the girl who pied Bertie

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday April 18, 2002 04:51 by bbb - bbb

court statement

here's the court statement

Bairbre is in court Thursday in Sligo.....

COURT STATEMENT - pass on to those who care 'why'

Ahern and others in positions of power (regardless of party) are
respected automatically without having to do anything to earn that
respect. Because they don’t have to earn it, they abuse it. It’s time
for the respect to become conditional. Lies and deception should be
unacceptable. By pieing Ahern I was showing what respect is really due
to him, not for his position, but for what he has done and continues
to do while using that position. He’s just a front man for big
business, and that has no respect for Irish culture or the land, or
the people. It knows no boundaries and destroys all it touches.

I am deeply worried about the future these people are building, which
my children will have to live in.

Ahern is as Taoiseach, responsible for the Common Agricultural Policy,
which along with motorways was a crucial part of Adolf Hitler’s plan
for European domination. Every bit of land is farmed intensively with
inappropriate animals and plants, so there is no wild life left and
the mountains turn to bare rock and the topsoil is washed into the
sea, beyond the reach of future generations.

Ahern and other politicians allow Coillte to take the people’s common
land and turn it into a tree farm where nothing but money trees can
live. Coillte have poisoned our ground water with their pesticides and
are still doing so. There have been numerous cases of children being
poisoned by their sprays, yet when I tried to bring them to account
through the Dail, via TD, Joe Higigns, the questions were not
allowed. The system had been set up in such a way that they don’t even
have to answer questions from the people on whose behalf they claim to
hold the land.

GM crops were introduced without any vote, and debate only happened
after their introduction; none of the viable parties to vote for
opposed them. And what about all the chemical companies who are only
in Ireland becase can get away with polluting our air and water? Did
we get to vote on them?

Ahern got into power using lies. He promised he would not change our
constitution and sign us up to PfP, ie. NATO. But when he got into
power he ignored the people’s wishes and signed away our neutrality.
Shannon is used as a US air base and Ahern is currently trying to
steamroller us into accepting the increased militarisation of Europe
via the Treaty of Nice. The government has spent millions on new
weapons, manufactures and exports weapons, conducts military research
in universities, and generally toes the industrial military line.

Already this country looks and feels exactly the same as any other
country in the EU. We forgot everything that Connolly, Pearse,
Collins and thousands of nameless warriors died for in our mad
scramble for mobile phones and bigger roads. Our self-sufficient,
diverse, and vibrant communities are being wiped out. Our sense of
ourselves as being a group of happy, rooted people with control over
our lives is eroded. We've lost our forests, our independence, our
culture...and for what? Have you noticed how miserable everyone is?
It's no wonder most people stay holed up in their concrete boxes, only
venturing out to their boring, useless jobs and then back to the
telly, to their daily dose of propaganda.

Here in the North West especially, the sea used to provide coastal
communities with a living. Not only fish, but abundant wild life on
the coast. Between pollution and big corporate trawlers, there are
hardly any fish left, no living for local fishermen and hardly any of
the sea birds we used to see.

Unquestioned development like big shopping centres and the new roads
they spawn fragment our communities, erasing differences between
counties and within them, destroying our native identity, replacing it
with an homogenised english/american car culture. This culture of
crime and violence is one my children are growing up in and it scares
me. Irish businessmen get rich pumping american TV culture into our
homes and pubs, replacing our local songs and stories. It doesn’t
matter who you vote for, the Euro/American corporate agenda is forced
down our necks anyway.

This thing sweeping Ireland, this agenda, is like “a rising tide, a
tsunami impacting our consciousness with revolutionary force,
levelling our villages, sweeping away our shrines and altars, sweeping
everything, everything out to sea.?

End of statement. Also, it was great fun. And acts of defiance should
be fun, joyful, empowering. Placard-waving, petition-signing, etc. is
boring and ineffectual. Time for activists in Ireland to start
enjoying their rebellion.