From the newswire:

In the wake of last year's successful Campaign for a Free Education (CFE) something of a ‘new bloom’ of student activism has sprouted up in Universities and Colleges across the country carrying with it an enormous amount of dissatisfaction with and opposition to the direction in which the Irish Education system is currently being steered.

Exemplary of such activism was the recent inaugural sitting of the Irish Education Forum (IEF) and its subsequent plan of ‘building an alternative’ to the threat of privatisation. The IEF is a vital foundation stone in the formulation of a response to the very imminent reintroduction of College fees and the subsequent privatisation of third level education. Continue to a full report on the Irish Education Forum >>

FROM THE NEWSWIRE: Early copies of Saturday's Independent reveal that Ireand's biggest selling daily has compounded the media hysteria that is building up around planned protests for Mayday. The Independent is only the latest paper to join in the frenzy, in the wake of an anonymous smear campaign in the tabloids which sought to link protestors to terrorism and football hooligans.

The Independent headline seems to include a revealing Freudian slip. It reads "Riot troops drafted in to put down EU protestors." So apparently protestors are going to be "put down". I wonder if it will be by lethal injection? Presumably the sensationalising editor meant to write - "put down protests" - but the mistake sums up what sections of the media in cahoots with elements in the Gardai and Government are attempting to do to the right to protest.

All of the media reporting about Mayday so far has concentrated almost exclusively on the "violent" protestors. No evidence is presented of a real risk of violence, nothing beyond a few pictures from an Italian city of "the type of violence that could occur in Dublin". The stories focus on the resources the Gardai are going to need to quell the violence. Barely a mention is made of the reasons that people are protesting. No questions are asked about why the government feels the need for thousands of police to protect itself from protestors.

This type of reporting creates a state of fear. The tabloids build up a picture of protesters as violent thugs, football hooligans and skinheads. They constantly emphasise how stretched the Gardai will be and the need for extraordinary repressive measures against this terror. All of this is presented without any evidence and based on quotes "from a website", but who expects evidence from a tabloid?

The respectable broadsheets weigh in with tales of garda preparedness. They are lighter on the lurid details about violent thugs, but the assumption that the repressive measures are needed is never questioned. We are told how "International police forces are supplying vital intelligence to Garda headquarters in the Phoenix Park on the movements of known anarchists and troublemakers." We are told about the sudden appearance of a dedicated force of 1,200 newly trained riot cops with "new riot gear" and "water cannons".

A state of fear is created in the hope that the citizenry will accept the state repression of protests with force. In all of this coverage the organisers have not had a voice at all. No chance to defend themselves in the face of a massive scare story. The corporate media is creating the climate for repression.They are trying to drive people away from protests and creating the climate where the police can smash the protests with force. It's not really that surprising; the corporations who control commercial media would be expected to react like that to those who attempt to stand up to them.

The Independent also report that they are considering erecting a fence around Farmleigh! At least it shows that they are worried. At least somebody is making them worried. The union leaders have bowed to their master and called off their Mayday lest they inconvenience the state. The Trots will be listening to minor pop-stars. These scares are all the more reason to get out on Mayday with the Grassroots.

Related Stories/Background from 'The Real Irish Independent'

Mayday Plans
Demonstrators Challenge Anonymous Smear campaign
What to do about ‘Anarchist Menace’ Corporate Journalists?
Requiring Army Deployment? Was her Editor Drunk Too?
Reclaiming Mayday
Comments on Cancellation of Mayday in London from Collective Members

From the newswire [3:06pm Fri Mar 26th 2004]:

UPDATE: arrested person has been released

"One person has been arrested in the past hour while protesting against the US Ambassadors visit to NUI, Galway. He is being held in Mill St Garda Station on some bogus charge, so anyone in the vicinity, please come down & show your support.

The visit began this morning in the main quad, where the Bush appointed US Ambassador, James Kenny, was to meet with local whigs. It appeared as though the whole morning shift from Mill St. was in attendance, along with a number of Special Branch & various assorted Spooks in Suits. Banners were grabbed and a few scuffles took place, as they tried to smuggle the publicity-shy Ambassador in through a back entrance.

From there it was on to a planned ‘meet & greet’ with selected American students, which was held in Moffets café, one side of which was conveniently made of glass. This gave Kenny a pretty good view of the thirty or so people present. Some of them were dressed in orange jump suits, shackled & kneeling. Others brandished Palestinian flags and other banners people had cobbled together on the morning of the protest. The poor old Ambassador had to strain to hear what students were saying above the shouts from outside, bangs on the window, whistling, drumming & the Tibetan horn someone had fortuitously brought along.

The arrest was made, as Kenny emerged from the quad after lunch, by a couple of over enthusiastic cops who were extremely heavy handed in their approach. A number of people tried to stop the cop vans, one of which contained our arrested friend, from leaving but they were also dragged out of the way & threatened with arrest."

From the Newswire

Dear Sir or Madam,

Day after day they pop up in the Dail like Jack-In The Boxes with deviously amended 'press releases'..cleverly dressed up 'weasel words' to appease the anger of a gullible electorate. Bin taxes amended - 'more fair' etc (for now). Privatization ... but after the next election!

Charlie McCreevy has the brass balls (effrontery) to stand before the Dail and enunciate his alarm at the 100 million odd Euros cost of the various tribunals of enquiry into the corruption of his former associates and fellow T.D’s in government. If he and his comrades were honorable men they would resign from government and allow an emergency caretaker coalition of the lack-lustre opposition to at least try and redeem the nations dignity in this..our country’s darkest hour .

Stroke politics are pre-eminent. The people have been bought with their own money.

Liam Lawlor, and his like can sit there day after day like mocking court jesters,enjoying the expensive charade that they have summoned up to milk the decent taxpayers of this country dry over and over again.

The Princes of Fianna Fail watch from the sidelines - happy to deflect the anger of the people down the rambling by-ways and cul-de-sacs of Dublin Castle.

We live in an age once more where as far as Politics is concerned - ‘The best have lost all hope, and the worst are filled with passionate intensity’.

John McDermott (RFFP), Ashtown, Dublin

More from the compact RFFP Party