The rolling out of the red carpet by Sinn Féin to a delegation from the Zionist Likud Party Israel is a symptom of a corrupt political process built on protecting the privileges and power of the few.

Sinn Fein’s so-called ‘anti-imperialist’ credentials were put out in the dustbin the moment they became a firm pillar of the establishment and British rule. Not to mention their role in implementing a brutal austerity agenda that has inflicted devastation and misery in working class communities

Have you been noticing pro-choice graffiti around Belfast recently?  There has been a massive increase in the amount of political propaganda around Belfast the past few weeks, which has most likely been inspired by the recent criminalisation of a young woman for having an illegal abortion here; something that many women are forced to do.

Our reporter talked to some of the people involved.  
"It’s important to strike every blow we can against things as they stand, no matter how small the blow provided the outcome is bigger than the input.

We are constantly subjected to sexist advertising on billboards and outside shops and religious propaganda on buses, it is only right that we take back the city to display our demands, and our messages.

Since the beginning of March there has been in France a strong protest movement against the El Khomri bill. This bill is supposed to be a complete reorganisation of our labour code. The law would encroach upon our established social rights and degrade our working conditions (increasing working hours, easier redundancy, weaker defences in case of conflict with an employer, etc).

“Communal Luxury” takes as its subject matter the Paris Commune of 1871, one of the single greatest advances toward a free society ever attempted in human history. The Commune arose in the course of a devastating war between France and Prussia (Germany), with the French army’s defeat prompting the collapse of the imperialist, authoritarian French regime. The people of Paris organised their own defence, bought their own cannons, and refused to hand said cannons over to the new French Republic. Instead, staging a worker-led insurrection, they declared Paris to be liberated from both the French and Prussian forces and set about constructing a free society, one in which all comers participated in decision-making and all wealth was shared in common. The Commune lasted some 72 days in the spring of 1871 before being brutally crushed by the reactionary forces of Nation, Church, State and Capital. Some 25,000 men, women, and children were executed.

Five years ago we all scratched bits of paper, and a new government was formed. Today, in 2016, with we are five years down the road, and here we are scratching more paper, and another new government will be formed. It may be different from the last one or it might be the same, but ultimately the policies will appear to be remarkably similar. To serve the economy above all others appears to be the top priority for all governments.

Here Labour come again, back on our doorsteps to test the waters, to see if we're still mad about the past 5 years of their governance, to find out if we can remember every attack they made against us, probably in the hope that there have been so many that maybe, just maybe, we'll only remember a few.  A party riddled with so much contempt and disdain for us that they genuinely believe they can convince us that things will be different this time. They bombard us with sentences along the lines of "You will get X, Y and Z with Labour in government".

Crudely, they tell us that one of the things we can expect from them is a referendum on the 8th amendment, with top-notch propaganda to go along with that promise, propaganda painting them as pro-woman and pro-choice. There is no propaganda effective enough to cover up the war that they have waged on women for the past 5 years.

Believe a better world is possible. Don't be afraid to dream. We all know this isn't good enough. How could it be? Are we not destined for so much more? Have we not seen glimpses of what we are truly capable of? This could be paradise. It really could be.

Margaret Thatcher, former UK prime minister, was fond of bragging that 'There Is No Alternative!'. Settle in you plebs, there is no way out, this is it. Capitalism is the only way - and not only capitalism, but capitalism in its most feral neoliberal form.

And not only that but state domination, and the assault on our persons by an arsenal of tyrannies: sexism, racism, queerphobia, ableism, and more.

Sometimes the old ones are the gold ones. The attempt by the Irish state to damage the electoral chances of the Anti Austerity Alliance by hitting them where it matters - in the pocket - reminds us of how shallow parliamentary democracy is. The Anti Austerity Alliance is the political front the Socialist Party runs under but for the next elections its unified with the SWPs People Before Profit as the rather lengthy AAA - PbP.

It's broadly understood that cash determines who wins an election more than any other factor. Indeed with the US presidential election, for almost a century, the winner has always been the candidate who had the most money behind them. So in terms of influencing the outcome of an election denying a party the right to fundraise is probably the single most effective tactic short of banning them outright.

WSM recently held our first Facilitation and 'Conversations about Anarchism' training day in Dublin. The photo shows the problems attendees had already encountered in meetings they had participated in. How many of them have you come across?

The purpose of the training was to give people the basics of facilitation that can avoid or at least minimise these problems.
At the end of the training all the 11 people who had taken part were very positive about it. One said “It was good to meet new people, I learned a lot about facilitation and would now be more confident now, I also learned about anarchist process” while another said “It was very comprehensive with detailed techniques about how to facilitate.” Everyone said they would be interested in future trainings.