Sinn Fein - Economic Policy - Better Way Forward - Oct. 2010

[C. Flower]

Introduction to Sinn Fein's economic policy, 2010

http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/19367

Policy Document - "Better Way Forward" - October 2010

http://www.sinnfein.ie/files/SFeconomypro.pdf

[ang]

I don't know about a better way but you have to give them credit for at least looking for a way.

We have got to face facts here, our leaders (opposition included) are incapable of finding a way and it will be up to small left parties to try to protect and defend the people.

Time though is of the essence and is running out fast.

[C. Flower]

D Looney on twitter just said that Labour should talk to Sinn Fein, not FG, about coalition.

This is an extract from the introduction to a "Better Way Forward".


Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams MP MLA was joined this morning by the party’s ministerial team and finance spokesperson Mitchel McLaughlin for the launch of an economic document setting out a series of proposals to deal with the current economic difficulties. (Document available to download at the GET PDF link above)

Speaking at the launch in Stormont, Mr Adams said:

“Sinn Féin wants to build a consensus to protect jobs, public services and the most vulnerable from the planned Tory cuts.

“Creidim go bhfuil slí níos fearr ann d’muintir na hÉireann.

“In recent months citizens have been told by some politicians that there is no alternative. That cuts are inevitable. This is wrong. Ní glacann Sinn Féin leis.

“Sinn Féin believes that the Tory approach of trying to cut a way out of the recession is deeply flawed and must be opposed. There is an alternative.

“Is féidir linn todhchaí níos fear a thógáil.

“Sinn Féin has argued for an alliance between political parties, the Trade Unions, communities, and business to oppose any cuts.

“I am pleased that other political parties are now adopting this position. Tús maith leath na hoibre!

“This mornings paper, ‘There is a Better Way’ sets out Sinn Féin’s alternative strategy and our ideas and proposals for dealing with the current economic crisis.

“Sinn Féin is determined to protect frontline services and in particular the most vulnerable in our society who rely on public services for survival.

“A team of party activists, under the direction of our Finance spokesperson Mitchel McLaughlin, have developed these proposals and have passed them to economists and other experts as part of the preparation of this document.

“Sinn Féin’s proposals are about tackling waste, saving money, raising revenue, and investing this to create jobs, build infrastructure and protect public services. They will bring in almost £1.9 billion in combined savings and new revenue.

I believe Sam Lord is taking an interest in this and am looking forward to his views.

[Sam Lord]

This document is actually for the 6 counties but one presumes that the same sort of dross will be applied to the 26.

It is lavishly illustrated with photographs of giant cranes of the sort that used to adorn the Dublin skyline.... :):)

The central thesis is that, "There is clear choice between trying to cut your way out of a recession versus investing your way out of a recession. Many governments, including the US, haven chosen the latter ...."

I don't think anyone looking at the state of the american economy is going to be too enthused by this.

Like everyone else thet think they can get us back to where we were before (hence the cranes) ... they just have a better way of doing this. It is an absurdity.

There is absolutely no criticism of the existing socio-economic system. Not one radical suggestion. Just a bit of tinkering here and there that we are supposed to believe is going to solve some essential problem.

People really need to wake up and smell the coffee..

[concernedparent]

D Looney on twitter just said that Labour should talk to Sinn Fein, not FG, about coalition.

This is an extract from the introduction to a "Better Way Forward".


I believe Sam Lord is taking an interest in this and am looking forward to his views.

There are millions to be saved across the public sector if only things were looked a t in a different way. Outside the box so to speak.

But there is a marked reluctance to look at things in a different way. The slash and burn policies of our present incumbents are the lazy man's way to deal with things.

Basically, its the easiest way to either hold onto or collect the monies that the government can think of.

Like I said the lazy man's way.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Sam's right about being wary of the US- there's another couple of storms to hit there yet... it looks like they are going to try again to get credit-blood circulating around their system but just printing another $850billion into an economy that has 26% of its mortgagees struggling to avoid foreclosure and possibly as many as 40% next year is a bit hairy.

In one sense they need to depreciate the dollar but its like trying to lose weight by throwing yourself off a cliff. No doubt Youngdan will be along later to suggest that printing dollars has no effect in an economy with a massively hidden deficit but if that was the case they should have just given everyone a million dollars two years ago and then everybody'd be millionaires.

Don't particularly like taking the Cassandra role but if QE2 doesn't work with the world sailing into currency protectionism then its going to be volatile next year.

[Sam Lord]

Just checked out the éirígí website. They are saying oppose the cutbacks - nothing else. That is the be all and end all of their analysis.

Where is the left in Ireland? Are there no people in the country at all looking at it's long term future? Not to be condesending about the native people of South America but I've been looking at some of their literature in recent days and even the most humble organisation has a better understanding of the socio-economic system they are living under than parties full of well educated people in Ireland. It is quite baffling.

[ang]

There are millions to be saved across the public sector if only things were looked a t in a different way. Outside the box so to speak.

But there is a marked reluctance to look at things in a different way. The slash and burn policies of our present incumbents are the lazy man's way to deal with things.

Basically, its the easiest way to either hold onto or collect the monies that the government can think of.

Like I said the lazy man's way.

The one thing we must keep engraved on our memories here is that the people in Leinster House are very capable of thinking outside the box when need be.

In September 2008 they basically stuck their two fingers up at the EU and went with a solo run on the Bank Guarantee because their companions in Leinster House "that fateful night" told them to do so.

The austerity measures we are seeing now are nothing to do with EU/IMF opinion (it's a bonus that the EU like them) they are to do with the lurkers pushing this agenda forward in the hope that we won't notice them stealing the National Assets.

FF and their friends do not give a damn what anyone thinks of them as long as they can fulfill their agenda.

I would put my trust in SF any day of the week before I would give it to FF and I really don't say that lightly.

[Sam Lord]

The austerity measures we are seeing now are nothing to do with EU/IMF opinion (it's a bonus that the EU like them) they are to do with the lurkers pushing this agenda forward in the hope that we won't notice them stealing the National Assets.

FF and their friends do not give a damn what anyone thinks of them as long as they can fulfill their agenda.

I would put my trust in SF any day of the week before I would give it to FF and I really don't say that lightly.

The plundering of the national treasury taking place in Ireland is in the penny ante stakes compared to what has taken place in the USA, a place the Shinners appear to view as some sort of model. Anyone putting any degree of trust in SF is making a serious mistake in my opinion.

[C. Flower]

Just checked out the éirígí website. They are saying oppose the cutbacks - nothing else. That is the be all and end all of their analysis.

Where is the left in Ireland? Are there no people in the country at all looking at it's long term future? Not to be condesending about the native people of South America but I've been looking at some of their literature in recent days and even the most humble organisation has a better understanding of the socio-economic system they are living under than parties full of well educated people in Ireland. It is quite baffling.

The SWP also has a slogan about fight back against cut backs. The Socialist Party say that a mass party should be built - I think you know their positions.

In a discussion here yesterday about the need for a transitional programme, a WP supporter considered it unneccessary or premature.

It appears to me that the Left in ireland is lagging both behind the situation and the level of consciousness of people - it's commonplace to hear people talking about the need for revolution (although in the most general way). The Left parties, in fairness, are like everyone else just emerging from a boom that had a deranging effect.

I watched a student demonstration recently that looked like the launch of a product with Irish Models inc. to brighten it up. Only people over 60 seem to remember how to organise meetings and demonstrate, if the Medical cards/pensions demonstrations are anything to go by.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Always found it remarkable that there is a body of people across Fianna Fail and Fine Gael forever warning of the dangers of socialism when as far as I know there has never been a socialist government in Ireland nor anything like it.

The traditional fear on the socially conservative island is of an ideological redistribution of wealth and high taxes and we have just had the former in the manner of a third of the country's GPD being handed to a bent bank just to keep the books closed and the latter is about to hit the lower-middle to middle class hard.

Just goes to show if you switch labels on a box you can sell shyte as sugar alright.

[Sam Lord]

In a discussion here yesterday about the need for a transitional programme, a WP supporter considered it unneccessary or premature.



What thread?

[ang]

The plundering of the national treasury taking place in Ireland is in the penny ante stakes compared to what has taken place in the USA, a place the Shinners appear to view as some sort of model. Anyone putting any degree of trust in SF is making a serious mistake in my opinion.

It's not just the plundering SL it's the Guarantee, any Government that can do that to their people is beyond contempt.

I do not believe in violence and I would be the sort of person people would know would not be drawn to SF.

I make the comparison to show my deepest contempt for what FF have done to this Country.

[Sam Lord]

It's not just the plundering SL it's the Guarantee, any Government that can do that to their people is beyond contempt.

I do not believe in violence and I would be the sort of person people would know would not be drawn to SF.

I make the comparison to show my deepest contempt for what FF have done to this Country.

I fully understand where you are coming from. At the same time I think people need to grasp that the problems confronting us are systemic ones. Ireland may be worse off because of an astonishingly venal political culture but the whole capitalist sytem is in crisis.

[C. Flower]

What thread?



http://www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php?t=4935

[Cáthasaigh]

Here's an interesting perspective on PSF (tory) economic policy:


Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Slash and Cut (http://thepensivequill.am/2010/12/slash-and-cut.html)

Draconian cuts dictated by David Cameron’s Tory-led British government … It is quite clear that the Stormont partners are more than happy with thousands of job losses and severe cuts to crucial services and benefits for those already amongst the most disadvantaged members of our community … London’s orders will only serve to protect the profits of many of those individuals and institutions most responsible for the economic losses that have occurred - Mairtin og Meehan


Anyone thinking Sinn Fein should be taken seriously as providing some form of alternative to the economic debacle that prevails in the South should now be seeing what a colossal figment of the imagination that was. Based on absolutely nothing of substance to begin with, the litmus test that would invalidate the belief was always going to be the party’s response to the issue of cuts in the North. This is hardly an original insight on my part. I am merely echoing the Sinn Fein activist ‘Mellows’ who in a post on the radical blog ‘Sinn Fein Keep Left’ titled ‘Brilliant Pearse - Now Marty don't fail us now', boldly stated:

However, in the North Sinn Féin is in a position of power and is being told by London to make budget cuts of 4 Billion pounds. If Sinn Féin agrees to implementing cuts of this nature, then what the hell are we doing down the South. We cannot oppose cuts in the South and implement them in the North. If we do we will loose all credibility with the Irish people, and what is worse is that we will be seen as liars. Sinn Féin must fight for working people North and South and it must refuse to implement the cuts in the Six counties.


It comes no clearer than that. Criticisms of the party can hardly be dismissed in the usual way as the work of malcontents out to rob the party leader of his glory if people within Sinn Fein are making pointed observations of this nature.

Conor Murphy’s pathetic attempt to put a radical sheen on his party’s Tory credentials should wash with few:

We wanted to continue to protect society here, to continue to adhere to the elements of the programme of government which we collectively had put together and that was to grow the economy, to protect the most vulnerable in society. I think we have managed through very difficult work over the past number of weeks - and it has not been easy at all for any of the parties - we have managed to supplement what was a savage programme of cuts to try and protect what was important to us.


Because in the cold light of day Murphy’s party was up to its neck in the Tory slash and cut assault on the people of the North. Yet what is Sinn Fein in the South saying about this? Nothing it seems.

Watching Pearse Doherty last evening on RTE it was hard not to be impressed with him. He asks the right questions and presses the right buttons. But it is a foregone conclusion that if he and his more radical colleagues do not establish an autonomy that allows them to firewall their radicalism from the right wing slash and cut Northern leadership Adams will screw him into the ground. And the signs are not good. If he is serious about his radical discourse it is incomprehensible that he has been silent up to now about his party’s Tory driven economic assault on the Northern populace which it is certain to repeat in the South and justify with a Murphyism.

Doherty is a much better performer than Adams. He relies on argument rather than hectoring and bullying and is literate about economic matters in a way that Adams most definitely is not. Because of that he is viewed by Adams as someone who can entice an electorate suspicious of a party it perceives as economically illiterate, to expose its neck to the Master’s fangs.

Once sucked dry it will be abandoned.

[C. Flower]

Just checked out the éirígí website. They are saying oppose the cutbacks - nothing else. That is the be all and end all of their analysis.

Where is the left in Ireland? Are there no people in the country at all looking at it's long term future? Not to be condesending about the native people of South America but I've been looking at some of their literature in recent days and even the most humble organisation has a better understanding of the socio-economic system they are living under than parties full of well educated people in Ireland. It is quite baffling.

It's not baffling: it's religion. People in Ireland are still looking for a saviour - look at the extraordinary reaction to Pearse Doherty's bog standard reformist and opportunist speech making. Every attention is given to the individual, and his or her history, and none to the methodology, theory of knowledge, basis, or lack of it, in science and most important of all, practice. After the famine, the RC Church got an extraordinary dominance over education in Ireland - the British handed the national school system to the RC Church and books, other than the bible and prayer books, were driven out of these schools.

Even eírígí, which unequivocally approves socialism and cites Marx, uses the term "salvation" to head up its new policy paper and doesn't mention anywhere the need for philosophical materialism and the need to refute and displace religion and bourgeois ideology and to break with the Church.

http://www.eirigi.org/pdfs/socialism.pdf

The most urgent theoretical task in Ireland is to expose religion as a pile of outmoded dross, and to establish scientific materialism as the basis for social progress.

[Apjp]

It's not baffling: it's religion. People in Ireland are still looking for a saviour - look at the extraordinary reaction to Pearse Doherty's bog standard reformist and opportunist speech making. Every attention is given to the individual, and his or her history, and none to the methodology, theory of knowledge, basis, or lack of it, in science and most important of all, practice. After the famine, the RC Church got an extraordinary dominance over education in Ireland - the British handed the national school system to the RC Church and books, other than the bible and prayer books, were driven out of these schools.

Even eírígí, which unequivocally approves socialism and cites Marx, uses the term "salvation" to head up its new policy paper and doesn't mention anywhere the need for philosophical materialism and the need to refute and displace religion and bourgeois ideology and to break with the Church.

http://www.eirigi.org/pdfs/socialism.pdf

The most urgent theoretical task in Ireland is to expose religion as a pile of outmoded dross, and to establish scientific materialism as the basis for social progress.

Well, a state can never set out a stall to oppose religion as outdated dross as that is seen as state atheism by the press. What we could do is pass laws to seperate the church and the state in all its forms. Others will disagree with me on this, but there will be limits to what govt's can do. The key is, in this respect to get the youth on your side. Most of us are either atheist or antagonist(I think that would be people like meself, open to the concept of a god but not a believer in organized religion). The problem is almost everyone in FF and FG is a Catholic. Therein lies the heart of your problem. Its the church-GAA-Parish-FF-FG Cumanns style politics of politicians going to funerals that just makes young people hate this country and emigrate not only for employment, but for a place where they can live without being disowned by their parents for not going to Christmas mass.

[People Korps]

SF policy is to impose Tory Party cuts in Ni and whine about cuts in the RoI
there is a thread on this

[C. Flower]

Well, a state can never set out a stall to oppose religion as outdated dross as that is seen as state atheism by the press. What we could do is pass laws to seperate the church and the state in all its forms. Others will disagree with me on this, but there will be limits to what govt's can do. The key is, in this respect to get the youth on your side. Most of us are either atheist or antagonist(I think that would be people like meself, open to the concept of a god but not a believer in organized religion). The problem is almost everyone in FF and FG is a Catholic. Therein lies the heart of your problem. Its the church-GAA-Parish-FF-FG Cumanns style politics of politicians going to funerals that just makes young people hate this country and emigrate not only for employment, but for a place where they can live without being disowned by their parents for not going to Christmas mass.

Very true apgp - from what I hear and read mass attendance by the under 25s has fallen right away. I don't think it's accidental that the students in Ireland are the ones who came out en masse to protest against cuts and who put the rest of us to shame. More young radical candidates in the next GE please.

Connolly was a great man, but he didn't have the benefit of a modern scientific education. It really is time we moved on.

[Apjp]

Very true apgp - from what I hear and read mass attendance by the under 25s has fallen right away. I don't think it's accidental that the students in Ireland are the ones who came out en masse to protest against cuts and who put the rest of us to shame. More young radical candidates in the next GE please.

Connolly was a great man, but he didn't have the benefit of a modern scientific education. It really is time we moved on.

Yes. Like I said, I believe in a god, but not churches or structured religion. I don't think people really should care who is what, but id hate to think people wouldnt vote for someone because of their religion, or lack thereof. I think most people, even older people, are not like that. I think you'd be surprised at how accepting some people are despite their own staunch beliefs. There is a stigma that catholics cant think for themselves and that all protestants are orangemen. Its all bullshit really. Down here, I dont think anyone really actually cares. And I dont think its even secular society we need. Or an atheist state. Its just learning to live with everyone, no matter who they are. I know most preists are as normal as you or I-and I say that knowing it is impossible, in this generation, not to bump into them in rural society so much. The problem is, do rural people have to join one of the churches just to get accepted for their policies? Obama did in AMerica. That is my worry-but I am undecided on it. On one hand my da wants me to always go to xmas mass(not up for discussion that). On the other, he doesnt care what I do every other sunday of the year. In short, draw your own conclusions, but the church's grip on society will gradually recede. its only a matter of time before it is just a section of society, like all others.

[Cáthasaigh]

Connolly was a great man, but he didn't have the benefit of a modern scientific education. It really is time we moved on.

I disagree, I think it's time we looked closer to what Connolly had to say as much of it is still relevant and all of it has been ignored since 1922. People like Clement Atlee in Britain had more in common with Connolly than any 26C politician who ever achieved power. Over 60 years on the reactionaries still haven't managed to undo all of Atlee's work.