Some sites

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Broad-Left-Unity/196130577106300#!/pages/Broad-Left-Unity/196130577106300?sk=info

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Maybe-Its-Because-By-Vincent-Wood/122752457808295?sk=wall#!/pages/Maybe-Its-Because-By-Vincent-Wood/122752457808295?sk=info

We still need to shift the paradigm.

I am coming to the conclusion that even the most progressive of political parties are stalling.

I know that there are very sound people working away at policy positions and that the left still manage to oppose the worst excesses of the continuing neo-liberal onslaught, but it seems to mean that the problem remains that we are using the current political and economic paradigm as the model to pass our deliberations on.

But that's just Realpolitik right?  People out there expect us to present policy that is familiar, even if they
fundamentally disagree with it.  We have to do with the reality as we find it.  We didn't create it, what can we do? We can analyse using Marx or gramsci of course and that's ok, but none of this moves us away from having to deal with the socio-economic-political landscape that has come to dominate the USA and Europe.

Wrong.

It would be much more interesting and, I believe, necessary to start introducing more creativity into policy.  I
have said before that if policy positions are put out there, it is not beyond the wit and wisdom of all progressive economists to figure out how to finance it.

My dad and people in his generation (the 1940's-70's) believed that the future would hold less physical work and more leisure time for the working class - for everyone.  When do we ever hear anybody on the left seriously advocate less working hours.  Not just a few hours here and there, but a three day week, for example.  What about moving arts and leisure up as political priorities.  The value of time and space - real quality of life issues.  The process of offering a vision that takes us away from wage slavery, ill health, an education system focused on point scoring and not rounded learning and universally available flexible childcare and special needs support requires more than a rebuttal of current policy.  It is a fundamentally a much wider project that must be advanced here if we are to avoid a continued slide into misery for the greater number of us.

None of this is in the political agenda in any serious way in my view and it needs to be introduced.  A serious
debate must begin. It takes brave people to do this in the face of ridicule from some on the left as well as the
usual suspects and it is a longer term project for progressives to embark on, but the fact remains that we are not winning on the battlefield - the paradigm - that exists.  We have to shift the paradigm.

Society: Now There's an Idea!

Society: Now There's an Idea!: "A (friendly) challenge to progressive economists. What if an easily accessible paper was drawn up illustrating the following: What may hav..."

Now There's an Idea!

A (friendly) challenge to progressive economists.

What if an easily accessible paper was drawn up illustrating the following:

• What may have been earned for the people if the banks were nationalised when they were profitable.
• What effective and efficient public utilities could have delivered for us (in money terms) if kept in state control
• The benefits (again, in financial as well as the obvious human) that well regulated worker friendly employment regime would deliver.
• What the fallout from the pursuit of Thatcherism has cost us over the last decade or so.

Why ask for this?

• It can be done.  These arguements have been well made, but as is a common fault of the left, are often over complicated and verbose.
• People must still be confused - they voted in a government pursuing the same ideological policies.
• We all need the ammunition provided in clear - dare I say simple - terms, but backed up with empirical data.

Better still if all of this can be summarised on an A4 sheet!

What do you think?  Up for it?

A Progressive Oppostion

 

 

It looks likely that there will be 14 Sinn Féin and up to 10 progressive left deputies in the incoming Dáil. 

 

These 24 progressive left Representatives need to eclipse Fianna Fail as the opposition to the incoming conservative administration and ensure that victory could be grasped from the jaws of defeat, so to speak.  This is a platform that we could barely imagine a few short weeks ago,

 

The election campaign was dominated bu the specific budgetary issues and the immediacy of the crisis facing the people.  Ideology struggled to feature.  It can now be a central feature of debate from the first day of the incoming Dáil.  The people can hear how and why we are in this crisis and just how similar FG and FF are.  It will also continue to force the members of the Labour Party to examine how best to use their political strength. 

 

I would make a particular appeal to the members of the ULA to resist the temptation to take an elitist view of what it means to be on the progressive left. The days of political sectarianism on the left need to be left behind.

 

The British Labour politician Tony Benn described British Labour something like this.  Labour is not a socialist party, but it has many Socialist within it.  SF could be described that way,  Certainly, the ULA should reach out to the membership of SF.  It would be good for both groups.  All activism is educational and it works both ways.

Unfolding

Watching the counts unfold.  If the ULA can put aside some of their sectarian antipathy to SF and build a progressive opposition inside and outside Leinster House, then we are getting somewhere.

Tough Negotiators

As opinion polls keep rolling in and showing either a FG/Labour coalition of a majority FG government, perhaps its time to turn some attention to what is likely to happen in the few months after the election.

If any of what FG and Labour is saying is to be accepted then the incoming government will be putting a negotiating team together to present to the big players in the EU.  So, what will they have behind them going into the talks?

A bad deal.  They will have the people who allowed the IMF/ECB walk all over them - it wasn't a negotiation - continuing to tell the 'other side' in the EU that they continue to stand over the 'deal' struck.  The supporters of the deal in the media - Stephen Collins, Shane Coleman et al - will continue their mantra that there is no other way.

Their stated position. An acceptance by FG and Labour that all that is required is an adjustment on interest rates and perhaps some extension in timetable for repayment.  There is disagreement on this between FG and Labour and this is likely to widen as the election campaign unfolds.

And thirdly, and I believe crucially, the knowledge that FG, at least, share objectives of the IMF in so far as the cuts imposed on services will disproportionally impact on the public sector.  This 'deal' actually furthers the agenda of those who want to continue the process of rolling back the state.  The pain borne by ordinary people (caused by those scoundrels in the previous administration, they will claim) is worth the maintenance of the deregulated economy with a weakened public sector and flexible workforce.

Ideology and vision has been absent from the public commentary of this election, but it is crucial in determining how future talks with the IMF and EU pan out.  I cannot trust FG any more than FF in this regard. 

Labour need to be challenged on all of this.  They have weakened their own position by voting through the finance bill and signalling a reluctant acceptance of the IMF/EU deal, whatever about their recent tough talking on renegotiation.  If they are serious about the future, they need to look a few weeks ahead and realise that they are going to be eaten up and spat out by both sides in that 'renegotiation'.