[Updated since initial leaflet, published for Dublin protest on 24th Nov. ’12]
a PDF of the updated is available here.
Friends, there are many questions… high amongst them is what our protest is going achieve? Where is our campaign or protest going?
It is the right of citizens to determine the policy of our state, yet policy is imposed on us. We have a duty to protest when an injustice faces us – we must not go silently by! The future of our children and grand-children is at stake.
But, what are our expectations? Will we persuade the Government or banking monopolies that they should ‘do right’ by the people? Will we embarrass some TD or threaten ‘their’ seat and therefore get them to reverse policy? Are we happy to apply pressure in order to deflect the worse impositions that might come in the budget – to lessen the potential hardship? Do we think we will expose a weak link in the ‘powers-that-be’ and out-manoeuvre them?
Why must we protest at all? What of our democratic rights? What is the next campaign to be? and the next one after that? If we reverse one cut who will be hit instead?
Why are all the Political Parties saying THEY have the best policies? They all want to be in power, if only we’d vote for them … they’d fix it for us!
We have had these debates, protests, promises, lies and policy impositions, and we have the austerity budgets to match! We have had party after party proclaiming that THEY will solve everything for us, but in reality each is a greater or lesser group of vested interests themselves. The political parties are nothing more than Private Member Clubs – promoting their own narrow policy agenda (or some ‘ism’) that is not reflective of the whole people.
We must protest when we see a wrong being imposed on the people … but we need to go beyond mere protest, beyond merely telling the powers-that-be that we do not agree. We must deal with the underlying problem, the thing which allows all the wrongs to be imposed on us, and against which we have protested, as a people, for centuries.
If we do not go beyond mere protest we are utterly wasting our time, and worse, we become part of the problem diverting the people from their true interests! We MUST address the cause of the problems, not just the symptoms!
As a people we are divided in the classic way, setting us against ourselves, while vested interests continue to act without question as to their right to do so.
We are divided by social class, by public/private sector, by political party allegiance, by ideology or ‘ism’, by ‘left’ or ‘right’, by ‘orange’ or ‘green’, by ‘race’ or ‘creed’ or ‘gender’. We are treated as separate constituencies, with specific and opposing interests, usually put in contention to compete for limited resource.
In reality, the resources of our country are virtually unlimited … but our wealth is stolen in the service of the foreign and domestic vested interests who rule over us, e.g. this year we pay €20bn to Bondholders, it continues…
The Irish people are crying out for change! But, because of the divisions imposed, because of the continued betrayal by ALL those in politics, whether conscious or not, the people do not hear their interests and most basic demand stated, that demand being for our own empowerment. This is the demand that has underlined the centuries long struggle of the Irish people and this is the outstanding unresolved issue of our history which refuses to go away – it MUST be resolved! This MUST become the subject of our ‘protest’ movement!
The Problem: We are a people ruled OVER rather than ruling ourselves.
The Cause: Private Member Clubs of Vested Interests, called Political Parties, who have usurped our democracy and subverted our Constitution.
The Solution: We Citizens must Empower Ourselves!
We must STOP handing our mandate over to parties or vested interests of any kind. We must build a movement of citizens in each Constituency and Local Electoral Area through which we can Empower Ourselves. We must prepare to SELECT candidates for ELECTion that are contracted to carry MANDATE on all issues, who will “represent constituencies” rather than Party or even themselves individually (Article 16.2.1 of Bunreacht). We must CHECK-UP on the implementation of our mandated policies and use RECALL if needed.
The People’s Convention has commenced such a programme, join in!
