Scandals and corruption pollute the air we breath, emanating from every institution of the state, be it the Guards in Donegal planting bombs that they then 'find', ministers selling of our resources to private companies who fund their shenanigans at the Galway races, or the justice system criminalising people who take democracy to be a living concept not a dry and dead idea consigned to history. So some things never changeÉ.
But there is a change in the airÉ somehow it just isn't the same. There is a whiff of empowered possibilities, of a fight back against this fucked up, mind numbing, soul-destroying logic of exploitation and empty rhetoric of capitalist 'progress'.
Workers are standing up themselves against the might of corrupt businessmen. Polish workers at Tesco, nursing staff in Offal, activists, sneered at by Bono and Sir Bob for attempting to shut down the PR face of instutionalised inequality that is the G8, were proved correct in their analysis that it's a talking shop, as unnecessary famine continues to ravage many nations and people.
Local communities in Mayo, Cork Donegal and elsewhere are linking their struggles and sharing confidence in collective organising, sharing the same disillusionment with bankrupt gombeen politics. The Rossport 5 and the Catholic Worker 5 inspire more than they know. Anarchist ideas are shown to be inherent in all these things. No one is controlling this movement towards real and meaningful democracy. It is us. It is you. As our collective disillusionment turns to anger and its creative energy, we find each other again like old friends.
Solidarity carries us as we learn from each other, plotting a path to a future we all can shape and share. "Nothing is different it just isn't the sameÉ".
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This edition is No88 published in Sept 2005 |
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