[lbo-talk] any irish lbo-talkers out there?

[Yann Morvan]

cmk1 at eircom.net wrote:
> The flip side of this self-congratulation can be seen by the contempt with which the Irish establishment, and not a few workers, hold the striking Greeks and French and their resistance.
Which workers are those?
There are a lot more who wish they knew what to do.
The trade union leaders suck but that's old news in Ireland and a lot 
more places. What is different from a place like France is that Irish 
people are much less aware of it.
This is because the boom and the long period of social partnership have 
had a drastic effect on the active rank and file. Militant shop stewards 
have largely been displaced by committee type people. The collective 
struggle experience has been eroded or is not in the right place.

One of the big stories of the bust is the shift in opinion to the Labour 
party.
(It's always been the third man, with the two civil war rivals 
dominating, but now you even get a TD from one of those calling for a 
merger with the other.)
It confirms the confusion about official labour leaders that exists in 
people's minds.

There are left organizations doing good work (e.g. Socialist Party) but 
the history of the last few decades has left them weak. So much so that 
their programmes don't go beyond the general or the niche (e.g. PANA).

Yann