OscailtThe need for a united European response of workers against the attacksEuropean-wide "Week of Protest and Solidarity" 21 to 26 June. Ireland: National Protest on Saturday 26 June at 1pm, Central Bank Plaza, Dublin.
Breaking news: Italian MP, Sgarbi denounces the Statistical Fraud on COVID-19. The speech of the Member of Parliament Vittorio Sgarbi in the session of the Italian Camera, Meeting no. 331 of Friday 24, April, 2020. Vittorio Sgarbi, denounces the closure of 60% of the businesses for 25,000 COVID-19 Deaths, of which the National Institute of Health says 96.3% died NOT of COVID-19 but of other pathologies. That means only 925 have died of the virus. 24,075 have died of other things.2010-06-17T23:33:38+00:00Indymedia Irelandimc-ireland@lists.indymedia.iehttp://www.indymedia.ie/atomfullposts?story_id=96999http://www.indymedia.ie/graphics/feedlogo.gifMoves to supervise national budgetshttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/96999#comment2705242010-06-17T23:33:38+00:00AndreasExcellent initiative Joe, I will be there.
The moves for the European Council ...Excellent initiative Joe, I will be there. <br />
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The moves for the European Council to supervise the budgets of member states should be highlighted - it is a definite attack on basic sovereignty and democracy in the interests of imposing harsher and harsher attacks on workers across Europe. It's vital that we stand together across Europe to say no and build an alternative.united European responsehttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/96999#comment2705432010-06-18T13:58:02+00:00opus diablosIndeed, we have to use the machinery, as we have to try to get back the Irish po...Indeed, we have to use the machinery, as we have to try to get back the Irish political machinery from the corporate wrecking crews. That last speaker kept the jargon down, major challenge for the left if it is to penetrate Irish inherent conservatism. Much of the shorthand alienates the very people you need to convince.Last speaker also touched on the deferrence factor, result of the mental retardation of our people due to the church ideology of blind belief and obedience reinforced by national identification since European post-reformation religious wars finally(hopefuly)dying out up above. But its not a new Europe needs driving, its a new globalisation.A euro-solution will be pincered between the emerging corporate China and US reaction. Will trigger the same encirclement as the French rev from the ancien regime and the Russian rev with the White hitback.Just a thought. Europe is the means, possibly.The earth must be the end. We Europeans are still dining high off the global hog that has been plundering less technologically armed societies for centuries.If we forget that we will repeat the soviet state capitalist heirarchical cul-de-sac. Modern economics are just the same war by different(mainly media in the 'developed' corner)means.Sorry, that got a bit long.Labour powerhttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/96999#comment2705942010-06-19T15:42:43+00:00Con LeeIreland needs a Labour-led government, with Richard Bruton with the finance port...Ireland needs a Labour-led government, with Richard Bruton with the finance portfolio. Bruton has shown himself to be an able politician, and although he has a rancher background he also has a graduate degree in economics from Cambridge.<br />
George Papandreou, the President of the Socialist International, is dismantling the welfare state in Greece, and has announced a massive privatization programme. Labour is affiliated with the Socialist International, and a Labour-led government will introduce similar neo-liberal policies in Ireland. What kind of Unityhttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/96999#comment2705952010-06-19T15:47:05+00:00Diarmuid BreatnachGo raibh maith agat, Joe. Certainly workers need to unite against the attacks, t...Go raibh maith agat, Joe. Certainly workers need to unite against the attacks, to avoid being used against one another and to strengthen their resistance. I will be there on that demonstration.<br />
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The Spanish capitalists are proposing new legislation to severely attack the workers' rights in the state (privatisation, agency working in local authorities, open temporary contracts, right to fire with reduced notice, lower redundancy payments, etc). The Basque trade unions have called for a general strike in the southern (Spanish state) Basque Country against those proposals on the 29th. Those unions, led by ELA and the left-wing LAB, between them account for around 80% of southern Basque unionised workers. Commisiones Obreras and UGT, who have been quite tame in opposition to the PSOE (Spanish Labour Party) Government took part in talks with them from which the Basque unions were excluded. The Basque unions have called not only for the death of this legislation but also to an end to attacks on the workers etc. and for opposition to their social and labour futures being decided in Madrid. They have called for economic measures in the Basque Country to be decided on a national and class basis and have called on the local authorities and regional 'autonomous' parliaments to side with them or to be seen as the enemy.<br />
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This is an important issue to be considered when we talk of unity. Does the "unity" which we espouse welcome or even permit the self-determination of oppressed nations? Or are they only to be asked to join in whatever campaign the unions and left organisations of their oppressing state organise? It is often the case too that the unions of oppressed nations are more militant than those based on the oppressing state, as was the case in Ireland and is certainly the case in the Basque Country, where they have already had a public services strike this year and a general strike May last year. More information is available from LAB's website, some of which is available in English language.<br />
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The other issue has been raised by me (and also separately by Gregor Kerr) elsewhere in this newspaper, of the need to build the workers' capacity to resist the sell-out of most union leaders by building non-sectarian rank-and-file organisations among the unionised workers. There is no substitute for that and it's hard to see how any resistance can ultimately succeed without it.Will the left ever unite?http://www.indymedia.ie/article/96999#comment2706112010-06-19T21:07:48+00:00El CheFinally it seems that the "left" are coming together?The mood is there for revol...Finally it seems that the "left" are coming together?The mood is there for revolution.If only those on the left could just put their differences aside,and unite,maybe we could bring real change.Hopefully this is the start!<br />
I support Socialist workers party,Joe higgins and Socialist party,People before profit,Eirigi,Sinn fein and anyone who stands up to these fuckers in government.I will gladly march behind any of your parties banners.Come on people let this be the start,put your differences aside!<br />
Ps,i dnt care about karl marx:)<br />
El cheleft unityhttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/96999#comment2706682010-06-22T11:04:01+00:00NoelInteresting seeing the Workers Party rep Malachy Steenson sharing a platform wit...Interesting seeing the Workers Party rep Malachy Steenson sharing a platform with the Trots, all for the good I suppose,but was Sinn Fein or Labour invited.I doubt they werehttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/96999#comment2707832010-06-24T22:47:10+00:00Shane QuinlanI doubt SF or Labour were invited. Mutual enemies you know.I doubt SF or Labour were invited. Mutual enemies you know.mutual talkershttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/96999#comment2707842010-06-25T00:27:18+00:00a readerI just saw these comments in the newspaper:
"[Prof. Frances Ruane] acknowledged...I just saw these comments in the newspaper:<br />
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"[Prof. Frances Ruane] acknowledged there was a gap in the ESRI, particularly in the banking side of things.<br />
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"It was partly on our side a lack of specialist knowledge," she told RTÉ's Morning Ireland. <br />
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"There is a tendency for people in talking to each other to reinforce each other's thoughts."<br />
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That last comment about ESRI, academic economists and newspaper business correspondents hits home. They all make up a rarefied coterie of economic 'experts' who waffle on in public while the lower income thousands bear the brunt of the financial meltdown.yup, readerhttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/96999#comment2707912010-06-25T13:41:44+00:00opus diablosAnd they all have portfolios of shares, so item number one is always to talk up ...And they all have portfolios of shares, so item number one is always to talk up the market.Micro-vested interests.But its not just 'waffle'. They are hidebound in neo-con ideology since college.Chances are they got it with the mother's milk anyway.<br />
Naomi Klein does a good breakdown of the havoc they wreaked(wrought?) over the last half century globally.Its not quite as random as waffle.<br />
Check out her 'Shock Doctrine'. All good bookstores, as the phrase has it.Protest todayhttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/96999#comment2708102010-06-26T00:55:11+00:00PaulHope to see you all at the protest today.
Just to answer the question re whethe...Hope to see you all at the protest today.<br />
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Just to answer the question re whether SF and Labour were invited to participate. SF was invited as they are a member of the European United Left parliamentary group in the European Parliament. They chose not to participate. Labour was not invited as we do not consider them to be part of the genuine Left. We explain why we think this elsewhere in depth (see a recent article by Joe Higgins here <a href="http://www.joehiggins.eu/2010/04/labour-conference-gilmores-one-ireland-is-hollow-rhetoric/" title="http://www.joehiggins.eu/2010/04/labour-conference-gilmores-one-ireland-is-hollow-rhetoric/">http://www.joehiggins.eu/2010/04/labour-conference-gilm...oric/</a>), for example because they accept the rule of the market, accept the needs for cutbacks in public services and do not fully oppose the attacks on public sector workers - plus the most likely scenario is that they are in government after the next elections with FG implementing their own vicious attacks.<br />
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You may disagree with that - that's fine. Here is probably not the place to debate it. But as the initiators of the protest, we chose to invite members of the European United Left (as the week of protest is initiated by MEPs from that group - so therefore we invited SF) and all we felt to be on the Left in a broad sense, as well as trade union, community and campaigning organisations. Tory cuts?http://www.indymedia.ie/article/96999#comment2709882010-06-30T23:31:09+00:00PatSF refused to sign the call for European wide protest againt cuts despite being ...SF refused to sign the call for European wide protest againt cuts despite being invited to do so, they also declined invitations to attend ogansing meetings in Dublin. Maybe something to do with them preparing to implement the Tory cuts in the next Stormont budget?