Workers Solidarity Movement

Why have there been pickets outside massage parlours on Dorset St? Do they really pose any danger? Do these protests help those who work there, or actually make them more afraid and isolated? Watch the video below.

Fascist mini-party Britain First and a couple other Promethean torch-bearers of the master race have been invited to speak at a loyalist rally in Belfast (Loyal People’s Protest) by unionist councillor Jolene Bunting, formerly of Traditional Unionist Voice. The rally ironically ‘in memory of victims of terrorism’ will take place this Sunday 6th August, at City Hall (Donegal Square East), at 11am. An anti-fascist counter demonstration has been organised and all who oppose the scourge of fascism and xenophobia are welcome to attend. Hilariously the invitation of Britain First has already caused ructions between loyalists.

Those unfamiliar with Britain First and their ilk may ask why people would organise a counter protest to them. Much material is available online to answer this question, but here is a very brief introduction, assuming that any reasonable person can immediately see why any fascist group needs to be opposed at every turn, especially at a time when we are seeing a resurgence of the far right.

If you want to cringe hard, watch the Fine Gael PR team's latest attempt to make Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney look human.  The comments section is uplifting and worth a read, another case of an arrogant elitist organisation thinking they can put out any auld waffle without a kickback from the people they abuse [1].
 

This is a detailed guide on how to make a political banner for a demonstration or banner drop. It uses 3 real examples to illustrate. [Download as PDF]

These 3 banners are:

1. The May Day banner. Made for the anarchist bloc called by the WSM for Dublin's May Day march 2017.
2. The Pride banner. Made for the Working Class Queeroes "Fucking Dregs" bloc on Dublin LGBTQ Pride 2017.
3. The Drop banner. Made for a banner drop by the Working Class Queeroes in the morning of the same Pride.

Being a good political organiser involves quite a large set of skills which take years of practical experience to hone. The manual on how to be a good organiser - if one could even be written - would be a book large enough to be covered by the Offensive Weapons Act. This is a basic primer on what makes a good organiser rather than a shoddy one, focusing on the kind of traits you should be trying to develop over time. None of us lives up to these all of the time, but it's what we should aspire to and move closer towards continuously. [Download as PDF]

The 8 traits are:

1. Reliable
2. Co-operative
3. Independent
4. Communicates Clearly
5. Realistic
6. Ambitious
7. Secure
8. Growing

A march was called in Tallaght on May 6^th 2017 by the Jobstown Not Guilty campaign to protest against a severe crackdown on working class resistance and the criminalisation of protest generally.
 

I'm not a bad protester, I promise. I'm a good protester. I'll be a good protester!

The farce that is the Jobstown [1] trial has mostly been a back and forth about what kind of protest is acceptable and right. Did the people of Jobstown keep Joan Burton and her assistant waiting for too long? Were they too foul mouthed? Too angry? Did they bang on the car too much? What about kids throwing water balloons? The infamous Jobstown brick? Maybe we should put them in prison then. At the heart of this argument is a very important notion: splitting people into 'Good Protesters' and 'Bad Protesters'. This article lays out exactly how that works, and how we should counter this divide and conquer tactic.

Welcome to the land of saints and hoarders. The richest 300 people in Ireland have doubled their wealth from €50Bn to €100Bn in the last 7 years. That means the number of people who’d fit in a large pub have enough money to have paid the original bank bailout of €64Bn outright (and still be so rich they wouldn’t have to work a day).

The WSM’s politics are fundamentally intersectional. ‘Intersectionality’ is a fancy word for some rather basic ideas. You can think of it as ‘overlap-ism’ instead. There are three main points, 1) that each person needs to be seen as a whole, 2) that no power system exists in isolation, and 3) that all forms of oppression and exploitation should be uprooted at the same time.

The first point refers to the fact that real people aren’t cartoons. We are each complicated and multi-dimensional. For instance, a person is not just ‘working class’. They also have a gender. In general, life for a working class woman will be significantly different than for a working class man, not only because a woman is oppressed by sexism but because class itself is experienced differently.