The Campaign for Public Housing is not looking for concessions or for tweaks to the existing housing policy. The state’s housing policy has been designed to fill the pockets of landlords, developers and financiers with rents, subsidies, and tax breaks, as it was designed to do. That strategy is clearly […]
Month: December 2017
The American way of war
Lenin wrote Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1916 to address an issue that had been raised by J. A. Hobson and Rudolf Hilferding in their works about the changing nature of capitalism towards the end of the nineteenth century. Lenin recognised that the war then taking place was […]
Plagiarism in the schools — but it’s not the pupils!
The Department of Education and the media have for years hyped up the idea of schools “ditching the textbooks and going digital.” In particular, Microsoft Showcase Schools are “innovative,” where “digital books” and “tablets” replace “old-fashioned” books This apparently is the great leap forward—but is it? For Microsoft it will […]
Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the Peasant War in Germany
On 31 October 1517, Martin Luther made public his 95 Theses against the widespread practice of selling indulgences and clerical corruption. He attacked the Church’s claim to be the sole interpreter of the word and intentions of God and defended ordinary human entitlement to God’s grace without Church involvement. The […]
Socialism and a Catalan Republic
The continuing struggle over Catalan independence raises many questions for socialists and the left, especially those in countries, such as Ireland, where the national question still has a prime place in politics. Events in Catalunya show that independence movements are not, as idealists would think, concerned only with such issues […]
Small ripples make big waves
The search for Frank Conroy’s birthplace and family On 13 December 1936 Frank Conroy, a member of the Republican Congress and the Communist Party of Ireland, sailed on the Holyhead ferry, alongside Frank Ryan, determined to defend the Spanish Republic against the fascist rebellion. This Spanish Civil War hero died […]
CPI national congress: Building workers’ power
In late November the Communist Party of Ireland held it 25th National Congress in Belfast, the highest political authority of the CPI. The congress brought together delegates from all over the country. It was the culmination of a long process of discussion in the branches on a number of motions, […]
Ten truths about Cuba’s general elections
Letter from Cuba Cuba’s elections are organised and conducted in two stages, on a no-party basis, as opposed to—as often suggested—a one-party basis. The Communist Party of Cuba is not a political party in the sense in which this term is generally understood. No candidates for the Communist Party (or […]
“When the table came”
Gabriel Rosenstock introduces and translates another poem from the Indian sub-continent, originally written in Konkani, the indigenous language of Goa. We seem to accept “technological progress” and the McDonaldisation of the world as inevitable. Who wants to be called a Luddite? Yet on reading “When the Table Came” one is […]
A future worth fighting for
Earlier this month the Trade Union Left Forum issued its “Workers’ Charter: A Future Worth Fighting for.” The charter calls for a range of legislative reforms to improve both workers’ and union rights in the south and north of Ireland. Each progressive change itself is important for workers, but, if […]
Sinn Féin edging towards social democracy
The announcement of his retirement by Sinn Féin’s long-serving president, Gerry Adams, was deemed by the media to be the most noteworthy happening at the party’s recent ard-fheis. After thirty-four often turbulent years at the helm of a movement ridiculed and lauded in almost equal parts, it could hardly have […]
The road to Damascus
In 2007 General Wesley Clarke revealed the Pentagon’s post-9/11 plan to overthrow “seven countries in five years: Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” In the 7 October edition of the Tory Spectator, J. R. Bradley outlined the now failed plot against Syria: “our cynical […]