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
garda?. All have acted together to cajole, bully and suppress protest and then to lie and
distort events. ---- While we might defeat the water charges they come at the end of a
long sequence of cuts in services and wages, a period of unemployment and emigration. all
this takes place in a society where people are marginalised because of their gender,
migration status, sexuality and whether they are settled or Traveller. Stepping back and
looking at the whole picture, is this really the sort of society any of us would build for
our children given a choice?
We don?t get to make that choice, we have never got to make that choice. Our ancestors may
have won the right to vote but that has proven a fairly meaningless exercise where we only
get to choose between parties that lie to us. They promise one thing and do the opposite
when in power. Part of the reason for that being there isn?t actually much power in the
Dail. What can be decided there is sharply limited by the dictatorship of the market, a
dictatorship that saw the costs of the banking crisis being imposed on us despite the fact
that in a referendum we would have voted no.
When we defeated the water charge in the 1990?s they simply waited a couple of decades and
then tried to impose it again. That?s the way the system we live under works, even when we
successfully resist one assault it looks for another way to make us pay. Which is why when
we fight and win on single issues we also need to be thinking about creating a very
different society and starting the process of organising for it.
The water charge resistors who produced this leaflet are anarchists. That means we want to
replace this society of fear and greed that is divided into order givers and order takers
with one where everyone, and not just the super rich, are free. Not just free in the sense
of choosing to buy one phone rather than another but free of the fear of poverty removing
our ability to live life as we choose, free of the way racism, sexism and homophobia shape
our society into a grey, lifeless world where many cannot express their love or live their
ambitions. Free of environmental degradation caused by the need for an endless,
destructive economic growth that lines mainly the pockets of the rich.
Our vision is of a society where we can all come together as equals to collectively decide
what our priorities are, what we will produce and how to create the space in which we all
can live as we want. If that vision ap- peals to you and you want to organise with us let
us know by registering at this link: http://www.wsm.ie/user/register
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