Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, during the peak of the covid pandemic, said that “we are all in this together.” But, on the contrary, two newspaper articles provide evidence to believe otherwise. The Irish Examiner reported that the wealth of nine Irish billionaires increased by 58 per cent since the […]
Prison abolitionism is often viewed as a utopian idea, but when we examine the root causes of crime, and the victims of the legal system, it’s clear that if abolitionism is utopianism we are living in a dystopia. When a particularly heinous crime is committed it is the typical reaction […]
“More right-wing than Genghis Khan” is an expression often used to describe how far to the right someone is. Whatever about the accuracy of this statement, communists, socialist republicans and the left generally have a particular antipathy to right-wing ideology, and for a myriad of reasons. The first response is […]
Throughout the West, since the onset of the covid pandemic, extreme right-wing forces have given political leadership and muscle to much of the anti-mask-wearing, anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination protests. They do so by trading on a genuine distrust of Big Pharma and on an increasing alienation from bourgeois democracy, which is […]
Two years into the novel coronavirus pandemic and the end seems further away than ever. At the same time it is clearer than ever that the capitalist economic system is hampering our ability both to live with the virus and to mitigate its worst effects. Decades of government policy have […]
The impact of capitalism on women has been discussed in these pages previously, as has the increased risks that women face, both on a personal and a social level, during times of crisis. Women face increased risk of violence from intimate partners during large sports events, are disproportionately affected by […]
My ten-year-old granddaughter announced to me recently that she was going on her first shopping trip with her mother. Apparently it was a counterbalance to a trip her younger brother had to Manchester to see Man U (as those in the know call them). I enquired, playfully, what type of […]
As increased “lockdown” measures by the Government are on the horizon again, it appears that the extent of the bourgeois state’s ingenuity as regards battling the novel-coronavirus pandemic remains to repeat the same failed tactic over and over again: more vaccines and restrictions, no capital investment, no infrastructure, no sickness […]
We have two health services in Ireland, and both are on the verge of collapse. Since Covid exposed their existing inadequacies, very little capacity has been added to either service in preparation for the next wave. We should have been building and training staff for several new hospitals. In fact […]
The list of groups in Ireland, even today, that campaign, pressure, expose, support or oppose an endless list of issues is mind-boggling. In a lot of cases it is an industry grant-aided by the state – the so-called “third sector” of society. Community groups, social groups, pressure groups, protest movements, […]
The housing crisis has laid bare the ruthless nature of capitalism, its parasitic and exploitative nature. There is simply no lengths it will not go to to secure its interests, to secure profits and the further accumulation of capital. But the housing crisis has exposed not only the real nature […]
“Yes, friends, governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class.” James Connolly The earliest recorded form of government is said to have been that of the Sumerians in fourth-century Mesopotamia (Iraq). This development led, in the fifth century in Athens, […]
A pension propaganda war has broken out, with selective leaks from the soon-to-be published report of the Pension Commission. The first leak suggested that the increase in pension age to 67 and 68 would be delayed by seven years. This was followed by a suggestion in the submission of the […]
Katherine Zappone’s rejection, respectful or otherwise, of an invitation to appear before an Oireachtas committee investigating her irregular appointment was symptomatic of a wider phenomenon. It was an example of a sense of entitlement shared by all those in the well-to-do strata of this, our class-bound, class-divided society. This is […]
Last month Kathy Sheridan, writing for the Irish Times, opined about the dilemma faced by Ireland’s middle class as they agonise over whether or not to vote for Sinn Féin. The problem, it would appear, relates to the fact that while the party is promoting progressive policies, it simultaneously glorifies […]
There was a great discussion recently with representatives of the Protestant/loyalist community about sectarianism and its roots, among other things, and the obvious effects on people and our society. That set me thinking about potential strategies. Socialists and republicans lay the blame for sectarianism at the door of British colonialism […]