Reclaim your left ear lobe??

Trev M

Was anyone here at the Reclaim the Streets protest? I heard things got pretty nasty what happened ? I thought it was supposed to be a peaceful demo? I ask cause I know someone was on the board earlier last month encouraging people from this board to attend ,did anyone go along?.

Just wonderin'
All the best - Trev

Trev M

Just caught the lunch time news earlier , looks like the gaurds went a bit banzai, didn't mean to offend anyone with the message title by the way I didn't realise people got busted up as bad as they did!

Resist .

at least 2 of my friends ended up in hospital for not getting off the road quick enough. Dame st. was covered in blood (and i have the footage to prove it)

check http://www.indymedia.ie

the police should be held responsible for their actions - a baton is not a thing to be just used to remove people (who are at the front of a crowd with nowhere to move to) from the road.

joey D

This sounds eerily familiar to the time of the so-called 'riot' on O'Connell Street after Celtic won the Scottish premiership last year. The tabloids had a field day, in fact the medi in general behaved very irresponsibly, dubbing the event as a 'riot', when in fact it was merely a few drunken Celtic fans and too many over-zealous cops. Once again, the cops seem to have overreacted but it's hardly surprising considering most cops I know are thick, hairy-backed rednecks with a Judge Dredd-style approach to law and order.

AtlantaSuburb

it seems these kinds of protests are a new thing in ireland and they simply don't know how to react. rednecks or not, there has to be a strategy to policework. i recommend a protest strategy task force to be set up and to take plenty of educational trips to the continent where we've been used to political protests for longer and hence the police take a more rational approach... why am i posting this?

:-)

AtlantaSuburb:cool:

ferdi

The behaviour of some of the garda at yesterdays reclaim the streets party was shameful. They knocked the crap out of loads of people. Now i'm not saying that there werent troulbe makers at the party but to be honest these cops couldnt have given less of a toss whether the people were there for a laugh or for a riot, they just beat the hell out of them anyway. they had no regard for age, sex or any of the factors that would entre into any normal code of chivalry. they were thugs, i hope the ones to blame for this scumbagery lose there badges. i also hope that this becomes an annual event, it was great fun (the party).

ferdi:p

NOTE: This post has been edited by the board moderator.

SimonMaher

Hi there,

In answer to a few emails Ive received in the last few hours:

Im leaving this thread open as its relevant to Phantoms listeners, but can I please ask ye to be careful when youre throwing allegations around on whatever side. Remember, I will edit/delete posts on the grounds of defamation or a possibility of!

Regards,

A still studious and now very tired Pete Reed
Phantom FM

Vert

Good man pete...
Yeah seemed a bit rough all right.....
From the coverage i seen it seems that the police were very heavy handed... but i didn't see what occured b4 it.
Never the less it seemed all the voilence was coming from one side.

Resist .

wow how hip and cool phantom fm is moderating peoples posts on the forum - The gardai beat the **** out of many of my friends some of whom ended up in hospital and why ? because we blocked traffic ? because we were reclaiming public space ? what a load of **** .

to the person who said RTS should be an annual thing, it is. There was one last october and several others b4 that.

There is a protest outside pearse St. garda station at 6pm on thursday.

No Justice,No Peace !

Reclaim the streets

http://www.indymedia.ie

Richie

Uninformed as I am, am I the only one with very little sympathy for anyone directly involved with Monday's "peaceful protest"?

Lolo

Looks like it.

Richie

Sorry - just to make it clear, by "directly involved", I am discounting the innocent passers-by who got caught up in it, and those who were obviously there to have a good time!

biZrb

I hate the way every time there is violence at a protest the media have a frenzie. And they fail to report on the issues on why the people are protesting in the first place. Reclaim The Streets has gone on before in Dublin and nothing was reported on it by the media good or bad. It seems the only way nowadays to get noticed is to have a violent protest.

Wook

i wonder what the Garda will do when Ireland has the European seat? and all the Anti-Globalist will show up....
can we expect scene's as in the other countries?

o sleep

Originally posted by Resist .
wow how hip and cool phantom fm is moderating peoples posts on the forum

i presume he has to moderate certain posts due to legal reasons, i don't think it's necessarily any indication of his own personal beliefs regarding the matter. it is interesting that the media seem to have jumped on this particular incident, and they seem to be on 'our' side, which is very odd for the irish media. i think maybe it is something to do with a couple of journalists getting (allegedly) beaten up by the guards aswell as some people having the camera's taken.

if the free trade talks do come to dublin, i would think there will be similar exagerrated scenes than the ones we witnessed on monday, as there tends to be groups of hardline anarchists who will travel to any and all of these summits.

shep the malevolent pixie

there are ones who just show up for the trouble. i met one of them on my way back from the happy party (i got out of there before it got too nasty) who asked where the protest was and when we warned him that it was starting to get nasty he said great and ran off in the direction of the quays. insanity...
it was great fun in the beginning though. so many happy people and samba bands! how can anyone not like samba bands?
sHeeeeeep :cool:

SimonMaher

Resist,

Dont be such a twit! Course the board is moderated. In fairness, and particularly seeing as we are using someone elses facilities (ie boards.ie) it would be totally irresponsible of us not to moderate threads on whatever topic. I made a point of leaving the thread open as I do think it was a deeply disturbing series of events in the city centre. I did however make it clear that for obvious legal reasons I would be moderating posts. And I stand by that.

Its nothing to do with being "hip and cool". Its just a matter of being responsible. Allowing people to make what are in my eyes valid points, but not allowing useless name calling and abuse. Its not just because it RTS, its the same for everyone. Ive been called a fascist before for my moderation, and will be called it again! Such is life.

Regards,

Major Pete Reed
Phantom FM

Vert

Pete is trying to control us all..Watch out people....
He wants to be a dictator!!

thedrowner

Originally posted by Pete Reed


Dont be such a twit!

you have to be the only person i know who can get away with saying that!!!!everyone else would seem too stupid, or too harsh
awww!

joey D

that's because Pete Reed is in fact an incontinent octagenarian whose offensive vocabulary consists of the words 'twit', 'nincompoop' and 'fiddlesticks'.

AtlantaSuburb

pete-

with all due respect, but there are plenty of boards like this out there that are unmoderated, or moderated more discreetly, and still work without legal trouble. sometimes it's important just to let people puke, y'know, and to let others know about it. belive me, it works!

:-)

AtlantaSuburb:cool:

Tom E Brown

Hi All,

Just though i would add a few comments as well...

I do not belive that Phantom is wrong in moderationg posts. just in case you dont know or have forgoton we are a yet to be licenced radio station operating against the wishes of the authoritys. That makes us vunerable to any adverse publicity.

This is a forum read by many thousands of people, and its our responcibility to make sure all views expressed do not put us in breach of any liable laws. Think about it, you dont need to break the law to say what you think, or to say what you saw - its a free country after all.

</rant>

In my personal view the events unfolded very badly, and reports of the guards removing their numbers to prevent identification is extremely shocking. Its gives the impression that it was premeditated to prevent any comeback on individuals caught in compromising possitions.

However, I'd be more concerned about who ever was in charge allowing this to happen. If it was one or two people then thats just a few bad apples, but if it was more than that, well, draw your own conclusions as to who let it happen.

Violent protests are bad for all concerned and i dont agree with them in any form, but peacefull protests that turn becuase people are unable to handle the situation are even worse. The authoritys knew about this march, and yet compromised themselfs by alowing people unskilled or unexperienced in crowd control to act in the way they did.

I think what happened at the protest was due to inexperience rather than diliberate premeditated action. hoever, it doesn't make it exceptable though...

Lolo

Originally posted by shep the malevolent pixie
how can anyone not like samba bands?
sHeeeeeep :cool:

I feckin' hate samba bands. I like samba music, as in Getz & Gilberto, Sergio Mendes (cheese-tastic!), but those herds of hippes that roam the streets with their drums... urgh...

AtlantaSuburb

Originally posted by Lolo


I feckin' hate samba bands. I like samba music, as in Getz & Gilberto, Sergio Mendes (cheese-tastic!), but those herds of hippes that roam the streets with their drums... urgh...

lolo, have a smoke and relax, it's called FUN! :rolleyes:

:-)

AtlantaSuburb:cool:

Lolo

Originally posted by AtlantaSuburb


lolo, have a smoke and relax, it's called FUN! :rolleyes:

I should explain that my Sambaphobia dates back to a time when I worked in the City Arts Centre and a Samba band rehearsed there every Friday morning. I inevitably had a hangover every Friday and they used to drive me up the walls. Plus I have a built-in distrust of hippies.

AtlantaSuburb

Originally posted by Lolo


I should explain that my Sambaphobia dates back to a time when I worked in the City Arts Centre and a Samba band rehearsed there every Friday morning. I inevitably had a hangover every Friday and they used to drive me up the walls. Plus I have a built-in distrust of hippies.

hum... point no 1 taken, poor girl you... *lol* as for point number 2 i think it's just too easy to be horrible about hippies... *g*

:-)

oneArpeggiopete:cool:

joey D

er... back to the riots, that's 'libel' laws Tom E Brown, not 'liable', and I think that refers to printed material, not sure about websites.

'This is a forum read by many thousands of people', oh really?

Furthermore, Phantom can't go sticking its head in the sand every time it's afraid of damaging its application for a license, not that posting anti-police statements on a message board would have any remote impact whatsoever. In fact, I chuckle when I think of Mr. IRTC looking down his bifocals at the Phantom license application, tutting and saying "Well, according to this you had a number of people express anti-establishment views on a message board. Application denied!"

anarchy

it's just a few cops beating up a few hippies, who cares? they should learn to behave themselves.

screamager

there must be some forum you can get that isnt owned by a company that still can get in trouble from whats said.

did anyone go out tonight? how did it go?
i was at a rts a while ago and from what i saw the majority of people were alrite. i didnt see any need for the graffiti and that crap though...i dont want to criticuise but my opinion is that its a good idea...breaking laws like vandalism and public drinking that have nothing to do with the protest is asking for trouble though, especially when half the drinkers are underage.

the gardai and their falling off numbers seems to be a common mystery though. the burlington and lasdowne riot are two occasions you'll all remember. might be time to put one on their trousers that cant be removed, just a suggestion.

SimonMaher

Hello all,

Jaysus now this has become an interesting debate.

A few brief points, if I may!

1. Atlanta Suburb. Yes, sometimes it is best to just let people "puke" what they want but in this case, a posting was removed for serious defamatory allegations against a named individual, and another was edited just for abuse. It would have been easier for me to just delete the posts and move on, but I chose to explain the reasons for doing so.

<rant>

2. Joey D. I know you will forgive me for saying this, but you are bang out of order on so many levels with that post! Yes, Libel and Defamation laws apply to the Internet. Once its written or said and published anywhere, and a third party sees it then its a potential libel.

Second, patronising remarks like "oh really" dont help anybody.

Thirdly, your point about "Phantom can't go sticking its head in the sand every time it's afraid of damaging its application for a license" is complete nonsense. First, yes we can if we so choose, which we don't.

Second, that is not the principal reason the posts were moderated. The material in one was clearly defamatory and in the other was in need of editing. I edited it, made no secret of it, and thats the way it is.

To say that it was a matter of placating the BCI (sic) is simplistic rubbish. There is a world of difference between expressing "anti-establishment views" and defaming named individuals and posting abuse. I made a point of leaving the thread open for people to make their views clear on the matter and simply edited posts for legal reasons as is my responsibility. Joey, should I let someone go on the radio and defame individuals? Should I let someone go on air and shout obscenities? Wouldnt make sense on the radio, and it doesnt here. Would other stations, particularly those with licences allow it? Imagine this for a Saturday afternoon comedy sketch "Today, the story of Garda #****, who is a f*****g c**t". Hmm, not going to happen now is it?

</rant>

As Tom E Brown said, make your point, express your view on this or other topics but personalised abuse and defamatory statements are lazy writing at best and will be removed.

Now, time for tea and jaffa cakes after all that.

Regards,

Pete Reed
Phantom FM Fascist Moderator Talking Guy

atonal

Pete I dont really think you have to defend yourself here.

joey D

In you original post Pete, it sounded like you were worried about any sort of potentially defamatory material, now you're explaining that it was the blatantly defamatory stuff that concerned you, fair enough. No, of course people shouldn't go throwing obscenities around on air, as you well know. As for being patronising, i was only having a laugh at Tom's statement, just getting him back for that diatribe about Phantom's pirate status, which we both had a good laugh about at the party, so sorry about that. I completely agree that 'personalised abuse and defamatory statements' are totally unnecessary. I'm glad that you clarified your position on this matter. You'll be hearing from my lawyers in the morning.

joey D

Anyway, I was merely trying to generate a bit of a brou-ha-ha, getting caught up the whole public indignation thing, y'know, adding grist to the mill, stirring it up, pitch a few curved balls, hoist up a flag and see if anyone would salute it...........

the corpo

whats the difference between an onion and a hippy?










no-one cries when you slice a hippy

AtlantaSuburb

Originally posted by joey D
Anyway, I was merely trying to generate a bit of a brou-ha-ha, getting caught up the whole public indignation thing, y'know, adding grist to the mill, stirring it up, pitch a few curved balls, hoist up a flag and see if anyone would salute it...........

whoa, i'm impressed joey! four cliches in one sentence is quite some achievement...

pete: point taken, when names come into play it's a whole different ballgame...

:-)

AtlantaSuburb:cool:

Tom E Brown

Sorry, Joey D

I stand by the "diatribe" I posted about phantom getting a licence.

As for us having a laugh about this "diatribe" at the staff party, that was far from the case. Its a shame you dont understand what we're trying to do at Phantom. I dont think its a laughing matter now, and I didnt then.

back to the subject in hand...

People getting physicaly attacked by the authoritys who have been charged with keeping the peace is something that happens in dictatorships, not free countrys. Its an attack on free speech and whats more no one seams to know if there's going to be any disipinary measures taken against the people involved. It looks like its going to be another issue brushed under the carpet.

yes, there was a few trouble makers who only turned up to disrupt proceedings, but that happens everywhere there's a crowd, and normaly the police / gards understand its a minority and act accordingly. It seams this time they didnt know or care who this minority were, or were unable to identify them.

Gards without ID numbers attacking people, politcians not asking questions about this behavour and no sign of any internal garda disiplinary procedures taking place. Isn't any one else worried by this state of affairs?

if your not, you should be...

joey D

"It's a shame you don't understand what we're trying to do at Phantom..."

I don't want to descend into a bitching session, but I can't ignore that. Yes I do understand what you're trying to do at Phantom, you just can't seem to take on board anyone else's opinion without adopting, as I see it, a siege mentality. If you don't mind me saying, there's a certain beligerence in your posts, when really you should welcome open, mature debate that celebrates difference of opinion and not casually dismisses it.

As for everything else you've said regarding the disturbances on Dame Street, well I think you've just stated the obvious and I doubt if anyone would disagree with you, and I'd say most people do care and are extremely worried by it, as evidenced by the response to this thread. I'd also say people would love to be in a position to have this issue brought fully into the public eye, it does seem like the authorities might want to brush it under the carpet. Gardai accountability has certainly got to be taken to an independent body or group. Recent events such as the McBrearty affair in Donegal, and the Abbeylara shooting and subsequent 'inquiry', show the need for independent arbitration.

The question is, what can people do about it? Write a letter to the Times? Not vote for Fianna Fail? Not vote? Protest again? Get a petition? An ideal outcome would see any perpetrators (civilian or Gardai) of violent assault brought before the courts and dealt with in a manner that restores public confidence in our justice system. I for one could not believe the response of our Taoiseach who 'fully supported' the Gardai and refused to say much beyond that, clearly a man terrified of losing votes yet willing to alienate hundreds, thousands, of young voters by his response.

One of the problems is the media will quickly find something else to sensationalise and most people will forget about it; don't forget we are in the run-up to the election. Another problem is to do with media representation. Most of the protestors, RTS or Globalise Resistance, are simply not taken seriously because the establishment sees them as layabouts, crusties, idealists, romantics, hippies, troublemakers and various other tags. The reality is that these environmentalists and political activists have every much as right to protest as farmers and nurses, and their arguments deserve to be considered, but because they look different (dreadlocks, piercings) or engage in an alternative protest discourse, the media see them as oddities or fringe activists just out for a bit of mayhem. Look at the pictures in today's papers: do you think the photo editor would have picked a snapshot of some 'normally dressed' (for want of a better expression) IT graduate at the same protest? Not likely. Another problem is that there doesn't seem to be a very coherent and unified articulation of their aims and objectives, and this is just more 'ammo' for the authorities and the media.

We still have a very parochial society in Ireland and there's a certain narrow-mindedness when it comes to these kind of protests. For the Gardai this seems to have been an occasion where some very serious 'errors of judgement' were made, but unless the broader issues of Gardai accountability and media representation are opened up, we're still a long way off explaining this event to our sons and daughters.

soma

Yeah it's infuriating how the media and the public in general just make these assumptions about the type of person who is interested in challenging globalisation, protecting our environment & who objects to the U.N. = U.S. approach.

I'm 25, I work 5 days a week as a sw engineer, "contribute to society" in all the stereotypical definitions of that notion, but yet people seem hellbent on seeing protestors as layabouts & hippies.

As a taxpayer I want to see more QBC's, cycle lanes, high-occupancy-vehicle motor lanes, a pedestrian-orientated city centre. I want to see Ireland contribute the full 0.7% of our GNP to charity, oppose U.S. unilateralism & stop jumping on every stupid international bandwagon that comes along. But how many "mainstream" parties have the above in their manefesto's??

Therefore the right to peaceful protest is incredibly important, and unfortunately the muck-savage section of the gardai appear to have been given orders to be heavy-handed to protestors who aren't farmers, teachers or nurses.

Trev M

Hi Soma,
I like your manifesto , why don't you give it a go next time around!!

PS You're not taking my car away though, Ive sold my future offsring's offsring just to pay the bloody insurance!!

thedrowner

i didnt mean to get caught up in last nights protest march but i had it thrust upon me. I know many of you will totally disagree with me on this, but i dont agree with marching down streets as a way of proving anything. I just get extrememely pissed off because of the marching (r whatever it's called) all the busses were detoured, i had to walk to work and was late. i dont think it's fair to protest in this way, because your making life harder for other people who have/want nothing to do with it. Many's the saturday afternoon when i've had my afternoon ruined because the busses couldnt go down o connell street and had to detour, on top of a traffic jam. There are other ways to go about getting your point accross without having it affect someone else.

Trev M

Wow that's a scary attitude to have Drowner....

You would rather the issue of police brutality not be addressed because it causes general inconvenience.......wonder what the people with busted skulls would think of that statement huh?

Not wanting to pick a fight with ya here , but its a fundamental right to protest , people have died in this country for that right and for the right to express our dissatifaction at the way the government/authotities mis manage the country, to sight the obvious in conveniences as a reason to say people shouldn't protest is fairly weak in my view?

With respect - Trev

soma

Drowner, I don't mean to be patronising, but I'm guessing that you're about 18/19, and to be honest I probably had similar views at that age!

But protests are extremely important for entering a cause into the public psyche. You may think you are being inconvienced cos your bus is being diverted or whatever, but consider the people that sometimes those marches are trying to get attention for. As an example, a march protesting israeli brutality may inconvenience you for 10 mins, but compare that to the suffering being experienced by the victims of that brutality, then be thankful you live in a relatively stable part of the world.

Resist .

Originally posted by Trev M
You're not taking my car away though, Ive sold my future offsring's offsring just to pay the bloody insurance!!

You don't know how true that is - You HAVE sold your future generations off with your Co2 emissions what are they gonna breathe ?

Get a Bike .. or use public Transport .. and if it's not good enough then get out on the streets with us and demand that they improve it .. I think a lot of people have forgotten how much this generations mistakes will affect our children.

shep the malevolent pixie

i'm confused as to what the point of this thread is... the topic's changed so many times in the past two days if you just read the last page you wouldn't know what was going on. having said that, it is probably the most interesting debate i've read on any of these boards in a long time so kudos to everyone who made it this good.
i understand hatrid of samba bands if you had to hear them that much and you have my deepest sympathies.
sHep :cool:
"i wanna be a hippie and i wanna go home"

Monkey

"There are other ways to go about getting your point accross without having it affect someone else" - No, I don't think there is an effective way to get your point across without affecting other people. If you don't affect anyone you'll just be ignored. Tough **** if you're 15 minutes late for work, some things are more important

thedrowner

Originally posted by Trev M
and for the right to express our dissatifaction at the way the government/authotities mis manage the country,

that may be so but it wasn't OUR dissatisfaction it was a certain %. I know being 15 minutes late sounds silly to be angry over, and luckily i have an easy going boss, but that could have cost me my job under other circumstances. What about people who reply on public transport to get them around coz they are too old to be able for the walk? Or people with injuries. what about the people who were injured on monday? If that protest hadn't gone on (and i know it's not the protester's fault, but they knew it was gonna upset people) none of this would have happened. And what point did they get accross when the people "in charge" are still siding opposingly?
protesting may have gotten results years ago, but i think there's more harm done then good these days, and that's what i disagree with.
and soma-yes you are being patronising. I don't see how being 18/19 could influence my opinion enough to make it of worth? I thought this mater through a long time ago, weighed up the pro's and cons in my mind, and decided what my opinion on protesting was years ago!i haven't changed yet..maybe i will in the future, but at present this is how i feel and i dont see how being "18/19" makes it less valuable.
i can't see how monday's protest did anything for the public psyche for that cause, the only thing i can see being debated now were "were the guards right or wrong for doing what they did". This is coming from a member of the general public who didnt know much about monday's protest and still doesnt despite the media coverage. all ive heard from the newspapers is that people were injured, possibly by police for no reason. i've learned a little more from this board, and fair enough, i could be wrong for saying this, but i imagine there's a good chunk of irish people know as much as i do about monday.
i guess it's kind of like the storyline where the captain of the ship/army risks defeat to save the last few people or else he could just escape and leave them there (thought not as...fictional) i'd prefer to go about it in the way that would least inconvenience everyone and still get my point accross, and believe me, you dont have to protest to do that, i've worked on campaigns where other methods are used, such as petitions. If the cause that is being faught for is so worthy and what the people want, its easy to get people to side with you and to work at it that way. i don't know about this protest, but all the other one's ive seen, that have disrupted my days or not, have been pointless and forgotten about within days, and gone un-noticed by others. What's the point in that?
and i did deserve criticism for coming accross as putting something so trivial as an argument, i should have expressed my deeper views with it,sorry. I probably wouldn't be against it if i saw results where it had worked wonders but i dont think that's possible in this day and age, i'll repeat myself, i think it's more harm than good, just look at the outcome of monday.

thedrowner

Originally posted by Trev M


You would rather the issue of police brutality not be addressed because it causes general inconvenience.......wonder what the people with busted skulls would think of that statement huh?

this just backs me up further. The protest on monday was not supposed to be about police brutality, it was about reclaiming "our" streets yes? And i know that thursday's protest was, but monday's cause is becoming forgotten, and this is what's now being debated the public-so what did they achieve on monday? Well desevred sympathy, but how many people's opinion of the reclaim the street's cause has been changed?.

freakofnature

hey anarchy, interesting opinion in relation to ur name.
i was reclaim the streets from the begginning until half way thru burgh quay when me and my friends left. later on i found out not only had the police baton charged various ppl on dame street, my friends brother was arrested at it. the police overreacted and this illustrtes our countries need for an ombudsman

NO ME TO KNOW

what a thread you started trev.