First off, I have posted by talk at this year’s London Anarchist Bookfair – What it means to be Libertarian. It is pretty self-explanatory, indicating how freedom needs equality and how voluntary authoritarianism is not anarchism.
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A <em>blog entry</em> is a single post to an online journal, or <em>blog</em>.
This audio history of the WSM was presented at a meeting in Cork in 2010 as part of a day of critical internal discussions. As it was originally recorded for internal use it’s been edited so it is just the presenter (me) and then my responses to questions and discussion points. For more on the history of the Workers Solidarity Movement see https://www.wsm.ie/wsm-history
There are an estimated 20 to 26,000 undocumented people living in Ireland, as many of 5000 of them being children and young people. People in Ireland are generally horrified by the Trump’s administrations war on the undocumented in the US but perhaps not so aware that exactly the same situation has been created by government policy here.
Young, Paperless and Powerful, a creative youth project for undocumented young people in Ireland held a solidarity rally last night with undocumented young people in the USA. The rally took place at the famine memorial on the banks of the Liffey in Dublin. YPP said in advance of the rally that in the US "young people are in the fight of their lives to defend DACA". [ Video ]
The Direct Provision institutions were introduced as a supposedly temporary measure in 2000. 17 years later they are still with us and some have spent over a decade trapped in the institutional isolation and poverty they create. Adult residents receive €21.60 a week and some like Mosney are in isolated locations with no transport connections. Visitors are controlled and there are little or no cooking facilities which means the children who have grown up there have seldom tasted their parents cooking and have been unable to have friends sleep over.
Well, the London Anarchist Bookfair has come and gone. My talk of “What it means to be libertarian” went okay, I think – I think my accent caused some problem. There were three meetings (over four hours) on the Russian Revolution – just as well my talk last-year was on the Russian Revolution otherwise it would have been four meetings.
Nazis, white-supremacists, “Identitarians”, and other fascists are organising, becoming more emboldened to attack members of our communities and spread hate speech online, in the media and on our streets. In the US, the election of Donald Trump has been heralded as a victory by right-wing reactionaries and racists around the world. [Audio]
Saturday the 30th of September 2017 will go down as a high point in the fight for abortion rights in the Republic, and that is a struggle that stretches back decades. Years of campaigning and maintaining a focus on the issue, saw a massive crowd of nearly 30,000 people take to the streets for the annual March for Choice as organised by the Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC). The calls are for action, and the need for Repeal of the 8th Amendment.
Following on the attacks by the Spanish police on the Catalan referendum there was a solidarity protest called in Dublin at short notice with well over 100 people attending. [Video]
The text below was read out from Alfred, CUP activist and member of the cooperative social centre LA BAULA.
We are in the 4th decade of the struggle to get rid of the 8th amendment – no one under the age of 52 could even have voted for it. But this year should be the year and that’s why everyone should be on the March for Choice in Dublin, September 30th.