An article submitted by indymedia.ie user Dermot Connolly lays out an insiders perspective on the Anti-Bin Tax Campaign and the part played in it by the Socialist Party. Dermot Connolly was one of the central organisers of the Dublin City Campaign for the Socialist Party as was his partner Joan Collins. His piece explains why neither of them are members of the Socialist Party any more and why Joan Collins is standing as an independent Bin Tax candidate. This article is one of the longest and most detailed perspectives published to date on this pivotal struggle against the imposition of privatisation by stealth - a privatisation agenda driven by the unspoken neo-liberal creed being pursued by the FF/PD Government. The article has caused a significant degree of controversy as the comments below it reveal and has led directly to attacks on the indymedia.ie site by persons unknown aimed at making the article unreadable.

Extract: "Some problems in a campaign of this type could be expected when the pressures came on. What was needed was a leadership who understood the need for maximum unity in action, and were prepared to compromise on secondary issues to achieve that. In reality what opened up was a struggle by different political groups to try and grab the leadership of the struggle."

• Read the Complete Article and the Many Reactions Here
• Indymedia Ireland 'Bin Tax' Archive
• Socialist Party Account of 'Bin Wars'

Irish Times Chief Executive asks British Government for help in stamping out "unauthorised" material appearing in the paper. "Secret and personal" letter from the British Ambassador details contacts and refers to then Irish Times Editor Douglas Gageby, a Protestant like Major McDowell, as a "renegade white nigger".

Strange things have a habit of appearing on the IMC Ireland newswire late in the evenings and are a sometimes meagre reward for weary unpaid hacks trawling through the daily deletions. This one exceptionally is a stone-cold classic and the image copy of the letter a downright exclusive as far as we can tell. Let us know if somebody else got there first. We now hand you over to 'Captain White'.

For Captain White's full commentary on the letter, a full size cut out and keep version of the letter and a fistful of interesting and provocative letters to the Irish Times Editor on surrounding issues which have remained unpublished just hit the 'feature continues' link below

Update: Jack Lane Slams Irish Times

Update 2: Revealed: Jack Lane's 10 Jan 2003 letter to Geraldine Kennedy

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INDYMEDIA CENTRE NOW OPEN: Independent Media Festival Details
"The Indymedia Ireland collective and Community Media Network invite you to a Festival rich with events including: screenings of independent media from around the world; workshops on video and audio editing; talks by independent media producers; workshops on Free Software and exhibitions of photography by Indymedia contributors. There will also be fora on topics including the role of the media in Ireland, the Mayday protests, what's really going on in the EU, and much more. You are invited to learn and do and teach, to hang out at the new Indymedia Center cafe and more importantly, in keeping with the ethos of Indymedia, you are requested and urged to come down and help out between 12 and 6pm from today onwards. We are also asking people to send us Printed Material for the Exhibition." "Virtual warriors hit the street eh?’ sez one wag: ‘probably sick of tearing down walls in cyberspace."

Can't Hit the Street on Mayday? Join the EuroMayday Netparade
'A virtual demo that runs thru a heavily guarded and branded city put under siege by insurgent legions of brain+chain+temp workers and assorted anarchists, commies, queers and greens. The marching avatars are digital simulacra of today's exploited masses of neoliberalism: précaires, precari@s, precari, cognitarie, contingent knowledge and service workers'

MAYDAY, MAYDAY!! Why precari@s, intermittents, cognitari/e are rebelling across NEUROPA...
We are convinced that at the core of the process of neoliberal accumulation lies flexible and contingent labor by the young, women, migrants and casualized employees, in crucial reproductive and distribution services, and in the knowledge, culture, and media industries that provide the raw material on which the system functions: information >>>

MayDAY ViDeoBLOg; Film reLEase dAte - ENd of MAy;
'A Garda Spokesperrson said they were Powerless to stop the Video' (Examiner, 3/4/04) *1* *2* *3*

Dublin Council of Trade Unions by 11-10 (The narrowest of margins) vote down ATGWU Motion calling on The DCTU to have their May Day March as normal on May 1ST this year (2004)
"Some of the stuff said by some of the DCTU Delegates was absolutely appalling, and they were following the black media propaganda of "thousands of armed anarchists going to reign terror on the law abiding citizens of Dublin on May Day" (I kid you not! This load of bollocks was repeated several times by a number of the Delegates last night, and not matter how many times we rebutted their lies, they kept repeating them)".

2 + 2 = 15,000! Mainstream Media Mayday Maths Mix-up! How many people are ACTUALLY coming?
"Of course, the number is invented, for various reasons. It helps to create a climate of fear and tension if the public is led to believe that a "tidal wave" of "hate-filled" anarchists are arriving on Irish shores (similar to the methods used by the media to create hysteria surrounding asylum seekers and refugees). . . But the real reason, I suspect, is that the Special Branch and the Detective Unit are worried that some day soon, they will sit down at their desks to a P45 (they really shouldn't worry with a law & order jackboot thug like McDowell at the helm)."

Padded Bloc - get your a foam on!
"With all the unjustified media hype and furore, unfortunately the potential for many Gardai to be anxious, over-excited, and ultimately violent towards protesters over the course of the weekend exists. The advance scaremongering measures used by certain childish sections of the media, and the Gardai, mean that infringements of our civil liberties may well go unchallenged. We have to protect ourselves against a Government that may well try use its military and police force to physically injure its own citizens and others, i.e. us, the ordinary people."

Dublin masked rioters inspired by Iraq's 'Comical Ali'
Members all wear distinctive 'Dublin City Riot' gang colours and arm themselves with long sticks.

Mayday Hype Print Edition
Print out and Share with your friends of keep it yourself

Special Ongoing Special mayday Mayday Edition
of Indymedia Free with this hastily typed feature . . . . is available here - :-|'

Poetry Corner
"dont believe the hype it's a sequel
imc irl has got no equal
when it comes to the speed of the moves
we move faster than the hooves
of those horses
for policemens courses"
'Ya Boy0z show 'em what ya got - keep on spinning the wheels of steel': sez another Wag.

'We are asking for an acceptable form of identification so that we may vote.'

Benedicta Attoh is standing as an independent candidate for Dundalk City Council and Louth Co. Council, but her most natural constituency may not be allowed to vote for her due to a bureaucratic anomaly uncorrected by the Irish government.

Born in Nigeria and now a resident in Ireland, Ms. Attoh has been a four year resident in Dundalk - she has a legal right to run in the local elections.

Ms. Attoh estimates the Dundalk non-EU immigrant population to be over a thousand, ''it would be wrong for any politician in that area to ignore that number.'' If elected, she wants to ''represent everyone, the immigrant community as well as the local population. I want our views [as immigrants] to be respected. That is the reason I decided to run.''

After four years in Ireland she wants to bring her political activism to the Irish political arena. She is one of the first African voices to be heard in Irish elections but disregards her history making: ''The issue here is not to make history, the issue is to make a change, to make a difference.''

''Back home in Nigeria I was involved in politics, I was a student representative in the university. And after I watched Irish politics keenly I saw so many cowboys and liars that I decided Irish politics could do with an African.''

UPDATES: 14TH/15TH APRIL

Three Related Irish Protests Announced
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Ireland- Palestine Solidarity Campaign *****

‘Fear Translating into Anger’
Democracy Now interviews Author Rahul Mahajan, one of the only western journalists who was inside Fallujah over the past few days. *****
"We were in Fallujah over part of Saturday, and Sunday morning before we left. I can tell you from whatever I have seen, there's a big controversy now with the Arab press, Al-Jazeera, in particular reporting U.S. atrocities and war crimes in Fallujah, and the U.S. press tamely reporting Brigadier General Mark Kim's claims no such thing is happening. I can tell you from what I have seen with my own eyes that Al-Jazeera is much closer to the truth."

Bush endorses Israeli West Bank Settlements *****
Promises to US Army Broken *****
Fallujah After the Seige Photoreport: Al Jazeera (Top Left Homepage) *****
Scary Press Conference: *****
US Democrat Radio: *****
"I've got some must-calls," Bush said, while inviting a question from a reporter named on his list. *****

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