SVSocialist Voice Communist Party of Ireland

Páirtí Cumannach na hÉireann Partisan Patriotic InternationalistNumber 137 July 2016 €1.50

IN THIS ISSUEConnolly Commemoration Page 2British referendum Page 4Inequality Page 6Government crises Page 6GAA travails Page 8Puerto Rico Page 10Books Page 10Culture Page 12

Socialist Voice 43 East Essex Street Dublin D02 XH96 (01) 6708707

“Hillary the Hawk, as US senator andSecretary of State, never saw aweapons system she did not support,nor a US war practice she did notendorse.”Ralph Nader

Our water:Demand aconstitutionalreferendumEugene McCartan

THE PEOPLE, throughorganised struggle underthe banner of

Right2Water—by blockingmeters, pickets, massmobilisations, and non-payment—have secured an importantvictory with the suspension ofwater charges. We need toconsolidate this victory with aconstitutional amendmentenshrining the people’sownership and control over thisvital resource.The continuing debacle about

bin charges clearly exposed whatthe future would bring if theyprivatise water—which is thecentral reason for water chargesin the first place.The strategy of both Fianna

Fáil and Fine Gael is to break the

people’s resistance to thesecharges by pulling a stroke withtheir “independent commission”on water. They wish to defusethe people’s resistance and bringit into the safe arena ofparliamentary debates andprocedures, into structures thatthey control.Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael

represent and protect theinterests of big business. Theycarry out the instructions of theEuropean Union. We haveKarmenu Vella, the EUcommissioner for theenvironment, attempting to sowconfusion and division by issuingcontradictory statementsregarding whether or not theIrish Government has aderogation over water charges.

continued overleaf

Socialist Voice page 2

politics

Our waterWorking people should not be fooled ordeflected by these manoeuvrings ofboth the Irish establishment and theEuropean Union regarding watercharges. Their strategy was andremains to make the people pay, tocommodify water, creating a market inwater, thereby readying it forprivatisation.Experience throughout the world is

that water has become a very valuablesource of profit for global watercorporations. They are making hugeprofits from people’s need to havewater in order to live.It is important that we secure a

constitutional amendment on thepeople’s ownership of water before theEU completes its negotiations with theUnited States regarding TTIP. TheGovernment has not secured the rightto water, nor expressed any interest instopping privatisation in the future. IfTTIP is agreed it will prevent any futurepeople’s ownership.

What does privatisation mean?l Placing all decisions about water inthe hands of corporate interests,including the power to decide how andfor what purposes water resources areused, now and in the future.l Making the people’s interestssecondary to the profits ofcorporations.l Turning water into a commodity—aneconomic asset for profit-hungrycorporations.l Making water part of the growingmonopoly control over supplies ofnatural resources, including food,water, and energy; our resources wouldcome under attack through TTIP andother trade deals between the EU andthe major western states.l Water being financialised andbecoming a commodity, to be boughtand sold like all other global stock.l Profits becoming the priority over thecommon good.l Constant price increases and adeterioration in the waterinfrastructure.Water charges and privatisation

would not stop at the existing

municipal water system but would leadto community water schemes alsobeing brought under the control ofcorporate interests.

Why we need to opposeprivatisationPeople’s or public ownership is thebest way to manage and protect thisvaluable natural, life-essentialresource. It guarantees fairlydistributed, sustainably managed anddemocratically controlled water for all.When the private sector engages in

the provision of water, greaterdisparities in access and cost follow.At least eighty-six cities and towns

around the world have remunicipalisedwater services during the last fifteenyears, proving the inefficiency andproblems related to privatisation.Water requires huge and continuing

investments in infrastructure. Anestimated three-quarters of the cost ofrunning a water utility is forinfrastructure alone.Constant investment is required to

foster safe, affordable and dependablewater supplies.Clean and affordable water is the

basis of life. Skyrocketing water prices,unsafe supply, failing infrastructure—these problems fall disproportionatelyon the most vulnerable among us.Support the demand to put the

people’s ownership in the Constitution.Get your own local communitycampaign going to demand aconstitutional amendment.Get your trade union, youth and

women’s groups to support thisdemocratic demand.Build on the victory in the current

water struggle for the next stage in thebattle to secure the people’s interests,not corporate greed.

Sign our on-line petition atwww.communistpartyofireland.ie.We need to get back on the streetsand build a renewed campaign againstthese charges. In particular now weneed to raise the crucial demand for aconstitutional amendment. Rememberthat a significant number of TDs in thepresent Dáil campaigned for theabolition of water charges.

James Connollycommemoration

IN HIS WRITING, Connollysets out clearly his vision of asocialist republic—no narrow

nationalist but a visionarysocialist who understood thecoercive nature of imperialism,not only in Ireland but globally.Connolly condemned the rape of

nations, the enslavement of peoples,and the plunder of their naturalresources.He knew that a socialist revolution

was only possible by the defeat ofimperialist power, hence he fullysupported the struggle for Irishfreedom in the same context as thestruggle for the freedom of labour. The struggle was a socialist struggle

against a global system ofexploitation; Ireland was but onebattle in a war, but if Ireland could besuccessful in creating a socialistrepublic he knew it would be abeacon for other nations to riseagainst the system.

s On the 12th ofMay 1916 JamesConnolly wasexecuted in thestonebreakers’yard inKilmainham Jail,Dublin.

Unfortunately, his execution robbedus of one of our greatest socialistthinkers. Although his ideas were tolive on in many, some of whom wouldgo on to fight fascism in Spain, hisexecution robbed us of the revolution;instead what followed was a territorialrebellion.The socialist republic for which

Connolly died was never to be. It wasstrangled soon after birth by a narrownationalism and conservatismpropagated by Capital and Rome. AsConnolly predicted, hoisting the GreenFlag over Dublin Castle itself wasinsufficient to achieve economic andsocial freedom.One hundred years on, the vision of

Connolly is as far away today as itwas then: our island is still unfree;and I am not referring to narrowterritorial freedom but rather thefreedom to organise our economy andour society. The Ireland of today isdictated to by foreign capital, thevoice of global capital is louder andstronger than ever before, the

imperialism of international financecapital dictates every facet of oureconomy and society. It renders ourdemocratically elected governmentspowerless on the organisation of oursociety.Our governments are often unwilling

but more times unable to makeindependent decisions in the bestinterests of their own citizens, as wasand is still demonstrated in the recenteconomic crash which hit Europe.The people of Ireland were

sacrificed at the altar of globalcapital. The financial system wasrescued while the people were left todrown. Our constitution was ignoredand our democracy violated.I listen now with dismay as our

newly elected Government here in theRepublic sends forth economicevangelists to the UK to sway thepeople to vote to stay in Europe, aEurope which in our crisis played sucha detrimental and corrosive roleagainst the Irish people; a Europewhich has long given up any pretenceof a social agenda, a Europe whichdecided that all financial institutionswere too big to fail, regardless of thehuman cost, a Europe that has nosoul, hollowed out by decades of neo-liberal policies.Whatever about the nature of the

debate in the UK, and truthfully thereare many aspects of the debate onboth sides that are distasteful andmany of the protagonists we associalists hold in utter contempt anddespise, but at least they are havinga critical debate about the UK’srelationship with Europe, somethingour own Government and themainstream media have refused todo, fearing letting the genie out of thebottle, I believe.Connolly would have analysed

Europe and its actions in our recentpast in Ireland and in Greece, Spainetc. and concluded that Europe is acapitalist construction intent onprotecting capital at the expense oflabour. He would have concluded thatEurope is anti-working class and assuch perpetuates poverty andinequality.l Last night in Dublin alone 1,500children slept in hostels and hotelsfor want of a home.l Countless families on a daily basisfear eviction from their homes, inmany cases their home loans sold tovulture funds.l The Republic of Ireland is one of themost unequal countries in Europe; weare second only to the US in terms ofthe proportion of low-paid jobs in our

economy.l Where CEOs of large corporationsbelieve it’s acceptable to slash low-paid workers’ wages while payingthemselves millions in salary andbonuses.l Where the owner of Clery’s store inDublin—vulture developers—createand sell a company for £1 to aLondon liquidation firm and dumpfour hundred workers onto thestreets, where the taxpayer picks upthe bill for redundancy and wages duewhile they retain the valuableproperty.l The rich and infamous and largecorporations can steal a nation’ssocial wage, which is so muchneeded to build schools and hospitalsby paying no tax via a web ofinternational tax havens, while waterprotesters are jailed for protesting intheir communities against our naturalresources being plundered andprivatised.Shame on you all, and all those

who act as cheerleaders for thisdisgusting behaviour!But all is not lost. The vision of

Connolly lives on. It was expressedduring the water movement and theRight2Change movement in theRepublic of Ireland, combining, asConnolly would have, communities,labour unions and progressive politicalparties to mobilise and fight back, todefend our natural resources, to giveexpression and a voice to those whohave been shut out and marginalised.It was about much more than

water: it was about citizens findingtheir voice, their power, and standingup against economic bullies, vulturefunds, and big business. Itempowered local communities, it wasorganic, it was and is a real socialmovement, and it shook the Irishpolitical class to its very foundations.It was about universal health care,

education, housing, equality, justice,and fairness. It was about Connolly’svision for Ireland—a vision long lost inthe minds of many. For the first timein decades people had a vision that adifferent economic, social andpolitical construct was and ispossible.We owe it to Connolly that his

vision is not once again strangled bypowerful self-interests groups.There is real hope for change. We

must nurture and develop that hopeinto an organisation and a force. Thelast election was a beginning; let usmarch on.“Our demands most moderate are:

we only want the earth.”

Socialist Voice page 3

Ireland

Speech by John Douglas general secretary, Mandate, Arbour Hill, Dublin, 15 May 2016

Debt: a weapon against thepeople €3.50/£3

The BloodyTrail ofImperialism by Eddie Glackin€8/£6

The Marxism of James Connollyby ThomasMetscher€3.50/£2.50

Order fromConnolly Books43 East EssexStreet, Dublin,between TempleBar andParliament Street(01) 6708707 connollybooks@eircom.net

Socialist Voice

EU

page 4

It’s difficult, therefore, tooverestimate the significance of thisoutcome. It has happened in spite ofenormous scaremongering by theRemain campaign and its shamelessexploitation of the murder of Jo Cox MP.Undoubtedly, strident attempts will

now be made to attribute this result, inits entirety, to the impact of migrationexploited by xenophobic Britishreactionaries within and outside theConservative Party.It would, of course, be wrong to

dismiss the part played by racism.Britain is a former imperial power, andcontempt for other peoples was anendemic feature of its past and has notbeen eradicated. Nevertheless, thistendentious argument deliberatelyignores the fact that there have beenwaves of migration into Britain fordecades, all accommodated thanks to

an expanding economy.Worse than being a deliberate

misrepresentation is the fact thatconcentrating entirely on resistance tomigration denies what the FinancialTimes described as the “rage fromLeave voters alienated by London andglobalisation.”No matter who legislated for the

referendum or for what reason, votingwas open to all, and the working-classmovement had an opportunity toparticipate in a crucially importantdebate and decision-making event.Herein lay, perhaps, the most ominousaspect of the entire campaign. Apartfrom a small, coherent minority centredmainly on people in the RMT Union andthe daily Morning Star, the left in Britain(in its widest definition) either failed torecognise or, worse, chose to ignorethe despair felt by so many workingpeople in the UK.In part because of the depoliticisation

of large swathes of organised labour asa result of the pernicious right-winginfluence of New Labour’s Blairitecohort, there was a general absence ofany critical narrative, not to mentionsocialist analysis, in relation to theEuropean Union. This weakness led to

the mistaken assertion, when thereferendum was first announced, thatbeing anti-EU was tantamount to beinganti-migrant and xenophobic. Steppingback from positive engagement meantthat the debate was dominated at firstby feuding reactionaries.Fearing a split in his Blairite-

dominated parliamentary party, theleader of the Labour Party, JeremyCorbyn, felt forced to support theRemain campaign, though offering adifferent rationale from that of WilliamHague or Theresa May. With little byway of evidence, he argued that theEuropean Union protected workers’rights and offered access to a lucrativemarket for British manufacturing.Depressingly, Corbyn’s lead was

gladly followed by both the TUC inBritain and the ICTU in NorthernIreland. In fact the referendum debatein the North of Ireland paralleled that inBritain. The DUP supported quitting theEU for reasons similar to those of right-wing conservatives, while Sinn Féinargued a Remain case along linesemployed by New Labour.The Northern Ireland committee of

the ICTU strongly supported the Remaincampaign but, interestingly, did

British referendum a victory for democracyTommy McKearney

THE UNITED KINGDOM has voted to leave theEU. Its electorate has done so in spite ofexhortations to remain from, among others,

David Cameron and Peter Mandelson, a majority ofFTSE 100 chief executives, Goldman Sachs, themanaging director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde,and Enda Kenny.

This is not an existential crisis forBritish capitalism but it is a serioussetback for the most powerful sectionof the bourgeoisie with a crisis in bothConservative and Labour parties.Cameron and Osborne, the two

principal representatives of the hautbourgeoisie in government, arefinished. But Boris Johnson, the formermayor of London, who opportunisticallyplaced himself at the head of the Brexitcampaign – although his personalposition was for a renegotiation ofBritain’s relationship with the EU – hasbeen defenestrated by his ostensibleally justice secretary Michael Gove who,in turn, is now eclipsed by the HomeSecretary Teresa May.

Britain's ruling class is struggling toreorientate itself around a multi-facetedstrategy to subvert the 23 Junedecision. Delaying the negotiations, amedia-inspired street manifestation ofRemain forces; attempts to freeze thestatus quo until October; manoeuvresto create a demand for a secondreferendum and a torrent of‘constitutional’ advice that the pro-EUmajority of MPs should subvert thereferendum result have created afeverish political climate.Jeremy Corbyn, the embattled leader

of the Labour Party, who muted his longstanding criticisms of the EU in theinterests of preserving an appearanceof party unity, has unequivocallydemanded that the referendum resultbe respected and the Article 50 treatyprovisions for Britain to leave the EU beimplemented.He is right that the Tories, whoever

leads them, cannot be trusted tonegotiate Britain’s exit from theEuropean Union. Corbyn and the left wing, anti-war

and trade union forces that broughthim to the leadership of the Labour

Party face a coup by the parliamentaryparty majority and the Blairiteapparatchiks in the party structures.A labour government elected on

policies that strike at the heart of thebi-partisan neo-liberal project would bean unreliable reserve for capitalistcontinuity. Blair himself put it clearly.He would rather see Labour defeatedthan victorious with Corbyn’s policies.However, although still dangerous,

the carefully calibrated coup hasstalled. Instead of resigning in the faceof a staged series of front benchresignations Corbyn immediately sackedthe coup frontman, Hilary Benn. Shadow business secretary Angela

Eagle was lined up to trigger aleadership election. But faced with astorm of opposition – with 60,000people joining Labour in the ensuingweek, in their overwhelming majoritypleaded to back Corbyn – a rash ofstreet demonstrations in support ofCorbyn, the swift appointment of newshadow cabinet members and a firmstand by the leaders of the main tradeunions in defence of the party’sdemocracy the coup plotters have lost

Nick Wright

ADOUBLE COUP is unfolding in Britain. Thevote to leave the EU has confounded theruling circles, the monopoly media, the right-

wing Labour clique, big business, the banks, theCity of London, the military industrial power nexus,the foreign policy establishment and the NATO,intelligence and security praetorian guard. The USlock on Europe, exercised through Britain’smembership of the EU, is threatened.

A serious setback for Britain’s bourgeoisie

page 5

Politics

Socialist Voice

EU democracy

1992 Denmark:Maastricht Treatydefeated . . .made to voteagain2001 Ireland: NiceTreaty defeated. . . made to voteagain2005 France: EUconstitutiondefeated . . .result ignored2005 Netherlands:EU constitutiondefeated . . .result ignored2008 Ireland:Lisbon Treatydefeated . . .made to voteagain2015 Greece:“Bail-out”defeated . . .result ignored

acknowledge its deep-seated flaws atpublic meetings attended by this writer.In the face of powerful opposition it

seemed almost inevitable that theLeave campaign—including the well-reasoned left “Lexit” case—wouldsuccumb. That this did not happen isworth consideration.Over the past forty years many British

working-class communities haveendured deprivation, with industriesclosing, low wages, zero-hour contracts,the welfare state undermined, andpublic services being privatised. As aconsequence, a large number of thesesocieties have been damaged, andmany less-well-off people feel alienatedfrom the political establishment,whether it is in the EU or London.The EU is clearly not directly

responsible for every socially destructiveeffect suffered by the British workingclass; but its overarching neo-liberalethos has certainly facilitated thedevastation.Equally pertinent is the fact that the

right-of-centre social democrats of NewLabour have not only failed to offerworking people a viable remedy buthave colluded with the free-marketeersin inflicting their punishing programme.Kevin McKenna, writing in the Herald(Glasgow), accurately reflected thefeelings of working people in the north

of England towards the party when hesaid that “during three successiveLabour governments they had beenmade to feel like an embarrassment tothe metropolitan Islington elite whothirsted for power and money . . .”¹While not underestimating the

significance of a vote to leave the EU, itshould not be taken in isolation from itswider European context.Disenchantment is not confined toBritain. A recent article in the FinancialTimes revealed the fact that the EU isbecoming increasingly unpopularamong people in its member-states.²Quoting from an extensive survey ofopinion, Timothy Garton Ash mentionedthat in eight of the ten member-statessurveyed, a majority disapproved of howthe EU manages the economy, and only51 per cent are in favour of retainingthe union.³Admittedly these statistics are

garnered by a research company,employing opinion poll surveys, and somust be viewed cautiously.Nevertheless some facts areindisputable. One is that the EuropeanUnion, with its treaties enshrining neo-liberal economic policies, hasexacerbated austerity in many of themember-states, and offers no obviousway to correct this deficiency.Furthermore, the legal structures and

constitution of the union not only makereforming its institutions practicallyimpossible but also, as the Greekpeople (as well as the Irish and others)have learnt, makes futile resistancefrom within.As a consequence, working-class

people throughout the EU have anobjective need to dismantle the EU asan entity; equally important in the lightof its rapidly diminishing popularity,there is now a realistic possibility ofdoing so. However, this will require acarefully crafted and enlightenedstrategy, because otherwise fascism willexploit the misery created andperpetuated by the neo-liberals.Essential to the success of such a

strategy is challenging comprehensivelyand dismissing the illusion peddled bycentrist social democrats that the EUcan be reformed. The Britishreferendum result shows thatdemolishing this myth is now a realisticoption.Running in tandem with this,

however, is the need to promote a clearand unambiguous socialist alternativethat speaks to the needs of themajority throughout the continent.Undoubtedly this will pose challenges;but when has building socialism beeneasy? And when has that been areason for not trying?

1 KevinMcKenna, “EUvote truly signalsthe end of aUnion dearer tome,” Herald, 25June 2016, athttp://bit.ly/293ZNY8.

2 Timothy GartonAsh, “The fadingof Europe is aresult of both itsfailures andsuccesses,”Financial Times,11 June 2016.

3 Pew ResearchCenter,“Euroskepticismbeyond Brexit(http://pewrsr.ch/1ZvrKcY).

the initiative.Their problem is that they lack

political credibility. Eagle herself votedfor the Iraq war and failed to opposethe welfare reforms at the centre of theTories’ austerity programme. On austerity and on the EU issue the

parliamentary party have lost touch withLabour’s working-class constituencywith millions lost to abstention, thenationalist and Green parties and UKIP.The Labour right’s chosen strategy in

the referendum – replicating thedisastrous cross-party alliance in theScottish referendum – isolated Labourfurther from working class voters. Aclear left alternative under the rubricLexit was advanced by sections of theleft, including the Communist Party andunions representing train drivers, rail,shipping and transport workers, bakersand food workers but the TUC and theleaders of the biggest unions called fora vote to remain in the EU.Corbyn and his allies in the party

promoted, with limited success andminimal media coverage, an EU reformpackage that lashed together reformistand ultra left illusions about thepotential to transform EU structures.As a consequence the referendumcampaign was a toxic discourse around

reactionary themes. Even in thisunpromising environment most peoplevoted to leave based on sovereigntygrounds with the conflicting issuesaround immigration in second place.The attempts by the Labour

Remainers to shift responsibility for thefailure of their strategy onto Corbyn arebacked by a powerful media campaignthat has had some success inmobilising sections of the middle classand urban and cosmopolitan strata. Changing the balance of forces and

consolidating the new Labourleadership is critical between now andthe next general election. A resurgenceof industrial and popular action againstausterity, privatisation, nuclearrearmament and war would help theprospects of victory. This, in turn, wouldmake possible an exit from the EUbased around progressive policies.The situation is complex with sections

of progressive opinion disorientated.Apart from confusion in the labourmovement, the mobilisation of youth isskewed towards student and petitbourgeois strata with the great majorityof working class young peopleuninvolved and not voting. An attemptto promote a second Scottishreferendum would inevitably pose EU

membership based on neoliberaleconomics, austerity and privatisationagainst a progressive federalism.The tide of xenophobia and racism

stimulated by both sides of thereferendum campaign demands aresponse based on safeguarding therights of migrant workers, legalprotection and trade union action tomaintain pay levels, tax and welfarebenefits and protections for refugees.Central to this is the defence of

workers’ rights and opposition to theEuropean Court of Justice rulingsbanning trade union and governmentaction to enforce equal terms andconditions for migrant workers. Defeating the Blairite coup and

consolidating the new direction Labourhas taken, establishing united actionaround an anti austerity agenda,confronting racist ideas and tendenciesin the working class, asserting theprinciples of popular sovereignty aroundthe democratic mandate to leave theEU and grounding the unity of thelabour movement around a progressivegovernment programme would changethe balance of class forces in Britain.

Nick Wright is the media head ofthe Communist Party of Britain

Socialist Voice page 6

work

There is no such thing as a nicer, fairer type ofcapitalism. It is by design unfair and unequal. It will alwaysproduce an elite who cream off the profits that are createdby the work that the rest of us do.Ireland is now the most unequal society among the

OECD countries by market income before tax is calculated.Income is not the only measure of inequality: it is alsowealth, power, happiness, security, health (mental andphysical), quality of life, opportunity, starting-point in life, tomention but a few.Labour’s share of income has being steadily falling as a

share of total income since the 1980s: the rich have beengetting richer, and continue to do so. CEOs’ pay is now astaggering 160 times that of shop-floor workers. Unlike theworker, their wage is directly linked to the profits of thecompany. A lot of their payments are paid in share options,equity grants and other capital-related arrangements on

which they don’t have to pay standard levels of income tax,as they come under capital gains, which is taxed at a lowerrate than income.It is difficult to get an accurate measurement of the total

wealth of the elite, as a lot of it is hidden offshore and isdrastically underdeclared. Most of this wealth is not fromsalaries, so it is much easier to conceal. For the rest of uson PAYE, this is not the case. So let us look at who earnswhat in Ireland.

Gross income Number of people or tax units

€0–10,000 360,000€10,000–20,000 370,000€20,000–30,000 375,000€30,000–40,000 280,000€40,000–50,000 195000 €50,000–60,000 125,000€60,000–75,000 125,000€75,000–100,000 100,000€100,000–200,000 80,000€200,000 + 20,000

Average income is €35,000; but 66 per cent of thepeople earn less than that—well over one million people.The top 10 per cent earn more than €75,000; 90 per centof the people earn below €75,000. Half the populationearn less than €28,500.The figures above are from the Revenue Commissioners

and refer to “tax units,” so a married couple who sharetheir tax credits only come up as one income, and in factan unknown number of these incomes are actually sharedby two people.The top 1 per cent of earners’ share of income peaked

The attempt to privatise water is notover, but the bourgeoisie know theyhave a fight on their hands.The current Government, made up

of a partnership between Fine Gaeland Fianna Fáil and a motley crew ofso-called “independents,” is nothingmore than a cynical exercise by theright to try to hang on to power nomatter what and continue theprivatisation programme in some form.It won’t wash. Local authorities and

public-sector plumbers have beeneffectively providing clean drinkingwater for more than two hundredyears. Throughout Europe, where waterprovision was handed over to privateoperators, local authorities have hadto take back control because of theinefficiencies of the private sector.If the Government was serious about

protecting this national resource itwould adopt appropriate by-laws andother measures to assist citizens inconserving water by way of tax breaksand grants. The fact that there are nomoves to protect this natural resourcethrough a constitutional amendment isproof positive that the currentGovernment has every intention ofcontinuing the privatisation programme

once they can cobble together somesort of obfuscation.It is against this background that the

minister for agriculture, SimonCoveney, wants to park the plan tointroduce pay-by-weight bin chargesfor a year. Once waste collection wasprivatised it was inevitable that thecompanies involved would at somestage try to maximise profits at theexpense of the common good. Most ofthese companies, it was recentlyrevealed, have set up tax-avoidancestructures by registering in tax havens.Consequently, the amount of profitthey are making is opaque.There has also been an increase in

fly-tipping, illegal dumping and otheranti-social practices as a result ofprivatisation. This is likely to continueand to increase if these private firmsare allowed to maximise profits withanother form of stealth tax.None of this bothers Coveney. If bin

charges become an issue like water,with hundreds of thousands taking tothe streets, then Fianna Fáil wouldprobably withdraw from the currentpartnership, and some of theindependents would waiver.Coveney on “Drivetime” with Mary

More timebombs

Cherishing all thenation equallyJimmy Doran

THE 1916 Proclamation wanted us to cherish all the childrenof the nation—all the people of Ireland—equally. Some arguethat a fairer, more even distribution of some of the output

can attain a decent society; but, for economic and politicalreasons, if the inequality that exists at the point of productionbetween those who own the wealth and those they employ to workstill exists, it will not succeed.

Alan Hanlon

THIS GOVERNMENT is highly unstable.Following the victory of the working-classand community groups in the first stage of

the attempt to privatise water, the currentGovernment is frightened that the pay-by-weightbin charges will produce the same reaction.

Socialist Voice page 7

nation

at 72 per cent of all earnings in 2007. This fell to 70 percent in 2012 but has been rising steadily since.Let’s compare the earnings of the average worker, the

top 10 per cent and the top 1 per cent in 1975 and 2006.

Average Top 10% Top 1%1975 €15,188 €43,467 €90,5182006 €35,490 €134,384 €444,190

In 1975 the top 1 per cent earned roughly 6 times theaverage wage, but by 2006 they had doubled their shareto over 12 times the average.So what about share of wealth? The most recent figures

are from a survey by Credit Suisse in 2014.

Top 1% Top 5% Top 10% Top 35% Bottom 65%27% 46% 59% 95% 5%

There is nothing unusual about such figures in the“developed” world. The Gini coefficient is a measurementtool used for comparing equality and inequality. It isbetween 0 and 1; the nearer to 1 you get the moreunequal the distribution.Ireland is about average, at .71, Denmark the worst, on

.88, and Belgium the best, on .63. So the developed worldis a very unequal society as far as the distribution of wealthis concerned.

So what does all this mean in reality?Food deprivation affects 1 in every 13 people in Ireland

in 2016; that is to say, more than 180,000 people cannotafford a meal with meat or fish every second day. 10½ percent suffer from clothing deprivation; put another way,374,000 Irish citizens cannot afford new clothes.

25 per cent of people cannot afford to replace worn-outfurniture. 21 per cent suffer from energy poverty; 5½ percent suffer from extreme energy poverty. 13 per cent gowithout heating at some point in the year; 8½ per centcannot afford to keep the house warm; 391,000 peoplecan’t afford to heat the house at all.23 per cent of people have neither health insurance nor

a medical card.The poor are always discriminated against; and the

poorest of the poor are discriminated against even moreso. Let’s look at Travellers, for example. Travellers’ lifeexpectancy is 10 years less for women and 15 years lessfor men. 68 per cent of Travellers are illiterate; 89 per centare unemployed; 94 per cent are living in poverty; suiciderates are 6½ times the national average.This all brings to mind what James Connolly said.

If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist theGreen Flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set aboutthe organisation of the socialist republic, your effortswould be in vain. England would still rule you. Shewould rule through her capitalists, her landlords,financiers, and through the whole array of commercialand industrial institutions she has planted in thiscountry and watered with the tears of our mothers andthe blood of our martyrs.

So, sadly, despite the intentions in the Proclamation of1916, we most certainly do not cherish all the children ofthe nation equally. The most fitting way to commemoratethe men and women of Easter Week would be to set aboutachieving their aims and rid this country of the gombeenclass that seized power after the British were driven outand begin to build the republic that they fought for.

Wilson on RTE Radio (21 June 2016)stated that he wants to convince thepublic that pay-by-weight is good foryou. What arrant nonsense! Pay-by-weight is a cash cow for the wastecompanies. If they manage tointroduce the principle then they willhave a free hand to increase charges.This is a measure that will damage theenvironment and simply encourageillegal dumping.All this is taking place against a

more worrying undercurrent of unrestfor the Government that is slowlygathering momentum. Back in March,Kieran Mulvey, then director-general ofthe Workplace Relations Commission,said the economy was “on a slow-ticking time bomb to September.” He

was referring specifically to strikes inschools and colleges. However, otherspeakers on behalf of bosses at thesame conference organised byIndustrial Relations News referred towidespread unrest, with strikes or workto rule throughout industry and payrises over 2 per cent being sought.At the time of this conference the

Luas dispute was escalating. Whenworkers at Transdev rejected a dealnegotiated by Mulvey it was clear thatthe era of “partnership” was over. Bythe beginning of June, Transdev wasforced to settle with the workersfollowing twelve days of all-out strikesand the threat of further action.Transdev conceded the bulk of the

demands, despite the usual anti-worker propaganda from RTE and theright-wing press. The workers wonbecause they were organised, stucktogether, and were willing to fight forjust wages and conditions. In effectthey won pay increases of 3½ to 4 percent per annum up to 2020.The Government had expected the

workers at Transdev to be defeated.Following the hammering the FineGael-Labour coalition received at thegeneral election the Government does

not want to face the electorate in thepresent climate.There is further bad news in the

pipeline. The railway unions are alsoseeking pay increases along the linesof the Luas workers. Worse still is thefact that the three civil and publicservice unions have agreed to merge.This would create a union of 80,000members in the civil service, HSE,local authorities, and VECs. Theseunions want to revisit the LansdowneRoad agreement and the savage cutsimposed.Worst of all, the Labour Court in

June ruled that Freshways Food (acompany that provides sandwiches toretailers) should pay its 170 workers aliving wage of €11.50 an hour. This is€2.35 more than the minimum wage.Lidl, Aldi and Ikea also plan on payingthe same living wage. Freshways doesnot recognise unions, so the LabourCourt ruling may only apply to thesixty-seven union members. If this isthe case then it could drive anincrease in union membership.IBEC is unhappy with the ruling, and

the Government is deeply worried atthe increasing taste for militancy bythe working class.

“Several factors have contributed to therise in profit margins. The mostimportant is a decline in labor’s share ofnational income.”–Research note byGoldman Sachs on the Americaneconomy, quoted by Richard Tomkins,Financial Times, 13 October 2006.

Socialist Voice page 8

sport

In the late 1880s this was doingwell, with no organising bodies to helpIrish culture and identity survive. TheGAA was formed around the beginningof the period of the Irish Revival, whenthe Irish people took the culturaloffensive and began promoting andpreserving Irish language, sports,theatre, and music.Many of the GAA’s original members

came from a working-class or small-farmer background, although theRevival meant it had a petit-bourgeoisintellectual leadership.The contribution of the Revival to

politics can be seen as the first stepon the road to revolution, which woulderupt in 1916. We can fairly say thatthe GAA has a radical, even in a sensea revolutionary, background. However,it is also true to say that the GAArepresents a broad church of interestsand class forces.

During the revolutionary period theGAA continued to act as a culturalbase for the Republican forces. Itsuffered also from British repression.In 1920 the RIC Auxiliaries, backed upby the British army, in reprisal for thekilling of British intelligence operatives,opened fire on a crowd watching afootball match in Croke Park, killingthirteen spectators and one of theplayers. The Hogan Stand in CrokePark is named after the player killed.Partition also took its toll on the

GAA, with the unionist authoritiesseeing it as a dangerous andsubversive manifestation ofrepublicanism, while in the South thegovernment made links to the GAA inreturn for support.In measuring the GAA’s influence on

Irish politics we need look no furtherthan Fianna Fáil’s dominance in theSouth, which was built on networking

GAAfacing astiffchallenge

Graham Harrington

THE GAELIC Athletic Association is one ofthe largest mass organisations in Irishsociety, with more than 500,000 members.

To illustrate the significance of this, the ICTU hasapproximately 830,000 members.While the GAA may seem like a simple sports

body, its substance is far more than that.The GAA was founded in 1884 as a co-

ordinating body for Irish games and culture. Thisis significant, as Ireland was under the heavyboot of British dominance at this time, with theBritish having for centuries suppressed allmanifestations of a unique and Irish culture,including sports. The goal was clear: to removethe distinct cultural identity of the Irish andsubstitute for it a British identity, therebyremoving the will to resist British rule.

books

Socialist Voice page 9

and populist campaigning as well as“jobs for the boys” corruption. Many ofthese networks were built through theGAA, with the organisation acting as atype of meeting-ground for bigfarmers, property developers, andpoliticians. Of course this was not inthe interest of the members of theGAA.The GAA, especially in rural Ireland,

has lost thousands of membersthrough emigration—theestablishment’s policy of exportingIrish youth. The GAA, despite itsimmense social weight, seen as thehub of the parish, has nevercampaigned or made more than atoken gesture against this, despite itbeing one of the main obstacles to theorganisation. In some parts of Ireland,especially in the west, some areashave seen entire teams lose people inthe 18 to 25-year-old brackets through

emigration and lack of investment inthese communities. This illustrates theinsanity of the GAA’s cosy relationshipwith the establishment.The main strength of the GAA can

be seen in its collective outlook. Inevery town in Ireland the GAA is thebedrock of the community, being arival to the Catholic Church in its socialinfluence. It promotes such conceptsas teamwork and community-buildingfor its young members.In the north of Ireland this was

reflected in the repression of the GAAby British forces, as they feared theorganisation of nationalist youth wouldinevitably lead to resistance to theirpresence. This can be illustrated bythe infamous film showing Britishhelicopters and a military presencearound Crossmaglen Rangers’ GAAgrounds, an overt operation ofintimidation.The GAA manages to pack tens of

thousands into stadiums every year,yet there is still a sense that theorganisation is declining. Its games areamateur sports; its players do not getpaid and have to manage full-timejobs around training and matches. TheGAA does not have the resources thatsports such as soccer have, such asinternational tournaments watchedaround the world by millions, orstadiums capable of hostingcompetitions of Olympic Gamesstandard. There are far fewersponsorship deals for the GAA byinternational corporations.Still, Gaelic games are our most

popular sports. The GAA promotescompetitiveness and individualsacrifice but blends this with a culturaland community outlook in an amateursetting. This faces a very stiffchallenge. In recent years thetendency in the GAA has movedtowards viewing players ascommodities, with immense pressureput on players to work at aprofessional level while playing for anamateur sport. In any sport this is aproblem, with players being viewedmore for their usefulness to the GAA’ssponsors and financial contributorsthan for their usefulness to their cluband community.Major events such as the all-Ireland

finals are becoming more and moreindistinguishable from soccertournaments, where celebritymillionaires with haircuts moreentertaining than their playing skill fallon the ground after a small bump.The corporations swoop on these

events like vultures, trying to get theirname in prominent places. Of coursethis is lucrative for the GAA, so there isa lesser emphasis on local clubmatches as a result. Corporationsaren’t too interested in spendingmoney for the few hundred watchingLough Rovers play St Finbarr’s.The emphasis on this excessive style

poses problems such as mental healthissues and heart problems for theplayers, as well as making the GAAanother haven for elitism, challengingthe inclusiveness the GAA has alwayspromoted. The focus of resources isinevitably on the clubs that perfectthis, which means that the problemdevelops further. It also calls intoquestion the amateur status of Gaelicgames. “If players are being expectedto act like professional highly paidathletes,” is the refrain, “then whyaren’t they paid as such?”Over the past two decades this is

the direction the GAA has beenheading in, with its highly placed

stakeholders (or is that shareholders?)being happy with the results so far,even going so far as to sign a lucrativedeal with Rupert Murdoch’s British SkyBroadcasting for showing GAA matchesas a type of pageantry for the Britishconsumer who’s interested in what themad Irish get up to in their spare time.There is also more and more

emphasis on professional sportstraining, such as physios and energyshakes and all that nonsense. It maynot mean much for the community,but it does for the companies trying tosell health products that have signeddeals with the GAA.The GAA has abandoned its rule on

banning members of the British forcesfrom joining, meaning that the armedforces that murdered Michael Hoganand that maintain five thousand troopsin the north-east of our country areallowed to participate in a body that ismeant to represent Irish values.In general, the GAA is fast moving

away from its community-based,grass-roots cultural organisation thatgave it its strength and towardsanother commercialised and boringsport.One pundit, Joe Brolly, didn’t

obfuscate the issue: “The GAAhierarchy has been unable to deal withthe huge problems facing us over thepast 20 years. There has been nostrategy. No radical action. Thevacuum this inertia created was filledby capitalism. Capitalism always fillsthe vacuum.”The GAA’s history and its social

strength mean that it must be lookedat seriously by revolutionaries. It is anecessary vehicle for the promotion ofcollective values in our communities,as well as the promotion of our nativelanguage and culture in verychallenging times. We should not beafraid to politicise the GAA. Theestablishment have always sought tokeep it on side, using the GAA toreinforce its section 31 ban onrepublicans, for example.The GAA has always been political. It

has a radical and progressive originand is a mass organisation of ourpeople. If corporations want toadvertise at GAA games, we should goto these games with our own leafletsand banners. If the local supermarketemploying people on zero-hourcontracts sponsors the local team, weshould get our trade unions to do thesame.The class struggle is also a battle of

culture, and we shouldn’t find itludicrous to consider the GAA aserious ground for action.

liberation

Socialist Voice page 10

Seán Joseph Clancy

ONE OF the most significantand transcendentalconquests of the Cuban

revolutionary process liesbeneath such relatively low gunand drugs crime statistics.Cuba is an island nation situated

strategically on the route betweenwhere vast amounts of the rawmaterials required to manufacturedrugs, and drugs themselves, comefrom in South and Central America andwhere they are consumed in vastquantities, in the northern portion ofthe continent.There are of course drugs, and guns,

on the streets here. There are addictsand armed delinquents and all thetragic suffering that both tribes breed.Although there are people who suffer

the dire consequences associated withthese twins, conceived in the testtubes of capitalism and consumerism,it is not at all unrealistic to say thatneither has a broad enough impact onsociety as a whole to justify beingconsidered social problems.Addiction issues here are complex

and hard to define and addressbecause of the amount of mainstreamand prescription drugs around—atprices that can only be described assymbolic—and consumed for legitimatemedicinal as well as recreational oraddictive and compulsive reasons.These are in reality free, because

pharmacy prices are generally lessthan, or just about cover, the cost ofpackaging, distribution, and dispensing.From aspirin to the most advanced

cancer and retroviral drug treatmentsthat typically cost a patient in excess of€75,000 there are some eighthundred mainstream and hundredsmore complementary and “green”medicines available through the state

The Discoveryof UtopiaJenny Farrell

THOMAS MORE’S bookUtopia was written fivehundred years ago, in

1516. It is the first modernenvisaging of a democraticcommunist society. More’sUtopia is in the public domainand can easily be found on line.This landmark book is the topic of

Thomas Metscher’s newly publishedpamphlet, Thomas More, or the

Discovery of Utopia, available fromConnolly Books.Thomas More, one of the foremost

Renaissance humanists, lived from1478 to 1535. He was a counsellorto King Henry VIII, lord highchancellor of England from 1529 to1532, and then beheaded for hightreason. He stood for a politics ofpeace and challenged the politics ofpower.Metscher brilliantly outlines the way

in which More criticises the conditionof England, and Europe, in theRenaissance. He was perceptive likenone other in the literature of his dayin grasping the nature of earlymodern capitalist society, and fearless

in penning it. It is shocking to readand understand just how little haschanged in the essence of classrelations over the past five centuries.“I can perceive nothing but a certainconspiracy of rich men procuring theirown commodities under the nameand title of the common wealth. Theyinvent and devi se all means andcrafts, first how to keep safely withoutfear of losing that they have unjustlygathered together; and next how tohire and abuse the work and labourof the poor for as little money as maybe.”Against this, as Metscher illustrates

in detail, More pitches positive,utopian examples of how societies

Letter from 420km west of Havana

More people were killedin Cuba during 2015 bylightning than by gunfire.

Puerto Rican Independence demonstration

books

Socialist Voice page 11

Dublin’s oldest radical bookshopis named after James Connolly,Ireland’s socialist pioneer andmartyrThe place for�H Irish history�H politics�H philosophy�H feminism H Marxist classics�H trade union affairs�H environmental issues H progressive literature H radical periodicals43 East Essex Street, Dublin, between Temple Bar and Parliament Street (01) 6708707 connollybooks@eircom.net

ConnollyBooks

Join the fight for socialism

Send me information on Communist Party membership

Name

Address

Post Code

Phone

e mail

send to CPI 43 East Essex Street, Dublin D02 XH96CPI PO Box 85 Belfast BT1 1SR

can find a better way. Crucial factorsin achieving this, as Metscher pointsout, are the sovereignty of the peopleand a republican state. It isastonishing how much this stillapplies as we observe these coreprinciples being undermined by theEU today.Metscher also shows how More

uses irony as “a safeguard and adisguise of what was certainly asubversive, if not a revolutionarycontent.”In his pamphlet Thomas Metscher

does more than guide us through andenhance our enjoyment of More’ssignificant book. He outlines thehistory of a second (oppositional)

culture, of radical thinking fromantiquity to the present day, givingspecific examples that encouragefurther reading and exploration andconveying a sense of excitement thatwe are part of this tradition, of whichThomas More’s Utopia is such alandmark.

H This is the third recent ConnollyBooks publication by ThomasMetscher. The other two are TheMarxism of James Connolly (2015)and The Radicalism of Swift (2016).Thomas Metscher, Thomas More, orthe Discovery of Utopia (Dublin: Connolly Books, 2016; ISBN 978-0-9935785-1-9)

pharmacy network (except in caseswhere the US blockade makes themimpossible to obtain or to reproducegenerically). I have never seen anypriced at more than the equivalent of$1.50 US. Most can also be obtainedat no cost in cases of hardship.Things can become a bit distorted

and complicated at times because ofpetty corruption or infrastructuralproblems, but generally things workwell enough.Addicts seeking help here can go

into a residential treatment scheme,can do inpatient detox and transfer tooutpatient self-help or professionalgroup or individual community-basedtherapy, can attend twelve-steprecovery meetings, and can avail ofancillary physical and psychologicalsupport services.There is no such thing as a waiting-

list for any of these.It would be far easier to obtain help

for oneself or a family member here inCuba than in the post-Tiger Ireland oftoday.

Back on track . . .Puerto Rico was freed from Spanish

colonial rule 116 or so years ago. Itdid not graduate—as Cuba did, for alarge part under the guidance of JoséMartí and later Fidel—to freeing itselffrom the US yoke.North American forces only entered

the fray against the Spanish—who theywould have lived with were they notsomewhat in shreds and vulnerable—because they considered that a Frenchor British colony would be detrimentalto their regional control andexpansionist interests. The concept ofa sovereign state never even crossedtheir minds.One (there are many) direct

consequence of this is that there are

now more guns in Puerto Rico thanthere are people.The symbiotic relationship dynamics

between guns, drugs and USimperialism are vast, profound, andundeniable. They stretch from ghettosall over the continent to the twintowers of the Pentagon and the WhiteHouse and leave their bloody mark onall social strata in between.Cuba—a small, underdeveloped,

poor and blockaded Third WorldCaribbean nation—stoically maintainsthe requisite degree over the twoformer, in no small part because it haskept the latter at bay.The social benefits are enormous

and beyond my space here and scopeto delve further into. Suffice it to saythat I have no doubt that my six-year-old son, Fidelito, will get through hisprimary, secondary and third-leveleducation without ever encountering(unless he goes to considerable troubleto find some) street drugs or beingexposed, even at a distance, to guncrime and many of the other socialmalaises that have somehow beennormalised elsewhere.A journalist from the Washington

Post who was here in April made somenasty and unfair comments about avisit she made to a school in Havana.She claimed that children were “littlerobots,” who churned out pro-government propaganda, and that theirschool was a sterile and sombre place.She quietened somewhat when

asked if she had any trouble gettingthrough the metal-detectors at thedoor, or finding the Pepsi andMcDonald’s franchises in the schoolcanteen.My son—not even slightly

robotesque—is thriving in school herein every way that a loving parent couldhope for.Viva Cuba Socialista!

Socialist Voice

letter

page 12

news

A terrible beautyGabriel RosenstockNo, it wasn’t some Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa—he wouldscarcely have been three at the time—or a latter-day GuyFawkes who set fire to the Houses of Parliament. Theblithering idiots did it themselves in 1834 when theExchequer burned two cartloads of tally sticks, an obsoletesystem of counting. The whole place went up, much of itmade from the finest Irish oak.London had seen nothing like it since the Great Fire of

1666. Naturally, it attracted artists to the scene—thephotographers of the day—one of whom was J. M. W.Turner.

The Times called the conflagration, among other things,“a spectacle of terrible beauty.” (Where have we heardthat phrase before?) The Tsar of Russia, no less (on whomthe Skibbereen Eagle was keeping a close eye), describedit as “divine retribution.”William Cobbet MP was in Limerick at the time and

heard that the Parliament had been “set afire” and thatLondoners raised “a savage shout of exultation.” Hecontinued:

And this “unreflecting mob” might in this case havereflected, that in the building which they then saw inflames . . . the Act was passed for turning theCatholic priests, who shared the tithes with the poor,out of the parishes, and putting Protestant parsons intheir place, who gave the poor no share at all of thetithe . . .

(Source: Cobbett in Ireland: A Warning to England.)

This is a haiku in Irish and English by Gabriel Rosenstock inresponse to Turner’s masterpiece. Japanese version: Mariko Sumikura. Dutch version: Geert Verbeke. Greek version: Sarah Thilykou. Scots version: John McDonald.

camhaoir dhearg na saoirse!parlaimint na breatainear bharr lasrach

red dawn of freedom!the british parliament goes upin flames

自由の朝焼け

英国会が

火の海に

rode vrijheidsdageraad!het britse parlement gaat opin vlammen

ελευθερία!η βρετανική βουλήμέσα στις φλόγες

reid daw o scowth!the breetish pairlament gaes upin flams

Red dawn of freedom s The Burning ofthe Houses ofLords andCommons,October 16, 1834JMW Turner

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