Workers Solidarity Movement

September-October issue of WSM's freesheet.

• The system works...for the rich
• Why can’t all the socialists get together?
• TV Review: The Wire
• Capitalism & war in the Caucasus
• The DUP and creationism
• Hamas, the left and ‘liberation’ in Palestine
• The Recession and housing
• Uncovering fraud where none exists 
• Capitalism and the exploitation of women 
• WTO trade negotiations 

The system works...for the rich
Unemployment has risen by a third in the last year and everyone agrees that worse times are ahead. Worries about losing jobs and not being able to pay the mortgage are growing. Whose fault is it? Is it the politicians administering the economy, or is it the capitalist economy itself?

Why can’t all the socialists get together?
The Irish Socialist Network is talking to a half dozen other groups about unity. The Socialist Workers Party, always in a hurry, simply wants everyone else to join their People Before Profit creation. Every few years we see the same game played, “why won’t the Judean Peoples Front join the Judean Popular Front?”

TV Review: The Wire 
Raked over in newspapers since the fifth and final series made its way on to TnaG, it's hard to write anything new about the Wire. It's a portrait of America through Baltimore and the cop show vehicle; of failing school systems and crumbling communities, where drugs gangs and cops act in similar flurries of selfish brutality.

Capitalism & war in the Caucasus 
Some things in life are pretty obvious. One is that you don’t attack a heavily armed gang that outnumbers you 30 to 1.  So what was Georgian leadership thinking when it ordered an attack on South Ossetia? 

The DUP and creationism 
Senior members of the DUP have been busy embarrassing themselves over the last few weeks.Comments by Ian Paisley Jr that the PSNI should shoot dissident republicans on sight indicate the ingrained right-wing stance of the party. Meanwhile his colleagues have been outdoing him in making their party a laughing stock. Iris Robinson repeatedly put her foot in it by describing homosexuality as an abomination while Edwin Poots and Meryvn Storey clambered somewhere back to the bronze age in their bid to have Christian creationism taught in science class.

Hamas, the left and ‘liberation’ in Palestine 
Hamas' recent "clampdown" on Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade in Gaza, rather then its ongoing brutal repression against leftist dissent, including that of feminist voices, dominated Western coverage of life in the occupied territories.

The Recession and housing
The recession in the economy means that working people are having to come to terms with growing house repossessions, below inflation pay-increases, and a steep rise in the cost of living. Meanwhile, property developers and banks are busy using the credit crunch and the downturn in the housing market to get Government bail outs

Uncovering fraud where none exists 
The DSFA is characterising many cases of overpayment as fraud when they are simply due to alleged changes in circumstances since the original decision was made

Capitalism and the exploitation of women 
While the struggles of Irish women for greater liberties during the last century have improved our lives in many ways, the drudgery of housework remains thankless and the workplace has not brought the liberation that certain feminists promised. As anarchists see it, this is because as long as we live in a capitalist society women (or men) can never be meaningfully liberated.

WTO trade negotiations
The recent bitter collapse of the Doha round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks has put the WTO back in the news around the world. The latest talks failed in large part because rich countries refuse to reduce subsidies to their own farmers, while insisting that the poor countries should reduce theirs.

Navy Called in as Corrib Protest Escalates
The Irish navy gunboat, the LE Orla has been mobilized in the latest escalation of the standoff between Shell, the Irish state and Shell to Sea campaigners in County Mayo. 

Thats capitalism

[PDF of southern edition of WS 105] [PDF of northern edition of WS 105]