Workers Solidarity Movement

Unemployment has risen by a third in the last year and everyone agrees that worse times are ahead. Worries about losing jobs and not being able to pay the mortgage are growing. Whose fault is it? Is it the politicians administering the economy, or is it the capitalist economy itself?

The Irish Socialist Network is talking to a half dozen other groups about unity. The Socialist Workers Party, always in a hurry, simply wants everyone else to join their People Before Profit creation. Every few years we see the same game played, “why won’t the Judean Peoples Front join the Judean Popular Front?”

Preparation is under way to resist unwelcome and destructive activities by Shell and Allseas Ltd

Grassroots Shop Stewards and Union Activists Conference: Re-Building Trade Union Activism

Saturday 20th September
Venue: UNITE Hall,
Middle Abbey St, Dublin 1.

The author wrote this as part of his Dissertation in 2008 in Queens University titled ‘Anarchism and the Law’. The author firstly recalls a historical overview of the anarchism, its proponents and their position on laws and how society deals with anti-social behaviour and their vision for the future, from Godwin to the present especially during revolutions when anarchist ideas and movements flourished. He then moves on to the thorny subject of the meaning of “law” and its relationship anarchism, liberalism and authoritarian socialists.

The last few paragraphs examine case studies from Paris Communards 1871, Makhnovichna (the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army in the Ukraine) 1917-22, CNT-FAI militia in Spain 1936-39, Christiana in Denmark today, EZLN in Chiapas today. The response of anarchist groups in Ireland and abroad to crime and the law is also briefly discussed and reviewed.

Finally the author concludes which serves as a lesson to us all,

“Saying ‘no blueprints’ (detailed outlook) is a cop out for having no solution. The past always imposes itself on the present. For anarchism to have a future anarchists need to convince more people. If anarchists want to be taken seriously they have to be able to provide credible alternatives on the key issues that concern people including crime prevention.”

· ANARCHISTS DEFEND LOW-PAID WORKERS
· WSM REJECTS ISME DEMANDS FOR WAGE FREEZES/PAY CUTS

Workers Solidarity Movement,
23rd July 2008

On the 5th March 1867, the eve of the Fenian rising in Ireland, this proclamation was delivered to 'The Times' newspaper in London. The rising itself was fairly insignificant, put down by the police, with some sort of action in Co Cork at Knockadown and Ballyknockane, Drogheda, Drumcliffe churchyard in Co Sligo, Ballyhurst in Co Tipperary and Co Limerick at Ardagh and Kilmallock. The largest Fenian turnout was in Tallaght, Co Dublin where a small force of constables dispersed a body of a few hundred Fenians after a brief gun battle. The proclamation is interesting for the elements it contains which were dropped in 1916 including the separation of Church and state, the implied redistribution of land and the anti-capitalist promise to 'secure to all the intrinsic value of their labour'.

The concept of class is fundamental to the anarchist understanding of society. The goal of anarchist communism is to create a classless society where everyone is on an equal footing, where all have equal access to wealth and contribute to society as best they can.

Workers Solidarity Issue 104, July August 2008

• The triumph of greed over need
• Time for profit restraint
• Our bodies, our choice
• Scrap the 11+
• It's official: fighting war criminals not a crime
• Thinking about anarchism: Why class matters
• Solidarity on Cork docks
• HSE Board have vested interest in running down the health service
• Lisbon: A class act

As the morning of Friday 13th of June grew towards midday, the government watched and ... realised with mounting horror that they had not only lost the referendum for the Lisbon treaty, but had lost badly. In the end, with a turnout higher than both Nice referendums and European elections, the Irish electorate had cast more No votes, than the number that elected the FF government last year.