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Socialist Party: Ideology fogging up Reality?
Read more about: Foreign Affairs, Socialist Party 
You know, it is not often we get to talk about Socialist Party policies here. I think that this may be the first post on the site about the party, but we do include their feed in the Party News section. But then, they have control of Indymedia so does it matter that much? 
One of the big campaigns that they are involved in at the moment is the Shell to Sea campaign. I have to wonder, if a state-owned gas company was the one doing this, would they be as vocally opposed to it as they are now? Socialist governments have not been the most respectful of the rights of the little people in the past. Even the Socialist Party itself would like—have they changed their land nationalisation ideas?—to take over the land of the people of Rossport, nationalise it, and give it to the state. I would wager something like that would create the same, if not greater protests in Rossport than Shell is causing. But that is the thing I find about socialist: many of them seem not to realise that people want to be free of outside influences, be they big multinationals or the state.
The other big thing that exercises them is the Palestinian question which, like the rest of the world, gets massive attention while millions die in African conflicts. Since July 2003, nearly 400,000 people have died in Darfur and are still dying. While the recent Lebanese-Israel conflict cost 1000 lives, the Iraq in contrast conflict killed close to the Darfur figure (even though some estimates are huge and others small, it is still close). A search of their website brings up 117 press releases about Israel, 425 about Iraq and 1 for Darfur. Why do Palestinians and Lebanese demand more attention then the people of Darfur? Why are Iraqi lives more in need of press releases than Darfur? Is it because you can only call a nation of white people “imperialist”? Is it because it is poor against poor? Is it because Palestine is trendy? Is it not cool to be anti this war? Who knows?
Anyway, their solution for the Lebanese conflict is this:
The solution to this crisis is not more United Nations forces. It lies in the hands of the working people and peasants of the Lebanon, the Palestinian people and the Israeli working class
And they are right; the future lies not in the UN but in the peoples of the region. But this belief that all that is needed is for the working class to get together is naive. This goes all the way back to the Marxist idea that it is class that separates people, not nationality. But nationality does separate people. In Northern Ireland, the conflict was never about class. In a socialist world, the people of the Shankill and Falls Roads would have united together to fight the common enemy but in truth, they fought each other. People will never unite on class and war will always be fought between nationalities by the poor. Just look at Dafur.
Why aren’t the Socialists making much noise about Darfur? For the same reason as everybody else besides the charities: it’s not politically interesting. Simple. As. That.
Sadly true keith. Darfur is poltically unintersting as the wrong people are dying.
Simon I think some socialists would argue that the S2S campaign is motivated by the locals in rossport fearing for their safety. Given the culture of rebellion in this country and the west particularly i have to think that if it were a state company (say an ESB pylon or Eircom mast?) the uproar over health would be just the same.
Nationalism has always been a difficulty for marxists and the temptation to define it away is one of the areas of failure of the theory. Its not for me to begin to reconstruct it however.
First off, I’m not a socialist but..
Unfortunately the comment about Indymedia being controlled by the Socialist Party is not only factually inaccurate, it also demostrates a total lack of knowledge about the functioning of Indymedia. Indymedia, being based on a program called oscailt, operates an open publishing system enabling anyone to publish a news story. Stories and comments are only editied on the basis that they promote homophobia, racism, fascism, sexism, are liblous, slanderous, are trolling or if the report is factually inaccurate. All decisions to censor a post are emailed to a list that anyone can join were the specific post is reprinted along with the reason why it was deleted and who it was deleted by. These actions are carried out by a democratically elected editorial board which to my knowledge, dooes not contain any member of the Socialist Party. The open, transparent and democratic system which Indymedia operates ensures that no grouping can ‘control’ the site.
The Socialist Party and Shell To Seas opposition to the Corrib project is based on safety concerns, not the nationalistion of industry. If the project was nationalised, I, along with Shell To Sea would continue in our opposition to the project which Accufacts in their independent report concluded, has a uniquely large rupture impact zone, with potential for high fatalities; has too many unknowns regarding the future operation of this pipeline especially in the areas of gas pressure and gas composition that can lead to failure; the thick-walled pipe specified for use is not invincible to leak or rupture the proposed pipeline will transport gas at high pressure in a raw state, containing metals and radioactive gases. There is compelling evidence to suggest that internal corrosion of the pipeline is likely and difficulties with locating the gas processing plant offshore have been overstated, and routing analyses for the onshore system are seriously deficient.
I do however absolutely agree that people want “to be free of outside influences, be they big multinationals or the state.”
Now, pulling on my old ucd sociologists hat, the SP as Trotskyists would see the conflict in Northern Ireand being based on Bristish Imperialism which according to Lenin (sigh) is the Highest stage of Capitalism. Their analysis would conclude that traditonally Unionists in the North had control of the means of productions while Republicans did not. Thats overly economically deterministic in my opinon but their is a degree of truth.
safety concerns, not the nationalistion of industry.
Well listening to people on the radio from Dublin going on about “giving our national resources away for free” i have to doubt the amount of safety corcerns that dominate the none locals at the protest.
There are numerous issues surrounding the project. The most important is the saftey issue. The issue of “giving away our natural resources” is in response to Shells Pr which states that the project is in our national interests. Under legislation passed by the government (and Ray Burke) the project is more in the interests of Norway who will recieve royalies due to its links with Statoil. The Irish government will recieve no real revenue from the project. The gas will be sold at full market value so its origins, whether from the Corrib or Russia, is immaterial. The project is not in Irelands “national interests”.
My own opinion is that if the terminal was put offshore then the campaign would more or less stop. There are some other issues though such as Enterprise Oils relationship with Berites handout-man Des Richardson as well as its purchasing of tables at the FF galway races tent and a £10,000 donation in 1997
“they have control of Indymedia so does it matter that much?
“they have control of Indymedia so does it matter that much?
You may be right: Dennis Tourish, a professor in Aberdeen, has given then some stick on the site for being a cult. The headline of this thread has been changed recently- read the comments.
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=60567
http://www.csj.org/infoserv_articles/tourish_dennis_politicalleft.htm
(same article) http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general434.html
Indymedia Éire/Ireland is not controlled by the Socialist Party, Sinn Fein, Socialist Workers Party, or any other political party.
If you dont like what is being published there, you are welcome to contribute your own articles. An article defending the PD’s economic or justice policies might not be palatable to many of the regular readers/commenters on the site, but as long as it doesnt break the editorial guidelines (racist, homophobic etc) it will stay there. It is an open publishing site, so the content is defined by the contributors.
Shoddy, uninvestigative, unresearched article.
My apologies, the headline of that thread wasn’t changed I don’t think. I may have been looking at another thread.
I think you will notice that the smilly face after the indymedia quote meaning that the comment was meant to be in jest but if you are not secure enough to realise that what can I do.