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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on May 28, 2009 13:37:14 GMT
It has been remarked, quite fairly, that there is a media bias against Fianna Fáil. But I think it is equally fair to say that far from doing them harm, it is a positive good. Because FF outside Dublin point at the media as a bunch of Dublin elitists telling the real people in Ireland what to do and using the bias in a reverse Pale mentality to maximise their vote. Maybe Geraldine Kennedy might consider employing a bit of reverse psychology here if she really wants FF out.
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Post by hibernicus on May 28, 2009 14:09:55 GMT
I suspect this factor does not count for quite as much as it used, because the Dublin (and indeed the London) media have permeated the country much more than in the 1980s, local papers have declined in importance and independence (most are now run in chains by tycoons like Tony O'Reilly and John Taylor rather than having local proprietors) and Dublin is much more influential in terms of numbers and attitudes than it used to be. Commuterland has spread over much of Leinster, and I imagine there is something similar in most provincial cities - and because commuterland voters are less bound by traditional loyalties, they are more likely to be swing voters and hence more sought after by the parties.. A class divide (a sense that the IRISH TIMES are self-consciously superior beings who resent the great unwashed running the country) may be a bit more relevant. Bertie Ahern reaped rich electoral dividends by cultivating the readers of the Irish editions of British tabloids. (What would de Valera say? In his days, sensational London newspapers - which stood in the same relation to the present-day SUN as THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY to ASIAN BABES -were widely denounced as a prime symptom of the British degeneracy from which Ireland must be preserved.) Fianna Fail's big problem though, is that they have been in office so long and got the country into such a state that their usual trick of being a protest party and a party of government at the same time won't save them - especially as they are now not seen to stand for anything in particular in contrast to the other parties. Even in Charlie Haughey's time there was a sense that they represented a different vision of Ireland, however delusional. I predict that they will get the father and mother of all electoral hammerings.
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Post by hibernicus on May 29, 2009 12:22:10 GMT
IRISH TIMES opinion poll today shows FF in third place, down to its absolute core vote, and a slight swing from Labour to FG. The poll was taken during the days after the Ryan report, so I suspect part of the swing is caused by a feeling that Labour is more secularist than FG and that that's a good thing. This is another development "Christian" parties haven't taken on board. There is a developing secularist vote which outweighs and counterbalances the self-consciously Catholic vote. This was already visible in the 1980s but has grown exponentially since then. Even in the 1980s the big problem was that the most Catholic voters were older, poorer, more rural and less educated and that such people were more susceptible to traditional party loyalties and less likely to switch in response to the issues (though I know some such people who did switch from FG to FF voer it after Garret replaced Liam Cosgrave). Secularists on the other hand tend to be younger, urban/suburban, and more likely to be swing voters, who are more sought after by the parties.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 2, 2009 18:16:57 GMT
Latest opinion polls seem to suggest predictions of a Libertas surge were misplaced. Conor Fahey may have been picking up a Galway trend caused by the absence of other candidates in that area. Wikipedia lists Christian Solidarity candidates in the local elections. There are only four - but one individual is contesting several electoral areas in Laois and Offaly. What purpose does this serve other than self-advertisement? Manus Mac Meanmain,w hom I thought was the highest-profile member (certainly the one whose name I have seen most often) does not seem to be standing and Wikipedia says the Dublin Central candidate Paul O'Loughlin is the party leader. Here is a link to a CSP member's blog. he strieks me as having Lefebvrist leanings and being a very "green" nationalist. he is entitled to his own view; what worries me is that he makes not the slightest effort to recognise or reply to people who hold any other view. I notice that his blogroll includes Richard Williamson's Dinoscopus (though also PEREGRINUS HIBERNENSIS and infelix ego). He has a nice fisking of an IRISH TIMES attack on Youth Defence and some very sensible comments about the disruption of the Doyal euthanasia lecture in Cork. partysoldier.blogspot.com/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Solidarity_Party
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 3, 2009 11:51:36 GMT
VILLAGE magazine has an election special with a profile of the candidates in the Dublin Central by-election. Paul O'Loughlin of Christian Solidariy is not mentioned. This can't be down to hostility because they devote a paragraph to attacking the Immigration Control Platform candidate rather than ignoring him. Is this just an oversight, or did O'Loughlin throw his hat into the ring at such a late stage that the article had already gone to press?
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 4, 2009 17:54:52 GMT
Remember, everyone - it's your civic duty to vote in the Republic tomorrow. I voted today up here. How? By secret ballot.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 5, 2009 17:38:26 GMT
Before I go, here are Melancholicus' thoughts on the election. infelixego.blogspot.com/ On the ERuropean scene I think he is a bit Islamophobic myself - I tend to feel a certain sympathy for them as I see them as resembling our own emigrants of past years - but his opinions on the Irish elections are wroth taking seriously. See you in 10-12 days' time. In the meantime I hope postign is more active from other users than it has been over the last week.
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Post by Michael O'Donovan on Jun 12, 2009 23:09:07 GMT
As usual, an interesting view from John Waters here www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0612/1224248683906.html. The results were not particularly encouraging in my view; Libertas crashed and burned, Kathy Sinnott (whose commitment to the pro-life agenda is not always recognised) lost out. But it was good to see Joe Higgins back in Dublin. I wouldn't agree with him on much but a character of such implacable integrity is an asset - in fact vital - to any democracy. And I was glad to see Mannix Flynn make it on to Dublin City Council. His interview with Eamonn Keane today was extraordinary: newstalk.ie/newstalk/shows/recommendations/MannixFlynn.mp3.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Jun 18, 2009 13:27:27 GMT
I don't believe that Joe Higgins has any particular integrity and he is certainly a pigmy in comparison with other left wing independents such as Tony Gregory or Noel Brown. In the Labour Party, he was involved in Militant Tendency, which was a veritable secret society within the party, which Dick Spring had to fight to expel (as Neil Kinnock had to do in Britain). The Socialist Party is very silent about its leadership structure and its relationship with its British counter-part and its links in the past with the former USSR.
In addition, the Socialist Party deliberately focusses on a small number of high profile issues and don't supply effective representation. To me, Joe Higgins is merely a left wing cynical talking head capitalising on people's anger and the media's dislike of Sinn Féin.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 19, 2009 17:29:33 GMT
I think Higgins does have a certain integrity - the trouble is that it is of a destructive variety. Trots believe that all our problems will disappear with the overthrow of capitalism and that anything is justified to bring this about - hence while they may expose genuine injustices they are more interested in using them to recruit revolutionaries than in dealing with them in the short term. Higgins is I think a true believer and he does genuinely care about injustice, but his approach to them is driven by the Leninist imperative of creating a revolutionary party. The Socialist Party/ Militant Tendency is a Trotskyite group and hence would not have been very close to the old USSR (though they may have belonged to the "degenerate workers' state" version of Trotskyism, which held the USSR was still preferable to the capitalist West, as distinct from the "state capitalist view" held by its rivals in the Socialist Workers' Party aka People Before Profit Alliance, who held the USSR was as bad as the USA). Of course neither variety of Trot has ever come to terms with the crimes committed by the USSR under Lenin as well as Stalin. I think Noel Browne got a raw deal in 1951 but he contributed to a lot of his later troubles. John Horgan's biography shows that he was incapable of working with other people for any length of time unless they totally subordinated themselves to him, that he treated associates, including generally loyal allies like David Thornley as mental and moral degenerates if they disagreed with him about anything at all, and that in his last decades he engaged in the most fulsome and uncritical praise of the USSR as superior to Western capitalist society in every respect.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jun 24, 2009 9:27:31 GMT
I recall the vocal support Noel Brown gave to the Soviet Union in his latter years - even acting as an apologist for Stalin. I believe I heard him use the phrase 'You can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs'. I thought there were none so blind as those who will not see.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 25, 2009 14:08:52 GMT
I might add that Browne's mindset also indicates that there was something in the bishops' concern that his approach could lead to state tyranny. A certain awareness of recent Continental events should be borne in mind (in his defence of the bishops Alfred O'Rahilly cites the Nazi abuse of the medical profession) but they failed to balance it against the gravity of the social problem. I think the complaint that they wre more concerend about middle-class taxation than the position of th epoor has validity - not that they saw it in such terms but that given their background and contcts the former was more immediately present to them than the latter.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Jul 3, 2009 10:24:45 GMT
Interesting, FF, Labour, SF and Libertas all get votes but no one is touching our Christian Democrats in FG.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Jul 3, 2009 10:26:01 GMT
I might add that Browne's mindset also indicates that there was something in the bishops' concern that his approach could lead to state tyranny. A certain awareness of recent Continental events should be borne in mind (in his defence of the bishops Alfred O'Rahilly cites the Nazi abuse of the medical profession) but they failed to balance it against the gravity of the social problem. I think the complaint that they wre more concerend about middle-class taxation than the position of th epoor has validity - not that they saw it in such terms but that given their background and contcts the former was more immediately present to them than the latter. Isn't there some discussion elsewhere on this forum on Mgr Cremin's support for Noel Browne during the Mother and Child controversy?
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 13, 2009 14:33:57 GMT
Let's open up with an old question to be addressed in a new way - can a Catholic in good conscience vote for Sinn Féin?
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