Workers Solidarity Movement

Roughly 1,000 people protested at the Dail last night as yet another austerity budget was debated. As with previous budgets the new flat rate taxes, PRSI & excise hikes will mean workers & those on low income will be hit hard while the richest 1% will hardly notice any difference.

In what has to be one of its odder decisions Morning Ireland this morning decided that the best voice of opposition to the Property Tax was obviously someone from Finna Fail the political party who began the process of bringing the tax in.  The property tax was part of the package of cuts Finna Fail agreed with the Trokia while in government. To most people the more obvious voice of opposition would certainly be the mass campaign of some 50% of households that has refused to pay the Household Charge, the fore runner of the property tax.  That campaign also brought thousands of people to protest outside the Fine Gael ard fheis.

On Saturday last (24^th November), approximately 15,000 people marched through Dublin to demand an end to austerity.  It was a lively and vociferous march that seemed to herald a renewed sense of militancy among those attending. This militancy was most evident when Eugene McGlone, president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, was roundly booed when he rose to speak.  Despite attempts to claim that this booing was orchestrated by Sinn Fein and the ULA, it was clear that a great many of those booing were doing so spontaneously and were expressing their frustration at the lack of action by the trade union leadership in terms of organising a real fightback over the past few years.

On Saturday 24th November, thousands of people will march from Parnell Square to the GPO in Dublin behind the slogan “Boycott The Property Tax.  Fight Austerity”.  This protest, jointly organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes, Communities Against Cuts and the Spectacle of Defiance and Hope, will give people the opportunity to show their opposition to the introduction of the property tax and the further entrenchment of the austerity agenda which will come in the budget on 5th December.

Despite increasingly desperate attempts by the government to extract their pound of flesh from householders,the Campaign against Household and Water Taxes (CAHWT) continues to rack up victories.

The London Anarchist bookfair is the biggest event on the UK anarchist calendar and this year was the first time I was able to go. Getting to the Mary's University venue in East London was a bit of an adventure and made more difficult with the underground being partially closed. Although I missed the lifestyle anarchism lecture earlier in the day, I did get to the other main talk that piqued my interest – the two hour Anarchist Economics lecture in the Mason Lecture Theatre with the speakers posted as “David Graeber, Michael Albert and others”.

Over the last few months changes made by Facebook have greatly reduced the effectiveness of Events and Pages because it has become much less likely that someone following a page will see posts made by that page. According to Facebook on average only 12% of followers will see a given post. In 2011 Facebook did the same to events, multiple changes in the way events work saw response rates to event invitations decline from around 80% of those invited responding to this figure often being less than 20%.

We are publishing the following interview with David Harvie of the new English group "Plan C" carried out by Shift Magazine earlier this year. This interview has since been republished on Plan C's new website (www.weareplanc.org) launched this week. But we thought that although the interview is specifically addressed at political actors in England and the UK, the arguments over Austerity (Plan A) and a possible "New New Deal" or neo-Keynesian "Plan B" are also relevant to Ireland, where today organisations like Claiming Our Future are campaigning to build support for an Irish Plan B. We think the following is a useful contribution to that debate. Reprinted with permission from David Harvie.

Anyone with any illusions in Stormont as a 'progressive' alternative to Tory cuts from Westminster should take note after yesterday’s passing of the devastating Welfare reform bill.  The motion which will impact on thousands in NI and affect disability living allowance, housing benefit and employment support was passed in the second stage by 60 votes to 42. This biggest shakeup of the 'welfare' since 1945 has already been passed in Scotland and Wales and will bring in a single, Universal Credit to replace six income-related, work-based benefits.

The rain is pouring, Summer's over and the Eurozone crisis is back from his hols. Timed nicely to coincide with the brutal Spanish riot police attack on the indignados protest outside the Madrid parliament, yesterday's statement by the remaining triple-AAA rated "Nordic Front" of Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, has put the cat back amongst the pigeons.