Workers Solidarity Movement

Last Saturday, 26 March saw up to half a million take part in a TUC organised anti-cuts protest in London.  In the aftermath of the protest there has been much controversy about the 700 strong black bloc that broke away from the protest to throw paint at and break the windows of banks, luxury car dealers and the 4,000 a night Ritz hotel in Central London.  Workers Solidarity's Australian correspondent Sean Matthews argues here that a few broken windows was not violence but a legitimate display of class anger and that if anything this was a welcome distraction from the speech of the Labour leader Ed Miliband whose party initiated and imposed cuts and privatisation of public services over the last decade.

This week as Shell prepares to start construction on the final leg of their controversial Corrib gas pipeline & refinery they have faced multiple set backs. In Erris Shell were prevented accessing construction sites by a blockade of protesters on a number of days while in Dublin Shell were forced to pull out of a conference at the RDS. On top of this 22 TD's gathered under a Shell to Sea banner at the Dail demanding that the consents signed by the outgoing Fianna Fail minister on his last day in power be reversed. This public show of support for Shell to Sea by so many elected representatives is a demonstration of how strongly the public have turned against the project and the Great Oil & Gas Giveaway in general. Despite this it is now the Labour Party Minister Pat Rabbitte who is forcing the project through, who this week has refused to reverse the consents. (Photo C. William Hederman)

Once again the apostles of "liberal interventionism" are filling the newspapers and airwaves with their apologetics for Western imperialism dressed up as humanitarian mercy missions. Last Friday's UN resolution 1973 is being touted as why this latest military incursion into a middle eastern oil producing land "has nothing to do with Iraq". Yet North African and Middle Eastern voices of scepticism regarding French, UK and US motives are being systematically ignored. Here is the perspective of a Libyan anarchist, calling for support of the struggle against the tyrannical Gaddhafi regime, but fearing the Western military intervention is dividing the insurgents and burying the revolution.

Last night the United Nations imposed a no-fly zone across Libya.  While supporting the Libyan revolt the WSM in general is "against the intervention by the UN or any other collection of imperialist 'peacekeepers'" because "There can be no 'just settlement' that involves any imperialist power or the UN or similar bodies. Such settlements will be designed in order to protect the interests of the imperialists. Therefore we always oppose intervention in any region of the world for whatever reason by the imperialists."  The imposition of the no fly zone is obviously a tough case for such a general policy, below in what was originally a blog post for his own site, Mark looks at the context of the resolution and argues that the no fly zone should perhaps be an exception to this general position.

Eamonn Ryan was recently on the radio speaking against nuclear power, responding to a pro nuclear expert who had been given airtime to promote it on RTE the previous day. Eamonn was reasoned, logical, persuasive. Then the texts were read out a string of bile aimed at him and his party along the lines of "the people have spoken why are you interviewing this has been" etc. No real reference to the arguments or issues.

The election campaign and its aftermath have witnessed strident declarations that all has changed, changed utterly. Most prominent is the decimation of support for Fianna Fail, the party that has ruled 60 of the State’s 79 years of existence. Both Fine Gael and Labour have experienced remarkable success in the polls, unparallelled for the latter. These are not insignificant, but the context of continued economic crisis renders the changes in parliament relatively minor. Whatever government is formed, it will share the titanic debt burden of the previous administration. Although Fine Gael made suitably statesman-like noises about ‘renegotiation’ of the interest rate on the ECB bailout, their timid overtures won only tolerant obfuscation from Frankfurt during the campaign and categorical refusals since.

The Clarion describes itself as one of “Cork’s premier 4 Star City Centre Hotel”.  Although it’s well able to charge for its rooms it cannot find its way to granting its workers a 29 cent per hour pay rise.

It has been revealed that the decade long resistance of the people of Erris to Shell's experimental gas pipeline has now wiped out Shell's projected profits from the project. Brian O’Cathain, the Managing Director of Enterprise Energy Ireland let the cat out of the bag at a debate at the IFI on the 4th December. Instead of the 650 million dollars the project was intended to cost, Shell & partners have now spent over 3 billion dollars.

The day after Christmas 2010, Vice-President García Linera, in the absence of President Evo Morales, who was on a tour of Venezuela, announced that the state subsidies of some fuels were to be removed. He also spoke of raising taxes on some of them such as gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel. As a result, petrol rose by 72%, diesel by 84% and aviation fuel by 99%.

Many people don’t see eye to eye with the police, Anarchists much included. While this opposition can manifest itself physically when the police employ repressive tactics, it must be stressed that it has far more to do with ideology and the harsh realities of disaster-capitalism than it does with being beaten off the streets.