The Frederick St protest and reaction

I wouldn’t take anything that clown writes too seriously .

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

They would have known from these previous interactions that those inside the premises weren't violent, and were highly unlikely to have been met with violence or disorder had they themselves have been deployed to move them on.

If this is the case, then them arriving in unison with a masked gang of heavies in a scruffy van isn't only unprofessional - it looks all the more sinister.

Garda: "Hey lads, would you be so kind as to leave the property there please,only a high court judge has gone and made an order saying ye can't be staying any longer?"

Occupier:"NO!"

Garda: "Right so,sure thanks for your time anway"

Yeah can see that working a treat,if it was simple as asking them to leave they wouldn't be illegally occupying a place in the first place

Jesus.
In any other country where there was a court order, the owners would secure the property, the local cops would do the risk assessment and be on standby and it would all be non contraversial.

Here we ignore the actual illegality and concentrate on possible traffic violations and Gardai trying to protect themselves from having their families having their details posted on social media.

Calltocall wrote: »

I’m late to this but would like to add my experience of what happened at Frederick Street as I see a lot of stuff flying around online from people who weren’t there which does not entirely tally with what I saw.

I by pure coincidence arrived on North Frederick Street exactly just as the eviction was taking place, I was totally caught off guard and for a moment thought it was a movie, I saw four to five gardai in standard clothing standing back from the building while four guys (definitely not twenty, just four) in black and masked who were going at the door with axes and an electric saw, when they bust in the door I didn’t see anyone lay a hand on the couple of people I saw leave, one looked like a kid, young student type and the guards told him to stop, nothing aggressive then out of nowhere a woman ran across the street and jumped on the back of a guy in balaclava, he pulled her off, By this stage a small but aggressive crowd had gathered and were clealy not on the guards side, it was a very intimidating atmosphere, then the public order heavies were called in but I don’t blame the ordinary beat cops calling in backup as they were seriously outnumbered. Why I’m adding this is I’ve seen a lot of stuff going around online from people who weren’t there of the cops immediately going in heavy but that is not what I saw and just wanted to put that down how online frenzies can distort the actual reality of a situation on the ground. I didn’t stick around for much longer as as I said it became a very intimidating atmosphere.

So you're saying the Twitter mob caused the hassle and the occupiers didn't. That rather tallies with my take of the crowd with the megaphones at the protest last week. They were screaming at people to sit down. Woe beside anyone who doesnt do as they say

P_1 wrote: »

So you're saying the Twitter mob caused the hassle and the occupiers didn't. That rather tallies with my take of the crowd with the megaphones at the protest last week. They were screaming at people to sit down. Woe beside anyone who doesnt do as they say

I don’t have an axe to grind in this but I can’t stand bull*** and saying it as i saw it, What I’m saying is that the online Mob/righteous journalists etc if you will or even people who I spoke to who obviously had been reading what the ‘’online mob’’ had said were saying ‘’did you hear the guards went in and battered a load of people on Frederick Street who were occupying a house’’ that simply did not tally with events on the ground that I saw as the only act of physical violence I witnessed was from a woman (i dont know if she was occupying or supporter of the occupants) who attacked one of the guys in black, this was before public order guys were called in and it definitely added to the escalation of the situation which led to public order guys being called in, I saw no mention of this online, but as the saying goes don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

Gene Kerrigan hits the nail on the head once again.

When democracy wears a black mask

Seems Gene thinks it's the duty of young people to enter properties that do not belong to them.

Have the latest mob tried entering NAMA buildings yet?

DebDynamite wrote: »

Because by providing free education and healthcare, we are raising a healthy, educated future workforce, who will then be able to provide a home for their own families. Teach a man to fish and all that...

Do you honestly believe that this is the only reason? I find that concept unimaginably depressing, but it's also demonstrably untrue. If providing free healthcare is only about investing in the future and not about ensuring individual quality of life, then by your logic a woman who's reached menopause, retired, and no longer has any dependent children should have the plug pulled as far as public healthcare is concerned, and if she can't afford to pay for private treatment, be left to die of breast cancer, heart conditions or any of the other issues which are more likely to affect elderly folk. But we don't do that. So clearly, providing free healthcare is about more than just collectivism - it's a belief that individuals are automatically entitled to a basic quality of life.

Would you agree with my assertion that if we don't provide public housing, we're also saying that a murderer or rapist is guaranteed a better quality of life than an unemployed but law abiding citizen - given that such a paradigm would result in the law abiding unemployed person sleeping on the street and begging for food, while the violent criminal gets three meals a day and a warm bed at night in Mountjoy or Wheatfield? Because that's literally the reality under a system in which public housing doesn't exist, people who actively and intentionally harm society will get treated far better than people who merely fail to contribute anything to it, positive or negative.

Does that make any sense to you? It seems absolutely mad to me. If we actually did employ such a paradigm, the logical end result would be people who are merely without the means to house or feed themselves deliberately getting arrested and convicted of crimes so that they'd be given a bed and food, in prison.

Leaving aside the absolutely hideous ethical framework you're promoting with your "we only look after individuals because they might benefit others" ideology, it's a logical disaster which results in eventual "solutions" that f*ck everyone over.

P_1 wrote: »

Housing is a right. Housing in a premium location is not.

Drop the Helen Lovejoy argument. Its tiresome

Have to disagree with this. Priority should be given to people who grew up in and therefore have long-time social network support in a given area than newcomers to it when it comes to how social housing should be allotted. That's not only good for mental health of individuals but for the community overall. The smashing up of communities in the redevelopments of St Michael's and Fatima, for example, turned out to be a bit of a nightmare for everyone involved on all sides.

Also, personally I object to phraseology such as "prime real estate" and "premium location", because it again unquestionably accepts the paradigm that land and a home is an "asset" or "commodity" entirely related to money, rather than something deeper and more meaningful than that. Personally, that very premise is one I find stomach-churning. That is what it's about in the current paradigm of society, and has been since the "third way" era began, but it's not what it should be about and part of this movement is about trying to change that ideological paradigm altogether. It should be about people first. Human lives, human communities, human social networks, human happiness. Everything else should be a secondary consideration, because at the end of the day nothing matters nearly as much as trying to ensure a maximum enjoyment of life for as large as possible a proportion of the population. Exclusivity produces the opposite result, so in a nutshell, f*ck that.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

because at the end of the day nothing matters nearly as much as trying to ensure a maximum enjoyment of life for as large as possible a proportion of the population

Causing the working proportion of the population to live further away, because the government buys the houses that people are trying to get a mortgage for that they'll pay for by working?

bubblypop wrote: »

So you seem to agree with the government building huge social housing communities?

No leaving the communities that are already there and building them new houses and making sure that if people have friends there that they stay put to hang out with them because their mental health and way of life is more important than someone who's working their ass off and had to move miles out of their county to buy a house