Republican Socialism

By Barry Mellows

In Ireland the Free State and British Government have a special interest that is to protect Partition; to do so and to protect their interests they have placed us all in human gutter’s that they build, manipulate and maintain to sustain their imperialist and capitalist interests. They infect our environs with poverty, deprivation and the consequential social illnesses to keep us there.

They create the context whereby poor choices and hopelessness prevail and yet condemn and castigate us in their media for falling victim to their intent, their justice systems pursue us relentlessly, their courts harangue and pillory us, their prisons teach us vengeance, the addictions and abuse they foster among us chain us to despair – they set us apart among ourselves and separate us in to sections – the have a special administrative section governed by their special police, the drug dealers, gangsters, informers and agents those who live among us on their wages, in their esteem employed to massacre our dreams while murdering our children and all of this while simultaneously they criminalize all of us equally, frowning upon us, dehumanizing us as equally disgusting, forcing us to believe we are less, we are less than them. As humans we are less, and have less entitlement to Human rights than other Humans.

Republican Socialists are the guardians of our rights where we dwell, the aspiration is to eradicate the gutters imposed upon us, empowerment, to smash them, but while held here in these cruelly imposed gutters, Republican Socialists protect our rights and inspire our responsibilities.
We do not wish to vacate the gutters they have placed us in all that will achieve is a placement for their next victim, we wish to destroy them, not one can leave without the other, if one rises and leaves, all it can ever be is a betrayal of the rest left behind, one must be enlightened to rise, and on rising must take the others hand and on enlightening them take the other onward to victory.

We will not engage their media portrayal of who we are expected to be, or allow their police and courts condemn our children to adulthood dehumanized, we will reject their cosmetic culture and ethics to kill our principles, we will seize their media and present to them ourselves and the aspirations they hoped to kill with apathy and we will not condemn their victims to more disdain but instead we will stand alongside them and protect them, we will show them fraternity and love and we will elect that administrative section the one that contains their Drug dealers and abusers and we will chase it from our midsts as we rise as one people and smash their imperialist hell and we will build a Socialist Republic, We will.

Wilhelm Liebknecht

Today is the 113th anniversary of the death of Wilhelm Liebknecht, founder of the SPD. Here is what the “Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1979” said about him:

Born Mar. 29, 1826, in Giessen; died Aug. 7, 1900, in Berlin. A prominent figure in the German democratic and labor movement, a disciple and comrade of K. Marx and F. Engels. One of the founders and leaders of the German Social Democratic Party. The son of an official.

Liebknecht was educated in the universities of Berlin, Giessen, and Marburg. He was active in the Revolution of 1848–49 in Germany. After the revolution was defeated he emigrated first to Switzerland and then to Great Britain. During his emigration he became acquainted with Marx and Engels. Under their influence he adopted the ideas of scientific communism. In 1850 he joined the Union of Communists. The proclamation of an amnesty permitted Liebknecht to return to Prussia in 1862. He worked as a correspondent for various democratically oriented German and foreign newspapers. He was involved with the General German Workers’ Association and helped form the opposition to Lassallean leadership within the association. Liebknecht was one of the most ardent propagandists of the revolutionary ideas of the First International. He helped attract German workers to its ranks. In April 1865, Liebknecht was expelled from Berlin and traveled to Leipzig in Saxony, where together with A. Bebel he was active in workers’ societies. In January 1868 he was appointed editor of Demokratisches Wochenblatt, which in December 1868 became the newspaper of the Union of German Workers’ Societies. He worked in close contact with Bebel.

“Bebel,” wrote V. I. Lenin, “found in Liebknecht just what he wanted—living contact with the great work done by Marx in 1848, contact with the party formed at that time, which, though small, was genuinely proletarian, a living representative of Marxist views and Marxist traditions” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 23, p. 365). Counterbalancing the leaders of the Lassalleans, Liebknecht and Bebel criticized the policies of O. Bismarck, who had carried out the unification of Germany by counterrevolutionary means under the aegis of the Prussian Junkers. Striving to unify the country on a democratic basis, Liebknecht tolerated certain mistakes (assuming that the creation of an independent workers’ party was premature, he allied with the South German petit bourgeois democrats, who were calling for a policy of federalism). Liebknecht’s democratic illusions were sharply criticized by Marx and Engels, with whom Liebknecht was in constant communication. In 1868 at the Nuremberg Congress of Workers’ Societies, Liebknecht and Bebel broke organizationally with the bourgeois democratic currents and in 1869 founded in Eisenach the Social Democratic Workers’ Party, which was governed by the revolutionary principles of the First International. Liebknecht was the editor of the central party newspaper, Volksstaat, published in Leipzig.

Liebknecht was a deputy to the North German Reichstag from 1867 to 1870 and to the German Reichstag beginning in 1874 (with interruptions). Following the instructions of Marx and Engels, Liebknecht skillfully used the parliamentary platform to denounce the reactionary foreign and domestic policies of the Prussian Junkers and to attack militarism. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, Liebknecht and Bebel, taking an internationalist position, opposed the annexationist plans of the Junkers and bourgeoisie. He passionately propagandized the idea of solidarity with the Paris Commune of 1871. For their opposition to Germany’s annexation of Alsace and East Lorraine, Liebknecht and Bebel were brought to trial in 1872 by Bismarck’s government, accused of “state treason,” and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. “We congratulate all of you for your speech in court,” Engels wrote to Liebknecht on Apr. 23, 1872, referring to the bold appeal of the accused to the German and international workers’ movement (Marx and Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 33, p. 378).

Liebknecht was instrumental in helping the Eisenachians and Lassalleans come together in 1875. However, in doing this he made considerable concessions to the Lassalleans on questions of principle involving both theory and the party program. The program adopted at the Gotha Social Democratic Unity Congress, which had been principally devised by Liebknecht, was sharply criticized by Marx and Engels. Under the impact of criticism from Marx and Engels, Liebknecht adopted revolutionary positions at decisive moments of the class struggle. During the period when the discriminatory law against socialists was in force (1878–90), Liebknecht was one of the militant leaders of the illegal party. In 1890 he became editor in chief of Vorwärts, the central organ of the Social Democratic Party. He played an active part in disseminating Marxist teachings in Germany.

He was repeatedly imprisoned for revolutionary activities. Liebknecht was one of the organizers of the Second International and a participant in its congresses. He actively opposed militarism.

How we can gain support

By Jim Hargreaves

If we are to build a kautskyian mass party, we would obviously need members and the support of the proletariat. So, how do we obtain this? Agitation: agitate inside your union for a rank and file workers union, rather than the bureaucratic, class collaborationist organisation that the majority of unions are today; agitate in your workplace for strikes; agitate on the streets by handing out leaflets and papers; agitate online by making your own site or on Facebook.

By doing this, it will:
A) increase class consciousness
B) lead to others joining you in your agitation
C) increase the numbers of the party, therefore giving it more power, thus giving it more influence in unions, which will give it more influence among the working class as a whole.

With each strike the proletariat will grow in confidence, leading to more strikes and demonstrations, which will boost its confidence even more! We need to agitate for independent working class organisations, not just ones set up by one of the many ‘communist’ parties; we need to agitate for committees to be formed- people’s councils; we need to agitate for the workers running their own factories, and their own lives without the bourgeois state moralistically regulating what we can and can’t do. We need to agitate for freedom and for the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat.

What needs to be formed is something similar to the soviets which were formed in Russia- democratic, independent working class organisation which are suitable of superseding the bourgeois state apparatus.

Our demands are simple: we want those who work to receive the full fruits of their labour; we want to do away with bosses, policemen, soldiers and bureaucrats; we want to run our own lives. We can only do this by overthrowing the bourgeois state and replacing it with the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat.

A call to account

The drum of war thunders and thunders.
It calls: thrust iron into the living.
From every country
slave after slave
are thrown onto bayonet steel.
For the sake of what?
The earth shivers
hungry
and stripped.
Mankind is vapourised in a blood bath
only so
someone
somewhere
can get hold of Albania.
Human gangs bound in malice,
blow after blow strikes the world
only for
someone’s vessels
to pass without charge
through the Bosporus.
Soon
the world
won’t have a rib intact.
And its soul will be pulled out.
And trampled down
only for someone,
to lay
their hands on
Mesopotamia.
Why does
a boot
crush the Earth — fissured and rough?
What is above the battles’ sky –
Freedom?
God?
Money!
When will you stand to your full height,
you,
giving them your life?
When will you hurl a question to their faces:
Why are we fighting?

Vladimir Mayakovsky (1917)

A republican socialist critique of capitalism

I am not an academic and I am not a writer and don’t claim to be. I am a political activist in prison. Through three years of absence from political activity I felt like I needed to do something. And the only thing I can do is try and write. I don’t have any access to proper documents and statistics that would be needed to write a proper critique of capitalism. So I have made the most out of what little I could get my hands on. I got all the information from newspapers, magazines, booklets and some books.
1. Capitalism

Capitalism is based on profit. Creating profit is the sole motive of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system, involving the production of goods and services sold to a wide range of consumers.
“We live under the domination of capitalist production, in which a large, ever-increasing class of owns the means of production- the tools, machines and means of subsistence- in return for wages” – Frederick Engels
Those who own capital and who are trying to create profit forum a ruling class while the rest of the population make up a class of waged workers.
The capitalist class or bourgeoisie, own the means of production (factories, machines, etc) and distribution (shops, banks, etc). Workers work for them to earn a wage. The capitalist needs the worker, the work needs the capitalist. Although capitalist and worker are dependent on each other, the dependency is highly unbalanced. The relationship between the capitalist and worker is an exploitative one, since the worker has little or no control over their labour and employers are able to generate profit by appropriating the product of the workers labour.
“Wages are the sum of money paid by the capitalist for a particular labour time or for a particular output of labours….
Labour power is therefore, a commodity which its possessor, the wage worker sells to capital. Why does he sell? In order to live.”
In order for people to live they have to work. If they don’t, they will have no money. The capitalist needs workers to work on whatever it may be the capitalist wants built or produced. Whatever is built or produced, the capitalist will sell the product for the sole purpose of making a profit. The capitalist will pay the worker a wage for the workers labour. The capitalist in a sense buys the workers labour off him. If the worker works in a factory making doors, he may get £500 a week from his employer for his “labour-time” for the weeks work. In that week the worker may have made 50 doors. The capitalist sells the doors for £300 each. The capitalist has received £15,000 for the doors. He then has to pay the worker £500 for the workers “labour-time”. The capitalist then has to pay out a £5000 for wood, materials and wear and tear of machines and tools. The capitalist is left with £9,500 profit. This profit is called “surplus value”. It cost £5000 for the materials to make the doors, so there was £10,000 worth of “labour-time” put into making the doors. But the worker only got £500 for working the week. £500 would only be a few hours “labour-time”. So why did the worker only get £500 for working for the week? Because the capitalist owns the factory and the tools and materials. The capitalist profits because he owns the means of production.

Capitalists have to compete with each other to sell their products. In order to survive they have to provide products cheaply and efficiently as possible. They do this by buying materials and labour as cheap as possible. In some cases they may go to a poor country and set up their business. The capitalist will make more of a profit setting up a factory in India, than he would by setting up in Ireland. Big capitalist companies and corporations like Nike, Coca Cola, etc do this.
Capitalism can also create racism. For example in Ireland during the “Celtic Tiger” years, there were a lot of immigrants coming into the country trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. Capitalists took advantage of these immigrants. They were getting paid low wages and working long hours. The immigrants didn’t have a choice. For them it was starve or work. Some immigrants were getting hired over Irish workers, because of this. This is one of the ways how bosses and capitalists can keep workers wages low and keep them low. This is how people end up living in poverty or become at risk of living in poverty. The bosses and capitalists try their best to keep wages low as possible while at the same time trying to get as much work as possible from the worker.

2. Imperialism

As capitalism has developed over the last three hundred years, free competition, which is a major factor of capitalism, makes production more concentrated and this leads to “monopoly capitalism”. This means that fewer capitalists have taken more of the market in which the product is sold. One example of this is supermarket chains like Spar. There use to be small corners shops in every town in Ireland, now the small family owned shops have to close down because the new supermarkets like Spar or Tesco get most of the customers because the supermarkets sell more products and sell products at a lower price. Another example is, let’s say fifty years ago there were one hundred companies selling a certain product. As time goes on some of the companies will develop the product cheaper than some of the other companies, and because the companies make the product cheaper they will knock the other companies out of the market and get more of a profit since there product sold more, because it is produced cheaper and more efficiently.
Capitalism at its highest form is called “imperialism”. This type of capitalism involves massive companies, corporations and banks. Some have so much wealth and power they can influence countries. For example the Shell Company has taken over oil and gas fields in different countries all over the globe including Ireland. The profit that is created from the selling of the oil and gas is kept by the Shell Company, instead of the country where the oil and gas came from.
Another example of imperialism is the I.M.F. The I.M.F gives loans to some countries knowing perfectly well that the country won’t be able to pay the loan back to the I.M.F. So then the country has to sell off its assets and resources so it can pay the I.M.F back. In the Free State of Ireland the E.U and I.M.F have given loans to the government. The government is not using the loans to help the people of the Free State, but is using the loans to pay European banks back debts that the banks of the Free State own. This debt is private debt, not public debt. This means private individuals created the debt and not the people of the Free State. So why is the government paying back a debt that the public of the Free State did not create? I will try to answer this question later on.
As part of conditions the EU and IMF gave to the Free State government for the loan, the government had to cut public wages, social benefits, education and health care. The government are “considering the potential for asset disposals in the public sector, including commercial state bodies in view of the indebtedness of the state”. The Government is considering the sale of state owned companies. All of these state owned companies are critical and profitable to the people of the Free State. The money that is created by these state owned company’s goes back into the country. Public services have been cut, housing, social welfare, education and health care. Taxes have increased. All of this is because the I.M.F and E.U. dictated it. The Free State is living in an I.M.F and E.U. dictatorship. The I.M.F and E.U tell the Government if they don’t make these cuts they will not give the government loans.
This has been happing to countries all over the word. Ireland has still not seen the worst of it yet. Imperialism is the reason why there are famines in Africa and it is the reason why African countries are so poor. Africa is a poor content, not because there is no wealth but because of imperialism, different banks, corporations and companies suck all the wealth out for themselves like a vampire. What happened recently in South Africa, workers protesting for better pay got murdered by the police. Who owned the mine where the protests were happing? It is owned by a British company. This is another example of how imperialism works. Set up a company and pay the workers pittance and take all the wealth generated from the natural resources out of the country. Imperialism takes all resources and raw materials out of countries.
It happens in South America, Africa, middle east, it happens all over the world. The reason there is so much wealth in the US, Britain and some European countries is because the rest of the world is poor. This does not mean that everyone in these countries is rich. Only a fraction of the population of these countries is rich. With the recent and ongoing revolutions in the Middle East, you can be sure the US; British, European imperialism will be licking their lips, hoping that the new governments will be foolish enough to accept “help” from them. The imperialists call this “help”, “finical aid”.

“Global capitalism today is barbarism for huge sections of humanity, condemned to hunger, homelessness, perpetual war, and occupation. But the other side of globalization, the struggle for social justice, can also be seen: in the rebellion against neo-liberalism in Latin America; in the mass May Day protests of immigrant workers in cities across the United States; in the continuing Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation; in the growing anti war sentiment of US soldiers who return “home to find need and misery while billions are heaped up in the hands of a few capitalists.” And this is Luxemborg’s most important lesson for today: “In this moment lunacy and war orgies, only the resolute will to struggle of the working masses, their capacity and readiness for powerful mass actions, can maintain world peace and push away the menacing world conflagration.” – Helen Scott

3. War
War is an indispensable feature of capitalist development. The US, Britain and some EU countries owe the rise of their capitalist development to wars, economic and military.
“As long as there were countries marked by internal political division or economic isolation that had to be destroyed, militarism played a revolutionary role, considered from the view of capitalism”. –Rosa Luxemburg
All modern wars have been fought only for finical gain. In Libya the resent revolution there was fought by the Libyan people for genuine reasons, but the British and French states helped the rebels not because they felt sorry for the people of Libya. They helped the rebels with military aid, Special Forces units and air support because Libya has lots of oil fields.
Since the overthrow of Gadaffi’s regime the N.A.T.O imperialist backed militias are largely out of control robbing, murdering and torturing people. There are 8,000 people still missing and 8,000 government supporters are in prison run by militias, many have been murdered.
“On 2 March the UN International Commission of inquiry on Libya published its second report. There is no mention of the former Libya government planning to massacre civilians, no evidence of ‘what may amount to crimes against humanity’, used by N.A.T.O to justify its attack”.
IN Syria it is the imperialist strategy to destabilise the government and replace it with the Syrian National Council and Free Syrian Army. For the Syrian people this means enforced poverty and Deepening sectarian division. The Free Syrian Army is sponsored by the US, British and French imperialists. US, British and French special forces have been deployed to train and arm the Free Syrian Army with high-tech arms and equipment.

“No more than 30 per cent of the people are involved in the resistance. The other 70 per cent, if not actually with the regime, are silent, because it is not convincing to them, and especially after what happened in Iraq and Libya. These people want reforms, but not at any price. Fighting on the side of imperialism is not how the Syrian people will free themselves from bourgeois oppression of the Ba’athist government.”
The only thing stopping a full scale invasion in Syria from imperialism is Russia and China.

There is Al Qaeda affiliated groups fighting alongside the Free Syrian Army and they are also being armed by the imperialist countries. It is an old tactic used by imperialist countries. It was a tactic used in Vietnam, the US armed South Vietnam. When South Vietnamese could not stop the communist guerrillas the US actually invaded the country. The US also armed Afghan fighters in the war against the Soviets. From the second half of the 20th century to now, the imperialist countries has armed, trained and gave financial support to lots of “terrorist” organizations for the soul reason of destroying regimes that don’t suit them. This is the way most wars are fought in modern times. Instead of countries invading other countries, now imperialist countries will try to ether bankrupt countries through the use of loans or if that fails they will finance groups in the countries so the groups can take power. All this so the imperialist country can have influence and take the resources and wealth from the country. But if an imperialist country actual invades another country, when the imperialist army has taken over they will set up a government, the government will consist of people from the invaded country. This government would be set up to administer the regime that will put the imperialist country’s wants first and not their own actual country. This has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Our peoples suffer the painful pressure of foreign bases established on their territories, or they have to carry the heavy burdens of foreign debts of incredible size. The story of these throwbacks is well known to all of us. Puppet governments weakened by long struggles for liberation or the operation of the laws of the capitalist market have allowed treaties that threaten our internal stability and jeopardize our future. Now is the time to throw off, the yoke, to force renegotiation of oppression foreign debts, and to force the imperialists to abandon their bases of aggression” -Che Guevara

5. The State
The state is an organization of the ruling class. The ruling class keeps power over the other classes with the use of the state. The state keeps order with the use of police, courts, prisons, prison officers and army. The ruling class claims that it holds society together with its position by putting across that it does not rule as a class, but is the defender of the common good. But in reality the general interest of the state is the intervention in social life and control over society. In the north and south of Ireland there are two parliaments. These parliaments are set up to give the impression of democracy. Lenin explains best the reason for parliaments.
“To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and oppress the people through parliament-this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary – constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics”
People may be able to vote for whoever they want that is running in an election, but whatever party wins power of government will put the interests of the bourgeoisie before the other classes. In the Free State this has been proven, with all the different budget cuts in social welfare, education, health care, and housing. All the cuts hit the most vulnerable in society. The bourgeoisie has not been hit at all, while everyone else suffers, the people that all ready suffer the most, have to suffer more. And for what reason? So the rich stay rich. This has happened in most European states.
The idea of parliament in the state is for parliament to hold the interests of the whole society equally. But what parliament in a capitalist society does is puts the interests of capital first. In the society in which we live the institute of parliament is democratic in form, it is in reality an instrument of the ruling class.
In times of revolution, when the ruling class thinks it is going to lose power of the state they will adopt extra means of defence. In Chile in the early 1970s a coalition of socialists and communists fought for political power in an election and Salvador Allende the leader of the coalition won presidency. The coalition tried to implement a program of nothing less than the abolition of monopoly capitalism and imperialism in Chile. The coalition was democratically voted by the people. The bourgeoisie and US imperialism was not happy with this situation, so with the help of US imperialism the Chilean bourgeoisie over-throw the government and set up a dictatorship.
In the North of Ireland the British used Loyalist and SAS death squads to keep power. The British used them to assonate political activists and murder innocent people. They purposely murder innocent people so it would sicken the population and turn them against war. This tactic worked. And by assassinating key political activists the political movements fell apart. And by the murder of innocent people it put pressure on the movements. It led to the fragmented movements to give up.
This proves that the ruling class will resort to any means to keep power. Even the murder of innocent people. The history of Ireland proves this, because the history of Ireland is drenched in the blood of its people.
In the Free State the police can arrest and hold someone for 48 hours questioning before they ether release, charge or bring before the special criminal court. The special criminal court is a non jury court with three judges. And a person can be convicted of IRA membership without the police actually having evidence, once the superintendent believes the person is a member of an illegal organization. And in the case of a person charged with another type of offence it is deemed ok for the police to falsify evidence or make false statements because even if the police are caught out in court by the defendants lawyer the judge can chose whether to take it into account, but in most cases the judge does not take it into account. If this happened in another court the case would be thrown out and there could be some type of criminal investigation into police and court corruption. The Free State government broth these laws out for the soul porpoise to protect British imperialism.
“The state is an organ of class domination, an organ of the oppression of one class by another….”
In many countries all over the world, over the last sixty years there have been many revolutions and national liberation struggles. Most of these struggles were against ether US or British imperialism. The British and the US have perfected the use of paramilitary death squads. They have been used to deadly effect in South America, Africa and across Europe. They were even used in the US. The Black Panther Party was organized to defend and help the African-American community. The US government was threatened by the African-American community trying to organise themselves in a revolutionary movement. The FBI (another state agency) was sent in to smash the movement. Death squads were also used to assassinate activists. Many of the BPP were killed or imprisoned for alleged crimes. The BPP were fighting for basic human rights, employment, decent houses, decent education, free health care, an end to police brutality, food, clothing and justice.

There is no reforming the corrupt bourgeois state. The only answer is to create a new system, where it puts people first and not the creation of wealth. This system is called socialism and the only way to reach this goal is through proletarian revolution. But this revolution will have to be permanent, until the people of the world are liberated from exploitation and oppression.

“how close and bright would the future appear if two, three, many Vietnams flowered on the face of the globe, with their quota of death and their immense tragedies, with their daily heroism, with their repeated blows against imperialism, forcing it to disperse its forces under the lash of the growing hatred of the peoples of the world.
And if we were all capable of uniting in order to give our blows greater solidity and certainty, so that the aid of all kinds to the peoples in struggle was even more effective – how great the future would be, and how near!
If we, on a small point on the map of the world, fulfil our duty and place at the disposal of the struggle whatever little we are able to give – our lives, our sacrifice – it can happen that one of these days we will draw our last breath on a bit of earth not our own, yet already ours, watered with our blood. Let it be known that we have measured the scope of our acts and that we consider ourselves no more than a part of the great army of the proletariat. But we feel proud at having learned from the Cuban revolution and from its great main leader the great lesson to be drawn from its position in this part of the world: “Of what difference are the dangers to a manor a man or a people, or the sacrifices they make, when what is at stake is the destiny of humanity?”
Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism and a call for the unity of the peoples against the great enemy of the human race: the United States of North America.
Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear, if another hand reaches out to take up our arms, and other men come forward to join in our funeral dirge with the rattling of machine guns and with new cries of battle and victory”.
-Che Guevara

6. Poverty in the Free State.

Poverty is created as a direct result of the inequality that is generated from capitalism.

“People are living in poverty if their income and resources (material cultural and social) are so inadequate as to preclude them from having a standard of living which is regarded as acceptable by Irish society generally. As a result of inadequate income and other resources people may be excluded and marginalised from participating in activities which are considered the norm for other people in society”

This is the Free State Governments definition of poverty in its “National Action Plan for social Inclusion”.

The Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of the word poverty; “being poor”.

Poverty can become a reality for people who don’t have enough money to do the things that most people in Ireland take for granted. Poverty can be when you don’t have enough money to feed your family, or you can’t cloth yourself or your kids, heat the house, or can’t pay the bills.

Poverty is more than not having the money to buy material things. It can be also mean that you don’t have the money for social activities.

Who is affected by Poverty?

Poverty in the Free State is measured by the Central Statistics Office.
There are two measurements, consistent poverty and at risk of poverty.

Poverty in Ireland 2009

Consistent Poverty 5.5% 233,192 people

At Risk of Poverty 14.1% 579,819 people

In the Free State at risk of poverty or income poverty, means having an income that is below 60% of the mid-point on the scale of income. In 2009, that was an income of below 231.20 euro’s a week for an adult.

Consistent Poverty means having an income below 60% of the mid-point on the scale of incomes in Ireland and also experiencing enforced deprivation. This means not being able to afford basic necessities such as new cloths, no money to buy food or being able to pay the bills.

Some people are at a higher risk of poverty: lone parents, the unemployed, people with disabilities and older people. These people have to survive from social welfare payments.

At risk of Consistent
Poverty Poverty

Total Population 14.1% 5.5%

Lone parents 35.5% 16.6%
Unemployed 24.8% 11.5%
Ill or Disabled people 21.7% 8.8%
Children (0-17) 18.6% 8.7%
Older people (65-74) 8.9% 1.3%
Older people (75+) 16.6% 0.9%

(These were in 2009, the percentages has got bigger since then)

Lone Parents
Lone Parents are an over whelming female category. On average they are among the poorest group in contemporary society.

Unemployed
More and more people becoming unemployed because of the grave economic situation. Building sites, Factory’s, Shops, etc are closing down making people become unemployed. And lots of civil Servants are becoming unemployed because of the savage budget cuts in public services.

Older people
When a person stops paid work because of retirement it results in a loss of income that many cause a significant drop in an older person’s standard of living. The ability to build up a personal pension during working life is one of the key determinants of income inequality between pensioners.

There are also households where both parents work. But the money they earn goes to pay the mortgage, bank loans and bills.47% of householders, more than 1.5 million people and left with 100 euro’s or less at the end of each month after paying essential bills.

Results of poverty

• Mental illness (including drugs and alcohol addiction)
• Life expectancy and infant mortality
• Obesity
• Children’s educational performance
• Teenage births
• Crime
• Imprisonment rates

Poverty generated from inequality is connected with life expectancy, poor self-reported health, A.I.D.s and depression.

Children that live in poverty are more at risk to mental illness, than children who don’t live in poverty. Some children will be severely depressed, suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder and some will have an eating disorder.

And for adults living in poverty will have more of chance of suffering from a mental illness. Some will have suffered from a neurotic disorder a psychotic disorder, or addicted to alcohol or drugs.

“So why do more people tend to have mental health problems if they live in poverty? The society that we live in places a high value on acquiring money and possessions, looking good in the eyes of others and wanting to be famous. These kinds of values place us at higher risk of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and personality disorders”.

People that live in poverty will have a lower life expectancy than people that don’t live in poverty. People who live in poverty will have a higher chance of becoming obese because they don’t have the money to buy proper healthy food, they are more inclined to buy more junk food because it is cheaper and you can feed more people with it.

Crime is a social phenomenon caused by poverty. Most prisoners in Free State Jails were living in poverty or were at risk of living in poverty. A study of social background of prisoners in Mountjoy Prison found that “56% of prisoners came from districts in Dublin characterised by high levels of economic deprivation. 80% of these in the study had left school before the age of 16 and there were high levels of exposure to adversity including low parental employment and personal employment, and high levels of personal heroin use. The numbers of people appearing before the district Court who receive custodial sentences is very highly linked to areas of deprivation”.

Social Exclusion
Social exclusion refers to ways in which individuals may become cut off from involvement in the wider society. For instance, people who live in dilapidated housing estates, flats, apartments, with poor schools and few employment opportunities in the area, may effectively be denied opportunities for self improvement that most people in society have.

There are instances in which individuals are excluded through decisions which lie outside their own control. Banks might refuse to grant a current account or credit cards to individuals living in a certain postal code area. Insurance companies might reject an application for a policy on the basis of an applicant’s personal history. An employee made redundant later in life may be refused further jobs on the basis of his or her age, where that live, and criminal record.

Types of social exclusion:

• Labour market exclusion Working provides an income.

• Service exclusion
Lack of access to basic services in the home, such as power and water, for example transport, shops, financial services and education.

Why there is poverty

“The gap between Irelands rich and poor is at its greatest in 30 years and is continued to widen. A policy briefing by social Justice Ireland shows that the income of Ireland’s poorest households fell by over 18% in a single year, which the income of the richest rose by 4%.
The report suggests that the top 10% of the population receives almost 14 times more disposable income. In comparison, the poorest is experiencing the worst income distribution over the past 30 years.”

The above quote was on Teletext on the 16 July 2012

“The problem in rich countries are not caused by the society not being rich enough (or even by being too rich) but by the scale of material differences between people within each society being too big. What matters is where we stand in relation to others in our own society.”

-The Spirit Level, Why Equality is better for everyone. By Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

“The evidence shows that reducing inequality is the best way of improving the quality of the social environment, and so the real quality of life, for all of us.”

-The Spirit Level, Why Equality is better for everyone.
By Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

There is an elite at the top of society who are staying rich even though the state is in a massive recession and some of them are getting richer.
In 2009 alone in the Free State the number of rich people grew by 10%, with an additional 1,800 Irish people becoming millionaires. The number of millionaires in the Free State increased from 16,300 in 2008 to 18,100.
Not all of this elite class are business men, bankers or developers. There are some millionaire civil servants these are secretaries general of the 16 different Government Departments.

“While all Secretaries General took a voluntary pay cut of an average of 14,000 euro’s late last year as part of a salary cap of 200,00euros, they still earn more than five times the average industrial wage.”

-This quote was taken from the Irish Daily Star

The politicians in Leinster house and in the Seanaid are part of the elite class. They also get paid in the 100,000s Euro’s plus expenses every year.

Mean while there are more and more people falling under the poverty line. There is up to 5000 people sleeping rough, there are 100,000 families on housing waiting list but yet there is 350,000 empty properties scattered around the country.
If there are a tiny percentage of people getting richer why then is there a large percentage of people getting poorer?
It’s not because there is not enough wealth in the country, it’s because of the way the wealth is distributed.
All of the budget cuts so far have only hit the average person. Most people’s weekly wage has got smaller; there are schools and hospitals getting closed. Social welfare has been cut this includes old people, children, unemployed, the sick, single parent families.

7. The Cure for Capitalism

Since capitalism is a system the only cure is to create a new system, and that system is socialism. Socialism is a political and economic system. The socialist system is based on collective ownership of the means of production and distribution. This means the economy will be socially owned and controlled democratically in order to meet the needs of all people. Socialism abolishes capitalism and labour as a commodity. The wealth that is created in society will be spread out more evenly. Instead of a minority owning the wealth, it will be put into the use of human need. There will be no exploitation of workers because there will be no bourgeoisie or capitalist class, all classes will be abolished “the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible”. They will be abolished because the workers will be in control of the means of production and distribution. The Capitalist class will be suppressed by the proletariat; since the bourgeoisie uses the state to keep power the proletariat will take state power from the bourgeoisie and use it to suppress the bourgeoisie. The only way this can happen is through a proletarian revolution.
To free themselves from exploitation and oppression the people must overthrow the bourgeoisie. The people need to take over the state and turn the means of production and distribution into state property. By the fact that the workers have taken state power and political power, the old bourgeois state is now a workers state. Since the means of production and distribution have been taken off the bourgeoisie and controlled by the workers state, the wealth that is produced from the workers and the means of production and distribution will be spread out more evenly over society. For example the wealth could go towards things like healthcare, housing, education and many other things that will make life better for everyone and not just a minority.
Just because a state is a workers state does not mean that it is a socialist state. There needs to be true democracy, “proletarian democracy” also, to make the state socialist. This type of democracy includes everyone. Everyone can take active participation in all the political and social processes if they wish. “Socialism guaranties all citizens the basic rights and freedom of organization, speech, thought, press, movement, residence, conscience and religion, full trade union rights for all workers including the right to strike and one person one vote in free and democratic elections”.

The Orange Order

By Barry Mellows

Oppose the Orange Order because you are not Sectarian.

The Orange Order’s foundations were laid in the “Peep O’ Day Boys” . This was a Protestant Organisation set up to retaliate against perceived injustices laid upon the Protestant man. The name “Peep O’Days” was derived from their attacks upon Catholics in the pursuit of arms, occurring between nightfall and dawn. As those perceived to be persecuting them were also Protestant their grievances were soon quelled and thus the “Peep O’Days” evolved in to an organisation solely committed to ethnically cleansing Ulster from Catholics. The infamous notice they placed on the doors of Catholic tenancies read :

“To hell or to Connaught with you, you bloody Papists! and if you are not gone by the morrow we will come and destroy yourselves and your properties. We all hate the Papists here.”

Henry Joy McCracken first came to the attention of the British as a result of his efforts to unify the Defenders and Peep O’Days under the banner of the United Irish Men. He was Gaoled for these efforts at political unity.

To break up the possible union and protect the sectarian divisions necessary to keep Ireland occupied, the British then scare-mongered the Protestant ascendancy by propagating falsehoods such as Catholics about to assume power in Ireland etc, They also set up organisations which linked State and Union with Protestant faith and fervor.

The “Peep O’Days” were infiltrated and connived to resume their attacks on Catholics, the defenders resumed their defense but this time each defender action was Publicised effectively as a “Catholic perpetrated atrocity” The Strategy was to create a siege mentality and manipulate protestant fears enough to lead them to committing a massacre and thereby undermine the United Irish men’;s efforts at unity.

The intended Massacre arrived in Loughgal on the 21st September 1795 where the Peep O’ Days murdered up to 30 Catholics in what was published as “The Battle of the Diamond” but it had been preceeded by dozens of grizley sectarian murders upon innocent Catholics.

As the Battle of the Diamond clearly represented a stark degeneration in to genocidal tendency, to protect the Peep O’Days the Protestant ascendancy – Judges etc, called a meeting that night and formed the mother lodge of the Orange Society, this would protect the sectarian murderers of the Peep O’Days on the condition they continued their sectarian murder campaign to break the United Irish mens efforts at unity.

The Orange order was founded to protect sectarian murderers from a murder gang, and encourage them to commit more sectarian murder. The murdering of Catholics enshrines sectarianism and prevents Irish Men from uniting. This consolidates a union with Britain that is fastened with the blood of our people.

1795 seems along time ago until you recall 1998 and the LVF being Protected by the DUP and Orange Order, and little boys being burned to death in Ballymoney.

This is the history the Orange Order “Celebrates”. Oppose it.

Neo-liberalism breeds state monopoly capitalism?

By James O. Gibson

The spirit of enterprise was a key message in Margaret Thatcher’s campaigning; the late British PM championed entrepreneurship as the way to revive the British economy. In the process, Thatcher’s government made two fundamental changes the mindsets of ordinary British people:

If you work hard, you’ll get rich. If you’re poor, it’s your own fault.
Every man’s a capitalist and should aspire for more and more.
Because of these fundamental changes, the poor weren’t seen as unfortunates anymore, but people undeserved of the wealth enjoyed by a supposedly growing middle class. Through her policies and campaigns Thatcher reignited class warfare, however that’s a story for another article. In this post, I want to tell you how the neoliberal laissez-faire ideals breed doctrines very different from the intended outcomes. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan both promoted the idea of ordinary people being able to start up businesses and become rich inside an affluent host middle-rate taxpayers, however the policies they implemented had exactly the opposite effects. Whether you call it Thatcherism or Reagonomics, big businesses were empowered on an scale unprecedented since the industrial revolution as a result of tax cuts and widespread liberalization of some of the largest economies in the world (i.e. Britain and America). Tax cuts combined with continued deregulation of the Bank lead to the rise of new (and volatile) finance markets. Furthermore, hedge funds received increase interest as well as entirely new offerings in the increasingly complex finance sector.

After deregulation (started by Jimmy Carter) something very dangerous happened in America – the rise of the financial service sector. As crazy as it may seem, money in itself became a market. The finance markets became so complex that companies had to hire people with specialized knowledge in economics to be able to remain competitive against their rivals. This is still very true in the situation today. Every high-earning corporation has a dedicated team of finance specialists who are able to use their academic knowledge to increase profits for the business – obviously those economists will have to be paid a respectable amount. It gets worse though. There are investment firms who compromise entirely of these economists and finance specialists; exploiting trends in the market and ultimately making money out of money. Growth forever is impossible, and the rise of finance is likely a manifestation of that reality. We can’t build any more factories, as the workforce won’t be able to compete with cheap Asian labour. We can’t build any more shopping malls or call centers, since the demand isn’t growing as wages have stagnated. So if we can’t do any of this, how does the economy grow? Well the corporate elites had a solution, and that was to invest money in other ventures to make a profit – this can be scaled up and so we can create growth without the factories or shopping malls…

The investment firms also have shareholders though. It’s frightening to realize that there’s a chain of investors, investing in investors who are sometimes even investing in even more investors. The trading of assets has become extremely volatile in the process; the housing bubble being just one of the outcomes of this volatility. While the rise of finance markets (as a result of neo-liberalization) has made crises more frequent and more devastating, the rise has also created barriers for smaller businesses and ordinary people to actually embrace the supposed spirit of enterprise. The average Joe can’t afford to hire a team of financiers or make informed decisions in volatile markets. The average Joe also can’t compete with the huge corporate conglomerates which have been able to monopolize the markets because of tax cuts and deregulation. Okay, so Joe does get an extra £1000 a year from the same tax cuts, but the big corporations receive an extra £100 billion each. The amount of money given to the big businesses can be used to offset the amount of money given to the smaller businesses, thus allowing large companies to take hegemony over entire markets. These are state-financed corporate monopolies. So much for laissez-faire capitalism, eh?

Original: http://www.criticalproletariat.com/neoliberalism-breeds-state-monopoly-capitalism/

Why all Christians should be communist

By Joseph Cox

​It is my view that for Christians, the majority of the people in the western world, to be truly Christian, meaning to adhere fully to Jesus’ teachings, they should be communists. Communism is not a system of totalitarian government control, nor is it necessarily atheistic. Communism is the ideal society: there are no states, no classes, no oppression; it is, more or less, a practical utopia in my eyes, one in which Christianity’s teachings actively advocates its followers to work towards. While most communists have been atheists, there is a growing movement of socialist liberation theology, especially in Latin America, that is both fully Christian and socialist.
​
In the Bible, there is clearly evidence that the early Christians practiced a local system identical to communism. In communism, property is owned by the community as a whole, and is operated on the idea of ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’. In Acts 2:44-45, there is a passage that states, “All that believed were together, and had all things in common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.”

Do I really need to explain further how these characteristics of communism were an inherent part of the early Christian communities? The apostles held all their property in common with each other, with their community, just as communism would. All their goods, such as food and other resources, were distributed based on each person’s needs, not whether they could afford it, which is exactly the way a communist system would get resources distributed. In fact, there is another similar passage in Acts 4 that states, “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.”

​Now, one of many things I hear Christians who argue that Jesus was not a communist is that, “Hey! Communism wasn’t around until about 1,800 thousand years later!” While that is true, Jesus’ views were very communistic regardless of whether He called it communism or not. Also, He’s omniscient, so he knew quite well what communism is. Putting that aside, Jesus’ contempt for the rich was quite evident in the passage Matthew 19:23-24 “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ ” Jesus Christ, who is God, believed that the rich could not enter into Heaven. I want you to just think about how strong of a statement that is to make, that for the rich man to enter in God’s Heavenly Kingdom, it will be almost impossible though it would still be possible because God can choose to forgive them for the sin of being rich. If being rich is a sin, which undoubtedly it is because it keeps you out of Heaven, then Jesus is clearly against being rich, which is caused by the class system, which communists aim to abolish. A similar passage also implies Jesus’ contempt for the rich, calling them thieves, in Matthew 21:12–13, which states “And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.” The Cleansing of the Temple is told in all four of the Gospels, meaning it is of great importance.

​“But Jesus can’t possibly be a communist!” conservative so-called Christians state, “Jesus was against violence, and communists want the violent overthrow of capitalism!” Let’s look over another passage of the Bible, Matthew 10:34-39, which states, “‘Do not think that I came to bring peace on Earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.’ Jesus did NOT come to bring peace to evil. Evil does not deserve peace. Rather, Jesus wants good to fight against evil with all its might. Jesus does not want to let evil live on. To believe that would be to imply He does not care whether or not evil exists, but He does, and He wants us to fight it! Anyone who has read Revelations knows that Jesus will not be merciful to Evil, but will instead fight and win against it.

​There is plenty of evidence that true communism, which is NOTHING like Stalinist Russia, Juchist North Korea, nor neo-liberal China, is the way to go for humanity. Jesus would love nothing more to end the class system, which is inherently unjust. All Christians, regardless of denomination, should advocate and fight for communism every day. Communism would end all poverty and all of the problems that are the result of class society, which is what Jesus would want. Working People of All Countries, Unite!

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Christian_communism_logo.svg (the picture of the cross and sickle i.e. the symbol of Christian communism at the beginning of the article)
http://www.skeptically.org/bible/id14.html (for the Acts passages of the first body paragraph)
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2019:23-19:26&version=NIV (for the eye of a needle passage)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/But_to_bring_a_sword (for the “but to bring a sword” passage)
http://www.turnbacktogod.com/story-jesus-wants-all-of-you-not-just-a-part/ (for the “Jesus Wants You” poster picture at the end of the article).

The 100th anniversary of the Dublin Lock outs

By Barry Mellows

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Dublin lockouts. A lot has changed in the Irish labour movements since the time of Larkin and Connolly. The Trade union that was created by Jim Larkin to organise the workers to fight back at the bosses for better pay and working conditions, the Irish Transport and General Workers Union has been taken over by Bureaucrats. The now S.I.P.T.U instead of protecting the worker against the greed of capital it would now appear that S.I.P.T.U is protecting the interests of capital instead of the worker. A lot has changed since 1913. Larkin and his comrades were imprisoned many times for the their involvement in strikes and trade union activity. Larkin and Connolly were influenced from revolutionary philosophies like marxism and syndicalism. Syndicalism promotes workers control of the work place. I don’t think there are many trade union leaders these days that would risk imprisonment or their big wage and position. In Larkin’s day apayed trade unionist would get payed the average industrial wage. Now they get payed three, four, five, six times the average industrial wage.
It was things like militant unionism, socialism and strong labour political action that inspired the I.T.G.W.U.
Now its leadership is inspired by money corruption and greed. What has happened to militant unionism, support for socialism and strong labour political action?

This what Lenin said about Larkin:
”

It has found a talented leader in the person of Comrade Larkin, the secretary of the Irish Transport workers Union. Possessing remarkable oratorical talent, a man of seething Irish energy, Larkin has performed miracles among the unskilled workers…

”

From the establishment of the I.T.G.W.U. it was heavily involved in strikes all over the country. The big capitalists created their own organization called “Employers Federation” to combat the treat of what was called Larrikinism.
In August 1913, William Martin Murphy began to smash the I.T.G.W.U. He told workers in the dispatch department of his newspaper Company that they had to leave the I.T.G.W.U. or they would be fired. The I.T.G.W.U. picked any shop that sold the Irish Independent news paper. The I.T.G.W.U. members were locked out on the 26 August.700 workers from William Martin Murphy Tramway Company went on strike. William Martin Murphy called a meeting of the Dublin Employers Federation. On 3 September 400 big capitalists in Dublin locked out all their workers. By 22 September 25,000 workers had been locked out, including the workers families one third of the population of Dublin. There was to be a public meeting in support of the strikers to be held for Sunday the 31 august at O’ Connell street. It was to be addressed by Larkin. On the Thursday 28 august Larkin and others from I.T.G.W.U. were arrested. They were given bail on the understanding that they would not break the law.

On the Friday the public meeting was banned. But the meeting went ahead. Larkin was arrested when he appeared at a window of one of William Martin Murphy hotels to address the crowed. Then the police began to baton the crowed. Two people were killed and hundreds were injured. It was known as bloody Sunday.

This what Lenin said about bloody Sunday “In Dublin, the capital of Ireland a city of not a highly industrial type, with a population of half a million the class struggle, which permeates the whole life of the capitalist society everywhere, has become accentuated to the point of class war. The police have gone positively wild; drunken policemen assault peaceful workers, break into houses, torment the aged, women and children. Hundreds of workers (over 400) have been injured and two killed- such are the casualties of this war. All prominent leaders of the workers have been arrested. People are thrown into prison for making the most peaceful speeches. The city is like an armed camp”

Connolly was also arrested and was sentenced to three months because he wouldn’t recognise the court. He was released after a week because he went on hunger strike. On 3 of September 50,000 workers marched behind the coffin of James Nolan, one of the workers murdered by the police. Men from the I.T.G.W.U guarded the crowed with make sift arms this was the start of the Irish Citizen Army. The police were not to be seen anywhere near the funeral.

This what Lenin said;
“

On Thursday, September 4, Nolan’s funeral took place. The proletariat of Dublin followed in a procession 50,000 strong behind the body of their comrade. The police brutes lay low, not daring to irritate the crowed and exemplary order prevailed….

”

When Larkin got released he went to England and Scotland to look for support from the British trade union congress. But the leader ship would not give the strikers any support. A few trade unions donated money to the strikers and their families. A few thousand workers came out on strike in support of the Dublin strikers.

The Dublin strike committee appealed to the British trade union congress for financial aid so the strikers and their families didn’t starve. They would not give any aid.

On 27 October Larkin was jailed for seven months. He was released after 17 days because of the public outcry. Larkin then went on “fiery cross campaign of public meetings” all over England, Scotland and Wales. Thousands came to here Larkin speak. Larkin appealed to the workers for a general strike. But the British trade union congress was against the strike, I.T.G.W.U. and Larkin. The leadership of the British trade unions would not support the Dublin strikers. The British trade union leaders betrayed the Dublin workers. The strike was eventually lost. The Dublin workers and their families were staffed into submission.

The strike was not a total failure; the Dublin workers showed the world their revolutionary strength and courage. And the Dublin workers created the first workers militia, the Irish Citizen Army. The Irish Citizen Army would go on to play a major leading role in the Easter Rising.

The lock out showed the reactionary bourgeois character of Sinn Fein. Arthur Griffith supported and defended the capitalists. The lockout broth revolutionary republicanism and labour together. All the men that signed the proclamation of the 1916 rising were in support of the strikers during the lockout.

There is no comparison in the trade unions of today compeered to Larkin’s trade unionism for helping to organize the workers so they can fight back at the greedy capitalist. Now the trade union leaders are the protectors and the lackeys of capitalism.

Opposing Sectarian Orange March

By Barry Mellows

Opposing an Orange March in Newtown; in the Parish of Galoon Co. Fermanagh, The province of Ulster, Ireland and the whole entire world.

We should never localise opposition to universal wrong and injustice or place parochial garb upon continuing apartheid. As Irish Republican Socialists in the shadow of a long war Psyop called “Ulsterisation” we need to recall and expound the words of possibly the greatest revolutionary of our time Dominic McGlinchey who said :

“I am an ordinary republican socialist,who is determined to strive for a free socialist Ireland. I am also an internationalist as all true socialists are”.

As internationalists our opposition to sectarianism and supremacy; apartheid and injustice, is always universal and should be as prevalent in Palestine as it is present on the streets of Ardoyne.

It is wrong to have an Organisation like the Orange Order anywhere –They are a reactionary expression of triumphalism built soley, all those years ago to undermine efforts aimed towards building a united and secular society of equality and fostering fraternal aspirations; and doing so by promoting hate of man and sectarian atrocity.

They are encouraged to act in the way that they do today by the British Government, their actions are bolstered by Loyalist Terrorists who are directed by the British Government and their will is appeased by National collaborationists whose interests are served by the British Government and all of it is another game played on the backs of the worker to copper fasten foreign rule over the indigenous people.

Tonight in Newtownbutler opposition will be expressed to this wrong.

Newtown is the saxon name imposed on Aghagay (Field of geese) in the parish of Galoon South Fermanagh situated on the Fermanagh / Monaghan County line.
The people are predominantly nationalist, known names are Canon Tom Maguire a ferociously anti-partitionist Priest and sadly the names of Michael Naan and Andrew Murray became representative of the British Governments nefarious hold on Ireland here.

In 1972 Michael Naan and his Farm hand and Neighbour Andrew Murray were butchered in the most savage crazed attack imaginable. The killings became known as the “Pitchfork murders”. Initially the British suggested these gruesome murders had been carried out by local loyalists in retaliation for the assassination of a UDR militia man near the town the previous year.

The reality however is that a passing patrol of the Argyle and Sutherland highlanders, British Crown Forces, blood thirsty on tales of savagery from Aden decided to carry out the murder of two innocent farmers and stoke up the fires of sectarian hatred required to keep Ireland occupied and at war.

So frenzied and sadistic was the attack on these Newtown men that years later in the hunt for the Yorkshire ripper the brutal descriptions of victims injuries led a former Soldier to recall the scene he had witnessed in Newtown and to report it to Ripper detectives. Eventually 2 soldiers were sentenced for the murders the recorded confession of a staff sergeant read:

‘I did it. I did the killings. I killed them and they just wouldn’t stop screaming. Oh my god – I have been having bloody nightmares about it’.

Others in that patrol, including the officer in command were also convicted in relation to them. No-one was convicted or tried for, and no explanation was offered for the British Governments concealing of these murders and their protecting of those who perpetrated these murders because these murders were orchestrated by the British Government to promote the theory that sectarian atrocity had occurred in Newtown and so further separate the Irish People of Newtown from each other and freedom.

The march planned through Newtown among other things is intended to celebrate the likes of this atrocity and ram it in the face of those men’s friends and family all for the culture of British Rule in Ireland.

It is also orchestrated by the British Government as an act to further separate the Irish People of Newtown from each other and freedom

What ever reason you decide to oppose this evil in Newtown – Use your feet and hit the street.