Why dont Irish workers take to the streets?

tomasocarthaigh

Often its asked why dont Irish workers take to the streets? Myself, I took part in a street protest and everybody who was anybody bar those who are affected and should be protesting were at the protest.

The 32CSC... such a bunch to be telling us to run the country.
SWP - the girl giving out the leaflets was so stoned all she could say was "Keep it to the left.... MAN!" It inspired the poem below!
Sinn Fein (the only respectable party at it!!!)
Workers Party (I nearly wrote something rude!!!)
And some dude with a grudge against the Freemasons!

Its no wonder the government ignore street protests. Unless those losing their jobs and their homes take to the streets, protests can be ignored as the looney left out for a walk again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHBQkQdJyFU

rockmongrel

Fantastic, insult and alienate those who are out protesting while calling on people to protest :rolleyes:

ednwireland

why arent i on the streets errr i'm working we've turned our small irish software company (based in the northwest) round from loss to profit this year.
i'm guessing anyone in a small company is the same , its only large unioNised companies and the public sector that can afford to go down to dublin and wave a placard around

veritable

The public sector don't take to the street because they know they have cosy, overpaid jobs. When their jobs are rightly threatened however, it's a different story.

Seth Brundle

Protest against what exactly? For a new government? I don't want FF & FF lite in office now but they way its gone, the alternative won't be any better.

ANyway, Bertie and his government ignored the people when they protested in masse against the use of Shannon by the US military and maybe people feel that why would things be any different if they protested now.

Count Dooku

Because ICTU is loyal dog of FF and developers


Union leaders care only about overpaid wasters within public sector, not frontline staff or private sector workers

Main goal for corrupted union leaders is to keep workers away from streets until all transfer of wealth to elite will be completed and only then they allow workers go on streets

5live

What is there to protest about? We are living way beyond our means. We will have a new government next year with 2 new parties who will implement the same policies as the current ones as dictated by brussels. He who pays the piper calls the tune. So get out your dancing shoes........

johnboy_123

I think the crux of the problem is that no one listens...I mean it would be good if in an election we had a viable alternitive to FF but in truth we haven't ... I do believe do that this coming budget is going to be the straw that broke the camels back ...and reasons being and if you put the numbers in you will see we are near armaggeden (forgive the spelling) people are angry its just they are not angry enough yet and focus of many people is survival at present but as I say look at the numbers

500, 000 on the dole - So if they cut social welfare in the budget there will be war

at least 1 million people have kids under the age of 18 - So if they cut the childrens allowence there will be war

over a million people still have mortgages, about 3/4 in neg equity - so if there is a property tax there will be war

everyone drinks water - water tax = war

Public sector 350000 + a renage on the Croker aggreement = war

OAP = any cuts to pension = war and a lot of broken hips

There is not a hell of a lot the gov can do they have pigeon holled themselves in and no matter what they do as with tax take in this country reaching the point of diminishing returns...There is going to be trouble this winter...

dan_d

johnboy_123 wrote: »

I think the crux of the problem is that no one listens...I mean it would be good if in an election we had a viable alternitive to FF but in truth we haven't ... I do believe do that this coming budget is going to be the straw that broke the camels back ...and reasons being and if you put the numbers in you will see we are near armaggeden (forgive the spelling) people are angry its just they are not angry enough yet and focus of many people is survival at present but as I say look at the numbers

500, 000 on the dole - So if they cut social welfare in the budget there will be war

at least 1 million people have kids under the age of 18 - So if they cut the childrens allowence there will be war

over a million people still have mortgages, about 3/4 in neg equity - so if there is a property tax there will be war

everyone drinks water (+ it falls on our heads at least once a week) - water tax = war

Public sector 350000 + a renage on the Croker aggreement = war

OAP = any cuts to pension = war and a lot of broken hips

There is not a hell of a lot the gov can do they have pigeon holled themselves in and no matter what they do as with tax take in this country reaching the point of diminishing returns...There is going to be trouble this winter...

Agree with your points, edited one.:D

bluenose1956

When was the last time a protest changed the views of any government?

Protests in Greece led to deaths in a bank being burned; have the Greek government changed their austerity measures? No. A tough draft budget to satisfy the EU/IMF is being presented today.

There were protests in Brussels and Madrid last week which resulted in street violence. Any change in policy? No.

To answer my first question, the last serious protests that resulted in a change of political stance were the poll tax riots in London.

Do you want to see such scenes on the streets of Dublin? I don't.

Unfortunately, we must accept cuts, job losses and wage reductions are inevitable, as painful as they are.

I'm not in the public sector, I lost my job in November 2008 and now work overseas, and get to see my family on an irregular basis. That is the pain I suffer. Emigration is not an option for me, and I doubt I will work in my home country again.

5live

Protest aint going to change a thing. The strings are being pulled in Brussels and the Dail is the poster boy going to take the heat. It barely matters who is in power till we get under the 3% deficit limit and regain some mirage of self-determination. We may as well have labour and sinn fein in power or FF and FG. The path is laid out and there is no return:mad:

dunsandin

bluenose1956 wrote: »

When was the last time a protest changed the views of any government?

Protests in Greece led to deaths in a bank being burned; have the Greek government changed their austerity measures? No. A tough draft budget to satisfy the EU/IMF is being presented today.

There were protests in Brussels and Madrid last week which resulted in street violence. Any change in policy? No.

To answer my first question, the last serious protests that resulted in a change of political stance were the poll tax riots in London.

Do you want to see such scenes on the streets of Dublin? I don't.

Unfortunately, we must accept cuts, job losses and wage reductions are inevitable, as painful as they are.

I'm not in the public sector, I lost my job in November 2008 and now work overseas, and get to see my family on an irregular basis. That is the pain I suffer. Emigration is not an option for me, and I doubt I will work in my home country again.

And it pretty much came in anyway. A.. no, I can't be 4rsed making my point, because Irish people will never be the uniting together and protesting types- even the 1916 rising was seen at the time as a bunch of troublemakers and was widely ignored. I've no idea why people are not out in droves, even if it is irrational and serves no purpose. The French are the masters at it.

Hoffmans

the anglo avenger protester made world headlines he even made it on to the world renouned max keiser report on sky last nite....

the goverement spindoholics want protests like this so they can discredit the people involved by digging up dirt or paying a disgruntled associate to spill their sour grapes on some rag and make em out to be a crank...


more people should pay attention to j.b.yates and his youtube channel to get a real picture of whats going on behind the scenes, at least he tells it how it is and does'nt hide behind government (spin doctors (the real conspiracsts)
jbs channel

hmmm

We take to the streets, burn the Dail, ransack the banks and run all politicians out of the country. What then? Import North Korean party officials to tell us how to create workers paradise? Go back to subsistence farming? See a dictator take power? Watch the multinational execs flee the country? The reason Irish people don't "take to the streets" is because they know it will only hurt the country and their futures.

dunsandin

hmmm wrote: »

We take to the streets, burn the Dail, ransack the banks and run all politicians out of the country. What then? Import North Korean party officials to tell us how to create workers paradise? Go back to subsistence farming? See a dictator take power? Watch the multinational execs flee the country? The reason Irish people don't "take to the streets" is because they know it will only hurt the country and their futures.

And there's me thinking it was because they were all busy watching X Factor. Just goes to show you.

kilkenny_kid

Basically what is needed is jizz in the face, or bumhole. Might inspire people then. Jizz all the way!

dunsandin

kilkenny_kid wrote: »

Basically what is needed is jizz in the face, or bumhole. Might inspire people then. Jizz all the way!

A Fine post Kilkenny, and one that our Govt should no doubt take notice of. Did it work for you?

Sticky_Fingers

As was mentioned earlier in this thread what exactly are we supposed to protest against? There is a list as long as a midgets arm that chronicles the failures and mistakes of this government (someone more knowledgeable than me can post it :rolleyes:) but protesting past decisions and the current situation that these decisions led us to is not going to change a damn thing.

As a country and a population we took the easy way out 2 years ago and now we are reaping what we sowed. We didn't really care when protests and public opposition could have averted this disaster because while we didn't exactly trust our ruling class as a whole we didn't care enough to investigate the issues and then hold the government to task over their choices.

There were a few dissenting voices but the majority of the population ignored them because they talked in big words and numbers are hard. For my sins I was one of them until the world economy overtly decided to tank in Sept 07 and I started reading up and gaining a basic grasp of what the hell was going on (why is this stuff not mandatory in schools, its boring and complicated but essential to the understanding of the modern world). I foolishly hoped that the government could pull it out of the fire when it appeared that the world economy wasn't going to implode and that the people who were in charge (and should know better) were not complete morons who were willing to gamble this countries future on a crazy punt.

Now that people are finally waking up to the situation and consequences resulting from the foolhardy decisions made back at the start of the crisis there is a lot of anger about, its justified but completely unfocused and IMO counterproductive. We as a nation can bounce around the walls for a few weeks, burn down a building or two and (if we're really lucky) return to exactly where we started or we can try to find a way our of this mess in a sensible, constructive manner.

Protest if you want but don't expect me to fall into line and support some selfish agenda that is flavour of the week just because I am irate at the government. IMO such narrow-minded thinking will only help the people who are more worried about maintaining the status quo the extracting this country from the quagmire we are currently in.

SirPeter

The Irish people realise they are responsible for electing this, and past governments, so who exactly is it they would be taking to the streets to protest against? Themselves for voting in the politician we see in today's Dáil?

While the Irish people elect convicted fraudsters and liars to Dáil Eireann, what can they expect? While the Taoiseach is elected, as this one seems to have been, because it's "Buggins turn", they why be surprised when he is unable to lead?

The Irish electorate has been asleep for many years, and it is far from certain that this crises even has the ability to wake them up.

ednwireland

bluenose1956 wrote: »

To answer my first question, the last serious protests that resulted in a change of political stance were the poll tax riots in London.

no it didnt (the community charge was replaced by a property based taxed (in 1993) instead of a personal tax when they found it was too easy for all the people who rent and move house regularly to avoid it (i should know) and it was linked back to property cos it usually doesnt move)

and thatch would never have got rid of it, it was john majors policy to ditch it

(just to be pedantic)

Noffles

I'm all for nailing a few politicians to a few crosses, I realise this will accomplish nothing... but on the other hand we need someone to blame and no one seems to be admitting that it was their fault either... and we all know who was too blame... lets get em'....

SirPeter

Noffles wrote: »

I'm all for nailing a few politicians to a few crosses, I realise this will accomplish nothing... but on the other hand we need someone to blame and no one seems to be admitting that it was their fault either... and we all know who was too blame... lets get em'....

Nailing a few politicians to some crosses will solve nothing if the electorate replace them with more politicians whom they choose using the same criteria.

The Irish electorate has shown time and time again that it wants to vote for politicians who have no interest in the common good or long term planning, and more usually vote for the politician because he can get them a swimmin pool, or a new factory and so on. The electorate which votes using that type of criteria gets the government it deserves, and the costs of that type of government have come home to roost, in both financial and human terms.

The sadness appears to be that the Irish electorate will still not learn any lessons from this, and will still vote in the same type of politicians, with the same sorts of results, in the future. I wish it were going to be different, but after 90 years of independence, there is no indication that this will change, and it is likely to remain the way the Irish electorate will vote for the next 90 years also.

Lets hope it will be different, but until the irish electorate mature and vote for politicians who can think beyond parish pump politics, the Irish state is destined to remain impoverished and corrupt into the future.

Spacedog

We need to protest for a parnell style land act, to pass a law to free us from debt, and restore the ownership of our households to us.

and to rescure the resources owned by us according to the constitution, that have been given away by corrupt politicians (corrib gas field anyone?) we mine and sell these resources to pay our legitimate debts.

no existing ploitical party has the balls to do this, we need to put forward and elect a new party of parnell style bastards who will obstruct the current disfunctional political system until what has been stolen from us has been restored.

at the moment we are all slaves to the debt of 40 year mortgages, we can either resign ourselves to working ourselves to death (while whining on the internet about it) or work towards taking back what is rightfully ours.

fontanalis

SirPeter wrote: »

Nailing a few politicians to some crosses will solve nothing if the electorate replace them with more politicians whom they choose using the same criteria.

The Irish electorate has shown time and time again that it wants to vote for politicians who have no interest in the common good or long term planning, and more usually vote for the politician because he can get them a swimmin pool, or a new factory and so on. The electorate which votes using that type of criteria gets the government it deserves, and the costs of that type of government have come home to roost, in both financial and human terms.

The sadness appears to be that the Irish electorate will still not learn any lessons from this, and will still vote in the same type of politicians, with the same sorts of results, in the future. I wish it were going to be different, but after 90 years of independence, there is no indication that this will change, and it is likely to remain the way the Irish electorate will vote for the next 90 years also.

Lets hope it will be different, but until the irish electorate mature and vote for politicians who can think beyond parish pump politics, the Irish state is destined to remain impoverished and corrupt into the future.

Sir Peter, common sense has no place in a post where people think that all you have to do is run around and cause damage and our problems will disappear when Wolfie Smith gets installed as leader.

fontanalis

Spacedog wrote: »

We need to protest for a parnell style land act, to pass a law to free us from debt, and restore the ownership of our households to us.

and to rescure the resources owned by us according to the constitution, that have been given away by corrupt politicians (corrib gas field anyone?) we mine and sell these resources to pay our legitimate debts.

no existing ploitical party has the balls to do this, we need to put forward and elect a new party of parnell style bastards who will obstruct the current disfunctional political system until what has been stolen from us has been restored.

at the moment we are all slaves to the debt of 40 year mortgages, we can either resign ourselves to working ourselves to death (while whining on the internet about it) or work towards taking back what is rightfully ours.

Debt forgiveness, are you insane? Restore house ownership, what the hell are you on about?
Corrib Gas fields, take it to Ray Burke. No one was forced to take out mortgages (badly advices yes but not forced), bloody hell your whole post depresses me.

tomasocarthaigh

Spacedog wrote: »

We need to protest for a parnell style land act, to pass a law to free us from debt, and restore the ownership of our households to us.

and to rescure the resources owned by us according to the constitution, that have been given away by corrupt politicians (corrib gas field anyone?) we mine and sell these resources to pay our legitimate debts.

no existing ploitical party has the balls to do this, we need to put forward and elect a new party of parnell style bastards who will obstruct the current disfunctional political system until what has been stolen from us has been restored.

at the moment we are all slaves to the debt of 40 year mortgages, we can either resign ourselves to working ourselves to death (while whining on the internet about it) or work towards taking back what is rightfully ours.

Id have differing views on some items here, which Ill post later, but htis is the right angle for us to be coming at.

Suggestions how to fix it.

Then form a Land Leage style body to march, and ordinary decent people march for change, not just spivs on one side, and the ones who caused the problems (allbeit the smaller ones) on the other side.

For as long as its only them two factions on the streets, the Dossers in the Dáil can look smugly out and laugh that protestors are nothing to worry about, they're only a fringe element.

ILA

Because they're spineless and are politically illiterate beyond following the pack to the larger parties whose aims are actually counter to their [the Irish people's] interest.

tomasocarthaigh

ILA wrote: »

Because they're spineless and are politically illiterate beyond following the pack to the larger parties whose aims are actually counter to their [the Irish people's] interest.

Sometimes, when thinking negativly, Id agree with you. However we have it in us to do better - we did so before in the 1860's, and in the 1917-1921 period.

We can again.

Spacedog

fontanalis wrote: »

Debt forgiveness, are you insane? Restore house ownership, what the hell are you on about?
Corrib Gas fields, take it to Ray Burke. No one was forced to take out mortgages (badly advices yes but not forced), bloody hell your whole post depresses me.

If you're going to forgive the gambling debts of 20 property developers, why not for ordinary people? everyone's entitled to a roof over the head, a bite to eat and an education.

The Corrib gas fields were not Ray Burks to give away for nothing. and they can be re-aquired by the state through legislation.

The corruption and mistakes of the past can be easily undone. you call me insane? I think it's insane to accept it and forget about it until the next time.

fontanalis

Spacedog wrote: »

If you're going to forgive the gambling debts of 20 property developers, why not for ordinary people? everyone's entitled to a roof over the head, a bite to eat and an education.

The Corrib gas fields were not Ray Burks to give away for nothing. and they can be re-aquired by the state through legislation.

The corruption and mistakes of the past can be easily undone. you call me insane? I think it's insane to accept it and forget about it until the next time.

I'd like to have seen Anglo burn as much as the next person but your proposals are insane. How would they be paid for?

tomasocarthaigh

fontanalis wrote: »

I'd like to have seen Anglo burn as much as the next person but your proposals are insane. How would they be paid for?

They dont have to be. Its called Nationalisation. Forgive wrongs... seize assetts. Can be done via Criminal Assetts Bearau.

Should be done. ASAP.

Spacedog

last time I was called insane it was for mentioning a property bubble in spring 2006.

I had read an article about AIB selling their bankcentre premsis in ballsbridge (at a time when property in Ballsbridge was the most expensive in the world according to the freefall doc.) in a deal where they rent it for 10 years before having the option to buy it back.

Having worked for AIB and having personally known some of the executives there I felt that they were clever enough not take such a gamble without being aware of the risks. from that I knew that AIB were confident that property was going to crash, and that in 2016 they will make a killing buying back their HQ at a knockdown normal price.

empirix

veritable wrote: »

The public sector don't take to the street because they know they have cosy, overpaid jobs. When their jobs are rightly threatened however, it's a different story.

big time, i was on a contract a while back in a certain semi state company, i was amazed at the salaries being advertised for the jobs and even more amazed at the employees who were getting the jobs, laid back and couldn't give a damn if not quite stupid people, amazing but hey i guess they played the game and won!!