reclaim the streets and other such movements

shep the malevolent pixie

yet another vaguely serious thread. just wondering where people stand on this and other related subjects. feelings, anyone? i'm inclined to get b1tchy about this by the way, make a note of it.
sHep :cool:

incidentally- reclaim the streets 2, 2.30 at the green on the 22nd.

oq4v3ht0u76kf2

I don't completely understand the whole RTS idea... anyone care to fill me in?

Mystic Fibrosis

As far as I could gather, it was jst an innocent protest until the little teeny-goths came ans were like "politics! yeah! Lets smash things!!! Yes, I AM stupis!! Whats socialism?".etc.

Then there was a riot.

oq4v3ht0u76kf2

I dunno if it's my sadistic side, my violent side or my "northside" (worst pun ever, I know)... but if there's a riot I'll be there. Whether or not I get involved depends on how many innocent bystanders get their faces smashed. More than three makes it perfectly legal for me to (attempt to) beat down on whoever hurt the innocents. Oh, and if my friends get touched... yeah, there's war then.

As for the whole pedestrianising half of the city centre thing... no. I like having cars all over the place, makes the street crossing and such much more fun.

littlehedgehog

yes the daily gamble with your life really gets the adrenaline (?) up - god my spelling has gone to............well............pot......

oq4v3ht0u76kf2

Nah, gambling with your life isn't something to be done daily... and if it is, I'm too much of a wussball to do it... and that whole "I'll do anything vaguely risky including smoking, snorting or swallowing anything you put in front of me." phase is long gone... still, riots are fun in a certain light.

Mystic Fibrosis

In a certain light, nuclear war would be exciting.

Its true, but I wouldnt just go smash things just for the sake of it...and I have a natural aversion to getting my ass kicked by gardaí.

Miss-Misery

I hate to do this,but i feel the need to be mature here. If you go to reclaim the streets 2 because you think 'yay,lets smash things' you're going to mess it up again. A lot of people got hurt because a couple of people thought that the last time, and gave the police what they felt was an excuse to kick the sh*te out of people. Doing that is completely bollocksing up the whole idea of it, and you should go smash things where other peoples safety isn't at stake.

Mystic Fibrosis

yeah, that's pretty much what I wanted to say....

Crash

There won't be a riot. cus after the PR porblem that the last one creatwed, the only guards stationed there will be the ones the gardai will know will be unlikely to cause problems unless seriously provoked. i will most likely be there though to have a look, and to see first hand what exactly is going on / whether the cops get involved and whether they had the right to. Just because i want an opinion un-tainted by the media.

DadaKopf

There's a discussion on it here, if any of you are interested.

oq4v3ht0u76kf2

I refuse to swallow the idea that the guards are to blame because I know many guards and whilst most of them are people who will gladly partake in a bit of rioting, less than one percent of them would start one... for every guard you see hitting an "innocent" bystander, there are a hundred guards who wouldn't touch an innocent bystander. Which brings me to my next point, there is no such thing as an innocent bystander. Don't say there is, if you see trouble then either get the hell away or prepare to be dragged into it. I've learned this because I've been on the scene of several riots / beatings and I've either gotten in trouble, gotten beaten or in some other way dragged into it nearly every time. If you are on the scene of a riot and you don't wanna get hurt or give a statement two days later then get the hell away. If you're a guard and there are fifty or so people in plain clothes rioting then suddenly everyone in plain clothes is a rioter and, in your mind, every one of them wants to hurt you. It's a basic human instinct.

This isn't the best worded post, nor does it fully explain what I'm getting at... but you get the idea.

Green Hand Guy

My cousin got his glasses broken in the first one, but then he can't walk down the road without breaking his glasses.

My uncle (not said cousins dad) is a guard and he even says that the guards started the fighting. He also says that there were no normal students involved in it, only the really stereotypical studenty types.

I will neither agree nor disagree with him but personally I don't give a damn what they protest about.

shep the malevolent pixie

i wasn't there for the actual riot part because i could feel the tension building and i left just before it started but i do know that the guards were starting to get really pissed off.
if you're gonna go then don't go just because you want to start something, don't f*ck it up for the people who are actually serious about it. just have a bit of non-violent fun.
what's a "normal student"? from what i could see, the vast majority of people were just there to have a bit of fun. there *was* the small minority who wanted to start a riot though, and they were mostly made up of punks who came over from england for the day for it (i was talking to some of them, they were trying to convince me and my friends to help them move the protest to grafton street). inanyways, come along, check it out, try not to get into anything nasty. good clean fun etc.
sHep :cool:

bob dear, i'm afraid in this case, the guards actually did start it. nothing against the guards, they're fairly okay for what they have to do and they're better than most, but there were a few of them who started beating into some of the members of the crowd for no reason. i don't know exactly what happened, but i know that it was the guards who started it. incidentally, did you see the thing on Sampler about it? 'twas a video of the events. pretty f*ckin' scary...

s0l

A friend of mine was taking part, she was interveiwed on Sampler, after I saw it I got in touch with her over msn straight away.

She's only 15 and dosent look old, but when she went to help one of her friends who was being hit by guards she was kicked in the stomach.
I understand what Bob means on everyone being a threat. But shes does not look threatening, surely they would have had some training for riots and how to pick out who wants to bash your skull?
But all in all I think the Guards do a good job.

Its the same with all gatherings of people, theres always a small percentage who want to start a fight.

As for reclaim the streets, could someone clear this up for me, what are the ideas behind it?

Miss-Misery

The Reclaim the Streets thing is part of the European Car-Free day and basically involves making the streets of the capital car-free for a day ( fairly self-explanatory really). As far as i know it was taken on board in most places last time,cept dublin. Its just a general fesival/family day out thing etc. And as for the innocent bystander thing,everyone already said it but i may as well add my little bit. In the paper there was a picture a 15 year old girl from my school being beaten by police. If a big 30 year old police officer with training considers a little 15 year old girl standing by a wall a threat, he needs his head checked.

Seaman

i completely agree. the police here resort to violence too much.
but reclaim the streets is meant to be peaceful which it was anything but last time. the gardai were being provoked and saw a chance to take their anger out on innocents aswell as assholes.
my friend was crossing the street because he saw his brother on the other side and was beaten with one of them baton like things.

shep the malevolent pixie

the basic point behind reclaim the streets is to let a large group of people congregate in order to have a peaceful protest/party/thing against the fact that because of advertising and cars and big nasty multinational corporations, people can't just congregate in public spaces anymore because there is no public space. this is because everything is owned by someone and therefore it's not possible for gatherings to take place without the owner's permission. which kinda sucks, so the movement is about taking back a designated street for the day and blocking it off in order to have a big happy party thing. insofar as i am aware anyway.
sHep :cool:

the police have never been as violent as they were last may, i think people should take into account the fact that our police force do not carry weapons and would normally not have been this frighteningly brutal. it was a small group of them that did this, i don't think it's fair to judge them all by what happened that day.
but it was pretty bad and i hope they're punished for it.
:rolleyes:

Plasticman

at the last reclaim the streets, my friend's 12 yo cousin was being beaten up. she went to drag her away from the riot, but then SHE was attacked. it was all over the news.