Excellent Grassroots appearance on tonight's Late Late Show

There was an excellent performance on tonight's Late Late Show by Dublin global justice activists countering the government and media spin on the forthcoming May Day events in Dublin. The notion (much promoted in recent weeks) that 'violence' is planned by those protesting was completely discredited.

Aileen O'Carroll (Dublin Grassroots and WSM) was the main guest on Pat Kenny's panel and she was very, very good. She made the journalist from the Star look utterly ridiculous, which is precisely what he was. As Aileen pointed out, he was jabbering on about 'infilitrating' so-called 'secret meetings' of the wombles in England that were in fact open public meetings. The man is clearly a sensationalist.

There were some excellent points also made from the audience. One speaker rightly criticised the media's focus on 'violence' while it doggedly ignored the political and social issues at stake. There has been almost no coverage of the concerns that motivate such protests. Rory Hearne made a very good contribution and drew a link between the government's attitude to this protest and its behaviour towards the anti-war movement.

The only problem with the interview and discussion is that, yet again, the focus tended to be on the possibility of violence from protesters, when the truth is that it is the Gardai (and not the protesters) that will have to be watched and kept on a tight leash. This focus, however, was clearly decided by Pat Kenny, and Aileen and co. put in an extremely credible performance.

Well done! Great stuff. Hopefully it will undermine some of the nonsense that the government and media have uttered in recent weeks.