Funny how the Irish government couldn’t care less about crime the other 99.9% of the time, but when some of the highest fuel taxes on earth are protested against they pull out all stops.
tinygloves_inc on
Feels a bit wild to treat this like some national emergency while everyday crime crawls along. Would be nice if they published clear criteria for what counts as an “exceptional event.”
gadarnol on
This protest will be seen as a key event in due course. It has exposed the deep divisions that exist in ROI society. In r/ireland and here there is overwhelming condemnation of it. That seems to come from a largely Dublin urban, commuter, Green, SocDem, and FFG base. There is outrage at the criticism of carbon tax, defence of the govt’s supposed inability to do anything more without Brussels permission, anger at blockades of main streets in Dublin and rolling protests and slowed access to ports, mockery of the intelligence of the protesters and their social class and so on. All that reflects the increased urbanization of ROI and probably the fact that 20-25% of the population were not born within the boundaries of ROI.
Some local radio stations in more rural Ireland show 65-70% support for the protest.
The protest will also mark the final realization by the remnants of a traditional Irish population that the government does not exist to serve the people, that the civil service believes itself to be beyond the rule of the people, that the police force serves property and the demands of the economy first, that the state itself has become simply a hollowed legal vehicle for the tax evasion of US MNCs, that a new social class see themselves as a new elite, and that ROI democracy is a curated and managed version through so called civic society which is simply govt sponsored approved bodies.
That realization will dawn when the water cannon are used to cheers from urban Dublin and the batons are used to the delight of the uber cool.
There will be deep alienation. What was left of social cohesion will flap in the breeze.
After that nobody knows. ROI being modern ROI the likelihood is nothing.
mparks37 on
Is it true that they have already called in the military to break the protests? This seems problematic, no? Why can’t regular police handle it, especially since it has only gone a few days so far?
4 commenti
Funny how the Irish government couldn’t care less about crime the other 99.9% of the time, but when some of the highest fuel taxes on earth are protested against they pull out all stops.
Feels a bit wild to treat this like some national emergency while everyday crime crawls along. Would be nice if they published clear criteria for what counts as an “exceptional event.”
This protest will be seen as a key event in due course. It has exposed the deep divisions that exist in ROI society. In r/ireland and here there is overwhelming condemnation of it. That seems to come from a largely Dublin urban, commuter, Green, SocDem, and FFG base. There is outrage at the criticism of carbon tax, defence of the govt’s supposed inability to do anything more without Brussels permission, anger at blockades of main streets in Dublin and rolling protests and slowed access to ports, mockery of the intelligence of the protesters and their social class and so on. All that reflects the increased urbanization of ROI and probably the fact that 20-25% of the population were not born within the boundaries of ROI.
Some local radio stations in more rural Ireland show 65-70% support for the protest.
The protest will also mark the final realization by the remnants of a traditional Irish population that the government does not exist to serve the people, that the civil service believes itself to be beyond the rule of the people, that the police force serves property and the demands of the economy first, that the state itself has become simply a hollowed legal vehicle for the tax evasion of US MNCs, that a new social class see themselves as a new elite, and that ROI democracy is a curated and managed version through so called civic society which is simply govt sponsored approved bodies.
That realization will dawn when the water cannon are used to cheers from urban Dublin and the batons are used to the delight of the uber cool.
There will be deep alienation. What was left of social cohesion will flap in the breeze.
After that nobody knows. ROI being modern ROI the likelihood is nothing.
Is it true that they have already called in the military to break the protests? This seems problematic, no? Why can’t regular police handle it, especially since it has only gone a few days so far?