The revolt against the water charges is of a size and militancy that if we stay on the streets we will certainly win. But the revolt has also exposed in plain view the level of co-operation between media, politicians, big businessmen like Denis O’Brien and the gardaí. All have acted together to cajole, bully and […]
Author Archives: andrewnflood
Statement on the Jobstown brick
After weeks of Garda provocation, and just after Garda beat protesters with batons someone finally snapped and threw a single brick back. When a politician as unpopular as Joan Burton uses dozens of riot police to force her way into and out of one of the most deprived communities in the state, what should be […]
Burton tries to pinkwash Jobstown protest
Joan Burton has seized upon her brief inconvenience in being faced with the people in Jobstown last week to try and smear water charge resistance in general. Now the Phone is already notorious for inventing quotes from random people she claims to meet about how they just love austerity so perhaps you’ll forgive us some […]
Serious investment in social housing is required as an alternative to Dublin council housing families in hotels or prefabs
Decades of lack of investment in social housing and the growing housing crisis in Dublin means that Dublin city council now appear to be considering building temporary slum housing. That’s not of course what they are calling it but Assistant chief executive and head of housing Dick Brady has revealed a plan to house families […]
Revolutionary organisation in the digital age – audio from the June 2014 speaking tour of Norway
It’s a confusing time to be on the revolutionary left as everything that was once certain turns to smoke. Technology has overturned & remade what constitutes effective communication & the construction of networks. Quite how to organise is no longer clear and old reference points of 1917, 1936 or even 1968 no longer provide definitive […]
The Minister, Sex Work and Asylum Seekers in direct provision centres in Ireland
Minister Frances Fitzgerald claimed to be shocked at reports that some women in direct provision centres felt compelled into sex work by the poverty they are kept in. How can that be, its Minister Frances Fitzgerald who actually operates this direct provision system that creates such circumstances. As the Minister she does not allow asylum seekers […]
Legalise Cannabis protest marches through Dublin August 2014
Saturday evening August 23 saw over a 1000 people take part in a demonstration in Dublin demanding the legalisation of Cannabis organised by Legalise Cannabis Ireland. The front banner read ‘Medication – Taxation – Industrialisation – Civil Liberties’ and “We will raise awareness and demand change to Irish legislation for the benefit of every person […]
Migrant X refused an abortion and forced to have a C-section in Ireland – a story of abuse at the hands of a racist, sexist authoritarian state
This is as complete a story about what happened to ‘Migrant X’ that we are aware of. Migrant X is a young migrant women who it emerged was refused an abortion by the Irish state despite apparently meeting the grounds of the X-case legislation and instead forced to carry the pregnancy and agree to a […]
The Warsaw Ghetto and the assault on Gaza – is there anything in the comparison?
The text below is translated from the poster at the centre of this image of the destruction of Gaza by the Israeli state. But it refers not to this horror but another in 1943 when the Nazis crushed the Warsaw ghetto, wiping out the poorly armed organised resistance that operated out of a warren of […]
Siberian craters – Yet another reason that we need action to stop Climate Change
Rather worrying news about those mysterious sink holes that have appeared in Siberia. It now appears they were giant methane releases – long forecast by climate change scientists as a likely positive feedback occurrence as permafrost in Siberia melted and released trapped methane. Worrying because methane is a 20 times more potent climate change gas […]