Social media and Google serve three strategic purposes for the US government. Firstly, they allow the United States to conduct espionage; secondly, they facilitate the spread of disinformation; and thirdly, they serve as conduits for the transmission of social contagions.
Author: Lauren Smith
Books – Between sectarianism and neo-liberalism
Paul Stewart, Tommy McKearney, Gearóid Ó Machail, Patricia Campbell, Brian Garvey, Between Sectarianism and Neo-Liberalism: The State of Northern Ireland and the Democratic Deficit (Glasgow: Vagabond Voices, 2018) If, like me, you mourn the loss of intelligent debate among Irish republicans as they descend into the gobbledegook of bourgeois democracy, […]
War destroys not only lives
The 11th of November 2018 is the centenary of the ending of the First World War. During that bloody slaughter the propagandists described it as “the war to end all wars.” A hundred years and as many wars later, the militarists in the United States and Europe—many of them the […]
Presidential election – Sinn Féin the big loser
Sinn Féin is the big loser from the presidential election. Given a golden opportunity to present itself as the principal alternative to a triumvirate of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, and the Labour Party, it offered the Republic’s electorate a package so bland that it blended in with the wallpaper. Surely […]
Cinema – On Mandy, capitalist media, and the working class
Panos Cosmatos’s film Mandy (2018) has received widespread acclaim for its visually arresting murder-and-revenge story, set in a heavily aestheticised 1980s rural America (thanks to the cinematography of Benjamin Loeb). This article is not so much a review of the film as a critical assessment of some of the political […]
Samantha Power and the Irish cousins
Samantha Power was born in Ireland but was taken to America at a young age by her parents, a doctor and a dentist. She attended Yale University and subsequently became a war journalist. Later she was an adviser to Barack Obama, who appointed her US ambassador to the United Nations […]
Brexit and “backstops” – Difficulties for the EU continue to intensify
As the time for a final deal between the British state and the European Union draws near, the British government is attempting to push through its minimalist Brexit strategy so as to secure its “special relationship.”
Portuguese communist festival, 2018
In the first week of September the Communist Party of Ireland sent a delegation to the Avante festival in Portugal. The festival is sponsored by Avante! the weekly paper of the Portuguese Communist Party, and is held each year in the first week of September. The PCP takes its international […]
The Irish left and the European Union
Summary of the talk given by the general secretary of the CPI, Eugene McCartan, at the Desmond Greaves Summer School in September 2018
Late-stage capitalism: A new phase in the system, or the regression of welfare capitalism?
Over the last twenty years the acceleration of the internet and web sites has been critical in the development of thought and ideology in the new wave of Marxists now reaching the age of revolutionary activity and education. Studying theory and discussing it among comrades has never been easier. You […]
Fianna Fáil in a bind
Mícheál Martin’s Fianna Fáil is in a bind. The man once described by the Irish Times columnist Miriam Lord as the Grand Old Duke of Cork is still impaled on the horns of a dilemma. He has led his party into a perilous position, leaving it stranded in political no-man’s […]
“Not seeing the wood for the trees”: A response (1)
In the July and August issues of Socialist Voice, Jimmy Doran and Niall Cullinane debated the merits of reforming the Industrial Relations Act (1990). While Jimmy was enthusiastic for reform, Niall was more sceptical. In elaborating this scepticism he raised many interesting and important points. Limitations of space prevent a […]
“Not seeing the wood for the trees”: A response (2)
In September’s Socialist Voice, two articles (“Not seeing the wood for the trees” by Ernst Schreiber and “Unity is strength” by Laura Duggan) raised issue with a piece written by this contributor in the August issue (“The wrong act?”). I will confine my response to the former, because, in contrast […]
Balaclavas, evictions, and the state
The true class nature of the Irish state was exposed recently at the eviction of the Take Back the City group from a house in North Frederick Street, Dublin, when employees of a private security firm, masked and armed with sledgehammers and cutting equipment, smashed into the occupied premises while […]
The attack on public transport must be resisted and defeated
The Communist Party of Ireland condemns the attempt at further privatisation by putting out to public tender another 10 per cent of Bus Éireann routes. We are not fooled by the standard neo-liberal dual strategy of starving and running down their target, in this case Bus Éireann, through lack of […]
A new constitution for Cuba
Social property will be the main basis for production in Cuba after the adoption next year of a new constitution, and this will continue to be the governing principle of the country’s social and economic life. This was the main message of the Cuban deputy minister of foreign affairs, Ana […]