Liberties Public Meeting: Capitalism is Failing Us Anarchism is Fighting Back

dublin | anti-capitalism | event notice Friday February 20, 2009 11:00 by 1st May Branch Workers Solidarity Movement

Public Meeting
St. Catherines Leisure Centre, Marrowbone Lane, Dublin 8
Thursday 5th March
7:30pm

Capitalism is failing Us
Anarchism is Fighting Back

The financial crisis continues to deepen and the government stumbles along seemingly without a clue of what they’re doing. Every time Brian Cowen or Brian Lenihan appear on the TV news they look like rabbits caught in headlights.

But one thing’s for sure – they know who they’re going to pin the blame on. And who they are going to make pay. It won’t be the property developers, who have pocketed billions in the last few years. Nor will it be the bankers and stockbrokers, who have indulged in reckless financial gambling.

No, they’ve decided that it is ordinary workers who will pay for this financial mess. Huge numbers of workers in the private sector – from construction to catering to I.T. - have been cast onto the dole queues. A 1% levy has been imposed on all our wages. And a further pay cut in the form of a ‘pension levy’ is to be stolen from the pay packets of public sector workers.

And, have no doubt about it, when they’ve done with this round of cuts and attacks on our jobs and wages they’ll be back for more. Because a political decision has been made that it is workers and the poorer sections of society who will pay.

A sustained media and political campaign has been carried out in recent months to ‘divide and conquer’, to drive a wedge between private and public sector workers and to put us at each other’s throats. This makes it easier for them to attack our jobs and living standards.

We need to stand together and resist this ‘divide and conquer’ tactic. The divide in Irish – and international – society is not between private sector and public sector workers but between workers and the wealthy. We live in a society where some people have obscene levels of wealth – Sean Quinn, the owner of Quinn insurance among other companies, admitted recently that his family lost €1billion in Anglo Irish Bank but that they ‘could absorb it’ because their companies continue to make enough money annually for it not to have any major effect. Yet money is taken from our pockets to re-finance the banks! Something is seriously wrong.

But the government has no intention of addressing the real causes of the financial crisis. To do so would mean addressing the very nature of the capitalist political system, it would mean asking fundamental questions about who controls the wealth and how much say ordinary people really have over our lives.

The Workers Solidarity movement, an organisation of anarchists in Ireland, will host a talk in
St. Catherine’s Community Centre, Marrowbone Lane, Dublin 8
at 7:30pm
on Thursday 5th March
on the economic crisis, its causes and the anarchist alternative. As capitalism yet again drags us all into a crisis we’ll discuss why this keeps happening, why capitalism has always been and always will be unstable, and the effect that this insecurity has on all of our lives.

We’ll talk about how the rulers say they’ll solve our current crisis, and why their ‘solutions’ will not stop the boom and bust cycle from happening again. We’ll discuss how workers can get organised to fight back against what’s happening and how we can begin the process of building a new society.

If you want to find out more about real alternatives or if you want to talk about how you and your workmates and friends can get involved in the fightback against the current economic craziness, come along to the meeting and join in the discussion.

Hope to see you there.

Organised by 1st May Branch Workers Solidarity Movement
Contact us at: 0851368737
www.wsm.ie