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The Saker Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.
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Irish Activist Too Busy Fighting With Each Other To Actually Do Anything national |
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news report
 Tuesday June 04, 2002 15:16 by Observer
 The leaders of capitalist globalisation meet in Dublin, but the SWP/SP/WP/WSM/GR and now SA miss it In a shocking development, it was today revealed that Irish activists have spent more time debating on Indymedia.ie than any other social or political activity. This is believed to have contributed to the utter lack of action directed towards a huge gathering of capitalist leaders in a posh hotel in Dublin (news report attached). When questioned on this, leaders of the SWP/SP/WP/WSM/GR/SA alphabet soup reacted by turning to the person on their right and yelling "Sectarian!!". Tight security surrounds world leaders’ meeting in Dublin Tight security is in force around the Four Seasons hotel in Ballsbridge, Dublin today ahead of a gathering of past and present world leaders, businessmen, artists and Nobel Laureates. Statesmen, including former US President Bill Clinton, will attend the meeting of the Academy of Achievement, a Washington-based group established to inspire "young leaders of tomorrow". The International Achievement Summit is being hosted by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and there has been speculation that former Russian leader Mr Mikhail Gorbachev will be at the event. However the Academy of Achievement refuse to disclose any details of its 41st annual summit. The Garda and the Department of Foreign Affairs are also refusing to reveal details. Mr Gorbachev is expected to build on the business contacts he developed in Dublin when he visited the city earlier this year. During the visit, in which he received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College and was granted freedom of the city, the former Soviet Union leader said he wished to forge stronger bonds between the high-tech industry sectors of Russia and Ireland. It is understood that high-achieving youngsters from around the world will meet with around 50 delegates later in the week. Planning for the summit has been under way for months. Afghanistan's interim leader Mr Hamid Karzai is set to join outgoing Colombian president Mr Andres Pastrana, President McAleese and her predecessor Mrs Mary Robinson at the meeting. Mr Pastrana's attendance will give the Taoiseach an opportunity to discuss the detention of three alleged IRA men in Bogota. Mr Niall Connolly, Mr James Monaghan and Mr Martin McCauley are awaiting trial accused of training Marxist guerrillas of the terror group FARC. Northern Ireland peace broker and US Senator George Mitchell is also believed to be attending. It is understood the Garda have collaborated with international police and US services as part of the security operation. The Irish Times reported today that the Emergency Response Unit will also form part of the security provision. It is also understood that a major security operation will swing into action later in the week when Mr Clinton gives the only public speech of the event. Last year's summit was held in San Antonio, Texas, and was graced by a selection of world leaders, including former Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, as well as authors, artists, sports stars, captains of industry and Nobel Laureates. PA
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Comments (10 of 10)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10The idea that activists are too busy fighting with each other to do anything else is false and more seriously could make people afraid to debate and discuss. Many of those taking part in the debates on indymedia are spending far more effort builidng grassroots campaigns around issues from the bin charges to shut Sellafield. Blind activism of the 'shut up and do something variety' apperently advocated above will do far more damage to the movement in the long run.
Socialism failed in the 20th century not because of a lack of activism, there were many, many mass movements. It failed because too many activists did not give enough consideration to what they were fighting for. So endless lifetimes were spent building organisations like the Labour parties, the leninist parties and radical nationalist parties that today are exposed as counter productive.
The worlds ruling class have countless meetings big and small. There is no point thinking that we have something to gain by picketing every one of these. We will not create a free society in that manner alone. We may create the occasional 'spectacular protest' that opens up a brief space for us in the media but even this means nothing without a movement to build on that publicity.
There is a place for spectacular protest but the real important activity is grassroots organising of ordinary people (what we mean by the term working class) to fight in their own interests. Alongside this we need to develop a hard critique of the reasons socialist movements have failed in the past. A free society can only be built by the mass of the working class engaged in self-activity towards creating a free society armed with an understanding of What is not to be done.
Well observer old buddy what excatly are YOU doing about it. Your problem is you see this as something SOMEONE ELSE should do. The point of activisim is doing it yourself and not depending on other people. If you feel strongly about this you can get on the phone ring the alphabet soup and people will go. Stop whingeing and organise!!!!!!! If you need flyers printed any of these organisations will help you. Or better still do it yourself. The left in Ireland is tiny so we need as many people as possible doing things. You might find it hard to believe but we are involed in alot of grass roots campaigning that takes alot of time. As well as those of us who go for elections (but we won't get into that debate now andrew!!!). Either way the point is organise it yourself and you'll get support.
Build it and they will come!!! (a few at least)
I'm setting up a new party to unite the left. Anyone who wants to join is welcome as long as you follow the rules:
1. We refuse to sell our newspaper.
2. There is no leader.
3. We never have meetings.
The name of the party shall be:
Grass Roots Anarchist Socialist Workers Republican Movement Party Ireland.
Can someone do up a banner please!
sadly, i think that there is a point to this -- the bickeringmust end - which i precisely why i didn't respond to half the posts in here- lets grow up and stop the bickering - which means nothing to nayone but the "activists" in indymedia
There can never be enough bickering: so I welcome the parent post by "Observer". Nice bicker Observer!
Or do I smell the SWP role-playing? The inclusion of themselves in the list of sectarian groups would be a master-stroke of black propaganda. However, I reckon they fell down with the 'observer' tag. The thing is that if the author was really an observer of the left, rather than a participat, they would hardly have the cheek to give out to the various activist groups for not organising a welcoming committee for this meeting. If you wanted to stop any criticism of the SWP however, you would want such calls to come from a neutral, an observer rather than an active participant.
Next time folks, just make up a name. Brian's a nice one.
Do you guys have to go to school to learn this shit? Hat's off, you throw some mean mud!
Observer, did you learn of this meeting from the previous post on the newswire? I learned of it on the radio this morning, again too late to do much about it except bitch. Stil perhaps all this negativity will cause someone else to organise a big conference that you, I and all the other net-nerds who hang around indymedia can go to and meet up face2face. Then someone else could tell us how to change the world, maybe we could als set up some kind of emergency protest team with people on 30 minute standby all round the country. Won't it be great, commitees, lists, dogmas we can all rally round being led to freedom (in chains)
Just as well nothing was organised. If it had our usual pythonesk figures would have accused someone else of hijacking it; organising a front, blah, blah blah
Time to grow up lads, the capitalists are running rings round ye
I think we can assume from all these crys about "bickering" and "sectarian" that the S.W.P. make decisions by NOT discussing and NOT debating.
"Time to grow up lads, the capitalists are running rings round ye"
Yeah right. Whereas sending messages like this to indymedia will smash capitalism!