Originally posted by
[email protected] 7 2005, 07:26 PM
BTW - Redstar 1916 do you support the Socialist Party?
Well, yes but to be honest I'm not really too read up on them,
To be honest neither have I. Thus any critiscisms I make are made just out of knee-jerk reflex, not any deep-rooted hatred of their policies
I've heard that they are the largest and most influential socialist party in Ireland,
No, Sinn Féin is the largest and most influential socialist (republican) party in Ireland, and the only 32-county party.
the other socialist/communist parties (namely the CPI and SWP) have a lot of stalinists in their ranks...
Don't have a clue about them, quite likely they're identical to the socialist party.
Why, is there any reason I shouldn't support the SPI?
Just from their website I can spot a couple of major faults;
Not once do they mention the parasite of partition, acknowledged by all true Irish republicans as the major obstacle to working-class emancipation.
One of the revolutionary legacies of 1913 was the creation of the Irish Citizen's Army (ICA), headed by Connolly. The ICA was an armed force of the workers' movement, established to defend workers from the police and scabs.The ICA had nothing in common with the individual terror methods later employed by the IRA .
First off :lol: , Second; they were both working-class militias and devoted to ending British control in Ireland...but the beautiful sacrifice of the ICA has absolutely nothing in common with the "individual terror methods" (what does that even mean?) of the IRA.
He entered an alliance with the middle class nationalist Irish Volunteers and pushed for an uprising against British rule. A section of the Volunteers reneged at the last minute and Connolly's ICA forces were left with the support of more radical nationalists, including leaders like Padraig Pearse.
This is sad, defaming Pádraig MacPhiarse and his sacrifice by disregarding him as a 'radical nationalist' when he was the only one who ended up supporting Connolly and the ICA.
Connolly also made too many concessions to programme, as can be seen from the text of the insurgents' 'Proclamation'
And then they denounce the Proclamation, commonly acknowledged as the proposed basis of a free Ireland. The basic points being:
That the Rising's leaders, though unelected, spoke for Ireland and the opressed masses.
That the Rising marked another wave of attempts to achieve independence through force of arms, provoked by the British Empire and its exploitation and opression of the Irish people.
A statement that the radical Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizens Army were central to the Rising.
A declaration of "the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland", a socialist statement and which some conservatives found troublesome - (similar language in later declarations, notably the Democratic Programme adopted by the First Dáil in 1919 was deleted or toned down);
A declaration that the form of government of the declared Irish Republic was to be a republic.
A guarantee of "religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens", the first mention of gender equality anywhere in the World at the time.
A statement that the new republic promised to cherish "all the children of the nation equally".
Yes I'm sure Connolly had to make many concessions there to the frenzied Nationalists. :rolleyes:
EDIT: There may well be a branch of Ógra Sinn Féin near you, why don't you create a coalition with the young Shinners? ;)