Paul McAndrew

A Prison by Any Other Name - The fight against direct provision

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 Here in Ireland over the past eighteen months asylum seekers have been organising protests against the conditions they are compelled to live in, including blockading the ‘hostels’ (effectively for-profit open prisons) where they are forced to live in appalling conditions, which some have been made to endure for over a decade.

 

For the past several years, Anti-Deportation Ireland, a political campaign run by both asylum seekers themselves and by their supporters has been pushing for three demands:

1/ An immediate end to deportations.

2/The immediate abolition of direct provision

3/The rights to work and to access 3rd-level education

 

 

Marriage equality - Nether Non-Monogamy nor Monogamy Constitute the Only "Correct" Choice for Anarchists

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While sharing some of my fellow anarchists criticisms' of marriage as a patriachal institution I feel unable to tolerate the existence of laws which blatantly discriminate against queer people.

Of course everyone should have unconditional access to housing food migration etc but until we reach full libertarian communism people have to make complex choices which may include wage slavery or marriage.

We never criticise the personal choices of straight comrades who have chosen to marry often for reasons involving visas, recognition of parenthood or tax.

Burton tries to pinkwash Jobstown

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Joan Burton has seized upon her brief inconvenience in being faced with the people in Jobstown last week to try and smear water charge resistance in general.

Now the Phone is already notorious for inventing quotes from random people she claims to meet about how they just love austerity so perhaps you’ll forgive us some cynicism. In any case, according to the Irish Times:
"Joan Burton has accused Socialist Party TD Paul Murphy of “smirking” while protesters threw missiles and taunted gardaí with homophobic and misogynistic remarks during the water chargers protest."

Pride, as relevant in Ireland today as during Stonewall

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There will be celebrations of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT)
 Pride across Ireland this summer, including Cork's Pride Parade on June 5th and Dublin's Parade on June 26th. The original Pride marches were held to commemorate the Stonewall riots in New York which began on June 28, 1969, and which were led
mainly by working class Black and Puerto Rican trans people, butch dykes and drag queens sick of being beaten up and arrested by the police. The following year, in commemoration of the riots, the Gay Liberation Front organised a march from Greenwich Village to Central Park. Almost 10,000 women and men attended the march. Today, many major cities all over the world hold LGBT/Queer Pride Marches on the last Sunday of June in honour of Stonewall.



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