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offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

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The Saker

Indymedia ireland

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.

offsite link Fraud and mismanagement at University College Cork Thu Aug 28, 2025 18:30 | Calli Morganite
UCC has paid huge sums to a criminal professor
This story is not for republication. I bear responsibility for the things I write. I have read the guidelines and understand that I must not write anything untrue, and I won't.
This is a public interest story about a complete failure of governance and management at UCC.

offsite link Deliberate Design Flaw In ChatGPT-5 Sun Aug 17, 2025 08:04 | Mind Agent
Socratic Dialog Between ChatGPT-5 and Mind Agent Reveals Fatal and Deliberate 'Design by Construction' Flaw
This design flaw in ChatGPT-5's default epistemic mode subverts what the much touted ChatGPT-5 can do... so long as the flaw is not tickled, any usage should be fine---The epistemological question is: how would anyone in the public, includes you reading this (since no one is all knowing), in an unfamiliar domain know whether or not the flaw has been tickled when seeking information or understanding of a domain without prior knowledge of that domain???!

This analysis is a pretty unique and significant contribution to the space of empirical evaluation of LLMs that exist in AI public world... at least thus far, as far as I am aware! For what it's worth--as if anyone in the ChatGPT universe cares as they pile up on using the "PhD level scholar in your pocket".

According to GPT-5, and according to my tests, this flaw exists in all LLMs... What is revealing is the deduction GPT-5 made: Why ?design choice? starts looking like ?deliberate flaw?.

People are paying $200 a month to not just ChatGPT, but all major LLMs have similar Pro pricing! I bet they, like the normal user of free ChatGPT, stay in LLM's default mode where the flaw manifests itself. As it did in this evaluation.

offsite link AI Reach: Gemini Reasoning Question of God Sat Aug 02, 2025 20:00 | Mind Agent
Evaluating Semantic Reasoning Capability of AI Chatbot on Ontologically Deep Abstract (bias neutral) Thought
I have been evaluating AI Chatbot agents for their epistemic limits over the past two months, and have tested all major AI Agents, ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Perplexity, and DeepSeek, for their epistemic limits and their negative impact as information gate-keepers.... Today I decided to test for how AI could be the boon for humanity in other positive areas, such as in completely abstract realms, such as metaphysical thought. Meaning, I wanted to test the LLMs for Positives beyond what most researchers benchmark these for, or have expressed in the approx. 2500 Turing tests in Humanity?s Last Exam.. And I chose as my first candidate, Google DeepMind's Gemini as I had not evaluated it before on anything.

offsite link Israeli Human Rights Group B'Tselem finally Admits It is Genocide releasing Our Genocide report Fri Aug 01, 2025 23:54 | 1 of indy
We have all known it for over 2 years that it is a genocide in Gaza
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has finally admitted what everyone else outside Israel has known for two years is that the Israeli state is carrying out a genocide in Gaza

Western governments like the USA are complicit in it as they have been supplying the huge bombs and missiles used by Israel and dropped on innocent civilians in Gaza. One phone call from the USA regime could have ended it at any point. However many other countries are complicity with their tacit approval and neighboring Arab countries have been pretty spinless too in their support

With the release of this report titled: Our Genocide -there is a good chance this will make it okay for more people within Israel itself to speak out and do something about it despite the fact that many there are actually in support of the Gaza

offsite link China?s CITY WIDE CASH SEIZURES Begin ? ATMs Frozen, Digital Yuan FORCED Overnight Wed Jul 30, 2025 21:40 | 1 of indy
This story is unverified but it is very instructive of what will happen when cash is removed
THIS STORY IS UNVERIFIED BUT PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO OR READ THE TRANSCRIPT AS IT GIVES AN VERY GOOD IDEA OF WHAT A CASHLESS SOCIETY WILL LOOK LIKE. And it ain't pretty

A single video report has come out of China claiming China's biggest cities are now cashless, not by choice, but by force. The report goes on to claim ATMs have gone dark, vaults are being emptied. And overnight (July 20 into 21), the digital yuan is the only currency allowed.

The Saker >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Why is ?Pandemic Preparedness? a Major Theme of the New US Global Health Strategy? Wed Oct 01, 2025 15:43 | Dr David Bell
Why is 'pandemic preparedness' a major theme of the US Government's new 'America First' Global Health Strategy, asks Dr David Bell. There are some sound public health principles in there, but the 'pandemic' con lives on.
The post Why is ‘Pandemic Preparedness’ a Major Theme of the New US Global Health Strategy? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Ed Miliband Pledges Legislation to Ban Fracking ?Forever? Wed Oct 01, 2025 13:22 | Will Jones
With energy bills heading skywards and renewable energy investment on the ropes, Ed Miliband's conference crowd-pleaser was to pledge a law to ban fracking 'forever' ? and sabotage a future Reform administration.
The post Ed Miliband Pledges Legislation to Ban Fracking ‘Forever’ appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Lammy Backtracks on Claim Farage ?Once Flirted With Hitler Youth? Wed Oct 01, 2025 11:21 | Will Jones
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has been forced to row back on his bizarre claim that Nigel Farage "once flirted with the Hitler Youth", which Farage has denied.
The post Lammy Backtracks on Claim Farage “Once Flirted With Hitler Youth” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link I?m a Meteorologist. The Met Office Has Serious Questions to Answer Over the Accuracy of its Tempera... Wed Oct 01, 2025 09:00 | Andrew Sibley
Chartered Meteorologist Andrew Sibley says the Met Office has serious questions to answer over the accuracy of its temperature measurements. Instrument changes and urban growth cast major doubt on recent warming trends.
The post I’m a Meteorologist. The Met Office Has Serious Questions to Answer Over the Accuracy of its Temperature Measurements appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Labour?s EU Youth Mobility Scheme is a Win for George Soros Wed Oct 01, 2025 07:00 | Charlotte Gill
Labour's "ambitious" EU youth mobility scheme will make hundreds of thousands of European 18 to 30 year-olds eligible to work in the UK ? just like before Brexit. It's a win for George Soros, says Charlotte Gill.
The post Labour’s EU Youth Mobility Scheme is a Win for George Soros appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

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Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

WHAT DO WE NEED?

category national | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis author Friday October 19, 2012 18:37author by Diarmuid Breatnach - Personal Capacity Report this post to the editors

Faced with bank bailouts, cuts, unemployment, emigration -- why don't we have mass demonstrations, strikes, riots and insurrection?

We don't have them, not because of any flaw in the Irish character or because the people are supine, or have a high tolerance of distress. We don't have them because revolutionary socialists have not provided the necessary requirements.

Those of us who are socialists, who recognise that a revolution is necessary to achieve what we want, naturally wish to see that revolution come about. But do we think through what we would need to bring about that revolution? And then having listed what is needed, set about bringing them into being?

A revolution requires objective conditions. One of these is the development and sharpening of contradictions between the class in power and at least one other class of significance. In Ireland we have sharp contradictions between the capitalists and not only the working class but the whole ordinary mass of people and even with smaller capitalists.

The domestic capitalists have significantly under-developed the productive forces and natural resources of Ireland; they operated instead as small-time capitalists and speculators and as middle-men for foreign monopoly capitalists. Whatever natural resources were discovered or half-developed they sold off to foreign monopoly capitalists. They organised the education of the population and sent most of every generation off to work in other capitalist economies every year until the Celtic Tiger boom of the 1990s. Having given us an artificial economic boom economy of two decades, resulting in net immigration and a rise in the population for the first time since 1845, and having raised expectations, they plunged us quickly afterwards into unemployment, extended working lives, cuts in social expenditure and emigration.

The native capitalists are incapable of standing up to the pressures of foreign capital and instead concern themselves with ensuring that they take as much of the cream as they can, while they squeeze the mass of people as required by foreign capital and for their own interests. The contradictions between the native capitalists and the mass of people in Ireland are sharp. Trust or confidence in the capitalist class and their politicians has rarely been so low.

Furthermore, this lack of faith or confidence comes at a time when the influence of their major social control mechanism of the past, the Catholic Church, has fallen to its lowest ever, as a result of modernising influences coinciding with major scandals.

The contradiction between the native capitalists and the mass of people is sharp because the direction taken by the capitalists in order to satisfy their own needs, i.e. to maximise their profits and those of the foreign investors, prevents the mass of people from having affordable housing, reasonable income, affordable education, their young growing up near the parents, leisure they have come to expect .... Furthermore, the mass of people see that the reason they cannot have these things is merely in order to fill the pockets of others.

Furthermore, not just the poor and vulnerable sections, not just the working class, but all classes below the Irish capitalists suffer. It is not just the children of the working class who will have to emigrate but those of the middle classes as well -- as indeed they had to do in the past, until a few decades ago. Working class people may not be able to send their children to university while many middle-class people will, but the latter will have to pay for the privilege. Workers will become unemployed or have to work for lower remuneration but small business people will face bankruptcy and drop down the economic and social ladder. This situation creates a possiblity of class alliances against the capitalists on the one hand and on the other reduces the possibilities of other classes being deployed by the capitalists against the people’s resistance.

Nor is there any way in which the capitalists can ameliorate those contradictions without acting against their nature. With every passing week, they demonstrate their inability to do so as their politicians break recent election promises and callously turn the wheel to squeeze the people harder and harder. And there is every indication that the situation is going to get worse for the mass of people, thereby sharpening the contradictions even further.

Since we have these objective conditions and, to an extent, even subjective conditions with regard to the disgust or at least distrust with which most people view the bankers, politicians nd the Church, why is that we are not in the middle of a revolutionary situation right now? Why is that we are not even in a situation of strikes, mass demonstrations and riots?

One answer often given is that Irish people are not prone to these things. A cursory look at our history is enough to answer that ridiculous claim. Another answer is that the people have a high tolerance level, or have lost their courage ...

However, if we look at what people require in order to have a revolution or to sustain resistance, the reason for the lack of even sustained mass resistance (with the notable exception of the resistance to the Household Charge) becomes evident.

In order to build up resistance on a mass scale and sustain it, people need organisations in which to mobilise and leadership which is prepared to lead the people in the actions required by the situations they face. In world history, including our very own, those organisations have been mass associations, social movements, trade unions, mass campaigns .... Resolute and effective revolutionary leaderships in history have existed in revolutionary political parties, mass campaigns, secret societies, soviet committees ...

In order to prepare the people for effective resistance, to combat the propaganda of the bourgeoisie, to bind them together in solidarity, to educate them, the movements of resistance need their own mass media, revolutionary newpaper or papers, bulletins ....

For the working class to become conscious of itself as a class, of its history, conscious of its latent power, learning from the successes and failures of the past, confident, it will need, just as the bourgeoisie has, education and training. It needs revolutionary study classes, lectures, reading and discussion groups, debating societies ....

Without for the moment even considering the actual mechanisms of insurrection, it is clear that we, as revolutionry socialists, have none of the requisites for nearing that situation. We do not have mass community organisations or campaigns, we do not have militant trade unions nor even strong grass-roots organisations within them, we do not have even a weekly mass newspaper, nor do we have a workers’ revolutionary education programme.

Nor do we have an effective revolutionary leadership, which is evidenced by the lack of the above – for if we had, they would surely have organised all the above or at least be deep in the work of providing it.

There are of course individuals within and outside of organisations who are concerned about these absences but they are too few or too divided or too swamped with other concerns to make effective inroads into this preparatory work.

And a comparitively small number of political activists have succeeded in tapping and leading the will to resist in a significant section of the people. Significantly, the action required of most campaign participants was individual and negative, which is to say each individual household had to decide whether to answer to the call and, in order to resist, they had to refuse to register and refuse to pay. This campaign success was possible to this point because it did not in the main require concerted, organised action in order to be effective. Effective mass resistance across society and insurrection will require much more, the kinds of things listed earlier and which we do not have.

What we do have is our own great history of mass struggles of resistance, of workers’ resistance, of our successes and failures. We also have the history of the struggling people of the world. And we have the objective contradiction between the native capitalists and foreign monopolies on the one hand and the mass of people on the other, exacerbated still further in one part of the island by a colonial occupation.

If we agree that the items listed earlier are what are required, what excuse do we have for not organising together to provide them?

End
Deire-Fómhair 2012

author by Tpublication date Sun Oct 21, 2012 00:01author address author phone Report this post to the editors

When we have recent opinion polls showing a slight increase in support for FF again and 5,000 people turning up to support Quinn in Cavan whose family have been caught trying to divert and hide tens of millions as their own family fortune sinks, you really have to recognize that there are a lot of clueless people out there in terms of the knowing what is in their own best interests.

 
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