At least the French people are demonstrating

acotone

Hi,

I've been following the discussion about the Irish economy here with interest but I notice only a lot of moaning about the situation and nobody comin up with action proposals. I think it's time that the Irish people take to the streets !! why isn't any of the Unions organizing something , why not confront this government and demand dissolution of the Croke Park Agreement...take the French as an example, at least they don't only moan like the Irish

hobochris

acotone wrote: »

Hi,

I've been following the discussion about the Irish economy here with interest but I notice only a lot of moaning about the situation and nobody comin up with action proposals. I think it's time that the Irish people take to the streets !! why isn't any of the Unions organizing something , why not confront this government and demand dissolution of the Croke Park Agreement...take the French as an example, at least they don't only moan like the Irish

Are you organising something then?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

mikemac

Students set cars and tires on fire, toppled a telephone booth, and hurled debris at police in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, as well as in Lyon and elsewhere. At least five police officers were injured.

Airlines flying into France were ordered to slash schedules — and to bring enough fuel for the trip out. Gas stations ran short or dry, while truckers jammed highway traffic by driving at a snail’s pace

Today was also expected to bring more severe disruptions to air travel, trains, schools, and beyond.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2010/10/19/french_protests_stoke_fuel_crisis/
First link in Google

Realy OP, this is going on this week. You say the French don't moan like the Irish but is this the kind of thing you want to see in Ireland?

Anyway I'm seeing countless threads demanding march but the OP always expects someone else to organize it.
Have you got a plan? If you are in a union have you brought this up with your rep?

newmug

acotone wrote: »

Hi,

I've been following the discussion about the Irish economy here with interest but I notice only a lot of moaning about the situation and nobody comin up with action proposals. I think it's time that the Irish people take to the streets !! why isn't any of the Unions organizing something , why not confront this government and demand dissolution of the Croke Park Agreement...take the French as an example, at least they don't only moan like the Irish

1) They've a population of 65 million. Thats 16 times bigger than ours. So, proportionately, when you hear of 1600 Frenchies protesting, its like 100 Paddies protesting. The drop-in-the-ocean factor.

2) The unions are too busy trying to hide their ill-gotten money, they couldnt care less about the ordinary working people. They're trying to avoid the heat. Unions are evil.

3) The french are lazy. They didnt want to stand up to germany in WW2, and the much smaller country of britian had to step in, and now they dont want to work past 60. Typical.

4) YOU'RE moaning:mad:

sarumite

newmug wrote: »

1) They've a population of 65 million. Thats 16 times bigger than ours. So, proportionately, when you hear of 1600 Frenchies protesting, its like 100 Paddies protesting. The drop-in-the-ocean factor.

true

2) The unions are too busy trying to hide their ill-gotten money, they couldnt care less about the ordinary working people. They're trying to avoid the heat. Unions are evil.

50-50 in my books

3) The french are lazy. They didnt want to stand up to germany in WW2, and the much smaller country of britian had to step in, and now they dont want to work past 60. Typical.

Utter nonsense....the UK had a population similar to France, and at that time also had more overseas territories than France. Furthermore, other factors such as France sharing a physical border with Germany have to be considered

4) YOU'RE moaning:mad:

It did seem like nothing but a moan.

southsiderosie

I honestly don't understand why the Irish aren't protesting in order to force an election (and an honest national conversation about the budget), but I think the French protests are absurd. Shifting the retirement age from 60 to 62 is hardly radical, or condemning French workers to a life of toil and misery. :rolleyes:

What is really amazing to me is that students are joining in the protests: youth unemployment is double the 35+ rate, largely because labor markets are so regulated. Who do they think are most hurt by France's mollycoddled older workforce?

ei.sdraob

What would burning private property or damaging state property accomplish?

We need change but it has to be democratic change, thru' the ballot box, having those by-elections would be a start.

Actually first thing that needs to happen is for the people of this country appreciate the scale of the issues facing us, alot of people are still in denial and have difficulty connecting the dots.

acotone

Actually I'm Dutch and do have a political activist history , there will be no change in the Irish political establishment if the Irish people themselves won't act against it ....in Holland the people responsible for the banking crisis have been convicted....I guess every people get the government they deserve, I'm not proud of Mr.Wilders though but at least he's acting against what he sees as a threat , the irish people seem to be like rabbits paralyzed by the blindinding light of the banking crisis !!

mikemac

Well a Dutch man shot Pim Fortuyn.
We don't need to go that far

KerranJast

There's no point in demonstrating against the Government because they aren't in charge. The EU Commission and the IMF are pulling the strings now. Any large scale disruption is just going to hurt the country even more.

Gus99

southsiderosie wrote: »

What is really amazing to me is that students are joining in the protests: youth unemployment is double the 35+ rate, largely because labor markets are so regulated. Who do they think are most hurt by France's mollycoddled older workforce?

I believe their motives are slightly different - by (correctly) raising the retirement age, you are also blocking potential job vacancies for the students

acotone

What I mean to say with "at least the French demonstrate" is that they act against what they see as wrong ....at least they are doing something instead of moaning

Shooting Pim Fortuyn was a stupid act done by an idiot.

acotone

"There's no point in demonstrating against the Government because they aren't in charge. The EU Commission and the IMF are pulling the strings now"

Not true , a serious demonstration could influence them to apply the cuts more fairly , that is: also cutting the public sector which is needed to provide money for incentives to stimulate the job market, which all governments seem to overlook with their austerity measures

"Any large scale disruption is just going to hurt the country even more."

Can it get any worse ?

KerranJast

acotone wrote: »

Can it get any worse ?

Oh hells yes. The bond interest rate can go up further if there's mass disruption and strikes making it impossible for the Government to borrow.

newmug

We've been through worse already. The famine lasted 5 years, so did WW2, both terrible things. We'll get through this aswell.

acotone

"We've been through worse already. The famine lasted 5 years, so did WW2, both terrible things. We'll get through this aswell."

I give up....

southsiderosie

Gus99 wrote: »

I believe their motives are slightly different - by (correctly) raising the retirement age, you are also blocking potential job vacancies for the students

French students have protested against every proposed change in labor and retirement law for the last five years. They don't seem to understand that if a company has to hire you for life, they are not going to hire you unless they are damn sure that you can do a good job. And no employer can make that call for a 22 year old fresh out of university. That said, it's not clear to me that they really want to work anyway.

RichardAnd

newmug wrote: »

3) The french are lazy. They didnt want to stand up to germany in WW2, and the much smaller country of britian had to step in, and now they dont want to work past 60. Typical.

If you said that to a french man who was alive during the war, he'd probably break his walking stick over your head. The Germans made short work of France because the French were expecting a WW1 trench war of attrition but the Germans hit them with a fast attack they weren't ready for. However, even when the country was occupied, thousands of ordinary french men and women fought a clandestine war against the Germans in the form of the French resistance. By making that incredibly asinine comment, you are gravely insulting some very brave people.

Anyway, as to the OP, if I had a euro for every time someone on these board said "why don't we all go out and protest!", I could buy myself a plasma screen TV with an XBOX 360 to boot. What would protesting achieve? We all go out and walk around for a day telling the government how much we hate spending cuts and then we go home. The end result is that nothing has changed because we'd still have NAMA, we'd still be stuck with the deficit and we'd still be the same little mad house on the edge of europe.

When I see signs advertising protests, they generally claim things like "let the bankers pay!", or "we didn't cause it, why do we pay?" etc etc. The problem with these is that it's not that simple. I liken our current situation to the aftermath of a house burning down. Regardless of what started the fire, if we want to live in that house again, we're just going to have to fix it.

Ireland is a beautiful country with a wonderful heritage and culture. Sadly, it's populated by a race of people who are, by and large, ignorant, morally corrupt, selfish and lazy. We could pull down the entire political establishment if we liked, hold another general election or what have you but until we change as a people, we will always have a corrupt system of governance.

enda1

The French are protesting against changes which they know will come into place anyway. They are just saving face and being consistent.

Its really a pathetic situation and an embarrassment to their nation.

What, OP, would your protest be in aid of/against?
Or is it as I guess that you just want to go out on the streets and act like a thug shouting some rebel songs and burning cars?

acotone

By massive demonstrations you could achieve a few minor changes, these demonstrations wouldn't have to be majorly disruptive. By doing nothing at all nothing will ever change !

Jumpy

acotone wrote: »

"We've been through worse already. The famine lasted 5 years, so did WW2, both terrible things. We'll get through this aswell."

I give up....

The famine killed close to a million people. At the current population that is a 25% chance of death for you.

Pretty high odds no?

acotone

I was quoting the previous post....

enda1

acotone wrote: »

By massive demonstrations you could achieve a few minor changes, these demonstrations wouldn't have to be majorly disruptive. By doing nothing at all nothing will ever change !

What do you want changed?

By doing nothing at all, there will still be a very sever budget which will change many things.

Again what do you want changed? And what percentage of the population agree with you?

Do you really feel that your minority of supporters should sway the diplomatic process that has led to the populace of Ireland expressing their will to have this government in place to make decisions for them?

20Cent

Brian Lenihan said that he was not aware of anger directed towards him when Vincent Browne interviewed him. Sarkozy sure as hell does. We have been trampled on and lied to repeatedly because we keep taking whatever is given to us. A few big demonstrations and maybe we wouldn't be paying for Abramovichs new boat.
Fair play to the French.

acotone

What I stated earlier I will repeat: cutting in Public Sector spending, making these funds available for incentives to stimulate the job market

enda1

acotone wrote: »

What I stated earlier I will repeat: cutting in Public Sector spending, making these funds available for incentives to stimulate the job market

They are cutting public sector spending.
HSE alone will be cut from between 600 and 1000 million.

Next?

acotone

would not advise to cut that much in HSE, would cut in the salaries of the whole PS and privatize for example the ESB... I worked there myself for a short time as a contracter and was disgusted by the waste and smugness

ei.sdraob

If you want to bring change via protest, get few thousand people not to pay taxes

"no taxation without representation" could be claimed by the people in the areas being denied a by-election

this should bring down current govt and bring on full elections

now where is my gold star

enda1

acotone wrote: »

would not advise to cut that much in HSE, would cut in the salaries of the whole PS and privatize for example the ESB... I worked there myself for a short time as a contracter and was disgusted by the waste and smugness

The ESB make a profit. So by privatising them, we will get a cash injection but at a price.

That said I could agree with you, but its not a cut in reality. Its an asset sale - and a valuable profitable asset at that.

So far your "cuts" will cost us future income and be less severe than those anticipated. Hmm... you're not selling your side well here.

acotone

That's nonsense, the ESB make a profit cause they go over the backs of their customers...the Irish people !! you obviously didn't read the article about the ESB trying to let their customer pay for their own pay hikes by increasing prices by 5%

Why did the UK and Dutch governments privatize their own Electricity companies !?

optogirl

acotone wrote: »

Hi,

I've been following the discussion about the Irish economy here with interest but I notice only a lot of moaning about the situation and nobody comin up with action proposals. I think it's time that the Irish people take to the streets !! why isn't any of the Unions organizing something , why not confront this government and demand dissolution of the Croke Park Agreement...take the French as an example, at least they don't only moan like the Irish

There have been weekly, monthly and spontaneous protests outside the Dail for months and months but nobody shows up. It's always the same few hundred and gets very disheartening. Why don't you go find out who is organising marches (People Before Profit, Trade Unions etc) and join in

optogirl

RichardAnd wrote: »

Sadly, it's populated by a race of people who are, by and large, ignorant, morally corrupt, selfish and lazy.

Speak for yourself. Oh and the 'Irish' are not a race.

Jumpy

acotone wrote: »

I was quoting the previous post....

Yup, my bad, clicked the wrong quote button.

acotone

optogirl: you speak of protests only being attended by the same few hundred...doesn't this confirm: "people who are, by and large, ignorant, morally corrupt, selfish and lazy."

optogirl

acotone wrote: »

optogirl: you speak of protests only being attended by the same few hundred...doesn't this confirm: "people who are, by and large, ignorant, morally corrupt, selfish and lazy."

No - I'm not saying that people SHOULD protest and that everyone who doesn't is lazy or morally corrupt. Many people don't see protest as an answer. I am simply saying that plenty of people seem to be unaware that protests are being organised or talk about the fact that we should be doing more but don't turn out. That does not mean that the majority of people in the country are any of the blanket terms Richardand labelled them. It simply means that the info isn't getting out there properly or that SOME people are all talk and no action.

keithclancy

acotone wrote: »

That's nonsense, the ESB make a profit cause they go over the backs of their customers...the Irish people !! you obviously didn't read the article about the ESB trying to let their customer pay for their own pay hikes by increasing prices by 5%

Why did the UK and Dutch governments privatize their own Electricity companies !?

Really .. ??

Electricity in Ireland is Cheaper than in the Netherlands.

Consumption: 3500 kWh/year
(30% during nighttime) Average amount in euro per one kilowatt-hour of electricity for domestic consumers.
Incl. energy taxes & VAT.
Effective: November '09

Ireland € 0.184/kwhr
Netherlands € 0.241/kwhr


http://www.energy.eu/

acotone

blanket label was from "RichardAnd" not from me although I kind of agree with him.

The point about the ESB is that in the present situation it would be better to privatize them so less cutting or more funds would be available, electricity prices comparison is a new discussion altogether which should be seen in relative circumstances of each individual country.

optogirl

acotone wrote: »

blanket label was from "RichardAnd" not from me although I kind of agree with him.

apologies Acotone

p1akuw47h5r3it

optogirl wrote: »

There have been weekly, monthly and spontaneous protests outside the Dail for months and months but nobody shows up. It's always the same few hundred and gets very disheartening. Why don't you go find out who is organising marches (People Before Profit, Trade Unions etc) and join in

It's the fact that people like the Trade Unions, PBP, Eirigi and their like are organising the protests that I don't attend.

rugbyman

southsiderosie wrote: »

I honestly don't understand why the Irish aren't protesting in order to force an election (and an honest national conversation about the budget), but I think the French protests are absurd. Shifting the retirement age from 60 to 62 is hardly radical, or condemning French workers to a life of toil and misery. :rolleyes:

What is really amazing to me is that students are joining in the protests: youth unemployment is double the 35+ rate, largely because labor markets are so regulated. Who do they think are most hurt by France's mollycoddled older workforce?

I share you r amazement,Rosie. Some years ago, french students protested en masse against a well intentioned(imo) new law which wold have made it easy for employers to hire and fire in the initial two years. This ,imo , wold have increased job oppourtunities for college leavers, giving themselves a chance to prove their worth . The law was passed,I think, but not put into place,due to the protests. But that was a govt.of the left.

In this case, last week, I sat ,hemmed in by a protest in an industrial area.
(I could get out, cars were not blocked , I sat to observe).

I was dismayed to note that the protestors were students, well dressed,and enjoying their outing. (one had written on his jacket that Sarkosy was " branle", dont see it in the dictionary, but i think its a form of self sex)

There were truckers and van drivers who had chosen not to strike, going about their work, but prevented from doing so by members of society ,who by definition should be more intelligent than the usual lefties who are available at any time for such protests. It really got me down.

I asked, in my pidgeon french, why they were doing this, particularly to two who lay down in front of trucks. Oh , the usual stuff, Sarkosy is bad, they are for the people etc. One of those on the ground told me he was a professeur.

It was a very annoying day for me. At the moment of calling off the protest, they had two fires of pallets burning. they just walked off!

Regards, Rugbyman

Just going down to the cafe for a delicious demi baguette , gruyerre, un peu du moutarde, et une grand creme. wild weather out , but I have a coat.

gandalf

optogirl wrote: »

There have been weekly, monthly and spontaneous protests outside the Dail for months and months but nobody shows up. It's always the same few hundred and gets very disheartening. Why don't you go find out who is organising marches (People Before Profit, Trade Unions etc) and join in

This has been discussed many times on this forum. The reasons people are not joining these protests are because they are on during the working day so a lot of us cannot join (well I can now as I no longer have a job!). There are conflicting objectives with any clear outcomes i.e. "its not fair" protests. It's the usual mob of rent a protesters from Unions trying to protect a unrealistic and unfair position to the Socialist Worker featherheads and Eirigi thugs who the majority of us "normal" folk would never want to associated with.

If someone was to organise a protest to force through the three long outstanding by-elections for example I definitely would take to the streets even though they are not my constituencies. I believe the way the government are leaving them on the long finger is a clear and present threat to our hard fought democracy in this country.

People will protest if the message and the objective is clear, sensible people will not throw their weight behind a protest that has rally cries like "It's not fair" or "It's not my fault" as its main rhetoric.

gandalf

As for the French protests my wife is French. According to her the majority of the French realise they have it good and the retirement age realistically has to change. However she also says that certain elements of French society would protest at any decision that they Government makes even if it benefits most of the citizens.

From talking to her family yesterday it is causing quite a bit of hardship for the ordinary French person. One sister wasn't sure if she would be able to make it into work for most of week until she luckily found a petrol station that had fuel, the other sister queued for over an hour for fuel got within 2 cars of the station and they ran out of fuel. She's a mother of 3 children so it is causing her a lot of hardship. They have no sympathy for the protesters at all. The general consensus is that this is something that has to change and the protests are occurring because Sarkozy is not liked. Even the French unions agree that the changes are warranted.

femur61

acotone wrote: »

Hi,

I've been following the discussion about the Irish economy here with interest but I notice only a lot of moaning about the situation and nobody comin up with action proposals. I think it's time that the Irish people take to the streets !! why isn't any of the Unions organizing something , why not confront this government and demand dissolution of the Croke Park Agreement...take the French as an example, at least they don't only moan like the Irish

Why would unions want to protest against the extortionate wages they agreed over the years and distorte the Croke pard agreement.

chainsaws

It's always the same few hundred and gets very disheartening.

Probably because that same few hundred are made up of Shinners - not too long ago they were bombing and shooting innocent men women and children - Eirigi - the political wing of the dissident republicans who are currently in the middle of a terrorist campaign - SWP - lunatic communist revolutionary wannbes - and assorted lunatics, cranks, psychotics and headbangers.

Dorcha

newmug wrote: »

1)
2) The unions are too busy trying to hide their ill-gotten money, they couldnt care less about the ordinary working people. They're trying to avoid the heat. Unions are evil.

Aren'tyou going a bit over the top there? Sure the unions have their faults, and I didn't vote for Jack O'Connor, but I realise that unions are important for the ordinary working person. If there were no unions, companies would fire people whenever they felt like it, whether it was justified or not. The only good company is one that is bound by rules and regulations.


Are you/ were you ever a member of a union?

southsiderosie

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

And just to add onto this, in France and most other continental European countries, unions are pretty much the only groups with the organizational capacity to mobilize huge masses of people and disrupt life for everyone else. So the fact that Irish unions are not involved in protesting makes it doubly unlikely that there will be protests involving upwards of 50,000 people or anything like that.

That said, I will be watching the outcome of the proposed student fees protest in Dublin with mild interest (and a healthy dose of incredulity).

Sandvich

newmug wrote: »

3) The french are lazy. They didnt want to stand up to germany in WW2, and the much smaller country of britian had to step in, and now they dont want to work past 60. Typical.
:

God, this is such a stupid point.

The French people as a whole being surrender monkeys is ridiculous, a decision their government made does not mean that french people themselves did absolutely nothing. And if we're keeping things from 60+ years ago against people, does that mean we should still treat the Germans as Nazis, the Italians as Fascists, the Russians as Stalinists?

In reality the modern French at least don't take as much bull**** with regards mismanagement and worker's rights. There may be areas where France gets it wrong, but obviously they're doing better than we are currently.

How does not wanting to work past 60 make you lazy? Are you one of those eejits who thinks that working until you're too tired to do anything is a good idea? By the time you're 60 you're already too old to do most of the things you would have liked to have done when younger but didn't have the time. Working a 39+ hour week takes up most of your time and especially in the case of repetitive office jobs makes you too tired to do anything in your free time. Quite possibly a majority of people can't possibly be happy in this system because they don't have the time or energy to be happy. Because of this people get defined in terms of their jobs, if you don't have a good job, for people who tire easily, you're not going to be happy, and there are more bad jobs than good ones.

Cop on. If we could work half as much as we do, it'd be great and that's something we might be able to achieve some day with technology. Some european countries are looking at ways at reducing work hours which can actually mean more people working over all, shorter shifts means you need more people to cover them. Working pointlessly "hard" or just being there for show like in a lot of jobs does not put hairs on your chest, it's a ridiculous conservative notion that's responsible for so much stress and depression that in turn leads to high blood pressure and cancer. We've reduced the hours we work considerably over the last 100 years largely thanks to technological progress but some people want to stand in the way of doing it further. Better doesn't mean good, we still have a fair bit to go before we can call ourselves an advanced society; unbacked generalisations against people who are doing better than us and calling people who strive for a better life "Lazy" are exactly the kind of things that retard progress and always have.

The French have the right idea trying to take it easy. But of course, that doesn't make them "Lazy" since they at least have the balls to speak up when they feel they're being mistreated. Keeping your head down an getting on with it is intellectually lazy if there's something better you can be doing.

The Irish people as a whole today are not an overly pleasant people, criticising the French based on conservative stereotypes is ridiculous especially since the French are in less of a mess than we are.

When we sort our own **** out, then maybe there's room to "Look down" on the French but you can't look down on someone when you're out flat on the floor.

Also Unions are evil? Don't make me laugh. Some Unions may be bad, but conceptually Unions are necessary. If Unions are bad, then work to improve them instead of trying to get rid of them like certain people on this forum would love to do. My mum spent a lot of her time doing that, it's tough work but if more people did it we wouldn't have a problem. Irish people are just generally dodgy with running things so of course our Unions will be sub par at best, but that's just all the more reason it's time for a big attitude change.

femur61

optogirl wrote: »

Speak for yourself. Oh and the 'Irish' are not a race.

Technically we are not a race.

RichardAnd wrote: »

Ireland is a beautiful country with a wonderful heritage and culture. Sadly, it's populated by a race of people who are, by and large, ignorant, morally corrupt, selfish and lazy. We could pull down the entire political establishment if we liked, hold another general election or what have you but until we change as a people, we will always have a corrupt system of governance.

Sadly maybe if we look how we got ourselves in this dire situation maybe we are lazy, definitely a few are corrupt. Lazy in that we were happy to let ourselves be currupted by a few.

AlekSmart

That said, I will be watching the outcome of the proposed student fees protest in Dublin with mild interest (and a healthy dose of incredulity).

Oh SouthsideRosie :P .... you and me together...how about we get together and hire a viewing platform along the route (Do Buswells have a balcony ?) where we can roll our eyes in unison ?

:rolleyes: :eek: :eek: :eek: :rolleyes:

spuddy

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the main reason the French are protesting yet.

It's down to the increase in the number of years you must pay into the system in order to claim a full pension (soon 41.5 years).

The students are joining in because the high youth unemployment rate means many of them who qualify at 23/24 won't get jobs for 12-18 months, and sometimes longer. And if you don't begin full employment until you're 26, you're not getting your full pension until you're 67 (and a half).

Personally I think the protests are childish, and in blockading fuel depots, causing hardship for many many people, shows a real selfishness on their part, but practically speaking, 60 verses 62 doesn't mean a lot for most of the French.