Where is has the Tricolour gone?

by disprin Tue Apr 06, 2004 14:38

Hands up everyone who thinks the WP in Cork have obviously fuck all else to do!

by Badman Tue Apr 06, 2004 14:41

They could have decided to address privatisation, fortress europe, militarisation, the mayday hype, but no the most important thing to issues releases about is a bloody rag in Cork. Pathetic.

by jams Tue Apr 06, 2004 14:45

For you bunch of stickies I though that the absence of the tri colour would have made you happy, surprised yer not calling for the union jack to be flown in its place
Jams

by Steve Tue Apr 06, 2004 14:51

Since when is a flag so massively important? And if you feel so strongly about it, why not fly one yourself? The whole concept of a national flag is that it belongs to the nation as a whole, so you don't need administrative buildings to fly it in order to make it "official" or "proper" or anything.

Why this fuss over a multicoloured bit of fabric anyway?

by Socialist Tue Apr 06, 2004 15:09

Why are the so-called Workers' Party giving out about a flag? What about poverty, stealth taxes, workers rights, militarisation of the EU, privatisation, etc. etc.

Who cares what the City Hall has above it's building. Surely you should pay more attention to the working class of the city and not the building of the city council which is a bosses' institution.

You stickies are only pandering to nationalism. Ye are tired old nationalists, why should any young socialist even consider joining or supporting you?

by Jim - WP supporter Tue Apr 06, 2004 15:46

Just because the WP raises the question of the Irish flag does not mean they care about none of the issues you've raised. Of course poverty, unemployment, housing and the other issues are vitally important and are addressed by the party on a daily basis.

However the Irish flag is important. It is the symbol of the Irish nation. Whether it is sport or any other national occasion the Irish people fly their flag. They are proud of it, and so is the Workers Party.

And those attacking the WP will always seek to deny that its ideoligy is one of socialist republicanism.

by Mick Tue Apr 06, 2004 15:49

Go see the WP fly the tricolour with pride next Sunday at its Easter Commemorations.

by Socialist Tue Apr 06, 2004 15:57

it's confirmed by the last post. The Workers' Party is far from a workers' Party. Surely it is the job of a workers' Party to point the working class away from things like nationalism. Nationalism is a bourgeois concept. Nations only really existed when the bourgeois came to power. Not to long ago most people living in Ireland did not see themselves as "irish", rather they had other loyalties.

The loyalty of the working class should not be with bourgeois concepts of "the nation" or "irishness". If someone is proud about the Irish flag I'd ask why?

A basic thing for working class activists is that that workers in one country have more in common with workers in another than they do with their own bosses. Yet in the above press release we have the Workers' Party going down on one knee to the Irish bourgeoisie's flag. They say they are "proud" of "their" flag. This just shows that the Workers' party are mere nationalists and are not in the interests of the worker.

by Daren C Tue Apr 06, 2004 17:16

Just to reiterate, I am on the outside looking in, but Europe is walking a dangerous path. Slowly, sovereignity will slip away until it is no more than a joke. Ireland has been subjugated by the English for 800 years, and they finally win freedom, and 80 years later you are re-joining a Eurocracy that is just a forked-tongue ploy for power. Be proud of your nation! Fly the Tricolor, as high as you can hoist it. No way a damn UN flag is gonna fly over my home, unless they hoist over my dead body clutching my rifle. Ireland has a proud history for freedom, don't throw it away.

Erin go Bragh!
God bless america

by David C. Tue Apr 06, 2004 17:42

... there's a war on - The U.S. against the rest of the world. Ireland is with the rest of the world.

We don't want to be a crowd of flag-worshipping, arrogant assholes strutting on and on about how special we are. We'll leave that to you ignorant louts.

Victory to the Iraqi resistance!!

by observer Tue Apr 06, 2004 19:26

Typical of Irish lefties. Attack Irish nationalism and then mouth some meaningless slogan about victory to the Iraqi resistance!! What are they? a post nationalist resistance movement? An anti-globalisation resistance movement? Or maybe a post-materialist resistance. You are the arsehole.

AS for WP, it is good to see them move back to the republican socialism that was jettisoned by them when Rabbitte and his ilk were in control.

by Denis Tue Apr 06, 2004 20:26

A lesson they learned when they tried to hijack the party in 1992. They failed and had to leave in order to achieve their anti-republican, anti-socialist parliamentary ambitions.

by observer Tue Apr 06, 2004 21:02

I think you might find that the WP sounds a lot more republican now than it did in the 1980s. Surely you cannot deny that the likes of Rabbitte and creatures like Harris were the ones who made policy?

by Curious Wed Apr 07, 2004 10:34

How many flagpoles are there on Cork City Hall?

by Dr. Yakamoto Wed Apr 07, 2004 13:31

It truly is a sad reflection on certain groups who like to regard themselves as "left" when they try to put one over on left activists from other groups by portraying themselves as "more patriotic".

by ducati_fi - Suomenbaarilitto Wed Apr 07, 2004 14:09 ducati_fi at yahoo dot co dot uk

I agree with some of the comments here but not all. Firstly I think you do not need to have the flag on a civic building to make it "official" , however I think it makes the building more official. I suggest you have flag days like Finland where there are specific days throughout the year when the Finnish flag must be flown outside all buildings with a flagpole. This encompases most buildings in the Helsinki area and many rural buildings too. The gov't here employs some guys to drive about and put them up in the morning and take them away again at night. Also it looks so good travelling in Finland with all the flags fluttering. I am a Scot living in unemployment forced exile from Scotland here in Finland and have the Scottish flag flying in my apartment, but there it will stay until I decide to take it to my next Scottish away football game. I believe there is a time and place to fly your flags and not too much importance should be placed on the lack of a flag for a few days. However if it was lacking on say, for example, Independence day or any other day of national importance then I do agree with a bit of anger but just how much more do we need in the world. Long live ordinary Iraqis, death to Saddam, and Saor Alba.

by pondering pete Wed Apr 07, 2004 17:24

The WP are right to raise this as an issue. Idiotic (two nationist) bull like fuck the flag are juvinile and are missing the point. Ireland and other european nation states are slowly being subsumed into a single state neoliberal europe, a european satellite implementing WTO and IMF policy.

Our right to self-determination has been eroded our ability to rule our island is disappearing. The Irish flag is a symbol of our independence and our status as a nation state. I have noticed that the tradition of flying the national flag above all others has dwindled. Now swanky tourist hotels fly the euro flag, the butchers apron and the imperialist American flag at the same height.

Euro dictat will soon render our independence non existant. We are privatising all our public services, selling off our infrastructure because the EU say so. Read your Lenin.

by Anti-idiotarian Wed Apr 07, 2004 17:26

And putting a flag on Cork City Hall is the best way for WP to reverse all that?

by Socialist Republican - none Wed Apr 07, 2004 19:49 srepub at hotmail dot com

It is rather typical of our Swimmie friend to pontificate about "pointing" the benumbed working classes away from nasty "bourgeois" things like nationalism.

While I fully agree that there are more important issues than this Cork flag fiasco, it is indicative of the Swimmie mentality (which, in reality, is quite close to the Trot 'sticky' mentality) that they assume to speak for a working class they can only conceptualise and rarely meet.

Nationalism is not a monolithic concept. It can asuume verious heterglot forms and should not be characterised, in the simplistic, quasi-religious Swimmie logic, as all bad. To anathematise something that inspired the self-professed "patriot" Che Guevara (who the Swimmies, anyway, think is bourgeois), or foundational socialist figures such as Marx, Engels, Lenin etc., is always suspect. To suggest that the history of nationalism follows one linear, monoglot narrative is facile. Civic republican tenets such as liberty, equality and fraternity are hugely progressive and have done a lot more for the oppressed peoples of the world than Swimmie dogma. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not the answer.

Yours, a staunch anti-Sticky

by Socialist Wed Apr 07, 2004 21:29

Socialist Republican is indeed correct in pointing out the error of my ways. I am indeed, as you speculated, a 'Swimmie' and have been assimilated and brainwashed by the Swimmie Sect.

Our messianist views that a socialist god will soon rise from the dead and bring us to redemption are based on outmoded bourgeois religious mindsets and have no place in modern society.

I rescind my support for this sect and recant. A tricolour is, at this moment, being hoisted from my considerable backyard in Blackrock

by flag guy Thu Apr 08, 2004 02:47

look lads the irish flag is a sign of peace something we all want right not just at home but all over the world. I hate when bitter socialists moan about how everything the mouth of is the only way forward and everyone elses point of view is bull. Its our national flag so its time to accept it. I dont know why you's are complaing about republicans. Was your hero Connelly not one? and another thing republicans are in no way bourgois as far as i can remember the shinners got more votes in the working class areas than the millies did. We will see who the bourgois are after the local elections.

by mairead corrigan - peacenik Thu Apr 08, 2004 10:57

Staunchly anti stickie had better not be a member of Sinn Fein. If he/she is its a wee bit rich cause SF are the all new glorious stickies! Yep, they are. In fact they're possibly worse than the old stickies - Why? cause it took them 30 fuckin years to realise what the sticckies were saying was correct. 30 YEARS where they murdered and were the victims of murder. 30 years of misery for the majority of working class people in Norn Iron. And before the whadabout shams enter the fray I KNOW the UVF, UDA, LVF, Third force, UYM, Tartan Gangs etc etc are a bunch of murdering bastards and I especially knoew that the RUC and the British Army are not peacekeepers or workers in uniform but an arm of the state.so what did the armed struggle achieve? SF could have shared power in the 1970's but didn't , sso what changed. What did the SF and PIRA die for? what did the SF and IRA members suffer harrasment and beatings and jail sentences for?

by ignorant american speaks again Thu Apr 08, 2004 14:56

Read Animal Farm. It's an easy enough read for even the dumbest asshole, and it offers a consise account of how to properly take over a people, under many disguises. Oh, by the way, I'm not that ignorant, I just have eyes that can see clearly because noone pulled the wool over my eyes yet.

by Daren Carroll Thu Apr 08, 2004 14:58

That last listing was me, I forgot to author it, and I don't want ye thinking that I was too French to admit it was me again.

by Socialist Republican Sat Apr 10, 2004 16:11

Máiréad, I didn't engage with an argument regarding SF or 1970s, so don't see why you have chosen to lambaste me on that basis.

However, to deal directly with your point, consider how unfavourable conditions were north of the border for the purposes of negotiations in the '70s. Britain only begun earnest (if secret) dialogue of a substantive sort with the IRA in the late eighties. In the nineties they claimed to have no "selfish, strategic interest" in the North and the IRA's bombing campiagn, forcing insurers to tell the British government they would no longer operate in lucrative London, led to a new direction from the British.

That has got us a little closer to peace. Closer than the peacnicks that would have depoliticised everything and would like to convince us all that oppression is better than resistance.

The IRA was the major bulwark behind the peace process and, if you think back, I might venture that you were one of its opponents.

by WHAT! Sat Apr 10, 2004 17:30

Out public services are under attack by the government and their privateer friends, corruption is indemic in the councils, there is a housing crisis, the health system is under serious strain because of cutbacks, education is seriously underfunded and getting worse, social welfare recipients have suffered serious cuts in the last budget..... and what to the Workers Party choose to put a press release out about? Some piece of cloth that was not dangled out of the top of some building in Cork! The Workers Party are increasingly becoming out of touch and irrelevent

by Scath Sheamais - People's Front of Judea Sun Apr 11, 2004 01:50

Socialist Republican:
"The IRA was the major bulwark behind the peace process"

Indeed. The IRA in the past thirty years has done more to insure Catholic rights within the six-county state than to achieve the reunification of Ireland. It could be said that the organisation completed what was started by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Assocation.

by Paddy X Sun Apr 11, 2004 03:01

Time to raise the Plough and the Stars. The WP are a bizarre creation of fat professional pro-Unionist parasites such as Eoghan Harris. Leave it to those who are willing.