[Marxism] re: Ireland and Marxmail

[Philip Ferguson]

JD wrote:

>Jim (I think you mean John as in John McAnulty - PF)
 
>I agree completely, especially in your assertion that on the wider Left
the  
Irish struggle has become almost a non-issue.
 
>Why?
 
>Because the current Adams/McGuinness leadership have destroyed any
vestige  
of struggle in the Six Counties. They have succeeded in stifling debate,

weeding  out dissent and disengaging the republican movement from the
international  
struggle against imperialism. In fact, they've been sucked in by the  
imperialist camp and have embraced neoliberalism.
 
>Sometime in the future someone should write a book on how they managed
to  
pull off what has to be the greatest act of political betrayal in Irish
history.
 

Well put.  

Actually someone has already written a book on how they managed to pull
it off - Ed Moloney's "A Secret History of the IRA" (which I'm reading
at present) goes meticulously through the actual mechanics of how it was
done.

Really Adams should have been a bishop or a prince in medieval Italy.
What an operator.

Of course, the weakness of the Moloney book is that it is about the
technical aspects of how it is done - and brilliant on that score - but
a book of political analysis remains to be written.  

There is, however, a lot of good stuff on the Socialist Democracy
website in terms of analysing the political retreat and betrayal.

I agree with you that it is the greatest act of political betrayal in
Irish history.  Every other betrayal was carried out by a minority
faction or at least a faction which was not dominant and so couldn't end
the struggle.  The IRA survived the establishment of the Free State, it
survived the De Valera split, it survived the MacBride split, it even
survived the fairly daft bombing campaign during WW2, it survived the
betrayals of Goulding and other Official leaders.  But Adams and his
clique have actually managed to do what none of these other traitors
have and actually bring about the demise of the IRA and the demise of
the national liberation struggle in any form (political or military).

The Brits must be finding it difficult to believe their luck.

On the other hand, of course, the Brits have always been very good at
identifying who in radical anti-colonial movements they can do business
with.  At the very time that Michael Collins appeared the 'hard man',
the Brits had worked out he was someone they could do business with and
the Brits seem to have identified 'hard men' like Adams and McGuinness
quite some time ago as people they could do business with.  

Phil