A-Infos (en) Anarchist news and Dumb rulers/system

[News from Workers Solidarity Movement <wsm_news@geocities.com>]

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     A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
           http://www.ainfos.ca/
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News of some WSM activity including a 
national anarchist gathering we are 
planning for the end of March and Polish 
and Turkish translation of the Platform.
Also the latest absurdities of capitalism
and 'our' rulers.

For Starters

'IDEAS AND ACTION' is a day of discussions 
happening in Dublin on March 28th. 
Anarchists active in the successful anti-
water charges campaign in the South and in 
the struggle against the Job Seekers 
Allowance in the North will share their 
experiences. Anarchist trade unionists will 
talk about building workplace organisation 
and the opposition to 'social partnership'.

Anarchist pro-choice campaigners will look 
at the struggle for womens liberation 
today. There will also be discussion about 
how to build a militant anti-racist 
movement, debates about direct action Green 
movements and lifestylism, and a look at 
how we move from protesting against 
injustices to changing the system.

'IDEAS AND ACTION' is open to anyone 
interested in finding out more about 
anarchism. Childcare will be available and 
accommodation can be arranged for people 
from outside Dublin. For more details write 
to 'Ideas & Action', P.O. Box 1528, Dublin 
8 and ask for a programme.

*****

Red & Black Revolution no.3 is out now. 
Articles include Dermot Sreenan's account 
of how the water charges were defeated, 
Gregor Kerr argues that trade union 
activity is vital for revolutionaries, 
historian Fintan Lane takes us back to the 
origins of modern Irish socialism in the 
1880s, Andrew Flood makes a case for 
building a new anti-capitalist movement, 
Donato Romito provides an overview of the 
anarchist movement in Italy today, Kevin 
Doyle talks to South African anarchists 
about what has been happening since the 
fall of apartheid, and Conor Mc Loughlin 
has a look at how the workers movement can 
use the internet.

This WSM magazine can be found wherever you 
bought this paper, or send us #2.00 (inc. 
postage) and we'll stick one into the mail.

*****

Within anarchism there are different ideas 
about how best to achieve the sort of 
society we want to live in. The Workers 
Solidarity Movement places itself within a 
particular current or tradition within the 
anarchist movement, that known as 
'Platformism'. A less-than-exciting name! 
It refers to the movement that started with 
the 1926 Organisational Platform of the 
Libertarian Communists.

Anarchists, who numbered up to 10,000 
without including the anarchist Makhnovist 
army in the Ukraine, had been involved in 
the 1917 Russian Revolution. They had been 
in the unions, in the factory committees, 
in the soviets of workers, peasants and 
soldiers. They had their own papers, 
federations and clubs. Yet their influence 
was extremely limited and we all know how 
that revolution turned out in the end.

Nestor Makhno, Peter Arshinov (author of 
The History of the Makhnovist Movement), 
Ida Mett (the author of The Kronstadt 
Commune), Valevsky and Linsky (about whom 
little is known), wrote the Organisational 
Platform of the Libertarian Communists 
during their exile in France.

It saw the problem of the Russian 
anarchists, and the movement generally, as 
its failure to provide a theoretically 
coherent and organisationally effective 
alternative to Leninism & the Bolsheviks 
within the working class. Or to put it 
plainly, nice ideas were not enough.

The 'Platform' is no Bible full of absolute 
truths. Anarchists have no need of such 
things. It is a signpost pointing us in 
what we believe is the direction of making 
anarchism the alternative to both the 
present set-up and the authoritarian 
alternatives served up by most of the left. 
It's ideas have been developed and modified 
in the light of experience over the years. 
We stand in a tradition that is continually 
developing, modifying and growing. We have 
no tablets carved in stone, but we do have 
a set of ideas from which to work as 
revolutionary anarchists.

Having found this document useful in the 
development of our own organisation, we are 
pleased to see a re-awakening of interest 
in its ideas. It has been translated into 
Turkish for the first time, and a new 
Polish translation (the first since the 
1930s) has also been completed. Readers of 
Polish or Turkish who would like a copy can 
contact Workers Solidarity.

This article is from Workers Solidarity No 
53 published in January 1998

*******

That's capitalism

A few results of the 'social partnership' 
deals have been published by the 
government's own Economic & Social Research 
Institute. In 1992 profits accounted for 
39% of all national income. By last year 
they had risen to 42%, and are expected to 
be 46% by 2003. At the same time the share 
of national income going to wages was 52% 
in 1995 and is expected to fall to 48% by 
2003. In 1987 wages accounted for 60% of 
national income.

*****

On Monday November 3rd, the chairman of 
Levi Strauss, Robert Hass, received an 
award from the United Nations for, 
according to the Wall Street Journal, 
making life better for his employees. On 
the same day 6,395 Levi workers got their 
'pink slips' (P45s as we would call them). 
The company is closing 11 of its 37 plants 
in the US and Canada and reducing its 
workforce by 37,500.

*****

Since 1980 the pay for top executives in US 
companies (a number of whom have branches 
in this country!) has risen by a massive 
182%. Corporate revenues only rose 128% in 
the same period.

*****

Zoe Developments are a 'disgrace' to the 
construction industry, according to the 
courts. But Zoe are no exception going by 
EU standards. Countless building workers 
have been killed (murdered?) and countless 
others seriously injured. In Germany for 
example, the building workers union IG Bau 
reckons that at least 3,500 foreign workers 
have died in the past seven years in 
accidents at work. During the first ten 
months of 1996, 153 dead bodies of foreign 
building workers were dumped on the side of 
quiet roads in Germany in an attempt to 
make them look like hit-and-run victims. 
Germans now refer to the building safety 
inspectors whose job it is to uphold safety 
standards on the sites as 'corpse 
counters.'

*****

Of the #365 million profit in foreign 
businesses declared by Irish investors last 
year, only #8 million found its way back to 
Ireland. The rest, presumably, joined the 
crooked cash of Haughey and Lowry in some 
offshore tax haven.

*****

As BUPA and the VHI battle for business we 
are being told that private health care 
provides the best service. In the USA, 
Columbia/HCA Healthcare, which made $900 
million in the first six months of last 
year, is at the centre of a massive 
overbilling scandal. 500 federal agents 
have been assigned to the investigation. 
Another firm, National Medical Enterprise, 
had to pay out over $380 million to settle 
claims after it was discovered that they 
had imprisoned healthy patients in the 
firm's own psychiatric hospital until 
payments from their insurance companies ran 
out.

*****

A recent survey by international business 
consultants Inbucon Ireland found that 
Irish executive and managerial salaries 
increased by an average of 6.17% in the 
year to July, after rising by 5.95% the 
previous year. Managing directors in the 
food, drink and tobacco sector enjoyed an 
average salary of #101,756 per annum, 
compared to #78,275 in the chemical sector 
and a mere #49,186 in the electronics and 
computer industries. In addition 59.6% of 
managers received a 'bonus', average value 
#5,652. Good to see that our 'social 
partners' are doing so well thanks to 
workers' wage restraint!

*****

The 15 wealthiest cereal farmers in the 
European Union are now even wealthier. They 
have been given #19.5 million in, wait for 
it, "compensation" for a drop in income. 
The rich certainly know how to look after 
their own.

*****

Gems of wisdom from our rulers

Traditionally, most of Australia's imports 
come from overseas
   Former Australian cabinet minister Keppel 
Enderberry

I was recently on a tour of Latin America, 
and the only regret I have is that I didn't 
study Latin harder in school, so I could 
converse with those people.
   Former US Vice-President Dan Quayle

When more and more people are thown out of 
work, unemployment results
   Former US President Calvin Coolidge

Without censorship, things can get terribly 
confused in the public mind
   US General William Westmoreland
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           Workers Solidarity Movement

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EMAIL: wsm_ireland@geocities.com

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