tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920787141907842423.post8512250107531743087..comments2007-04-24T11:19:24.923-07:00Comments on Splintered Sunrise: The limits of rhetoricsplinteredsunrisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11512033657370443477noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920787141907842423.post-21595379257495350562007-01-27T07:45:00.000-08:002007-01-27T07:45:00.000-08:00Well, my view is that Gerry can get away with plen...Well, my view is that Gerry can get away with plenty as long as there is no alternative, and there isn't another organisation waiting to pick up the slack. So what's likely is that activists will just drop out - that's happened big time in Belfast tho the Dublin Shinners are a different breed. But I do think there is some space emerging where a political alternative could get a hearing.<br /><br />What that alternative is I'm not too sure. Being a lone blogger I'm free to jeer and sneer, which is what I enjoy anyway. If organisations like Eirigi or the Irps or Socialist Democracy want to pitch themselves to disillusioned Shinners it's really up to them to provide an alternative.<br /><br />My own ongoing thread about programme is really designed as a space to think aloud about where the various left and republican tendencies' weaknesses lie, and what a new programme might look light. As you know I'm basically dealing with method at the minute rather than solid proposals.<br /><br />As you may have guessed I'm not a supporter of RSF and don't claim Eire Nua as the answer. I'm taking it as a jumping off point because I'm familiar with the document and the discussions around it down the years, and I think it touches on a few important areas. I could just as easily write about the Irish Industrial Revolution or even the FF Coru in that context.splinteredsunrisehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11512033657370443477noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920787141907842423.post-21377840448489756412007-01-26T12:14:00.000-08:002007-01-26T12:14:00.000-08:00Yep, those are fair points about the rural and bor...Yep, those are fair points about the rural and border thing. Still, I tend to think that Republican ideologues in the South were fairly underdeveloped in terms of an ideology. Eire Nua has to be one of the worst documents of it's sort ever produced, a sort of Poujadist version of socialism.<br /><br />I take your point about the North South divide in parties, it was amazing how 'serious' the guys from Belfast were in the WP, well not so amazing really, they'd been at the hard end of it. <br /><br />Still, I have to agree with ejh, where else can people go? I know a number of people within SF who are hopping mad about the issue, but they're not on the brink of leaving.WorldbyStormhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15362482364984333707noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920787141907842423.post-51533919629887690122007-01-26T08:21:00.000-08:002007-01-26T08:21:00.000-08:00My sense is that, at least for a significant numbe...<i>My sense is that, at least for a significant number of people, the policing issue is that time.</i><br /><br />Why would you think so? Where else is there to go?ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920787141907842423.post-2580436591761936562007-01-26T01:11:00.000-08:002007-01-26T01:11:00.000-08:00I think you're probably right as far as Dublin goe...I think you're probably right as far as Dublin goes. It would have been very different in the border counties and the west though, and I had in mind the sort of agitation PSF went in for in those rural areas. The general point was that for the Belfast pragmatists the party was a harder nut to crack than the army, because you had more of a southern presence and the southerners were more likely to be republican ideologues.<br /><br />The north/south divide in political movements though is an interesting subject in its own right. You had this as a big fault line in the WP, and the CPI has had constant bickering between Dublin and Belfast for as long as I can remember.splinteredsunrisehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11512033657370443477noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920787141907842423.post-21851009626358342152007-01-25T13:18:00.000-08:002007-01-25T13:18:00.000-08:00I wonder if you're not being a little too kind to ...I wonder if you're not being a little too kind to PSF south of the border with regard to their 'political' machine. As it happens I went to school with Dáithi's son and later was active with WP in that (a North Dublin) constituency for the best part of ten years. To be honest the PSF presence on the ground was fairly thin to the point of non-existant. That pattern was largely, but not exclusively replicated across Dublin, with occassional pockets of serious membership such as Christy Burke's Dublin Central area. The obvious reason was that they didn't engage in 'national elections' so in some respects they didn't need a machine. That, of course, began to change even before 1986, but even as late as the early 1990s their activity was more minimal than one would have thought. <br /><br />Of course the brilliant irony is that they stepped neatly into the space the WP/DL had vacated particularly on the fringe estates around the city.WorldbyStormhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15362482364984333707noreply@blogger.com