August 2014

Rallies, ‘Black Bloc’ and the Meaning of Direct Action

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Over the last couple of months we have witnessed an unprecedented wave of large demonstrations. Across Australia people have risen in opposition to the current administration’s escalation of attacks on worker’s rights and conditions, erosions of living standards and civil liberties.

Mainstreaming Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide in the Israeli Media

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The Jerusulem Post carried an opinion piece today with the sub-heading: 



"The only durable solution requires dismantling Gaza, humanitarian relocation of the non-belligerent Arab population, and extension of Israeli sovereignty over the region." 



This echoes the words of Moshr Feiglin, deputy speaker of the Knesset, and a member of the ruling Likud Party, who, only two weeks ago said that "Israel must attack Gaza even more mercilessly, expel the population and resettle the territory with Jewish settlers". 

The expression of these views are not isolated, they represent a significant section of mainstream Zionist thinking and could not be freely aired if they did not. In reality they are the honest expression of the Zionist project to create an ethnically pure state, permanently rid of the native people. 

Siberian craters - Yet another reason that we need action to stop Climate Change

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Rather worrying news about those mysterious sink holes that have appeared in Siberia. It now appears they were giant methane releases - long forecast by climate change scientists as a likely positive feedback occurrence as permafrost in Siberia melted and released trapped methane. Worrying because methane is a 20 times more potent climate change gas than CO2 because it is more efficient at trapping radiation.

The Warsaw Ghetto and the assault on Gaza - is there anything in the comparison?

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The text below is translated from the poster at the centre of this image of the destruction of Gaza by the Israeli state. But it refers not to this horror but another in 1943 when the Nazis crushed the Warsaw ghetto, wiping out the poorly armed organised resistance that operated out of a warren of bunkers & sewers hidden beneath the ghetto. This poster was by one of the armed factions that defended the Ghetto, the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB)

All people are brothers;
Yellow, brown, black, and white.
Talk of peoples, colors, races -
Is all a made-up story

 

Freedom and Justice for Palestine: National Demonstration

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NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION - “It is time for freedom and justice for Palestine"



The IPSC has put out a call to make the 5th protest for Gaza to take place on a Saturday in Dublin a national demonstration. Details are below and we will link to the FB event notice in the comments.



Saturday at 14:00–16:00
The Spire, O'Connell Street, Dublin, Ireland Dublin 1

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The past month has seen protests for Gaza taking place in countless towns and cities around Ireland. Thousands upon thousands of people have come out onto the street to call for an end to ongoing Israeli injustices against the Palestinian people.

We believe it is time for us all to get together, so the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign is calling for a NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION in Dublin on Saturday 9th August, assembling at 2pm at The Spire, O’Connell Street. From there we will be marching to the Israeli Embassy. 

Please bring friends, flags, banners, noise. We would ask that you do not bring party-political flags (Irish, Palestinian or others). 

Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street - talk by Author Mark Bray

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Mark Bray author of 'Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street' will be giving this talk in the WSM space in Seomra Spraoi, 19.30, August 18th as part of a European speaking tour.

Iraq, Syria and the Islamic State

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The desperate plight of tens of thousands of Yazidi people stranded for the past week and a half on Mount Sinjar in Northern Iraq, having fled their homes in the nearby city, has focussed the world’s attention on what has been happening in that region.
 
Threats of airstrikes from U.S. president Barack Obama in a region where U.S. intervention in such recent memory has already been responsible for the killing of up to a million people and the injuring and displacement of many more causes alarm bells to ring in the minds of all who care about a fair and just world.  This is further exacerbated by the knowledge that it is the stoking of sectarian tensions as a result of U.S. policy in Iraq that is largely responsible for the emergence of the fundamentalist and ultra-reactionary Islamic State organisation.
 

Kurdish "Terrorists" Rescue Yezidis

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PKK fighter in Makhmur, Erbil after retaking it from ISISThe US special forces finally sent to Mount Sinjar in Northern Iraq to assess a mission to rescue the threatened Yezidis this morning, reported that most of the displaced population had already been rescued in the previous days. What is not being widely reported is the identity of the Kurdish forces who secured the northern side of the mountain and opened a safe passage for the threatened Yezidi civilians, through the Syrian territory they control to Dohuk in the north of the Kurdish Autonomous region in Iraq. 
 
Embarrassingly for the US, arriving on its white charger to save the day, only to discover they are far too late, the saviours of the Yezidis are the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and their Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) allies. The PKK are officially on the US and EU “terrorist” lists and the autonomous Syrian region defended by the YPG is subject to blockade by ISIS to the South and West, Turkey to the North and the corrupt Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) regime in Kurdish Northern Iraq to the East. The PKK’s pariah status dates from the war which it fought in the 1980s and 90s against the Turkish state, first under the the dictatorship, then the civilian government, for independence for the mainly Kurdish region of South East Turkey. Since late 2012 peace talks began with the Turkish government and a ceasefire was declared in March 2013.

Youth Defence massively undercount numbers at another pro-choice protest

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Long time followers of this site will be familiar with these posts. For rather transparent reasons to do with North America funding the bigot brigade ridiculously exaggerate numbers who attend their anti-choice protests and then massively under estimate the numbers who attend pro-choice protests. They have to keep the yankee dollar convinced after all that the people of Ireland are with them rather than running as fast as possible in the opposite direction. No dollars, no full time paid positions, offices and very expensive advertising campaigns.

Migrant X refused an abortion and forced to have a C-section - a story of abuse at the hands of a racist, sexist authoritarian state

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Sorry Migrant XThis is as complete a story about what happened to 'Migrant X' that we are aware of.  Migrant X is a young migrant women who it emerged was refused an abortion by the Irish state despite apparently meeting the grounds of the X-case legislation and instead forced to carry the pregnancy and agree to a C-section.  The pregnanacy itself was the result of rape, Migrant X attempted suicide after being refused the abortion and later went on a hunger and thirst strike.  Once what had happened to her became known there were sizeable pro-choice solidarity demonstrations called across Ireland and at Irish embassies overseas.  

We have been given information that the migrant woman at the centre of the current forced pregnancy was 'committed' to a psychiatric hospital following her initial request for termination. It’s already known that the initial request was made when she was 8 weeks pregnant.  It was this crucial period in which she was being held incommunicado which led directly to the Caesarian option being possible to impose as an ‘alternative’ to allowing her to access the abortion she had asked for.

Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street - talk by Author Mark Bray

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Talk by Mark Bray, author of Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street followed by an hour of discussion.

Translating Anarchy tells the story of the anti-capitalist anti-authoritarians of Occupy Wall Street, who strategically communicated their revolutionary politics to the public in a way that was both accessible and revolutionary.

 

Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street - talk by Author Mark Bray in Dublin by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud

 

 

 

Legalise Cannabis protest marches through Dublin August 2014

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Saturday evening August 23 saw over a 1000 people take part in a demonstration in Dublin demanding the legalisation of Cannabis organised by Legalise Cannabis Ireland. The front banner read ‘Medication - Taxation - Industrialisation - Civil Liberties’ and “We will raise awareness and demand change to Irish legislation for the benefit of every person in Ireland. The time is now to end the hypocrisy’

Legaise Cannabis March at GPO Dublin

The message of the march as expressed by the front banner was very much a demand for capitalism as normal rather than the gangster capitalism of illegality. That’s obviously a very limited demand - indeed it’s already been won or partly won in a number of European countries and more recently states in the USA.

Dub: March For Choice

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Third Annual March For Choice in Dublin

The 3rd Annual March for Choice will be 27th of September in Dublin, marking International Decriminalisation of Abortion Day.

2.00 The Garden of Rememberane, Parnell Square, Dublin, Ireland

Further info and travel details to follow in coming weeks. For now: we just can't wait to see you all there!