Resistance, No. 15

This joins other documents from the Irish Socialist Network and another edition of Resistance. There are more to be posted up.

The main article critiques the unions and notes:

As the economic crisis gets worse, the fighting spirit of Ireland’s trade union movement is slowly draining away. This has to change-and fast. In 2009 Ireland saw more than 120,000 workers and their families take to the streets in opposition to austerity. It was a mobilisation that only the trade union movement could have mounted. The union hierarchy came under strong pressure from its members to offer both leadership and an alternative economic strategy. The result was a 10-point plan called ‘A Better, Fairer Way’. Yet the document conceded ideological ground to the right-wing government, stating that ‘workers did not create the problem, but will contribute to resolving it’. 

Another piece notes the establishment of the new Anti-Capitalist Party in France and argues:

For some, the party is too ‘workerist’. For others it is too ‘soft’ and not clear on the question of class. Some hold semi-anarchist or ‘eco-socialist’ ideas, while others are closer to the Leninist tradition… The NPA has a democratic culture which allows members to express widely diverging views…

There’s a piece on the Scottish Left which argues, in advance of the then-forthcoming referendum that:

the issue of independence and its consequences has taken on a new urgency for the Left. The radical left in Scotland is united in support for a ‘yes’ vote for independence: this is an important development which could revive the fortunes of a movement so badly damaged by the Sheridan debacle.

There’s also a review of the book ‘New Parties of the Left’ by Daniel Bensaid, Alda Sousa, Alan Thornell and others.

Another piece notes that:

In 2008, Ireland was brought to its knees by our own Axis of Evil: builders. bankers and their Fianna Fail cronies. It’s now a good time to ask who the winners and losers in the crisis have been. Let’s start with the banks. You would think that by now. all the idiot CEOs and imbecile board members would have been purged from their posts. Yet many of those who were central to the collapse remain at the helm, including Richie Boucher at Bank of Ireland and Michael Gallagher of the EBS.

As is typical of this publication it contains links to other organisations on the left and resources.

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