The Left Wing in Ireland

Poor_old_gill

djpbarry wrote: »

So which is it?

In order to fulfill their desire of owning private property- they need to buy a house

Poor_old_gill

donegalfella wrote: »

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Yes but in Ireland we suffered from a serious negligence on the part of governments in not regulating and putting in place enough checks and balances(that is the original point we are arguing).
I agree that it is a cultural preference to own a home but isnt one of your beliefs that all people should have private property?
And in order for there to be a rent scheme- someone has to own the property- and we dont have the same system and rights for tenants that they have in places such as Germany.

The historical evidence of how we got to this system of having governments in the first place

Permabear

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Poor_old_gill

donegalfella wrote: »

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I dont think the situation has come about due to the Dail being packed with right-wingers more likely its come about due to the Dail being packed with clowns

BaboonCsection

Poor_old_gill wrote: »

The majority of our founding fathers were lefties.

I know this is going a bit back to this afternoon but which founding fathers are are you referring to exactly?

Permabear

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fly_agaric

donegalfella wrote: »

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But as you pointed out, not as many as in some other European countries...which coincidentally protect tenants a bit more than we do.

Permabear

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irish_bob

its a complete myth that tennants in this country are not well protected , perhaps the goverment could provide more attractive measures for renting ( tax breaks etc akin to mortgage relief for buyers )but regarding protection from evictions etc , the tennant in this country is well protected by legislation

slightly off topic but not unrelated , ask any farmer in this country about right of ways that go back a century , you would be amazed how much protection under the law non owners of property have , if your great grand pa walked his horse and cart through whats now a 500 acre corn field , the long gone farmers city slicker grandson still has some rights provided he took a stroll down the field once every few years , huge amount of grey areas in this whole subject

Zuiderzee

The Left has, in fairness made strides towards amalgamation.

WP/DL went into Labour.

Apart from Conolly, really none of the others in 1916 were Left in the European sense, more radicals and nationalists I would say.
Catholisism (sorry - just cant spell) really had a hold through out.

Sadly what we still have a lot of is dynastic post civil war politics.

FF have essentially become what I would call a modern gaullist party. They have gone past nationally controlled idustry, but still maintain broad appeal

FG are a hybrid - Christian and Social Democrats forced together by the popularity of FF

Labour have trade union and Liberal elements

futurehope

Irish politics is definitely bizarre by European standards and seems to have more in common with The US. I.e. the more things change, the more they stay the same. I have some thoughts on this. Firstly Ireland has been dominated by twin tyrants, namely The RC church and Irish Republicanism. Whilst The RC church seems to be gradually losing it's grip on Irish thought and behaviour, it still has a long way to go by European or British standards. In the same way, although I accept that not everybody in The ROI supports militant Republicanism, or ever did, most still pay lip service to the idea of a United Ireland and the main parties all maintain this strange aspiration. These two phenomena have strangled the emergence of modern politics in Ireland and until both have been safely relegated to the absolute margins there is little hope for change.

In addition, Ireland's small size, relative poverty and deep isolationism down the years has produced a conservative and inward looking society, that has spawned a political consensus based upon a managerial style of politics rather than an ideological one.

Also, there is clearly a sense that The Irish people themselves seem to adopt a mantle of self deception, that has been reinforced down the centuries by myths surrounding Ireland and it's former partners in The UK. This can be seen today in the way Irish Nationalists claim that political Union's are a hang over from history, whilst at the same time revelling in all aspects of The EU (the emerging super-union). They boast of their fight for independence from The UK, whilst meekly bowing the knee to The EU. Self deception.

Finally, on an apparently insignificant point, it would help bring about change, if the main Irish parties changed their names to English names. Not only are the current names farcial in the modern world, but they fail to reflect any ideology. If they changed their names to The Conservative Party, The Liberal Party, etc, they would find their policies would diverge accordingly.

The_Minister

fly_agaric wrote: »

But as you pointed out, not as many as in some other European countries...which coincidentally protect tenants a bit more than we do.

The Residential Tenancies Act 2004 gives us very strong protections of tenants.


And, on topic, it has to be said that left-right doesn't really exist anymore. There are many people who classify themselves as "left" but very few who classify themselves as "right", and those who do, range from the anarco-capitalists to the Christian right; groups of people who wouldn't touch each other.

The left in Ireland have tried (and succeeded in some ways) to make people think that left = sugar, spice and everything nice, while right = slugs, snails and puppydog tails.
The reality is that most people are a mix of the two, and that a scale ranging from Libertarian to Authoritarian is more appropriate in today's environment. When this scale is used, many people on the "left" end up in the same place as the "right".

Acacia

Poor_old_gill wrote: »

The majority of our founding fathers were lefties.

If by 'founding fathers' you mean those involved in 1916, then yes, James Connolly, for example, would be left-wing. But that's not the kind of government we had in place after Independence, or since tbh. DeValera created quite a (socially) conservative government and it's not changed all that much since then.

PrivateEye

“The fight for the conquest of the politial

state is not the battle, it is only the echo

of the battle. The real battle is the battle
being fought out every day for the power
to control industry, and the gauge of the
progress of that battle is not to be found
in the number of votes making a cross
beneath the symbol of a political party,
but in the number of these workers who
enrol themselves in an industrial organisation
with the definite purpose of making
themselves masters of the industrial
equipment of society in general"

-James Connolly.

I'm a libertarian socialist myself, and as such do not lend support to any left wing parlimentary party. However I do consider myself (and the movement to which I belong) a part of the 'left wing in Ireland'

You can ask why Ireland doesn't currently have a (major) left wing political party, the logic of determining them to be such a party being a seat or more in the Dáil. The three parties that some people would classify as 'left' in the Dáil would be Sinn Féin, Labour, and the Greens.[/FONT]

Now when you consider

(*)Both Labour and Sinn Féin WELCOMED the ICTU decision to postpone the March 30th general strike.

(*)Labour have already attempted to get into government by piggy-backing Fine Gael, which would ultimately have made them 'The Green Party' of that coalition

(*)The Greens in government have been an absolute disaster. The natural resources question has been dropped from the agenda alltogether, in fact the Greens are actually complicit in a giant mess they once opposed

(*)Sinn Féin ARE in government. Stormont hasn't brought about many of the changes Sinn Féin promised people in 'their' communities however.

It paints a grim picture!

There is a 'left wing' in Ireland, but it will never materialise in the form of a single political party, because there is a history of two extremes. One is splits (I-Cant-Believe-Its-Not-Sinn-Fein Sinn Fein) and the other is compromise (I-Cant-Believe-Its-Not-Fianna-Fail GP)

I am an anarchist myself but in reality it will not ever happen-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEzXln5kbuw

In reality, it is happening. There are democratically controlled workplaces and communities springing up in Latin America. Workers occupations like the recent Visteon sit-ins showed the same principles can actually be applied in a different economic/cultural setting too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUig0lFHDDw

There was also a revolution in Spain, did pretty well there.

Permabear

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irish_bob

The_Minister wrote: »

The Residential Tenancies Act 2004 gives us very strong protections of tenants.


And, on topic, it has to be said that left-right doesn't really exist anymore. There are many people who classify themselves as "left" but very few who classify themselves as "right", and those who do, range from the anarco-capitalists to the Christian right; groups of people who wouldn't touch each other.

The left in Ireland have tried (and succeeded in some ways) to make people think that left = sugar, spice and everything nice, while right = slugs, snails and puppydog tails.
The reality is that most people are a mix of the two, and that a scale ranging from Libertarian to Authoritarian is more appropriate in today's environment. When this scale is used, many people on the "left" end up in the same place as the "right".

expertly put , most irish people are deeply unidealogical and do not like to pigeonhole themselves in a liberal or conservative box , i agree that the term right wing thanks to the media is a dirty filthy word in this country , by contrast , in the usa from 2001 to about 2007 , the biggest insult you could level at someone was to call them a liberal yet many liberals in the true sense of the word would be republican voters so it just goes to show you that labeling is often pointless , especially in this country

Nodin

irish_bob wrote: »

expertly put ,......so it just goes to show you that labeling is often pointless , especially in this country

Well some labels. Ones like 'cowboy', 'chancer', 'gombeen' and especially 'thick' fit quite well I find.

jmcc

Poor_old_gill wrote: »

While I know that we have a small left element to our mainstream politics- how come there isnt a large left wing party in the 26?
The majority of our founding fathers were lefties.
Do people ever see the left rising to power here and if so where is it most likely to come from? (ie from an already established party or a new one?)

The problem with the Left is that they are either on the dole or write for the Irish Times. Leftism seems to attract a lot of well meaning people in their teens and twenties but by the time they hit thirty and have to work for a living, they become Right wing - especially when the government decides to increase taxes. Those who don't tend to be union representatives or long term unemployed. Or perhaps I'm being too cynical again.

Regards...jmcc

irish_bob

jmcc wrote: »

The problem with the Left is that they are either on the dole or write for the Irish Times. Leftism seems to attract a lot of well meaning people in their teens and twenties but by the time they hit thirty and have to work for a living, they become Right wing - especially when the government decides to increase taxes. Those who don't tend to be union representatives or long term unemployed. Or perhaps I'm being too cynical again.

Regards...jmcc

on the dole or write for the irish times , cynicaly but delisciously put

Nodin

jmcc wrote: »

Or perhaps I'm being too cynical again.

There is that indeed.

turgon

I just find it utterly hilarious that so many people think Ireland is right wing.

What sort of right wing state has money being thrown at unions, money being thrown at welfare systems that encourage people not to work, money being put into transport systems that cost way way more than Britain etc etc???

brianthebard

jmcc wrote: »

The problem with the Left is that they are either on the dole or write for the Irish Times. Leftism seems to attract a lot of well meaning people in their teens and twenties but by the time they hit thirty and have to work for a living, they become Right wing - especially when the government decides to increase taxes. Those who don't tend to be union representatives or long term unemployed. Or perhaps I'm being too cynical again.

Regards...jmcc

The Irish Times is left wing now? FFS, do people even know what they are talking about when they start throwing around labels like left and right wing? The amount of cliches and regurgitated 'facts' of Irish political history in this thread only adds to my present headache.

Soldie

Do labels really matter though? Does it really matter whether the consensus is that the Irish government is slightly left of centre as opposed to moderately left of centre? The fact of the matter is that our government's interventionist polices and fiscal irresponsibility have lead us up **** creek without a paddle - whatever 'wing' that is holds little relevance. While some think that increased (or improved) intervention and tighter regulation in/of the economy is the solution, I think that the government needs to step back and let us get on with things.

RealityCheck

turgon wrote: »

I just find it utterly hilarious that so many people think Ireland is right wing.

What sort of right wing state has money being thrown at unions, money being thrown at welfare systems that encourage people not to work, money being put into transport systems that cost way way more than Britain etc etc???

Interestingly Fianna fail tried to balance some liberal (PD) right wing economic policies with some sort of left wing welfare state. Basically trying to run a welfare state in a low tax slightly liberal economy. The only reason it worked for so long was quite obviously the property boom. Now that its gone FF have some decisions to make.

All the hallmarks of a confused centrist state methinks .

Ya just cant have it everyway :eek:.

edanto

Ah these fecking labels.

So bloody monotonous these discussions.

Let's get specific on issues instead of labels.

Is support for NAMA right wing or left wing?!

Why?

Socialism was conceived in England by Marx as a post-capitalist society and should not be confused with soviet f0ckups.

Great post Private Eye

DadaKopf

donegalfella wrote: »

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That's great. What's you're ontology?

Permabear

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DadaKopf

donegalfella wrote: »

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Thats meaningless and you know it. How do you ontologically support your individualist stance?

Permabear

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Permabear

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