The Communist Party of Ireland participated in the 23rd International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, hosted by the Communist Party of Türkiye, which took place in İzmir from 19 to 22 October. 121 representatives of 68 parties from 54 countries took part, while another seven parties, which could not […]
Author: Jimmy Corcoran
Treating people like fools
After a number of years off the radar, out of vogue, the bogeyman of online piracy is back on billboards and your television screens. Launched in October, BeStreamWise is the latest awareness campaign to deter people from using illegal internet protocol television (IPTV), also known as dodgy boxes, firesticks, and […]
The degrowth debate
Degrowth has arguably become the most common idea in the coverage of post-capitalist visions of the world in tackling climate change. Monthly Review dedicated an issue to degrowth, while Kohei Saito’s Degrowth Manifesto had record sales in Japan. Inevitably, degrowth is interpreted in different ways in the public conversations. In […]
The politics of the Irish establishment
No historical Irish political figure sums up the politics of the Irish establishment today as much as John Redmond. The class and political interests Redmond embodied during his life have strengthened over recent decades and now appear to dominate most elements of the state, media, and political parties. Politics is […]
Palestine
Unending violence and repression October 2023 will go as one of the bloodiest periods in recent history, in the long struggle of the Palestinian people to end Israeli occupation and to achieve an independent state. The current bloody onslaught against the Palestinian people, while sparked by the attacks of the […]
Statement in Solidarity with LGBTQ+ Community
The rights of LGBTQI people are under attack, we have seen regressive moves across Europe the latest being Italy’s right-wing government ordering state agencies to cease registration of children born to same-sex couples and the retroactive cancellation and re-issuance of birth certificates of lesbian couples’ children, with only the gestational […]
Multipolarity and the BRICS
A current fashion within the left is the championing of multipolarity. It assumes a bloc of states in different countries, some with more mixed economies than others, as objectively “anti-imperialist” insofar as they present a threat to the American hegemon. Some of this interpretation is jaundiced, especially when one considers […]
Indigo girls’ recent Dublin concert
Indigo Girls (Amy Ray and Emily Saliers) opened their recent show in what was without doubt an incredible performance, singing a combination of folk-protest songs and country music in a sold-out National Concert Hall, Dublin. They performed without orchestral accompaniment or flashing lights: just two women with acoustic guitars playing […]
Environmentalism, capitalism, and vibes
In the age of social media, the term “vibe” is often used as shorthand for aesthetic, often with the substance shifted into the background and just picking up on the visual, sensory or language aspect of an object, movement, culture, or politics. I was reminded of this term when reading […]
The East is still Red
■ Carlos Martinez, The East Is Still Red (Glasgow: Praxis Press, 2023) The East Is Still Red is a very readable and able defence of the current People’s Republic of China. The basic argument of the book is that China is on the right path with regard to building socialism, […]
Blackshirts & Reds
■ Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997) In the thirty-two years since the Soviet Union was dissolved and Fukuyama’s “end of history” began, more and more young people are becoming communists. Multiple failures of capitalism—runaway rent and housing costs, and unabated climate disaster—are bringing young […]
O’Casey and the reality of the Dublin working class
Seán O’Casey—the first proletarian dramatist writing in English—made his theme the struggle for the emancipation of the Irish people and, by extension, of all working people. In Ireland, O’Casey is (unfairly) best known for his first three plays, examining the Irish working class at crucial moments of history. The Shadow […]
For an inverted theatre
Brecht and radically proletarian art The majority of theatre broadly falls under the umbrella of dramatic theatre. It will have a linear plotline, actors who wholly inhabit well-developed characters, structured, thought-out themes, etc. Bertolt Brecht, the German Marxist playwright, would call it escapism. Brecht held that “art is not a […]
Irish communists’ visit to China
Part 2 ■ Part 1 was published in the August issue here The Communist Party of Ireland recently accepted an invitation from the International Department of the Communist Party of China to attend the 3rd Communist Party Leaders’ Delegation of North American, Oceanian and Nordic Countries at three venues in […]
Working-class unity
Last month’s Socialist Voice had an article on “learning with the people.” The writer made the point about its content that “is anything being said that hasn’t been said a thousand times before? Almost certainly not.” While that may be true, it seems that it’s often forgotten. Socialist movements are […]
BRICS summit strengthens the bloc
The 15th summit of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) was held in South Africa in August under the slogan “Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism.” More than sixty countries from around the world participated in this summit, which made the momentous decision to […]