Workers Solidarity Movement

The ruling class in Greece in order to sustain it's power, is attacking the weakest in society, the migrants!
The plan of the government (PASOK,NEA DEMOCRATIA) with the open support of the enthusiastic, ecstatic extreme right*, is to build new camps and renovate old military camps close to the borderline, to use for the imprisonment of migrants! By the way this not a speculation, this has been announced officially a week ago now or so.

Saturday's National Rally against the Household Tax in the National Stadium was literally filled to overflowing. As well as nearly 3,000 people crammed into every possible space in the Stadium another 4 to 500 were in the car park at the side, unable to fit into the building. And the thousands who attended were angry, energized and expectant of victory. The National Stadium normally hosts boxing marches but the atmosphere on Saturday topped that of watching a home fighter coming out on top in a close fought bout.

The forcible eviction of Occupy Dame Street has once again shifted the spotlight on Occupy Belfast who have moved from their original camp at Writers Square to an iconic and listed vacant former bank building in the heart of the city centre. WSM member and Occupy Belfast activist Sean Matthews asks what next for Occupy Belfast and whether it has reached a critical mass.

The Campaign Against the Household and Water Tax (CAHWT) is on the cusp of a very significant victory – as indicated by the recent announcement that less than 20% of households in the Republic had registered with the Government to pay the new unjust tax.  This low level of compliance with Government orders is clear evidence that the Campaign has managed to tap into a rich seam of discontent.  Admittedly these are early days and the struggle has a while to go yet, but nonetheless it is an important and notable success.

Hundreds of people packed Conway Mill in West Belfast last Thursday in one of the largest gatherings in years to mark International Women’s Day against the continuing internment of Marion Price who has been held captive by the British state because of her political beliefs.

Over 150 people gathered at the Central Bank last night in the aftermath of the eviction of Occupy Dame Street (ODS). They then marched to Pearse street Garda station to demand the return of confiscated property but for unknown reasons the Garda prevented them for reaching the station, knocking many to the ground while doing so. Following on from the violence used during the 4am eviction that morning this represents a radical departure from the 'softly-softly' policing that has characterized the interactions of the state with ODS to date.

Thousands of people will be forced into poverty and homelessness as Stormont imposes the latest cut backs. Government changes mean young people aged between 24 and 35, who live alone and receive housing benefit face cuts of up to £40 a week, resulting in homelessness or forced into shared housing. These housing cuts are compounded by the lack of social and affordable housing while slum landlords and property developers continue to be subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of millions every year. 

Ireland is to have a referendum after all on the EU austerity treaty and a lot of the left is getting unreasonably excited about this. I say unreasonably because my opinion is that the referendum will not really, as the likes of the ULA claim, be a meaningful ballot on austerity. Austerity is not something simply being imposed on us by Europe through this referendum but something our domestic ruling class are already imposing and have been for a few years. Of course they have used the ECB/IMF as the 'bad cop' to scare us with and when passed will use the EU austerity treaty in the same way. But we need to recognize and organize around the fact that our local politicians and capitalist class are not really a 'good cop' eager to help us avoid the attentions of the 'bad cop' making threatening gestures at us across the room.

An email which has been circulating widely and has appeared on facebook and on many other social media sites, claiming to be from McCann Fitzgerald solicitors has been exposed as being fake.  The email claims that people won’t get a bill for the household tax because “the charge is a statute”.  It goes on to claim that because the tax is a statute it “only carries the force of law upon you if you consent to it” and that “If you do not consent [it] cannot affect you in any way whatsoever.”  

The end of the 1960’s in northern Ireland were a unique time when, as elsewhere around the world, mass popular protest emerged onto the streets with ordinary people doing extraordinary things. The unique circumstances of northern Ireland and the particular form the state backlash took there resulted in a military conflict that lasted some 30 years and dominated politics on the entire island and to a much lesser extent in Britain. Although tens if not hundreds of thousands of people made this history it can also be told as the history of some of the prominent individuals involved, including the Irish republican socialist activist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey.