19 December 2002 Edition
The revolution will be online
An Phoblacht prides itself on being one of the first Irish papers with an online edition. It was a logical step in a world where access to the mainstream media was and still is made ever more difficult by not just political censorship and establishment control of the media, but also the still increasing ownership of media companies by fewer and fewer multinationals.
Revolutionaries and Irish republicans have a long history of leading the development of new media. It was 18th and 19th century radical and republican revolutionaries in Ireland and Britain who were among the first to set up and distribute newspapers. But these were in time gobbled up by commercial interests, which lead to the first wave of press barons.
So, establishing a web presence was a logical step for any aspiring revolutionaries. However, it must be obvious that we are not alone and there are a lot of other groups out there on the web, some friendly, some not and some just firmly in loony land.
The pace of web development has ebbed and flowed and in the aftermath of the international recession and 9/11, there is an awful lot of dead wood in the worldwide network. There are also, though, still a huge array of media, political and campaigning organisations who want to make a difference in the world we live in and are online just a few clicks away.
This week Robbie MacGABHANN goes online in search of computopia.
We use the term socialist republican as the best way of describing Sinn Fein's brand of revolutionary politics, and though it might seem that we are the only ones on this island with such a world outlook, it does not mean that the rest of the world is such a lonely place.
Tap in this term to any search engine and a host of sites pop up. One that promises much is worldsocialism.org. If you are making such big claims you should be able to back them up, and this site has a lot of content and is run in this part of the world by the Socialist Party of Great Britain - valuable but sadly predictable fare.
The best feature of this site is the button promising "how to get everything for free". It has an essay that is very readable and a good piece of polemic. Read this and skip the rest.
Labournet.org is the home of the Socialist Outlook magazine that doesn't seem to think much of Sinn Féin or socialist republicanism. One edition of Outlook includes a lengthy review of Denis O'Hearn's book, Inside the Celtic Tiger. This review is fairly typical of a lot of left silliness that often seems driven by what Sinn Féin activist Martin McGovern once described at a conference as the "endless study of how many true socialists can dance on the head of one allegedly bourgeois republican".
The review agrees with O'Hearn's analysis and then criticises him in the last lines. They also offer a booklet on "The Real Irish Peace Process". You see I knew we were just locked in a bad dream all along. Please let me wake up soon!
Something a bit more interesting is the Socialism Website. Written in plain English, it offers clear critique of what's wrong with society. For example, we live in a society "where you are rewarded for being a bastard and penalized for doing the right thing. It is a society where most of us are just menials performing crappy work under the command of brown noses." More of this type of thing please.
The other cool thing on this site, apart from fun, readable and well thought out polemic is free stuff, and you can download such like as Marx and Engel's Communist manifesto and other heavy texts which are worth a glance on those rainy weekends when the cable TV isn't working and you are too lazy to walk to the video shop.
Socialism.org, the "conscientious quest for peace and order", seems to promote in large part the views of a Sidney Gluck, who among other things is chairperson of US-China People's Friendship Association. This site has quite a lot of comment on Chinese politics and for that is worth a click or two but not much more.
More interesting are the different hybrids of socialism out there including Anglo Catholic Socialism (anglocatholicsocialism.org). There is Transhumanist Socialism, which "holds that future transhumanist technologies such as molecular nanotechnology will make it more feasible to bring about a truly socialist world". And there you were thinking that the socialist republic was the long-term objective!
Dhammic Socialism is a form of Buddhism and Socialism and its theory that we are inevitably social beings who "must live together in a form of society that gives priority to the ways we inter-relate, work together, and help each other solve the problems of life". This ideology can be found at suanmokkh.org and is worth a look.
The Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA have a website called 2changetheworld which claims to be "part of a coast-coast revolutionary conversation" around the party's draft programme.
The 2changetheworld website is well laid out and very worthy, but just not as attractive as revolution for the hell of it (revolutionforthehellofit.com). This site is designed for people who have palm pilots or other such gadgets and you can download reading material from the site.
It also has links to another site, zenzibar.com, which promotes "Zenzibar Alternative Culture". It is "an alternative portal and directory of alternatives to Western mainstream culture". It says that "our goal is to make Zenzibar an entertaining and useful site for those interested in information on alternative subjects from Aliens to Zen". Their news site does have interesting articles including one from the Oakland Tribune warning of aliens beaming lasers at us from outer space.
It might seem silly, but was as believable as anything you have probably read about any celebrity you care to mention in any tabloid you care to mention recently.
Anyway back to the serious stuff. When you mention the word socialism, the word economics is coming in fast and there are predictably lots of websites devoted to socialism that also have either content or links to economics orientated web sites.
The New Economics Foundation tells us it is a "radical think tank", and that they "create practical and enterprising solutions to the social, environmental and economic challenges facing the local, regional, national and global economies."
Centred mainly on the British economy, this site is well worth investing time in and has lots of free downloads. So, one to use in work, where you can wear out your employer's laser printer cartridges.
Perhaps more interesting, for those who still believe that economics is a distant cousin of voodoo, is parecon.org, the Participatory Economics Project. Participatory Economics (parecon for short) is "a type of economy proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalism. The underlying values parecon seeks to implement are equity, solidarity, diversity, and participatory self management."
Again, with downloadable publications this is a site worth investing a bit of time in. This is good stuff but you really have to be in the mood for it, and though we all know we should be reading the big texts of how the world works etc., most of us never get past even buying the huge tomes. Where are the short books on economics?
Searching for republicans on the web generates strange results, maybe because the web in English is often dominated by the USA, but a search for this keyword on Alta Vista or Google will offer you thousands of sites about the US republican party.
Irish republicans are on the web in force including the self-styled "awkward squad". Fourthwrite the journal of the Irish Republican Writers Group is accessible at fourthwrite.ie. Even Danny Morrison has a website (dannymorrison.com) proclaiming it as the only official Morrison site not to be confused with New Zealand Cricketer, Daniel Kyle Morrison, or another Danny Morrison, the 21 year New Zealand Surf Life champion, as if!
There is also the Blanket, a self-styled journal of "protest and dissent", which shares many contributors with Fourthwrite. Both magazines offer a different perspective on where republican struggle is at now.
A web zone where some Irish republicans, socialists, anarchists and many others mingle on-line is flag.blackened.net. It's a dedicated anarchist website but seems to have a lot of Irish-related content and worth a look. You can never stop learning!
Then there are those who don't think much of Irish republicanism full stop. For example, the Internationalist Communist Current (I know! Doesn't make sense to me either) at internationalism.org in one of their tedious essays describe talk of "Irish republicanism: weapon of capital against the working class", because the "entry of two members of Sinn Fein into the Northern Ireland Executive has caused great anguish for most left-wing groups in Britain."
There are also a lot of Australian republicans on the web. And Welsh ones some of which seem to be more interested in having a go at the British 'royals' than articulating an ideology. However, do a search for No More Fairy Tales. It is an interesting read, funny and has lots of information that could have uses in those obscure pub quizzes that republicans revel in.
There is a multitude of media organisations on the web including all the usual subjects and then there is a hard-core of radical alternative media. Leading this group is Indymedia.org, which has become a huge portal web site for not just anti-globalisation protestors, but reports on the radical green left internationally.
The quality of Indymedia coverage with text, pictures, audio and video footage is unsurpassed, even in the mainstream media. Their work is the daily shaming of lazy, establishment, corporate journalists who just don't seem to want to bother with the cutting-edge coverage Indymedia can generate.
One of the extra bites to Indymedia is that it is linked to many campaigning groups, especially those involved in globalisation protests and a range of activism, such as Buy Nothing Day run by adbusters.org. It is sites like this that are giving the web its radical edge.
Then there is AlterNet.org, a project of the Independent Media Institute, a "nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening and supporting independent and alternative journalism".
Launched in 1998, AlterNet's online magazine covers subjects ranging from the environment, the drug war, technology and cultural trends, to policy debate, sexual politics and health issues. It is linked to the Spin Project, the Strategic Press Information Network, which offers media and PR training for non-profit organisations.
Then there is Zmag.org, another portal for alternative media that has again, like Indymedia, a huge depth of coverage and information.
Newint.org is the web home of the New Internationalist magazine that, though being a high-production-values paper magazine, still affords users full access to its web edition and archives without subscription.
Any of these sites are well worth adding to your favourites or making them your home page.
Lastly, just to show its not all politics, there is the Wood.org, an independent music ezine that has some excellent political content. Its pages on socialism are exemplary.
This is just one long, lazy, personal trawl through the net and your search will easily throw up some gems of sites left out here. It is clear, though, that we are not alone and, as the Znet site declares, "the spirit of resistance lives".
Revolutionaries and Irish republicans have a long history of leading the development of new media. It was 18th and 19th century radical and republican revolutionaries in Ireland and Britain who were among the first to set up and distribute newspapers. But these were in time gobbled up by commercial interests, which lead to the first wave of press barons.
So, establishing a web presence was a logical step for any aspiring revolutionaries. However, it must be obvious that we are not alone and there are a lot of other groups out there on the web, some friendly, some not and some just firmly in loony land.
The pace of web development has ebbed and flowed and in the aftermath of the international recession and 9/11, there is an awful lot of dead wood in the worldwide network. There are also, though, still a huge array of media, political and campaigning organisations who want to make a difference in the world we live in and are online just a few clicks away.
This week Robbie MacGABHANN goes online in search of computopia.
Socialists on the web
We use the term socialist republican as the best way of describing Sinn Fein's brand of revolutionary politics, and though it might seem that we are the only ones on this island with such a world outlook, it does not mean that the rest of the world is such a lonely place.
Tap in this term to any search engine and a host of sites pop up. One that promises much is worldsocialism.org. If you are making such big claims you should be able to back them up, and this site has a lot of content and is run in this part of the world by the Socialist Party of Great Britain - valuable but sadly predictable fare.
The best feature of this site is the button promising "how to get everything for free". It has an essay that is very readable and a good piece of polemic. Read this and skip the rest.
Labournet.org is the home of the Socialist Outlook magazine that doesn't seem to think much of Sinn Féin or socialist republicanism. One edition of Outlook includes a lengthy review of Denis O'Hearn's book, Inside the Celtic Tiger. This review is fairly typical of a lot of left silliness that often seems driven by what Sinn Féin activist Martin McGovern once described at a conference as the "endless study of how many true socialists can dance on the head of one allegedly bourgeois republican".
The review agrees with O'Hearn's analysis and then criticises him in the last lines. They also offer a booklet on "The Real Irish Peace Process". You see I knew we were just locked in a bad dream all along. Please let me wake up soon!
Something a bit more interesting is the Socialism Website. Written in plain English, it offers clear critique of what's wrong with society. For example, we live in a society "where you are rewarded for being a bastard and penalized for doing the right thing. It is a society where most of us are just menials performing crappy work under the command of brown noses." More of this type of thing please.
The other cool thing on this site, apart from fun, readable and well thought out polemic is free stuff, and you can download such like as Marx and Engel's Communist manifesto and other heavy texts which are worth a glance on those rainy weekends when the cable TV isn't working and you are too lazy to walk to the video shop.
Socialism.org, the "conscientious quest for peace and order", seems to promote in large part the views of a Sidney Gluck, who among other things is chairperson of US-China People's Friendship Association. This site has quite a lot of comment on Chinese politics and for that is worth a click or two but not much more.
More interesting are the different hybrids of socialism out there including Anglo Catholic Socialism (anglocatholicsocialism.org). There is Transhumanist Socialism, which "holds that future transhumanist technologies such as molecular nanotechnology will make it more feasible to bring about a truly socialist world". And there you were thinking that the socialist republic was the long-term objective!
Dhammic Socialism is a form of Buddhism and Socialism and its theory that we are inevitably social beings who "must live together in a form of society that gives priority to the ways we inter-relate, work together, and help each other solve the problems of life". This ideology can be found at suanmokkh.org and is worth a look.
The Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA have a website called 2changetheworld which claims to be "part of a coast-coast revolutionary conversation" around the party's draft programme.
The 2changetheworld website is well laid out and very worthy, but just not as attractive as revolution for the hell of it (revolutionforthehellofit.com). This site is designed for people who have palm pilots or other such gadgets and you can download reading material from the site.
It also has links to another site, zenzibar.com, which promotes "Zenzibar Alternative Culture". It is "an alternative portal and directory of alternatives to Western mainstream culture". It says that "our goal is to make Zenzibar an entertaining and useful site for those interested in information on alternative subjects from Aliens to Zen". Their news site does have interesting articles including one from the Oakland Tribune warning of aliens beaming lasers at us from outer space.
It might seem silly, but was as believable as anything you have probably read about any celebrity you care to mention in any tabloid you care to mention recently.
Voodoo Economics
Anyway back to the serious stuff. When you mention the word socialism, the word economics is coming in fast and there are predictably lots of websites devoted to socialism that also have either content or links to economics orientated web sites.
The New Economics Foundation tells us it is a "radical think tank", and that they "create practical and enterprising solutions to the social, environmental and economic challenges facing the local, regional, national and global economies."
Centred mainly on the British economy, this site is well worth investing time in and has lots of free downloads. So, one to use in work, where you can wear out your employer's laser printer cartridges.
Perhaps more interesting, for those who still believe that economics is a distant cousin of voodoo, is parecon.org, the Participatory Economics Project. Participatory Economics (parecon for short) is "a type of economy proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalism. The underlying values parecon seeks to implement are equity, solidarity, diversity, and participatory self management."
Again, with downloadable publications this is a site worth investing a bit of time in. This is good stuff but you really have to be in the mood for it, and though we all know we should be reading the big texts of how the world works etc., most of us never get past even buying the huge tomes. Where are the short books on economics?
Better web than red
Searching for republicans on the web generates strange results, maybe because the web in English is often dominated by the USA, but a search for this keyword on Alta Vista or Google will offer you thousands of sites about the US republican party.
Irish republicans are on the web in force including the self-styled "awkward squad". Fourthwrite the journal of the Irish Republican Writers Group is accessible at fourthwrite.ie. Even Danny Morrison has a website (dannymorrison.com) proclaiming it as the only official Morrison site not to be confused with New Zealand Cricketer, Daniel Kyle Morrison, or another Danny Morrison, the 21 year New Zealand Surf Life champion, as if!
There is also the Blanket, a self-styled journal of "protest and dissent", which shares many contributors with Fourthwrite. Both magazines offer a different perspective on where republican struggle is at now.
A web zone where some Irish republicans, socialists, anarchists and many others mingle on-line is flag.blackened.net. It's a dedicated anarchist website but seems to have a lot of Irish-related content and worth a look. You can never stop learning!
Then there are those who don't think much of Irish republicanism full stop. For example, the Internationalist Communist Current (I know! Doesn't make sense to me either) at internationalism.org in one of their tedious essays describe talk of "Irish republicanism: weapon of capital against the working class", because the "entry of two members of Sinn Fein into the Northern Ireland Executive has caused great anguish for most left-wing groups in Britain."
There are also a lot of Australian republicans on the web. And Welsh ones some of which seem to be more interested in having a go at the British 'royals' than articulating an ideology. However, do a search for No More Fairy Tales. It is an interesting read, funny and has lots of information that could have uses in those obscure pub quizzes that republicans revel in.
Alternative Media
There is a multitude of media organisations on the web including all the usual subjects and then there is a hard-core of radical alternative media. Leading this group is Indymedia.org, which has become a huge portal web site for not just anti-globalisation protestors, but reports on the radical green left internationally.
The quality of Indymedia coverage with text, pictures, audio and video footage is unsurpassed, even in the mainstream media. Their work is the daily shaming of lazy, establishment, corporate journalists who just don't seem to want to bother with the cutting-edge coverage Indymedia can generate.
One of the extra bites to Indymedia is that it is linked to many campaigning groups, especially those involved in globalisation protests and a range of activism, such as Buy Nothing Day run by adbusters.org. It is sites like this that are giving the web its radical edge.
Then there is AlterNet.org, a project of the Independent Media Institute, a "nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening and supporting independent and alternative journalism".
Launched in 1998, AlterNet's online magazine covers subjects ranging from the environment, the drug war, technology and cultural trends, to policy debate, sexual politics and health issues. It is linked to the Spin Project, the Strategic Press Information Network, which offers media and PR training for non-profit organisations.
Then there is Zmag.org, another portal for alternative media that has again, like Indymedia, a huge depth of coverage and information.
Newint.org is the web home of the New Internationalist magazine that, though being a high-production-values paper magazine, still affords users full access to its web edition and archives without subscription.
Any of these sites are well worth adding to your favourites or making them your home page.
Lastly, just to show its not all politics, there is the Wood.org, an independent music ezine that has some excellent political content. Its pages on socialism are exemplary.
This is just one long, lazy, personal trawl through the net and your search will easily throw up some gems of sites left out here. It is clear, though, that we are not alone and, as the Znet site declares, "the spirit of resistance lives".