boyd barrett

ronbyrne2005 · 21-02-2006 9:59pm #1

who is richard boyd barret? and is he relate to justin boyd barrett ,obviously he is but their politics seem miles apart.

Doctor Benway · 21-02-2006 10:18pm

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

who is richard boyd barret? and is he relate to justin boyd barrett ,obviously he is but their politics seem miles apart.

:rolleyes:

Richard Boyd Barrett = a member of the Socialist Workers Party. He's been in it for years, since the early nineties anyway.

Justin Barrett (NOT Boyd Barrett) = no relation

ronbyrne2005 · 21-02-2006 10:48pm

i heard justin barret introduced as justin boyd barret on last word before and he didnt correct the presenter

Thomas_S_Hunterson · 21-02-2006 10:51pm

Richard boyd Barrett is a bit of a hard-line lefty which is unusual, considering he attended a private school in what is probably Dublin's most affluent areas..

ronbyrne2005 · 21-02-2006 11:09pm

there seems to be a lot of far lefties in the privelleged areas of dublin,maybe they are disillusioned with the material wealth the were born into? or maybe rebelling against daddy etc any opinions?

mike65 · 21-02-2006 11:29pm

They feel guilty and are over educated. Its a terible conbination which leads to years of wasted time and energy. The skangers have the right idea - we poor and oppressed, lets get smashed.

Mike.

The_Minister · 22-02-2006 12:15am

His solution to the Israel/Palistine conflict is to have them form one state and "end partition":D . Apparently they will live in peace *****s himself laughing*

Nuttzz · 22-02-2006 11:13am

he's a shamless self publicist who will latch onto any "issue" in the attempt to raise his profile and gain him a few votes, he ran in the last local elections but failed to get elected despite needing just 1500 votes, if every failed candidate got as much airplay as him....

Freelancer · 22-02-2006 12:59pm

Nuttzz wrote:

he's a shamless self publicist who will latch onto any "issue" in the attempt to raise his profile and gain him a few votes, he ran in the last local elections but failed to get elected despite needing just 1500 votes, if every failed candidate got as much airplay as him....

Not to mention his father's rather exclusive Architecture firm just a few yards from the Burlington (the site of the SWPs only foray into non violent direct action at the PPP conference in 2001).

Boyd's last grassroots campaign was to lead the campaign to stop the closure of the baths in that tough urban working class environment of Dun Laoghaire, it speaks volumes about himself and the SWP.

ronbyrne2005 · 22-02-2006 1:38pm

Nuttzz wrote:

he's a shamless self publicist who will latch onto any "issue" in the attempt to raise his profile and gain him a few votes, he ran in the last local elections but failed to get elected despite needing just 1500 votes, if every failed candidate got as much airplay as him....

i agree. jumping into bed with the nimby's in dun laoire is a prime illustration of this.

ferdi · 22-02-2006 1:47pm

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

i agree. jumping into bed with the nimby's in dun laoire is a prime illustration of this.

nimby's? - i take issue with that - i dont want a massive appartment block soiling the character of dublin bay. if that makes me a nimby, fair enough.

RB-B may be a lefty with a snooty background but at least he tries to do things, at least he makes an effort and does the best he knows how to improve things and gets off his arse. better than bitching about others on the internet, dont ye think?

Nuttzz · 22-02-2006 1:51pm

ferdi wrote:

better than bitching about others on the internet, dont ye think?

read indmedia and you will see plenty of his partys bitching

:v: :v:

Freelancer · 22-02-2006 2:01pm

ferdi wrote:

nimby's? - i take issue with that - i dont want a massive appartment block soiling the character of dublin bay. if that makes me a nimby, fair enough.

Yeah "ruining the character" of Dublin bay, this is exactly the sort of firestarter issue of social justice a socialist party should be clawing its way onto, why I hear it was the Tsar's planning a 60ft monument which would ruin the character of St Petersburg, which lite the spark that set of the October revolution.

RB-B may be a lefty with a snooty background but at least he tries to do things, at least he makes an effort and does the best he knows how to improve things and gets off his arse. better than bitching about others on the internet, dont ye think?

Bollocks he's a whore. Any campaign be it reclaim the streets, anti globalisation, the bin tax, anti war, Barrett claws his way onto it and he and his party try to use it as a platform to garner votes. They're interested in publicity and nothing else.

ronbyrne2005 · 22-02-2006 2:37pm

ferdi wrote:

nimby's? - i take issue with that - i dont want a massive appartment block soiling the character of dublin bay. if that makes me a nimby, fair enough.

RB-B may be a lefty with a snooty background but at least he tries to do things, at least he makes an effort and does the best he knows how to improve things and gets off his arse. better than bitching about others on the internet, dont ye think?

how can one apartment block affect the entire dublin bay? most countries in world have high rise properties along coastlines/harbours/bays and look great,dublin bay is nothing special ,look at Rio high rise along the entire coast and an amazing site.
the councillors bottled it in dun laoire as they were afraid of losing their seats rather than devloping a derelict site. it is nimbyism pure and simple.

Akrasia · 22-02-2006 4:39pm

Rich Boy Barret and the SWP are leftists of the worst type; they're disingenuous, deceitful and treacherous. I have met Richard Boyd Barret many times and Kieran Allen, the other main spokesperson for the SWP and they are both cut of the same cloth.
During the height of the anti war movement over the last few years the SWP have repeatedly betrayed the rest of the movement in favour of feeble attempts at promoting their own membership. The set up front organisations to appear as if they are the leaders of various campaigns and they present themselves to the media as spokespeople and proceed to promote their own party even at the expense of the wider campaign.

I just want to add that i know what i'm talking. this was a large part of my Sociology dissertation from a few years ago.

ferdi · 22-02-2006 4:55pm

Freelancer wrote:

he's a whore.

yeah, i'd agree with that but at least he makes an effort which is more than most.

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

how can one apartment block affect the entire dublin bay? most countries in world have high rise properties along coastlines/harbours/bays and look great,dublin bay is nothing special ,look at Rio high rise along the entire coast and an amazing site.
the councillors bottled it in dun laoire as they were afraid of losing their seats rather than devloping a derelict site. it is nimbyism pure and simple.

Dun Laoghaire is not Rio. If you were such a fan of the proposed development/play ground of the rich, why didnt you come out and demonstrate, spend 100s of man hours getting a group together, handing out flyers, organising meetings, rallies, marches etc? - Because you were too lazy and now your whinging that the residents groups and leftys got enough public support behind them to change the councils mind. thats democracy. pure and simple.

ronbyrne2005 · 22-02-2006 5:04pm

ferdi wrote:

yeah, i'd agree with that but at least he makes an effort which is more than most.

Dun Laoghaire is not Rio. If you were such a fan of the proposed development/play ground of the rich, why didnt you come out and demonstrate, spend 100s of man hours getting a group together, handing out flyers, organising meetings, rallies, marches etc? - Because you were too lazy and now your whinging that the residents groups and leftys got enough public support behind them to change the councils mind. thats democracy. pure and simple.

yes but eventually the councils will have to build high rise as is being seen in stillorgan etc and the council can overide local concerns,the odd tall development along the coast is harmless but nimby's concerned about the status quo and their houseprices etc will opposed anything. house prices will continue to rise unless we build up .i saw the site in dun laoire and couldnt honestly see what the concerns were about,theres miles of views and this site would take up a hundred metres of view.anyway we'll agree to disagree but there will be similar developments built in future.

Freelancer · 22-02-2006 5:32pm

ferdi wrote:

yeah, i'd agree with that but at least he makes an effort which is more than most.

Barrett and his minions are at best one of the biggest problems for the left in ireland. I've met the man and worked with him so spare me the "virtual warriors" crap.

The SWP get their claws into idealistic young first year students at rag week. They're dragged to meetings and forced to endure Leninist top down rigid hierarchal organisation. There supposed toe the party line, sell their quota of papers, and walk up at demos. A few weeks of this nonsense and any interest in politics is beaten out of these kids and they want no more of it. Brilliant well done SWP you've managed to alienate some more people.

They've hijacked and destroyed so many organisations and campaigns, drunk on power they destroyed any effective anti war movement in Ireland.

Dun Laoghaire is not Rio. If you were such a fan of the proposed development/play ground of the rich, why didnt you come out and demonstrate, spend 100s of man hours getting a group together, handing out flyers, organising meetings, rallies, marches etc? - Because you were too lazy and now your whinging that the residents groups and leftys got enough public support behind them to change the councils mind. thats democracy. pure and simple.

Bollocks, money pure and simple, the residents had cloat and weight and power. Thats why it didn't get built. I doubt it'd have happened in Dardale, no matter how many residents protested.

ferdi · 22-02-2006 5:41pm

Freelancer wrote:

Bollocks, money pure and simple, the residents had cloat and weight and power. Thats why it didn't get built. I doubt it'd have happened in Dardale, no matter how many residents protested.

i've no time for the ''downtrodden working-class' sermon, if you get off your arse and demand attention you can get it.

the people with most cloat amongst the protesters were Christy Moore and Ronney Drew.

Freelancer · 22-02-2006 6:41pm

ferdi wrote:

i've no time for the ''downtrodden working-class' sermon, if you get off your arse and demand attention you can get it.

the people with most cloat amongst the protesters were Christy Moore and Ronney Drew.

Really? So the people with clout were two wealthy popular musicians. Goes back to my point, the development was stopped because Dun Laoghaire is rich pure and simple, democracy has nothing to do with it.

QualderWahl · 22-02-2006 7:18pm

Richard Boyd Barrett was a tutor in the UCD English department in the early to mid '90s. I distinctly remember being a somewhat naive 17 year old being force fed a marxist critique of every novel discussed during his tutorials. Almost all readings were predicated on one fundmental law; the rise of the working class and the fall of the aristocracy.

The most tenuous socialist / marxist credentials of each novel were analysed in detail whilst the important themes were simply ignored. However, the final straw for my (then) gullible consciousness was when he described "The Wonder Years" TV show as evil. He claimed it was the archetypal portrayal of white middle class bourgeois existence and it perpetuated white America's oppression of ethnic minorities !! I just switched off from that moment and focused on my own learning from unbiased sources.

However, despite disagreeing totally with his politics, I do admire his persistence. He must be in his mid-30s by now and is still committed to the socialist agenda when most of his students and peers have long since abondoned that lifestyle and settled for the job and house in the suburbs.

My real problem with him is that I do genuinely come from a working class background and my parents were absolutely determined that I and my siblings would have the opportunities not available to them. Conversely, Richard Boyd Barrett and the tiny cohort of champagne socialists preach that working class existence is more "authentic" whilst knowing that the door to mummy's house in Silchester is always open should things get a little too difficult. Stop me before I turn into Jarvis Cocker and start singing "Common People" :-).

ronbyrne2005 · 22-02-2006 7:31pm

mistakingly gave my mobile number to a swp member during freshers week and was bombarded with texts for whole year.

The_Minister · 23-02-2006 4:59pm

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

mistakingly gave my mobile number to a swp member during freshers week and was bombarded with texts for whole year.

I have the personal mobile number of the head of the SWP:D

Lets just say some PDs have somehow recieved the number.:D

pork99 · 24-02-2006 1:39am

QualderWahl wrote:

He must be in his mid-30s by now and is still committed to the socialist agenda

Sad - most people grow up by that stage and support FG/FF/Lab/PDs (who said if you are not a socialist at 18 you have no heart - if you are still a socialist at 30 you have no brain? I've found that to be my experience anyway)

His politics reminds me more of Adrian Mole Aged Thirteen and Three Quarters than the politics of someone in their 30s

Saturday February 20th

Pandora, Nigel, Claire Neilson and myself have formed a radical group. We are the 'Pink Brigade'. We dicuss things like war (we are against it); peace (we are for it); and the ultimate destruction of capitalist society.

Claire Neilson's father is a capitalist: he owns a greengrocer's shop. Claire is trying to get her father to give cheap food to the unwaged but he refuses. He waxes fat on their starvation!

QualderWahl wrote:

My real problem with him is that I do genuinely come from a working class background

That would be my background too

QualderWahl wrote:

Conversely, Richard Boyd Barrett and the tiny cohort of champagne socialists preach that working class existence is more "authentic" whilst knowing that the door to mummy's house in Silchester is always open should things get a little too difficult.

Ironically most actual "working class" people think Boyd Barrett and his SWP play party are a pack of work-shy student c-nts. I tend to agree with them

boyd barrett

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