Solitaire No Longer Relevant - Leviathan Tries to Lay Pipes to Mayo and Falls Flat on Its Face!

national | environment | opinion/analysis Wednesday September 17, 2008 13:47 by Ciaron O'Reilly - Dublin Catholic Worker/ Ploughshares At Large in Dublin, Ireland

Like many people around the world and around the country, I am humbled and inspired by the nonviolent resistance
undertaken by in Rossport against Shell and the collaborating Irish state. Those who have gathered at Rossport
to confront the power and wealth arraigned against the environment, community and a way of life nourish many of us focused
on a varitey of fronts nonviolently struggling for peace and justice. The steadfastness, heroism, solidarity and creativity of the past weeks
has been both humbling and inspiring.

The Mayo News article
(http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&tas...id=38)
by Liamy McNally on Monday Sept. 15th
argued that the Solitaire can no longer do the job itcame to do in Mayo.

Whatever Liam Mcally's position is interms of the internal politics
of the campaign eg. a preference for priests over nonviolent diret actionists,
a preference for the mooted compromise of a pipeleine to the town down the road
rather than offshore processing is secondary here to the fact that the Solitaire
can't lay pipes now, anywhere!

There are also suggestions in other local media that the"Solitaire is three times rustier than the Golden
Gate Bridge and therefore that it could be headed for the scrapheap and this indeed could be its last voyage." http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/sep2008/002b.jpg

If this is true, and no one has countered it in the last 24 hours, the Solitaire is NOW an irrelevancy wherever
it is located inside or outside Irish Territorial Waters. If this is true, the Solitaire THIS week (unlike LASTweek)
is NOW an irrelevancy to Shell, the collaborating Irish state, the movement against the Shell/Irish state conspiracy
at Rossport and to MauraHarrington on hunger strike. If this is true, the Solitaire CAN'T and WON'T be doing the
job it was sent to Ireland to do

According to the Fintan O'Toole's Irish times article,
'Repair work to be done in Rotterdam'
(http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0915/...6.htm) the Solitaire can no longer do the work it was
sent to Ireland to do...laying the pipes to Mayo..."If the ship is NOW useless, no longer an asset but a liability to
Shell/Irish state there is no rush (especially in terms of saving face) to leave!

Time is a factor, for us not them, because one of our best activists/assets is on hunger strike and we risk losing
her for the long struggle ahead. This is of no concern to Shell/Irish State. We also risk demoralisation,
understandable violent rage/payback reactions, consequent state suppression, long prison sentences & maybe
death of others following a death on a nonviolent hunger strike (see the related killings during/following the H Block
nonviolent hunger strike deaths, following the assassination of pacifist MLK),
it's predictable!)

The Solitaire should NO longer be our focus, the pipes being laid through Mayo SHOULD be our focus. The point is
that unlike the 'U.S.S. New Jersey', the 'HMS Ark Royal' and other ships I and many others have been arrested
resisting in the past - the Solitaire isn't in essence a"deathship" designed only to kill. It's mere existence should not
warrant our focus only the work it WAS planning to do SHOULD be our focus. The initial demand for the "Solitaire to
leave Irish Territorial waters" WAS a good demand LAST week, it is NOT a good demand THIS week -because the
status of the Solitaire has changed.

Last week the Solitaire was a THREAT, this week it is an IRRELEVANCY. If the Solitaire is indeed a RELIC, let it stay
in Mayo, let's bring our children, school excursions, tourists and day trippers to Mayo to laugh at theSolitaire, to laugh
at Shell and laugh at the Irish state. It could become like Howard Hughes Spruce Goose
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce_Goose in Los Angeles, a tourist attraction to the
FOLLY OF THE RISH AND POWERFUL. If it is a relic doomed to the scrapheap, Shell and the Irish state could consider
cutting costs by sinking it offshore like the New Zealand government did with the "RainbowWarrior" (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/about/history/t...w-war)
so scuba divers can play with it. The options are as always only limited by our imagination.

As a movement we need to celebrate this (albeit a small) victory. We need to thank all those who hit the streets and the waves.
We need to thank all the local fishermen, Irish & international kayakers, the lock ons, the autonomous cycling grafittists,
the hunger striker, the beach walkers, those in the Garda/Solitaire/navy who may have sympathised & self sabotaged,
the locals & the outside agitators, those who got busted, those who mobilised in Mayo, around the country & around the world,
those who lost sleep, work, less sympathetic girl/boyfriends and weight over the past couple of weeks.
If, as the Irish Times states, the pipes can't be possibly laid until the Spring, we need to let our internationals go home
to their partners, kids and jobs. If all the above is the situation and the status of the Solitaire, we need to keep the pressure
on in Mayo, but at the same time let the NVD Actionist movement rest up (deal with their domestic fronts), recruit and reorganise. We need to do this, and much more, and come back in the Spring more organised, our lines of communication improved
(locally, nationally, internationally), learn from our mistakes and be stronger to confront whatever ship they send in place
of the Solitaire.

We need to have our revenge NOW in our laughter at Shell and the Irish state.Let it be known whereever
people struggle for community, environment, peace and justice that Gulliver
Gulliverhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver's_Travels
came to Mayo and tied himself (with a little help form the Lillirputans) up in knots. Let it be known that Leviathan
landed on the beach of Glengad and fell flat on its face!