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A NUMBER OF independent activists have occupied Bank of Ireland on Dublin’s O’Connell St.
Gardaí are at the scene and stationed at the door of the bank.
Occupy Dame St said its activists have occupied the bank. They did so because they objected to a bond payment of €576,368,867.
Explaining their motives, they said on Facebook:
We take this action today to object to and raise awareness that the bank bailout continues today with a payment to a bondholder of €576,368,867 on behalf of Bank of Ireland. Billions have been paid to bondholders, who got them at heavily discounted prices, while crippling cuts and new taxes have been imposed on the people in Ireland. “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty”
They held up signs saying “Bank bailout in progress”, “It’s still not our debt” and “We are unstoppable another world is possible!”
Gardaí said there had been no arrests.
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Hope Joan Burton is not involved in riots
G20 riots make jobstown look like the Chelsea garden festival.
How do all these protesters get so much time off work. Its unfair
@Macc Dan:
And the money to travel from far and wide to get to the protests.
@Avina Laaf: waiting for the bogeyman to be mentioned
@Macc Dan: tree huggers same thing
Why not have these conferences in a very isolated area, Serbia, Alaska or some island.
@Seán Dillon: Because there wouldn’t be any political profits to be had or PR to be spun.
@Seán Dillon: why not Siberia ! Sean
@Seán Dillon: Or better still, over Skype or face time.
@Seán Dillon: Serbia ? Belgrade is not usually noted as an islolated spot away from political maelstrom.. Alaska according to Ms S Palin it can be seen from Russia..Some Island like Ireland UK .. ?
@DeFonz: She never actually said that though.
@Seán Dillon:
They generally are held in fairly isolated areas (although not as extreme as Siberia or Alaska). Hamburg is an exception.
@Seán Dillon: Athlone for next year? We could get Bressie to host it
Thugs., the diffusion of responsibility in large crowds, most people think the are virtuous but just have never been in a position to act like thug and get away with it. I have no problem with protesting but when you destroy peoples property you have crossed the line.The cars that are on fire all over the city belong to working people.
Why would Hamburg want to host such an event? Sounds like mayhem
@Tony Stack: It’s there turn Tony to spend millions on security
@Noel: l wonder did Denis O Brien supply the barriers?
Putin will eat trump for breakfast
@Colm Ó Liatháin: I heard he prefers porridge.
Putin is a weetabix man
I’m actually starting to feel a ‘slight’ concern about his failing health as he does remind me of a person that is suffering with the early stages of dementia..And did anybody else notice how the Secret Service left him wander away from his bullet proof glass protection yesterday ?
@The Dunes Of Inchy: he bullet proof
@Noel: Very unusual all the same..
Let’s hope for better US Russian relations after this meeting between Putin and Trump….One of the reasons Trump got elected……At least on Syria agree to stop Obama policy of regime change…Let Syria recover from years of war….Even if Trump does it to annoy US media and their cold war hysteria on Russia will be good thing…..
@John003 : The man is clueless.
@The Dunes Of Inchy: He might want a hotel or two in Syria , maybe even a golf course .
@The Dunes Of Inchy: Your initial comment is clueless tbh
@Ken Hayden: The PGA Syria Classic 2020 has a good ring to it.
What are the ‘issues’ the protests are supposed to be about? This report is about street riots and police counter riots. A TV reporter comments that “European society is falling apart” – what exactly is he referring to? Ballydehob, Bundoran and Knockcrockery don’t seem to be falling apart, but empty buildings could be put to social use and litter controlled a bit better.
@Garreth Byrne: The problem in the West in general is that things are falling apart and the centre can no longer hold. Moronic anarchists are loosed upon the world. They’re always out to loose a tide of blood, be it in Seattle or Hamburg, and drown out whatever ceremony of our civilisation’s innocence remains. The best of us seem to lack any conviction in doing anything about it and the worst of us are full of their owm passionate intensity. What to make of it all? Maybe some revelation is at hand. Maybe it’s the Second Coming. Difficult to see which way the spirit of the world is leaning .After over 20 years of our culture more or less getting stoned and sleeping, my guess is it’ll be some rough slouching beast of a thing instead of Jesus. Might still be born in Bethlehem though.
@Squarepeg01: Thanks for the ‘close reading’ of Yeats’s poem The Second Coming. Literary matters don’t get much of a look-in on these threads.
@Garreth Byrne: :-)
@Squarepeg01: The reason it is falling apart is neo-liberal feral capitalism has destroyed everything that held society together in the name of profit. But the sheep, or those at least who delude themselves into believing they are immune from the economic consumer bulldozer, think it’s the only game in town, and don’t understand where the protests come from.
Maybe you think people should lie down and let the masters of the universe do as they please, be grateful for the crumbs they drop from their high table?
@Neil Mcdonough: Is that your message for the inhabitants of Ballydehob, Bundoran and Knockcrockery?
@Neil Mcdonough: let’s break what you said dowm. Feral capitalism: people should not be allowed exchange goods and services at mutually agreed prices. In the name of profit: other people should do their jobs for free. Economic consumer bulldozer: our lives are transformed by all these horrible cars and computers and phone things and foreign travel. Not the only game in town: it’s better to cede more power to the state and have politicians tell us what to do instead of CEOs. People shouldn’t lie down etc: people can trash the place and behave like thugs when virtue signalling their political affiliation. Did I miss anything?
Who is protecting nations from NATO?
This is just thuggery plain and simple. And I say that as someone who hates Trump and is very left leaning.
And we’re constantly told it’s the far right we need to be most wary of.
@Squarepeg01: Maybe because the far right burns occupied buildings and kills people?
All of the MSM that considered Jobstown as dangerous need to get their heads out of their a*** and see what real protest violence is.
When will the Left ever be held accountable for this violent rabble-rousing, which happens time and again regardless of who is in power in the West?
In fact, the problem is not the West, it is the violence and hate inherent in the far-Left mind.
I wonder if Donald Trump was not President would there still be protests
@Claire Masterson:
Always were, and the same for the G7 and other such economic gatherings.
@George Vladisavljevic: Yup…. Remember Italy…Genoa I believe although the Italian cops took no prisoners from the get go
Why is Putin so hated???
@Thaddius T Sawballs: Putin very dangerous guy nearest thing to a dictator !
Because the western MSM says you must hate him. Russians love him. In reality POTUS has more power over the US than the Russian President has over Russia. Of course everyone who the US dislikes is an evil dictator. If you want real dictatorship start looking at the big mates of the US.
@Thaddius T Sawballs: putin bad, very bad!
They need some one to justify the trillions they send on their armies
@B9xiRspG: It’s quite funny that , as Russia spends a larger percentage of it’s GDP on the military , even poor Greece is not far behind .
@Thaddius T Sawballs:
Because he does not want to see NATO on Russia’s borders as the US would not like to see Russians troops on its borders.
@George Vladisavljevic:
You forgot the fundamental underlying question – why do Russia’s smaller neighbours want a NATO presence on their soil? You can’t bully the guy next door for decades and expect no consequences.
@Avina Laaf:
I think that you are confusing Russia with the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. Since the USSR and the Warsaw Pact crumbled, NATO has not stopped expanding and are now on Russia’s boarders and perhaps that is why they are a bit worried? This could explain why they rightly or wrongly got involved with the Georgia as well as the Ukraine.
Does anybody really think that the Russians would be stupid enough or conventionally strong enough to actually attack a NATO member, knowing that attack on one is an attack on all and especially now when you have NATO battle groups in all of the Baltic countries as well as in Poland.
Cornering and poking a bear can make the bear nervous and aggressive.
I really do wonder if it is the people of the smaller countries that want NATO presence or their governments who think that they will benefit financially or what ever way by having the troops on their land. In many if not most cases, joining NATO or Partnership For Peace was a prelude to joining the EU and other economical treaties or assistance from the west.
If a conflict ever started, which countries do you think would suffer the first and the most? Any future conflict will more than likely go from conventional to nuclear quite fast and I really would not want to be on the front line or stuck in the middle.
@George Vladisavljevic: first sane comment I’ve read so far on the journal.
@George Vladisavljevic:
You completely missed (or more likely deliberately chose to ignore) the point – why do so many former Soviet states look to NATO to protect them from Russia instead of looking to Russia to protect them from NATO?
The answer is quite simple – a long history of Russian hostility and aggression towards its weaker neighbours.
@Avina Laaf:
Can you list the number of post Warsaw Pact/USSR era conflicts that Russia has been involved in and then give me the number of conflicts that NATO or NATO member countries have been involved in?
One also needs to stop reliving the past.
Russia is not the power that it once was, the USSR and the Warsaw pact are gone and we have NATO ‘assuring’ European and world peace. What could possibly go wrong?
@Ken Hayden: In $/year Military Spend 1) US 611BLN. 2) China 215BLN 3) Russia spends 69BLN. 4) Saudi Arabia 64BLN
@George Vladisavljevic:
Again you’re refusing to acknowledge the point because it doesn’t suit your argument to do so.
Ask Georgia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Estonia etc. etc. who they see as the greatest threat to them – Russia or NATO?
This is the elephant in the room that can’t be ignored, much as you’re trying to do so.
@George Vladisavljevic: In Eastern Latvia not far from RU border. Gonna poke around to get a glimpse of those U.S. military bases set uphere in the last few years.
@George Vladisavljevic: Correct. Lithuanians in particular but also Latvians are nervous about noe being a target since US bases are here. A lot of guys in Riga made and still make great $ from this business so yeah there are always opportunists who cash in. The Defence Industry is a business. When the US Military vehicles drove down the road in Daugavpils there were protestors hurling abuse at them. Daugavpils is near Belarus border is the largest city in the East and is a Russian speaking city since it’s all Russians there. I’m hoping cool heads will prevail but it is dangerous to build US bases near the RU border. It also contravenes the agreement made with RU at the time of the break-up of USSR that NATO would not push East to near the RU border.
@Thaddius T Sawballs: In my town (family in LV) in East Latvia about 50% are Latvian and 50% Ehtnic Russian. All lived peacefully, grew up together speak Latvian & Russian. Lots of Russian traditions are still alive here alonside Latvian ones. The people I speak to see the US Army bases as a provocation, stirring up tensions between communities unecessarily. A prominent politician who started a new political party is running on a campaign to shut down these US Army bases.
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