Workers Solidarity Movement

From across the country, over three hundred members of the Campaign against Household and Water Taxes attended an open discussion in the Red Cow, Tallaght about the future of the campaign as it faces into a new phase of opposition in 2013. The numbers attending far exceeded the organisers’ expectations and delayed the start of the meeting for half an hour.

One of the chapters in Wayne Price’s invaluable book is entitled ‘The Capitalist Epoch of Decline’ and it is hard to imagine that we are living in anything else. All of capitalism’s men are rushing around attempting to get the wheels back on the cart that is taking us ever-faster to hell. For many people at this stage it has become obvious that putting the wheels back on does nothing for the ultimate destination.

The numbers at Saturday’s anti-austerity march were impressive given the relatively low key build up, but what was more impressive was the militant mood of the protesters. This was exemplified by the booing and heckling of ICTU president Eugene Mc Glone with chants calling for a General Strike. Mc Glone, in the style of a seasoned professional union official managed to pick himself up and give a speech which though cynical in delivery, bore more than a grain of truth that the radical left should not dismiss out of hand.

On Saturday, more than 15,000 people marched through Dublin to demand an end to austerity and to oppose the State’s transferring of the financial crisis on to the shoulders of the working class.  Organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions and the Campaign against the Household and Water Taxes, the march offered people an opportunity to pressure the government prior to the budget and to raise the profile of the CAHWT, already the most popular act of civil disobedience since the foundation of the state.

On the weekend of 5th-7th October, Anti-Fascist Action Ireland held a series of events to celebrate their twenty one years in existence. The organisation was founded in 1991 with the aim of fighting fascism both physically and ideologically as and where the need arises.

The WSM are calling for people to march with us on an anti-authoritarian block for this year’s May Day march which is happening on the day itself, Tuesday 1st May, assembling in Parnell Square from 18.30hrs.

The Dublin Council of Trade Unions are the organisers of this event, and this year the theme is the anti-household tax, which has seen the start of a movement against the presiding wisdom of the 1% and the government for stringent austerity. People have seized onto the idea that it is not alright for us to continue to pick up the tab for the bosses, the developers, the banks, and the rich.

To what extent do the revolutions and revolts of 2011 reflect a new world born from the shell of the old? Were these revolts of the internet generation -- networked individuals? Are people not only using new technology but becoming transformed by it? For anarchists, what lessons can we learn and to what extent must we transform our organisational methods and structures?

Because of the length of this review
its been made available as a 15 page
PDF file to download and read off line.

Andrew Flood looks at Paul Mason's recently published book 'Why its kicking off everywhere' and in particular what Mason has to say about the internet and the emergance of the 'Networked Individual'.   The recording is of a WSM supporters meeting in Dublin and the 20 minute presentation is followed by 30 minutes of discussion on the ideas outlined, roughly as summarised below.

The talk was part of the preparation for an 18,000 word review & discussion of 'Why its kicking off everywhere'.

As has happened for the last two years, Solidarity Books and Cork WSM hosted an event on the 8^th of March to celebrate International Women's Day. This year, Cork WSM members and other activists got together to put on an evening of food, film and discussion in the city's premier radical bookshop and meeting space. Meals were prepared on site and served by Veg Out! and Lentil Disorder, and was enjoyed by a multitude of women and men from the Cork activist scene and beyond. The food fuelled an hour or more of convivial chat, as people reminisced over previous celebrations and cast an eye over feminist-themed displays in various places about the shop space.

A large force of Garda and council workers were deployed at 3.30am today, International Women's Day, to clear Occupy Dame Street (ODS) camp. The camp was completely demolished in the course of the eviction, campers intimidated and their personal property stolen. This was a level of force way out of proportion with the numbers in the camp (about 15 people) and stands in contrast with the lack of resources put into investigating what happened at Anglo, the collapse of which has left a debt of 26,000 Euro on every single person in the country.  

A General Assembly will take place at the former camp location at the Central Bank at 18.00 this evening.