As workers fight Fianna fail and the Green partyy's neoliberal attacks, now is a good time to learn from the fightback against Thatcherism in the 1980s with this video of Arthur Scargill discussing the Miners Strike.
http://www.vimeo.com/7589961

Related Links:
The Art of Scargill - Audio Interview with Scargill before this talk.
An Interview with Arthur Scargill - Text Interview with Scargill before this talk

Photo Taken from Guardian.co.uk -http://tinyurl.com/dnx4nj

When it comes to the public meeting, Arthur Scargill is one of the best performers around. He has it down to fine art. Perhaps this is down to his political up bringing as a member of the Young Communist League, where great stress was placed on the importance of making inspiring speeches. Or perhaps it has something to do with that fact that much maligned figure like Scargill needs the medium of the public meeting more than most to get across his points, and has thus has a particualr understanding of how to use public meetings to maximum effect.

Audio of Interview:

Download The Art of Scargill 7.09 Mb

Chomsky meets fellow Anarchists in Dublin

During Noam Chomsky's recent visit to Ireland five members of the Workers Solidarity Movement met him over breakfast to talk over a range of issues from Palestine to the capitalist crisis to social partnership to Iran to Obama and the US Labour Movement. Notes on the discussion are below.

Audio of Discussion with Noam Chomsky:

Noam Chomsky & the WSM discuss politics over breakfast 23.98 Mb

The conversation is about 52 minutes long and as its recorded over breakfast there is a fair bit of cutlery noise included. The notes below are a very rough outline to the conversation noted down as I edited the audio file, its is not a transcript but a summary and there are substantial gaps in it as the conversation goes back and forth.

Govt needs a good fisting

Since when does sharing the pain equate to someone not being able to afford their mortgage on a foreign property and someone not being able to afford rent and childcare? Listening to the media is something which should be done with a health warning. We are in the middle of a propaganda war for the hearts and minds of the people living on this island. The question for the ruling classes is how far can they push the ordinary working and unemployed before it spills over into civil unrest? The question for the workers and unemployed is how to reclaim the unions from the 09 Mercedes class running them, get solidarity among all the workers of this country and figure out creative solutions to sharing the wealth, dismantling the dominative violent enforced power of the state and creating a society where it is easier for people to do good.

Problem:
The Irish Government to a large degree can be deemed corrupt. Self-serving politicians who pander to ensure the interests of the social and financial elite of this country are looked after, are not engaged in the democratic business of ruling for the good of the people of Ireland, despite all their noises to the contrary.

Solution:
It requires nothing short of a revolution, a change of mind, a repentance and a vision of a society where it is easier for people to do good. We need to create conditions were companies with ethical considerations at the heart of their philosophy aren't forced to close. We need to teach solidarity in our schools. Solidarity not only in good times but in bad times as well. We need to educate our children not in the ways of capitalist accumulation, but that it is in sharing that we find our security, not in hoarding.

Arthur Scargill - a man among the people

As part of the build up to this Friday's 'Day of Action', Unite the Union, invited legendary Trade Union leader Arthur Scargill to Ireland for a series of talks. Before his talk to a packed Matt Merrigan Hall, Indymedia caught up with Scargill to chat about the Miners' Strike of 1984/85 and other contemporary issues such as January's Lidnsey oil refinery strike, which Scargill supported, a strike which caused much debate on the left with the use of the slogan 'British Jobs for British Workers'.

Kevin Brannigan – Folk singer Billy Bragg recently said, “Today’s economic crisis started on March 3rd 1985, the day the Miners were defeated.” Do you support this view?

Arthur Scargill – No. Billy Bragg unfortunately has moved to the right instead of moving to the left. Billy Bragg supported the Miners in 1984/85 and indeed did a lot of things which were very positive, but I think his analysis is completely wrong. The position is that the Labour and Trade Union movement failed to understand in 1984/85 that this was not just a matter of a dispute between an industry and a trade union, this was a fight promoted by the Tory government to try and destroy trade unionism.