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Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

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

Anti-Empire >>

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 Army Sergeant Travis Decker Murdered His Three Children After Being Denied Mental Health Care at JBL... Sat Jun 07, 2025 04:52 | JBLM Whistleblowers
A corrupt military police force and incompetent Commander who denied emergency mental health care and crisis counseling to an American service member resulted in the murder of the sergeant's three young daughters

offsite link Gaza doctor grieves her nine children killed in Israeli strike Sun May 25, 2025 20:00 | imc
Israeli regime continues it's slaughter
'The children were completely charred'

Paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar was treating victims of Israeli attacks when her children were killed by an Israeli strike on their home

offsite link British doctors working in Gaza describe territory as a ?slaughterhouse? Sat May 24, 2025 00:23 | imc
There?s no food getting in so people are starving,? surgeon Tom Potokar says
British doctors working in Gaza have described the territory as a ?slaughterhouse,? where the patients they are treating are severely malnourished.

Plastic surgeons and orthopedic specialists from the UK are based at the Amal and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis in the south of the territory.

Dr. Tom Potokar, a plastic surgeon specializing in burn injuries, has worked in Gaza 16 times but said this mission had revealed a level of destruction far greater than his last visit in 2023,

offsite link It is time to talk about the Out of Control Immigration. Mon Mar 31, 2025 22:12 | imc
For the last few years since the CV19 scamdemic undocumented immigration into Ireland has surged. No one is allowed discuss it because they do not want any rational debate about it. If you do you are labelled an extremist. However this out of control immigration is fully facilitated by the Irish government and the EU and the shady figure behind the Neo Con movement pushing for endless war, wokeism and globalist agenda.

offsite link [Dublin] National Demonstration for Palestine: End Israeli Apartheid & Genocide Thu Mar 06, 2025 22:35 | ipsc
Sat, 22 March 2025, 13:00 Assemble at the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin 1
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, supported by over 150 Irish civil society organisations, has called another National Demonstration for Palestine on Saturday 22nd March.

The march will begin at the Garden of Remembrance at 1pm and finish outside the D?il on Molesworth Street/Kildare Street to bring our demands to the Irish government?s doorstep.

The Saker >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Starmer?s ?Deterrent? Fails as 400 Cross Channel in First Two Days of Migrant Returns Deal with Fran... Sat Aug 09, 2025 15:00 | Will Jones
More than 400 small boat migrants have arrived in the first two days of Labour's returns deal with France, making a mockery of claims it would be a "new deterrent".
The post Starmer’s “Deterrent” Fails as 400 Cross Channel in First Two Days of Migrant Returns Deal with France appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Reclaiming the Beauty of the Spheres Sat Aug 09, 2025 13:00 | Dr David Bell
AI is a distraction from what it means to be truly human, says Dr David Bell. We should aim for far greater things, find again the vastness of the jewelled sky and the light that only shines in another's eye.
The post Reclaiming the Beauty of the Spheres appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Three Top Hotels Yards From Bournemouth Beach Being Used as Migrant Accommodation Sparking Fury From... Sat Aug 09, 2025 11:00 | Will Jones
Three top hotels yards from one of Britain's favourite beaches are being used as accommodation for asylum seekers during the peak ?summer season, sparking fury from tourists and locals.
The post Three Top Hotels Yards From Bournemouth Beach Being Used as Migrant Accommodation Sparking Fury From Tourists and Locals appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Why Are the Irish Media Ignoring an Apparent Islamist Knife Attack? Sat Aug 09, 2025 09:00 | Andrew Devine
When a man in Dublin stabs a police officer while shouting "Allahu Akbar" you can be pretty sure it's not the work of an indigenous Irishman. So why are the media at pains to pretend it is, asks Andrew Devine.
The post Why Are the Irish Media Ignoring an Apparent Islamist Knife Attack? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link BAFTA?s Campaign to Transform Every TV Show into Unwatchable Climate Propaganda Has Stepped Up a Gea... Sat Aug 09, 2025 07:00 | Steven Tucker
British TV grows more and more unwatchable with each passing day. That might be because BAFTA is on a mission to transform every TV show into climate propaganda ? and it's just stepped up a gear, says Steven Tucker.
The post BAFTA’s Campaign to Transform Every TV Show into Unwatchable Climate Propaganda Has Stepped Up a Gear appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

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 >>

The Dáil Reform Will Not Be Radical

category national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis author Saturday March 19, 2016 15:26author by Paddy Hackett Report this post to the editors

The Dáil is a Bourgeois Parliament

There is a good chance that FF will bring about a new general election in the not too distant future. This is because it is confident that there is a progressive electoral shift towards it. It is also in a buoyant mood because of its inchoate election recovery. It more than likely has the resources to fight another election. Both FF and FG expressly indicated that they would not form “a grand coalition”. The GE16 result means, in a sense, that the electorate don't want such a coalition. On the other hand SF, through Gerry Adams, indicated before the GE16 that it is prepared to form a coalition with SF. This means that the electorate may want a coalition with FF, SF and others.

In the Irish Republic FF is seeking Dáil reform as a means of rendering it more difficult to blame it should it go into government to implement unpopular policies. It can then claim that the opposition, because of this reform, had joint influence over unpopular policies. The “radical” left sitting in the Dáil, conspicuously failed to expose this tactical ploy dressed up as a liberal proposal. The depth of reform advocated by FF and FG will prove shallow. There is no way this parliament will be invested with a radical character by FF, FG and SF. The failure to reform the Senate at the same time is an indication as to how narrow Dáil Reform shall be. There is no way that Dáil reform will entail yearly general elections and other such changes.

There is a good chance that FF will bring about a new general election in the not too distant future. This is because it is confident that there is a progressive electoral shift towards it. It is also in a buoyant mood because of its inchoate election recovery. It more than likely has the resources to fight another election. Both FF and FG expressly indicated that they would not form “a grand coalition”. The GE16 result means, in a sense, that the electorate don't want such a coalition. On the other hand SF, through Gerry Adams, indicated before the GE16 that it is prepared to form a coalition with SF. This means that the electorate may want a coalition with FF, SF and others.

Many of the independents and small parties probably lack sufficient resources for repetition of this political exercise. This may mean that they may loose seats that the FF party can pick up. Even if it fails to win sufficient seats to form a comfortable majority Fianna Fail may still fare well enough to form the leading party in a future government. Other things being equal it may too have learned from the mistakes of the FG-Labour coalition.

SF's parliamentary demagogic onslaught at the Dáil opening was just mere noise. Bombast over the homeless and other issues does not solve such problems. It was merely a tactical ploy to look good and concerned. Sinn Féin is merely exploiting suffering, as it has been doing in the six counties, to venally promote itself. Again there has been no attempt made by the parliamentary “radical” left to expose the cynical nature of this SF tactic. If anything it cooperates with it.

The nomination by the AAA-PBP alliance of Boyd Barrett as taoiseach was a way of suggesting that its politics is essentially no different than those of the major bourgeois actors sitting in the Dáil. The fact that SF and PBP mutually abstained from voting against each other's nominees for the office of Taoiseach is evidence of their close political relationship. It is a further manifestation of PBP’s grossly opportunist nature. Even the structure and political character of its alliance system is farcical: It is an alliance of two alliances (AAA and PBP alliance) with only one of these alliances (PBP) in alliance with another alliance (the Right2Change). If this is not convoluted farce nothing is. It is an mind defying arrangement that can only but justifiably cause confusion among the working class.

The abstention by the PBP in the Dáil division over the nomination of Gerry Adams as Taoiseach exposes the opportunism of PBP. If it is not a fake radical left alliance it would have voted against nominating the leader of a capitalist party, SF, for Taoiseach.

The Dáil forms an integral part of the bourgeois state. Consequently it cannot serve the class interests of the working class. Power cannot be concentrated in the hands of the working class through the medium of the Dáil. The fake parliamentary radical left by participating in parliament in the way that it has is amounts to a fortification of illusions in this bourgeois institution. The AAA and the PBP alliances are merely fig leaves for the SP and the SWP. These parties are so opportunist that they cannot relate to the working class under their own names but must hide behind these soi distant “alliances.” Essentially the SP and the SWP are respectively, at most, Social Democratic parties. They will end, at most, playing the same role as the present minuscule Irish Labour Party.

Instead the working class must struggle towards the establishment of revolutionary workers’ councils as its institutions of power.

Related Link: http://Paddy-Hackett.blogspot.com
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