Best of a bad bunch

Denerick

I've decided to vote for the Green party. Here is why:

Fine Gael and Labour are going to form the next government in any case.

Fianna Fáil truly deserve a long period on the opposition benches.

Sinn Féin, despite the PR changes, are still a pack of looney socialists with far too many skeletons in the closet.

The Green Party are the only party left. Their policies are as necessary now as ever. It may surprise some people to know that I consider myself something of an environmentalist. It is the only political issue that really moves me, as all others are the product of populist groups appealing to our inner idiot (And believe me, Ireland has far too many idiots willing to lap up pathetic populism.)

I don't read trashy tabloids so its hard for me to be moved by Fine Gael's promise to bash the paedophiles or Sinn Féins promise to burn the bondholders. This populism which appeals to the sizable retarded segment of our population (They can be detected by their purchase of the red-top newspapers + the Daily Mail) is absolute nonsense and we all know that if any of these groups get into power they will pursue a centrist status quo.

The Green Party are principled, and despite their small numbers have, I think, created responsible policies that will aid our progress as a people. Idiots accuse them of propping up this government - but who eventually took them down? They were not responsible for the economic crash. They had been campaigning against lax planning laws and other unsustainable practises that fuelled this boom and that were supported by the three main parties. Labour and Fine Gael were playing auction politics last time round, something their members are keen to ignore. Of all the parties, only the Greens and Sinn Féin can claim to have been soothsayers of disaster.

So I am voting for the Green Party. Because everyone else are bastards.

Zubeneschamali

I'm also not as fed up with the greens as most seem to be.

They went into a Coalition, and now they are taking stick for the Governments policies, but the fact is that if they don't go into Government, they can't get any of their policies enacted.

There's no point in being a permanent Opposition party.

Eliot Rosewater

A few months ago I decided to give my first preference to the Greens, too, for a number of reasons. The Green guy is a token candidate who won't get elected, so you can consider the vote a protest one.

The Green Party did not cause the recession, as Denerick points out. Some people think they have. Such people should really re-think things, in my opinion.

The Green Party have been subject to a lot of unfair criticism. They propped up the government? Sure, but in doing so they only did what every single other member of Dail Eireann would have done. Fact.

As the OP points out, The Green Party, for their faults, are at least disciplined and don't operate on the populist basis which every other single political party in this country does.

I don't generally agree with what the Greens advocate, but I appreciate that they're disciplined and that their cause is a slightly noble one. More noble than getting votes by promising to repeal the Stag Hunting law, for instance.

beardofzeus

Denerick wrote: »

So I am voting for the Green Party. Because everyone else are bastards.

This is pretty much the entire election in a nutshell, I completely agree.

People need to forget about personality politics and tabloid sensations, and just take a step back to see which party best represents them, not which party they are being told best represents them...They have my vote anyway, it would be sad to see a new Dáil without any Green TDs.

Permabear

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Eliot Rosewater

Permabear wrote: »

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That's fair enough, but one could definitely argue, I think, that they only did what everyone else would have done. Thus, in terms of making a relativistic "least worst" judgement, like Denerick is doing, the issue of delaying the by-elections becomes irrelevant.

Permabear wrote: »

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Aside from supporting the Croke Agreement, such actions could be construed as principled, no? They were prioritising their environmental aims over economic ones. You and I may not agree with that, but I still think it's principled. The question now is whether being principled like that is necessarily a good thing. I would argue that it isn't.

newmug

I'm voting SF, for much the same reasons the OP is voting greens. Plus, despite their looney policies, SF are the only party who realistically have a 32 county agenda.

zig

Gormley does well in those one to one interviews I notice. I wont be voting greens this election but im not certainly not writing them off in the future if they can convince me they wont show weakness like they did the past 2 years.

zig

Permabear wrote: »

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Agreed, lets not forget that despite the Greens promise in November that they would walk in January and there'd be an election, the only reason that it did happen in the end was because everything kicked off after Cowen and his game of golf, it was nothing to do with the previous arrangement. Otherwise the election looked like it was being dragged on into March, April and some even mentioned it could be May.

Permabear

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patmac

A party political thread on behalf of the Green Party.
Christ these even more incompetent gobshítes than FF are the last crowd I would vote for.
Anyone who votes for any party involved in the catastrophe that was this government needs there head examined. Those idealists worried about the amount of methane coming out of cows arses while the country falls from one fiasco to another are not living in the real world hope they will be wiped out and deservedly so.

kit3

Have to agree with the OP in relation to the Greens. I would always have voted for them (not necessarily no 1). However, my dilemma is that I'm in Dublin Mid West - don't think I can bring myself to vote for Gogarty. If any other Green party candidate was available I would certainly vote for them but think I have to draw the line here.

Denerick

patmac wrote: »

Anyone who votes for any party involved in the catastrophe that was this government needs there head examined.

That rules out everyone but Sinn Féin. Were you following the previous election? Labour and Fine Gael were promising bypasses for every village in the land.

Denerick

Permabear wrote: »

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I agree with you. The fact remains that they did eventually do the right thing and pulled the rug from underneath FF.

And when the people of Ireland had been brought to their knees economically, the Greens, after supporting the Croke Park Agreement to "protect" a vastly overstaffed and hugely overpaid public sector, pushed through regressive taxes that fell hardest on the poorest people in Ireland, those who can't afford to live in well-insulated homes and drive newer, low-emission cars. That's not principled behavior, either.

Enough of the public sector bashing. Most jobs in the public sector are hard, thankless tasks.

You may be confusing your own principles with someone elses.

Laminations

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

That's fair enough, but one could definitely argue, I think, that they only did what everyone else would have done. Thus, in terms of making a relativistic "least worst" judgement, like Denerick is doing, the issue of delaying the by-elections becomes irrelevant.

Why only selectively use that logic? If, when they do something bad you are going to hypothesise on the actions of the other parties and conclude that 'they are all the same', then for every positive act the greens have done why not reach the same conclusion? Confirmation bias me thinks

Denerick

Laminations wrote: »

Why only selectively use that logic? If, when they do something bad you are going to hypothesise on the actions of the other parties and conclude that 'they are all the same', then for every positive act the greens have done why not reach the same conclusion? Confirmation bias me thinks

Do you continue to inhabit the fantasy world that suggest a Fine Gael Labour coalition would have done anything different post 2007?

Laminations

Denerick wrote: »

I agree with you. The fact remains that they did eventually do the right thing and pulled the rug from underneath FF.

FF eventually did the right thing and tried to get publc spending in order through austerity budgets, is this supposed to wipe the slate clean. Given enough time and pressure everyone can be forced to do the right thing - but being forced to do the right thing is not principled. Unless you want to say Bertie, O'Donoghue, O'Dea etc are principled because they all eventually stood down...

Its all selective logic to paint over the cracks in the greens

Laminations

Denerick wrote: »

Do you continue to inhabit the fantasy world that suggest a Fine Gael Labour coalition would have done anything different post 2007?

I continus to inhabit the real world where we will never know and therefore cant use their hypothesised actions to relieve others from blame

EDIT: Also that post sounds very close to a personal insult, akin to saying I am deluded...

mohawk

I won't be voting for the greens. They were very naive getting into bed with FF. I respect Trevor Sargent for stepping down as leader when the greens decided to join FF in government and if voting for him was an option I wouldn't rule them out.
I like some of their policies though.
(The main reason I won't be voting for them is because I really dislike the candidate running in this constituency. Every time I see him I want to slap the smirk off his face)

Permabear

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Laminations

Wow I agree with DF! maybe its your shiny new name?

MazG

Green party for me too. I was disappointed with parts of their performance in government with FF, but I'm still prepared to vote for them as I don't believe the other parties give enough emphasis to green issues such as renewable energy.

Not that I think my local Green candidate has a hope of being elected (I think he has 4 first preferences in the boards election). So in reality, it will be my 2nd (or subsequent) preference which will be my 'real' vote...

Permabear

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Will_H

mohawk wrote: »

I won't be voting for the greens. They were very naive getting into bed with FF.

I have to say Mohawk, I always thought they did the right thing going into government when they had the chance, simply for the reason that [I thought] they felt they could have more input on the 'inside' as opposed to being outside....

mohawk

Will_H wrote: »

I have to say Mohawk, I always thought they did the right thing going into government when they had the chance, simply for the reason that [I thought] they felt they could have more input on the 'inside' as opposed to being outside....

Good point. To a certain extent I think that they did get a chance to put things forward that they wouldn't of been able to do in opposition. On the other hand it always appeared like FF would get their way on most things by holding legislation the greens wanted to ransom. One reason the greens held on for so long was the climate change bill that never got passed. Maybe I am wrong but its just how it looked to me.

It is important for Ireland to have a party like the greens though as none of the rest of them will stick up for the environment.

Soldie

As pie in the sky as Fine Gael's 2007 election manifesto was, the reality is that Fianna Fáil are the ones who made disastrous choices at every turn, and have led us to the situation in which we now find ourselves. The Greens tried to cling onto power, too, to get frivolous legislation such as the Mayor of Dublin Bill passed, purely so that they could look back after their impending post-electoral annihilation and say "well, we may have supported the guarantee and the bail out, but we did X, Y, and Z!". If they really had the peoples' best interests at heart, they would have pulled the plug once the comprehensive bank guarantee came to light. Neither of them deserve to be in power for a very long time, and I don't agree with voting for them, even if it is a protest vote.

gk5000

The greens! They are'nt even environmentaly friendly.

How on earth does it make sense from a carbon/energy/economically to pay to scrap 10 year old cars, replacing them with new cars?

And they traded a few dubious lightbulbs for supporting FF in banckrupting the country. Yes FF did the initial damage, but the Greens supported NAMA, IMF and the bailout of the banks which actually is the real problem.

They are bunch of control freaks who want to interfere in every aspect of our lives, water, waste, energy....using the green flag as a cover.
The greens are the new reds! i.e. just like the commies using some agenda to supress the people.

I'll give the greens a lower preference than FF and the local loonie.

Permabear

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Denerick

Permabear wrote: »

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FG have a decent chance of forming a government without Labour. But the balance of evidence suggests this will be a FG/Labour coalition. I would hate the idea of having no Green members in the next Dáil, I can't think of anything more disastrous. We need more plurality in our political system, not less. And besides, the Greens could still be in the next government. If by some gift from heaven they get 4 seats, and FG get close to 80, they could hold the balance of power. Which would be win-win for me, as FG are my number 2.

Permabear

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Liam Byrne

Denerick wrote: »

The Green Party are principled, and despite their small numbers have, I think, created responsible policies that will aid our progress as a people. Idiots accuse them of propping up this government - but who eventually took them down? They were not responsible for the economic crash.

Firstly, I'm not sure whether you are trying to include me in that "idiots" sentence, because I certainly do accuse them of propping up FF and I am not an idiot despite what your sentence says.

Secondly, WHEN did they take them down ? Answer : FAR TOO LATE.

And, of course, if they had any level of cop-on they wouldn't have gone in with them in the first place because in 2007 most people knew they were toxic.......but then they were probably "idiots" too.

Denerick

Liam Byrne wrote: »

And, of course, if they had any level of cop-on they wouldn't have gone in with them in the first place because in 2007 most people knew they were toxic.......but then they were probably "idiots" too.

Yet the overwhelming majority of people voted for parties with an identical manifesto to Fianna Fáil in 2007. I won't accuse the people in 2007 of being idiotic - I will accuse them of collective amnesia though.

The entire premise of the debate since the first flutterings of trouble have been inherently dishonest and I just wished we manned up to ourselves.

jimaneejeebus

Denerick wrote: »

I It may surprise some people to know that I consider myself something of an environmentalist.

If you were a true environmentalist, you'd know that nuclear power is the greenest form of energy we currently have. The greens know basically jack sh*t about saving our environment. Energy independence from oil [which they say they'll do by 2030] cannot be generated with wind farms.

Denerick

jimaneejeebus wrote: »

If you were a true environmentalist, you'd know that nuclear power is the greenest form of energy we currently have. The greens know basically jack sh*t about saving our environment. Energy independence from oil [which they say they'll do by 2030] cannot be generated with wind farms.

Personally I'm one of those environmentalists who believes mankind should simultaneously neuter ourselves and proceed to live in caves so as to return the planet to mother Gaia.

Liam Byrne

Denerick wrote: »

We need more plurality in our political system, not less.

So would you prefer if the PDs were still around too ?

Denerick

Liam Byrne wrote: »

So would you prefer if the PDs were still around too ?

Yes. Very much. They'd probably get my 4 or 5.

telekon

newmug wrote: »

I'm voting SF, for much the same reasons the OP is voting greens. Plus, despite their looney policies, SF are the only party who realistically have a 32 county agenda.

Does that really matter so much any more??...serious question.

Denerick

telekon wrote: »

Does that really matter so much any more??...serious question.

It matters to some. Most don't care about lines on a map. We all watch Eastenders anyway, Irish or British.

jimaneejeebus

Denerick wrote: »

Personally I'm one of those environmentalists who believes mankind should simultaneously neuter ourselves and proceed to live in caves so as to return the planet to mother Gaia.

You should probably vote FF

Scofflaw

Soldie wrote: »

As pie in the sky as Fine Gael's 2007 election manifesto was, the reality is that Fianna Fáil are the ones who made disastrous choices at every turn, and have led us to the situation in which we now find ourselves. The Greens tried to cling onto power, too, to get frivolous legislation such as the Mayor of Dublin Bill passed, purely so that they could look back after their impending post-electoral annihilation and say "well, we may have supported the guarantee and the bail out, but we did X, Y, and Z!". If they really had the peoples' best interests at heart, they would have pulled the plug once the comprehensive bank guarantee came to light. Neither of them deserve to be in power for a very long time, and I don't agree with voting for them, even if it is a protest vote.

The thing there is that the Greens don't regard things like local authority power, energy savings, alternative energy, planning laws, and protecting the environment as 'frivolous'. People who do regard that kind of thing as either frivolous or vexatious don't vote Green, and there's no reason why they ever would. That happens to apply to a very large proportion of this country, so pointing out that the Greens are unpopular for following the Green policy agenda in government is merely agreeing that they aren't populist, because they're willing to stick to the Green agenda even though it's not popular.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Permabear

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MaceFace

I actually think Gormley has a lot of principles, but he is happy to see Ireland sink if it meant saving the world.

The bike to work scheme is rampant with abuse - just gives half price bikes to anyone lucky enough to be working.
The electric car policy is a joke - selling a few cars in Ireland is not going to improve the advance on technology that is required to make the move to the next level, but yet they introduced massive subsidies (which incidently went striaght to the Japanese).
Ban on stag hunting - all well and good and I totally agree with it, but putting this actually ahead of some of the issues that we needed to address last year?
The carbon levy. Just yesterday I heard Gormley defend it saying it is only a tiny amount of the actual price of petrol. Sorry, but €4 a week or €200 is not insignificant to a lot of people. And just as we thought, it is the thin end of the wedge.
Eamonn Gilmore wanted to double it to force people to use public transport. When asked about the people who don't have public transport, he said it would increase the demand for it in those areas and thus would follow.
Cycle lanes - what? paint a few lines and take space from the car just forces the car to drive in the cycle lane and nearly kill me.
Subsidise the insulation of houses. Just this morning Plank Kenny read a story about how the companies all jacked up their prices to absorb that subsidy.
Mary White - wanted a tax on SMS's.

So, just on the "Green" initiatives, they failed miserably.
This alone is reason enough to not vote for them and demand they take a serious look at themselves and come back in five years time with a proper plan.
They had four years to implement their political reform but like the rest in Leinster House - they would say anything to get back in.

(and not once did I mention how they were part of the worst government in the history of the State).

Scofflaw

Permabear wrote: »

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The fact that 95% of the country would never have voted for them at any time suggests that's not actually the case.

It's also surprising how many people who object to the Greens following the "Fianna Fáil agenda" also object to carbon taxes, lightbulb bans, and the rest. Sort of suggests that if one opposes the Green agenda, then trying to tar them with supporting Fianna Fáil is a handy tactic. Certainly Fianna Fáil people seem to think the Greens didn't follow their agenda...

cordially,
Scofflaw

P. Breathnach

patmac wrote: »

A party political thread on behalf of the Green Party.
Christ these even more incompetent gobshítes than FF are the last crowd I would vote for.
Anyone who votes for any party involved in the catastrophe that was this government needs there head examined. Those idealists worried about the amount of methane coming out of cows arses while the country falls from one fiasco to another are not living in the real world hope they will be wiped out and deservedly so.

I do like to read and reflect on considered and well-crafted arguments.

Soldie

Scofflaw wrote: »

The thing there is that the Greens don't regard things like local authority power, energy savings, alternative energy, planning laws, and protecting the environment as 'frivolous'. People who do regard that kind of thing as either frivolous or vexatious don't vote Green, and there's no reason why they ever would. That happens to apply to a very large proportion of this country, so pointing out that the Greens are unpopular for following the Green policy agenda in government is merely agreeing that they aren't populist, because they're willing to stick to the Green agenda even though it's not popular.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Fianna Fáil had the economy bound-and-gagged in the the boot of a car that was being driven off a cliff. The Greens tried to pursue their environmental agenda in the face of that, and that is what I take issue with. I think they should have realised that not heaping billions upon billions of Euros worth of debt upon Irish taxpayers is a more pressing matter than the light bulbs that we must use. Perhaps I'm being overly cynical, but I think there's something very sinister in them pursuing their agenda right up until the very end, and only pulling the plug when the election was imminent, anyway.

zynaps

MaceFace wrote: »

The bike to work scheme is rampant with abuse - just gives half price bikes to anyone lucky enough to be working.

It also seems like the price of bikes has been jacked up to exploit this.

MaceFace wrote: »

(and not once did I mention how they were part of the worst government in the history of the State).

Indeed, I was mightily disappointed at how they handled the whole Tara affair. Completely betraying your principles to get on the "inside" seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

As usual though, it's a case of sorting the evils to find the least bad of a set of poor options. I've never been more ambivalent and unsure; have almost no idea what I'll do beyond putting FF in last place, but then I do that almost every time anyway.

Scofflaw

Soldie wrote: »

Fianna Fáil had the economy bound-and-gagged in the the boot of a car that was being driven off a cliff. The Greens tried to pursue their environmental agenda in the face of that, and that is what I take issue with. I think they should have realised that not heaping billions upon billions of Euros worth of debt upon Irish taxpayers is a more pressing matter than the light bulbs that we must use.

That suggests that the only reason there are huge debt holes in the country is as a result of the policies of this last government alone - something I hope you don't genuinely think!

As to the guarantee, it was OK, did its job - shouldn't have included Anglo, and more should have been done to restructure the banks while it lasted - but it was already the case, thanks to the lax regulation of the Bertie years, that the banks were several times the size of the economy and fundamentally insolvent. Fianna Fáil had already driven the economy over the cliff, but in a party van with nearly everyone on board and cheering. pretty much everything from late 2007 has just been the struggle to get out from the van without drowning.

Seriously, the economic record of the current government is in every sense a vast improvement on that of the previous two governments. They didn't manage to ameliorate the consequences of the bubble as well as they might have done, but at least they didn't turn a decade of boom into the setup for IMF intervention.

Soldie wrote: »

Perhaps I'm being overly cynical, but I think there's something very sinister in them pursuing their agenda right up until the very end, and only pulling the plug when the election was imminent, anyway.

No, I don't think 'overly cynical' describes it, really.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Laminations

Scofflaw wrote: »

The thing there is that the Greens don't regard things like local authority power, energy savings, alternative energy, planning laws, and protecting the environment as 'frivolous'. People who do regard that kind of thing as either frivolous or vexatious don't vote Green, and there's no reason why they ever would. That happens to apply to a very large proportion of this country, so pointing out that the Greens are unpopular for following the Green policy agenda in government is merely agreeing that they aren't populist, because they're willing to stick to the Green agenda even though it's not popular.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I don't consider those issues frivolous but I'm not about to vote in a pathetic mess of a party to see those issues pursued. It seems ardent Green voters have a consequentialist attitude to voting - the ends justify the means, we'll vote in FF props and doormats to further the green agenda. Which to me is wrong and to Kant is despicable. It also appears paradoxical to the greater green morality which I think can be best described as deontological - that it is just inherently right to be green and look after the planet.

Would you vote for any green candidate regardless of their past performance in government or is there a line where your idea of standards in public office trumps your green ideology?

johnmcdnl

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

I'm also not as fed up with the greens as most seem to be.

They went into a Coalition, and now they are taking stick for the Governments policies, but the fact is that if they don't go into Government, they can't get any of their policies enacted.

There's no point in being a permanent Opposition party.

isn't this one of the biggest problems with our system - a party with less that 5% of the vote is given a chance to enact all their policies despite having virtually no support from the vast majority of the country....

Scofflaw

Laminations wrote: »

I don't consider those issues frivolous but I'm not about to vote in a pathetic mess of a party to see those issues pursued. It seems ardent Green voters have a consequentialist attitude to voting - the ends justify the means, we'll vote in FF props and doormats to further the green agenda. Which to me is wrong and to Kant is despicable. It also appears paradoxical to the greater green morality which I think can be best described as deontological - that it is just inherently right to be green and look after the planet.

Would you vote for any green candidate regardless of their past performance in government or is there a line where your idea of standards in public office trumps your green ideology?

I don't regard the Greens' performance in the last government as particularly bad, though, for the reasons given in the post above yours. I do find it kind of hard to believe that people really think the current crisis is some kind of outcome of the policies pursued by this government. Do you actually think that?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Laminations

Scofflaw wrote: »

I don't regard the Greens' performance in the last government as particularly bad, though, for the reasons given in the post above yours. I do find it kind of hard to believe that people really think the current crisis is some kind of outcome of the policies pursued by this government. Do you actually think that?

cordially,
Scofflaw

No buti do think they've been exacerbated by this government. Blanket guarantee ill admit was necessary (but not the exact guarantee) and it was ok for an interim period but once the holes in the banks and especially Anglo were discovered it should not have been extended. NAMA is a disaster PR stunt trying to fool the public into thinking we're getting our money back, and it's existence distorts the market and prevents recovery. Fiddling with stag hunting and commercial vehicle tax while the country was circling the drain, coupled with misleading and blatantly untrue information about turning corners scuppered confidence in the government/economy/country. This government put austerity measures on the long finger, they kicked PS reform down the road, they denied democracy to the people. This government has damaged brand Ireland. The greens were complicit in the lies and the spin.