Occupy Dame Street Flaws Enabled Police Raid

A report on the ODS march to Pearse Street Garda station by Andrew Flood for the Worker's Solidarity Movement (WSM) website, shows that both the Gardai and the protesters were disorganised and lacking in coherent strategy.

The analysis of the march and it's context ridicules the shambolic Garda tactic of trying to block the wide roadway at Pearse Street:

"[The] now solid line of 30-40 police only reached across 1/3 of the way across the wide footpath and multi-lane road. A number of people simply walked around the end of that line and started to protest at the police station doors."

The WSM article is also critical of a democratic deficit in Occupy Dame Street:

"There haven't been regular General Assemblies at Dame Street since the start of December and quite a few of the ones before that were quite dysfunctional as decision making spaces due to people not following or abusing procedure.

With everyone so wound up there was little real discussion at last nights assembly, more a string of angry speeches and very rapid 'proposal' and 'consensus' without real discussion. The decisions to re-occupy the Plaza and to march on Pearse street police station was made more by acclaim than consensus..."

Those are points well made. The 'decision' to march on the Garda station came after a rabble-rousing address by Steven Bennett. His was a speech more reminiscent of a call to a mob - than a proposal at a mature GA discussion.

That's par for the course. As the WSM article implies, a small group now run the camp by internal edicts which are rubber-stamped by captive GA's. ODS has a leader. The occupy democratic philosophy and its leaderless structure have long been abandoned.

In fact, it was the collapse of the occupy democratic structure which enabled the removal of the camp.

The small ODS core --thinking they alone were "Occupy"--  became increasingly inwardly-focused and lost touch with the huge base of support which the Irish occupy movement enjoys.

Isolated by their own narrow design, they were then unable to mobilise sufficient number to make closing down the camp impractical for the Garda. They'd lost touch. No celebrities showed up to offer support before the raid. No coherent media defence was aired by ODS before the raid. The outcome was predictable.

The Occupy movement should discuss a national level response to these developments. Other occupy camps have prospered after removal of their first camp. Many have used a new focus to grow deep connections with their local political community and continue their campaign.

Maybe the Irish occupy movement needed a reboot.