Part 2 ■ Part 1 was published in the April issue; read it here Cuba’s nature as a “privileged satellite” within the US imperialist expansion created an aspiration in its bourgeoisie and sectors of its middle class, linked to the symbolic dominance and prevalence, in many, of the so-called American […]
Socialism
The future of Latin America
Latin America entered the twenty-first century dominated by neoliberal governments. It was the region of the world with the most neoliberal and the most radical governments. Neoliberalism arrived in Latin America through the “Chicago Boys” during the Pinochet dictatorship. As a result, it was the region where the greatest manifestations […]
James Connolly Conversations, 2022
This year’s James Connolly Conversations return as face-to-face meetings. At the same time we will provide an opportunity for others to join in the conversation on line. The sessions will take place on four consecutive Saturdays, from 28 May to 18 June, at 11 a.m. The meetings are designed to […]
Neutrality in today’s world
Never miss the opportunities thrown up by a crisis to advance long-held goals! The Russian invasion of Ukraine has provided such an opportunity for the Irish establishment and the establishment media to push forward their long-held agenda to ditch Irish neutrality and to use the Ukrainian crisis to push for […]
The History of IWWD
This March 8th, we observe International Working Women’s Day or IWWD, but the first unofficial women’s day took place in America on the 28th of February 1909. In 1910 Clara Zetkin proposed that an international working women’s day would be observed every year at the Conference of Working Women. March […]
An alternative to capitalist feminism
This March, those of us who are “lucky” enough to work at liberal corporations, or are surrounded by liberal organisations, are once more sure to encounter “liberal” or capitalist feminism. Usually these corporations and organisations will drop the “Working” from International Working Women’s Day, which should give a hint to […]
Getting at the social root of crime and violence
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 […]
In defence of hospitality
We have become accustomed in recent years to manipulative language, such as the absurd euphemisms intended to inflate the prestige of really quite ordinary people and things but especially to disguise more unpleasant ones, such as “law enforcement” (police) and “correctional facility” (prison). Some of this kind of thing has […]
No citizen of Ireland should live in fear
The murder of Aisling Murphy on 12 January on a walking trail known as Fiona’s Way (in memory of the missing woman Fiona Pender) was the most recent case of femicide in Ireland. Women can’t feel safe while walking in the dark, have to watch their drinks in bars, and […]
Education should be built on the needs of the children
We are told that public education is free. However, you don’t need to look very far into how the public education system works to see that this simply isn’t true. The public school system, which is supposed to be financed by the tax that working people pay, is filled with […]
Marxists, Campaigning Groups and the Destruction of Capitalism
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 CPI as a product of Irish conditions
One of the most common attacks against us by anti-communists, in Ireland and elsewhere, is that communist parties were little more than “pawns of Moscow.” This line of attack was used against the CPI, both by the right and by some on the so-called left, in an effort to use establishment anti-Sovietism as well as to paint the party as…
Sovereignty and Independence
Rally for Irish Unity, Newtown Butler, Co. Fermanagh, 24 October 2021 A chairde Gael, Bailíonn muid anseo ar bhruach na hainnise a dtugtar an teorainn air. An chríochdheighilt sheicteach ghránna is cúis le hár is uafás in Éirinn le céad bliain anuas. Tá muid bailithe anseo in Achadh na Gé […]
Anti-union legislation must go
Low pay is defined by the OECD as the pay of a full-time worker whose earnings are below two-thirds of a country’s median income. The proportion of workers on low pay ranges from 4 per cent in Belgium to 24 per cent in the United States. The Republic, at 23 […]
Texas leads the way against women’s rights
On Wednesday 1 September 2021 the most restrictive abortion law in the United States, the Texas abortion law known as Senate Bill 8, came into effect. This bill amounts to a near-complete ban on abortion in the state. It prohibits abortion as soon as cardiac activity in the embryo is […]
Why do we work? | Part 2
Work, like inequality, appears to be a permanent feature of human existence into the foreseeable future. Psychologically, humans do not feel well if they are not working. Or so the story goes. And work, as we said earlier, is continually reinforced by the language of power. “An honest day’s work […]