reclaim the streets the sequel

by boxer Wed Aug 28, 2002 17:30

then that'll be right at the same time as the all ireland final against kerry.

how many political events were organised to coincide with world cup soccer matches?

or is the thinking that Dub supporters won't be the type of people interested in participating anyway?

by Dorothy Wed Aug 28, 2002 17:45

We are approaching the day when there is an UNMISSABLE sporting event on every day of the year. Wake up, a few dozen strangers kicking a sweatshop manufactured sphere of leather around a patch of grass in front of tens of thousands of drunken yobs, all baying loundly and fanatically in imitation of Hitler's rally-goers, isn't that exciting.

by What a muppet Wed Aug 28, 2002 18:18

What an absolute muppet -

"Wake up, a few dozen strangers kicking a sweatshop manufactured sphere of leather around a patch of grass in front of tens of thousands of drunken yobs, all baying loundly and fanatically in imitation of Hitler's rally-goers, isn't that exciting."

I cant find the words to express what I think of such an ill-thought up, ignorant, idiotic statement detailed above.

Dorothy you truly are ignorant of culture and intelligence. Grow up.

by Dorothy Wed Aug 28, 2002 18:33

RTS is on September 22nd coz it's car free day. My opinions on sport are nothing to do with RTS. Incidentally I don't consider calling people muppets to be much of an argument. I consider myself to have made the stronger points in the debate so far!

by Ois Wed Aug 28, 2002 19:30

And calling people Drunken Yobs is an infinitely more enlightened method of argument in comparison to calling people muppets?
Please.

And I agree RTS should be on a different day but its not, so you have to decide if your going to a party or to a seat in front of a TV set. I choose the party.

by robbie Wed Aug 28, 2002 22:27

sorry, sorry, sorry ... I know this isn't a sport site, but I have to say that your problem will be solved as it'll be Armagh v Kerry on the day anyway, leaving all dubs free for RTS.

by C. Wed Aug 28, 2002 22:36

The possibility of a Dublin Kerry all ireland on the same day as the RTS is a pain (and my latent tribalism will probably win out even though I've been to a few RTS meetings and totally enjoyed the last party) but Dorothy needs to relax on the attacks on GAA.

Car free day is the obvious day to have the RTS (especially given last years events) but despite the price of tickets and the creeping commercialism we are talking about an amateur, cultural event. By attacking this you marginalise the message that RTS has. If the Dubs are in Croke park, I'll sticker it - and hope somebody will be at the green for the latecomers.

by boxer Thu Aug 29, 2002 02:01

We are approaching the day when there is an UNMISSABLE sporting event on every day of the year. Wake up, a few dozen strangers kicking a sweatshop manufactured sphere of leather around a patch of grass in front of tens of thousands of drunken yobs, all baying loundly and fanatically in imitation of Hitler's rally-goers, isn't that exciting.

Dear Dorothy,

Nice to see you keep your sense of class shined up marvellously bright. Your wonderful car-free sunday , that'll really cripple the circulation of goods and services. The auto manufacturers must be shaking in their boots.

Your attitude towards the regular people who make up the crowd in Croke Park is pretty revealing: just 'yobs' - hey who cares, the ones who've been pushed around by the cops for years. Long before some of you were battoned on Dame St. I suppose you think ewe need a bit more middle-class 'education'?

The metaphor about Hitler's rally goers sort of lost me though. Can you explain it a bit more clearly? Do you detect a unconscious desire for a totalitarian state as you pass Croke Park, or is it just a wee problem with sport in general?

Dublin last won an All ireland in 1995, beofre that we need to go back to 1983. In the '70s the Dubs won three titles, and when the '74 team was honoured a couple of years ago a Doctor David hickey took off his top to show a t-shirt in support of Cuba. Lots of peoiple in jail and fucked y the cuban givernement I know, but you get the drift...?
There's lot of working class people in this city for whom the Dubs are very important, like a reason for getting up in the morning, and for whom Hill 16 is magical. You despise that. Tough luck. Environmentalim isn't their top priority, if you looked at the circumstances people lived in that would be easy to understand.

The comments about sweatshop manufactured 'spheres' (I don't think so) is too cheap to resond to. Post your address and we'll send around the right on product inspector. If you pass with a clean bill of health, it can be a feature on Indymedia.

My real concern, Dorothy, is that attitudes like yours are what makes it difficult for more people in this city to identify and act with a radical political understanding. You make the gap wider. You don't get the idea that there are times for being close and feeling together, understanding one another. Sport, like music, like history is one of the ways that this happens. You want right-on attitudes without the work required to build trust, and given how people have been shafted here that is a very difficult relationship to build. The message sent by organising the party at the same time (it could at least have been in the evening) is that football fans are just not expected, or if they are, onlu as a troblesome aftermath, cos they might be drunk.

Two weeks ago, headng up Buckingham St. towards croker, ther was a banner on the street that said 'donegal, abbeylara, north inner city, dame st. - stop garda violence'. I found that exctiting, that common space. Speaking with a taxi driver the other jight on a simila topic he continually referred to RTS as 'those students that got beaten' and you could hear that even if he felt sympathy, he fel distance, and that's what I feel after having thought about your response for a bit.
Because if Dublin are in the final, I know where i'm going to be, and it's not Stephen's Green but Croke Park.
And it wont' be because my commitment to freedom is weak.
tiocfaidh

boxer

by patc Thu Aug 29, 2002 10:07

hey, give dorothy a break!

you're taking sport far too seriously. (ok i know thats a bit rich coming from me who has battled to the death against westbrits who attacked the gaa)

different people have contrasting interests, some will choose to turn up for the rts event, some will watch the match on tv & some will be lucky enough to be in croker to watch armagh thrash kerry.

i don't think its just a class thing either. there will be as many (or more) blazered bourgeoise & farmers in croker as there will be oppressed proletarians.

anyway:

Victory to Armagh!

Victory to RTS!

No More Cars!

by Eoghan Ryan Thu Aug 29, 2002 10:10 eoghanryan at yahoo dot com

The football will not be made by sweatshop labour, the GAA insist that all their equipment is made in Ireland. Also, The players are most unlikely to be strangers to the vast majority of people in attendance at Croke Park. The whole point of the GAA is that the players are not mercenaries, they were born, and generally still live and work, in the county that they represent.
I shall be at RTS, just cos football aint really my bag. However if it were to clash with the hurling final, the stick fighting would win the day. BTW, anyone with a spare ticket, gizza shout...................

by Ollie - Katalyzer Thu Aug 29, 2002 13:25

Yea O'Neill's Footballs made in Dublin, Non-professional local players (ie non-capitalist) and the GAA , despite the pressure, have their 'finger in the dam', albeit semi-sucessfully, of commercial onslaught....they are under blatent pressure to allow supra-sweatshop and supra-capitalist Soccer into Croker, but seem to have a genuine concern for the residents who live in the area. (too much disruption with the extra matches a new sport would bring) Also, the history of colonial resistance (Hill 16 ain't called hill 16 for nowt), and the whole Armagh/Crossmaglen thing...there is more to it than initially meets the (uninitiated) eye....that said ,as has been said, its unfortunate timing ,and the reality of the situation is that there will be many, many extra celebrating/sorrowful drunks....messy at least...good job the RTS is up the other end of town from Dorset st. , imo
Sure it's good that there will be an extra 100,00 (at least) people in Dublin, technically... but they will have other things on their minds.
But...people could always flyer DORSET St. about RTS....?
Good idea or not? I don't know.

by - - - Thu Aug 29, 2002 14:30 name at adress dot ie - -

For all yer talk of GAA and who'll be at what event youse are missing perhaps the biggest
possibility Ireland has had in a long while.
RTS party on same day as car-free day,
car-free day on same day as all-Ireland,
big big National match with tens of thousands of
people from all over are coming to Dublin and
will be moving in big crowds on same day as big big street party takes place in Dublin.
Car-Free-Day will go down in all-ireland history

by Dorothy Thu Aug 29, 2002 14:46

I'm not having a dig at the GAA, although I do hate the bastards, I'm having a go at mass sporting events. They are a training in irrational ideas of identification with abstract ideas of 'belonging'. Although I'm from a certain shithole of a county in the West, I no more identify with the members of that team than I do with any other team. In general I find the ethos and values of the GAA players and supporters that I have come across to be quite alien to me. I don't care if they're amateur, working class or aristocratic farmers, I just don't like glorifying the ability to succesfully run around a pitch after a ball. I've no problem if people want to do it, I just think that to elevate one of these games to be a supremely important event is downright silly.

Mass spectator sports, of all stripes, are an exercise in stupefication, escapism and mass psychosis. I also find the triumphalism, fanaticism and drunkeness of the crowds at major sporting events to be distinctly unpleasant. The 'friendly banter' of these matches often descends into racism, laughing at serious injuries, mocking of players who fall short of the physical ideal and so on. Dublin win the all-ireland, who cares? Bertie cares - keeps the minds off the hospital cutbacks for a few weeks as the populace basks in the reflected glory of a thoroughly irrelevant event.

When I say 'drunken yobs' I am not denigrating the spectators (well not really), just observing that these events encourage people to abandon whatever senses of social responsibility they have in normal life. How many people could be seen pissing and puking on O' Connell st after last Sunday's match? Mmmmm.

All of this is not particular to the GAA, rugby is worse, soccer is just as bad, golf should be a capital offence.

Once again, this is nothing to do with RTS. I agree that it's unfortunate that it is held on the same day as a major sporting event since fewer people will come along. I don't blame the people for not coming, we live in such a miserable world that I don't blame people for wanting a bit of escapism every so often. I just hate sports and have never been bitten by the sports bug and I get my escapism elsewhere, so it's quite clear to me how silly it all is and how useful it is to those in power.

by Ruairi Thu Aug 29, 2002 16:02

oooh tis such a miserable world indeed, but hey - if we can't dance (or kick ball) then it's not our revolution!!!

Don't see this event overlap as a failure, mistake or lost opp - embrace it and imagine what you can turn it into - an 'all out' street party with ORDINARY people from across the fair isle. Could be the gift you've been lookin' for!!!

Get creative, Cheer up, chin up, look up and act up - positive action rather than mournful squabbling ain't gonna endear anybody to anything.

Onwards and Upwards!

'Imagination is more important than knowledge' - Einsten

by annoyed activist Thu Aug 29, 2002 17:06

my da used to say:

"sport is a circus which diverts the minds of the masses from the political & socio-economic problems which confront them."

so there!

by just a thot Thu Aug 29, 2002 18:39

dorothy:
'They are a training in irrational ideas of identification with abstract ideas of 'belonging'.'

wow - sounds like RTS

by Phuq Hedd Thu Aug 29, 2002 19:19

Unfortunately she's not playing the "da workin' class an' all dat dey duz iz roight on" game that so many on "the left" want to play.

The attack on Dorothy that implies (if not actually states) that she is "middle-class" because she doesn't like a mass-group event in which people pay to be spectators of ritualized ethnic warfare doesn't prove that she's a snob: it proves that her critics are guilty inverse snobbery in which no criticism of the bastard institutions of capitalism created FOR the working class is to be allowed.

Fair play Dorothy. All the feckers driving their motors into the big smoke so that they can consume a spectacle are not deserving of adulation.

by bitstream Fri Aug 30, 2002 00:16

"sport is a circus which diverts the minds of the masses from the political & socio-economic problems which confront them."

The Roman emperors often held major sporting events or, later, lotteries when the populace were getting uneasy about one issue or another.

Recently, history seemed to repeat itself when Bertie did his public profile much favour by appearing to step in the FAI/SKY affair. This minor incidince of little relavance to the well being of all citizens (with the exception of the suits in aforementioned institutions) allowed Bertie to avoid having to answer any awkward questions on Ansbacher or the worsening economic situation.

In the UK, the Royal Family serve much the same purpose. I mean, that whole "Black Rod" business. World war three waiting in the wings and all sky news see fit to enlighten us on is that a man that sounds like a 70's porn movie thought the PM should have walked..... etc

by Eoghan Ryan Fri Aug 30, 2002 09:42 eoghanryan at yahoo dot com

That sport is frequently a diversion or escapism is patently true, the generals in Argentina never had it so good as when Argentina won the world cup in 1978. Murdoch, more than anyone, is aware of this phenomenon. However, like most forms of entertainment, it is not the activity per se that is the problem but who controls it.
Also, without glorifying da wurking class, the reality is that the vast majority of working people in this country have an interest in sport.
To think that any kind of social change will be achieved by castigating the whole concept of sport is living in activist fairy land. Chomsky watches baseball. There will be sport after the revolution guys.

by gaa fan Fri Aug 30, 2002 17:48

God yee environmentals are some scumbags !!!!
long live the GAA
long live Shannon Airport

by gaa fan Fri Aug 30, 2002 17:48

God yee environmentals are some scumbags !!!!
long live the GAA
long live Shannon Airport
Long live America!!!!!!!!!!!