Workers Solidarity Movement

Last month, a Red-C opinion poll in the Irish Examiner stated that some 48% of the 1,010 adults surveyed believe that Ireland should continue complying with the terms and conditions of the EU/IMF bailout. Somehow this translated into the headline “Majority of public want us to obey bailout”. On the poll’s own premises, this statement is untrue, unless 48 is now greater than 52 per cent. To be sure, opinion polls aren’t necessarily false. In terms of straight-forward questions about people’s intended behaviour - like “how will you vote in the next referendum?” - their accuracy tends to be borne out in subsequent voting patterns. However, when more complicated questions come into play, like those concerning Ireland’s compliance with an EU/IMF bailout, opinion polling, as a mode of honest inquiry, starts to encounter serious limitations.

“Nobody’s Unpredictable”
- Orwellian tagline for marketing research company, Ipsos

Two leaders died over this weekend. Kim-il Jong, the isolated “dear leader” Stalinist North Korea, and Vaclav Havel a playwright, and former dissident, an ex prisoner who become the leader of his country out of the dark times of totalitarianism and into the light of the free markets. The story in the west will be spun in this way as people understand simple stories of good guys and bad guys.

Ignoring cries of “Behind you!” as stock villain David Cameron skulked behind them waving his “veto”, Europe’s leaders announced to the world last week that, this time, they had definitely fixed the crisis in the Eurozone. “Oh, no you haven’t!” jibed the media, “Oh yes we have!” Merkozy and the Eurocrats blustered desperately. “Oh no you haven’t!” responded the markets this week.

This conversation between anarchists from the so-called “peripherals” in the Eurozone, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain took place by timely coincidence on the very day that saw the birth of the Spanish M15 movement.  This spread for a period around the globe and was to some degree a precursor or pattern for the “Occupy Everywhere” movement which emerged later this year. On a historical point of interest, in this conversation we also look at the precursor to the M15 movement, the March 12th mass demonstrations in Portugal called by the Geração À Rasca movement.

During the upsurge of protest in Egypt ahead of the elections, protests that demanded that the miltary step down and the 12,000 political prisoners be released the WSM signed the following international solidarity statement initiated by the Egyptian Libertarian Socialist Movement on Anarkismo.net.

The statement signed by 23 organisations in 20 countries was also published in [العربية] [Català] [Castellano] [Français] [Ελληνικά] [Italiano] and [Danish].

This year as every year I went back to the place of my birth, Greece. I go back to Greece once, sometimes twice a year if I can. The experience of my last and recent visit to the place was a different experience all together that has me sick to my stomach and feeling extremely upset. 

Here in Ireland I read about Greece on a daily bases on the web, in the liberal mainstream and radical press and as well as I keep regular contact with people though phone calls and the internet. This gives me the false impression that I understand the current situation in Greece even though I'm living 2500 miles away from the place for a good 11 years now. Primarily I went back  to meet good friends and family but also because I have that odd habit to travel around the place try to figure out things for myself.

The court psychiatrists evaluation of Norwegian neo-fascist killer Anders Breivik as paranoid schizophrenic follows in a long line of similar evaluations of recent far-right murderous attackers in Western Europe and gives the lie to the notion that the political abuse of psychiatry was a phenomenon of the former USSR alone. By rendering his crimes "apolitical" the official version of "not bad, just mad" absolves the propagandists of the hate that motivates Breivik and other far-right extremist killers of any responsibility for their violence. The Daily Mail's Melanie Phillips, whose vile stream of hate-propaganda against muslims was extensively quoted in Breivik's manifesto for murder, will doubtless be toasting the Norwegian psychiatrists verdict with champagne. (Pic: Passport photo of Breivik released by Norwegian police for press use)

As revolution once more erupts in Egypt Yasser Abdullah from the Egyptian Libertarian Socialist Movement has explained what is going on in two interviews with Anarkismo.net. He outlines the origins of this latest phase of the revolution, of note is how a sit-in of just a few dozen a few days ago was the catalyist that has resulted in the mobilizations of hundreds of thousands. (Image: Lilian Wagdy)

Yasser looks at the relationship between the Islamists including the Muslim Brotherhood and the military council (SCAF) and how those defending the square on the 20th were the "the main revolutionary forces and the unorganised youth" and not the brotherhood. On the 20th Yasser concludes by saying "the people now realize that their power lies in a leaderless, collective movement."

By the 22nd Sharraf’s government is offering to resign and Yasser is outlining what the demands of the people are and that the Egyptian anarchist communist movement is using the slogan "All power to the people" and "calling for civil disobedience all over Egypt and for a general strike by the Egyptian workers."

Armoured cars and tanks and guns did not come to take away their sons, but the peoples of Greece and Italy last week found that their elected governments had been replaced overnight by a new postmodern dictatorship of ECB-appointed "technocrat" Viceroys. Clearly in the new Eurozone, the old liberal dogma that modern capitalism and liberal democracy are joined at the hip, has turned out to be just another fairy story.

Comrades from Cairo explain why they are puzzled by the offer of Occupy Wall Street to send election monitors to Egypt for the elections when "Our struggle—which we think we share with you—is greater and grander than a neatly functioning parliamentary democracy; we demanded the fall of the regime, we demanded dignity, freedom and social justice, and we are still fighting for these goals. We do not see elections of a puppet parliament as the means to achieve them."