Workers Solidarity Movement

The 1% Network has announced final details of the “Political Walking Tour through the Heartland of the Golden Circle” and has invited “anyone who cares about finding a just solution to the economic crisis” to “come and see how the 1% live.” The tour will set off from the Wolfe Tone monument, St. Stephens Green on Saturday next, 9^th October, at 1p.m. and will take a route through Dublin 2 and 4 which, according to the 1% Network “are littered with the landmarks of power and wealth of the 1%”.

The 1% Network has released a video promoting Saturdays tour of the mansions, private banks and clubs of the wealthy 1% in Dublin 2 and 4.

The 1% Network has said that the tackling of wealth inequality must become a political priority.  Citing the TASC survey[i] published in mid-August which showed that 87% of Irish people believe that wealth is unfairly distributed, Gregor Kerr spokesperson for the 1% Network said: “It’s clear that ordinary people see tackling the unfair way in which wealth is distributed in this country as something which should be a political priority.  The government want to continue to take the easy option of cutting public services and taking money from the pockets of ordinary people.  But the rest of us know that it is unfair that the 1% who own 34% of the wealth should continue to be protected while the we suffer.”

The 1% network has announced details of a ‘political walking tour’ through the affluent districts of Dublin 2 and Dublin 4. The tour, which will bring protesters through the ‘heartland of the Golden Circle’, will stop at a number of locations, including the new headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank on Burlington Road, property developer Johnny Ronan’s property on Burlington Road and IBEC headquarters on Baggot Street. The tour will assemble at the Wolfe Tone Monument on Stephens Green at 1pm on Saturday, October 9th, 2010.

While the dust settles and Christchurch recovers from the 7.1 earthquake, people have begun to pick up the pieces and get on with their lives. But for many working class people this is not so easy. Those most affected by ‘natural disasters’ — whether by the tsunami in the Pacific, earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and now Christchurch, NZ — are those already on the margins of despair.

The news has emerged over the weekend that 900 homes a month are being disconnected from the electricity grid because they were not able to pay their bills. (1) A further 11,000 bill payers a month are entering into  special re-payment options  because they’ve already contacted the Electricity Supply Board to say that they are having difficulty making the payment.

The newspeak word that was used in the press release by the ESB was ‘de-energizing’ customers. 

INTO Vote No

Public Sector Deal - 10 Reasons to Vote No

On April 26, 2010, some twenty militants and international observers set off for San Juan Copala, a village of around 700 inhabitants located about 250 kilometers from the city of Oaxaca and belonging to the Triqui ethnic group who live in the Sierra Mixteca region. Arriving in Huajuapan de Leon, where the convoy spent the night, they distributed a text denouncing the paramilitary group UBISORT (Unidad de Bienstar Social de la Región Triqui, Unity of Social Wellbeing of the Triqui Region), which had maintained a state of siege against the village of San Juan Copala, controlling the comings and goings of its residents.

 The failure of Obama to live up to expectations can be disempowering to many on the Left, even those who understand the limitations of the current political system and how it truly serves only a wealthy elite. We must fight against this tendency with all of our might. Now more than ever, those who are committed to a just society must put forth a viable alternative to the present system, both through words and deeds.Obama’s charisma and oratory was all too achingly reminiscent of fallen civil rights leaders, playing on people’s longing for a time free of today’s suffocating cynicism, when change seemed not only possible, but tangible.

The CPSU activist group have produced a leaflet calling on members of the CPSU to vote No to the public sector deal.  "Many public sector workers have been shocked and angered that such a deal was agreed in the first place, some general secretaries including our own tried to present the deal as some kind of “victory”. Of course we can now see clearly that this is a rotten deal."