CreativelyMaladjusted.net

Ooooh. It’s the End Of The World

I take the Mayan 2012 calendar with a grain of salt, however as
solstice 2012 approaches the chaos in the world seems to be
increasing.

I heard about the Mayan calendar about 11 years ago. The Mayan
calendar will end on the solstice of 2012. Some say it heralds the
End Of The World, but the guy I heard it from thought it would be a
shift in consciousness and that it wasn’t a sudden thing that would
happen on that day, but that solstice 2012 would mark the gradual
change being completed. That seemed plausible enough to me, but I’ve
always held out a certain amount of skepticism of the idea. Still, I
was interested in the fact that the Mayans seem to have planned over
eons and thought in numbers so big that the world is only catching up
with them now.

Heading out of 2008 the political scene was looking pretty crazy
here in Ireland, with the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen
loosing the plot, and his party still
voting confidence in him. Then the Dial (national parliament)
unbelievably voted on
a Banking Guarantee legislation that they hadn’t even seen! No
wording – nothing! I remember the opposition TD, Joan Burton of
Labour, being on TV saying they voted it down for the first vote and
later telling us… if I remember rightly, that they trusted
that the government was acting in the national interest. Now
of course, Labour are in government and they now claim that they did
not vote for the Guarantee.

Anyhow, that Finna Fail & Green
government limped on and the “cheapest bailout in history” grew
from 4 billion to…. well, we’re still paying for it. I think it’s
over €200 billion at the moment, plus the social cost and continued
austerity measures being promised for at least the next two years.
The figure has become so large as to be irrelevant. We cannot pay it.

All of that was like watching some mad
movie. Very surreal…. even more so because the level of opposition
was almost non-existent.

The crisis keeps deepening

Our current government keep reiterating their view that things are
getting better. As far as I can gather from the media if you look at
GNP instead of GDP it is not true to say that things are better. I
can’t help shake the feeling that this is just a lull in a far bigger
storm. At the time of writing Spain’s 10 year bond yield has passed
6%…. which is apparently pretty bad! Rabo bank has said that we are
back in “full crisis mode”. A topic RTE Radio1 News devoted about
2 minutes to today.

The government also say they want to be a “knowledge economy”
(who doesn’t?) and that they want export lead growth in this time of
a post-peak-oil world. They have a schizoid approach wanting two
mutually exclusive things "Sustainable Development" and
"A Growth Economy".

Reading the NY
Times article about Italy, Spain & the rest of Europe’s
economic woes, it struck me how the budgets are all in December. i.e
in and around the solstice of 2012, when the Mayan calendar ends.

I still can’t quite figure out what, if any, the Mayan
consciousness-shift might be. Perhaps it’s different for different
people. I think there is definitely a polarizing of views both in
Ireland and across Europe. Unfortunately, the neoliberal forces seem
to be winning out. It’s so ingrained in our culture that people seem
to use it’s language without even noticing, like referring to
citizens as tax payers, for example.

There does seem to be a palpable shift in attitudes
with the failure of the household tax. The government haven’t even
finished failing with that, yet the same minister, Phil Hogan, is
starting his next failure – the water metering. I think that will
promise to be an even greater mess than the household tax, which as a
dissenter to the banking bailouts, I’m happy to see.

The abyss

When I think about
this crises I often relate it back to my own mental health
experiences. It was difficult to face the problems I had, and for as
long as I could I stagnated. My reaction to having to undergo a major
world-view change was to go into a fantasy land. I escaped into my
own reality. I feel that is where the government, the EU and the
state is at right now – perhaps the media too.

My prediction is that
eventually, their reality-bubble will burst and the countries
throughout the western world will be thrown into chaos, the like of
which we have never seen. The reason is twofold. One is that the
markets are decoupled from any actual thing (such as gold); and two
is that growth requires resources, especially oil.

Those who believe in
the capitalist model will have to completely re-evaluate the point of
their existence. The industrial revolution that was powered by coal
and oil is over. Being an industrialist would be pretty difficult
without those things.

It’s not easy to look
at another way, but eventually we will, either by choice or
circumstance. It all depends how long oil will last. Do you believe
that an alternative to oil will pop into existence (or has been
invented)?….. well, I don’t. I think it far more prudent to err on
the side of caution. Our fancy plastics, cosmetics and cars will at
some point be looked on quite differently. Perhaps dump owners will
suddenly be king.

Oil will run out.
It’s a matter of time.

I know what it is
like to jump into abyss – it’s a bit like the blind tunnel-vision
panic of a car crash. But that’s what I feel we all need to do. I
sort of expect suffering down the tracks and the sooner we take on
the change that is needed the better.

I hope that’s what
the “End Of The World as we know it” might mean. That we all come
to realize the utter interdependence we have on each other and that
we gotta come up with a no-oil economy pretty damn soon.

It’s going to be a
rough century!

I haven’t been adding much to this blog recently as I’m in the process of moving house and setting up a more sustainable life for myself with my fiancée.

I find it difficult to work out what is catastrophising and what is within the realms of probability when I think about the future and the path it may take. The signals seem strongly negative to me. We appear to have a people, a government, a Europe and a Globe that is not facing up to the problems that are pretty obviously down the track.

The stereotypical crazy man with a sign saying “The End Of The World Is Nigh”, looks increasingly reasonable to me. Either that means I’m going crazy again, or it means the world is. I’m pretty certain it’s the world.

Anyhow, this is just a quick post to splash some links into for future reference.

IMF “Oil Scarcity, Growth, and Global Imbalances”

What is the impact of high oil prices on the global economy?

Past peak oil – life after cheap fossil fuels

Post Carbon Institute

Zero Carbon Britain

This site was originally created so I could express my opinions during a time of great upheaval in Ireland. That I could vent some of the frustration I was feeling at our countries ‘leaders’, and at our ‘opinion formers’, and, in some ways, at my fellow citizens. At the time I wanted to see opposition to what was happening in our country. I wanted to see people take to the streets. Since then I was part of #OccupyDameStreet, until I felt it was going nowhere.

I now realize that the country is pretty rightly screwed, one way or the other. Unlike most, I do not wish for a return to the Bubble Years. I feel we lost an awful lot of good during that time. We became utterly consumed by greed.

In many ways it was the greed that drove me out of Dublin – that, and the utter inequity that exists within it. Perhaps every city gets like that, the richer and bigger it becomes, but I found it difficult to see fellow humans suffering all around me, and this they seemed to do weather or not they had money.

The system was telling me that I should make money too. Money is good, it said. We are a rich country and that is good. If you make money you are also good. However, I had a difficulty with that. The more I thought about it, the more wrong it seemed. Society is and was being increasingly divided into those who did the manual work and lived in poor areas, with lower standards of live, versus those at the top who benefit from the corruption in their palatial homes. In between is the middle class. Resolutely not looking either up or down. Determined to remain blinkered to the problems, or not really caring – I’m not sure which.

People often say we should be “positive”. By this they mean that you should not name problems. Problems are negative, not-problems are positive. However, I feel that not identifying problems accurately is very negative, whereas identifying them creates an opportunity to change – an opportunity for solutions, which are positive.

I learnt a lot of that from my mental health experiences. In so many ways, Irish society has been avoiding it’s reflection in the mirror for a very long time. From unquestioning submission to the church, to unquestioning submission to the neo-liberalist agenda. The Mahon report, currently being talked about has found Ireland was corrupt. Our media is trying to tell us that has changed, despite the Mahon report telling us that nothing was done to change it.

Change Of Direction

In the past, when I had mental health problems, I assumed it was me that was crazy, and society helped confirm that view. Then, on the road to recovery, I learnt I am sane, but I now find that it was society that was crazy.I think it still is crazy. It assumed that the new FG/Lab government was a positive change. Why? What evidence did it have?

We all know we want ‘fairness’ and ‘goodness’ and ‘a better country’, but we have very different views as to the definition of these things. Even if we were to agree on the definitions, we then have to figure out how to get to our specific targets, and again, on may differ hugely on this.

A big problem on the national scale is that there is very little to unite us. That’s why I’ve more-or-less given up on it. I’ll probably still comment, and may make it to the odd protest, but I really feel there is very little point until more people stand up. That is. Until the middle stand up. Perhaps it’s happening with the household charge, but I doubt that it will develop into the large scale turn-around that I would like to see happen. I suppose it’s a revolution I want, but I’m not quite certain… that conjures up socialism to me, which I don’t think I like.

Anyhow, now that I’ve set roots in Newcastle West, I think it might be better to invest time and energy into my local community. That and to becoming more self-sufficient. I feel my fiancée and I have happed upon a really friendly and active community, although we haven’t explored it yet.

We feel very fortunate to have the patch of land we’ve always wished for, so that we can keep goats and chickens. We haven’t got any goats yet, but we hope to get them soon enough. I intend to blog more about how our move from town to country is going…… but then my intentions often to work out!

Ah sure the ol’ household tax is great.

The amount of opposition to the Household tax is becoming more obvious as the deadline approaches. I really hope this is the beginning of the end for the government. Of course, we’ve still no real alternative to vote for, but this Blueshirt lead government, is not only trying to tax us to the hilt, it is also trying to curb our freedom of speech and is further eroding our democracy.

On today’s Drivetime programme, Fergus O’Dowd (FG) said that “If people pay we will have better local government”. However, when he was asked about the extra services that will be brought about he said, “[the government] hope to have new efficiencies” brought in…. so nothing extra then?

This lightening quick thinker also said that “if [the local authorities] are short 160 mil they will be 160 mil short”, but of course if they are short more than that, because the national government cut the local government by more than the household tax would raise. Also, something they always wish to evade – the tax will be re-distributed. That means a compliant area will be subsidizing non-compliant ones.

Even Phil Hogan, who announced the tax, said the tax is “unfair”. So why should I pay an unfair tax?

It’s pretty funny listening to the muppets trying explain their way through that.

Also, the Fianna Failure party have been saying that we need the deadline extended. I guess that demonstrates how they still don’t get it. FF & the media are trying to claim that people don’t know about the charge. Not sure that’s true…. and if they don’t they know where to get the info. I just hope they aren’t informing themselves.

WE AIN’T PAYING! LEAVE THE DEADLINE WHERE IT IS!

Oh.. and BTW, many people have been saying that Ministers are not liable for the tax. That is, apparently untrue. Minsters are not expempt

This is the exchange of emails between myself & the Data Protection Commissioners, which I’m posting here as a record for myself, and to encourage others to generate emails voicing objections.

Gordon Lucas on 12/03/2012 11:10:48 To: info@dataprotection.ie cc: Subject: RE: Household Tax
Dear Data Protection Commissioners, I phoned your office this morning in relation to the household tax. I confess to be somewhat confused as to the response to my query. As an average citizen, I am not well versed in law or the systems of governance. As I understood it, the Data Protection Act effectively affords me no protection against the government, or it’s agencies, if they wish to access any of my information. Is that correct?

I would like to make clear that my objection to the transfer of my data to the government is not solely due to the tax ( the bills are in my name, my partner owns the properties), which we simply will not pay whatever the consequences. My objection is due to the worrying exchange of information. I was under the impression that that was precisely what the Data Protection Commissioners exists to prevent, and that my data could only be used for the reasons it was submitted for. I recognize, as an agency, your hands may be tied, but I still feel obligated to object and to do my best to understand the loop-holes being used by the blueshirts.

I am writing to request that you restate your official position, and the acts involved.

Kindest Regards,

Gordon Lucas,

I received the following response on the 15/03/2012

Dear Mr. Lucas Thank you for your email below. This Office has been in contact with the Department of the Environment Community & Local Government regarding the Household Charge.

The Department has undertaken to engage urgently with this Office regarding putting in place strict protocols governing access to any data requested by Local Authorities from entities such as the ESB (there has been no access to or requests for such data as yet). The Commissioner will be seeking to ensure that any data is requested in a proportionate manner involving minimum access to data held by the ESB etc and also the safeguarding of this information.

Section 14 of the Local Government (Household Charge) Act 2011 – which was approved by both the Seanad and the Dáil before Christmas – provides that a list of bodies – including the ESB, the Private Residential Tenancies Board, the Revenue Commissioners and the Minister for Social Protection – must provide a local authority, on request, with information in its possession that the local authority may reasonably require for the purpose of collecting the new charge. (A similar provision is included in the legislation on the tax on second homes).

This sets aside the requirement of the Data Protection Acts that personal information collected for a particular purpose may not be used or disclosed for another purpose. However, the other requirements of the Acts in relation to the confidentiality and security of personal data continue to apply.

In his Annual Report for 2010, the Commissioner set out the views of this Office on such sharing of personal data for public purposes, which I would summarise as follows:

1. Demonstrable justification: That a detailed assessment takes place as to likely benefits of the proposed sharing to justify the overriding of the individual’s data protection rights

2. Explicit legal basis: That the legal basis for data sharing, including the conditions under which such sharing is permitted, should be set out in primary legislation in a specific way with adequate safeguards attaching

3. Data minimisation/Data access and security/Data retention: Where the justification and proportionality tests for the proposed sharing have been satisfied, only the minimum amount of personal data should be shared. Enhanced access and security requirements should apply to personal data received as part of an approved data sharing arrangement. And personal data provided as part of an approved data sharing arrangement should be securely destroyed when no longer required.

We are in contact with the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government with a view to ensuring that these principles are adhered to in this case. I trust the foregoing is of assistance,

Yours Sincerely,

Stewart Fennell

The Journal now says the Minister now says he may change the law.

A Facebook response to the previous post says “You have a duty of honesty to respond to this question because you were the person who blocked the motion.”

I did not actually block the DCTU motion at ODS. I guess he missed that point due to the length of the post. However, I probably would have travelled to Dublin to do so, if I did not think it would be blocked without me. I had made a promise to someone that I was going to block it, but then I chose to leave ODS instead, and the person released me from my commitment.

DCTU v Camp

For me the issue was not DCTU. That “to march” or “not to march” question merely exacerbated a split that already existed between those struggling to camp and those who operated from outside the camp. The campers were not being adequately support by those who attended GAs.

Furthermore, the DCTU issue had been forced onto the agenda. Why did it take three days to decide weather or not to march with DCTU, or not? It was a complete non-issue in one way. If those forcing the agenda had announced there was a march and that ODS members were welcome to attend, banners and all, that would have been the end of it. Instead, we spent three days discussing weather or not ODS should join DCTU in a march. Perhaps the only thing that really needed approval was were people ‘allowed’ to bring an ODS banner.

In my view, the proposal was more about weather or not to join with the union in general. Debatable, perhaps laudable, perhaps not.

Even before it was brought to the General Assembly, those pushing to unite with the unions, were hassling me. They were doing this on the Saturday night, after the celebration, and they wanted to interrupt the celebrations to make an announcement about the meeting with DCTU. To me, that showed how out of touch they were with the camp.

The hassle was on the lines of, “it’s just about people in tents in Dame Street”, and “DCTU could help us reach more people”. The proposal, however, was weather or not to march with them – a non-issue. Some ODS people could, some ODS people wouldn’t.

Just to be clear. I was not slavishly wedded to the idea of the camp. My issue was that the camp was in a desperate struggle to exist, and that if we wanted it to be a positive, family friendly and inspirational space, we needed, at that time, to give it effort. To try to create a safer and more productive environment in which to operate. Motivation on the camp had been renewed by the Celebrations and we were trying to put the previous weeks SWP take-over attack behind us.

If we were to discuss joining up with DCTU, that could have waited for a week. There was no need to decide there and then about that. The issue became somewhat confused. As far as I recall the person making the proposal said how great it would be to be with DCTU. I feel she thereby confused the issue as her evangelistic attitude made it seem that the proposal was about being a part of, or strongly associated with them.

The block

For those who don’t know the block is a tool in consensus decision making that acts as a sort of veto. Anybody can use it, but it is meant to only be used when you have extreme opposition to a thing and for good reason.

When discussing the DCTU issue on the ODS forum, and saying it was stupid to have 3 days to discuss it, I was told I should have blocked it. If I had blocked it, I would have been told how unreasonable I was.

In the end the DCTU, was blocked, as far as I know. I recall there being a proposal, something on the lines of should we promote the DCTU march, which I think was also blocked. The next day a number of people associated with ODS started promoting the march.

I think the reaction of ODS campers shocked some of the DCTU people, who were caught in the cross-fire between the split of The Media Group v The Residents. It was unfortunate that those in the Media Group did not acknowledge the split, so that it could be dealt with. The split could, in my view, still have been dealt with on the Monday morning, but when the DCTU proposal was put forward things went beyond repair.

The end ODS

It is very sad seeing how pathetically ODS ended. I would have loved to see the camp being wound down gracefully, as with Cork & Waterford. I feel that could have resulted in something a lot more fruitful and credible. They could have kept up the General Assemblies and moved more into communities. They could have even taken part in the St. Patricks Day parade.

Instead we see people loosing the head. Antagonising police for the sake of it, getting in Gardai’s faces, following them around with signs and generally being more like hooligans than protesters.

As someone who was involved in #OccupyDameStreet for the first six weeks, I find the Rise & Fall Of #OccupyDameStreet article in the Irish Times misses out on some important points. I was involved as part of the media team and spent a number of nights there, when I could.

One thing that the article leaves out is the fact that the camp was struggling to exist from Day 1. The division between campers & non-campers began early on. They were not addressed at the time and became more ingrained by subsequent events. Campers & non-campers both saw different issues as important, with the camp looking to the day-to-day problems and the media team and other supporters looking to the wider context.

Many of the Media Team and OccupyUniversity people did not seem to see the day-to-day struggle that the camp residence were going through. In the article, Helen Sheehan, illustrates this, when she says that, “Many members of the camp who stayed on site did not always attend [the talks]; they didn’t want to educate themselves on activism,”

She fails to recognise that the people who were on site, may have been fending off drunken members of the public the night before, or doing other work to keep the camp running and the space alive. They were not really supported in that by the people who had spent only a night or two on-site. It was an intense experience sleeping in Dame Street, especially in the early days, when you could be woken up by members of the public shouting abuse, or other unwelcome situations.

Far from being disinterested in the talks or ‘anti-intellectual’, there were many talks I would have loved to attend, but was too busy trying to get to grips with other issues.

While it’s true that the non-residence did not support the campers adequately, it is also fair to say that the on-site members began to resent those who went home. The split between ‘media team’ and ‘resident’ grew, and from what Rob Dunlop says in the article, it appears that gap expanded in the months after I left.

Dave Johnson, makes the point that other Occupies had shifts for camping and saw it as work. I wasn’t aware of that, but it would have made an awful lot of sense. In every interview I saw with Dave, he made a point of recognising the effort of the residence and acknowledging that without them there would be no Occupation. However, I do not feel all the media team had the same level of appreciation for the difficulties involved with camping.

The article fails to put into context the issues the camp had with the Dublin Council of Trade Unions (DCTU) proposals. The previous week the SWP had ‘swarmed’ the General Assembly, so that their members outnumbered the people who were on site at the time. Evidently the SWP did not understand the consensus approach and they were blocked by a small number of people. That small number of people, where residence and those actively involved, the larger number were SWP and one or two ODS members.
In a post below there is a video from the GA in which the speaker mumbles “I’m part of the enough camp”, attempting, in my view, to associate himself with the camp and to associate the camp with the ULA’s Enough Campaign. I’d never seen him before and the Enough Campaingn had nothing to do with the camp.

The camp was left reeling after blocking the SWP proposal. In-fighting increased and tensions were high. Then one resident, Emily, rallied the troupes. She got people to focus on why we were there and suggested we have a celebration of our first month.. We did, and it was good. That was a Saturday and there was a real change in the campers outlook on Sunday morning.

Then, the beginning of the next week saw the DCTU issue being raised. However, it was not simply being raised for discussion, some people were trying to drive it through. The camp was still recovering from the SWP attack and it reacted to the agenda being co-opted by blocking it. For me, the issue was not weather DCTU was ‘good’ or ‘bad’, that was open to debate, it was that the agenda had been taken over by this issue when there were far more important issues to hand if we wanted the camp to last through the winter.

The campers did not have an adequate place for meetings, they did not have a media tent, they struggled with donations, they struggled with security, they struggled with a lack of structure. At General Assemblies, these camp-issues were being ignored. The campers were being marginalised and the DCTU issue was a victim of this. It was putting policies over the health and safety of the campers.

Doing time in any of the non-functioning ‘working groups’ was tough, and that was especially true for the ‘Security’ group. Most of us were members of a number of groups due to a lack of numbers and we were all hugely stretched. I did a number of nights as Security, which was always toughest on Saturday night. I quit doing Security after not being backed up when I was surrounded by Five drunken men on a particular night. They didn’t enter into a fight, but I felt my personal safety was not being looked after by the camp as a whole.

While I didn’t make it up to Dublin to vote on the DCTU issue, I would have voted No, but that was not a reflection on my opinion of DCTU. I was open to persuasion on that and, from what I could work out, DCTU is a progressive Union and is one to be proud of.

My reasons for being against the DCTU march were that the camp needed desperately to focus on itself – to establish structures both physical and abstract. The camp needed to prepare for the winter. Another reason I objected was because this had been forced onto the agenda by the ODS members that wanted to talk about it. Three days were lost to that, while the day-to-day running of the camp was falling apart.

In fact, this highlighted a big issue I had with the organisational structure at ODS. In my view the ‘what is ODS about?’ and ‘what is ODS for?’ questions belonged in an in-house discussion. Instead we had discussions that could be joined by any passer by, which meant there was no focus. There was no consistent analysis of where we were or where we were going.

I now consider #OccupyDameStreet to be a very different animal to the one I was part of. The consensus decision making has led to a lack of direction and a lack of structure.

In my opinion we should have concentrated firstly on making the space safe. We needed a meeting structure and a media space, so that the messages could be camp-driven. We needed, at the very least, to get livestreaming out from the camp. To stream the GAs was so simple to do, but it was rarely done. The website, was not being promoted, nor updated, nor maintained, from December on.

Due to the lack of structures the camp could not hope to become family friendly, and, in my view, it failed completely.

On a personal level, I have found #OccupyDameStret to be hugely disappointing, as it illustrates how badly we work together for a common cause, even when we have people who are hugely committed to that cause. I also believe that a large amount of the problems could have been resolved with better communication on all sides. Campers and non-campers needed to listen to concerns of one another.

Finally as I could see nothing good coming from such a shaky foundation, I left, disillusioned. How could we say, “this is the way”, when we were failing so completely to peacefully resolve differences that had arisen within our own ranks and failing to listen to the concerns being expressed by the people who were on the frontline of the imagined battle.

Recent events of ODS have made me so ashamed to be associated with it that I have terminated the domain, which I owned. I offered three times to transfer the domain to someone else, but they didn’t take me up on the offer…. probably another fail of the consensus driven rudderless/leaderless stagnation that has marred the occupy movement across the world.

I spent a number of nights there in the early days and was involved for the first month or so. I was part of the ‘media team’. We weren’t really given a mandate to do anything without the say-so of the General Assembly (GA). The GA usually ended up discussing other things.

There was a divided between those who physically occupied and those who supported. The supporters (for some reason) saw themselves as ‘occupiers’ too. On top of this the GA was a mix of national issues and camp issues. I feel the ‘where-the-movement-is-going’ type questions were not suited to public GA’s. Surely there should be some level of commitment shown before you can change the course of the movement. This became apparent when the Trotskites descended on the camp and out-numbered the protesters.

Despite the problems that were being experienced there was still a lot of support from the public, although it was diminishing. Eventually my hope dwindled entirely and I saw that nothing more could come out of the ODS camp – so I went back to my life.

Some people say that ODS did not achieve anything. I do not believe that is true, despite my criticism of it. What it achieved was to show that people are upset enough with the political destruction of our country, to dedicate themselves to trying to achieve something better. It has demonstrated that there is opposition. ODS was part of a global movement that has ingrained itself into the world’s conciousness.

Due to the impact it has had, it is a shame to see it peter out to nothing…. worse…. it is becoming a group of opposition for the sake of opposition. Since Christmas there has been nothing! No messages are getting out, perhaps because they can’t decide what it is.

The movement needs to grow up!

Right. You’re annoyed with what’s happening….. now can we start coming up with a strategy please?

Despite the OccupyDameStreet.org domain being registered to me, I no longer support the camp. I feel it has served it’s purpose of voicing an objection, but it has failed to capitalise on the initial interest that people had.

I guess we all agreed at #OccupyDameStreet (ODS) that the state, and the world, is run unfairly. That both are run for the good of a few. However, I believe that in the world sense – we Irish are those few, albeit the lower echelons of them. That’s why the we are the 99% slogan made little sense to me.

On the local level of Ireland, perhaps it is more obvious that our lives are being sacrificed for the lives of the few. Bankers, Politicians and media are still living in their protected bubbles perpetuating the same neo-lib agenda from which they make their fortunes.

The Occupy movement struck a cord with so many because it strikes out at the utter unfairness that forms the basis of our economy and our world. But the more the 99% slogan was shouted the less I believed it. The majority voted for what we have today didn’t they?

The majority of the people voted for neo-liberal policies.

I guess I have to agree in some ways with Leo Varadkar – people don’t vote in a responsible or logical way. After all, they were led to believe that they voted for change. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, RTE backed up that view and some people believed it without any basis in fact. People did not vote for a change in policy, but may have voted for a change of faces. I guess RTE would defend themselves pointing out that the people are different.

Still I prefer to suffer the consequence of the fad-voting than to live in the sort of benevolent dictatorship favoured by Leo. As Chomsky said, if people weren’t essentially democratic there would be no need for PR companies.

The Occupy movement has started a debate about what is fair, but unfortunately, we collectively failed to organise and have a cohesive message. The idea was to get the conversation started, but it has piddle out for now. Much of that has to do with the lack of structure and the lack of leadership. If it is possible to have a consensus led organisation at all, then the structures of operation have to exist. In ODS, there was neither structures, nor anyone to lead in the creation of them.

This isn’t the first ‘Jazz Hands’ style consensus decision making protest I’ve been a part of, but hopefully it is the last. I was part of the Carrickmines protest in the 2003 and a similar thing happened there. People connected with the protest would come in, express a controversial point of view, and leave. This would lead to residence having to deal with the fall-out and energy would be expended in cyclic arguments.

The non-leader thing works well on the internet – but I’ve yet to be convinced that it exists IRL (in real life). On the net if people like a hashtag they’ll re-tweet it or add to it – those who think it’s stupid, will just ignore it. It’s not as simple IRL. Even on twitter, there are accounts that you would give more credence to after following it for a while, and perhaps that is right.

Why should a fresh face have an equal say to someone who has worked full-time on something for weeks…. that does not mean the fresh face should not be listened to (usually they aren’t anyway), but it does mean that a certain level of authority should be gained from persistence.

For instance, if I was to go back to ODS today, why should I expect have any say?…. things have moved on and changed since I was there and I am no longer in contact with participants. I would feel obliged to “lurk more”.

In my view, part of the problems of #OcuppyDameStreet were that it tried to use a consensus model, without defining who it was that should reach consensus. It depended who was there on the day, which changed each day. That meant that one passer-by could potential disrupt the whole vote.

It appears from John Harris’ article, Occupy London: what went wrong?, that #OccupyLondon experienced a similar paralysis due to decision making, and also ended up attracting all sorts of people, who weren’t in a fit state to be there.

Due to the  ‘Jazz Hands’ environment the media team were paralysed by not knowing what the message was. There was no clear guidelines under which to operate. Many of the people at the General Assemblies, were not resident, so they did not have the same set of priorities as people who had experience the lack of safety & structure and were struggling to exist.

To be honest, I’m surprised they are still there. In one sense I think they need to be commended for their dedication, but I wonder what they would create if they had the power. I’m not sure it would be any better than the mess that currently exists.

On a global scale perhaps the Occupy movement still has something to offer, but I remain to be convinced.