Page 8 Venezuela H Vote Left!j/7G@7I1\URQPX/Z‘zu Vote Left! “There was a time in American history when grand debates over the merits of competing economic systems were front and

$Page 1: Page 8 Venezuela H Vote Left!j/7G@7I1\URQPX/Z‘zu Vote Left! “There was a time in American history when grand debates over the merits of competing economic systems were front and$
Communist Party of IrelandPáirtí Cumannach na hÉireann

Partisan Patriotic InternationalistNumber 171 May 2019 €1.50

www.commmunistpartyofirerland.ie

Page 2 Union powerPage 4 The Killing of Lyra McKee

Page 6 Workers in strugglePage 8 Venezuela

Page 8 Anti-union lawsPage 10 Imperialism and war

Page 10 Identity and classPage 14 Pete Seeger at 100

Page 16 James Connolly Festival

Socialist Voice

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SVSocialist Voice43 East Essex StreetDublin D02 XH96(01) 6708707 ISSN 0791-5217

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Vote Left!

“There was a time in American historywhen grand debates over the merits ofcompeting economic systems were frontand center, and the terms of the debatesand characteristics of the competingviews were widely known. It is clear thatsuch a time may be returning. Detailedpolicy proposals from self-declared‘socialists’ are gaining support inCongress and are receiving significantpublic attention.”Office of the President of the United States,Economic Report of the President, March2019 (which devotes forty-five pages todenouncing socialism).

DEMOCRACY

2 Socialist Voice May 2019

THIS MONTH we face a number of electoralchoices: local elections, elections for theEU Parliament, and a proposed

amendment to the Constitution.The local elections have produced a

staggering number of small parties andindependents, hoping to be elected to what isin fact powerless local government. Real powerlies with the city and county managers.

Many independents are running on aplatform of dealing with homelessness,attempting to establish a public profile for futureDáil elections. Few of these independents willhave any real political influence if elected. Inmany ways this is a reflection of how deeplyneo-liberal ideology has penetrated the left.Most of these independents take an à la carteapproach and a highly individualist attitude—very much in line with neo-liberalism and how itencourages individualism.

Collective action is frowned on, orsupported only in so far as it suits theirindividualist agenda. The power structureswithin local government would be quite happyto have chambers full of “independents,”providing them with a diffuse and easilycontrolled opposition. It also allows these

Morepowerto you!JIMMY DORAN

THE RECENTLY launched campaign bythree of our largest trade unions—SIPTU, Fórsa, and Connect—is to be

welcomed. Under the slogan “MorePower to You,” it is asking voters to takethe local power pledge: “I believe in localgovernment.”

This is a pledge to use your vote inthe coming local elections to support fivedemands adopted by the trade unions tostrengthen local government andimprove services for all. They are askingpoliticians to make the pledge, and forcitizens to vote for those candidates whosupport it.

The five demands are:1 Democracy: Introduce directlyelected mayors and new, adequatelyfinanced town councils.2 Waste: Establish a regulator forhousehold waste collection, andenable local authorities to re-enter bincollection services.3 Water: Hold a referendum onenshrining the public ownership ofwater in the Constitution of Ireland.4 Housing: Establish a new localauthority public housing model, andincrease investment in existing localauthority maintenance and retrofittingschemes.5 Energy: Enable local authorities tolead micro-generation and communityownership of renewable energyprojects, and establish a primary rolefor local government in setting carbonreduction targets and the promotionand education of low-carbontransition.

It’s about time that unions began tolead the fight back against austerityand the neo-liberal race to the bottom.These demands are a step in the right

direction; but they need to go furtherin some areas. For example:

Waste: Refuse collection should beremunicipalised. Polluters should bemade to pay. Most unions already havea policy against the privatisation ofstate utilities; the reversing ofprivatisation should now be demanded.

Water: The referendum on watershould be for the public managementand ownership of water. The right towater should also be included.

Housing: The cost-rental model isnot a solution to the housing crisis, asrents under this system come in atabout 25 per cent less than amortgage, i.e. €1,500 a month,instead of €2,000 for an averagefamily home. A universally accessiblepublic housing service with income-linked rents is the permanent solution.How could people on a pension afford€1,500 a month? A right to housing inthe Constitution has already beendemanded by the ICTU.

It’s a welcome development for thetrade union movement to be pushingpolitical demands in the elections, as

Socialist Voice May 2019 3

‘The elections to the so-called European Parliament are just a circus.’

same power structures to make dealswith Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and theLabour Party to push through theprivatising of council services, selling offpublic land, and pushing the cost-rentalmodel of public housing.

We also have courageous andprincipled independents who see politicsbeyond this narrow approach. Suchindependent councillors and candidatesare involved in campaigns in support ofPalestine, Communities Against LowPay, the Campaign for Public Housing,and several others. They are worthy ofour support.

Two of the most effective left voicesin the Dáil have raised many importantissues, including Garda corruption,NAMA, and Shannon Warport, and wereheavily involved in the water struggle.They have done more than many of theother left TDs to inflict damage on thepolitical establishment.

Workers should vote left. Vote for leftindependents who have a widerdemocratic viewpoint and who have arecord of mobilising working people.

EU Parliament electionsThe elections to the so-called EuropeanParliament are just a circus. This is a“parliament” with very limited powers,and if it was to get more powers theywould be used for further strengtheningthe integrationist forces and takingmore powers away from nationalbodies, such as Dáil Éireann.

This is a “parliament” whosepresident has twice supportedattempted coups in Venezuela and theoverthrow of that country’s democraticgovernment.

This sham parliament is a veneer, apretence that there is democracy withinthe EU superstructure and to peddlethe illusion that change can be broughtabout through using these imperialstructures. The EU “Parliament” is agraveyard for failed politicians, a placewhere failed establishment figures finda rest home and fat pensions.

They can prance round the worldrepresenting the EU on delegations tosee how fieldmice are being bredbeyond the Arctic Circle, or go to far-

flung countries to lecture the natives onthe benefits of white European“democratic values.” EU tradeagreements cause huge economicdamage to poor countries, robbing thepeople of their resources, while theEU’s military arm, NATO, and its ownemerging military strategy bombcountries to oblivion.

Divorce changesWhile it took a long and tough campaignover many years and two referendums tosecure the civil right to divorce in thisstate, the compromise terms on which adivorce could be obtained were placed inthe Constitution.

It’s long past the time for theseconditions to be changed. It would bebetter if such terms were not in theConstitution. People should be allowedto make their own decisions withregard to divorce, and this and othercivil matters should not be in theConstitution. But go out and vote inthe referendum for the changesproposed. H

the social wage has been abandonedby the political class. If the trade unionmovement is ever to regain the densityit once had, it must go much furtherthan looking for solutions within theneo-liberal budget.

After ten years of “austerity,”workers are well aware of theirpredicament, whether it is the housingcrisis, precarious work, the two-tierhealth service, or any of the otherthings that stop them reaching theirfull potential. With nowhere left forordinary working people to turn, theunions must lead the fight back, asthey did in the Right2Water campaign.

Demands must go far beyond whatthe establishment is willing toconcede, to demands that willtransform the lives of working people.Otherwise unions are just anotherbranch of the establishment.

Workers are still workers when theywalk out the factory gates. They needto know that the trade unionmovement has their back.

The crisis in housing, health, wagesand employment did not just happen:

it was caused by the Governmentenforcing “austerity” and the neo-liberal agenda, at the behest of bigbusiness and the EU. Low pay,precarious work and cuts to serviceshave led to increased inequality and tolevels of poverty not seen for manyyears. This has coincided with amassive decline in trade union density,and is inextricably linked to it.

Half of all workers earn less than€30,000 a year. Half of all womenworkers earn less than €22,000 ayear. The gloves need to come off; thetime for “moderate” demands andhalf-baked measures is long sincepast. Workers and their unions mustpush demands much further, to thedemand for a universal right tohousing, health and education for allcitizens to be enshrined in theConstitution.

Trade unions must regain power,strength, and density. All anti-unionlegislation must be abolished, allowingworkers to have control over their ownactivity, to decide when and whatactions unions take to win back losses

and to fight new battles. We must fightfor the right to union recognition, theright to union access, and fullcollective bargaining rights for allworkers.

As it stands, half of all unionmembers are over the age of forty, andfewer young people are joining unions,being trapped in minimum-hours andshort-term contracts. If this trendcontinues, the writing is on the wall fortrade unions.

Why are young people, despitehaving some of the worst workingconditions for generations, not joiningunions? Is it because trade unions arenot seen as radical any more, as theywere when first founded by the likes ofLarkin and Connolly?

We must learn from history. Tradeunions were born out of struggle: thestruggle for workers to have decencyand dignity in their lives. Unions mustlead from the front. Trade unions nowhave to become radical or redundant.

In the words of James Connolly, ourdemands most moderate are: we onlywant the earth. H

IRELAND


TOMMY McKEARNEY

THE DEATH of Lyra McKee was aneedless tragedy inflicted on ayoung woman by thoughtless

stooges. It was an act that devastatedher life partner, her family, and herfriends and colleagues in the world ofjournalism.

There is no room for equivocationwhen commenting on this event. Yetthis killing was not wrong only becausea young, talented and engaging 29-year-old lost her life—though it wascertainly all of that. It was not wrongonly because of the undisciplined firingof live ammunition in a built-up area,reckless as that undoubtedly was. It wasalso wrong because it involved theaimless, ill-conceived and counter-productive use of physical force.

And before some wiseacrechallenges this writer by saying that the

same may have been said about theProvisional IRA, let me make two basicpoints. In the first instance, there is nocomparison between the situation todayand the scale and circumstances thatgave rise to the Provisionals. Moreimportant, though, is the fact thatevents must be considered strictly ontheir merits, albeit in context. It is in thelight of contemporary situations andcircumstances that events in Derry mustbe considered.

Claiming that those who opened firewere defending the Creggan is simplybeing disingenuous. To credibly protecta community, it goes without saying thatthere must exist a genuine and seriousthreat to the people of the area. Incontrast to events during 1969, whenthe RUC used lethal force to kill andinjure people in the Bogside, Belfastand elsewhere in the Six Counties, nosuch threat was evident on that Aprilevening in 2019. Responding to house

searches is not defending, and firingwildly with a pistol in the direction of anarmoured vehicle was at best bravadoand in this case inexcusable.

It must be pointed out, however, thatthe PSNI also have questions to answer.What on earth did they think they weredoing by aggressively carrying out housesearches at 9 p.m. on the Thursdaybefore Easter? While no-one could havepredicted the actual outcome, surelythey must have known that there wasthe real risk of a violent confrontationwhen so many people were out andabout on a mild spring evening, and in arepublican area.

Let’s be clear: this is not to implythat the PSNI were responsible for LyraMcKee’s death. Nevertheless theirdecision to carry out searches at thattime and place must be carefullyscrutinised and weighed in the light ofthe subsequent tragedy.

However, when analysing existing

Reckless isolated groupsshould vacate the stage

‘Overcoming the two failed Irish states requires the building of a broadly based progressive mass movement of working people.’


material conditions, one overridingconsideration is crystal-clear. Toparaphrase an expert in the subject, theDerry shooters have no water in whichto swim. Whatever wider assessmentsmay be made of the Provisionals, it isundeniable that they received veryconsiderable support from within theNorth’s nationalist community. By nostretch of the imagination can anysimilar claim be made today for the tiny,isolated groups promoting armedconflict in the Six Counties. That factalone condemns them to certain andtotal failure. In the process, however,they serve only to damage the efforts ofthose working to build a workers’republic in Ireland.

By any reckoning, the political entitythat is Northern Ireland is in disarray.Political institutions have not functionedfor more than two years. The leadingpro-union party, the DUP, has not onlylost the confidence of powerfulelements within unionism but has alsooverplayed its hand with theConservatives in London. All the while,the very existence of the six-countystate is in doubt.

Meanwhile the southern 26-countystate is disguising its failure to addressthe needs of its working-class majorityby promoting its relationship with theneo-liberal EU while loudly lamentingthe Brexit process. This is the state with10,000 homeless people and a two-tierhealth service, where money buysaccess to life-saving treatment. Yet atthe same time its government sees fit toaward private companies a lucrativecontract worth €373 million over fifteenyears to operate toll systems on thecountry’s busiest motorway.*

Overcoming the two failed Irishstates requires the building of a broadlybased progressive mass movement ofworking people. Signs that such adevelopment is possible have beenevident in several well-supportedcampaigns over recent years in the 26Counties. Encouragingly, many disparaterepublican groups and individuals haveovercome their reluctance to change oldand redundant tactics and haveengaged in this process.

Unfortunately, all too often theseinitiatives to unite on a working-class

agenda have been ridiculed andobstructed by those responsible for thedeath of Lyra McKee. Ironically, whilethey have sought to cause division anddissension within the ranks of leftrepublicanism, they have nowsucceeded in uniting the forces of theestablishment on a sterile securityprogramme. Hardly a surprise,therefore, that so many suspect thepresence of a sinister hand monitoringand manipulating these organisations.

But irrespective of the presence ofprovocateurs, these groups areobjectively counter-revolutionary. Theirpresence and their actions are morethan a mere distraction: they causeconfusion by peddling a false promisethat they can deliver on a republicanobjective. Their actions give comfort tothe enemies of a workers’ republic asthey distort and mangle the socialistmessage. Their reckless incompetenceallows for the demonising of genuinerevolutionaries. Common sense, not tomention common decency, dictates thatthey should vacate the stage.

Regrettably, it is doubtful if any ofthese arguments will have any positiveeffect on the organisations involved. Iflogic or political understanding weretheir strong point they wouldn’t be inthe cul de sac they now occupy.

It is important, however, that thecounter-productive actions of thesegroups are not allowed to facilitate areactionary agenda. The demand for anall-Ireland workers’ republic is as validas it ever was. The building of a massmovement among the working class todo this remains not only legitimate butalso essential. Only through a massmovement of the Irish working class willwe definitively sideline what Connollyderisively described as the “physicalforce party.” Only through such amovement can we transform society inthe two failed states into a republic thatserves the needs of working people.

We must continue, therefore, tospeak the facts objectively, overlook thehyperbole, and continue to build for thefuture. H

*Barry O’Halloran, “Abtran and Vinci win€373m contract to operate M50 tolls,”Irish Times, 18 April 2019.

The killingof LyraMcKeeStatement by theCommunist Party of Ireland20 April 2019The Communist Party of Irelandstrongly condemns the killing ofLyra McKee, a young journalistworking and living in Derry, onThursday 18 April.Once again a family has lost a

loved one in a needless andsenseless act committed by anorganisation that has nothing tooffer the working people of Derryor the working people of thenorth of Ireland. In particular, theorganisation that admitted havingcarried out this action hasnothing to offer the youth of thatcity, only further deaths oranother generation of wastedyouth rotting in prison.We also know from recent

history that many of thesegroups are heavily penetrated byagents of the state. Their actionshave been orchestrated andcontrolled by agents of the state,in the interests of the state.“Saoradh,” and the self-styled

“New IRA,” have clearly learntnothing from history and fromthe consequences of a failedmilitary strategy of the recentpast. Young people need torealise that this is not the way tobring about change or to dealwith the many problems that theyface. Unless people andorganisations learn from historythey are doomed to repeat thefailed strategies and themistakes of history.

CAPITAL


The nextpropertycrash isloomingDAN TARAGHAN

THE LAST property crash wasbrought about by a combination ofbanks lending on the basis of

spurious calculations, massaging theirown financial data, and inflated propertyprices that were completely divorcedfrom reality.

Following the collapse, propertyprices adjusted back to more realisticvalues. The Government bailed out thebanks and the main capitalistspeculators. It also socialised the debtand transferred the debt to the public.

In effect, the property crash wasused to attack the working class andour living conditions. Since then theworking class has fought back. Theprivatising of the public water supplyhas been resisted, and the shamarguments of the Green Party and otherso-called environmentalists have beenexposed.

Public-sector workers have beentrying to undo some of the damage

Workers instruggleLloyd’s refuse to attend theLabour CourtAt the Labour Court on 26 April theemployees’ union, Mandate,presented the case for all Lloyd’sPharmacy workers to receiveimprovements to their terms andconditions of employment. Mandate’ssubmission includes demands for:• A pay increase of 3.4 per cent,backdated to 1 April 2019 for twelvemonths

• The establishment of transparentincremental pay scales for all grades,in line with those of Boot’s Pharmacy• Improvements to the sickness payscheme from the present four days totwenty-five days• Improvements in annual leaveentitlement from the presentmaximum of twenty-two days up totwenty-nine (in line with Boot’s)• Improvements to public holiday andSunday premium payments from timeand a third to time and a half.The company’s management did notattend the hearing, which Mandate’sassistant general secretary, GerryLight, said exposed their attitudetowards their own workers and to thestate’s industrial relations machinery.“Unfortunately,” he said, “yet again

Lloyd’s Pharmacy management haveattempted to deny their workers theirbasic human right to be representedby a trade union of their choice forcollective bargaining purposes.”

SIPTU members in Coca-Cola toconsider industrial actionSIPTU representatives confirmed on24 April that members working inCoca-Cola are considering industrialaction as part of a campaign to securecollective bargaining rights at thecompany’s plant in Ballina, Co. Mayo.The dispute centres on two LabourCourt recommendations that found infavour of SIPTU’s claim for negotiationrights for workers who are members ofthe union.


done under various agreementsintroduced under the guise of the“crisis.” It is hardly surprising, therefore,to see that all the hallmarks of the nextproperty crash are building up.

Dublin’s housing market has nowreached a dangerous level, with inflatedhouse prices. Figures produced by theCentral Statistics Office show that themedian price for a house in Dublin is€370,000. This is just over nine timesaverage earnings, of €39,753. Anaffordable house is deemed to be 3½ to4 times a person’s income.

Within the wider Dublin area, theDún Laoghaire figures are worse, withan average price of €541,667, orfourteen times average earnings. Inother words, despite the propagandafrom Government and neo-liberaleconomists, workers are being forcedinto the private rental sector, as they areprevented from buying their own homes.

The National CompetitivenessCouncil, in its annual review publishedin April, showed that Ireland is now thefifth most expensive place to live in theEU, with prices 13 per cent above theeuro area average. It is more expensiveto live here than in France or Germany,and without any of the benefits of goodinfrastructure such as public transport,child care, or health service.

A recent report from Waterfordrevealed that the bodies of the deadwere left on trolleys; so you cannot evendie with dignity. It is hardly surprising

that there is growing pressure for wageincreases and improvements in howtaxes are spent.

Earlier this year the Irish Farmers’Journal published its Agricultural LandPrice Report for 2018. This showed thatthe average price in 2018 was €9,072per acre. This was actually a drop of0.18 per cent on the 2017 price. Therewere variations in the average, withDublin having the highest, at €22,000,and such counties as Kildare, Wexfordand Kilkenny also above average.

Approximately six to ten houses canbe built per acre; so it can be extremelyprofitable to acquire even one acre ofagricultural land and build houses on it.Obviously the land would requirerezoning, but such rezoning wouldimmediately transform the value of theland.

According to the survey, 33 per centof farms sold in 2018 were bought bybeef farmers, who account for 60 percent of all farmers; 23 per cent werebought by dairy farmers, who make uponly 14 per cent of all farmers. However,17 per cent of farms were bought bybusiness people. The Irish Farmers’Journal reckons that these latter areusing the purchase of agricultural land inorder to pass assets to offspring and soavoid capital acquisitions tax by availingof agricultural relief.

In this way wealth can be kept withinthe family and transferred from onegeneration to the next. In the

Communist Manifesto, Marx called forthe “abolition of all rights of inheritance”as part of the move by the working classto assert its dominance in society.

The failure of successivegovernments to restrict the growth ofDublin and diversify the spread of wealthin the country is having a negativeimpact that will lead in the near future toanother property crash.

The price of an acre of agriculturalland is fairly static over previous years. Itranges from a national average of€9,000 to €22,000 in Dublin. The priceof agricultural land relates to houseprices. If in Dublin agricultural land is€22,000 an acre, and ten houses canbe built on that acre at a value of €3.37million, the profits to be made are huge.

These values also drive the rentalvalue of land and property. In Dublin,rents average about €1,600 per month,which would swallow a substantialproportion of a worker’s income onaverage earnings. Workers are beingexcluded from the property market byhigh prices and are also beinghammered in the private rental market.

To compound these problems, £42billion of British fund investment hastransferred to Ireland since the Brexitreferendum. The capitalists who controlthis money want a return in either taxreliefs or expensive office space. Thepresent government, with its neo-liberalphilosophy, will not be able to controlthe increasing conflicts. H

SIPTU members to take strikeaction at Boxmore Plastics

SIPTU members at the BoxmorePlastics Ltd plant in Ballyconnell, Co.Cavan, are to take strike action onWednesday 8 May as a result of thecompany’s refusal to grant a payincrease as recommended by theLabour Court.This follows a vote by SIPTU membersin the general operative, maintenanceand team-leader grades at the plant infavour of strike action and industrialaction.

Unite responds to Bombardier’sannounced closureThe Canadian aircraft manufacturerBombardier has announced a plan to

sell its aero-structures business inBelfast. The company said it wants tocombine its corporate and regional jetunits into a single aviation unit and toshed more “non-core assets” by sellingoff its Belfast and Moroccanbusinesses. The company said it willconcentrate its aero-structuresactivities in Montréal and Mexico andits newly acquired Global 7500business jet wing operations in Texas.Shareholders are worried that thecompany may not meet its declaredprofit margins and generate $20 billionin income anticipated for 2020. So theworkers must pay a heavy price tosatisfy shareholders’ greed.The company claims that its railwaydivision should generate $10 billionnext year (created by workers), and that

this is crucial to Bombardier’s five-yearturnaround plan. They claim that heavyinvestment in aircraft production droveit to the brink of bankruptcy in 2015.Unite, which represents the majority ofworkers, expressed a hope that anynew owner will make a commitment tolocal production and bring forwardexpanded investment. It is seekingassurances from Bombardier and fromthe British government on this processof the sale.Bombardier workers in the north ofIreland are among the most highlyskilled workers in the industry globally.The Unite statement went on to say:“Whoever the buyer is there’s anundeniable case for investment to notonly sustain but expand production andemployment into the future.” H


INTERNATIONAL

Venezuela:A timelineof struggleThis is an edited version of a documentsupplied by the Venezuela-IrelandNetwork

In our media the economic and politicaldifficulties in Venezuela are usuallypresented as recent developments. Inmost reports, all blame is laid on thealleged failure of the BolivarianRevolution. Absent from the narrative areany accounts of US interference leadingup to the present situation. What neveremerges is the fact that such threatsbegan from the first day of the revolution.

The following is a short history of USactions in Venezuela, showing that thewar began in the very early days ofPresident Chávez’s strategy for theBolivarian Revolution

2001At the end of 2001 the US governmentdespatches a senior State Departmentofficial and regional enforcer to Caracas,where he bluntly threatens direreprisals—destabilisation—if Venezuelafails to line up with America’s campaign

to reimpose its global hegemony.

2002: Coup d’étatTwo leading coup plotters, General EfraínVásquez Velasco and General RamírezPoveda, were trained at the US Army’sSchool of the Americas.

2002: The day after the coupAfter the failure of the coup, the Agencyfor International Development (a USgovernment body), together with theNational Endowment for Democracy (a“soft power” organisation supported bythe CIA), open an “Office of TransitionInitiatives” in Caracas. Their plan is toinvest more than $100 million in effortsto undermine the Chávez government andreinforce the opposition over the followingeight years.

December 2002 to February2003: The oil lock-outThe United States backs the bosses’ lock-out in the Venezuelan oil industry.

2004: Recall referendumThe United States channels fundsthrough the National Endowment forDemocracy and other front groups. Itbankrolls a “recall referendum,” which isdecisively defeated.

2004–2008Colombia “grants” the United States theuse of seven military bases.

2005–2006The Agency for InternationalDevelopment’s main intermediary,Development Alternatives Inc., is obligedto close its office in Caracas. The USgovernment apparently seeks newfunding channels, one of which is a groupcalled the “Pan-American DevelopmentFoundation,” which finances oppositionjournalism, among other things.

2006The first US sanctions on Venezuelanindividuals are imposed.

2007The proposed constitutional amendmentfor “21st-century socialism” is defeated.The United States supports oppositiongroups.

2010In November 2010, according to e-mailmessages obtained by Venezuelansecurity services, Juan Guaidó, YonGoicoechea and several other studentactivists attend a secret five-day trainingsession at a hotel in Mexico.

FRIDE, a Spanish right-wing thinktank, publishes a report prepared withfunds from the “World Movement forDemocracy” (a project of the NationalEndowment for Democracy) thatdiscloses that international agencies aresubsidising the Venezuelan oppositionwith an annual $40–50 million. Fundsdonated by American and European

A victoryfor pro-Venezuelaactivists


A group of determined Americanactivists forced Juan Guaidó’s shadowambassador, Carlos Vecchio, to fleefrom a rally that was supposed to markhis triumphant entry into theVenezuelan embassy in Washington. Itwas supposed to be a day of triumphfor the Venezuelan coup leader JuanGuaidó and his forces in Washington.

In Caracas the opposition hadlaunched “Operation Liberty,” a coupattempt that promised to flip high-levelfigures in the military and Maduro’sinner circle and deliver the presidentialpalace to Guaidó. And in Washington,the self-declared ambassador, CarlosVecchio, was poised to take control ofVenezuela’s embassy.

But by the end of the May Day

holiday, Guaidó’s plot had beenresoundingly defeated, while Vecchiowas seen fleeing the embassy after hisspeech, before fifty or so fanatical right-wing supporters were overwhelmed by agroup of anti-coup protesters, bothinside and outside the embassy.

It was a humiliating defeat for a US-backed opposition that has notachieved a single concrete victory sincelaunching its coup attempt more thantwo-and-a-half months ago.

For over a week a group ofAmerican citizens calling themselvesthe Embassy Protection Collective havestymied the opposition’s plan to seizethe embassy, denying its leadership theveneer of legitimacy that it has beendesperately seeking. Members of the

collective moved into the embassy atthe invitation of its official owners inthe Venezuelan government, and havemaintained a round-the-clock presenceto prevent a mob of opposition activistsfrom occupying the grounds.

On 30 April the pro-coup moboutside turned violent, physicallyassaulting embassy protectors andhurling racist, sexist and homophobicabuse at others.

The US Secret Service, which hasthe duty of protecting foreignembassies, has done nothing so far toprevent or punish criminal acts thatviolate Washington’s civil code andarticle 22 of the Vienna Conventionson the protection of diplomaticfacilities. H

agencies and foundations are given tothe right-wing parties Primero Justicia(First Justice), Un Nuevo Tiempo (A NewTime) and COPEI (the right-wing SocialChristian Party), as well as to a dozen orso NGOs, students’ groups, and media.

The report mentions many groups thathave been contributing since at least2002, including the Carter Center, theInternational Republican Institute, theNational Democratic Institute, the OpenSociety Institute, the Pan-AmericanDevelopment Foundation, the Agency forInternational Development, and theNational Endowment for Democracy, aswell as multilateral institutions, includingthe Organization of American States andthe European Union.

2012In the Obama government’s foreignoperations budgets, between $5 and 6million has been included to financeopposition groups in Venezuela since2012.

2013US Embassy officials are expelled for theirparticipation in destabilisation activity withmembers of the far-right opposition.

In November 2013 a documententitled Plan Estratégico Venezolano(Venezuelan Strategic Plan) surfaces aftercases taken by the lawyer Eva Golinger. Itincludes a plan by representatives of theUnited States, Colombia and Venezuelanoligarchs to undermine the Venezuelan

economy as part of a plot to removePresident Maduro.

2013–2014The Agency for International Developmentand the National Endowment forDemocracy filter more than $14 millionto opposition groups in Venezuela,including their political campaigns in2013 and for the current anti-government protests.

2014In May the Venezuelan governmentreleases documents describing anassassination plot against PresidentMaduro.

More sanctions are imposed when theUS House of Representatives passes the“Venezuelan Human Rights andDemocracy Protection Act.”

In December the US Congress passesthe “Venezuela Defense of Human Rightsand Civil Society Act,” which directs thepresident to impose further sanctions.

2015Obama signs a presidential orderdeclaring Venezuela an “unusual andextraordinary threat” to US nationalsecurity interests.

2017In August an executive order specificallybars revenue from Venezuela’s state oilcompany being paid from the UnitedStates, prohibits the Venezuelan

government to sell bonds, and even barsit from receiving loans. These sanctionsare designed to prevent Venezuela’s ownmoney from entering Venezuela.

2017–2018According to the Venezuelan government,the US is also involved in a plot to capturePresident Maduro at the presidentialpalace, and another plot to murder him ata military parade in July 2017. A yearlater exiled right-wing leaders try and failto kill him with drone bombs during amilitary parade in Caracas.

2019On 30 April another attempted coup byJuan Guaidó calls for a military uprising.The US national security adviser, JohnBolton, calls on the Venezuelan army tosupport the coup.

The convicted criminal LeopoldoLópez, who had earlier been broken freefrom house arrest by oppositionsupporters, is forced to hide in theSpanish embassy.

The president of the EU Parliament,Antonio Tajani, states: “Today marks ahistoric day for the return of democracyand freedom to Venezuela, which theEuropean Parliament has alwayssupported. The freeing of Leopoldo Lópezby soldiers obeying the constitution isgreat news.”

At the time of writing, a new actionagainst the Venezuelan people is underway but appears to have been defeated.

EUGENE MCCARTAN

OUR PLANET is on the verge of anenvironmental catastrophe.Billions live in abject poverty;

millions more go hungry for want offood or clean drinking water.

The gap between rich and poorgrows and grows. The wealthiest 1 percent of people on our planet could fit ina public-transport bus.

Yet today, while the world facesthese huge challenges, spending onarmed forces grows and grows. Themost recent report on global militaryspending by the StockholmInternational Peace Research Institute,World Military Spending, 1988–2018,makes for sobering reading.

“Total world military expenditure roseto $1,822 billion in 2018,” the reportsays, “representing an increase of 2.6per cent from 2017.” It breaks downthat figure to show that the five biggestspenders in 2018 were the UnitedStates, China, Saudi Arabia, India, andFrance, which together accounted for60 per cent of global military spending.

The United States has a populationof approximately 330 million, China1,400 million, Saudi Arabia 34 million,

India 1,300 million, and France 65million.

The United States, France and SaudiArabia have a combined population of429 million. None of these countriesare under any military threat, but theyare certainly involved in a lot of militaryadventures around the globe, as well asarming and financing many terroristgroups.

India sees Pakistan as a threat, andthe present government is made up ofa Hindu extremist party. China isthreatened with encirclement by theUnited States and its NATO allies.

The United States, which hasapproximately eight hundred militarybases spread around the globe, hasincreased its military spending for thefirst time since 2010, by 4½ per cent,to reach $649 billion in 2018. Thismakes it the largest spender onarmaments in the world, spendingalmost as much on its military in 2018as the next eight countries combined.While China’s spending on its militarygrew for the twenty-fourth consecutiveyear, China has few if any militaryfacilities outside its own borders.

Imperialist aggression is forcingmore and more countries to divert

scarce resources to military budgets,thereby forcing further cuts in socialschemes. Small countries are forced, ifthey receive financial support fromcapitalist powers, to purchase goodsand services as well as militaryweaponry from those countries.

The SIPRI report reveals that totalglobal military spending rose for thesecond consecutive year in 2018, tothe highest level since 1988 (the firstyear for which consistent global data isavailable). World spending is now 76per cent higher than the low point of1998, after the Cold War. World militaryspending in 2018 accounted for 2.1per cent of global GDP, or $239 perperson.

Other notable developments:l The largest absolute increase inspending in 2018 was by the UnitedStates ($28 billion).l Total military expenditure in 2018 byall twenty-nine NATO members was$963 billion, accounting for 53 percent of world spending.l Military spending in South Americarose by 3 per cent in 2018. This wasmainly due to the increase of 5 percent in Brazil’s spending, the secondincrease in as many years.


CAPITALISM

"Photo: Staff Sergeant Mike Harvey/MOD" W

ikimedia

Imperialism will kill us all

l Military spending in Turkey increasedby 24 per cent in 2018, to $19 billion,the highest annual increase among theworld’s fifteen biggest militaryspenders.l Six of the ten countries with thehighest military burden (militaryspending as a proportion of GDP) are inthe Middle East: Saudi Arabia (8.8 percent of GDP), Oman (8.2 per cent),Kuwait (5.1 per cent), Lebanon (5 percent), Jordan (4.7 per cent), and Israel(4.3 per cent).

Spending on armed forces is apriority of the imperialist countries intheir strategy of global domination,control of resources, and territory. Theneeds of the people are far down thelist of government priorities.

Wars, both large and small, areextremely damaging to the globalenvironment. The impact of wars on theenvironment will last for many decades,rendering large tracts of land unfit forfarming because of poisoning.

Here in Ireland the Governmentsigned up to the EU’s “PermanentStructured Cooperation on Security andDefence” (PESCO), whereby it hascommitted itself to increase spendingon the Defence Forces to keep in linewith the military needs and strategies ofthe European Union. It will cost us all inthe form of cuts in health, education,and housing.

Militarism affects everyone. H

The USA and Chinalead increase inworld militaryexpenditureUS military spending grew—for the firsttime since 2010—by 4.6 per cent, toreach $649 billion in 2018. The USAremained by far the largest spender inthe world, and spent almost as muchon its military in 2018 as the nexteight largest-spending countriescombined. ‘The increase in USspending was driven by theimplementation from 2017 of newarms procurement programmes underthe Trump administration,’ says DrAude Fleurant, the director of the SIPRIAMEX programme.

China, the second-largest spenderin the world, increased its militaryexpenditure by 5.0 per cent to $250billion in 2018. This was the 24thconsecutive year of increase in Chinesemilitary expenditure. Its spending in2018 was almost 10 times higher thanin 1994, and accounted for 14 percent of world military spending. ‘Growthin Chinese military spending tracks thecountry’s overall economic growth,’says Tian. ‘China has allocated 1.9 percent of its GDP to the military everyyear since 2013.’

Data and graphic: SIPRI


‘The largest absolute increase in spending in 2018 was by theUnited States ($28 billion).’

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Laura Duggan

THERE IS no truly universal experienceof the world. It is deeply influencedby how we have been taught to

orient ourselves in that world, which thenpredicts how we interact with it.

Language is one such example.Monoglot English-speakers break theirday down into time slots and scheduledintervals; Japanese-speakers groupobjects according to material; Russian-speakers recognise different shades ofblue more quickly.

These differing social and culturalpressures influence how we identifyourselves, not least in an awareness ofhow we are perceived by others. To beblack in a predominantly white country, orto be a woman in a male-dominatedsphere, is a very different experience frombeing white or male in the sameenvironment. These forms of identity canbe multi-aspect, complex, overlapping,and when othered by society can feelcontradictory or shameful. Increasinglythey are embraced as a form of defiance,as we can see with the increase of radicalLGBTQ and feminist groups. Socialpsychologists and their studies havelimited identity to such areas as ethnicity,race, age, gender, sexual orientation, andnationality. There is little study on the rolethat class plays in identity.

Class as a form of identity is acontroversial topic. As communists weunderstand class to be defined on a

IDEOLOGY


‘Nice littleearners’Paul Doran

THERE I am sitting among my threeor four neighbours, and the talkturns to property. Their property.

This topic has bothered me for sometime, as it brings out the nastiestprejudices in my neighbours:condemning suspected “welfarecheats,” bothersome tenants, andeverything else.

Now one of these neighbours, Dick,tells me that he has just bought hiswife a Jaguar—second-hand, mindyou—as a Christmas present. I lookacross to my wife, and we both throwour eyes up to the air. Nice people, butover the top, and lacking self-awareness. Later, as the festive cheerloosens their tongues, Dick tells me hehas a second home in the area, andremarks on how dirty some of histenants can be. I want to tell him he isa parasite. As he profits from others’misery, the state has a tax avoidance,so-called “relief” scheme, whereby hecan deduct at least 85 per cent of theinterest on the mortgage from any tax

payable on rental income from his littleearner.

Another neighbour, Marie, tells methat some years ago she bought a“small” apartment in our village, andthat she was looking for a reliabletenant for quite some time. Now, sherents the apartment through the countycouncil, on the “sound” advice of herfriend who worked in the council’sHousing Department, who probablytook her through the mechanics of it.The council takes care of all the“hassle” that comes with being alandlord.

I am now fit to be tied with hearingof these “sound” investments.

Identity and class

Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring 1943Laura Knight (1877-1970)

material basis: a person who sells theirlabour power belongs to the workingclass. This means that an office workerand a factory worker belong to the samepolitical class if both rely on their wagesto sustain them.

Class as a political definition isdefined by ownership and power; class asa social identity is defined by a wide arrayof social markers, including such thingsas accent, footwear, and number ofbooks owned. A factory worker is notlikely to be in the same social class as anoffice worker; and an office worker from alow-income area may engage in code-switching while at work. However,working-class people are equally likely todefine themselves on this social classbasis, as they are based on their race,gender, or sexuality, and so on.

This use of class as an identity isparticularly characteristic of those whogrow up in low income areas associatedwith manual and factory work. Lives livedwith less security, fewer opportunities,less control and reduced influence tendto afford an understanding of the self andbehaviour as interdependent with othersand lends a greater understanding to thecontext of class, even if unconsciously.This “hard interdependence” derives fromthe community, as well as individual,resilience that is needed to cope withcontinuing or repeated adversity. Theydefend and help each other, and offersupport in a multitude of ways, as well asengaging in more pro-social behaviourgenerally, as they know that they too may

need to rely on the kindness, compassionand solidarity of others in theircommunity.

That being said, working-class identitydoes not preclude identifying and placingimportance on other aspects of theiridentity as well, be it sexuality, gender,and so on. Their social class just meansthat their understanding of this otheraspect of themselves is also expressedthrough the interdependence model ofidentity: intersectionality, if you put classat the centre. Audre Lorde and AngelaDavis cover this topic in depth.

The other and more commonlydiscussed form of self-identify is that of“expressive independence.” This form ofidentity is the one most people associatewith “identity politics.” Typicallyassociated with those with higher levelsof security in life, their priorities movefrom a communal understanding ofsociety to a more individualistic one.Rather than simply understanding socialcontexts, people from this backgroundare in a position to shape them, andoften do, for their own betterment. Theirunderstanding of identity is studied,understood and generally deemed tohave some validity, if not accepted.

This can be seen in the way schoolsand work-places use the acceptance ofexpressive independence as a standardfor measuring “inclusivity” while damping,if not outright opposing, any expression ofworking-class identity and thereforeinterdependence. Individual expressionsof identity do not challenge the capitalist

norms necessary in the exploitation ofworkers. Hiring more individualisticwomen, or marching in corporate-sponsored Pride, falls very much into linewith most companies’ ethos, along withkeeping wages low or blocking unionrecognition.

Interdependence, however, with itsbase in a working-class identity suffusedwith notions of solidarity, collectivistapproaches, and trade unionism, by itsvery nature challenges capitalism, makingit dangerous.

Significantly, despite the fact thatthere has been a dramatic decline intraditional working class occupations,such as that of manufacturing, largenumbers of workers still describethemselves as being socially workingclass; and this self identification doesmatter. In all job sectors, other thanmanagerial and professional, identifyingas working class makes a substantialdifference in a person’s political attitudes,those identifying as working class beingless likely to express right wing ideology,more likely to be supportive of unions, aswell as being broadly anti-racist and anti-fascist in their views.

The concept of class as identity,particularly working-class identity, even ifnot based in political reasoning, stillproduces marked political results. It is upto the left to understand and radicalisethis. We cannot allow it to be remouldedand corrupted by the right. Our strengthcomes from our class, and all thedifferent shades within it. H


It’s getting late, and the quieterneighbour, Seán, who would help any ofus out if we were stuck, starts to tell meabout his “little pension fund” down thecountry. “Ah, sure it’s for the future, whenI retire.” He and his wife, a schoolteacher,have their little pension fund that they topup every year, thereby availing of more taxbenefits from the state.

Then there is my other neighbour,May. She has stature, a heart of gold,but runs a call-centre business. Shepays crap wages, the minimum wageand maybe a small increase after a yearor two for her workers, but she is notlosing sleep over it, as she knows thestate will top up these wages with family

income supplement and so on, allowingher to make money. May runs “bestemployee” competitions at the end ofeach month, gives out small prizes. Onecan imagine how exciting this makes itto work for her.

All these neighbours, I think tomyself, are generous to a fault whenyou meet them in person; the reality oftheir livelihoods, however, the nature ofhow they supplement the earnings fromtheir own jobs, leads directly to theseanti-working class prejudices.Meanwhile they take two or threeforeign holidays a year, and some haveholiday homes in Co. Wexford and thelike for long weekends. They have the

means to pay for grinds for theirchildren, and to attend the best privateclinics in times of illness. And theybelieve they deserve every bit of it.

The ruling class has to allow this“respectable” petit-bourgeois middleclass to share in some of the spoils. Notonly do the working class not haveaccess to these tax breaks but they arethe ones who end up paying for them,with reduced revenue for expenditure onpublic health, and so on.

All the while, middle-class typescomplain of the attitudes of theirsupposed “underlings,” so blind are theyto their own heightened sense ofentitlement. H

THERE ARE few people more famousin the political song movement thanPete Seeger. Along with his

contemporaries Paul Robeson andWoody Guthrie, Seeger represented themight of song in highlighting thecommon cause, strengthening courage,and inspiring resistance. Song was theirweapon in this struggle for a fair, equaland peaceful society.

Pete grew up in a musical family. Hisfather, Charles, was a musicologist andlecturer who lost his job when heopposed America’s involvement in theFirst World War. His mother, Constance,was a violinist, and also held socialistand pacifist political views.

His parents divorced when Pete was achild. Charles remarried and joined theComposers’ Collective, who performedtheir songs for strikers and theunemployed. The family travelled thecountry, playing music and attending folkfestivals on many occasions. It was herethat Pete encountered the banjo andmade it his instrument.

In 1936, at the age of seventeen,Pete Seeger joined the YoungCommunist League, and in 1942 he

became a member of the CommunistParty of the USA, which he left in 1949.

In 1938 he enrolled in a sociologycourse at Harvard University, in the hopeof becoming a journalist, but ultimatelyhe did not not finish it. He went to NewYork, where he met Woody Guthrie, AlanLomax, Lead Belly, and others, deeplyinvolving him with traditional Americanmusic. They jointly founded the AlmanacSingers in December 1940. With theirpro-union songs and singing againstracism and war, the band propelledSeeger into an active political folk-songscene. They performed for strikers withsuch songs as “Talking Union” andothers about the struggles for theunionising of industrial workers.

In June 1942, following Germany’sinvasion of the Soviet Union, Seegerenlisted in the US army in order to fightfascism. He worked on aeroplaneengines and later transferred to Saipanin the Western Pacific to entertaintroops. Military intelligence consideredhim unfit for “a position of trust orresponsibility” because of his“Communistic sympathies, unsatisfactoryrelations with landlords and his

numerous Communist and otherwiseundesirable friends,” and described theAlmanac Singers as “spreadingcommunist and anti-fascist propagandathrough songs and recordings.”

Seeger was a fervent supporter ofRepublican Spain against Franco, and in1943 he recorded several Spanish CivilWar songs with like-minded musicians.The album was entitled Songs of theLincoln Battalion.

After the war Seeger establishedPeople’s Songs Incorporated. “I hope tohave hundreds, thousands, tens ofthousands of union choruses,” he said.“Just as every church has a choir, whynot every union?”

Soon the PSI had two thousandmembers, and it was growing fast. AnFBI file was opened on the organisation.

In November 1948 Seeger jointlyfounded the folk group called theWeavers. The group took its name from aGerman drama about the Silesianweavers’ uprising by Gerhart Hauptmann,Die Weber, which contains the lines “I’llstand it no more, come what may.” Thegroup recorded “Good Night, Irene,” asong written by Seeger’s friend Lead


CULTURE with Jenny Farrell

Pete Seeger on his 100th birthday

Belly. The threat of censorship dictatedthat the chorus be changed from “I’ll getyou in my dreams” to “I’ll see you in mydreams.” It topped the charts in 1950.

The band also popularised Guthrie’ssong “This Land Is Your Land” and otherleft-wing songs, such as “If I Had aHammer.”

From about 1940 Seeger’s supportfor civil rights and workers’ rights, racialequality, international understanding andpeace had made him a suspiciouscharacter in the eyes of the state. In1955, during the McCarthy witch-huntera, Seeger and his fellow Almanacsinger Lee Hays were identified asCommunist Party members and weresummoned to testify before the HouseCommittee on Un-American Activities.Seeger refused to answer, claiming theprotection of the First Amendment to theConstitution of the United States, whichguarantees freedom of speech—the firstperson to do so after the conviction ofthe Hollywood Ten in 1950. The Houseof Representatives found Seeger guilty ofcontempt, but in 1961 it had to overturnthis conviction on technical grounds.

However, anti-communism wasrampant since the beginning of theMcCarthy era, and the band sufferedfrom a total boycott by theestablishment. Right-wing groupssabotaged their concerts, ultimatelyleading to the group’s dissolution in1952. For seventeen years the Americanmedia ostracised Seeger.

He performed at schools and collegesand for minor trade unions. This meantsmaller audiences, but neverthelessSeeger reached a lot of people, some ofwhom later found jobs in the trade unionmovement, were involved with festivals,with Hollywood, on the radio, or in thetheatre. Famous bands popularisedsongs written by Seeger from this time,including “Where Have All the FlowersGone?”—a song that came to him whenreading Sholokhov’s novel And QuietFlows the Don.

In 1957 Pete met another victim ofFBI surveillance and intimidation, MartinLuther King, at the Highlander FolkSchool in Tennessee. Here began whatwould become the anthem of the civilrights movement, “We Shall Overcome,”changing slightly the hymn “I Will

Overcome.” In 1963 Seeger sang it onthe fifty-mile walk from Selma toMontgomery, along with a thousandother marchers.

Seeger was joint founder of the musicmagazine Sing Out! and a senior figure inthe 1960s urban folk revival. Themovement, which Seeger called“Woody’s Children,” after Guthrie,adapted traditional songs for politicalpurposes. The Industrial Workers of theWorld (Wobblies) had pioneered this intheir I.W.W. Songs: To Fan the Flames ofDiscontent, popularly known as The LittleRed Songbook. This was originallycompiled by the legendary unionorganiser Joe Hill, and was a favourite ofGuthrie’s.

Like King, Seeger was a vocal critic ofthe US war in Viet Nam, writing popularanti-war songs such as “Waist-Deep inthe Big Muddy” and “If You Love YourUncle Sam (Bring ’Em Home).” On 15November 1969 the Viet NamMoratorium March on Washington tookplace. Seeger led half a millionprotesters in singing John Lennon’speace song “Give Peace a Chance,”calling to Richard Nixon at the WhiteHouse, “Are you listening?”

Pete Seeger and his wife, Toshi Ohta,lived in a log cabin overlooking theHudson River. Disturbed by the river’spollution, they jointly started the GreatHudson River Revival, which becameknown as the Clearwater Festival. In thisway they were instrumental in rallyingpublic support for cleaning the HudsonRiver and surrounding wetlands. Thefestival now attracts more than 15,000people each summer.

Seeger remained politically active intohis nineties. In 2012 he performed withHarry Belafonte, Jackson Browne andothers for Leonard Peltier of theAmerican Indian Movement, who hasbeen in prison for over forty years.

Pete Seeger died on 27 January2014, aged ninety-four. He played anactive role in all the important strugglesof the twentieth and early twenty-firstcenturies—for peace, for theenvironment, for civil and workers’ rights.His memory is inscribed indelibly in theminds of all those who are part of thesame movements when they sing, “Weshall overcome.” H


■ Lynda Walker, Living in an ArmedPatriarchy: Public Protest, DomesticAcquiescence

THIS BOOKLET takes its reader backto the years from the late 1960s tothe early 1980s, years that shook

the North of Ireland in many ways. It is anexample of the kind of writing abouthistorical events that departs frommainstream, bourgeois history: it writesabout the experience of the dispossessedfrom their own point of view. It recordsaspects of their suffering and theirresistance and does so with compassionas well as personal involvement.

The people most likely to achievelasting and real change in the North ofIreland, as is shown in the years underexamination here, are those who are theworst affected by this grotesque versionof capitalism manifest in Britain’s strife-ridden colonial backwater. Here, as theauthor shows, civil rights were slow toarrive and in some instances have yet tobe achieved—in glaring contrast to boththe Republic and Britain. Indicatively, theabsence of a woman’s right to chooseand same-sex marriage can be linked tothe greatest handicap of this artificialstatelet, political sectarianism, which wasfuelled along contrived religious lines todivide the working class.

It is an account of the experience ofworking-class women in a political battlethat propelled them to ensure that theirdemand for civil rights included equalityfor women. It shows that the long, hardstruggles of working people forprogressive change can lead to success,allowing us to conclude that historiansinterpret the world in different ways butthat the important goal is to change it. H


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JAMES CONNOLLY FESTIVAL2019 PROGRAMME

Connolly BooksEstablished 1932. Ireland’s oldest radical bookshop.43 East Essex Street, between Temple Bar and ParliamentStreet. Opening Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 10.00 to 17.30

Connolly Books is named after James Connolly, Ireland’s socialist pioneer and martyr. H Irish history H politics H Marxist classics H feminism H environmental issues H progressive literature H trade union affairs H philosophy H radical periodicals

TUESDAY 7 MAY, 7 p.m.The rise of the right: Workers’ struggle against racismand fascism in the 21st centurySpeakers: Bulelani Mfaco (direct-provision activist), RafaelaFerracuti (Brazilian Left Front), Manoj Mannath (Kranthi: Indianworkers’ cultural and political organisation)Members’ Bar, Bohemians FC, Dalymount Park (North CircularRoad)

WEDNESDAY 8 MAY, 7 p.m.The Nature of the BeastIrish premiere of Dennis Skinner: Nature of the Beast (2017),directed by Daniel Draper, a documentary about the life of theBritish socialist, trade unionist and Labour MP Dennis Skinner;followed by a Q&A and panel discussion with Allan Melia(producer and cinematographer), presented by Emmet Kirwan.New Theatre (43 East Essex Street)

THURSDAY 9 MAY, 7 p.m.‘The world in a state of chassis... Why?’Speakers: Hugo Rene Ramos Milanes (ambassador of Cuba inIreland), Dr Moataz Khalifa (Communist Party of Sudan), EugeneMcCartan (general secretary, CPI).Chairperson: Laura Duggan(National Executive Committee, CPI).New Theatre (43 East Essex Street)

FRIDAY 10 MAY, 12:00 (noon)Maidin caifeSponsored by Ionad Buail Isteach na GaeilgeConnolly Books (43 East Essex Street)

FRIDAY 10 MAY, 7 p.m.Women, power and politics in the 21st centurySpeakers: Clare Daly TD, Fatin al-Tamimi (Ireland-PalestineSolidarity Campaign), Lorraine O’Connor (Muslim Sisters ofÉire), Emily Waszak (Migrants and Ethnic Minorities forReproductive Justice). Chairperson: Michelle Connolly (DublinCentral Housing Action).New Theatre (43 East Essex Street)

SATURDAY 11 MAY, 2:30 p.m.James Connolly Memorial Lecture, The struggle for equality:Can a capitalist system ever provide true equality?Speaker: Prof. Kathleen Lynch (School of Social Justice, UCD)New Theatre (43 East Essex Street)

SATURDAY 11 MAY, 7 p.m.Youth panel: Issues facing the youth of Ireland todaySpeakers from Connolly Youth Movement, Ógra Shinn Féin,Workers’ Party Youth, People Before ProfitNew Theatre (43 East Essex Street)

SUNDAY 12 MAY, 3 p.m.James Connolly Commemoration, Orations by LauraDuggan (National Executive Committee, CPI), TommyMcKearney (Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum),Azzie O’Connor (national chairperson, Connolly YouthMovement)Arbour Hill Cemeteryand afterwards a drinks reception and music at theCobblestone, Smithfield

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Page 8 Venezuela H Vote Left!j/7G@7I1\URQPX/Z‘zu Vote Left! “There was a time in American history when grand debates over the merits of competing economic systems were front and