Riots can be good

whiteonion

Riots can be good, a dictator in Egypt was forced out. In Iceland their government was thrown out after a uprising from their people.

Had people in Ireland rioted and trashed bank offices and government buildings the government would have to withdraw the guarantee they gave where they guaranteed ALL deposits.

Too bad we didn't have any riots, now we have many years of suffering to look forward to instead

My name is URL

How exactly would rioting have helped in our situation?

MagicMarker

Ah sure it'll be grand, have a cup o' tea instead.

Sticky_Fingers

Protests can be good, riots not so much unless you like destroying other peoples property and generally wrecking the gaff in a blind unfocused rage.

Killer Pigeon

Riots have never worked in Irish history and never will. I mean look at the 1916 Rising, epic fail! We only achieve progress by sitting down at a table and having some spuds or a cup of tea while taking gibberish.

Oranage2

Shooting corrupt officials would be better!

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Surely having your deposits guaranteed is a good thing? It's not all deposits OP, only those up to 100K... that's per person too, not per bank or bank account.

Chucky the tree

They worked well for Greece aswell. Oh wait..

Buceph

They didn't riot in Egypt. They protested.

Dudess

whiteonion wrote: »

Riots can be good, a dictator in Egypt was forced out. In Iceland their government was thrown out after a uprising from their people.

Had people in Ireland rioted and trashed bank offices and government buildings the government would have to withdraw the guarantee they gave where they guaranteed ALL deposits.

Too bad we didn't have any riots, now we have many years of suffering to look forward to instead

Christ these threads have become old, as has my and others' stock reply, but still: what stopped you? You really should practise what you preach, as an Irish person, before bitching and moaning about Irish people, of which you are one.

Jumpy

Buceph wrote: »

They didn't riot in Egypt. They protested.

Erm, it came pretty close. A lot of people did a good many things that would fall outside the context of a protest.

It was primarily a protest though, agreed.

bonerm

A riot helped bring down the Thatcher government so it sometimes can be an effective way to counter evil.

bekean

atleast riots would give those of us on the dole something to do..................

orourkeda

you cant beat a bit of an auld riot

Seaneh

Riots do sweet feck all.

Protests do a lot.
But protests can be turned ugly very quickly by either side.
Usually it's the governmental side that turns them nasty, slightly less often it's a small element in the midst of a legitimate protest who incite violence by provoking the governmental policing bodies (army, police etc) and then crying foul when a reaction is given and using this as a reason to get people whipped up.
People in the middle of something so passionate will be easily lead and then chaos ensues.

Protests are great, and needed at times, feck, I firmly believe they are needed in Ireland now. But it doesn't take much for them to become something entirely different from what is intended.

mloc

Hmmm...

Egypt: Protesting to remove a dictator and establish a democratic government, i.e. a clear objective that benefits the country.

Ireland: Protesting to complain about the fact we are broke, i.e. just being a bit moany and not really helping anything.

smk89

Didn't students try to get their riot on a few months ago and the first posts on boards were against them?
Since this recession started: rent is down, food is cheaper and the smug are practically extinct.

whiteonion

http://www.moneyguideireland.com/irish-deposits-guarantee-after-september-2010.html

They guaranteed ALL deposits for the major banks in Ireland.
This was off course pure insanity and now private debts have been socialised and the taxpayer has to pay for it.

A riot in 2008 could have changed that and maybe the government would have been forced to resign then.

There are other sollutions than riots also, a general strike would have worked well.

Jumpy

No, a riot would have the general public agreeing if there was military force used against the rioters.
Force being used against protestors however is seen in a very different light.

Protestors dont destroy ****
Rioters do.

ilovesleep

OP, you wont get any irish pr1cks - people - to protest.

The irish are extremely selfish with an attitude of ME ME ME ME ME ME - IM OK SO TO FCUK WITH EVERYONE ELSE. Wait until the end of the austerity measures where peoples pockets are dry, they may be starving, their kids may have to work - maybe then people might protest. I doubt it though. They would probably prefer to give bertie ahern - irelands god - a blowjob before they would storm the streets.

Silent protests are great. Black economy ireland here i come!

Seaneh

whiteonion wrote: »

http://www.moneyguideireland.com/irish-deposits-guarantee-after-september-2010.html

They guaranteed ALL deposits for the major banks in Ireland.
This was off course pure insanity and now private debts have been socialised and the taxpayer has to pay for it.

A riot in 2008 could have changed that and maybe the government would have been forced to resign then.

There are other sollutions than riots also, a general strike would have worked well.

The guarantee expires in june.

AnonoBoy

You can protest with your vote next Friday.

mikemac

whiteonion wrote: »

Had people in Ireland rioted and trashed bank offices

They did that in Greece and a man and two women staff died when the branch was set on fire.

Have a look at your thread title again

vampire of kilmainham

My name is URL wrote: »

How exactly would rioting have helped in our situation?

why wouldent rioting work here as it did in egypt and iceland bloody sure it would wake up all our corrupt politicans and i mean all of em... Property developers top bankers and many more who bled the country dry and we of course the ordinery pesents as the nobs probabley look on us have to pay for it all as will our children and their children for years to come yes we do need riots and peg em all out but of course it will just be as allways here a sure it will be allright:eek::eek::eek:

AnonoBoy

vampire of kilmainham wrote: »

why wouldent rioting work here as it did in egypt and iceland bloody sure it would wake up all our corrupt politicans and i mean all of em... Property developers top bankers and many more who bled the country dry and we of course the ordinery pesents as the nobs probabley look on us have to pay for it all as will our children and their children for years to come yes we do need riots and peg em all out but of course it will just be as allways here a sure it will be allright:eek::eek::eek:

After the riots who takes over? How would we decide on who would run the country?

I suppose we could ask everyone in the country to come out and make a collective decision about who they want to represent them in their local area.

And then all the local representatives could come together and if they shared ideologies they could form a party.

Yeah, that might work.

What's that?

It's happening next Friday?

Why, we've already got what so many countries in the world are striving for!

pragmatic1

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

Riots have never worked in Irish history and never will. I mean look at the 1916 Rising, epic fail! We only achieve progress by sitting down at a table and having some spuds or a cup of tea while taking gibberish.

We wouldnt have even got to the discussion part without violence. Its not very palatable, but its the truth. Sometimes violence is required.

pragmatic1

mloc wrote: »

Hmmm...

Egypt: Protesting to remove a dictator and establish a democratic government, i.e. a clear objective that benefits the country.

Ireland: Protesting to complain about the fact we are broke, i.e. just being a bit moany and not really helping anything.

In fairness, its not that we're moany. Maybe you arent feeling the pinch, but theres a lot of families out there in real hardship.

AnonoBoy

pragmatic1 wrote: »

In fairness, its not that we're moany. Maybe you arent feeling the pinch, but theres a lot of families out there in real hardship.

True but exactly what would the riots be for here?

A change of government?

Election is next Friday.

ilovesleep

So how about a protest to demand that we see justice and accountability against those that brought this country to ruins:
Bankers
Bertie Ahern should be long locked up
Cowen and Lenihan - investigations has to happen into that blanket bank guarantee.

pragmatic1

AnonoBoy wrote: »

True but exactly what would the riots be for here?

A change of government?

Election is next Friday.

I never said we should have riots. I just think its flippant to dismiss other peoples concerns as being moany.

congo_90

like many I've a standard response to this.
bailing bankS costs tax payers money.

rioting also costs money AND the bank will still be bailed out. the only difference being you've cost the tax payer more money by diverting Garda etc from fighting drug dealers etc. to a bunch of scum wrecking the streets and shops etc. yes that's great for our international tourism and enterprise income.

that's like moaning your car cost too much to run so you burn it.
just look at greece or egypt. their image is tarnished.

Bottom line, vote!

vampire of kilmainham

AnonoBoy wrote: »

You can protest with your vote next Friday.

and that will work how by putting in the other shower of crettins finna gael sure their as corrupt as whats going out iv seen em all in over the years we really need a whole new crew but i suppose who do we have tearing my hair out:eek::eek::eek:ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

pragmatic1

vampire of kilmainham wrote: »

and that will work how by putting in the other shower of crettins finna gael sure their as corrupt as whats going out iv seen em all in over the years we really need a whole new crew but i suppose who do we have tearing my hair out:eek::eek::eek:ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

As much as I disagree with FG, no party in the history of this country has a patch on FF when it comes to corruption. Let no one ever forget that little fact.

ilovesleep

congo_90 wrote: »

like many I've a standard response to this.
bailing bankS costs tax payers money.

rioting also costs money AND the bank will still be bailed out. the only difference being you've cost the tax payer more money by diverting Garda etc from fighting drug dealers etc. to a bunch of scum wrecking the streets and shops etc. yes that's great for our international tourism and enterprise income.

that's like moaning your car cost too much to run so you burn it.
just look at greece or egypt. their image is tarnished.

Bottom line, vote!

You're right. Riots will do feck all. A protest to demand justice and accountability isn't asking for much.

AnonoBoy

vampire of kilmainham wrote: »

and that will work how by putting in the other shower of crettins finna gael sure their as corrupt as whats going out iv seen em all in over the years we really need a whole new crew but i suppose who do we have tearing my hair out:eek::eek::eek:ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

So when you riot what will you expect to happen at the end?

citizen_p

whiteonion wrote: »

Riots can be good, a dictator in Egypt was forced out. In Iceland their government was thrown out after a uprising from their people.

Had people in Ireland rioted and trashed bank offices and government buildings the government would have to withdraw the guarantee they gave where they guaranteed ALL deposits.

Too bad we didn't have any riots, now we have many years of suffering to look forward to instead

1. nothing was really trashed in egypt, it was a predominantly peacful protest NOT A RIOT

2. MUBARAK was NOT a dictator, he may or may not of been a corrupt politician. as seen int the protest, there was both support and oppistion

3. the expulsion of mubarak may turn out as a bad move in the long run, only time will tell. look at Iran, now a secular state with islamic law, vastly diffrent to what it was before.although i doubt egypt will be as drastic a change due to its reliance on tourism and westren influences , it could be bad

whiteonion

Mousey- wrote: »

1. nothing was really trashed in egypt, it was a predominantly peacful protest NOT A RIOT

2. MUBARAK was NOT a dictator, he may or may not of been a corrupt politician. as seen int the protest, there was both support and oppistion

3. the expulsion of mubarak may turn out as a bad move in the long run, only time will tell. look at Iran, now a secular state with islamic law, vastly diffrent to what it was before.although i doubt egypt will be as drastic a change due to its reliance on tourism and westren influences , it could be bad

rs
They have been under some sort of Martial Law since 1967. Oh yes, Egypt was not a dictatorship and Augusto Pinochet was democraticly elected to lead Chile. :rolleyes:

citizen_p

id regard kim jong il as a modern day dictator not mubarak.

so you agree with my other two points?

whiteonion

Mousey- wrote: »

id regard kim jong il as a modern day dictator not mubarak.

so you agree with my other two points?

No I don't
Why do you support a US dicator lackey?
I assume you support him because you said it was bad that he lost power.
Personally I think he should be hung from a lamp post.

Captain Havoc

There have been enough protests set up, not many people showed up to them so we obviously don't feel strong enough to think it's worth protesting for. The Egyptians did feel it was worth protesting for, there's the difference. Feel free to set up a protest and see how many show up.

My name is URL

vampire of kilmainham wrote: »

why wouldent rioting work here as it did in egypt and iceland bloody sure it would wake up all our corrupt politicans and i mean all of em... Property developers top bankers and many more who bled the country dry and we of course the ordinery pesents as the nobs probabley look on us have to pay for it all as will our children and their children for years to come yes we do need riots and peg em all out but of course it will just be as allways here a sure it will be allright:eek::eek::eek:

What would it achieve here though? Do you think that if there was a massive riot tomorrow that our situation would change, let alone improve?

Locking up a load of people who were implicit in allowing the country to reach this point may make people feel better about the whole thing, but it won't improve a thing at this stage.

ilovesleep

Captain Havoc wrote: »

There have been enough protests set up, not many people showed up to them so we obviously don't feel strong enough to think it's worth protesting for. The Egyptians did feel it was worth protesting for, there's the difference. Feel free to set up a protest and see how many show up.

I woke up so unbelievably late to this mess (oct last), and I dont know maybe theres many more that woke up late and sleepwalked right into this. Ive been doing loads of reading up about it all since and I was like - where the fcuk was i during the past two years. I knew there was a recession and thought people losing jobs - thats it. Heard about the gaurantee and nama but never understood it and never took time out to learn about it. But now that the country finally woke up - how about another protest?

pragmatic1

Mousey- wrote: »

look at Iran, now a secular state with islamic law

Iran. Secular.

ilovesleep

My name is URL wrote: »

Locking up a load of people who were implicit in allowing the country to reach this point may make people feel better about the whole thing, but it won't improve a thing at this stage.

It will bring confidence and hope, not only to us but to people who are forced to emigrate and to future investors who may want to invest in ireland with jobs. How does allowing people to walk away free for bringing ireland to ruins look? It will tell people that we are a nation to be exploited. Whats happening now is collective punishment handed out to us from the FF government.

emo72

its too late. all the bank debt has been turned into sovereign debt. its almost as if fianna fail wanted to do that before they left office.

this budget was bad. it knocked the stuffing out of the economy. a lot of people have no money to spend to keep the economy ticking over. you think things are bad now? WE HAVE TO HAVE MORE OF THESE BUDGETS. the country wont survive another of these budgets. it would kill the economy stone dead.

bottom line. the eu will never get that money back. its not possible. we know that, the eu knows that too. its just a matter of time.

there may yet be riots/protests.

citizen_p

whiteonion wrote: »

No I don't
Why do you support a US dicator lackey?
I assume you support him because you said it was bad that he lost power.
PersonallyI think he should be hung from a lamp post.

1, I dont support or hate him, and i never said it was bad he lost power. I said it MAY be bad in the long run (goverment being kicked out in days rather than a orginised transfer of power), it may turn out brillantly, only time will tell.



@pragmatic: meant non-secular/islamic

Dangerous Man

There's one thing I don't get about this debate. Those who are 'anti-demonstration, anti-violence, anti-protest, anti-riot' seem to automatically assume that violence isn't the answer without actually saying why; they view it as innately counter-productive.

They should realise that many commentators around the world are looking at Ireland right now and wondering why we're not rioting. Just to remind you, the Irish people are being FUCKED OVER ROYALLY to protect the well-lined pockets of a privileged elite. There is no justice or equality in what is happening. Had Irish people actually got out into the street and vented their anger in a more, well, angry way - the government may have thought twice about gouging everybody. They may have realised that we're not going to sit back and just accept such an unfair, stupid arrangement.

But no, the Irish are supine, willing victims. We've had our democratic system absolutely shit all over by these rats in government - and the worse thing about it is that the Irish people allow them to do it over and again.

The government doesn't like the result of a referendum? They'll run it again, and get the result they want the second time! And Irish people stand for this. IRISH POPLE FUCKING VOTE FOR IT!!!!! It took Sinn Fein, of all parties, to take Rat Fianna Fail to court over a refusal to hold a by-election in Donegal. Unbelievable stuff. Irish people stand for it. We allow it. We encourage it wth our stupidity and apathy. The time to smash windows and set stuff on fire has actually long since passed.

History will judge Rat Fianna Fail badly. It will judge us worse.

old_aussie

Riots can be good if they succeed, not so good if it fails leaves you dead.

The government in Bahrain seems to be winning against the protesters.

Jimmy the Wheel

There was an article on this, in yesterdays Times...

Searching for the source of perpetual passivity


DAN O'BRIENANALYSIS: We are mad as hell (as Fianna Fáil is about to find out) but why we are we not doing anything about it? History may hold the answers
IRELAND’S EXTRAORDINARILY moderate and passive society perplexes foreigners. They wonder at the very limited political and societal reaction to the country’s economic crisis. A weak infrastructure of dissent explains this moderation/passivity. But why is Ireland’s infrastructure of dissent so underdeveloped?
By most measures, Ireland has suffered one of the worst economic crises ever experienced by a developed country. Many lives have been ruined and more are threatened with ruination. Thus far, those at the top – be they bankers, bureaucrats or politicians – have paid little if any price for whatever role they played in the disaster.
Despite the scale of what has happened and the scope for recrimination, social calm has prevailed. This restraint/lassitude marks Ireland out from other peer countries, where public reaction to economic mismanagement has led, for instance, to the toppling of a government in Iceland and violent demonstrations in Greece.
The passivity of Irish society is not new. It has been in evidence at least since the early years of the State. The Civil War, for instance, was a brief and unbloody affair compared with other conflicts of that kind in Europe over the course of the 20th century – from Finland in the 1920s to the Balkans in the 1990s.
What did not happen in the 1930s is further example of moderation or passivity. The new ideas that emerged about government and society at that time – most notably fascism and communism – spread quickly and took root in societies where the infrastructure of dissent was well developed. They fell on fallow ground in Ireland. Those (anti-democratic) ideas were almost completely ignored and, more generally, no country in Europe has been so little influenced by new political ideas.
The non-reaction to the economic crises of the 1980s and 1950s are further examples of this unusual feature of Ireland’s society. The latter two cases have frequently been explained away by emigration acting as a safety valve.
That explanation is being dusted off again now. But emigration can be, at most, a partial explanation: many other countries have experienced outward migration and violent upheavals simultaneously, including 19th-century Ireland.
As scholars of society and politics have not pondered this moderation/passivity a great deal, there is not much to go on when seeking an explanation as to why we are as we are. What follows is a tentative explanation of Ireland’s underdeveloped infrastructure of dissent – by which is meant a diverse range of political organisations and pressure groups and a culture of debate and contestation. The ferment of ideas generated from the infrastructure of dissent drives change and acts as an antidote to inertia.
In other European countries, divisions within societies have been central to the building up of the infrastructure of dissent.
In the evolution of European society some of the most significant divisions have been between aristocratic and merchant classes; between church and anti-clerics; between a politicised labour movement and merchant classes; and between right and left. For different reasons these divisions either did not exist within Irish society or were less deep than other European societies. Among the most important reasons in explaining the absence of such divisions was the long struggle for statehood, which unified many forces in society that would otherwise have been at loggerheads.
Another division causing creative tensions elsewhere has been that between citizens and state. For most of the time since the modern state emerged in Europe, its peoples were subjects rather than citizens and those who wielded power over them – mostly kings and princes – were unconstrained in its use for their own ends. The abuse of power alienated many groups in society. To this day suspicion of the state runs deep. When the Irish State was founded it had no such baggage.
It started with a blank slate and has always enjoyed a high degree of legitimacy. An anecdotal example of this legitimacy and the limited suspicion of how the State exercises power is that political conspiracy theories are far less frequently heard in Ireland than in other European countries.
The timing of the State’s founding was important in keeping the slate clean. In 19th-century Europe many powerful forces strained societies as the process of modernisation accelerated. Regimes, which were overwhelmingly conservative, more often than not sided with those supporting the status quo and clamped down on those seeking change. The exercise of power in this way caused long-term damage to states’ legitimacy and generated a plethora of radical groups interested in ideas and ways to effect change, some of them violent. A classic example of this (but in the 20th century) was the repressive reaction of the Northern Irish state to the minority community’s demands for change in the 1960s and the subsequent development of a very violent infrastructure of dissent.
In Ireland by the early 1920s, much of the modernisation adjustment, with agrarian reform being particularly important, had already taken place, and the new State did not have to take sides in a way that would cause alienation and undermine its legitimacy.
Other factors worked to inhibit the development of an infrastructure of dissent. One was the unusually close attachment of an overwhelming majority of the population to a religion that has not historically encouraged debate or free thinking. Another was the tendency for decades after independence to attribute failure to others. “Britain as the source of all our ills” directed anger at failings – that could have contributed to greater domestic dissent – away from the new State.
There may well be other reasons for Ireland’s underdeveloped infrastructure of dissent. Or, indeed, the answer may be simpler. It may even be that the question (and answer) don’t matter much – perhaps most people are sufficiently content with their lot not to want things to change.