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Resist IMF Occupation! Build a workers resistance network! The following leaflet was distributed at the trade union organised anti-austerity rally in Dublin on 27 November 2010. Within living memory of 1916 the partial political independence won by Ireland has shrunk to a shadow. We are again a colony, ruled by the European Central bank and the International Monetary Fund, with Britain throwing in a few billion to protect its interests. The rump government will meet to plan savage cuts - but the final package will be decided by our new masters. The Dail will meet to discuss the measures. They will be wasting their breath. Soon we will be able to vote. Our votes will count for nothing. We will elect TDs to a new Dail. The Dail will remain under the control of the banks. This new situation represents the purest form of class war, with the lifeblood being sucked from working people and transferred directly to the coffers of capitalism. Fianna Fail said they were saving Ireland as they struggled to save the banks and their cronies in the golden circle. Now the ECB say they are saving Ireland. The end result will be the salvation of the European banks, with almost a hundred billion of extra debt for ourselves and our children. In the fight for political independence the Irish followed a simple formula: don't recognize the occupation, organize an alternative and build a resistance movement. That's what we should do today. We must utterly repudiate this debt. It’s not ours and we won't pay a cent. NAMA and the dud banks should close down immediately and the bondholders get nothing. We must organize everywhere where the ECB and IMF try to take the money out of our hides - occupy to stop closures and sackings, close down any quisling institutions, up to and including the Dail. Our alternative is a workers bank. Grab hold of the remaining assets of the speculators and build a bank based on the real economy, protecting jobs, small farms and businesses and people's homes. Right away this would be a beacon across Europe, where Greek and French worker have already shown their willingness to resist. In 1916 Connolly warned us of the limits of capitalist ‘independence’ and of the need for workers to fight for their own programme. Today we need a new resistance movement. All the major parties, the trade union leadership in partnership with them, they all say we should pay the bankers bills. A network of workers resistance, organized in our own interests across the island, can give them the lie and defeat this new IMF occupation. Repudiate the Debt Fight against the new occupation Build a Workers resistance network www.socialistdemocracy.org workersresistance@gmail.com |