Victory to the Thomas Crook Workers
Image © Michael Gallagher

When a force of 80 – 100 gardai arrived at the Thomas Cooke office in Grafton Street Dublin at 5a.m. on Tuesday 4th August, smashed the door down, and dragged 28 protesting workers off to the Bridewell Garda Station, the Irish state was attempting to deliver a strong message to all workers.

Related Links:
Gardaí arrest Thomas Cook staff | Thomas Cook occupied by workers | Eleven Weeks and Counting – Support the Mr. Binman Strikers | Two Anti-Shell Campaigners Jailed for Civil Disobedience | Element Six Jobs Massacre

Throughout the bank holiday weekend, there had been a tremendous outpouring of public support for the workers’ occupation from the general public. (see http://www.wsm.ie/internal_article/5861 for the background to the occupation). The state could not afford to allow this struggle to become a focal point for growing anger with the manner in which ordinary people are being made to pay for the financial crisis caused by wealthy bankers and property developers.

"If I say, 'it's fair, it's fair'"

I want to argue that Fianna Fail has essentially cooked (and I mean boil rapidly) the books - insofar as their strategy to bring the deficit under control by 2013 rests on numbers that cannot work in the material world.

This might seem a bit academic but this will show in a way that no one else has done that deflation cannot work at any level - not at the level of arresting economic decline, job losses, living standards; and not even the deficit. This is the real debate - can deflation work? Fianna Fail's own bookeeping shows it can't.

Reactions to the Emergency Budget

Connolly Youth begin a Sack the Government Campaign
People Before Profit say We Need an Alternative Government
The Workers Party Condemn Today's Emergency Budget
The Bolsheviks Call for a General Strike
The Communist Party say Dracula Budget Sucks Blood from Workers
Peter Fitzsimon says Supplementary Budget an Absolute Disgrace
Oxfam Ireland deplores today’s cut in Ireland's aid budget
Maura Harrington says the government is putting pressure on the people of Ireland
Eanna Dowling says Workers pay for Government and speculators’ failed policies category
Gregor Kerr says it's More of the Same, Only Worse

More of the Same
Michael Taft's blog - The Recession Diaries
Don't just sit there
Contact EVERY TD, Senator, and MEP about this - Contact.ie

The Oscailt software that is used to power the Indymedia Ireland web-site has now been upgraded to allow YouTube video to be embedded in both stories and comments. The embedded Youtube video above is an example of how it will look.

Get out your blue crayons

Climate change is everywhere. Ramor Ryan gatecrashes the ineffectual UN Conference on Climate Change in Nairobi and comes back blaming Capitalism.

A momentous report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that climate change is 'man-made and unstoppable'. The 21-page report, described as conservative by the IPCC itself, says human-made emissions of greenhouse gases are to blame for heat waves, floods and heavy rains, droughts and stronger storms, melting ice-caps and rising sea-levels.

The IPCC is comprised of over 2000 climate experts and scientists. It was set up in 1988 by the UN and the World Meteorological organisation to guide policy makers on the impact of climate change. Despite strenuous attempts by oil companies and big business to undermine the final report, it remains quietly apocalyptic in its assessment.

Its mind-boggling conclusion predicts serious water shortage for between 1.1 and 3.2 billion people, food shortages for 200 to 600 million people. Coastal flooding will hit seven million people within 70 years. The list of potential catastrophe goes on and on.

Related Links: SP on climate change | The Politics and Reality of Peak Oil | Book Review: Ramor Ryan's 'Clandestines: the pirate journals of an Irish Exile' | Climate Change Action Now: Demonstration This Friday 13th ,Dublin City | International Day of Direct Action against Climate Change and the G8. | Climate Change: Answering the Sceptics (and Channel 4) | Ireland and Climate Chaos