Interview with Dublin squatters about opening a new place

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Huge numbers of people are now effectively homeless as they are unable to find somewhere stable to rent. Fortunately only a minority have been forced onto the streets so far, Dublin's hotels are full of families on 3 day rotation emergency accommodation. In some hotels such families are not allowed to use the front entrance. Thousands of others are forced to move into already overcrowded accommodation, perhaps with parents or friends. Yet more are coach surfing, moving around as they exhaust the charity of friends. And a growing number are sleeping on the streets or in tents, van and cars in park and industrial estates.

LUAS workers 'spitting on the constitution says right wing nut

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George Hook doesn't take kindly to workers standing up to a multi-billion euro company for a bigger slice of the astronomical profits that those workers themselves generate.
 
LUAS workers are currently demanding better pay and conditions in the form of increased leave, overtime pay, increased lump sum payments to family members in case of death at work, pensions and bonuses. The cost of these is estimated to be around €3.5 million over a 5 year contract, which is dwarfed by Transdev's 2014 revenues, coming in at €6.6 billion globally.
 
That doesn't sound unreasonable considering that these same workers, and the 83,000 other Transdev employees like them around the world are the ones who generate this revenue.

Cadbury strikers resisting race to the bottom as parent company makes 2 billion profits

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Our solidarity to Cadburys workers who today begin an indefinite strike at the Coolock plant against the outsourcing of jobs.  The company is trying to destroy 17 properly paid and pensionable jobs to replace them with minimum wage ones.

Newstalk push the narrative of 'recovery'

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We're paraphrasing but that's the argument put forward by a veteran member of everyone's favourite gombeen party, Fianna Fail.In a debate with TD Paul Murphy on Newstalk's 'The Right Hook' earlier Noel managed to articulate the truly astounding narrative that if Fianna Fail, and the political remora fish that is the Green Party, had not gifted tens of billions of our taxes to secured and unsecured bondholders, we wouldn't have any money in our bank accounts.
 

Resisting closed borders at the Ha'Penny bridge in Dublin

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27 Feb at the Ha’penny bridge, as part of a European-wide day of protest, a crowd gathered to make a public display of resistance against the closed borders and direct provision policies of Ireland. The people refuse to silently tolerate the way mothers, fathers, sons and daughters who find themselves attempting to escape war and/or poverty are treated by and in our comparatively affluent society.

Families Resisting Being Made Homeless for Profit - DCC & Building Occupied

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The families who were being housed in an emergency accommodation facility on 54-55 Mountjoy street and were to be evicted today have been fighting back. Yesterday afternoon they occupied the DCC offices, demanding that officals talk to them collectively.  And this morning they occupied the buidling they are being evicted from, hanging banners from the upper floor as a solidarity protest took place below.

Book Review: Kristin Ross Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune

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Kristin Ross has written a beautiful, inspirational account of the life and afterlife of the Paris Commune and of the everyday communards who brought it to fruition.

“Communal Luxury” takes as its subject matter the Paris Commune of 1871, one of the single greatest advances toward a free society ever attempted in human history. The Commune arose in the course of a devastating war between France and Prussia (Germany), with the French army’s defeat prompting the collapse of the imperialist, authoritarian French regime. The people of Paris organised their own defence, bought their own cannons, and refused to hand said cannons over to the new French Republic. Instead, staging a worker-led insurrection, they declared Paris to be liberated from both the French and Prussian forces and set about constructing a free society, one in which all comers participated in decision-making and all wealth was shared in common. The Commune lasted some 72 days in the spring of 1871 before being brutally crushed by the reactionary forces of Nation, Church, State and Capital. Some 25,000 men, women, and children were executed.

 

Election 2016 - beyond the five year scratch ration

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Five years ago we all scratched bits of paper, and a new government was formed. Today, in 2016, with we are five years down the road, and here we are scratching more paper, and another new government will be formed. It may be different from the last one or it might be the same, but ultimately the policies will appear to be remarkably similar. To serve the economy above all others appears to be the top priority for all governments.