"Death of a President" was the opening film at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, and caused something of a minor political uproar for its depiction of the assassination of George W Bush in Chicago in 2007. The Republican Party in Texas asked for it not to be screened, while Hilary Clinton (more than likely Bush's successor) called it "despicable", "absolutely outrageous", and called the fictionalised shooting incident as "a horrible scenario". Two large cinema chains in the US stated they would not screen the film - although it has secured a distributor now. It was also shown as the opening picture in the Cork Film Festival; and was screened twice on UK television in the last month, first on digital station More4 and then the terrestrial Channel 4.

I dont think I've ever seen a feature film focus on an assassination of a real life person who is still alive - especially if its a politician. We've seen political shootings in films set in the present day such as Jonathan Demme's "Manchurian Candidate", and Tim Robbins "Bob Roberts"; but in these the Republican Party is never named, and the figures are all fictionalised, if thinly disguised charicatures of real life personas. Likewise feature films set in the not too distant future often contain nightmarish dystopian visions, examples being the recent "Children of Men" or "V for Vendetta"; yet these scenarios are controlled by fascist thugs and authoritarian big brothers, and never mentioned any one existing political party or political leader in Britain.

The main article on Shell to Sea this weekend was a repeat of Paul Williams earlier story in the Sunday World last weekend. These stories concerned Provo intimidation. This is likely to be a recurring theme so it is examined in detail in this article. Shell to Sea was also smeared by the Sunday Times (again) and Saturday’s Mail. The Mail gave positive coverage earlier in the week. There were decent pieces in the Irish Times and in Village. This article just looks at the negative coverage.

Sunday World

Paul Williams, employee of Tony O’Reilly (owner of an oil and gas exploration company), starts off with allegations from an unnamed group and unnamed spokesperson of people “directly affected by the Corrib gas pipeline controversy” alleging “widespread intimidation” by Shell to Sea thugs.

It is not known if people “directly affected” include the owner, along with Exxon-Mobil, of oil and gas fields off the coast of Clare, aka Tony O’Reilly. There is no named person citing direct experience of intimidation with names, dates, and places, thus it is utterly meaningless. No charges have been brought although the first story alleging this, was, to my knowledge, in July 2005. The intimidation is linked to Sinn Fein and republicans.

Related Stories of Media Manipulation: Anonymous smear campaign aimed at undermining the right to protest | The Empire Strike Back! - White House & Indo Sic on to the Acquitted Ploughshares | What Is The Sindo and The Rest of O'Reilly's Empire Doing?

Review of a documentary on the struggle of the Turkish GAMA workers in 2005 which premiered to a packed house in Wynn's Hotel on Middle Abbey Street on Thursday 27th July.

Admittedly I've always been sceptical/suspicious of political parties and their motives, regardless of their place on the political spectrum, from one extreme to another. Its always in the back of my mind that any statement or action is being done simply for the goal of obtaining more seats at the next local/general/european election. Far left parties arent excluded from this either. The vista of a Leninist party sweeping into power isnt particularly attractive to me; having visited Castro's socialist "paradise" there were many aspects of that society which were deeply troubling and repulsive, most notably the censorship of all opposition as "counter-revolutionary", and the suppression of ideas and literature that didnt slot into the mono-view of one party Marxism. The bookshops were permitted to stock tomes praising Chavez, but you'd never realise that the Zapatista insurrection had taken place across the water. But that's another day's article...

Nonetheless I tried to approach last night's film screening of "The GAMA strike: A victory for all workers" with an open mind. This film is a co-production between the Socialist Party and Frameworks Films, and documents the GAMA strike of 2005. For those primitivists living in a cave for the past two years (of course if you're a real primitivist you wont be reading this on the internet...), GAMA is a Turkish building company that was awarded contracts by the Irish State for large infrastructure projects, including public housing, roads, and power stations. They won numerous tenders on their ability to finish these projects at half the cost of native Irish companies, and in some cases in half the time usually expected. This of course raised eyebrows in the construction industry, as well as in some political circles. Allegations and rumours began to spread about worker exploitation, but this was dismissed by Fianna Fáil lackeys, and nothing could be proven.

More Indy coverage: Downturn in Irish Construction Industry | Top Dublin Hotels displacing Irish staff | Aer Lingus privatisation exposes folly of partnership | GAMA: Company Forced To Pay ALL Workers Proper Union Rates | National Day of Protest Against Irish Ferries | Joe Higgins' Challenge to Irish Trade Unions: Protect Migrant Workers | Exploitation of Workers | Picket outside Dunnes in support of Joanne Delaney | Gama Workers' Strike Wins Back Stolen Cash

"MCD have buried this, going as far as to close the message boards on their Oxegen subsite but thankfully a Google cache holds some of the threaded information. This has to be a new low? Reports of people being kicked from behind and then laughed at by security when taking a piss outside, random assaults, tents being set on fire and over all incompetence seem to dominate reports of the Sunday." - Pinhead, Indymedia User.

Indymedia users are adding to claims that ugly scenes typifing recent Oxygen festivals were compounded this year by "riot conditions in Camp A on Sunday/Monday night, the towers pulled down, the rampaging drunks, druggies and robbers and assaulters setting light to tents and the undermanned out of control security who tackled both the law breakers and the innocent with equal viciousness. ( 1)" With a rising tide of cynicism directed at MCD's chief, Denis Desmond's claim that "the fans were amazing, incredibly well behaved and good humoured” there are now concerns that MCD shut down the popular forum on its Oxegen site, in an effort to pour water on an organic forest fire of bad publicity in internet land, threatening its lucrative festival brand. Security at the event was contracted to Eventsec who previously faced accusations of incompetence from football fans. Claims from an Oxegen message board handle, eventSecurity, that "anyone that got a dig or rap deserved it" , were retracted as a wind up by the same handle on another board and the Oxegen site. This fake security statement may have contributed to the sites closure.

Despite a rumour mill that MCD has threatened real time media with legal action, the Mirror ran a story with a sensationalist "I Predict A Riot" headline pulled from a Kaiser Chiefs song. In a mainstream media tradition, the paper used an image from more severe crowd disturbances at a recent Leeds Festival to illustrate the Oxegen trouble. In an article romanticising the rock festival experience, SF's Danny Morrison commented how "at Oxegen there was little or no sense of any form of solidarity with the underprivileged or the exploited of this earth." Maybe its worth remembering how, a for once critical NME described a mythologised Feile'95 as "a decaying Gaelic football stadium upon whose pitch several hundred gymnasium crash mats and multifarious rock bands have been unceremoniously dumped, as the promoter sits back and lets the cash roll in." See kids, nothing really has changed. In the festival swamp of concession stands, an uncritical media that slaps the promotions companies on the back for ads while stoking up hysteria around "young people" with the other - its always going to be the fans that loose out.

Links of note on this story: Google caches of removed Oxegen threads critical of the festival and MCD. | Fastfude users discuss ejections from tent at 6:30am in camp A | Boards.ie users discuss the festival | The Other Side - set up to respond to Oxegen site closure From Youtube: Fire in camp and much more footage of bands and randomness by "citizen reporters." | Another one | Thumped forum users discuss a "descent into anarchy."

Worth looking at: IRMA And Piracy: Interview With A Vampire | IRMA Sweeps On File Sharers | The Clampdown on Raves | A Beach Party&Close Encounters of the Garda Kind

Like any other Open Publishing site Indymedia attracts its fair share of trolls. For some years Indymedia users have been harrassed by an obsessed cyber-stalker going under a variety of names. This troll has abused people through the site, as well as sending intimidating and insulting personal emails to different constributors on our editorial lists (particularly to a woman who contributes to the list). This crackpot's one-person mission to allegedly monitor the (completely open!) workings of Indymedia.ie has also prompted them into going as far as using a popular blogging site to pour deliberately ill-informed abuse on Indymedia contributors including editors.

We do not know the identity of this individual. All we know is that they appear to be admired by neo-Nazis who gather on a separate internet forum of the international far-right. Some of those neo-Nazis carry links to the crackpot blog in their posting signatures. Indeed, so prominent are the links that Tony O'Reilly's Evening Herald carried a story last Wednesday describing this latest website monitoring Indymedia, as a section of the world's most notorious neo-Nazi website "the racist, right wing Stormfront." Unlike the so-called "professionals" who inhabit O'Reilly's publishing empire, we don't mistake a random signature linking to a completely different site, as evidence that both operations spring from the same social betamax. An older posting from a contributor to another far right site prompts further suspicions in asking of the self-styled Indymedia Watch "aren't these crowd neocon supporters?"