Reclaim your left ear lobe??

joey D

In you original post Pete, it sounded like you were worried about any sort of potentially defamatory material, now you're explaining that it was the blatantly defamatory stuff that concerned you, fair enough. No, of course people shouldn't go throwing obscenities around on air, as you well know. As for being patronising, i was only having a laugh at Tom's statement, just getting him back for that diatribe about Phantom's pirate status, which we both had a good laugh about at the party, so sorry about that. I completely agree that 'personalised abuse and defamatory statements' are totally unnecessary. I'm glad that you clarified your position on this matter. You'll be hearing from my lawyers in the morning.

joey D

Anyway, I was merely trying to generate a bit of a brou-ha-ha, getting caught up the whole public indignation thing, y'know, adding grist to the mill, stirring it up, pitch a few curved balls, hoist up a flag and see if anyone would salute it...........

the corpo

whats the difference between an onion and a hippy?










no-one cries when you slice a hippy

AtlantaSuburb

Originally posted by joey D
Anyway, I was merely trying to generate a bit of a brou-ha-ha, getting caught up the whole public indignation thing, y'know, adding grist to the mill, stirring it up, pitch a few curved balls, hoist up a flag and see if anyone would salute it...........

whoa, i'm impressed joey! four cliches in one sentence is quite some achievement...

pete: point taken, when names come into play it's a whole different ballgame...

:-)

AtlantaSuburb:cool:

Tom E Brown

Sorry, Joey D

I stand by the "diatribe" I posted about phantom getting a licence.

As for us having a laugh about this "diatribe" at the staff party, that was far from the case. Its a shame you dont understand what we're trying to do at Phantom. I dont think its a laughing matter now, and I didnt then.

back to the subject in hand...

People getting physicaly attacked by the authoritys who have been charged with keeping the peace is something that happens in dictatorships, not free countrys. Its an attack on free speech and whats more no one seams to know if there's going to be any disipinary measures taken against the people involved. It looks like its going to be another issue brushed under the carpet.

yes, there was a few trouble makers who only turned up to disrupt proceedings, but that happens everywhere there's a crowd, and normaly the police / gards understand its a minority and act accordingly. It seams this time they didnt know or care who this minority were, or were unable to identify them.

Gards without ID numbers attacking people, politcians not asking questions about this behavour and no sign of any internal garda disiplinary procedures taking place. Isn't any one else worried by this state of affairs?

if your not, you should be...

joey D

"It's a shame you don't understand what we're trying to do at Phantom..."

I don't want to descend into a bitching session, but I can't ignore that. Yes I do understand what you're trying to do at Phantom, you just can't seem to take on board anyone else's opinion without adopting, as I see it, a siege mentality. If you don't mind me saying, there's a certain beligerence in your posts, when really you should welcome open, mature debate that celebrates difference of opinion and not casually dismisses it.

As for everything else you've said regarding the disturbances on Dame Street, well I think you've just stated the obvious and I doubt if anyone would disagree with you, and I'd say most people do care and are extremely worried by it, as evidenced by the response to this thread. I'd also say people would love to be in a position to have this issue brought fully into the public eye, it does seem like the authorities might want to brush it under the carpet. Gardai accountability has certainly got to be taken to an independent body or group. Recent events such as the McBrearty affair in Donegal, and the Abbeylara shooting and subsequent 'inquiry', show the need for independent arbitration.

The question is, what can people do about it? Write a letter to the Times? Not vote for Fianna Fail? Not vote? Protest again? Get a petition? An ideal outcome would see any perpetrators (civilian or Gardai) of violent assault brought before the courts and dealt with in a manner that restores public confidence in our justice system. I for one could not believe the response of our Taoiseach who 'fully supported' the Gardai and refused to say much beyond that, clearly a man terrified of losing votes yet willing to alienate hundreds, thousands, of young voters by his response.

One of the problems is the media will quickly find something else to sensationalise and most people will forget about it; don't forget we are in the run-up to the election. Another problem is to do with media representation. Most of the protestors, RTS or Globalise Resistance, are simply not taken seriously because the establishment sees them as layabouts, crusties, idealists, romantics, hippies, troublemakers and various other tags. The reality is that these environmentalists and political activists have every much as right to protest as farmers and nurses, and their arguments deserve to be considered, but because they look different (dreadlocks, piercings) or engage in an alternative protest discourse, the media see them as oddities or fringe activists just out for a bit of mayhem. Look at the pictures in today's papers: do you think the photo editor would have picked a snapshot of some 'normally dressed' (for want of a better expression) IT graduate at the same protest? Not likely. Another problem is that there doesn't seem to be a very coherent and unified articulation of their aims and objectives, and this is just more 'ammo' for the authorities and the media.

We still have a very parochial society in Ireland and there's a certain narrow-mindedness when it comes to these kind of protests. For the Gardai this seems to have been an occasion where some very serious 'errors of judgement' were made, but unless the broader issues of Gardai accountability and media representation are opened up, we're still a long way off explaining this event to our sons and daughters.

soma

Yeah it's infuriating how the media and the public in general just make these assumptions about the type of person who is interested in challenging globalisation, protecting our environment & who objects to the U.N. = U.S. approach.

I'm 25, I work 5 days a week as a sw engineer, "contribute to society" in all the stereotypical definitions of that notion, but yet people seem hellbent on seeing protestors as layabouts & hippies.

As a taxpayer I want to see more QBC's, cycle lanes, high-occupancy-vehicle motor lanes, a pedestrian-orientated city centre. I want to see Ireland contribute the full 0.7% of our GNP to charity, oppose U.S. unilateralism & stop jumping on every stupid international bandwagon that comes along. But how many "mainstream" parties have the above in their manefesto's??

Therefore the right to peaceful protest is incredibly important, and unfortunately the muck-savage section of the gardai appear to have been given orders to be heavy-handed to protestors who aren't farmers, teachers or nurses.

Trev M

Hi Soma,
I like your manifesto , why don't you give it a go next time around!!

PS You're not taking my car away though, Ive sold my future offsring's offsring just to pay the bloody insurance!!

thedrowner

i didnt mean to get caught up in last nights protest march but i had it thrust upon me. I know many of you will totally disagree with me on this, but i dont agree with marching down streets as a way of proving anything. I just get extrememely pissed off because of the marching (r whatever it's called) all the busses were detoured, i had to walk to work and was late. i dont think it's fair to protest in this way, because your making life harder for other people who have/want nothing to do with it. Many's the saturday afternoon when i've had my afternoon ruined because the busses couldnt go down o connell street and had to detour, on top of a traffic jam. There are other ways to go about getting your point accross without having it affect someone else.

Trev M

Wow that's a scary attitude to have Drowner....

You would rather the issue of police brutality not be addressed because it causes general inconvenience.......wonder what the people with busted skulls would think of that statement huh?

Not wanting to pick a fight with ya here , but its a fundamental right to protest , people have died in this country for that right and for the right to express our dissatifaction at the way the government/authotities mis manage the country, to sight the obvious in conveniences as a reason to say people shouldn't protest is fairly weak in my view?

With respect - Trev

soma

Drowner, I don't mean to be patronising, but I'm guessing that you're about 18/19, and to be honest I probably had similar views at that age!

But protests are extremely important for entering a cause into the public psyche. You may think you are being inconvienced cos your bus is being diverted or whatever, but consider the people that sometimes those marches are trying to get attention for. As an example, a march protesting israeli brutality may inconvenience you for 10 mins, but compare that to the suffering being experienced by the victims of that brutality, then be thankful you live in a relatively stable part of the world.

Resist .

Originally posted by Trev M
You're not taking my car away though, Ive sold my future offsring's offsring just to pay the bloody insurance!!

You don't know how true that is - You HAVE sold your future generations off with your Co2 emissions what are they gonna breathe ?

Get a Bike .. or use public Transport .. and if it's not good enough then get out on the streets with us and demand that they improve it .. I think a lot of people have forgotten how much this generations mistakes will affect our children.

shep the malevolent pixie

i'm confused as to what the point of this thread is... the topic's changed so many times in the past two days if you just read the last page you wouldn't know what was going on. having said that, it is probably the most interesting debate i've read on any of these boards in a long time so kudos to everyone who made it this good.
i understand hatrid of samba bands if you had to hear them that much and you have my deepest sympathies.
sHep :cool:
"i wanna be a hippie and i wanna go home"

Monkey

"There are other ways to go about getting your point accross without having it affect someone else" - No, I don't think there is an effective way to get your point across without affecting other people. If you don't affect anyone you'll just be ignored. Tough **** if you're 15 minutes late for work, some things are more important

thedrowner

Originally posted by Trev M
and for the right to express our dissatifaction at the way the government/authotities mis manage the country,

that may be so but it wasn't OUR dissatisfaction it was a certain %. I know being 15 minutes late sounds silly to be angry over, and luckily i have an easy going boss, but that could have cost me my job under other circumstances. What about people who reply on public transport to get them around coz they are too old to be able for the walk? Or people with injuries. what about the people who were injured on monday? If that protest hadn't gone on (and i know it's not the protester's fault, but they knew it was gonna upset people) none of this would have happened. And what point did they get accross when the people "in charge" are still siding opposingly?
protesting may have gotten results years ago, but i think there's more harm done then good these days, and that's what i disagree with.
and soma-yes you are being patronising. I don't see how being 18/19 could influence my opinion enough to make it of worth? I thought this mater through a long time ago, weighed up the pro's and cons in my mind, and decided what my opinion on protesting was years ago!i haven't changed yet..maybe i will in the future, but at present this is how i feel and i dont see how being "18/19" makes it less valuable.
i can't see how monday's protest did anything for the public psyche for that cause, the only thing i can see being debated now were "were the guards right or wrong for doing what they did". This is coming from a member of the general public who didnt know much about monday's protest and still doesnt despite the media coverage. all ive heard from the newspapers is that people were injured, possibly by police for no reason. i've learned a little more from this board, and fair enough, i could be wrong for saying this, but i imagine there's a good chunk of irish people know as much as i do about monday.
i guess it's kind of like the storyline where the captain of the ship/army risks defeat to save the last few people or else he could just escape and leave them there (thought not as...fictional) i'd prefer to go about it in the way that would least inconvenience everyone and still get my point accross, and believe me, you dont have to protest to do that, i've worked on campaigns where other methods are used, such as petitions. If the cause that is being faught for is so worthy and what the people want, its easy to get people to side with you and to work at it that way. i don't know about this protest, but all the other one's ive seen, that have disrupted my days or not, have been pointless and forgotten about within days, and gone un-noticed by others. What's the point in that?
and i did deserve criticism for coming accross as putting something so trivial as an argument, i should have expressed my deeper views with it,sorry. I probably wouldn't be against it if i saw results where it had worked wonders but i dont think that's possible in this day and age, i'll repeat myself, i think it's more harm than good, just look at the outcome of monday.

thedrowner

Originally posted by Trev M


You would rather the issue of police brutality not be addressed because it causes general inconvenience.......wonder what the people with busted skulls would think of that statement huh?

this just backs me up further. The protest on monday was not supposed to be about police brutality, it was about reclaiming "our" streets yes? And i know that thursday's protest was, but monday's cause is becoming forgotten, and this is what's now being debated the public-so what did they achieve on monday? Well desevred sympathy, but how many people's opinion of the reclaim the street's cause has been changed?.

freakofnature

hey anarchy, interesting opinion in relation to ur name.
i was reclaim the streets from the begginning until half way thru burgh quay when me and my friends left. later on i found out not only had the police baton charged various ppl on dame street, my friends brother was arrested at it. the police overreacted and this illustrtes our countries need for an ombudsman

NO ME TO KNOW

what a thread you started trev.