Dirty tricks, razor blades & the Lisbon Vote No campaigners

galway | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Monday June 09, 2008 14:46 by TD - Free Palestine Campaign

Don't let them treat us as mushrooms; keeping us in the dark and covering us with horseshit?

Following the theft and damage of Lisbon Campaign for Middle East Justice and Peace signs in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, Galway on Friday night had a visitation of similiar malovolence when two large signs were torn from their anchorages, sliced into pieces and, bizarrely, after the top sections containing the text; "Israel Killed 52 Palestinian Children" were razored off, whatever, and stolen, the remaining pieces were neatly arranged on the grass - the signs highlighted the fact that Israel killed 52 Palestinian children in the first 18 weeks of 2008 and yet the EU, true to its hypocritical colours, refuses to impose sanctions.

Sean; Tuam Road Roundabout

When appraised of the latest outrage, unbowed, Sean Clinton, head honcho of the Lisbon Campaign for Middle East Justice and Peace traveled from Limerick City yesterday with the last sign to erect it under the protective eye of a Garda traffic monitoring camera adjacent to the Westside Shopping Center.

In a Press Release, the LCMEJP stated: " the Ratification of the Lisbon Treaty would copper-fasten EU policy vis-à-vis Israel and force Ireland to go along with and defend this policy. Ireland, to our shame, has already defended the EU policy of appeasing Israel and this was clear a few weeks ago when following a week in which Israel killed 27 Palestinian children, the then Minister for foreign affair Dermot Ahern told the Dáil “the government is opposed to a suspension of the Agreement with Israel” The ability to formulate and espouse an independent foreign policy is the hallmark of a sovereign state. If Ireland ratifies the Treaty we will have to adhere to a European foreign policy, decided by Qualified Majority Vote and espoused by an unelected foreign minister. Ireland will have to uphold European foreign policy in all international fora, including the UN whether we agree with it or not. This represents the single greatest threat to Irish sovereignty since the foundation of the state. If ratified the Lisbon Treaty will herald the creation by stealth, of a federal European super-state. There is a real danger that on Thursday next we will sleepwalk ourselves and our fellow European citizens denied a vote, into this new state".

Meanwhile, last Saturday on Shop Street, the Free Palestine Campaign did its duty when all signees' to our petition calling on the EU to give up its 'aul sins and terminate the Euro-Med Agreement were requested to Vote No on Thursday - the auspices are good for this as, excepting a woman who was going to vote Yes on the basis that Sinn Fein was for it and a few noncommittals, all, as Bertolt Brecht would have put it were going to "forfeit the confidence of the EU," making it "easier In that case for the EU to dissolve the people and elect another"? A further piece of positive augury was evidenced at the Garda station where the vandalism to the signs was being reported when a Guard ventured: "Who votes for something you don't understand". Who indeed?, Who votes for a pig in a poke? for something that is deliberately opaque, for a thing that the fuckers boast about?: "They decided that the document should be unreadable. If it is unreadable, it is not constitutional, that was the sort of perception. Where they got this perception from is a mystery to me. In order to make our citizens happy, to produce a document that they will never understand! But, there is some truth [in it]. Because if this is the kind of document that the IGC will produce, any Prime Minister - imagine the UK Prime Minister - can go to the Commons and say 'Look, you see, it's absolutely unreadable, it's the typical Brussels treaty, nothing new, no need for a referendum.' Should you succeed in understanding it at first sight there might be some reason for a referendum, because it would mean that there is something new." (Giuliano Amato, former Italian Prime Minister and Vice-Chairman of the Convention which drew up the EU Constitution, recorded by Open Europe, The Centre for European Reform, London, 12 July 2007)

"Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly" ... "All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way." (V. Giscard D'Estaing, Le Monde, 14 June 2007, and Sunday Telegraph, 1 July 2007)

Before ...

and after (Bodkin Roundabout, Headford Road)

Before ...

and after (Westside Shopping Center)