When Americans come to visit

national | sci-tech | opinion/analysis Wednesday June 30, 2004 02:55 by seedot seedot at eircom dot net

Over Here, Over Weight, Over Paid. How indymedia welcomed the Americans and other enthralling tales....

I was out and about for Mayday and met many of our British and continental visitors – nice bunch they were too, for the most part. Mixed, as ever.

Last weekend the Americans came, although I didn’t get to meet the guys with the sunglasses and earpieces or any of the entourage who actually inspected their new base in Shannon. But Indymedia provided a whole other strata of visitors, mostly from America, contributing to this particular mix; driven here it seems by the control freakery of the US state in it’s current vise. They drove this websites traffic to another expensive peak and left waves of comments as various blogs and aggregators turned their attention to Ireland.

We got the Rush Limbaugh clones, unmasked by other Americans for the use of the word ‘Opine’. We got the people who came looking for their Presidents words because it seems even the Internet in America is nervous and a lot of sites provided links to an Irish website where you could get the media, rather than link or host or provide directly. And the activists came, to read of protests in Ireland and Turkey against their President that just weren’t happening in the US – despite the strength of their feelings.

The ploughshares guys showed the depth of media savvy on this island – CNN and Reuters seemed to think so. The swarm of life over the military green of the surprised soldiers touring vehicle, behind the lines in Shannon, drew expressions of solidarity from across the globe. And for Indymedia, the lack of a forum on the RTE website combined with the courage and access of Carole Coleman meant Americans talked about their politics here for a couple of days.

I like America. I had the chance to live there once and seriously considered it. I spent quite a while working and holidaying there. One thing about Americans I recently learned. Indymedia last weekend was full of Irish news but American comment. And as someone who has long learned to lurk on the comment forum here, it was a welcome relief from the competitiveness that passes for discourse amongst those here who express such a great grá for co-operation. Which is not what you expect to learn when Americans come to visit – co-operation?

Since I had a nice sunny walk in Dublin of a Friday evening and then pints as the peak of my involvement in the last mobilisation, big up to Cage People, Boat People, Dunsinnane Wooders, Early Risers and all the westward bound. Some Irish solidarity, learned from the American visitors.

P.S. Any US originating Americans reading this, next time leave your arsehole friend behind. You know the guy – the violent one.