1 May 2012
Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America

International Workers’ Day 2012 Statement

The Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America send
solidarity greetings to our fellow workers and comrades in the class
struggle around the world on the working class holiday of
International Workers’ Day, also known as May Day.

As the North American section of the Irish Republican Socialist
Movement, we extend our greetings to our comrades and fellow members
of the IRSM in the Irish Republican Socialist Party, Irish National
Liberation Army, Republican Socialist Youth Movement, IRSP Alba, and
Teach na Failte, along with all republican socialist prisoners of
war. Our commitment to the struggle for national and working class
liberation in Ireland, and working class liberation worldwide, is
unbroken.

Capitalism remains in the midst of its deepest crisis in decades.
Millions of workers have lost their jobs, while millions more live in
fear of losing theirs. The bosses use this crisis as an excuse to
roll back wages and benefits, while their lackeys in government use
it as an excuse to enact a neo-liberal agenda of austerity. These are
acts of aggression against the working class, and the working class
must respond in kind. As Karl Marx once wrote, “The working class is
revolutionary or it is nothing.”

We urge all workers to join the struggle against capitalism and the
capitalist class, and to refuse to be divided by the capitalists, the
promises of the capitalists’ hired politicians (no matter what
political party they belong to), or the capitalists’ favorite
divisive tools of racism, ethnic conflict, sexism, homophobia,
transphobia, religious sectarianism, and jingoism.

The IRSCNA will continue to actively support all working class
struggles, including immigrant and amnesty movements. Indeed, any
other position for Irish-Americans and supporters of Irish
republicanism would be hypocritical. The IRSCNA will always be found
on the front lines of the class struggle, as our members were during
the Battle of Seattle in 1999, or in Wisconsin and Michigan in 2011.

The only path forward is to begin organizing, educating, and
agitating to create fundamental, revolutionary change. The solution
lies in our hands as workers, and our hands alone. To end the
exploitation of the class system, and meet the needs of our species
and the planet we share, only socialism can achieve those goals.

There must be no war but the class war, until we, the workers of the
world, stand victorious and capitalism has been abolished. We must
reject both planks of ruling class ideology, conservatism and
liberalism, in favor of the freedom, equality, and fraternity that
only socialism can provide. Our vision is a revolution of a class, a
revolution from below, and a revolution that must be global.

In the words of Paul Mattick, “The liberation of the working class
from capitalist domination can only be achieved through the workers’
own initiative.”

We have seen the Occupy Movement grow since its beginnings in 2011.
While this movement isn’t strictly a revolutionary one, it
demonstrates that many people are frustrated by the status quo and
are looking for alternatives. The greatest danger to the Occupy
Movement is being co-opted by reformists who want to tie it to the
election campaigns of reformist politicians, when what is needed is a
deepening of class consciousness and an understanding that only
revolutionary change can build a better world.

In Ireland, conditions exist for a republican socialist alternative
to fill the void in revolutionary politics. It is obvious that
neither the Good Friday Agreement nor any other imperialist brokered
settlement can resolve the fundamental contradictions at the heart of
Irish society. Only a socialist Ireland can do that, and a socialist
Ireland is impossible to sustain unless capitalism is defeated on a
wider scale.

The struggle of labor versus capital is by necessity a global
struggle. The class war knows no national boundaries, as Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels recognized when they ended their Communist
Manifesto with the slogan, “Workers of all countries, unite!”

On behalf of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, we extend
solidarity greetings to our allies and comrades in the global class
struggle. We once again recognize our long-standing solidarity with
the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine, and the Scottish Republican Socialist
Movement.

As a political movement of class conscious workers, our only
allegiance is to the working class. The struggle of any group of
workers is the struggle of all workers.

One class, one struggle, one victory!

###

Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America
PO Box 5174
Champaign IL 61825
USA
irscna@irsm.org
http://www.irscna.org/
http://www.irsp.ie/irscna.html

29 April 2012
Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America

Solidarity with CeCe McDonald

The Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America stand in
solidarity with Crishaun “CeCe” McDonald, an African-American
transgender woman who will soon go on trial in Minneapolis, Minnesota
for the “crime” of defending herself from a group of racist,
transphobic, and quite possibly fascist thugs on the night of 5 June
2011.

CeCe, then a student at Minneapolis Community & Technical College,
was walking to a store with friends, all of them young, African-
American, and either queer or allied. As they walked past a bar, a
group of older white people lead by Dean Schmitz, a man with a
swastika tattooed on his chest, began shouting slurs at them,
including “faggots,” “niggers,” and “chicks with dicks.”

When CeCe verbally confronted them, one of them smashed her glass
into CeCe’s face, puncturing her cheek deeply and lacerating her
salivary gland. CeCe and her friends were forced to act in self-
defense, and during the altercation Schmitz was fatally stabbed.

Despite being the victim of a violent attack, CeCe was the only
person arrested that night. She has been charged with second degree
murder, while the woman who attacked her was never arrested or
charged with a crime. CeCe’s trial is set to begin April 30th.

A report published by the National Black Justice Coalition, the
National Center for Transgender Equality, and the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force found that “the combination of anti-transgender
bias and persistent structural and individual racism was especially
devastating for Black transgender people and other people of color.”

We believe that the decision to charge CeCe, while the white, non-
transgender woman who stabbed her in the face was neither arrested
nor charged, is evidence of racial and anti-transgender bias. After
CeCe’s arrest, she was placed in solitary confinement and denied
adequate medical care, being further victimized by the legal system.

We believe CeCe’s attackers may have fascist sympathies, as evidenced
by Schmitz’s swastika tattoo. At the very least, they were racists
and transphobes. We find it astounding that not a single member of
the group that created the conflict and initiated the violence was
arrested or charged with a crime.

The message sent is that transpeople, particularly transpeople of
color, can be verbally abused and physically assaulted without
penalty, and should they defend themselves, they will be the ones
charged with a crime.

We demand that Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman drop all
charges against CeCe McDonald and release her immediately, so that
she can resume her life and education instead of facing a long prison
sentence of up to 40 years for defending herself from the violence of
her attackers.

Further, we demand that Freeman charge CeCe’s attackers with the
appropriate crimes and bring them to trial.

We also renew our demand for an end to all violence and intimidation
against LGBT people, including mistreatment by police and other
authorities.

To learn more about CeCe and her case, please visit:
http://supportcece.wordpress.com/

###

Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America
PO Box 5174
Champaign IL 61825
USA
irscna@irsm.org
http://www.irscna.org/
http://www.irsp.ie/irscna.html

The Easter Proclamation was read by Deirdre Fennessy of the Irish Freedom Freedom Committee. The IFC and IRSCNA have cooperated together on a number of projects such as political status pickets at the British consulate for the POWs in Maghaberry as well as commemorating the 1981 Hunger Strike as part of the broad front Chicago Hunger Strike Commemoration Committee. The IRSCNA Easter statement was read by local IRSCNA member Seán Lally. Colm Mistéil, IRSCNA Coordinating Committee member and its Prison Welfare Officer, read the IRSM’s main oration.

The IRSCNA Midwest cumann is planning on taking part in protests planned for next month at the NATO summit in Chicago.

8 April 2012
Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America

Easter Statement 2012

On the 96th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the Irish Republican
Socialist Committees of North America send solidarity greetings to
our comrades and fellow members of the Irish Republican Socialist
Movement in the Irish Republican Socialist Party, Irish National
Liberation Army, Republican Socialist Youth Movement, and Teach na
Failte, along with all republican socialist prisoners of war
presently in Irish and British prisons.

On this day above all, we proudly remember all those who gave their
lives for an Irish Workers’ Republic. Just as we salute the example
of James Connolly and his brave comrades in the Irish Citizen Army
who fought for national and class liberation in 1916, we also
remember those comrades in the IRSP and INLA who died so that the
working class party of Connolly and Seamus Costello could continue to
exist and continue the struggle for socialism. The political
independence of the working class is essential in the struggle to
build socialism.

It is therefore fitting that we also take the occasion of Easter 2012
to reaffirm our unwavering support for the leadership and program of
the IRSP. Our commitment to the struggle for national and working
class liberation in Ireland, and working class liberation worldwide,
is unbroken.

We are proud to be the North American section of the IRSM, building
solidarity as well as giving practical aid and support to the best of
our ability. We stand firm in the Republican Socialist tradition
begun by Connolly and continued today by the IRSP, a party whose
political analysis and leadership has never been as sorely needed as
now. The IRSP is the only organization within Irish anti-imperialism
that can both understand the line of march and lead by example.

Recent events have tragically confirmed Connolly’s analyses. The new
fiscal treaty which has been prepared for Ireland will further
severely limit the nation’s sovereignty. It will ensure that the
downward spiral in living standards continues without relent. In the
occupied six counties, the bosses assault on working people has gone
so far that the unemployed will now be denied their own homes and
forced to live in overcrowded accommodations. Those bourgeois
“republicans” who hijacked the anti-imperialist struggle insisted
that socialism had to wait. Reality has demonstrated again and again
that the struggle for independence cannot be divorced from the class
struggle without disastrous results.

Our struggle is not over. And our comrades who fought, struggled,
starved, and died for a free Ireland would accept nothing less than a
united and socialist Irish Republic in which the means of production,
exchange, and distribution are under the control of the working class
and its allies; a society that puts conscious human will in the
driver’s seat, above the irrational chaos of the markets; and a
nation that cherishes all the children of the nation equally.

In the immortal words of James Connolly, “Our demands most modest
are, we only want the earth.”

###

Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America
PO Box 5174
Champaign IL 61825
USA
irscna@irsm.org
http://www.irscna.org/
http://www.irsp.ie/irscna.html

Organized by the Joe McCann Cumann

Sunday April 8, 2012 12 Noon

James Connolly Statue at Union Park
Ashland and Warren (just north of Madison St), Chicago IL

Easter Statements from Republican Socialist Movement in Ireland

Reading of the 1916 Easter Proclamation

Wreath laying

For more info call 312-574-0286 or email colm@irsm.org

8 March 2012
Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America

International Women’s Day Statement

On behalf of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, the Irish
Republican Socialist Committees of North America issues the following
statement on International Women’s Day.

International Women’s Day is observed on 8 March every year to
celebrate the economic, political, and social achievements of women
and to call for full gender equality worldwide. We believe that the
day’s history with explicitly socialist and working class dimensions
is especially worthy of celebrating, along with continuing the
fight for women’s liberation in the context of the broader class
struggle.

As Alexandra Kollontai recognized in 1920, International Women’s Day
must be “a day of international solidarity, and a day for reviewing
the strength and organization” of working class women.

In May 1908, the Socialist Party of America designated the last
Sunday in February for the observance of National Woman’s Day, which
was celebrated for the first time on 28 February 1909.

In 1910, at the initiative of Clara Zetkin and other socialist women,
the Second International established the first International Woman’s
Day under the slogan, “The vote for women will unite our strength in
the struggle for socialism.” The first was held on 19 March 1911 in
several European nations. In Austria, celebrations began a day
earlier, with women carrying red flags in honor of the 40th
anniversary of the establishment of the Paris Commune.

In 1917, with two million Russian soldiers dead in World War I and a
badly deteriorating economy, workers in Petrograd began striking and
demonstrating. On 23 February (by the Julian calendar used in Russia,
or 8 March by the Gregorian calendar), women began demonstrating with
a demand for peace and bread. A march to factories by the women
brought out 50,000 striking workers in solidarity. The women’s
uprising was part of the broader February Revolution. Four days
later, the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional government
became the first government of a major power to grant women the right
to vote.

While the IRSCNA recognizes that women have made economic, political,
and social gains, we must point out that this is not the same thing
as liberation. Women, especially middle class women, in western
capitalist nations may have more life options now than at any time in
the past, but throughout the world women, especially workers and
peasants, continue to be victims of poverty, labor exploitation,
sexual exploitation, violence, rape, and oppression by religious
fundamentalists. The modern day slave trade profits from exploiting
women sexually, and the number of women who have been victimized by
this trade is staggering.

Wherever there are workers exploited by capitalism, there are workers
who are doubly oppressed as both workers and as women. Lesbian,
bisexual, and transgender women face further oppression and violence
based on their sexual and gender identities.

The bodies of women are still considered contested terrain by
reactionaries. In Ireland, the right for women to make decisions
about their bodies and the medical procedures performed upon them is
severely restricted. In the US, where that right is recognized, it is
presently under severe assault by a resurgent and misogynistic Right,
which wants nothing more than to roll back the clock on the rights
women won through decades of struggle, whether those be reproductive
rights or economic rights.

The Irish Republican Socialist Movement has always been at the
forefront of supporting women’s liberation, and women have always
been an integral part of our movement. When the Irish Republican
Socialist Party was founded on 8 December 1974, four women were
elected to its first national executive. Its second chairperson,
Miriam Daly, was a woman, and at one point in the early 1980s, much
of the party’s leadership was female. Women were also active as
volunteers in the Irish National Liberation Army during decades of
armed struggle against British occupation, just as Constance
Markievicz was a leader in the Irish Citizen Army during the Easter
Rising of 1916.

At its first Ard Fheis (convention) in 1975, the IRSP became one of
the first parties in Ireland to support a woman’s right to choose
abortion, and to call for full equality for gays and lesbians. At the
2000 Ard Fheis, bisexuals and transgender people were explicitly
recognized in a new equality statement passed by those assembled.

The war on workers is also a war on working women. Working women are
forced to sell their labor power to survive, while women in the home
perform unpaid labor that benefits the capitalist system.

Women make up a larger percentage of the paid labor force than ever
before, and in some nations, they outnumber men. Supporting women’s
struggles is an essential part of socialism, and indeed the
liberation of women is in the interest of the working class as a
whole. There can be no working class liberation if female members of
that class remain oppressed.

The history of International Women’s Day is also the history of
working class women engaged in class struggle, women who knew that
gender liberation is inextricably linked to class liberation.

In conclusion, the IRSCNA believes that women’s liberation can only
be fully realized within the context of a global struggle to liberate
all oppressed classes and people. We salute all of the women and men
who have fought for, and continue to fight for, women’s liberation
and working class liberation.

###

Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America
PO Box 5174
Champaign IL 61825
USA
irscna@irsm.org
http://www.irscna.org/
http://www.irsp.ie/irscna.html

9 October 2011
Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America

Costello Commemoration Statement

The Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America send
revolutionary greetings to our comrades in Ireland on the occasion
of the annual commemoration of the life of Seamus Costello.

As the founder of the Irish Republican Socialist Party and the Irish
National Liberation Army in 1974, Costello was a determined and
forward thinking revolutionary. His goal was a 32 County Socialist
Republic, a Republic of and for the working class, a class undivided
by religion, race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.

Costello stood in the same tradition as James Connolly, the leader of
the Irish Citizen Army during the Easter Rising of 1916. Like
Connolly, he didn’t live to see his vision achieved, but also like
Connolly, he continues to inspire those who carry on the fight to
achieve that vision.

While many things have changed since his death, just as many things
have remained the same. The exploitation and oppression he tried to
overthrow is as pronounced as ever. Capitalism continues to provide
grinding exploitation and misery as its contradictions produce
turmoil for working class people.

The form of British rule in Ireland has changed, but not the content.
The Northern Six Counties remain under British control, but now that
control is administered by local unionist and neo-unionist “nationalist”
politicians. Both the British controlled Northern statelet and the
Southern neo-colonial statelet serve their capitalist and imperialist
masters by suppressing the working class. Scarcity is artificially
maintained for profits, and for dividing people along sectarian
and ethnic lines.

The movement that Costello founded as a vehicle for revolutionary
change is his legacy. We are proud to lend our continued support
as the North American section of the Irish Republican Socialist
Movement. Let us carry forward his struggle until we have achieved
his dream of a 32 County Socialist Republic on the island of Ireland.

###

Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America
PO Box 5174
Champaign IL 61825
USA
irscna@irsm.org
http://www.irscna.org/
http://www.irsp.ie/irscna.html

27 September 2011
Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America

Solidarity with Palestinian Hunger Strikers

On behalf of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, the Irish
Republican Socialist Committees of North America send our solidarity
and support to Palestinian political prisoners as they embark on a
hunger strike.

On 25 September 2011, the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine announced that prisoners belonging to it will begin an open-
ended hunger strike on Tuesday, 27 September, in response to the
oppressive policies of the Israeli government and its prison
administration. They demand their rights and their dignity as they
struggle for victory.

Their stated demands: An end to the solitary confinement and isolation
of PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat, an end to the policy of
isolation for all prisoners, an end to the policy of systematic
humiliation by the occupation army against the Palestinian people at
checkpoints and crossings (particularly targeting visitors to
prisons), an end to the arbitrary denial of visits to the prisoners
(especially the prisoners from the Gaza Strip), and an end to the
humiliation and abuse of prisoners during transfer.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the deaths of ten Irish
prisoners belonging to the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the
Irish National Liberation Army (the latter a section of the IRSM) on
hunger strike for their rights as prisoners of war within British
occupation prisons.

As fellow revolutionaries in the struggle for socialism and against
imperialism, we send our full support to the PFLP prisoners as they
embark on this hunger strike. Our strength is your strength as you
commence your hunger strike, and your victory will also be our
victory. As Che Guevara once said: “We cannot be indifferent to what
happens anywhere in the world, because a victory by any country over
imperialism is our victory, just as any country’s defeat is a defeat
for all of us.”

We also call on the International Committee of the Red Cross and other
human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act
swiftly to demand that Israel ensures that Ahmad Sa’adat and all
Palestinian prisoners are freed from punitive isolation.

Onward to victory, comrades!

###

Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America
PO Box 5174
Champaign IL 61825
USA
irscna@irsm.org
http://www.irscna.org/
http://www.irsp.ie/irscna.html

To contact us, email irscna@irsm.org or us the ‘contact us’ link above.

17 May 2011
Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America

Against Homophobia & Transphobia

On behalf of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, the Irish
Republican Socialist Committees of North America stand in full
solidarity with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people on the
International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia.

The International Day has been celebrated since 2005, with May 17th
chosen because it marks the anniversary of the World Health
Organization’s 1990 decision to remove homosexuality from its list of
mental disorders.

For thirty-six years, the Irish Republican Socialist Party (the main
political component of the IRSM) has supported equality for gays and
lesbians, beginning with the party’s first convention in 1975, when it
became one of the first political parties in Ireland to support gay
rights.

The IRSP became the first political party in Ireland to explicitly
include bisexuals and transgender people in a motion passed at its
2000 convention, which stated, “The IRSP affirms its commitment to
full equality for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.”

On behalf of the IRSM, the IRSCNA demand full equality for lesbians,
gays, bisexuals, and transgender people in all spheres of life, in
America, Ireland, and worldwide.

Full equality in all spheres of life means we support the rights of
LGBT people to adopt children and to marry, rights which are taken for
granted by heterosexuals.

Further, we demand that rights and privileges ultimately be detached
from marital status, and that family relationships be defined by the
people in them, not the state. People’s rights should not be
determined by their willingness or ability to participate in state
sanctioned arrangements.

We condemn all physical and legalistic attacks against LGBT people,
and we stand in solidarity with the victims of homophobic and
transphobic violence. We demand an end to all violence and
intimidation against LGBT people, including mistreatment by police and
other authorities.

We demand that all people regardless of age have free access to
information about their bodies and sexual health, unfettered by
political and religious doctrines that transform natural human bodily
functions into matters of “sin” or disease.

We demand that the medical and psychiatric establishments stop
enforcing sex/gender apartheid through the creation of false diseases
and the denial of medical care. We oppose so-called “reparative
therapies” which propose to “cure” sexual and gender diversity, seeing
them as another form of violence against LGBT people.

We believe each human being has an inherent right to define their own
sexuality, whether it’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, heterosexual, or
whatever label they choose to apply to themselves, and we believe each
human being has an inherent right to define their gender and to make
decisions about their bodies based on those definitions.

These rights are non-negotiable. No concessions should be made to
bigots, no matter how they cloak their prejudice. Equality is the only
way forward.

###

Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America
PO Box 5174
Champaign IL 61825
USA
irscna@irsm.org
http://www.irscna.org/
http://www.irsp.ie/irscna.html