April 2014

An End to Growth? Beyond the productivist bias of the historical left

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Capitalism is making you fat. Capitalism is also destroying the environment. These two things are more closely connected than you might think. Not all growth is good. Certainly the growth of people’s waistlines and indexes of body fat have lead scientists and health professionals to warn of a global obesity epidemic. 65% of the world’s population now live in countries where being overweight kills more people than being underweight. Worldwide obesity has nearly doubled since 1980 and 1.4 billion adults over 20 are now overweight.

Disaster Communism, catastrophe & environmentalism

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Extermination or communism is the choice - but this communism must be more than just the sharing of wealth (who wants all this shit?) - it must inaugurate a whole new way of working together. — Felix Guattari & Toni Negrii
 
As I sat down to begin writing this piece, an article appeared in the Guardian titled 'Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'?'ii, whose central claim was that “global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution”. 
 

Britains secret dirty war in Ireland - the MRF & FRU

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The recent BBC  documentary 'Panorama: Britain's Secret Terror Force' may have once again put a spotlight on the extent of British state sponsored terrorism in the North and the activities of its various shadowy forces; but the level of orchestration, impunity, collusion and cover up is yet to be truly uncovered. The documentary revealing the activities of the Military Reaction Force (MRF) was aired just a day after Northern Irish Attorney General John Larkin called for an amnesty on atrocities committed during the Irish troubles. He may be right to break this taboo, but was he lobbied by British soldiers and their friends who fear justice taking its course as this evidence comes to light?
 

Fracking Hell - how it is coming to Ireland & the development of resistance

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On the 26th of March 2010, the Fianna Fail / Green governing coalition announced that they were inviting applications for ‘Onshore Licensing Options over the Northwest Carboniferous Basin and the Clare Basin.’ The senior minister in the department at the time was Green Party TD, Eamon Ryan. Conor Lenihan (Fianna Fail) was the department’s junior minister. 
 
On the day this invitation to the oil and gas industry was announced Conor Lenihan stated that “over recent months there has been renewed interest in targeting the natural gas resource potential of the two basins, which had been identified in earlier exploration. Finding and producing our indigenous natural gas resources is critical to enhancing Ireland’s security of energy supply and reducing our reliance on imported fuels”.
 

Irish Anarchist Review 9

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Welcome to Issue nine of the Irish Anarchist Review, published for the 2014 Dublin Anarchist Bookfair.

 

 

EDITORIAL: 

 

We've been hearing scare stories about the damage being done to the environment by co2 emissions for decades now. Terms like “climate change”, “greenhouse effect”, “the ozone layer” (more importantly, the holes in the ozone layer) and “global warming”, are part of everyday language. We know that the polar ice caps are melting, causing sea levels to rise and we know that the weather is doing crazy things in parts of the world that are usually temperate. And, we know that all this is being caused by the stuff we produce and how we produce it. What has our response been?

 

 

By and large, we've done nothing. In fact we've done the opposite. We've continued to create stuff. More and more stuff. We produce enough food to feed the world at least twice over and a third of it is wasted. We produce gadgets we don't really need, war machines to subjugate people, we plan obsolescence so that we have to keep producing things to replace other things so that the wheels of the global economy keep turning and profit keeps accumulating. Billions of humans, across the planet, spend a large chunk of every day, doing things they'd prefer not to to produce things they don't need in a process that is making the planet unfit for their habitation.

 

So much for Solidarity - ICTU and sex workers

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In 2012 The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) made a submission to the Irish government’s public consultation on the prostitution laws. Most of it was just a cut-and-paste job of text sent to them by the Turn Off The Red Light campaign, which seeks the introduction of the Swedish model. But there is one part of ICTU’s original contribution which I found remarkable. A few paragraphs down the submission cites – clearly for the purpose of endorsing – the view of the Technical, Electrical & Engineering Union‘s General Secretary that “prostitution could not be considered work”.

 

My Life in Activism : Women speak at 2014 Dublin Anarchist Bookfair - Audio

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Women Activism panel at Dublin Anarchist Bookfair

The 2014 Dublin anarchist bookfair hosted a panel of women activists who informed us about how they became involved in the movement, what drew them into this life of campaigning for social justice, rights and attempting to change the world in which we live. They inform us of how they remain motivated, inspired and sustained in active political life.

 

My Life in Activism : Women speak at 2014 Dublin Anarchist Bookfair - Audio by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud

 

Defeating Fracking - setting limits to growth? - DABF audio

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Climate change has reached a point where scientists are now saying that direct actions against resource extraction is the only strategy likely to prevent ecological collapse and ensure our environment’s survival. This panel considered what needs to be done and who is going to do it.

Radical Cooperatives: homes without landlords, workers without bosses - DABF2014 audio

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A presentation from the 2014 Dublin anarchist bookfair on the role of radical co-operatives in social change, based on the experience of Radical Routes in the UK.

An anarchist introduction to intersectionality - Rethinking Revolution rebooted

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To get our Rethinking Revolution talks rebooted after a long absence Farah is going to introduce a discussion on what Intersectional analysis has to say to anarchism.

All welcome - discussion will take place in the WSM space upstairs in Seomra Spraoi, 10 Belvedere court, Dublin 1

Making the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair work - post DABF follow up

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At this open meeting the organisers of DABF 2014 will explain what is involved in putting on the Anarchist Bookfair and invite feedback & critique of both specific aspects of the book fair this year and the overall year on year organisational process.

The discussion will take place 14th May, 19.30 in the WSM space, upstairs in Seomra Spraoi, 10 Belvedere Court, Dublin 1 - RSVP at the Facebook event

Media panel on Manufacturing Consent at DABF 2014 - Audio

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Just how good are the mass media at keeping the rabble in line? This panel from the 2014 Dublin Anarchist Bookfair explores the media’s complicity with the rich and powerful and what we can do about it.

 

A Media panel on Manufacturing Consent at the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair 2014 by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud

 

Care & Social Reproduction - Audio or Video of Selma James & Conor McCabe at DABF 2014

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The hardship of the current economic crisis has impacted unevenly across genders. This panel from the 2014 Dublin Anarchist Bookfair discussed the intersection of austerity, care-work and women’s reproductive rights.  Selma James and Conor McCabe presented with Conor focusing on what this has meant in Ireland in particular.