Bulletins and News Discussion from August 12th to August 18th, 2024 - Marshall Plan: Now As Farce - COTW: Ireland
Image is of one of Ireland's only manned navy ships, the Samuel Beckett. Image sourced from this BBC article.
Putler has been HUMILIATED by the Kursk offensive and this proves that Russia's army is in tatters and unable even to defend its own territory. However, it is simultaneously true that Russia poses an existential threat to countries thousands of miles away, as this recent Politico article demonstrates. Ireland - a country that immediately springs to mind as one surrounded by enemies - is being bullied due to its lack of military.
Despite bearing responsibility for 16 percent of the EU’s territorial waters, and the fact that 75 percent of transatlantic undersea cables pass through or near Irish waters, Ireland is totally defenseless. And I mean completely unable to protect critical infrastructure, or even pretend to secure its own borders. [...] Ireland’s “navy” of six patrol vessels is currently operating with one operational ship due to chronic staff shortages. [...] Ireland simply has no undersea capabilities. How could it, when it barely spends 0.2 percent of GDP on security and defense? And it has, in effect, abdicated responsibility for protecting the Europe’s northwestern borders.
For all we know, the dreaded sea-people from the Bronze Age Collapse could soon emerge from the North Atlantic.
Unfortunately, things are even worse up in the skies. Ireland has no combat jets, and it’s the only country in Europe that can’t monitor its own airspace due to the lack of primary radar systems. Instead, the country has outsourced its security to Britain in a technically secret agreement between Dublin and London, which effectively cedes control over Irish air space to the Royal Air Force. This must be the luck of the Irish — smile and get someone else to protect you for free.
While this is very silly, rearmament has long been a part of US imperial strategy on an economic level. Desai, discussing the US imperial strategy in the WW2 period:
By 1947 [...] the domestic postwar consumer boom was nearing its end. While financing exports became more urgent, the 1946 elections returned a Congress unlikely to approve further loans. Now the Truman Administration concocted the ‘red menace’ to ‘scare the hell out of the country’, enunciated the Truman Doctrine of US support for armed resistance to ‘subjugation’ which launched the cold war, and Congress granted $400 million to prevent left-wing triumphs in Greece and Turkey in 1947.
One reading of history states that the US was so intimidated by the USSR that this forced a policy of massive arms production even outside of official wartime. Why this arms production is not occurring today can be puzzling, and (very reasonably) explained by neoliberals exporting industrial production overseas. However, a different historical reading can explain both the first Cold War, and the ongoing situation in which American weaponry is being almost purposefully given in insufficient numbers to give Ukraine a chance of victory and thus only prolonging their suffering (while generating massive profit for the military-industrial complex):
In this sense the Cold War was not the cause of US imperial policy but its effect. It combined financing exports with fighting combined development by national capitalisms as well as communism. When such ‘totalitarian regimes’ threatened ‘free peoples’, ‘America’s world economic responsibilities’ included aid to countries battling them.
By selling massively expensive weapons to Europe, America could simultaneously guarantee export markets for its industries, trap Europe into reliance on American industries at the expense of their own, and divert European funds away from constructing factories which could compete with American ones. Providing a way to defend against Soviet communism (and now Russian "imperialism") is merely a happy side-effect, and so the lack of effectiveness of American weaponry is causing no great panic among the military-industrial complex, nor an urgent plan to quintuple artillery shell production or Patriot missile production - the deals for F-35s and such are still there, and they are what matter.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Ireland! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language. https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one. https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts. https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel. https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator. https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps. https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language. https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language. https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses. https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Feel free to post or recommend any books, essays, studies, articles, and even stories related to Ireland.
If you know a lot about the country and want to share your knowledge and opinions, here are some questions to get you started if you wish:
spoiler
What is the general ideology of the political elite? Do they tend to be protectionist nationalists, or are they more free trade globalists? Are they compradors put there by foreign powers? Are they socialists with wide support by the population?
What are the most important domestic political issues that make the country different from other places in the region or world? Are there any peculiar problems that have continued existing despite years or decades with different parties?
Is the country generally stable? Are there large daily protests or are things calm on average? Is the ruling party/coalition generally harmonious or are there frequent arguments or even threats?
Is there a particular country to which this country has a very impactful relationship over the years, for good or bad reasons? Which one, and why?
What are the political factions in the country? What are the major parties, and what segments of the country do they attract?
Are there any smaller parties that nonetheless have had significant influence? Are there notable separatist movements?
How socially progressive or conservative is the country generally? To what degree is there equality between men and women, as well as different races and ethnic groups? Are LGBTQIA+ rights protected?
Give a basic overview of the last 50 or 100 years. What's the historical trend of politics, the economy, social issues, etc - rise or decline? Were they always independent or were they once occupied, and how have things been since independence if applicable?
If you want, go even further back in history. Were there any kingdoms or empires that once governed the area?
I'll take these questions. I don't have any sources so you'll just have to trust me bro, I live here.
What is the general ideology of the political elite? Do they tend to be protectionist nationalists, or are they more free trade globalists? Are they compradors put there by foreign powers? Are they socialists with wide support by the population?
Since independence, the Republic of Ireland has been ruled by two nearly identical rival parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. They are both neoliberal parties and are currently in government together, although the two of them are historically rivals. They are both big fans of selling out the country to foreign imperialists, in the form of appeasing and being fine with the British occupation in the north, and allowing imperialistic American and British companies such as Pfizer, Dell, Microsoft and other tech firms to establish here. These companies operate here because we have the lowest corporation taxes in the EU, and essentially serve as a tax haven island for non-EU companies to get into the EU.
What are the most important domestic political issues that make the country different from other places in the region or world? Are there any peculiar problems that have continued existing despite years or decades with different parties?
Housing. The housing crisis is fucking awful. Dublin is one of the most expensive cities in the world, despite hosting far less and being far less populated than cities like Dubai and New York. The reason for this is landlords having basically all the power they could want, and half of the government being landlords. Immigration (read: racism) is becoming a bigger problem. Ireland has accepted a lot of asylum seekers and immigrants in the past few years and not built any fucking houses. There are a lot of empty and derelict houses, but its not profitable to let people live in them so we don't. Landlords and capitalists are the problem, not immigrants.
Is the country generally stable? Are there large daily protests or are things calm on average? Is the ruling party/coalition generally harmonious or are there frequent arguments or even threats?
There are very few popular protests, but there have been a rising amount of hate crimes and riots by fascists. Ireland basically didn't have a native fascist movement at all for the past few decades, but the past few years of capitalist failure has lead to a rapidly growing fascist wing. Fascists have burned refugee tent camps and assaulted minorities, and gathered to protest immigration. On the other side of the spectrum, there are occasional liberal and left-wing marches, on issues like housing and climate change, but these have failed to achieve anything whatsoever. The most significant rallies have been pro-Palestine, which are overwhelmingly popular and have massive turnout, but the government has refused to take significant action against Israel.
Is there a particular country to which this country has a very impactful relationship over the years, for good or bad reasons? Which one, and why?
The Good Friday Agreement in the 90s ended the Troubles and since then Ireland and the UK became a lot friendlier, with the UK being Ireland's main trade partner. This was basically up until Brexit, which made trade way more expensive and generally fucked over the Irish economy. The neoliberal governments have not cared at all about ending the occupation in Ireland, instead focusing on letting British and American companies set up here.
What are the political factions in the country? What are the major parties, and what segments of the country do they attract?
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, as already mentioned, have historically been the only significant parties, despite not being very different. Fine Gael is slighlty more conservative. The other major faction, which have been fluctuating in popularity recently, are Sinn Féin. Don't get your hopes up, Sinn Féin suck. They have completely abandoned any form of socialism and have very little internal consistency. They used to have the aesthetic of left-wing opposition, but now are basically just opportunists. The only thing they have going for them is their republicanism.
Are there any smaller parties that nonetheless have had significant influence? Are there notable separatist movements?
The National Party are the growing fascist party. They don't have any government representation but are a significant threat to minorities when they gather. On the left, groups like the Community Action Tenant Union (CATU), the Connolly Youth Movement (CYM), Anti-Imperialist-Action Ireland (AIAI) and several others have seen growth in the past ten years, but are not very popular nationally.
How socially progressive or conservative is the country generally? To what degree is there equality between men and women, as well as different races and ethnic groups? Are LGBTQIA+ rights protected?
Ireland is known for doing a complete turnaround on women's and LGBT rights since the 90s, basically thanks to the collapse of the Catholic Church as a politcal entity following the emergence of the Magdalene Laundries scandal. Contraception and abortion were legalised, in the 2010s gay marriage was legalised, and trans people have legal recognition. Despite this, homophobia and especially transphobia persists among old people and the medical industry. Women face sexism to a similar degree as in the UK, although transphobia is more fringe.
I don't wanna write up the history of the island rn. Ask me if there's anything you want to know and I'll write it up.
I wish I could say yes but basically all of my knowledge of Ireland just comes from living here, I really don't read much about Ireland. James Connolly has some nice speeches and essays which sum up some history, but those are more of a call to action than education
I've been mulling over this comment by @queermunist@lemmy.ml from an askchapo post about what the current revolutionary class is inside the US:
I've been reading Walter Rodney and Frantz Fanon and thinking about how colonialism became neocolonialism and have been thinking that neocolonialism may be transitioning to a new phase of colonization.
Under colonialism, colonized nations were underdeveloped and so there was only a very small proletariat while most people were lumpen proles and landless peasants.
Then colonialism died and was reborn as neocolonialism, colonized nations were still underdeveloped but the proletariat grew as secondary production was offshored from the colonizing nations.
Now I think we're entering a new phase of colonialism and I think Israel and Ukraine are showing us the future. Underdevelopment isn't enough to sustain the colonizers anymore, now begins undevelopment. Underdeveloped nations have advanced too far to be easily controlled, hence dedollatization, and so they need to be put back in their place.
Still thinking about what this means within the US itself. Maybe undevelopment will be deployed at home onto internally colonized people, so wages become gigs while infrastructure crumbles and artificially cheap commodities become unaffordable while superprofit is concentrated in the coastal metropols.
idk I need to read more theory
Particularly in relation to the World Wars and how countries were destroyed, looted, and then the US imperial strategy was to rebuild them with their own industries in order to try and become the hegemon to replace the British Empire. And in relation to the ongoing situation in Ukraine. I was also weirdly reminded of a description in a David Graeber book of a pre-capitalist society which destroyed its own surpluses year-on-year to (knowingly or unknowingly) prevent an unequal society from being constructed.
It's not a sustainable strategy for many reasons, but I do wonder if development-undevelopment cycles are being consciously considered by the American bourgeoisie as a strategy of maintaining power. It also figures into @shipwreck@hexbear.net's anxiety about China merely providing the infrastructure for greater American exploitation - it could even reach a point where what China creates in other countries, the Americans destroy, almost ritualistically; a cycle that could continue for a long time in the absence of climate change and decaying Western institutions.
I was also weirdly reminded of a description in a David Graeber book of a pre-capitalist society which destroyed its own surpluses year-on-year to (knowingly or unknowingly) prevent an unequal society from being constructed.
Primitive accumulation enjoyers HATE him! Learn his strange secret!
Ali Kadri's The Accumulation of Waste: A Political Economy of Systemic Destruction explores exactly such an economic model. He expands on the theory of waste as the primary commodity of neoliberal capital order in China's Path to Development: Against Neoliberalism and also its function as the driving force of imperial wars of encroachment in Imperialism With Reference to Syria and Arab Development Denied: Dynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment.
I cannot recommend his work enough in understanding the way that imperialism under neoliberalism uses the production of waste as its primary mode of accumulation. War and destruction are often seen as the consequences of accumulation by resource theft, but Kadri posits that the waste itself is the commodity and resource theft is a secondary (although still desired and lucrative) goal in war. By de-reproducing labour, that is to say, by collapsing the labour time and resources necessary in reproducing labour to a single moment of liquidation, the entire value of that commodified labour is extracted at one go.
Destruction is not a byproduct of war, destruction is the product of war, and the accumulation of wealth through waste production is an explosive industry with massive profits--and without the drawback of any value being clawed back by labour in their need to reproduce their class. It is the ultimate end of commodified "thingification" (objectification) of labour.
I've been reading parts of the Gundrisse, and there's a section part from Notebook VII, Capital as Fructiferous, that struck me as relevant to the inevitability of underdevelopment for capitalism. The theory nerds here could probably point to some more succinct passage that I've yet to come across, though, or if I'm misinterpreting
The growing incompatibility between the productive development of society and its hitherto existing relations of production expresses itself in bitter contradictions, crises, spasms. The violent destruction of capital not by relations external to it, but rather as a condition of its self-preservation...
... Hence the highest development of productive power together with the greatest expansion of existing wealth will coincide with depreciation of capital, degradation of the labourer, and a most straitened exhaustion of his vital powers. These contradictions lead to explosions, cataclysms, crises, in which by momentaneous suspension of labour and annihilation of a great portion of capital the latter is violently reduced to the point where it can go on. These contradictions, of course, lead to explosions, crises, in which momentary suspension of all labour and annihilation of a great part of the capital violently lead it back to the point where it is enabled [to go on] fully employing its productive powers without committing suicide. Yet, these regularly recurring catastrophes lead to their repetition on a higher scale, and finally to its violent overthrow.
I've seen this argument used before to explain how the destruction of the World Wars benefitted capital, but I haven't come across a discussion w.r.t. general undevelopment (aside from stagnation due to the fuckeries of financialization)
Sounds like what the passage is alluding to is the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, and one of the more effective ways in which capital can temporarily alleviate this is to destroy fixed capital. This is largely where the post WW2 booms came from in the western world.
Michael Roberts and Guglielmo Carchedi wrote a book that has a good passage on the topic, don't have it with me rn since I'm at work.
I love to recommend books, and so here is a smattering of books about Ireland from a variety of subjects and perspectives (largely focused on feminism as per my area of study).
Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales, Alwyn and Brinley Rees
Gender and Sexuality in Modern Ireland, Anthony Bradley, Maryann Gialanella Valiulis
LGBTQ Visibility, Media and Sexuality in Ireland, Páraic Kerrigan
Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women, Bronwen Walter
Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice, Claire McGettrick, Katherine O'Donnell, Maeve O'Rourke, James M. Smith, Mari Steed
The Poor Bugger's Tool: Irish Modernism, Queer Labor, and Postcolonial History, Patrick R. Mullen
Philosophical Perspectives on Contemporary Ireland, Clara Fischer, Áine Mahon
Women and the Irish Nation: Gender, Culture, and Irish Identity 1890--1914, D. A. J. MacPherson
Positioning Gender and Race in (Post)colonial Plantation Space: Connecting Ireland and the Caribbean, Eve Walsh Stoddard
Queer Performance and Contemporary Ireland: Dissent and Disorientation, Fintan Walsh
Gender and Colonialism: A Psychological Analysis of Oppression and Liberation, Geraldine Moane
Dedication and Leadership: Learning from the Communists, Hyde Douglas
The Irish Novel at the End of the Twentieth Century: Gender, Bodies, and Power, Jennifer M. Jeffers
Contemporary Irish and Welsh Women's Fiction: Gender, Desire and Power, Linden Peach
Literature, Partition, and Nation-State: Culture and Conflict in Ireland, Israel and Palestine, Joe Cleary
Palgrave Advances in Irish History, Katherine O'Donnell, Mary McAuliffe, Leeann Lane
Sapphists and Sexologists: Histories of Sexualities, Mary McAuliffe (not specifically Irish, but by an Irish author and it does explore lesbian desire in colonial Ireland)
Trad Nation: Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Irish Traditional Music, Tes Slominski
The James Connolly Reader, Shaun Harkin, James Connolly, Mike Davis (a great collection of Connolly's works including a few that are out of print or hard to find elsewhere, like Labour in Irish History though I think that's not so hard to get anymore with eBooks)
Revolutionary Works, Seamus Costello
A Literary History of Ireland, Hyde Douglas
Myths and Folklore of Ireland, Jeremiah Curtin
Early Irish Literature, Myles Dillon (also The Cycles of Kings and Irish Sagas)
Celtic Women: Women in Celtic Society and Literature, Peter Beresford Ellis
A Brief History of the Celts, Peter Beresford Ellis (also The Druids and Celtic Myths and Legends and A Dictionary of Irish Mythology)
Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, Thomas Crofton Croker
If you're looking for someone who is doing some really interesting scholarship on Irish indigeneity, coalition building with colonized Indigenous people globally, and preserving/resurrecting obscure and regional Irish-language terms and idioms, I recommend Manchán Magan.