Saturday's US/UK Embassy Anti-War Protest

DadaKopf

US/UK Embassy Protests

2 arrested; (both SWP, including Kieran Allen, editor of Socialist Worker.)

Protest was peaceful and non-confrontational.

Arrests took place as protest left US Embassy and was heading for UK Embassy.

Police snatch squads used to grab the 2; riot vans were kept out of view until needed, then driven into the crowd.

Crowd de-arrested one protest (female, 40's/50's, red jumper) by grabbing her back.

Decision made to go from the UK Embassy to Donnybrook Garda Station in solidarity with the arrestees. Waited until their release, then the crowd dispersed peacefully.

Gardai deliberately misrepresenting crowd size as 100; crowd was 250-300 throughout; the garda figure is now being used by mainstream media in reports.

Plan to have newletter out (within UCD, possibly wider distribution) giving independent account.

All who were there and want to contribute are welcome: embassyprotestsreport@hotmail.com

Important
Anyone who was a witness to the events, could you please email embassyprotestsreport@hotmail.com with your account for a publication to be distributed on Monday.

Thanks

mayhem#

Don't quote an entire post to add a moronic one-liner.

gurramok

only 100 turned out then ??...bah

The Gopher

If I delete or edit a post do not repost it again unless you feel like being banned.

DadaKopf

Shut up you stupid fu(King idiots.

gurramok

Originally posted by DadaKopf
Shut up you stupid fu(King idiots.

2 arrested; (both SWP, including Kieran Allen, editor of Socialist Worker.)

Socialist Workers ??...Do they actually work ??

DeVore

The Gopher, Castor Troy beat me to your post by seconds.

1. You are abusive.

2. You are wrong, protests were orchestrated in 60 countries yesterday. Get the facts you muppet.

3. 30,000 turned out in Germany, the biggest single protest and about 20,000 in the UK.

4. Freedom of speech means these people have an undeniable right to express their opinions without violence or abusive behaviour towards others.



I dont agree with the protestors, I didnt see them march anywhere when nearly 6000 people got bombed and frankly anyone or any group crazy enough to fly planes into buildings and spread anthrax is TOO loony to be reasoned with.
When that starts happening, I cant honestly say I disagree with bombing their homelands. They've turned it into an "us and them" situation and singing "all we need is love" while they nerve gas us isnt going to help

Anyway, the socialist workers party will hope on a bandwagon full of shít if they thought it would get them in the papers, bunch of D4 marxist-wannabee as far as I have seen.
If there were soup kitchens to be helped out with, you would find precious few of them then.

DeV.

gurramok

Abusive ?...how ?

Protests in 60 countries by minority of ppl in those countries.

you mention figures of 20000, 30000, don't u thk that is an expressed view of a minority ?

only 100 turning out here does not help the anti-war cause.

mewso

I DO NOT agree with bombing Afghanistan. I also DO NOT agree with this march last Saturday. Couldn't be more insensitive. I'm sure these marches were organised all over the world but I saw the posters in Dublin for this march and as ever I thought to myself, Socialist Workers again. The posters had some other title or bogus organisation on it but these posters are up every week when some dictator in the world expels wind on a whale. I agree with Devs assesment of these people. Alot of Idealists and students who want the world to know how right-on they are.

mayhem#

Originally posted by mayhem#
Don't quote an entire post to add a moronic one-liner.

Why?
It was my best effort yet!!

Hobbes

They showed protests on the US TV. UK one got 0 press.

The Gopher

Hmm,i wondered where last nights post went:p .Instead of a persons post making no sense at all when edited couldnt u just put Adminstrador Edit on it like other forums,with an explanation below?

Digi_Tilmitt

There were protests at Shannon airport aswell. Lets show those dam American's that we are not like them!

DeVore, your the biggest waste of flesh and bone born in the last 500 years.

DadaKopf

To clarify:

The march was not organised by the Socialist Workers. There were many various groups present from a US-Irish residents association to, largely, individuals who oppose the war.

Yes it is a problem of these marches that all you can see are Socialist Worker placards but yesterday's march was not a Socialist Worker march. Posters around Dublin attest to this.

The marchers were not all from Dublin, there were people from all over Ireland, America and other EU countries, middle-easterns and Africans.

The point of the march was for people opposing the war to show the level of criticism of the war in this country. It's that simple.

I seem to recall a recent post on here criticising the Irish government allowing US planes to fly over Irish airspace? Where was the vitriolic sarcasm there?

Turner

The gards were right.

Ne1 who disrupts traffic and makes that much noise at that time of night should be arrested.

If you want to protest send them a letter. Dont stand on the street and block people who are trying to go to work Dont keep the people of ballsbridge awake with yer childish chants
. Dont march the length of the donnybook rd disrupting traffic, walk on the feckin footpath.

Any1 who was standing near the American embassy that night should have been locked up. Even if they were only lookin. I tell ya the police in this state are too easy.

I received phone calls in work from people looking for solicitors. Saying its a peaceful process, in the background all i could hear was fireworks, people shouting ****ing pigs yer all scumbags and alot of loud noises.

Anybody who was there was only looking for trouble.

Digi_Tilmitt

If you send a letter of protest they will just laugh at it and throw it in the bin. But if you féck a chair through the window of an important building, then they say 'Oh no, we might get hurt. The little people are angry.' and then you have a much more positive impact.

Von

There's an awful lot of rubbish posted on these boards but this....

if you féck a chair through the window of an important building, then they say 'Oh no, we might get hurt. The little people are angry.' and then you have a much more positive impact.

Your grasp of the politics of protest is staggering sir.

Turner

feckin rapscalliions...

Sharkey

Originally posted by Digi_Tilmitt
There were protests at Shannon airport aswell(sic). Lets(sic) show those dam(sic) American's(sic) that we are not like them!

DeVore, your(sic) the biggest waste of flesh and bone born in the last 500 years.

Hmmmmm!

Perhaps you should skip the protests and concentrate on your classes.

Sharkey

Originally posted by DeVore

I dont agree with the protestors, I didnt see them march anywhere when nearly 6000 people got bombed and frankly anyone or any group crazy enough to fly planes into buildings and spread anthrax is TOO loony to be reasoned with.
When that starts happening, I cant honestly say I disagree with bombing their homelands. They've turned it into an "us and them" situation and singing "all we need is love" while they nerve gas us isnt going to help

Dude! You're my hero.

I don't know what it's like in Ireland, but in the U.S. typically the evil, right-wing, pro-capitalist types rarely protest. They'll show up en mass for things like prayer vigiles to show signs of respect and fundraising events, but having lived in Washington DC for 15 years, I've only seen one or two protests by the right that mustered over 100 people. -- Too busy earning a living, trying to be happy and stuff like that.

The left here rarely need an excuse -- merely a date.

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

The far right do protest Sharkey- they just do it under the pretence of a legitimate cause. I'd wager that more than a hundred people turn up for pro-gun rallys, abortion solidarity marches organized by the Christian right, not to mention those small (but nasty) pro-death rallys outside executions. And let's not forget the baying for blood recently witnessed disrupting ACLU rallies in the MidWest. Just because they don't receive as much attention as the fragmented and unpredictable left, doesn't mean the right are devoid of acts of public demonstration when it suits their purpose.

Occy

Sharkey

Originally posted by Bob the Unlucky Octopus
The far right do protest Sharkey- they just do it under the pretence of a legitimate cause. ....
Occy

All I said is that I've seen maybe two protest here in DC by the right in 15 years that numbered over 100 people.<P>
Your "pretense of a legitimate cause" argument is silly. Assuming both protests were under the "pretense of a legitimate cause", that still makes only two protest of over 100 people.

I don't count the prayer vigil for the 9-11 victims as this wasn't a political event as it was a wake. No one was screaming and carrying posters and no political party took credit. Democrats and Republicans and Libertarians and Greens and Independents and Christians and Jews and Muslims and Buddhists.... all one people paying tribute....no one asking for press coverage.

BTW, I would wager that practically EVERY protestor thinks they're engaged in a "legitimate cause" -- otherwise they'd not bother ... unless it's some guy there to pick up the empty-headed protest chicks who're concerned with saving the endangered spotted gay whales....don't dismiss this...I have friends who make this one of their missions in life.

DadaKopf

Yes, it's true, the standard of 'hot' protesters is increasing.

Excelsior

Originally posted by Digi_Tilmitt
If you send a letter of protest they will just laugh at it and throw it in the bin. But if you féck a chair through the window of an important building, then they say 'Oh no, we might get hurt. The little people are angry.' and then you have a much more positive impact

Is Tilimitt actually Phil (Gerry) trying to make us laugh?
At this stage, the possibility should not be discounted.

Von

I don't know what it's like in Ireland, but in the U.S. typically the evil, right-wing, pro-capitalist types rarely protest.

Since they have the full resources of the police, army and corporate media on their side why should they bother?

Digi_Tilmitt

Originally posted by Excelsior


Is Tilimitt actually Phil (Gerry) trying to make us laugh?
At this stage, the possibility should not be discounted.

Who is Phill?

Von

The left here rarely need an excuse -- merely a date.

"...suppression of the natural sexuality in the child, particularly of its genital sexuality, makes the child apprehensive, shy, obedient, afraid of authority, "good" and "adjusted" in the authoritarian sense; it paralyses the rebellious forces because any rebellion is laden with anxiety; it produces, by inhibiting sexual curiosity and sexual thinking in the child, a general inhibition of thinking and of critical faculties. In brief, the goal of sexual repression is that of producing an individual who is adjusted to the authoritarian order and who will submit to it in spite of all misery and degradation... The result is fear of freedom, and a conservative, reactionary mentality. Sexual repression aids political reaction, not only through this process which makes the mass individual passive and unpolitical, but also by creating in his structure an interest in actively supporting the authoritarian order."
Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, 1933

Perhaps you need thinkmittens.

Sharkey

Originally posted by Von

Since they have the full resources of the police, army and corporate media on their side why should they bother?

Get a grip. The American press is hardly right-wing, with the possible exception of FOX.

Besides, if your assertions were true, more right-wingers would be out protesting given the police and military wouldn't harass them...even as they threw chairs through windows and stuff

tools

Besides, if your assertions were true, more right-wingers would be out protesting given the police and military wouldn't harass them

Curious. What could right wing people possibly protest about? What do they want that isn't already being delivered? A complete u-turn on all the civil rights fought for over the last century (by liberal lefties) we suppose.

Sharkey

Originally posted by tools

Curious. What could right wing people possibly protest about? What do they want that isn't already being delivered? A complete u-turn on all the civil rights fought for over the last century (by liberal lefties) we suppose.

Gee, like those on the right have nothing to complain about. The last IMF protests (really last year) was in reality 100 small protests. One group screaming outside our building was protesting the existence of temp agencies.

Another was bitching about local jobs being threatened by free trade. A third was bitching about third-world cultures being overrun by western pop-culture. Yet another was there to protest about the multinational corps exploiting labor markets in the third world. There was another anti-handgun group and another pissed that pharmaceutical companies just didn't give their drugs away to all that asked. Then there was a group that was just protesting everything capitalist.

Pick a wacked-out cause in the name of someone's bent notion of social justice should be and the left will show up.

If you suggest that the right agrees with every policy of the US government, the UN or every corporation, you're badly mistaken. Think I like handing over 1/2 of every dollar I earn so some poverty-pimp can redistribute it to his constituents -- No. Think the right likes the ACLU screaming about how pornography is protected under the 1st amendment, but the National Anthem is not -- get real. Think I liked (past tense) having a president who bombed the third world every time he got caught with his zipper down? Nope. Think I like every bit of foreign policy under every particular president -- Nope.

Grow up.

By the way, no one (left or right) has a problem with the state of the civil rights laws. The right generally has a problem with outcome-based laws that try to enforce racial quotas regardless of whether there was ever any discrimination.

Perfect example was a case against the City of Richmond, VA. The city enacted a law that gave racial preference for city contracts to a laundry list of ethnic groups, including Aleuts (West-coast eskimos). Now, first -- why should Aleuts get special consideration for city contracts over the various white races or Inuits (east coast eskimos) who where not on the preference list. No evidence that Aleuts were ever discriminated by the City of Richmond -- ever. On the other hand, during the late 1800's there were signs such as "Irish need not apply" for various city positions. Funny, the Irish weren't included in that law.

Perhaps the right should protest stupidity from the left more, but voting these knobs out of office works better.

tools

Grow up.

Do we detect a smidgin of stereotypical American condescension?
Maybe it's time for the American public to grow up.

"One indictment of today’s political-journalistic elites is the undeniable fact that on Sept. 11, a blind-sided American people knew far more about Chandra Levy’s disappearance, JonBenet Ramsey’s death, Paula Jones’ allegations and Monica Lewinsky’s sexual techniques than they knew about the roiling political conflicts of the Middle East. Today’s changed tone also doesn’t mean that any long-term lessons have been learned. Indeed, the
media’s patriotic uniformity today can be viewed as a kind of mirror image of yesterday’s trivia-obsessed herd mentality, even starring the same TV talking heads."

- excerpt from an article by US journalist Robert Parry