More than 100,000 Irish citizens took to the streets of Dublin today to protest against the Irish government's continued negotiations with the bankster enforcers, the EU and IMF.
Despite overnight snow storms and freezing temperatures, huge crowds have gathered on O'Connell Street.
The enforcers want government spending cuts and higher taxes. The crowd wants neither. Sanity would be the government defaulting on its debt, majors cuts in government spending and major tax cuts.
Most prominent banners in the picture: Socialist Party, Socialist Workers
ReplyDelete(rolls eyes)
I am skeptical of any and all mass protests by the "common people". There's always an organizer, and the organizer always has an agenda. I don't believe common people are ever motivated or individually incentivized, by themselves, to spontaneously take to the streets and protest.
Competing elites.
They may not, as I point out in my post, know the correct solution, but the larger the size of a crowd the more likley it is a genuine reaction of the people.
ReplyDeleteCuts in gvt jobs and higher taxes makes it very easy to understand how this is likely a vey genuine protest.
Wenzel,
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to start an argument because I know we've discussed this in the past, as in previous posts similar to this, and I understand you are in agreement with me that these protests don't necessarily represent anything approximating a "freedom-instinct" but rather are people's changing reactions and relationships with the status quo.
My point is simply to highlight this distinction. A lot of people continue to cite these reactions as some kind of sign that the common man is "waking up" and "getting it." I don't think that is what is happening. People aren't rejecting government, or socialism as such. They're rejecting particular governments and particular implementations of socialist policies and organizations.
Too soon to give three cheers for an incipient, grassroots, individualist world-wide freedom revolution, is all I am saying.
This might be more readily apparent to observers in the US if, say, the policy being protested was being backed by the Democrats and the protestors were all carrying signs saying "Republican, and proud!"
Then it would be very obvious that it's nothing but more partisan bickering over who should control the levers of power and what they should do with them.
Somehow, when it comes to Europeans and their socialist parties, everyone gets confused into thinking it represents some frustration with power generally.
"Bottom line" (as the great Wenzel would say): I don't think many (American) outside observers know enough about the particular political histories and dynamics of any of these foreign countries to have any foot to stand upon in interpreting any of these protests as a rejection of government wealth redistribution schemes in general.
Taylor Conant:
ReplyDeleteI understand your caution, but when 100,000 are able to take to the streets with new signs and on relatively short notice, it is indicative of a well organized group of people. Clearly the socialist--who are against the Poverty Plan--know their politics and know their crowd and at least appear to be against the idea of kicking the poor when they're down.
Most Democrats and Republicans would shudder at any large, spontaneous crowd, leaving this kind of mass movement political action to Tea Party's and such so that the reality of popular frustrations appears alternative and marginal.
If people can get organized and act, I could give a darn who provides the impetus!
Chuck Moon,
ReplyDeleteThank you for perfectly illustrating the exact logic I have made a specific effort to warn against.
God, did I pay you to come on and post that or something? If I did, I don't remember doing it!
Anyway, if you care about the spread of individual liberty I think you may want to be a bit more discerning about these things-- all protests are not created equally. I'm not going to bother re-explaining this for you or anybody else. If you're interested, look for some of my other comments. Other than, maybe one day it will dawn on you when we see more and more socialist encroachments in response to these crises, not less and less, despite all these wonderful protests (organized by the socialists).
The poor dupes demanding more socialism and condemning spending cuts fail to realize that socialism caused the crisis. Their ignorance does not, however, excuse the behavior of the governments that steal yet more of their people's property through higher taxation under the guise of "austerity." Both the European people and their governments are hopeless, and their rejection of laissez-faire principles will further plunge them into economic ruin.
ReplyDeleteTaylor Conant:
ReplyDeleteI would agree if the construct of the government in question was not fascist in nature. Ireland is lightyears from any form of individual liberty if their government can simply assume these debts of failing banks and drop it all on the people--just like they did here in the US.
Similarly, I would exercise more caution, as you suggest, were it not for the fact that often times it takes actions to right injustice. It is instructive, for instance, that it took three days of rioting in Los Angelas for the Feds to take a look at the Rodney King case. Had there been no riots, and had people refrained from explosive reactrions to injustice for fear of association with questionable elements of society, all would have been quiet as midnight and attention on police brutality and racism would have been buried.
I don't agree with everything Gary Null has to say, but his point about the various third parties unifying against a common oppressive force shouldn't be discarded on account of a particular political perspective.
Chuck Moon,
ReplyDeleteMy concern is individual liberty. Following the resolution of the Rodney King riots, would you say the residents of South LA now have more individual liberty or less?