Workers Solidarity Movement

"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality"

The first solidarity convoy from Ireland to Calais returned a few days ago and Mairead Mary Frances Healy posted a great report on what was done (below) that has now been turned into this graphic. We applaud this solidarity with those who have spent the summer fighting the racist border policy of Fortress Europe through the direct action of breaking down the fences.

They painted our red and black flags and banners with blood and flesh of our comrades. Those responsible for the massacre are out there. We know them from Haymarket, Bloody Sunday, Mayday 1977 Istanbul Massacre, Reyhanli, Gezi Uprising, Roboski Massacre, Diyarbakir Dungeons and Suruç. We know them from the daily exploitation of a thousand year. They stand before us merciless, smirking.

We remember Ali Kitapci, the first person to organise for the anarcho-syndicalist cause in modern Turkey. He was one of the 14 members of Independent Transportation Union killed in the Ankara bombing on Saturday. He first get involved with the anarchist movement in England and continued to be active for the last 30 years. Apart from his fight for syndicalism, he was an active member of many anarchist organisations in Ankara from the second half of 1980s.

There will be a protest at the Turkish embassy in Dublin this Thursday at 18.30.  The embassy is on Raglan Road.  FB Event

Yesterday saw the tragic deaths of ten people that were killed in a fire that engulfed their home in a halting site for travellers in South Dublin. The people killed in the fire includes five children under the age of ten, and one of the children was six months old. The fire brigade was called at around 4am. The fire brigade took two adults and two children from the scene who are being treated in hospital. It is believed there were two families living in the halting site.

Last week some of the Ireland to Calais refugee solidarity convoy were on the road in the vicinity of the Calais migrant camp when they witnessed and recorded a pepper spray drive by attack by the French police on a group of women standing by the road side.

Shorting after yesterday's bombing of a pro-Kurdish peace rally in Ankara, the capitol city of the Turkish state out friends in DAF released the statement below.  Since the release the death toll from the bombing has gone over 100 people and is expected to rise further.

CAN’T BE FORGOTTEN, CAN’T BE FORGIVEN

The 8th Belfast Anarchist Bookfair takes place Saturday and WSM will be there. Call by our stall for a chat during the day.

BABF is at a new venue this year, Oh Yeah Music Centre, 15-21 Gordon Street, from Midday

Stalls by Solidarity Federation, Alliance for Choice, Abortion Rights Campaign, AK Press, Art n Anarchy, Anarchist Federation, Anti-Racism Network Ireland, Bundschuh Conspiracy (T-shirts), Die Rex, IWW, Just Books, Sex Workers Alliance Ireland, Workers Solidarity Movement, Queer Action, Rebel County Books.

A few kilometres away from the small Serbian border town of Sid, a dirt track through corn and turnip fields serves as passage to tens of thousands of women, men and children seeking refuge and lives of more possibility.

The unofficial border crossing between Serbia and Croatia is surrounded by sun-lit verdant fields, apple orchards in the distance and a calm that brings temporary respite to those who have been on the road for weeks or months. The threat of militarised borders and recent memory of dehumanising conditions along the way is temporarily kept at bay as those walking stop to drink freshly pressed apple cider handed out by a local farmer, chat and rest before they continue on.

About 10 days ago three van loads of riot cops arrived at the door to No 2 Gardiner Place at around 9am,  There they formed a Roman style tortoise shell shield formation and proceeded to start to batter the door down.  Once in they stormed through the building, arresting the residents and dragged them down to the High Court for an eviction / injunction hearing at which they were forced to agree not to try and re-enter the house.  No media outlet deemed any of this worthy of coverage.

Solidarity Times had been in the building the previous week, shooting some video in anticipation of a campaign in opposition to the eviction.  We’re assembled a video report on the space from that footage as yet another example of the vast amount of empty housing that is around even inner city Dublin. Homelessness is not caused by a lack of usable buildings but by deliberately leaving such buildings empty and boarded up in order to create the scarcity that is seeing rent hikes and a new property bubble.