Socialist Party condemns destruction of Occupy Dame Street camp

As far as I can remember it was always within me to question my reality. I wouldn’t go ‘with it’ if I found ‘it’ to be wrong or unjust. When I was a teen I would channel that attitude towards anti-social behaviour and sometimes towards the law, something I may have picked up from my Dad who often organised protests against abusive Gardai in Ballyfermot. But in my teens it was more just for self-fulfilment.

Savita Halappanavar’s death prompted the vast majority of ordinary women and men in this country to ask the same question as Savita’s husband Praveen: “How can this happen in a country like Ireland in the 21st century?”

The persecution of Wikileaks has taken another dramatic turn with its leading figure, Julian Assange, seeking political asylum in Ecuador in late June. Assange has been in Britain fighting extradition to Sweden. Extradition was expected to begin on 28 June after all legal appeals had been exhausted.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, written 75 years ago, is one of the most celebrated books of the twentieth century, and with great reason. It details the harrowing struggle for survival in a period of depression and scarcity in 1930's US.