Workers Solidarity Movement

An accusing finger is pointed at anarchists any time the word organisation is mentioned. Many people believe that anarchism is against organisation and just another word for chaos, but is it? The simple answer, of course, is no, but that does not explain the confusion surrounding the question, nor the accusations thrown at anarchists.

Mother Jones was “the most dangerous woman in America” according to Reese Blizzard, a West Virginia District Attorney. Born around 1837, Mary Harris Jones was an Irish woman who became one of the most important revolutionary trade union organisers in the history of the USA. Her courage in standing up to mine owners, politicians and their armed thugs (who often killed striking workers) is legendary.

In the last few years, headlines have been filled with news of online attacks carried out against government and corporate websites claimed by groups calling themselves, among others, “Anonymous” and “Lulzsec”. Hacktivism is now so popular that a documentary will soon be released covering the Anonymous movement and others called “We Are Legion: The story of the Hacktivists”

To what extent do the revolutions and revolts of 2011 reflect a new world born from the shell of the old? Were these revolts of the internet generation -- networked individuals? Are people not only using new technology but becoming transformed by it? For anarchists, what lessons can we learn and to what extent must we transform our organisational methods and structures?

Because of the length of this review
its been made available as a 15 page
PDF file to download and read off line.

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.

Issue 126 of Ireland's anarchist paper Workers Solidarity  March / April 2012.

Trans (or transgender) is a term for people whose gender identity and gender expression are different from the sex assigned to them at birth. Trans people have a history of receiving bigoted responses from some sections of the left, of the lesbian and gay community and some strands of feminism. One attack on transgender people has been based on the idea that trans people, by “changing gender”, reinforce existing rigid gender roles. Moving across borders of perceived gender does not reinforce existing gender-roles, any more than migration across borders of nation states reinforces the system of nation states. Many trans people are actively involved in fighting current, sexist gender stereotypes.

In September last year, we held an interview with a comrade from the OCL, a Chilean anarcho-communist (platformist) organisation with a presence in the biggest cities of that country - Santiago, Valpara’so and Concepcion. This organisation has a policy of building up the movement amongst the popular rank and file, organising Frentes (Fronts or Networks) among the traditional popular factors in revolutionary struggle in Chile: workers, students and neighbours from the slums of the cities.

Andrew Flood looks at Paul Mason's recently published book 'Why its kicking off everywhere' and in particular what Mason has to say about the internet and the emergance of the 'Networked Individual'.   The recording is of a WSM supporters meeting in Dublin and the 20 minute presentation is followed by 30 minutes of discussion on the ideas outlined, roughly as summarised below.

The talk was part of the preparation for an 18,000 word review & discussion of 'Why its kicking off everywhere'.

"Once the corporations gain the benefit of the public paying the costs and taking the risks, they want to monopolize the profit. And the intellectual property rights, they’re not for small inventors. In fact the people doing the work in the corporations, they don’t get anything out of it, like a dollar if they invent something. It’s the corporate tyrannies that are making the profits, and they want to guarantee them."