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Protest & Survive

Rip-off Ireland is dead. We’re broke and no one else is gonna fix it but us chickens. Time to agitate, educate, organise...

Eamonn McCann, 25 Aug 2009

Truly, the crunch has come. Cast out all feeling of futility. There is a time for every purpose. And a richer range of responses available than mainstream opinion dares acknowledge.

A court order tells you to get out of your house because it is no longer worth the mortgage and you can’t afford the payments now anyway? Don’t go. Tell the bench and the bank and the building society – Naff off! Rally neighbours and friends. Make plain that bailiffs will be given the bum’s rush. Put up barricades if needs be. Encourage others to follow suit.

Informed you’re redundant? Call your workmates together, argue for occupation. Let it be known there won’t be a washer leaves the premises without a deal that the workers are satisfied with. Pay no heed to politicians or union officials urging, “Leave it to us.” Just do it.

Your college has hiked up the fees? Take over, boot the administration out, invite lecturers to continue teaching, organise your own if they won’t. Probably be more relevant anyway.

Farm being driven under by a government unwilling to stand up to vested interests? Pump the nearest TD’s office full of slurry.

The banks are made of marble, There’s a guard on every door, The vaults are filled with silver that the workers sweated for.

Maura Harrington is in Mountjoy for standing up to Shell. But Bertie Ahern is still roaming the streets. Where’s the justice?

Calculate, coordinate, move together, and there is no force in the State to withstand us.

The most impressive sight at Glasgowbury was the compression of bands: people front and centre for The Mighty Stef at the Spurs of Rock Stage. Shouldering my way through, I discovered that the chant for ‘Sail The Boats‘ was being led by Here Comes The Landed Gentry, backing vocals from the Inisowen Gospel Choir. “Now that,” murmured a former member of the once and future Schtum, “that’s a real rock’n’roll band.” Quite.

Sacrilegiously missed the second coming of Mantic, We Are Resistance. And too late for Paddy Nash and the Happy Enchiladas. Hope I’ll be let in next year.



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Eamonn McCann

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