MACREPORT-According to CNN "MACBUSH" Drives George Outta Ireland!

national | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Sunday June 27, 2004 11:42

by Ciaron - Dublin Catholic Worker & Pitstop Ploughshares

087 918 4552 or 01- 492 6100

......and if you can't trust CNN, who can you trust!

-Here's a short report.
-If anyone's got any photos please slap them up!.
-In short MACBUSH production was a triumph for minimalist preparation, trust, old friends willing to do big favours on short notice, a community of nonviolent resisatnce & solidarity developing in Ireland and good weather!

FRIDAY
Things did not look good on the eve of opening for MACBUSH at DROMOLAND CASTLE. Lady MacBeth was in custody. The trees had been left in Limerick not Ennis. We had left the grooviest of banners in Dublin (check it out
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=65726

FRIDAY 6 pm I was dumped at Banratty Castle (being banned 5 mile radius of Shannon Airport) to do a solo vigil, while the car I was in went on to join folks protesting at Shannon. Mobile battery was low. Feeling very guilty about running out of the house and leaving an excellent banner that Geraldine had spent 2 days working on.

As I got my landlady on the line (Damien who is blessed with the charm usually deals with her!) and summoned my most reasonable personae....this mad hillbilly pulls up on a motorbike, revving it up and and threatening to shoot me. He is claiming to have a gun. I stride away from him continuing the conversation with my landlady in Dublin. This guy keeps revving up behind me and hurling abuse. I conclude the phone call with the landlady. She is willing to lend her keys to our house to a friend (who I am yet to think of, yet call). I turn to the psycho on the motorbike and convince him that I am more of psycho than he is. From memory "You better have a gun if you get off that bike. I've had shit day. Shooting me would be an improvement. Now begone with you!" He takes flight.

Started texting like crazy to friends in Dublin. Most of them are at the demo up there! Battery keeps cutting out. Get a text back from Lady MacBeth she has been sprung - but banned from the set! (yahoo I didn't think she'd be out of jail for a long time! She would be the only one to occupy the temporary gulag at Shannon Airport!). I had text my lawyer earlier as he was on his way from Cork to protest at Shannon. He got the message swung into Ennis and sprung the 3 boat people peaceniks and Lady MacBeth...what a guy!

My spirits are lifting! People are pulling up to offer me a lift to Shannon. Others are texting solidarity message from passing buses coming from Dublin & Cork. Starting to feel good....hope the motorbike guy doesn't come back! I feel like I got something to live for now! I feel like there's a community of solidarity been building over the last 2 years for me here in Ireland. And that community has sprung Lady MacBeth and just might get the banner down form Dublin!

Paul O'Toole, whattaguy (get his Shannon CD it's brilliant!!!!) text me "I'm outside 83 your land lady is not answering?"....No Paul .....that's our house ...........but before I can text this info the mobile battery totally dies............mmmm...well to avoid making a short story even longer......other peace cars kept stopping to say hello and I borrowed their mobiles....and I managed to hook up a (former Opus Dei) friend (with a former Republican Prisoner) friend and was assured the banner would be on the bus leaving Dublin in the morning.

The four hours on the side of the road was great time out, reflective, spitual, legions of cops on bikes and cars speeding by towards Shannon........they pretty much left me alone holding my bright pink sign. "No War: No War Planes Through Shannon!"

SATURDAY MORNING....
We rock into Clare Castle at 9.20 am.....

We hope for enough folks to carry the trees (25). We set up the casting space..Do you wanna be a tree? Do you wanna be a witch? (You have to be a witch we haven't got any ok?), You may have to be Lady MacBeth, she's banned from the area now.OK? Here have drum! You gotta be George Bush, great mask have this medievel gear to go with it! Great - a nuclear family of trees. Team talk...basic background on what we're going to do. Apolgies to Shakespear but Lady MacBeth is a good gal in this one grieving for the slain children and raging against hubby in Dromoland castle. Off we go, let's take the street!

By 10 am - 300 set off with us for the 4 mile walk to gardai lines on the way to Dromoland. Great weather, good vibe (very mixed crew), excellent drumming trio from Galway. Jimmy Fleming, what a dude, met him in Brissie years ago...back in Galway now..gave up Rugby tok up theatre and he's made the trees, medieavely type costumes, got his big brother and a mate to play to the drums as well!

As we get closer to the end of the walk.....

SWP buses speed by with a mile to go.
SWP try to block our path-they fail!
SWP try to lead us-they fail!
SWP try to drown us out-they fail!

Auditioned witch and Lady Macbeth can;t make it-understudies Jan and Caoimhe rise to the occasion (and I wasn't bad meself as Banquo!).

SWP try to drown out trees reading the names of dead Iraqi children, their ages when they were massacred and how the U.S. military killed them (these folks have no respect for the dead!) Now that can't be a good sign?

Can't get my head around the primary school churlishness of the SWP (not mentioning the 1300 folks at Shannon last night from the platform in Dublin last night or on their platform this morning)......really you wouldn't survive in an Australian high school with that attitude.

Can't get my head around RBB's explanation that they have the right to block us, lead us, drown us out because RBB has made a deal with the cops. Seriously deluded Middle Class boy if he thought that was going to work with a irish-australian working class boy who has just walked 4 miles with 300 folks RBB YOUTH is now trying to block and has MACBUSH to put on.

Unfotrunately RBB meets me in my Banquo role....and being, as I am from the New York method school of acting, he gets the response one would expect from a dead soldier! "Fuck that for a game of soldiers! We don't make deals with cops on free expression, it's a universal right only endangered by such deals. Stop blocking our trees dude. Watch the plug on your speaking equipment!"....and off we go up to cop lines to unleash MACBUSH).

I advise RBB to go back to pulling authoritarian trips on people who are impressed by his boyish good looks & media profile, are riddled with middle class angst and haven't got a clue how the SWP ("Invasion of the Body Snatchers") operate in popular movements!

RBB tries to macho it out, but when the main stream media come a runinng to record us going for it (Last interchange "You're a moderate Richard" / "You're a Goddist!"...heavy NOT.....RBB gets so freaked out by his media image at risk, that he retreats.....me being a dead Banquo is not too concerned about the media and happy to be called a Goddist.....if you were dead you wouldn't want to be offendig any Gods either wouldja?

RBB retreats, our drummers accelarate, our trees break through the lines of RBB YOUTH trying to block them.....long story you had to be there....

W get up to Gardai lines and unleash MACBUSH and the rest, as they say, is history (hopefully contributing to a dissident memory here in Ireland) and an international news flash...thank you CNN....RTE reports on the SWP V CW hand bags at 20 paces....

MACBUSH was brill!! The serious stuff is drawn from 2 lists we ask you to visit and reflect on in quieter times

A list of U.S. military dead, age ,rank, date of death....
http://icasualties.org/oif/Details.aspx

A list of Iraqi dead, their ages and place and means of death.....

http://

After MACBUSH, we played a support role to Eoin Rice serious attempt to arrest Bush. Eoin had brought his own cage in case the Gardai were a bit sort on resources (ya gotta love the guy and the crew carrying the cage!). He didn't get the real one so we gave him our Bush for a while, but had to rescue our guy when Eoin and cage started heading into Gardai lines!

Also did some support and reading of the dead for the great folks who lay under black plastic in the heat symbolising the dead!

Sounds like it was great at Shannon on Friday and Saturday (events airbrushed outta history by the IAWM- who refused to mention them in their long litany of significant events over the weekend-from the stage!) These people complain about Stalin airbrushing their boy Trotsky outta photos and the Dublin City Council ripping down their posters. They could teach Uncle Joe and the DCC a lot about censorship.

Day concluded for us with a walk back to Clare Castle and an invite by a local for a cup of tea. AGREAT DAY FOR US - RESISTANCE/MACBUSH, HOSPITALITY/the cup of tea at the end and the crash space in Limerick on Friday night & COMMUNITY / the growing network of folks who will support those busted this past weekend/ (Lady MacBeth, Ed and the two other peace sailors!)

Why those 3 themes are the CW program!!!??!!. So are we happy with MACBUSH?..you betcha!

CNN reports that MACBUSH drove George outta Ireland..what a laugh! Awed by those (who ever you are?) who blocked the media getting to the BUSH-AHERN LOVE IN PRESS CONFERENCE. You rock!

Beyond our wildest expectations. Thanx to all who made it happen!

http://www.ploughsharesireland.org