Workers Solidarity Movement

We don’t know a lot about the personal life of this son of a small farmer.  He was the richest man in Ireland in 2008 with an estimated wealth of €4.7billion and now he is only out of jail because the Judge wants him to help the Irish Resolution Banking Corporation (IRBC) recover some of the €2.8 billion that he owes them.  You may never have heard of IRBC but you will know of it’s previous alias: Anglo Irish Bank,winner of the dodgiest bank award in a state where there is stiff competition for that prize.   His son is in prison, (plush Training Unit in Mountjoy) serving a sentence for what the Judge called ‘outrageous’ contempt of court as he sought to put money/assets beyond the reach of the bank.  His nephew Peter is supposed to be there for the same reason but has gone missing.  All we know about Sean – the daddy of the empire is that he’s big into the GAA and he likes to play poker for a few quid with his friends. Along with his love of poker, I would guess that Sean senior fancies the odd western.

Undoubtedly, Greece is the country that has suffered the most during this last and totally unrestrained wave of liberalization and fierce devaluation of labour which has been sweeping Europe since the start of the financial crisis in 2008. At the same time there are a multitude of political anti-systemic oppositional forces which have managed to maintain a living presence in Greek society.

The third world war

is coming

That's what they say

Fuck

This ain't gonna be

a class war either

This year marks the 76 anniversary of the ‘Spanish Civil War’ which is one of the most mis-understood conflicts in the 20^th century. For some particular those wedded to a traditional view of history the war was merely between the forces of fascism and those committed to defending the democratically elected Republican Government. It is also this time of year when we will be greeted with a range of lectures and talks organised by the Communist Party inspired International Brigades Commemoration Committee across Ireland which deliberately distorts the reality of the 'civil war'. However, for anarchists nothing could be further from the truth. The social revolutionary upheaval was not just a battle against fascism but a new society in the making-libertarian communism.

Something is changing in Spain. On Thursday 19th July, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people took to the streets against the greatest attack on Spain's welfare state in its history, in the form of cutbacks announced by the Partido Popular government. Public servants, trade unions, left wing political parties, worker organisations and unemployed people marched in 83 cities across Spain. A WSM member who returned on a visit to Toledo during Friday's protests reports on the struggle.

Four anarchists including two Greek anarchists examine the real effects of the Euro crisis on the Greek population, resistance to the attempts to impose all the costs of the crisis on ordinary Greeks and the meaning of the second round of elections in particular the role of SYRIZA

Almost a month has passed since the national conference of the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes (CAHWT). While on the surface things look pretty quiet, this is a critical juncture for the campaign. The momentum that has been lost by the attachment of the CAHWT to the unsuccessful No referendum campaign will only be rebuilt when the government make their next move, but those active in the campaign need to use the coming weeks to prepare for that eventuality.

Witness Bahrain Ireland has called a demonstration this Tuesday because two RCSI alumni (who trained in Dublin) will be sentenced this Thursday (14^th June) under scurrilous circumstances.  It is hoped that bearing witness and raising awareness about this issue will prompt the RSCI to use its influence in Bahrain[2] to help persecuted medical workers (some of whom the RSCI employs and have trained).  The two medical workers [due to receive their final sentencing on Thursday 14th] were arrested, tortured and sentenced in a military court for treating peaceful demonstrators who were victims of police brutality.[3] The RSCI response to this should be prompt, vigorous and completely unequivocal. 

Spain began this week in bailout territory. Despite the increasingly shrill warnings of imminent catastrophe from Madrid, the battle of wills between the Spanish capital and Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt has managed to avert the hour of judgement thus far. But can they achieve the aim of preventing the fall of Spain before the second Greek election?

This session of the 2012 Dublin Anarchist Bookfair looked at the value of paper and ink when the net is usually declared the real frontier. We asked our panel to track some of the connections between todays underground radical press, and what went before.

Mark Hoskins of the WSM debates MEP Paul Murphy on what positions the left should take on the Fiscal Compact to be voted on in Ireland May 31st.  The SP is arguing for a No vote, the WSM argues that the vote doesn't matter, what matters is resistance to austerity. This debate took place at the 2012 Dublin Anarchist Bookfair in Liberty Hall.