[ILUG] ireland offline 'strike'

[Tiarnan O'Corrain]

> From: Noel Carroll [mailto:Noel.Carroll at CardBase.com]
> Waider wrote:
> I have a small, perhaps impolite question about this. If
> IrelandOffline is advocating that people don't use their dialups and
> the like, who exactly /that matters a damn/ is going to see the
> protest pages? Wouldn't it be a better idea to get people to lobby
> their representatives in an attempt to get the ODTR some actual
> legislative/financial clout?
> 
> Waider. E0.02 or something.
> 
> <Noel>
> Right on Waider!!  My thoughts exactely.  I support 
> IrlOffline too but they
> spend much too much time arsing around and not enough doing 
> the things that
> count.  Things that count in my book are lobbying and 
> applying political
> pressure.  
> If you want politicians to kick an issue into 
> touch then you have
> to make them sit up and listen and the only way to do that is 
> to prove you
> either have enough money or votes to make a difference.  

Hmmm... the rugby metaphor's pretty shaky. Anyway, I wonder why
IrelandOffline are getting so much hassle from we who should be
on their side? Granted, the strike seems a fairly lame idea, for
many reasons, including those stated above.

But we should lobby our politicians, and it's well known that
pols don't read email. Why not get a few boilerplate letters
together that people can sign and post? 

Postboxes, by the way, are those green pillar-like objects that
stand at corners and usually sport chipped green paint and
an ill-concealed ER, GR, or even VR. Always thought they were
a fairly good metaphor for post-colonial Ireland. Perhaps
the usual rule applies... take a significant event in Britain,
add a decade, and it should surface over here, wearing green paint.

Cheers

Tiarnan