Marching Is Not Enough, Organise for a general strike

Related Links:
Workplaces March to November 6th Protest venues | Updated list of workplaces walking out and services affected on November 6th Day Of Action | ICTU GET UP STAND UP | ICTU: National Day of Action

M30: Make Indymedia The Source For Struggle

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ ‘Get Up Stand Up’ protest on Friday 6th November is of huge importance. The government have made it clear that they intend to make ordinary workers pay for the financial crisis. Friday can be the start of us finally standing up and saying that we are not going to accept this.

Huge efforts have been made by politicians and economic commentators in recent months to drive a wedge between private sector workers and public sector workers. Friday provides us with an opportunity to demonstrate that they have been unsuccessful and that workers will stand together and defend our common interests.

Thanks to the publication of a British police intelligence "spotter card" issued to rank & file coppers for a climate change protest in 2007 this week by a British newspaper, many people regardless of whether they are activists in the UK or Ireland or indeed elsewhere in the EU are wondering about their constitutional and statutory rights in the face of the European wide creation of intelligence databases by police forces. Whereas those whose images appeared without prior consent in this week's British media may have recourse to legal action and a bit of chatter, Irish political activists, protesters & ordinary citizens thus far enjoy no public recognition of the existence of such databases in Ireland nor it would appear have any mechanism to ensure that their details if not guilty of any criminal offence are removed from the intelligence files of the Garda Siochana.

Related Link:
Original Article from The Guardian: Doth I Protest Too Much?

As this article is published the leader of the BNP, England's neo-fascist racist political party & one of the principle articulators of European neo-nazism in the English language has entered the BBC studios in London to take part in a BBC "question time" broadcast. The presence of Griffin has not gone without protest or reaction in Britain as much as in Ireland. This article collates much of the recent coverage of that reaction & puts this week's publishing on the internet on "Wikileaks" of the current BNP membership list in context.

But the point of this article is to examine from a leftist and Irish perspective the possible consequences of the BBC invitation to Griffin and the reaction in the liberal English chattering classes and at parliamentary level. Rather than moving to a revamping of the Race Relations Act the British it seems are considering a return to the censorship which was applied to the factions of the north of Ireland in general and Sinn Fein in particular.

Today's (October 16th) edition of the English newspaper "The Daily Mail" carried an opinion piece by the English journalist Jan Moir. The homophobia and inherent hatred voiced in the article led to an extraordinary amount of comments on that newspaper's website which together with reaction from other newspapers saw the title of the article changed by mid afternoon. By late afternoon an internet campaign had begun to pressure advertisers who use the Daily Mail to cut their support.

The loss of revenue to the English newspaper might be the most serious blow to its editorial policy of articulating and pandering to middle English prejudice ever. As such the article which prompted this reaction merits archiving.

Excerpts from the Daily Mail article:
"Something is terribly wrong with the way this incident has been shaped and spun into nothing more than an unfortunate mishap on a holiday weekend, like a broken teacup in the rented cottage."
...
"And I think if we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy."
...
"Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships."
...
"For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see."
Read the full article HERE.

More than 50 NUJ members and supporters came down to protest at the proposed loss of jobs at INN.

Journalists from national and regional media organisations gathered in Dublin yesterday for a lunchtime rally in support of Independent Network News workers who are threatened with redundancy.

From the NUJ website:
'The National Union of Journalists is demanding withdrawal of the redundancy notices and at the rally Irish Secretary Séamus Dooley announced that the union has written to chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission Kieran Mulvey seeking an urgent Rights Commissioner hearing into the collective redundancies.'

Embedded Video Description: Video Id: 0w9jlvcjRXk Type: Youtube Video
NUJ protest to defend media workers jobs