Workers Solidarity Movement

Workers Solidarity spoke to Dave Higgins of the recently formed Cork Social Welfare Defenders.

WS Who’s in the group, what’s your reason for organising?

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.

It’s great to live in a democracy, right? From the moment we are old enough to grasp the concept, the idea that we live in the freest of all possible worlds is drummed into us. From the pages of our school history books to the celluloid magic of our favourite movies, our way of life is portrayed as the ideal, one which we must preserve at all costs and, if possible, export to the less fortunate.

Fintan O’Toole appears to want us to be listened to as citizens and believes that political reform is crucial. It is a natural reaction after witnessing the cronyism of Fianna Fáil in power over the last 13 years and how they’ve acted in favour of the ruling elite. The fact that I, as a taxpayer on €40,000 p.a., will pay exactly the same amount of tax as one on €300,000 p.a. puts that sharply into focus.

As the health budget is cut, a worsening health service will predictably result in higher national morbidity and mortality. Are we prepared to allow this to occur?

This film brings to the big screen the dramatic story of Shell’s blundering, sometimes violent, attempts to impose a high-pressure raw gas pipeline on a small North Mayo community. The documentary features footage taken over three years, from 2006 to 2008, by Risteard O’Domhnaill. It has all the ingredients, stunning landscapes, riveting action scenes and the real-life stories of local people who found themselves on the front line of the drama. The film is short on background to the whole issue and mentions very little on the actual dangers posed by the pipeline and refinery, as well as the giveaway terms the oil companies ‘extracted’ from Irish state.  However, in Willie Corduff, and particularly in Pat O’Donnell, the filmmaker has struck cinema gold. Through the words and, especially, the actions of these figures we get a good picture of just what’s at stake here and what it takes to engage in effective resistance.

January - February 2011 Edition of the Workers Solidarity freesheet.

PDF of Workers Solidarity 119 Web Edition 2.4 Mb

Government Attacks on Healthcare
Change Won't Come From the Ballot Box
Thinking About Anarchism: Can Ireland Go It Alone?
People Power in Tunisia
The Budget & The Rich
Review: The Pipe
Wikileaks: Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?

PDF of Workers Solidarity 119 Web Edition 2.4 Mb

On Saturday December 18th last, the Tunisian police stopped Mohamed Bouaziz, an unemployed university graduate, and seized the hand cart of fruit and vegetables he had been selling to support himself and his family. Enraged by the injustice and despairing of any escape from destitution and starvation in Tunisia’s impoverished economy, increasingly ravaged by rising food prices, the young man set fire to himself in protest outside the town hall in Sidi Bouzid, 200km south-west of the capital Tunis. The young man was later to die in hospital.

The government’s economic think-tank, the ESRI, wrote in the Irish Times in the aftermath of the budget that the measures taken over the past four years have been “strongly progressive” i.e. that they redistributed wealth from the rich to the poor. However, this is a somewhat convenient timeframe to apply and ignores the impacts of the measures announced in the 2011 budget.