Anarchist Writers

 And no, it isn’t out of “apathy.”

Shell to Sea campaigner Maura Harrington was once more jailed Friday.  At the protest I noticed that the secret police were observing us from the far side of the road and about five minutes after leaving two of them drove a car in front of my bike in order to stop me for questioning. I've included the report I wrote for indymedia on the protest below but this blog is more about the conversation with the branch and the conversation that followed it with John Zerzan.

Edna Glover, Henry's mother, holds a portrait of her son outside their house

Last friday, three officers were finally indicted by a federal grand jury for the post-katrina murder of Henry Glover, and the ensuing 5 year cover up.

Following Gardai attacks on people protesting the bank bailouts on two seperate occasions we had a discussion in my WSM branch about mobilising for a protest that had been called by the SWP / Right to Work for the following week.  There was a bit of debate about being seeing to support what was yet another SWP front group (an ongoing discussion) but in the end we decided to try and mobilise the Dublin WSM for the following protest.  This involved the activation (and to an extent the invention) of a Dublin version of our national Interim Decisions Committee, basically delegates from each of the branches to make the decisions that needed to be made before the next scheduled branch meetings were to take place.

Last Thursday, the House of Representatives voted 234-194 to allow the repeal of the controversial Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.

The vote mirrored an earlier closed-door agreement of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Two articles on protests in Dublin to mark the 100th day of imprisonment of Erris fisherman Pat O'Donnell for his continued resistance to Shell's attempt to impose an experimental raw gas pipeline on the people of Kilcommon.  The second article describes the occupation of the Department of Natural Resources that was part of this day of action

Gardai have again attacked campaigners protesting at the bank bailouts this time with batons and dogs. This morning around 7am four people got onto on the overhang of Anglo irish Bank and chained themselves together with a banner read that read 'People of Ireland Rise Up.' In the last half hour a force of some 50 police, secret police and dogs attacked them and their supporters on the ground with batons, fists and feet. At least six were arrested as a melee broke out on Dawson street.

Last night I was on the 'Right to Work' march that went to the Dail where some scuffles broke out as some of the crowd broke away to try and push through the gates. I'm not going to discuss that much, far too much in the media already about what amounted to very little. The main topic of this blog is the Right to Work Campaign itself and the question of how we should approach these sort of party controlled fronts. it is generated in part by the failure of WSM to come up with a collective approach and as a result being caught somewhat on the hop by last nights events.

On April 23rd, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed SB1070 into law, giving local and state police broad power to detain suspected illegal immigrants.

I got notification early on Saturday that some comrades from the left republican group eirigi had just occupied the Anglo Irish Bank offices so I hoped on my bike with my trusty camera to go down and get a few photos which I include with this post as a slide show.  Anglo Irish Bank (not to be confused with Allied Irish Bank) was the super dodgy property developer bank whose collapse was a key feature of the crash in Ireland and which is going to cost workers in Ireland some 30 billion as we pay for the speculation of a couple of hundred of the superwealthy.  That figure is based on the fact that 50% of Anglo's loans were to 147 or so accounts!