|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 11, 2011 21:22:09 GMT
I hope in the near future to offer some reflections on the attempts to create a specifically Catholic/Christian party in Ireland since the X case. Feel free to offer your own thoughts, so long as you do so with courtesy and fair dealing.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 12, 2011 10:17:34 GMT
First, a brief note on the CSP's antecedents. I should explain that I have lived outside the country for some years and this draws on my own memories, on what I read in THE IRISH FAMILY in the early 90s and in things I was told by people involved. These are bound to be fragmentary and partial and to contain inaccuracies - any corrections would be welcome. Attempts were already being made in the late 1970s and 1980s to form a Catholic party to oppose the spread of the liberal agenda, since all the major parties were to some degree unsatisfactory - I remember hearing of a Christian Democrat party and a Christian Social Party around 1980 and a group called the Constitution Party in the mid-80s, but these so far as I can make out were no more than a few activists and had little impact. The first immediate antecedent of the CSP was a group called the Christian Principles Party led by Frank Flanagan which was set up either just before or just after the X case in 1992. This was soon beset by administrative and financial problems and re-launched under a new leadership as the Christian Centrist Party - I think it was at this point that Dr Gerard Casey became leader. Two other small parties appeared around this time - Nora Bennis's Solidarity, based in Limerick, and Muintir na hEireann, founded by Richard Greene (then a councillor in South Dublin) after he was expelled from the Green Party over his opposition to the X decision. Nora Bennis got a lot of publicity and Solidarity eventually merged with the CCP to create the CSP - Dr Casey became CSP leader and I think Mrs Bennis dropped out after a while. Muintir na hEireann had some initial success (partly because Mr Greene actually had political experience) but it split over his autocratic leadership style (for example, he nominated the wretched Emmanuel Sweeney - in ignorance of that man's views and in the belief that he could assist the development of the party - as deputy leader rather than having one chosen by the existing members). Both factions faded out after Richard Greene lost his council seat due to boundary changes. After repeated electoral reverses Gerard Casey stepped down as CSP leader and since then it has struggled on as a small group of activists, mainly in the Dublin area, led by Manus Mac Meanmain and John O'Loughlin. At present it seems to be experiencing a mild revival partly due to the emergence of Richard Greene as party chariman and it is trying to re-organise, but this operates from a very low base - it generally polls no more than a couple of hundred votes in any constitueency it contests. I might add that as well as the formal parties, there have usually been varying numbers of Independent candidates at general elections who take a pro-life stance, and there also seem to be networks of activists who can be mobilised to support candidates in European elections, such as Dana, Kathy Sinnott, and Declan Ganley's Libertas. MY principal concern, however, is with the organised parties.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 12, 2011 10:41:18 GMT
I think the problems of the CSP and its precursor parties can be dealt with under a range of headings: GOLDFISH MEMORY - they have no sense of what they and their predecessors did before so they keep on repeating the same mistakes. WE ARE THE PEOPLE - they assume that they somehow represent the Irish people as a whole and if only they get their message out the people will rally behind them. This means they lack incentives to develop their policies, learn from their mistakes, allow internal debate or build lasting organisational networks - they always assume one more big push will lead to a breakthrough, and the result is like nineteenth-century African tribesmen with swords and spears facing imperial soldiers with machine-guns, who are slaughtered every time they charge but keep on charging because it is what they are used to and they can't think what else to do. THE HEAVEN-SENT LEADER - these groups tend to throw up autocratic leaders who assume they are always right about everything because they represent the people (see above). Instead of getting down to the long slow task of building a party from the ground up by getting involved in local community issues, making themselves known locally, building support from the ground up and contesting local elections, these leaders assume that if they blow the trumpet loud enough they will magically create a party on the scale of Fianna Fail or Fine Gael, and they demand to be treated as if they were already the leader of such a party. Not only are these leaders blind to their real situation and incapable of winning electoral support, they also tend to drive away party members because they equate criticism with disloyalty and can't tolerate differences of opinion even on subsidiary points. MAGIC BULLETS Instead of trying to find out how Irish society and the economy work and to develop a wide range of policies to deal with it, these parties often assume there is some simple "fix" for all Ireland's problems. Conspiracy theories are a favourite, often linked to crank monetary schemes - I notice that both the CSP website and Manus Mac Meanmain's site are advocating the scheme known as Social Credit (though they don't use the term), which argues we can solve all our economic problems by printing more money and that this would somehow not lead to inflation. SOVEREIGNTY ABSOLUTISM the idea that if Ireland were to leave the EU and become completely independent, all our problems would vanish and Catholic Ireland would be restored - as if we would not still be exposed to outside cultural influences, and as if a large section of our own population were not thoroughly secularised and anti-Catholic. This view is treated almost as an end in itself, as if Irish nationalism were part of Catholic doctrine. THE POLITICAL PARTY AS PRAYER-GROUP The natural abilities which God has given and the natural means of political organisation and argument are neglected in favour of prayer-rallies, as if there was no difference between a party and a prayer-group. APOCALYPSE NOW It is assumed that secularism will collapse soon from its own corruption and therefore we can simply wait for the inevitable collapse while following the heaven-sent leader (see above). In successive posts I will flesh these out a bit more fully and will end by suggesting that what is needed is a "network" strategy centring on the use of media for educational purposes, with political organisation part of a wider "coalition of the willing" rather than being an introversionist cult as is often the case at present.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 13, 2011 10:38:28 GMT
An instance of the "one big push" theory and its potential costs can be seen in the 1996 Dublin West by-election in which the late Brian Lenihan Junior entered the Dail. Dr Gerard Casey, who was then the leader of the CSP, decided to contest this election and made confident predictions of success. Thousands of pounds were spent on an American-style campaign (e.g. roses presented to voters). A week before polling, the IRISH FAMILY (now defunct weekly founded after the X Case to give a voice to the pro-life, Pro-family cause) was predicting that he would stage an upset victory comparable to that of Count Plunkett in the famous 1917 North Roscommon by-election which marked the beginning of the displacement of the Irish Parliamentary Party by Sinn Fein. That didn't happen and it should have been clear it was never going to happen. First, small parties tend to do badly in by-elections under the PR/STV system. Secondly, several rival candidates had strong local bases and were well-known to the public (notably Lenihan, who had a sympathy vote as he was running for his father's seat, the Workers Party leader Tomas MacGiolla, and Joe Higgins who has gone on to be a TD and Euro MP); Dr Casey was not so well known outside our movement and he did not live in the constituency. Thirdly, Dublin West had recorded one of the strongest anti-amendment votes in 1983 and one of the strongest pro-divorce votes in 1986; it was not fertile territory. What happened? Dr Casey got 768 votes (2.7%) and came tenth out of thirteen candidates. The IRISH FAMILY never discussed why its prediction had been so wrong. Money which could have been used to build a party organisation was squandered on a hopeless fight which could reasonably have been predicted to be hopeless. There might have been some rationale for this if Dr Casey had intended to fight the constituency again, since it would give him local name recognition - but the CSP did not even run a candidate in the 1997 general election (and has only done so once since, in 2002 - bottom of the poll). This seems to me to have been a classic example of the "we are the People" and "one big push" illusions. Because "the people" were assumed to be on our side, no thought was given to the factors which made Dublin West a bad choice for a major show of strength, and no consideration was offered about whether these resources might have been put to better use. Once the election was over no thought was given to building on the level of support achieved, or to assessing what had gone wrong (and right) in order to do better next time. Certainly no analysis was offered to the troops on the ground - such as the readers of the IRISH FAMILY - and we had a classic case of Goldfish Memory syndrome, whereby you forget what you do as soon as you do it and are thereby condemned to repeat it endlessly without learning from it.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 13, 2011 20:28:04 GMT
A couple of other delusions characteristic of this milieu which occur to me and which might be subsumed under the general heading of introversionism HEAR ME ROAR Actions are undertaken without regard to their broader and long-term effects, just to make the person doing them feel better about themselves. PREACHING TO THE CHOIR Tactics which don't win converts, but reinforce the sense of being a little group of true believers superior to a wicked world. To clarify this a bit - I remember when I was a young canvasser in the 1983 referendum, we were advised (by experienced activists from Britain and America) to give as little time as possible to committed Yes or No voters since these were unlikely to change their mind, but to concentrate on winning over those who were undecided but open to persuasion. This requires some awareness of such people's doubts and how to answer them. The Preaching to the Tent delusion involves assuming that everyone is either on your side (and so need not be cultivated) or opposed (and hence beyond the pale). A good example of this would be Coir's televiseed walkout from a government commission some years ago (the commission was probably rigged, but to behave like a lout makes it easier for the other side to present you as someone who can't be taken seriously). Another example might be the tendency which the CSP showed in some recent general elections (though not 2011) to put up candidates who don't campaign, apparently in the belief that they had done their duty by putting a pro-life candidate on the ballot paper and giving the electors an opportunity to vote for him/her.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 15, 2011 20:06:14 GMT
Here is an example of the political party as prayer-group fallacy. One of the CSP's precursor parties had a branch in a provincial city with about a dozen members. They met weekly in premises owned/operated by a variety of members, and the leaders also came from a prayer-group milieu. For various reasons it was not possible for meetings to last longer than an hour. Of this hour, 15 minutes was taken up by saying several decades of the rosary; this meant that the agenda was never fully covered and that a small leadership group of about three people decided the unresolved questions among themselves and presented these as a fait accompli at the next meeting. One day some of the members suggested that instead of several decades of the Rosary, there should only be a brief opening prayer. They argued this on the following grounds (a) The membership as a whole were entitled to contribute to decisions, and this was being hindered by the existing arrangement (b) Some effort should be made to attract evangelical support for the party, given that evangelicals share common ground with Catholics on life and family issues, and this would be hindered by a specifically Catholic prayer. The leadership accused the critics of being ashamed of being Catholics, and denied that the Rosary is a specifically Catholic prayer because some Protestants say it. Eventually a vote was taken and the motion was carried. At the next meeting the leadership group brought in several members of prayer-groups, who had never attended a party meeting before and never did so again, to reverse the previous decision and reinstate the 15-minute Rosary. What is wrong with this? The central point is that in order to operate effectively a political party needs to draw in its members and activists to its work and make them feel they are making a difference. By adopting an arrangement which limited the ability of the rank and file to contribute to the discussion, and then by abusing the rule-book and packing a meeting to reverse a decision when the vote went against them, the leaders were telling the members that no matter how committed to the cause they might be, and how willing they were to sacrifice time and money, they would never be acknowledged as equal comrades or allowed to influence policy but were just to do what they were told. Similarly, the accusation of being "ashamed of being Catholics" amounted to an accusation of deliberate bad faith against people who were trying to build the party and who had made the effort to attend and work for it. There is also a refusal to face facts. To argue that the party ought to be a specifically Catholic party which should not try to recruit non-Catholics (given the differences between them and Catholics on certain issues), or that evangelicals were unlikely to join anyway and to play down its Catholic identity in hope of attracting them would weaken its appeal in some quarters for the sake of a purely hypothetical gain, would have been reasonable arguments, whether you agree with them or not. To argue that because some Protestants say the Rosary no Protestants object to it simply ignores the fact that there are very few such Protestants in Ireland and that the sort of Protestants likeliest to take strong pro-life and pro-family positions do generally strongly object to being asked to say the Rosary, is denial pure and simple.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 16, 2011 22:13:20 GMT
The IRISH FAMILY was, I am sorry to say, a very strong example of Goldfish Memory. (This concept refers to the theory that goldfish tolerate swimming round in a bowl forever because they have no memory and don't realise they are doing the same thing over and over again.) As I remember its first years (I gave it up after a couple of years in despair) the Irish Family was always predicting victory just round the corner - when victory did not materialise, instead of analysing what had happened and how we could do better they just issued more predictions of victory. One example which sticks in my memory concerns the 1992 Maastricht referendum. The week before the vote, the IF predicted a NO victory. YES won by 2-1. How did the paper explain this away? Simple. It pointed to a few examples of parishes in the west of Ireland where the No vote had won and declared "The Real Ireland Voted No". Of course this is totally delusional - Finglas, Ballybrack, Southill, Foxroxk, Montenotte etc are as much part of the real Ireland as Valentia Island or Connemara, and thy contain more voters - to pretend they do not exist or they do not really count is fatal to any attempt to influence legislation - and if the pro-life/pro-family campaign is not about influencing how the country is run we may as well shut up shop, or declare that it does not matter if there is an abortion clinic on every corner so long as abortion remains illegal in the "real Ireland" existing within our own individual skulls. This I think also reflects the "We are the People" illusion - existing within a small circle of like-minded activists, the victim of this illusion projects their views onto the whole country and assumes everyone agrees with them, or will do so as soon as their eyes are opened, and hence makes no efforts to understand the people's concerns when these do not accord with his presuppositions. Thus, the IF always maintained that support for Irish EU membership was purely delusional and had brought no real benefits - now everyone at all familiar with the Irish economy knows that thousands of Irish people work in foreign owned factories that were established in part because Ireland has access to the EU market, and which are part of international supply chains - there are for example Irish factories which make car parts which are used in British car manufacturing plants. Now it is purely delusional to say that the people who work in these factories do not derive a benefit from Irish EU membership. It may be argued that some alternative non-EU economic model would benefit them more, but if I were one of those workers I would need more convincing than conspiracy theories and crank currency schemes which are often not understood even by those who put them forward (for example, the monetary schemes the CSP are now putting forward were developed in response to an international monetary system based on the gold standard, instead of the fiat-based system we have now).
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2011 17:49:59 GMT
In my opinion, Jesus stayed out of Politics for a reason.
“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”
Religion and Politics do not mix well
Use your religious conscious and morality when making political decisions, and use the ballot box to best effect, but I trust no politician or political party no matter what they claim.
|
|
|
Post by annie on Jul 17, 2011 18:42:26 GMT
Yes, Jesus was for everyone.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 17, 2011 20:23:37 GMT
Re Spartacus and Annie - Christians as citizens are obliged to have some degree of political involvement, and this should be informed by Christian principles. There are circumstances under which this may be best done by some form of Christian party. There are possible drawbacks as well such as (a) the view that calling a party Christian automatically transforms its members into saints (b) the view that calling a party Christian eliminates the need for basic political competence (c) the problem that any political party will have policies on a range of issues and on some of these the faithful may legitimately differ (as you say, Annie, Jesus was for everyone). A good example of this last problem is IMHO Richard Greene's recent statements that bishops should order the faithful to vote for the CSP and that all Catholic organisations should turn themselves into support-gathering mechanisms for it, even if some of them lose their status as registered charities thereby. Charities exist for their charitable aims, not to promote political parties; if members wish to do so they should do so in their own time and not endanger the charity's work. It also has not occurred to Mr Greene that if bishops and Catholic organisations were to promote the CSP they might legitimately demand to influence CSP policy in return, and I get the feeling he would not be happy with that.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 19, 2011 21:35:18 GMT
Another case study. I will not use names since I got this version from people who may not have been in possession of all the facts. At one point in the 1990s two small Catholic parties decided to form an alliance. I will refer to these as A and B and their leaders as X and Y respectively. As a first step towards this alliance, it was decided that they would contest alternate by-elections. There was a vacant Dail seat in the constituency of Z. Since Party A already had an active branch in Z, and had chosen and announced a candidate, it was decided that Party A would contest the vacancy, and it was the understanding of the local branch in Z that Party B accepted that and would contest the next by-election after that in Z. Y, the leader of Party B, then publicly and unilaterally announced that Party B would run a candidate in Z in breach of what was understood to be the agreement between the two parties. TO the outrage of the local branch of Party A in Z, X, the leader of Party A, promptly and without consulting them not only endorsed the candidate of Party B but went down to Z and campaigned for that candidate even though there was a candidate of party A in the field - X never bothered to get in touch with the local branch of Party A either before or after the election to explain the rationale for supporting what was seen as a breach of an accepted agreement. (Neither candidate did particularly well.) This led directly to the breakup of the branch of Party A in z; several members left on the grounds that there was no point in wasting their efforts if their own leader was not prepared to support or even consult them. There was a perception, which may or may not have been accurate, that Y had put forward a candidate out of sheer egotism and that X's action was based on the assumption that as a fellow leader Y counted for more than the rank and file members of PArty A, who were simply taken for granted if they were considered at all. As I said, there may be another side to this story, but as I heard it it seemed to me that we have here another example of leaders thinking that they need not bother to do anything to secure the loyalty of rank and file activists, and that simply by calling themselves leaders they are automatically raised above the common herd who must follow their vagaries without question. Leadership can't just be claimed - it has to be earned.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 20, 2011 17:06:19 GMT
One major theme which helps to account for the failure of Christian/Catholic parties to make an impact is in my opinion LEADERSHIP. There is a recurring tendency to produce leaders who are both autocratic and incompetent, who neglect the need to recruit activists and supporters (or to retain the loyalty of those they already have) and who expect total obedience without any need to listen or learn themselves. I can think of several reasons for this: (1) Old-style confraternities and Catholic action groups, while they did tend to be autocratically run by the clergy, did (because they were so much more clearly tied to the institutional church) have a sense of the need for rational administration and formal procedures. I get the impression that a lot of activists in Catholic political parties today are drawn from prayer groups which operate on a much more charismatic-prophetic style of leadership, which involves informal-authoritarian leaders who see themselves as speaking on behalf of God or the plain people, and who are actively resistant to the creation of lasting/formal structures because they see these as stifling divine inspiration (and, more immediately, limiting their own ability to say and do whatever they feel like doing.) Similarly, neo-Thomist apologetics, whatever its limitations, did create a sense of the need for rational explanation and exposition, whereas the charismatic-prophetic model tends to the view that one must accept without question or explication. (2) The view that the people are somehow instinctively Catholic but have had their true opinions repressed by propaganda and a conspiracy between the political parties (encouraged by the fact that anyone who is middle-aged or older, as many activists are, can remember a time when the identification of faith and nation was taken for granted) encourages the view that the Catholic party speaks for the people and is potentially supported by the vast majority. Not only is this mistaken - the country is much more secularised now than it was then, and there is a sizable and growing anti-Church constituency - but it also encourages the leaders to think of themselves not (as they actually are) as leaders of a small and impoverished movement which must organise, articulate its views and learn from experience, but as political figures who - if the right button is somehow pushed - are on a par with the leaders of major national parties. Furthermore, their view of how the leaders of national parties operate is quite naive - they see only the personal appeal of leader to followers, but not the staff of advisers, spin-doctors and policy staff with which party leaders surround themselves and which are necessary for a political party to operate effectively within the system. This illusion encourages a one-man (or one-woman) band approach in which the leader resists all discussion, accountability, or restriction on their power as they believe they have a direct line to God and/or the people and this is all that is needed. More reflections on the cult of leadership/personality tomorrow.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 23, 2011 21:36:24 GMT
(3) Another possible source for the cult of leadership which has plagued our Catholic micro-parties is linked, I think to our reaction against the heterodoxy of many theologians and clerics. Because a natural response to this is to complain that the bishops and the clergy should do their duty and lay down the law to those clerics and theologians who don't behave, there is a tendency to assume that the natural model of leadership SHOULD be that the Pope and the bishop simply utter decrees and everyone accepts them without question. The fact that theological debate (subject to legitimate constraints) is not only tolerable but essential for doctrinal understanding is ignored. In the same way, our micro-leaders start from the assumption that they know what is right; that it is perfectly obvious; that anyone who disagrees must be either a dupe or a fool, and that there can be no room for discussion on anything. This mindset is ideally suited to ignorant and presumptuous petty dictators.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Aug 2, 2011 12:24:12 GMT
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2011 18:16:39 GMT
Some things that crossed my mind reading your posts;
The CSP or whoever they become next seriously need a media savvy officer or even a decent graphic designer to pull together their image and message. The March for Life looks so professional in comparison. I don't understand why they are not making an effort. Is the problem money or is it "I stood, so I've done my job." This is the 21st century, parties have to look professional. I voted for Paul by the way, but then what he stands for means something for me. It sounds like some advisors from the States need to come train candidates up. The savvy needed for politics that is ingrained in other parties over generations can't be learned in a few weeks before an election. Also they need to show their faces in the communities in between elections. It's unfair to expect people to vote for you just on an idealogical basis, for the diehards will, as you stated. Get your face in among your electorate and sway the undecided. Do it by showing that you are more than a one-issue party, anti women pro-paedo repressed Catholic. We have to show there is more to us, we have to be in the world, just not of it. Show that we're normal people with jobs and families and problems and that our politics is one part of us, diligently build trust over some years in communities.
I'm not sure they actually know what kind of realistic Ireland they're after. People are losing their homes and jobs and are afraid. The country needs trustworthy people who know what they stand for and state it. I'm not sure the CSP have a vision for the future beyond comely maidens dancing at the crossroads (aye, I know Dev didn't say that), get out of the EU, keep abortion out, and what else??? Ok the comely maidens could be seen as how ye hope women behaved (as opposed to drunken fights throwing punches at passers by) and when people behaved better (fiction?) independence as a country and the protection of life. These are important and actually say a lot about us as a country. But people want to keep their house and not have to emigrate. Down the road when their granny is about to be put down and their child is attacked on a night out they may lament the loss of an idealistic Ireland but right now other stuff matters. There doesn't seem to be any basis for the party other than, on est contre a, b and c. Why not get some meat into it, use the likes of Rerum Novarum as a platform if you want to go Churchy alone.
Which brings me on to something else.. we have a huge Polish population full of young married couples who have a lot of love for the late Pope John Paul ll and are still loyal to the Church. Why are we not seeking candidates among them? Furthermore, there are a lot of African Christians in this country now, why are we not tapping into that either?
It all feels so static with the CSP, nothing is done. I say that as I sit here doing nothing but typing mind you, so I'm a bit of a hypocrite really.
By the by, do you think Senator Mullen will start up something?
|
|