Some thoughts and general meanderings about yesterdays Reclaim The Streets

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday May 06, 2003 15:23 by the girl in the you know what... - autonomouse - cheese not capitalism mouse at mousehole dot kitchen dot wall somewhere wandering through space and time 1234567890

Much better than the May 1st rally thats for sure...

your usual commentary from a lady who chooses to remain anonymous. the joy of indymedia..

it was a shame that the SWP turned up but they didnt stay all day thankfully. they just dont seem to get it do they...

the TOP Oil place was chosen because RTS wanted to close it down because of their involvement in the refuelling of warplanes in shannon.

RTS couldnt police everyone as they came into the petrol station, with regards to them smoking cigarettes. but just as we arrived i went into the shop and told the guy to shut the pumps off and he said he did. this was for safety reasons as well as political reasons. yep it was dangerous - but the petrol station was shut down - would i be right in saying that this is the biggest direct action ever to happen in Dublin?

in response to aidan's comments - yep you were right about it being dangerous having people smoking in there, but shouting 'are you out of your fucking mind?' at someone probably didnt help, if you'd said encouragingly "hey, maybe we should move people out of the garage forecourt very quickly because there's a fire risk' then it would have helped more. using emotive and/or bad language with people usually only causes more tension rather than resolving a problem quicker. and i dont think RTS could have been held responsible if something did happen, people arent dumb, locked or not they know not to smoke in a petrol station.

RTS chose the IFSC as an end point because there are quite a few exits from the stone circle to escape from, especially east. if the IFSC had turned into a problem then we were going to disperse on the area in front of the customs house. i think the idea of having cans & drugs & whatever else in the middle of the IFSC, the shining jewel of irish money scum, was quite a nice gesture. all the suits will arrive today to anarchy and anticar graffiti on their turf. yeah it was a quiet space but RTS wanted a park or a place for people to wind down in which was off the street, like a park, and that was the closest available space.

the party moved on from the original location of parnell street because RTS wanted to shut down TOP Oil. yes the party was great, but this was the sixth or seventh RTS action in Dublin, and after such a huge anti war thing happening in Ireland, it was good to see something a little extra this time.

by doing this simple yet meaningful action, they did more than any other group did in the last couple of months i think. fuck it i wont beat around the bush, imagine if the IAWM/SWP had the Feb 15th march in front of TOP Oil instead of the usual boring route followed by speeches - how much pressure would the company been under to stop?

the crowd left the amiens street garage after an hour or so because RTS wanted to get people heading up to the pub for their hastily organised fundraiser. obviously they put a lot of money into flyers, posters, the car (yep a car was pushed into parnell street but the garda very quickly pushed it away so most of the crowd never saw it), etc, so they wanted to at least recoup some of it.

i didnt see it but heard about Ciaran O'Reilly unmasking an unnamed RTS-er, apparently they were having a heated discussion and then Ciaran jumped on the RTSer on his bike, and pulled his facemask off, trying to shove him off his bike. after the RTSer called him an asshole for pulling off the mask, he had to be physically restrained by three of the other Catholic Worker people from attacking the RTSer, I dont know their names but I recognised their faces from that photo of the five of them. whatever the argument was about, this unmasking was well out of order. anyone from CW care to comment on this?

RTS only had the pub until 11pm so they wanted to try and get people heading up there around 7 or 8pm. they chose to leave parnell street at 5.30 because that would give us enough time to go to the other locations, and also give the people with the decks time to transport them and set them up in the pub.

the group of locked kids who blocked pearse street & dame street up until 9pm or so were great. i cant ever remember a time where i've seen 150 or so people chanting "fuck the pigs" (as they were leaving the IFSC) in this city. walking past pearse street garda station as well blocking all the traffic behind (including 2 garda vans caught in the snarl up) was possibly the best moment of the day for me.

even when they sat down to finish their 2 litres in front of trinity college gate, they were still blocking traffic - but were letting the buses through! (the garda then ordered the buses to turn around to jeers and boos) this was inspirational to see that the political ideology of RTS was still being adhered to despite heavy amounts of alcohol ingested!

maybe some people thought this was a bit stupid - yep there was no indymedia people covering this blockade, all the legal people were gone and one person had a medical kit, and there were a lot of cops, almost one to every person as the evening wore on - but christ i was so impressed with this. how cool it was to see kids actually blocking traffic and shouting anti car slogans, and being brazen about their political views. i'd rather they were doing that than sitting in front of the fucking TV watching shit.

dame street was totally stripped of traffic by the garda - even when the group had gone to the junction of georges street, the garda were STILL diverting traffic back at TCD up into Nassau Street. i have to say that i was stunned by how much the Garda let people get away with so late. it was brilliant.

and the gingerman afterwards - christ. i thought it was going to be a laid back affair, relaxing and chatting reflectively after a hard days slog. pleasantly blown away when i walked in - fuckin mad up for it crowd, jumping around the place, shouting and whistling, rolling up, the bar staff cut the music off when people started dancing on the tables, they had to be coaxed down, great atmosphere, friendly and chatty, met shitloads of new people.

as for RTS 'pushing their luck', fuck it, isnt that what being a revolutionary is all about man? are we supposed to be just complicit with the law all the time and do what we're told, or now and again can we pitch things up a bit, do something a bit risky, increase the heat a bit in this often stagnant city?

also - i just came back from the shops, & read the papers for free. if you look at all the stuff on indymedia now - the video, audio, photos, reports, its great to see so many people contributing - its actually better coverage of RTS than any mainstream news media could ever offer. IMC had more people getting footage than all the other irish news organisations combined!

all in all the day was a huge success - lots of colour & noise & atmosphere, dare i say the best mayday ever in Dublin?