A Response To John McAnulty: Sketching For A Revolutionary Press

I would like to thank John McAnulty for his thoughtful letter. As part of the editorial team it definitely deserved a response and some attempt to propose action for the concerns raised, on top of some other existing issues that have posed substantial ambiguity for Aontacht as a properly socialist project; for all the currents of progressive struggle in Ireland. 

As Aontacht is - ideally - a community endeavour. I believe the proper response is to take the principles that have been explored in the editorial decisions and reflections and build those into how the website structures information. 

We owe a duty of care to those dominated and oppressed by imperialism and capital, to help inform those who fight such structures in a way that is productive and mediates a pluralistic consensus understanding of the situation and options for practical struggle. 

We first have to acknowledge the dubious stink around Aontacht. There is smelly reactionary shite in its past and comment sections. To allow these non-materialist explanations and framings on the site would be a sincere disservice to our readership. 

The status quo will never be made more just, if we allow hegemonic powers to divide and conquer us by directing our attention away from confronting power. Framing and accountability matter for developing a proper revolutionary consciousness. We exist in such an environment of ambient propaganda and reaction that it is necessary to accommodate a counter frame for those who fight these struggles. 

If we are to think about the format under which we can collectively help mediate a shared understanding we have to start with what already exists. 

Above is a sketch of the front page of the website as it already exists. The front page is dominated by content in chronological ordering. With the logo at the top and named tabs to move between. Those tabs are: 

“Home”, “News”, “Critical Analysis”, “Letters”, “About” (...) “Get Involved” and “Donations”. 

These tabs frame participation and the front facing information flow for Aontacht; and will be the focus of this sketch at a redesign. I would like on this part of the website to indicate the content that Aontacht will accept in a way that is useful for readership to parse. 

The redesigned tabs that I am proposing are: 

“Chronological”, “Counter PR”, “Anti-Colonial/Capital Struggles”, “Material Conditions”, “Discussions”, “Appeals” (...)”Get Involved” ”Donations”. 

I will now discuss these headings in order indicating the merits of their re-framing, their relative structuring and the kind of content that they would contain. 

“Chronological” is to replace “News” as a subtle shift in how the significance of its contained items are framed. The cultural notion of “The News” reflects the material reality of bourgeois newspapers of an information game that hegemonic power is able to push and pull, and in a pinch directly dictate. 

It is important to show the chronology of events but not to simply reproduce the hollow content mills of journalistic practices strangled by the control of capital. 

Next we have “Counter PR”. This section is for articles that expose and de-fang reactionary and/or State framings of issues in order to counter their propagandistic effect through the exercise of a critical media literacy. 

An example of this kind of content on the site is the article on the homicidal propaganda surrounding Jason Arday by the excellent April Sheehan Corkery. This kind of analysis is invaluable and relates directly to the editorial standard as we work to discern away from reproducing the framings of reactionaries and capital dictated expression. 

This is not to platform reaction, it is to simply to correct comrades who have been spun on an issue, where such correction is necessary as a result of public relations mystification and algorithmic manipulation. 

Where the State is weak it mystifies. Micheál Martin would have hardly gone on such a public relations binge recently if he felt that his position was solid. While attacking these framings and media appearances we can help split off support for his cheap gestures towards a more liberal left. Only material concessions will get him off the hook! We need this for the bloc to extend towards the less conscious left. 

The next tab then is “Anti-Colonial/Capital Struggles”. This tab ought to contain a list of the various fronts under which struggle is waged and reported on in the newspaper. Struggles such as:

Housing, Students Struggle, Workplace Strikes, Anti-Unionism, Prisoners rights, Migrants Rights, Healthcare Access, Palestine, Anti AI/Data Centre, Decolonizing Culture, Anti-War and Environmentalism 

These can help index discussion by the struggle that they pertain to in a pluralistic fight for justice against systems of domination. 

The naming of these struggles ought to be informed by those who are in them, whilst having a clear editorial discretion against allowing ineffective reactionary co-option of the categories. Through this we can help facilitate a pluralistic socialistic consciousness of the fronts and tactics that certain struggles are being waged through. The job of an anti-imperialist paper is to facilitate communication from struggle, in the sincere service of the people in that struggle. 

The Housing struggle contains both the RSA’s new ultimatum to property developers and landlords as well as older community organizers public speeches on the need to drop the rent hikes. Many tactics, same struggle. 

On the other hand, we would not allow anti migrant rhetoric that cloaks itself in concern about the effect of migration on housing capacity. There is certainly value in a critical understanding of things like the IPAS systems and changing visa laws. I have written about them elsewhere in the publication. However it is such a classic tool of reaction to try to use the language of legitimate struggle to cloak justifying domination.

White South Africans in apartheid South Africa would regularly use the language of environmentalism and keeping the environment pure and clean to frame their violent oppression of the indigenous population. 

If you try to submit shit like this we will tell you to fuck off. This is first and foremost a socialist republican publication. Directing the framing of systemic issues along racialized lines gets those in actual power off the hook. It is self-evidently stupid to direct anger at the most marginalized members of our society, and contra to the publication's explicit policy of anti-imperialism. 

In the same line the existing Aontacht consensus editorial line of broadly being “pro-military deserter” is reflected in “anti-war” framing that struggle whether in Ukraine or at home. This is because we recognize the dignity of soldiers trying to survive the imperial war games that would use them as human fodder. 

The next tab is “Material Conditions”. This is for articles like those by Tadgh Ó Cuill-Maonlaí that give a grounded material analysis of the everyday conditions faced by people in the State. Solid linkages to everyday experiences are a key part of consciousness raising. This tab would also contain László Molnárfi’s dissertation discussion of the State capture of student unions as it pertains to the material conditions of struggle in this space.

Contributions to this tab may provide an accessible space for the -not super politically active- readership to contribute as they may come to understand the material systems that influence their everyday lived experience. 

Following this we have “Discussions”, this tab may subsume the content currently framed as “Critical Analysis”. This tab would hopefully allow readership to follow a line of discussion and responses with two way links between articles that address each other in order to facilitate a reader following the threads of developing discussion. 

Appeals is our final tab, which contains direct appeals for support or engagement from people and organizations in the context of struggle. An example of the kind of content that would go here would be the recent appeal by the vinyl shop owner for solidarity purchases, animal sanctuaries, appeals for Palestinian students, Garvaghy Road residents and anti-war Ukrainian and Russian political prisoners.

Returning to finish with John McAnulty’s call for a focus on in person praxis. At this moment in time the front office of Aontacht is at protests and actions, in solidarity, support and in struggle. He is absolutely right that it is important to not get caught in the ineffective backlash to the backlash that characterises a nihilistic media environment. We do not work for the algorithm. That being said it is sometimes necessary to give limited space to countering it. Our discretion should always be to do this in support of concrete material struggle. 

As we continue to make efforts on the team to attend and report on struggle we must also encourage those who wage it to have input in the paper. None of the design decisions I have sketched here are final or complete. The lists are examples that would hopefully encourage further engagement by those who work within this framing. Only by continual discursive adjustment and development will we become any use at all as a revolutionary press.