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Organising against the household tax - You have a role to play
Date: Wed, 2011-08-10 10:25
Workers Solidarity Movement members are currently centrally involved in helping to establish a campaign against the new household tax announced by the government. For this campaign to be successful it will have to be built at a local level in every area of Dublin and in every town and city around the country. The central plank of the campaign will be non-payment and it will be based on the successful anti-water charges campaign of the 1990s.
A co-ordinating group for the campaign currently exists which consists of representatives of most of the left-wing political parties/organisations. The plan is that as local campaigns are established this co-ordinating group will be replaced by a structure representative of the local campaign groups.
A national meeting in the form of a workshop/forum aimed at arming activists with the political arguments for a non -payment campaign and discussing the practicalities of organising the campaign in local communities will be held on Saturday 10th September at 1:30p.m. in the Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square, Dublin 1. This meeting is open to anyone who wants to get involved in helping to build the campaign.
The rough plan that we will be aiming to get up and running ASAP is as follows - members/supporters/contacts of the different political organisations will be put in touch with each other at a local level in the next couple of weeks;
initial public meetings will be held in September/October; this will be followed by local door-knocking i.e. distribution of a newsletter and asking people to sign up to non-payment pledge over September - November;
hopefully this will lead to real campaign groups in as many areas as possible leading to the foundation of a federation of local campaigns by early January.
This needs the active involvment of as many people as possible - both people who have been involved in campaigns before and, more importantly, people who have never been involved in any campaigning before. Those who have been involved in similar campaigns before will bring considerable experience and ideas to the tactical development of the campaign. But the key ingredient needed now is the energy and enthusiasm of the many thousands of people who see this tax as unfair and unjust and who view this as an opportunity to organise against the constant attacks on us by government policy.
We hope that you will be able to put some effort into helping establish this campaign in your area. Those of us that have experience of similar campaigns in the past will of course be available to assist with this in any way we can. WSM are anxious that as many anarchists/left libertarians as possible become involved so that we can encourage and support the building of local groups on a libertarian and democratic basis.
If you are willing to get involved and if you are ok with us sharing your contact details with others in your area, please reply to the following questions:
1. Are you going to be available to help organise a campaign group in your local area ?
2. What area do you live in?
3. If needed, are you available to help organise the campaign in areas where we have no contacts?
by emailing kerrgregor@yahoo.co.uk.
If you want more information or would like to discuss this further you can also text or ring Gregor Kerr on 086 1501151.
Our unity is our strength. Please get involved and do your bit to help kickstart the campaign.