some meandering thoughts on RTS yesterday.

by jc Tue Sep 23, 2003 14:09

i think it would have been accetapble to wander in any direction on the rts, but at the point which the dcc decided to take the lead(and go to stephens was his plan he said) it would screwed up the loose plan to finish up on o'connell street and join the bin tax campaign. it would have taken an hour to get up and back

i really don't know what he was doing wearing a jumper with the corpo sign on it?

by Joe Tue Sep 23, 2003 14:11

You've gotta wonder when someone wearing a corpo top tries to lead the protest as far away from the form up point for the anti-bin tax demo as you can get! The same person wouldn't be a yet another 'tax the poor' GPer would they?

by bike it Tue Sep 23, 2003 14:21

but it has to be said that the DCC lads were running critical mass rides long before there reclaim the streets became hip actually probably when many of the RTS heads were still in primary school. They have been more proactive in helping consultation and legislation and agitation that has brought about real benefits for cyclists in the city.

by jc Tue Sep 23, 2003 14:25

he just should have dicussed it with the obvious people before taking the unilateral decision to go to stephens green that was his big mistake

by jc Tue Sep 23, 2003 14:41

what you say is true and the dcc had their moment on monday afternoon when they did a press thing outside the civic offices, so as they yer man said if they want to do something organise it themselves

by ElMur Tue Sep 23, 2003 16:13

The bin tax thing took AGES to get going. There were some incredibly boring speeches in the freezing cold, telling the crowd exactly what they knew already. Some guy from Eng-ger-land nearly put me to sleep, but I guess Mick O'Reilly was OK
__________________________________________________

FYI - the bin tax thing as you so lovingly refer to it has BEEN going for years. I have to say that the fight that we are engaged in with Dublin City Council will continue without the involvement of cause-hopping kids. The event last night was organised so that people could vent their frustration at the imprisonment of Joe Higgins and Clare Daly and at the blatant disregard of the Corpo for the opinion of the majority of Dublin people....it was not organised for the benefit or amusement of RTS attendees who may have had nowhere else to go.

It's true what you say the RTS attendees (about 50 if you want to play the numbers game) brought nothing to the protest but a gaggle of Gardai and a bad attitude cos in their ill informed opinion the protest wasn't "fun" enough for them.

Please leave the anti bin tax campaign alone - I realise that on ocaisions like last night numbers really do count, and numbers get you noticed but....perhaps this "issue" is one which you can leave to the grown-ups (those of us who are actually liable for this charge and those of us for whom this is a little bit more than something to fill in the time 'til the new series of Buffy is screened)

by Joe Tue Sep 23, 2003 16:24

I've been involved in RTS and I'm involved in the anti-bin tax campaign as well. At least one of the Dublin city people the council are trying to injunct has been involved with all the recent RTS events. You might want to follow the state agenda of keeping everyone in their seperate little boxes to be picked off one by one but thankfully most of the people at RTS did not and choose to come up to Parnell Square to show solidarity. As for numbers I'd say it was more like 150 (but strung out in a typically disorganised manner :-)

by Irish Times Tue Sep 23, 2003 16:27

Car-Free Day results in little but a fairly carefree demo



Car-Free Day made no impact in Dublin yesterday morning as rain encouraged commuters to stick to their cars, creating traffic congestion that was worse than usual, according to the AA. Tim O'Brien reports.

Dublin City Council declined to close any streets, provoking the ire of the Dublin Cycling Campaign which accused it of virtually ignoring the event.

Campaigners erected a 5ft mock headstone on the steps of the Civic Offices to "mourn the day's passing". The headstone bore the inscription "Dublin City Council RIP Car Free Day 1998-2003"

The council was also the target of criticism from the campaign groups, Critical Mass and Reclaim The Streets, which were joint organisers of a "Repaint the Streets" demonstration in the city centre last night. Between 200 and 300 mainly young protesters walked or cycled in the company of a large Garda presence through the city centre to the Central Bank.

A number of garda cyclists in uniform accompanied the parade, as did gardaí on foot, on horseback and on motorcycles. It was monitored by gardaí in a van with closed-circuit television, from roof-tops by gardaí with binoculars and by a Garda helicopter.

At the Central Bank some marchers sat on the street and blocked traffic, while others produced chalk and drew zebra crossings on the ground.

To chants of "Whose world? Our world!" and "Whose streets? Our streets!" they blocked traffic for up to an hour. However, it was a good-natured event, and a number of plain-clothes gardaí smiled and laughed as they acknowledged their status for an Indymedia cameraman.

Also cycling were two Green Party TDs, Mr Ciarán Cuffe and Mr Eamon Ryan.

Dublin Bus handed out 20,000 free tickets. However, a spokeswoman agreed with the AA that the rain probably put a damper on the numbers availing of free public transport during the day.

The AA spokesman, Mr Conor Faughnan, said that in not closing the streets in Dublin the city council was only "accepting the reality that without an efficient public transport system there is no point in pretending that the city can do without the car.

"We [in the AA] have no problem with a complete car-free day, but it would be more realistic to call it a bank holiday."

Car-Free Day was also celebrated in towns and cities across the Republic.

by Irish Independent page 7 Tue Sep 23, 2003 16:54

A radical threat to paint Dublin's streets with unofficial cycle lanes and zebra crossings dissipated last night into a peaceful two hour march around the capital.

At 5pm, 150 protesters had gathered at the Spire on O'Connell Street for the 'Reclaim The Streets' initiative, co-inciding with Car Free Day.

The event had been billed as one in which "much needed improvements" would be carried out to Dublin's streets and supporters were asked to bring paint and brushes.

About 45 uniformed gardai, including four mounted officers, were assembled in order to prevent a repeat of the 'Reclaim The Streets' march which ended in riots in May last year.

Yet as it turned out, not a drop of paint came near the tarmac and the worst delays were suffered by bus users as cross-city services were delayed by up to 50 minutes. Gardai, who adopted a high profile but low key approach to the protest, made no arrests, although they did remove a few spray cans of paint from one protester.

Most protesters seemed content with chalking smiley faces on the kerb, or scrawling messages on dusty windows such as 'Kill Pigs', 'Capitalism Kills' and 'Reclaim Your Life'

The protest moved off along O'Connell Street towards the Liffey, led by a group on bicycles, whose faces were covered by scarves, surgical masks and hooded tops. a number of teenagers, still in school uniform, followed behind.

Among the adults walking to the rear of the group was Green TD Ciaran Cuffe, who said he was there to support increased public transport and cycle lanes.

His party colleague, Eamonn Ryan added : "I feel that we should be doing more, especially to get more young people on bicycles."

The march meandered its way around D'Olier Street, Westmoreland Street, the quays and through Temple Bar to Dame Street.

A decision to halt the march further along the street, for a spot of impromptu rapping, was greeted with a chorus of car horns and jeers by passers by.

"Why can't they find a field to march in," asked one. "I'm going to miss Corrie now," grumbled another.

The protest was tailed by three representatives of Dublin Bus, who had been given no advance notice of the route of the march and who were radio-ing every move back to base.

"It's causing major delays of up to 50 minutes, and this shower never tell us where they're going," said the spokesman.

After a final march along Wicklow Street, the marchers returned to the Spire, from where the hardcore element departed to join the bin charge protest at Mountjoy jail.

by conor ( wsm personal capacity) Tue Sep 23, 2003 17:39

Get a life EImur - I thought it was fantastic that so many from RTS turned up to the bin tax march on the day. This is a big journey, politically, for many involved and I was delighted!

I have been involved in the Bin Taxes and the water Taxes campaigns and many an RTS action and your attitude stinks to high heaven

Its not the RTS people who need to grow up
- As for the cops its pretty clear they had been drafted in for both protests and the full night.

Solidarity is strength !

Conor

by Chekov Tue Sep 23, 2003 18:19

At least a half dozen of the people who came up with RTS have been involved in blockades.

I overheard several of the non-aligned 'ordinary' people at the bin tax assembly point talking about the RTS arrival. Many seemed to know who RTS were and brought up the May 6th events. None of them seemed to think it was too surprising that RTS were there.

On a blockade in Cabra, when the police arrived, one of the 'ordinary' protestors remarked to me, 'they're pricks, remember when that big prick beat up all those protestors on Dame street"

I'd suggest that these things are not as alien in people's minds as they are to some formulaic lefties.

by ElMur Tue Sep 23, 2003 18:37

I'm sorry but I don't believe a word of it Chekov - and I am speaking as a non-alligned "ordinary" person - the kids from RTS brought with them a large number of Gardai which were not needed to police the crowd marching in support of Clare Daly and Joe Higgins (and as it goes were not needed to police the apethetic teenagers either!). I overheard no-one welcome their arrival.

If you read my post you will note that I object to the tone of this guy's article....after becoming bored with the RTS activities (or complete lack thereof) he wandered up to the Anti Bin Tax protest - he had not a good word to say about any of it - it took AGES to get going....the speeches were boring etc and to him I would say - get involved or stay away - we have enough critics in the corpo and elsewhere. The protest was not laid on for his entertainment and he has no right to expect anything from those attending other than that we dragged our arses up to Mountjoy after a hard days work to show solidarity, to hightlight a wrong BUT not to entertain him or his friends.

by Chekov Tue Sep 23, 2003 18:54

I don't make things up and resent being called a liar, especially by anonymous begrudgers on indymedia.

by sick and tired of miserable idiots Tue Sep 23, 2003 20:16

EIMUR -

Don't you realise that you are in the minority of masochistic leftists who actually enjoy long, convoluted and glory-grabbing speeches? That the person from RTS who griped about the misery of having to listen to mini-lenins, and parttake in another march-to-nowhere, is really speaking for a great many of us? The only difference being that most of us have realised that it doesn't do any good to bitch about it, because it's not about to change. But no, of course you don't. You are, after all, probably one of those mini-lenins, or worse still it is what you aspire to. Good luck in your quest - one day perhaps you too will be standing up there, resplendent in a bad suit, or doc martens, confident in the knowledge that you are indeed impeding any chance of revolution or change by estranging yet another generation from politics.

by iosaf Tue Sep 23, 2003 21:46

seems a bit "out of focus" to me. It's like the RTS kids are exactly what they say. And the RTS grown ups are too. Haven't noticed us going to prison and then leading each other there have you?
You haven't noticed us preaching Troty shite at you have you? No.
We've just like said regularly and openly that we want "our days out" for our particular brand of democratic activity. One indeed that has become an emergent and _valued_ type of "democratic activity" throughout the European Union and the U.S.A. The value is rated in millions of dollars and euro-dollars.


¿Now are we to be blamed for the mistakes of others?

by tired Wed Sep 24, 2003 00:17

'We knew there wasnt going to be any sort of a jail break attempt at Mountjoy (or anything interesting at all in fact), so we fucked off home.'

Why don't you and the Black Bloc guys or any other mad bastard sounding fronts you 'know', or saw on a video, organise one? Sadly jailbreaks are rarely spontaneous and require boring things like planning, waiting, convincing...etc. The Black Bloc are boring, organised, people who do stuff, you know? Whatever their motives. Imagination is vital but it's not going to change anything without boring slog.

Well done to all who took part, organised, spoke at, disagreed with, took notice of, or thought about the issues involved in both protests....... but bored?

by wensley Wed Sep 24, 2003 04:07

In responce to some of your unfounded claims.
"....it was not organised for the benefit or amusement of RTS attendees who may have had nowhere else to go." I was on the rts march and as we made our way up O'Connell street it was made very clear that the rts event was over and people should only come along if they wanted to support the bin charges march. we were not obliged. I came because i support the issues as i support the rts issues.

Protests should be fun. If anything it is a mark of respect to rts if their protests are more fun than the anti bin tax campaigns'. I enjoyed both but could understand rts demonstrators not having the same principles as you nor should they have. obviously they are all "ill informed" if not.

"Please leave the anti bin tax campaign alone". Nice one. Really rallying support there.

I am grown up. I might have to pay this charge if the campaign is unsuccessfull. I dont watch buffy. Because i dont have the same views as you this does not mean i am young or ill informed. If you object to the tone of the initial post, I object to your tone. Rather patronising i would have said.

"I overheard no-one welcome their arrival." Funny that i seemed to hear lots of claping.

You object to the rts bringing police with them. Planning to do something illegal?yet then you make a snide remark about the rts lack of activity. Would you prefer another riot?Was the rts activity any different than the anti bin tax campaign, or were they both peacefull marches?

"...we dragged our arses up to Mountjoy after a hard days work to show solidarity". So did I but i dragged my ass to two protests. I dont care because i enjoyed myself. Everyone has to work, nobody i was talking to was complaining about being there. Maybe you are just bitter or maybe you want to keep the glory of protesting to yourself. Either way, thankfully you dont speak for the anti bin tax campaign as you sound like such a delightfull person that you would have been marching alone.

FREE JOE AND CLAIR - JAIL ELMUR

by Fergus - The Treaty of Production Wed Sep 24, 2003 18:00 cabal-douser at ziplip dot com

"So...RTS goes into its seven month hibernation until May 1st"

OK, theres the shite weather...
Deal with it,
this is Ireland not the costa del sol.

Any contingency plans for the snow ?
An rts white block. "Who threw that snowball ?"
Roast those chestnuts.
F'k the rain - What about a themed umbrella/global warming street party ?

Is there any indoor public space ?
What about reclaiming the space that a big shopping centre now occupies, a crossover event on Buy Nothing Day ?

F'k dogma,
F'k the routine,
Dismantle the molds...

by Ro Wed Sep 24, 2003 22:13 mckevitr at vodafone dot ie

I really think that 'ye olde ones' comments are those of a 'muppet'.
The reason the cyclist choose to move up towards Grafton Street was to add
some more traffic chaos to the events nothing to do with the Dail or the
DCC.
Stephens Green is one of the bust streets in the centre hence this would
have caused traffic chaos..the whole point of the critical mass.
THe critical mass needs informed peolpe on cycling in order to achieve anything in this city.
All one has to do is look at the flyers handed out for the critical mass which said 'add more cycle lanes'.
Any knowledgeable cycle campaigner does not want more cycle lanes but rather more fundamental changes than this.
More cycle lanes in this city have only decreased cycle numbers.
A lot of cyclists in this city should wise up about improving cycling and never say things like more cycle lanes, this is only allowing the cars take over the city.
Be smart and maybe even join the DCC.
Ro..

by angry bin tax campaigner - . Fri Sep 26, 2003 11:44

"You haven't noticed us preaching Troty shite at you have you?"

are you serious, anarchists lecturing people, no never never happens! What do you think that whole insulting article was. my friend that is preaching in the nastiest manner. Iosaf are you looking at the same indymedia as the rest of us? You don't lecture trotty stuff but no problem telling us how boring we all are or how authoritarian or reformist or just not cool!!!! Some anarchists on this site are very arrogant.

A sp paper seller will ask you politely once if you would like a paper. He or she won't look down their nose at you for the type of protest you're doing and especially not for your speaking skills. he or she won't start lecturing you on how your protest is useless. And he or she won't give you that funny look you get RTS gigs if you are not properly dressed.
And if your newly involved in activism you won't be dissected by muppets who rarely leave threir computer.

I notice how the writer of the article delights in looking down his nose at the other activists on the cycle demo, then seems to love that he shocked the residents many of whom were on their first demo by turning up in masks with a large police escort. but then its all far to boring for him, really I mean who do those socialists think they are protesting the fact two of their members were jailed!!! Then he complains they didn't do anything exciting or entertaining enough for him, like storm the joy!
so he went home with the satisfaction he and he alone knows how to protest (till he leaves college that is). if you ask me I can't see the difference between a festa di L'unita gig in italy and an RTS gig, except they block the streets with parties for ten days at a time. Same in france and Spain. And they are all boring centre lefts too!! And you give out to us for preaching. Really we don't need this at all.

You don't see bin tax people complaining about the rts protest or sp people for that matter, one person on this tread told the writer to fuck off, but thats what happens when you arrogantly insult people. If we used RTS tactics for the bin campaign (ie subsituting action in the communites by some super anarchists in masks) we would get nowhere. And the government would portray us as muppets and we'd loose support. but you don't see us lecturing you on your protest do you. Well until now but thats just cause that arrogant bastard who wrote that report got up my nose. he should apologise to those people who have put 3 years of their life and those who have been arrested and jailed. being jailed isn't boring at all!!!

this really has annoyed me and you shouldn't standing with someone who writes such arrogant rubbish. Want to split a campaign? its easy just keep writing shite like that that insults anyone who isn't trendy or exciting ennough for RTS boy.I'm really pissed off. Fuck you.

Everyone is perfectly welcome to come along and take part everyone is entittled to critize but if you do so with such an arrogant attitude don't be suprised at the reponse, with respect someone should teach you some manners.

by nobintax Fri Sep 26, 2003 11:54

so everyone is just useless except you but god forbid you'd ever try an organise something yourself. that kind of nonsense is what gives students a bad name. Bins are probably a little boring to you. But maybe if you move out of home and start to pay bills it will mean something. Electricity bills, bin bills, water bills, all adds up in the end ask your mother.

And do me a favour next time you go to an anti bin tax march have the guts to speak with that tone to our faces instead of insulting us from the safety of you computer.

by john - fingal anti bin Fri Sep 26, 2003 12:31

Why did you go to the bin protest masked.
First of all it is perfectly legal to go to this protest. If you were trying to intimidate cops I don't think it'll have worked. the really though ones don't need masks. if your trying to not let the cops see your face, why? we are prepared to show our faces in solidarity with joe and clare. if you are afriad you shouldn't be. the rest of us aren't. if its a fashion statement fair enough but do it somewhere else it puts us in a bad light with the public. If you don't want a boss to see your face on tv or something its about time you showed your face!!! you have to stand up to them sooner or later. if your worried about realatives stay away from cameras. in short next time leave the masks, if you want to look cool or tough or something thats your business but don't drag us into it.
Show your face let yourself be counted!!!

by Badman Fri Sep 26, 2003 13:25

From the IT:

"Garda cyclists ... gardai on foot, on horseback and on motorcycles. It was monitored by gardai in a van with closed-circuit television, from roof-tops by gardai with binoculars and by a garda helicopter ... and a number of plain-clothes gardai."

Although I don't think that masking up is a good idea and a very small proportion of RTSers actually did, I can easily understand why somebody might, given these circumstances.

by rockon - none Sat Feb 14, 2004 10:41 iankelly20 at hotmail dot com dublin 0871349181

the comment you made about the dcc guy is
stupid.i was there talking to him,i know who you are and if you look at the pictures i'm sure you will remember who i am!it seemed
the small bit of influence you had on the day went to your head!!!! the reason the dcc,rory & myself were heading the crowd past trinity was simple.you and your thinking buddie's had ran out of ideas.the march was to go nowhere near the dail!!!!!!!! we put our heads
together and decided on the tactic of blocking
of the green,this would have caused hours of
gridlock,and disturbence.it was'nt our fault
you had the crowd standing there for 20minutes doing nothing!!in future spread the orginasation of the event,then maybe next
time the march will go smoothly for us..