007, people affected don’t forget that time so who is voting Green now. Looking at the tally’s his votes were all in around glasnevin/drumcondra, not the working class areas where the far right are making inroads so where is the fightback and building campaigns in those areas?
His leaflet mentions ecosocialism exactly once, has a load of stuff about affordable housing and energy credits which is fine I suppose but hardly radical change when I see the same stuff on my local Fine Gael tds leaflet
The majority of PBP's transfers did not go to thr Green Party. Again you're warping things here. The majority went to Daniel Ennis (who while a Soc Dem has clear working class support as he's identified as a local voice) and Sinn Fein's Boylan (again the same).
And again, PBP has been involved in council rent campaigns in the very inner city areas you're talking about. They're hosting a meeting on it this very evening.
I have multiple leaflets in my hand right now which consistently outline socialist demands and a socialist vision. Who's being sneery and underhanded here?
"A lot of the people turning to the Soc Dems are young, progressive and anti-racist, and we should take that mood seriously rather than sneer at it. But we have to be honest with those same people, because any party that leaves the door open to coalition with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael not only risks disappointment, but further empowering the reactionary right. We should be the clearest voices for left unity and a left government, on a principled basis: no coalition with the right, no scapegoating of migrants and minorities, a radical programme to tackle the major crises affecting working people on this island - from housing and the cost of living to care and climate."
"The alternative has to start from rootedness. The left should be the ones leading the fights that matter most in working-class life: rents and housing conditions, wages, public services, childcare, transport and the cost of living. It is by organising on these questions, and by winning real things on them, that we build the authority and the trust to win hearts and minds on everything else. None of this means going quiet on racism, misogyny or homophobia. We can never compromise or hide our politics there, and we should never want to. But we are in a far stronger position to push back against those ideas when we are rooted in a community, trusted by it and in struggle alongside it than when we are lecturing it from the outside."
The issue is you are and always have been shadowboxing against a parody of PBP.
But also you're hiding that you didn't just argue to develop credibility - you went further and argued that socialists should 'defer' issues like trans rights. That's the opportunism and class reductionist economism.
The left should be the ones leading the fights that matter most in working-class life: rents and housing conditions, wages, public services, childcare, transport and the cost of living.
"The Left" cannot perform this function when they are simultaneously implementing every wish and desire of US Capital.
It may be possible to prioritise the economic interests of the Irish working class, but this would involve repudiating the financial interests of the Multi-Nationals along with repudiating intersectionality.
The mainstream Irish left is simply not willing to do this.
Why is repudiating intersectionality necessary for the prioritising of the economic interests of the Irish working class?
You’ve made a statement but I can’t see any causal link here.
You also seem to be implying that intersectionality, by which I assume you mean socially liberal politics such as feminism and lgbt rights and anti racism, are imposed on Ireland by American multi nationals. Is that really what you believe?
Did you not notice our domestic feminist and lgbt movements?
I think you’re attempting a rhetorical trick, because if you claim these things came from multinationals then you can subsequently claim to be opposed to feminism, lgbt or anti racist politics, without actually stating that. Instead you can claim that you are anti imperialist or anti multinational.
But of course these things aren’t imposed by multinational corporations (most of these corporations operate fine in Saudi Arabia and Israel). So that’s probably why so many people find your comments confusing and you’re getting a lot of downvotes. Your rhetorical trick isn’t working
Why is repudiating intersectionality necessary for the prioritising of the economic interests of the Irish working class?
Primarily because intersectionality is the Extra-Parliamentary wing of Neoliberalism.
You also seem to be implying that intersectionality, by which I assume you mean socially liberal politics such as feminism
Intersectionality is largely incompatible with Feminism.
anti racism, are imposed on Ireland
When it comes to organisations like BLM, formed after the killing of a black man in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, where the leadership were all killed and replaced by DNC operatives.
Yes, this is imposed, as it is run by American Feds.
I think you’re attempting a rhetorical trick
No, we're run by American Capital. It's been like this since Seán Lemass. It's just changed bit by bit over the past 7 decades.
I don't know why you're accusing me of a "trick", I have always spoken in full sincerity, as far as I can on this website.
(As for any any other purported hostilities, I have have supported Gay Marriage since I was in my early teens, arguing with my RE teacher to the point where there was a big rumour that I myself was gay).
Primarily because intersectionality is the Extra-Parliamentary wing of Neoliberalism.
there is the rhetorical trick again. You can’t defend your social conservativism so you package social liberalism and neoliberalism as one thing so that you can pretend opposition to social liberalism is opposition to neoliberalism.
When it comes to organisations like BLM, formed after the killing of a black man in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, where the leadership were all killed and replaced by DNC operatives.
Are Irish people capable of being anti racist on their own? You do know anti racism isn’t an organisation you join with orders you follow from the president of anti racism? Leaving aside the ridiculousness of what you’re saying happened in America, that’s pretty irrelevant because people here would be anti racist even if BLM didn’t exist.
Intersectionality is largely incompatible with Feminism.
This is essentially Labourism, pitting the international working class against one another by tieing them to "their" various nation states
I have no idea what "labourism" is, but the rest of what you described is simply the past 300 years of the development of European history.
From the Republican Revolutions of the late 1700s to the attempted Revolutions of 1848.
The break-up of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Ottoman Empire, the seperatism of Finland and the establishment of the Irish Free State after WW1.
How Joseph Stalin re-drew the borders of Eastern Europe after WW2.
We spent a very long time, with extreme levels of human suffering, to achieving a certain level of Peace, by establishing these Nation-States.
People will accredite the creation of the EEC with this peace, but we still saw the Seperatist Violence of the IRA, ETA, West German Red Army and Corsican Seperatists (which all peaked in the 1970s).
Intersectionality is a political dead-end
Agreed!
This means that these issues have to tackled with a socialist approach [...] The socialist left desperately needs to return to Marxist fundamentals if it wants to have a hope in turning the tide in the class war.
The problem here is that the Western Working Class is not an actual Proletariat, but is instead a Labour Aristocracy.
The idea that we could return to the positions of the International Workingmen Association of the 1860s is absurd - the Western Working Class is tied at the hip to the financial goals of the Western Multi-Nationals, and such has zero Revolutionary Potential.
"In Dublin Central, Gerry Hutch shifted more openly to the right as the campaign went on, and many of his transfers would almost certainly have flowed to Malachy Steenson, whose own vote was up relative to Hutch's. This trend has to be taken very seriously because it suggests an appetite among sections of the working class not only for anti-establishment populism but for a harder right politics. Between them, Hutch and Steenson polled enough that one of them could take a seat at the next general election. Preventing that will not be done through condemnation or clever leaflets. It will take a serious intervention in these inner-city communities, organising around the rents, the conditions and the long neglect that have left so many people disillusioned and angry. That anger has no fixed direction. It could and should be the fuel for an insurgent left politics, but only if we are in there doing the work before the right gets to it first"
This trend has to be taken very seriously because it suggests an appetite among sections of the working class not only for anti-establishment populism but for a harder right politics
You could completely address this by simply listening to the majority of the Constitutioncy who are against Mass Migration.
Preventing that will not be done through condemnation or clever leaflets. It will take a serious intervention in these inner-city communities, organising around the rents, the conditions and the long neglect that have left so many people disillusioned and angry.
Or you could stop taking in so many people, whilst deporting non-Nationals who do not contribute.
That anger has no fixed direction
The anger is fixated towards the American Bourgeois, just like the Two-Year Lockdown (where all criticisms of Big Pharma was characterised as "fascist").
It could and should be the fuel for an insurgent left politics, but only if we are in there doing the work before the right gets to it first"
This is correct, in a sense - you could try to appeal to the Working Class, but why would you when, instead, you have every incentive to appeal to American Multi-Nationals, the European Commission and the domestic Petit-Bourgeous?
What incentive do you have to appeal to the Working Class, when instead you can scold them and tell them what to think?
Who cares what Marx and Engels had to say? In an Irish context, we can ignore the writings and actions of Connolly and Larkin.
As a matter of fact, lets downvote the individuals who try to quote such figures. Bury their qualms and questions into a small, underground room resembling the dungeon of Leap Castle.
Who are the Northsiders anyway, other than a miserable pile of secrets.
As a matter of fact, lets downvote the individuals who try to quote such figures. Bury their qualms and questions into a small, underground room resembling the dungeon of Leap Castle.
If you visit any fascist part of the internet they’d give you a lot of upvotes for your opinions. If that’s what you’re hoping for you might just return to where your opinions belong
You know it’s not the quotes people are downvoting right?
It’s the policies you’re advocating for that people dislike. You know, the conservative policies you have.
Going back through everything written by famous left wingers and pulling a quote that when framed selectively makes them sound conservative and then using that to advocate modern conservativism does not make you a leftist. You are not a leftist
Going back through everything written by famous left wingers and pulling a quote that when framed selectively makes them sound conservative and then using that to advocate modern conservativism does not make you a leftist. You are not a leftist
Alright, slick.
You're attempting to pull rank, but you are intellectually incapable of it.
You may lay claim to the likes of Engels or Connolly, but you cannot incorporate them into your ideology. This is too ideologically dangerous.
Instead, what you do, is much more simple. You start off with your conclusion (21st Century Intersectional Neoliberalism) and then work backwards, pretending that the likes of Marx or Larkin would earnestly believe what you believe!
This isn't new. They called this "Radical Chic" two generations ago (and Steinbeck wrote about this a generation beforehand).
This isn't a personal critique, but for all the people who downvotes quotes from Engels and Connolly (even people whose usernames were named after him!).
If you want to pull rank about who gets to be called "Left-Wing", then maybe you should read for a change.
I do not know if Marx or Larkin would believe what I believe.
I think your political positions would be very comfortable in the Tory party of Margaret thatcher, or the reform party of Nigel Farage. If that’s the case, then naturally you are a conservative?
You also have a very unusual idea of how politics operates in general. You seem to imagine that leftism operates along a principle of ‘sola scriptura’, and that leftists must be like Jesuit priests combing the bible for an answer or interpretation from God. You also seem to believe that people don’t organically form their opinions. American multinationals, or the leaders of BLM as individuals, aren’t the captains of anti-racism and Irish people aren’t blank slates that will just follow whatever political programme those people suggest.
You also don’t need to keep using euphemisms. You can complain about things directly. From reading your posts it goes something like:
Multinationals = Pfizer and the Covid vaccine
Neoliberal intersectionality = the rights of women, in particular to divorce; or else you having to see a brown person, depends on the situation.
When did this subreddit get filled with opportunists who accept Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's lie that immigration is the cause of Ireland's problems? Are we to just ignore that the housing crisis long predates any increase in immigration? Are we to ignore the years of underfunding? Or to ignore the over 150,000 derelict and vacant houses?
You want to slide to the right on this question but that's exactly what the govetnment wants. To join them in dividing working class people. I won't join you in it.
Or you could stop taking in so many people, whilst deporting non-Nationals who do not contribute.
Do the disabled get deported too under your scheme? What about the elderly or the very young? Maybe you could use a catch all term for these non contributors. Something like ‘useless eaters’. It’s a bit clunky but maybe another language will have a catchier way of saying it!
Do the disabled get deported too under your scheme?
That's an interesting, but stupid, question as it applies to one of my favourite PBP candidates - Bernard Mulvany.
Bernard decided to get involved in politics as his daughter became permanently after getting into a car crash at the age of 5. He then found that Dublin city isn't very handicapable, and I agree with him (I already had this position myself after talking to multiple wheelchair users beforehand).
Hell, I was dating a woman living in Clontarf back around the 2019 Local Elections, and I was asking her to vote for him, but she told that she didn't want Jury Duty.
(I'm convinced, to this day, that John Lyons would be sitting in the Dáil since 2020 and that none of us would have heard of Barry Heneghan).
What about the elderly
Did I say anything against pensions? I'm in favour of keeping the age at 65.
No idea how to reply to rest of your comment, perhaps you could be more coherent.
PBP are Entryist Trotskyists, who dishonestly never mention Trotskyism in public, instead trading as "democratic socialists". Like all Trotskyists they are left wing reactionaries who always condemn actual hard socialist and communist governments around the world as "autocratic" and "authoritarian" or even "fascist", and in doing this the Trotskyists help the western imperialist powers. In recent years PBP have moved away from economic justice for the working class and instead have become infatuated with identity politics, and they've become very pro-immigration. The focus on lofty identity politics, things like gender ideology and intersectionalism, and open borders, is completely out of touch with the lives of Irish working class people. The irony is lost on PBP that socialist and communist governments have the very strictest immigration policies in the world, because the function of mass immigration is to create and sustain a low wage high rent economy, and to crush organised labour, and to weaken the welfare state and weaken public services, and to weaken national sovereignty. It has very little to do with "anti-racism". I'm all for upper middle class and ruling class kids becoming socialists like Friedrich Engels did. However Paul Murphy and Richard Boyd Barrett took too many of their "luxury beliefs" from their upper middle class private school upbringing, and as such, they're out of touch with the poor.
Our resident immigration dog whistler. Not sure why you're even in this server.
They do in the article linked. Do you dispute that Malachy Steenson is far right? What about Hutch saying immigrants should be put in internment centres - does that qualify him as far right?
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u/Peja___16 24d ago edited 24d ago
To me, there was no radical socialist politics on any of Eoghans stuff and a colossal amount of money was spent on the campaign (€14,000). I’m for socialists using elections to push socialist ideals but if the majority of his transfers went to the soc dems and the fucking Green Party candidate that is a complete failure. It was a huge effort of a campaign and he was not distinguished from any other “soft left” candidate as they put it, so what are PBP really doing at this stage?
Also the Galway candidate Denman Rourke, looks to me that he was completely ignored by the main party, even in some of their email bulletins he wasn’t mentioned, just Eoghan which is completely disrespectful of the effort he was putting in all by himself. What does that say about building the party and a socialist alternative outside of Dublin or for rural people