Workers Solidarity Movement

Even at this late stage in the game, water charge campaigners still come across the odd person on the street who will parrot the government propaganda line "We have to pay for water". Of course, this line is nonsense as we already pay for our water through general taxation and paying extra billions to an utter failure like Irish Water, which they'll just waste on consultants fees, is lunacy.

As we know, Irish Water was set up solely as a tool to facilitate the privatisation of our water infrastructure, not to fix leaks. Water conservation, upgrading of our infrastructure and other justifications are just pretexts for a long term plan to transfer public assets to private investors who will squeeze every cent out of us for access to this vital resource.

Fortunately, most people understood this and boycotted Irish Water right from the beginning, which is why we are where we are with mass cancellation of direct debits to the company. Irish Water will be scrapped alright, but by working class direct action, not by the maneuverings of political careerists in the Dáil.

So keep up the boycott, keep blocking meter installation and keep organising because every action we take against Irish Water is an action that moves us closer to the kind of world we want to live in, a world where the needs of humanity triumph over the insatiable greed of the few.

The Right tend to get a little panicky when working class people organise and engage in direct action. We saw this over the past 12 months where media outlets consistently published smear stories aimed at water charge protesters but today on George Hook's radio show The Right Hook, George (jokingly) suggested that we need a 'benign despot' to ensure stability and order.

While this was meant in a light hearted way, it is actually fairly indicative of the reaction of the right wing to growing working class power. When a left wing party or movement is even perceived by them to be powerful enough to challenge right wing political dominance, the right's first thought is of using the military to 'restore order'.

Actual use of military force to crush left wing forces is common, probably the most well known example is the coup d'etat against Salvador Allende's left wing government in Chile on September 11th 1973.
While we aren't expecting armoured personnel carriers to confront us on the next water meter blockade, we should remember that as working class power continues to grow, so does the paranoia of the capitalist class and their right wing helpers.

George can rest easy for the moment though, we haven't yet got to the stage where the working class has built enough power to take over and run our country. We're working on that though.