WSM call for a No vote on Lisbon

We will quote Bakunin on every front!

Silly me, I was surprised when I first saw this headline. But calling on people to take part in bourgeois elections is not that different from calling for nationalisation of Ireland's resources I suppose. Or from those fascinated by the IWCA and its efforts to become part of the local state.

Alf, do you understand the word election?

So let's get this straight, after a 4-paragraph quote giving some pretty good reasons why this whole bourgeois circus is a waste of time, the conclusion is that you should campaign for a "No" vote?

Honest question: does that tradition include groups outside of the WSM?

why wouldn't an anarchist vote to legalise abortion? It hardly legitimises the state.

I don't think a no vote on lisbon is worth it (mostly because i don't think it really matters) but there's no reason to never take part in a referendum ever.

One fraction of the Irish ruling class. There's undoubtedly a fraction that wants a no vote, which you are effectively aligning with.

You're opposed to representative democracy and yet you're calling for participation in the same? Referendums take place completely with the parliamentary framework and serve the same ideological function: presenting the idea that workers have an equal voice in such questions as the bourgeoisie, etc. In other words, they reinforce and legitimate the power of the republican state. How does a "no" vote strike a blow against representative democracy?

But more importantly, your own analysis hits on the crucial points:

- the choices offered by this referendum will make no difference to the working class
- the referendum is being used as a tool to distract people from what you call "the real struggle"

If you were simply using the election as an opportunity to flag up alternative politics and what you think "the real struggle" is - which can be done without actually participating in elections incidentally - that would at least have some degree of internal logic. But to point out all the reasons why participating is actually playing the game of the ruling class and then to do exactly that ...

Another point that interested me in your analysis was the way the question is posed. No mention of ruling class and working class. Instead, following the example of left-wing leaning newspaper columnists we have "elites", not to mention that completely mythical category "the people of Ireland". The concept of the "people of Ireland" is totally appropriate when supporting electoral campaigns - it smothers class distinction, atomising us into individual citizens with equal rights in some amorphous mass and is thus the perfect accessory for democratic ideology, not to mention (again) the nationalist claptrap that goes with it.

This analysis is so crude its embarrassing.

1. An election is where you vote for people to represent you. A referendum is a direct vote on an issue.
2. While using it as a chance to intervene with anarchist arguments I think calling for people not to vote is pointless; I dont even advocate this in elections per se.

I didn't realise abortion was a class demand. The idea of "anarchists" asking permission from the bourgeois state for women to control their own bodies is something of an oxymoron anyway, don't you think? But no more absurd than "anarchists" suggesting there's something progressive in nationalising the Irish oil industry, I suppose.

The bourgeoisie will never resolve all these secondary social questions and don't want to. Instead, they use them to whip up political "debate" in order to give the impression of freedom and democracy and, as the WSM itself has pointed out, to distract people from the fundamental issues. More importantly, they distract the working class from its class terrain and identity.

No, communists and anarchists should not have any involvement with the false debates set up by the ruling class. The sole purpose of elections, referendums, etc. is to disguise the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie with the figleaf of democracy. The role of communists is to expose the reality of this dictatorship, and encourage the rest of their class to struggle outside the confines of the bourgeois state with the aim of destroying it.

Crude, undoubtedly. That's not quite the same as being wrong or you would have demonstrated that.

A direct vote from an "electorate" made up from all segments of society on an issue that, in your own words, has no real meaning for the vast majority of them and is deliberately designed to distract them from the real issues at play. My point is that your practice is not consistent even with the logic of your own analysis, let alone any proper class standpoint.

So what, we should perform our own working class abortions in back alleys? Go on strike every time someone has an unwanted pregnancy to demand an abortion?

Of course we want 'permission' to have abortions. The less stigmatised and acceptable within general society, the better. I happen to think that needing to struggle every time you want an abortion would be really shit.

And of course reproductive rights are a class demand.

Dem, I agree with you to an extent. I feel that calling for people to abstain is pointless when a large portion of the population intends on voting. A no vote is at least opposing the creating of a european army, etc.

Workers should use whatever abortion facilities are available to them, regardless of whether or not they are provided by the state or whether they're legal.The abortion debate in capitalist society frames the entire issue around the question of rights: the "rights" of the foetus, the "rights" of the woman, opposed to each other in the traditional bourgeois spirit of competition between the two.

But there's a far deeper question here - why are pregnancies "unwanted" in the first place? The vast majority of women have abortions because their social circumstances make it impossible to have children. Considering the distress abortion causes for the vast majority of women, one wonders how many would actually have one in a society where they were free to raise their children without disadvantage. Calling for abortion rights only reinforces the idea that working class women actually have a "choice" in this societywhen it comes to reproduction. This choice is even more illusory than that offered between exploiters at election time and either option offers nothing but misery for the working class.

again, what are you chatting? you think the working class shouldn't worry about having an abortion in a sterile environment with a person who knows what they're doing, but should instead try and seek out back alley abortions or doctors who'll do it on the sly? it makes a HUGE difference for us where we can have abortions, and whether they're legal or not. if you can't see the actual reality of the situation then you're clearly far too theoretical for your own good.

yes, if abortions are illegal then women should go to illegal places to get them if they want one (and if they're middle class, in this instance, pay a fat wad and fly to england). but why would you not want women to be able to get them safely? there's just as much a 'class' position as anything else. i don't give a shit about what the 'bourgeois' arguments are. all i worry about is that if women have an unwanted pregnancy that they don't have to go to the black market and risk dying to do so. my gran used to perform abortions back when they were illegal. she'd be giving them to poor, young girls. that's certainly nothing i want to see happening again anytime soon. and yet that's something that poor girls are still going through, wherever abortion's illegal.

if you can't see the right to a legal abortion as something beneficial for the working class then you need to wake up and get your nose out of whatever textbook it is you're reading too much of.

I agree with the way Dem poses it in his last post. The call for access to safe abortions can be part of the struggle around the social wage, but that doesn't mean we should be uncritical of the whole campaign about abortion 'rights' today, which is posed in totally non-class terms and asks us to make a choice between 'progressive' ('pro-choice') and reactionary ('pro-life') bourgeois cliques and ideologies.
In any case this began as a debate around whether we should take part in referenda and we shouldn't lose sight of this. We could think of hundreds of 'deserving cases' where it might be tempting to vote in referenda (eg, 'throw out the immigrants' - yes or no' was one in Switzerland if I recall) but our task as communists is to stand up and say that the 'mystificatioin is in the question' as Marx put it.

sorry decided to abort my own post!