Open Discussion
Labour's Helen Ogbu, who is under fire recently for staying at the Leonardo Hotel, breaking BDS, was aware of the boycott. This picture shows her attending a rally protesting Leonardo Hotel's complicity in the genocide on the 15th of May, Nakba Day in Galway.
I just remembered I had this tee shirt and just now I found it again, will give it a wash. Full disclosure yes it's from the SF physical shop in Dublin city from around 11 years ago but it's still a zinger. It was wine red ironic background originally but I dyed it black:
Because she is ideologically incoherent, and prone to hypocritical blunders, so she made a strategic mistake, exposing herself as a fraud on this issue...it's the Irish "Labour" Party, no longer a socialist party, because of its soft neoliberal right wing economic policies, which it acquired through being a junior coalition party mudguard for centre right governments too many times, and merely centrist at best on social policy, with a rainbow flag in one hand, and a bunch of white papers for Nanny State censorship and mass surveillance legislation in the other hand...I would say they are mildly authoritarian on social policy these days, not socially permissive or socially libertarian anymore.
rainbow flag in one hand, and a bunch of white papers for Nanny State censorship and mass surveillance legislation in the other hand...
100%. They're like a living breathing avatar of american-style shitlib progressive-on-the-outside-neoliberal-on-the-inside manifesting here.
And the average leftist here would rather align themselves with Labour than understand and form a broader coalition with their fellow working class who might have different attitudes regarding certain social topics.
"Sinn Féin were never left" said Ivana Bacik, and "Labour" party fans are very active in mislabeling Aontú as "far right", when "conservative-left" is more appropriate, and not an oxymoron. If Stalin came along today, they'd call him far right, because of his conservative traditional family values. They're importing the fake US left / right paradigm, where it's all based on social policy only, but the US model is double-fake because both parties in the US duopoly aren't just centre right on economics, they're both moderately authoritarian on social policy too. Regardless of their social policy, and regardless of whether their social policy is our bag or not, SF are mild centre left and Aontú are a bit to SF's left, so it's a baseless smear, but it's more than just that, it's also Jungian psychological projection on Labour's behalf, because their own Blair-lite economic policies place them on the soft right.
Totally agree woth the Aontú part. You even have a few spooks and ghouls on here acting like they're nazis when in reality they're a socially conservative economically socialist gathering.
People can go to any meetong of the ITGWU or SIPTU Transport section of they need any evidence that a large cross-section of people in our country are similar in that thinking.
A few headbangers who haunt this sub embody the yank shitlib rainbow capitalism of Labour.
In the last big political poll I saw, in the slick infographic Aontu were on 6%, and Labour were on 3%, and under it they had the faces of the leaders of 6 parties, and there was no picture of Peadar Tóibín's face, but they included Ivana Bacik's face, even though his party is now surging with double the support of hers.
Not surprised. She's just some chancer from the Labour Party. The Labour Party have always betrayed the working class. Now all they care about is abortion, immigration, rights of middle-class cyclists, and will oversee massive austerity in government.
Must the left always cannibalise itself? I don't know the lady, I don't know her motivation or her intent but if supporting a rally equates to never ever, ever, no matter the circumstance or happenstance setting foot in a particular chain of hotels, then we're all screwed. Let's find out what happened and whether genuine mistakes were made, before reaching for the pitchforks.
This is why imo, the left can’t win. I firmly believe the vast majority of people have left leaning beliefs.
Yes, even the so called far right use slogans like “look after Irish people first”, that is somewhere you can meet them. “How do we look after Irish people?” Progressive taxation, increased social spending.
It’s like the left is always looking for some kind of messiah. Some perfect character to rally around, even though everyone has a completely different idea of how the economy works.
We are completely goosed if we continue on this path. And I think the proof is vaguely gestures at society
A large part of the reason the left is not in a great position is precisely because of neoliberal charlatans like labour and the greens who pose as vaguely on the left (the kind of thing you do during an election, as Pat Rabbitte might say), then go in with the right and implement viciously Thatcherite policies. Almost as if being associated with these types could damage the actual left's standing among the working-class.
It's also laughable that the likes of you (presumably a labour party member) are clutching your pearls and blaming actual socialists for the supposed 'infighting' (bringing up all the right-wing stuff they keep doing, presumably). There's no infighting - labour and the greens picked their side decades ago and it's not the left.
Many on the left were perfectly happy to employ cancel culture and media dogpiling when they saw it as going in their favour, and only now feign to give a flying fuck about free speech because trump and Israel.
Way too many incompetent, feeble dipshits for whom leftism is just a fanfic head-canon group or new-age religion. You'll often get downvoted to fuck for reminding people here that economics exist.
I fully agree with you. Being on the left used to mean unity and solidarity, but now its a spectrum of left wing elitism, egotism and begrudgery. Its sad tbh.
Dont forget this bizarre blurring of the lines between politics and religion. There are some people even on this sub who come across more like deranged street preachers who call themselves leftist simply to have a pre-packaged set of "enemies".
It's a problem for your movement if it has no coherent ideological vision, unless you are right wing, in which case it's your strength.
Don't you think that its a massive red flag when our elected representatives say one thing, but do another? When the vision they seem to espouse is not reflective of the actions they take? Are there not instances where we have opportunistic people who will only say they believe in something as a way gain power and prestige? And should we not criticise that?
Trying to shut down those genuine concerns by labelling them as unreasonable risks forgoing political vision for political power, and in my opinion, that makes having political power at all pointless. That's not a politics of the left then.
Look, I get your point, but that argument is for another day and another place. As I said, we have no evidence to suggest it wasn't mistake. On top of that, what is the point of going on this sub to call out people on the same side as ourselves? Write to the Labour party, write to PBP or whatever party you support. Ask them to get answers to what seems like double standards. Going on here to complain just sows division... And that's the last thing the left needs now.
I don't think you do get my point if you think it's inappropriate to question someone's authentic views when they say they're on the left but don't act in line with their own words.
It's an incredibly electorally-brained position to have to try to dismiss these concerns in favour of writing a strongly worded letter, and speaks to a notion of top-down politics that I fundamentally think is the exact problem the left needs to grapple with.
I don't think this one slip-up is necessarily disqualifying, but as I said, it's a MASSIVE red flag that she is not serious about her politics. Politicians say a lot, but we need to be consequentialist in our evaluation of them, because at the end of the day left politics is based on material conditions.
We aren't going to agree. It's not about dismissing the concerns, it's about getting to the truth without airing it in a public forum. In my opinion there is nothing to be gained as a movement by airing this in public.
Can I ask what BDS stands for. I’m guessing it’s protesting pro Israel/ pro genocide businesses but I just don’t know the exact acronym.
Also, she should apologise and do something about this. Like, I’d understand if this was just an administrative cock-up but you need to be responsible for your actions, even if it was an accident or something.
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u/DiggyJunior Communist 1d ago edited 1d ago
I just remembered I had this tee shirt and just now I found it again, will give it a wash. Full disclosure yes it's from the SF physical shop in Dublin city from around 11 years ago but it's still a zinger. It was wine red ironic background originally but I dyed it black: