Workers Solidarity Movement

“Ordinary people are being sacrificed on the altar of international capitalism.  We absolutely must step up the protests against what’s being done to us.” – Gregor Kerr, 1% Network spokesperson

The 1% Network has called on “workers, the unemployed and all who care about any form of democracy or equality” to protest outside the Dáil on Budget night, Tuesday 7^th December.

With the European Central Bank in partnership with the IMF taking over the running of Ireland's economic policy and hence social policy for the next few years we thought it timely to revisit the weekend of Mayday 2004 when Dublin saw major protests against the EU summit and the neo-liberal policies that were being adopted. This is not an article about how “right” anarchist were about the EU, but we thought it timely to remind people of the biggest, openly organised weekend of protest against hierarchy, power and capitalism Ireland has so far seen.  It includes a 30 minute documentary that shows the highlights of the weekend that we think has not yet been put online.

You have a gathering of nearly a 100,000 people, many of them active trade union members, and we are supposed to phone up one delusional Green party leader and try to get him to do our bidding. We, as workers and trade Union members are supposed to have that power to change things. We can do so by withdrawing our Labour! We do not do it by putting through phone calls like we are voting in the X-Factor and praying that our voice prevails.

The latest Wikileaks release of “diplomatic” communications has unearthed some new information about the US military's use of Shannon airport. Whilst the Irish government have always tried to downplay the role that Shannon airport plays in the mass murder of people of colour and the geopolitical power plays of the US and UK, it was clear in 2005, when this cable was written, that Shannon airport was a significant “stopover” for the US industrial-military complex