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Is there Appetite for demonstration?
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03-10-2012 10:04AM#1Usually the Irish roll over and take what they are given, this is changing slowly but most people are too (well not sure this is the right word) polite to complain.
I certainly have the appetite to complain if there was another march organised, I thought the United Left were going to start one pre budget however haven't seen details.
I know it will achieve nothing apart from a couple of minutes on Euronews maybe. However they are going to squeeze me more this year where there isn't much left to squeeze to be honest, where is the joy in working hard and enjoying the rewards? There are very little rewards at the end of the month. Maybe I don't work hard if I make time to post on boards
Junior bond holders who bought out other bond holders for fractions of their worth get paid full on AIB bonds, and the bank announce .5% on variable rates the next day. Childrens allowance is being mentioned now around the news channels to get people used to it being cut in December, next week something else will be leaked or mentioned by the Trioka to justify it being cut by the Government in the Budget.
The Government will be be happy with Public Sector people get hammered by private sector on forums or news snippets and Middle income families will give out about people receiving social protection allowances and everyone else will give out about the fat cats, meanwhile Fuel prices drive prices up everywhere, people will be stuck in housing not suitable for their needs, families will go hungry, hospitals will close, Gardai stations will close, bus routes will close, old people will be cold and not get hot meals, seriously ill children will die.
The odd person who can generate public interest will get what they want be it some revolutionary new drug or reprieve on a service been lost because of some TD with power makes it happen at the 11th hour, these will generate lots of news space while the voiceless people which there are many will suffer.
I vented but don't feel any better, maybe a nice cold March through our streets would, I'll wait and see.1
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I honestly think that people are still too worried about what will happen if mass demonstrations ensue to actually go out and demonstrate.Usually the Irish roll over and take what they are given, this is changing slowly but most people are too (well not sure this is the right word) polite to complain.
I certainly have the appetite to complain if there was another march organised, I thought the United Left were going to start one pre budget however haven't seen details.
I know it will achieve nothing apart from a couple of minutes on Euronews maybe. However they are going to squeeze me more this year where there isn't much left to squeeze to be honest, where is the joy in working hard and enjoying the rewards? There are very little rewards at the end of the month. Maybe I don't work hard if I make time to post on boards
Junior bond holders who bought out other bond holders for fractions of their worth get paid full on AIB bonds, and the bank announce .5% on variable rates the next day. Childrens allowance is being mentioned now around the news channels to get people used to it being cut in December, next week something else will be leaked or mentioned by the Trioka to justify it being cut by the Government in the Budget.
The Government will be be happy with Public Sector people get hammered by private sector on forums or news snippets and Middle income families will give out about people receiving social protection allowances and everyone else will give out about the fat cats, meanwhile Fuel prices drive prices up everywhere, people will be stuck in housing not suitable for their needs, families will go hungry, hospitals will close, Gardai stations will close, bus routes will close, old people will be cold and not get hot meals, seriously ill children will die.
The odd person who can generate public interest will get what they want be it some revolutionary new drug or reprieve on a service been lost because of some TD with power makes it happen at the 11th hour, these will generate lots of news space while the voiceless people which there are many will suffer.
I vented but don't feel any better, maybe a nice cold March through our streets would, I'll wait and see.0 -
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No offence taken, but I guess the conversation will be more constructive if we both avoid triteness.Dannyboy83 wrote: »I apologize if offence was taken, that wasn't my intention.
But there's no requirement that you keep it quiet.What do you propose, aside from speaking to your TD?
The above question is the important part - but let me address your proposal.
How many people have spoken to their TD about the Croke Park Agreement? About the household charge? Shall I tell you?
I can't! Because I don't know. Neither do you. Probably not even the TD themselves knows. And you can be damn sure they will keep it quiet.
I'm not talking about individuals meekly sitting in front of TDs and making polite suggestions. I'm talking about an organised movement - with the same level of organisation that's required to put together a street protest - but with a greater commitment required from the participants.
If I go to my local TD and say that I won't vote for him unless he gets serious about government reform, he'll ignore me. If there's an organised campaign of putting government TDs on notice that they'll lose their seats unless there's reform, complete with publicity for the fact that it's happening, then he can't ignore all of us.
That's the nature of a representative democracy. Let's prove we can do representative democracy well, and then we can see if we're capable of making a more direct democracy work.You have to wait for the next General Election, just to have a voice.
Which will make headlines on the day it happens.Or you could organize a large rally - like the OAPs (or park your cherry picker outside Dail Eireann! )
The same backbenchers the government depends on to stay in power?Easy.
The fifty backbenchers.
The whip is an effective weapon against a single rebel, or a small handful. It doesn't work against a groundswell.
That raises a couple of interesting points: first, it's important to realise that sometimes a government acts as it does because it simply doesn't have a choice. It would be lovely to think the government could unilaterally tell Brussels and everyone else who lends us money to get bent, but still continue to borrow enough at reasonable rates to maintain our current levels of taxation and spending, but it tends not to work like that.At our last government, the backbenchers were up in arms, yet they were directed by the Whip. Fianna Fail were smashed.
The other point is that the system worked. The government broke the country, and the electorate rewarded them with a drubbing.
Again, two points: one, it was easy for the government to listen to them - they didn't have to actively and visibly harm someone else in order to concede the point. And two: you don't know how many pensioners visited TDs' clinics, and to what extent it was that pressure that was the more keenly felt.The OAPs kicked up a storm and the government listened to them.0 -
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Agreed.oscarBravo wrote: »No offence taken, but I guess the conversation will be more constructive if we both avoid triteness. But there's no requirement that you keep it quiet.
Yea, but it's like the Chingis Khan parable.
Bend one arrow and you can break it in half.
Bend 10 arrows simultaneously and you can break your leg.I'm not talking about individuals meekly sitting in front of TDs and making polite suggestions. I'm talking about an organised movement - with the same level of organisation that's required to put together a street protest - but with a greater commitment required from the participants.
That's only a step below a political party, which I cannot see happening.
It's nice in theory and I wish it would, but most people have neither the time nor the interest for that. Not in Ireland and not in Germany.
Just the other day, I had a thread about the lack of new political parties.
Not even Shane Ross can get it together and he has the money, time, resources and networks.
And it's ultimately victim to the same problems as befall all organisations.
You start with an idea, then you have a policy, then you have dogma, then you have a gospel.........then you become 'The Tea Party' & the whole charade falls apart.
French style is what works:
Ugly, dirty, effective, flashmobs protesting against a specific issue, then disbanding. (or trawlers blockading Cork harbour or whatever)
It achieves the same outcome, with much less effort and there is nothing to 'be against', as with the Tea Party. Anger is directed as much at the government for the inconvenience, as at the flashmob for protesting.If I go to my local TD and say that I won't vote for him unless he gets serious about government reform, he'll ignore me. If there's an organised campaign of putting government TDs on notice that they'll lose their seats unless there's reform, complete with publicity for the fact that it's happening, then he can't ignore all of us.
They can and they do unfortunately.
I don't mean to sound apathetic, but they do, and they did - at the last government.
Irish politics is tribal. It's better to fall on your sword...this is the reality.
How many TDs didn't even rerun at the last election?
How many of the TDs flunked out and left Michael Martin out to dry, in the heave against Cowen?
Even the Green party failed us.
I'm not against your idea btw, I'm in favour of it.
I wish it could happen and would support it, if it did.That's the nature of a representative democracy. Let's prove we can do representative democracy well, and then we can see if we're capable of making a more direct democracy work.
Disagree here.
That's not the nature- that's the flaw in our democracy.
Imagine you have a flaw in your database architechture, which causes innumerable flaws on your front end.
Do you firefight the flaws on the front end?
Or do you tackle the parent defect?
The firefighting will never lead to the outcome you desire - stability.
You have to fix the parent defect, in order to ever achieve stability.
*sorry - missed this, so edited to reply*Which will make headlines on the day it happens.
This is the point. That's why it works.
200k people might have written to their TD about a particular issue.
Nobody is ever going to know about it.
It allows the government control.
They can spin to their hearts content.
Yet this one guy who parked his cherry picker in protest - everyone heard about it.
That one guy had effect on public opinion than my innumerable letters to TDs over the last 4 years!The same backbenchers the government depends on to stay in power?
Yes, the same backbenchers who get booted out when they ignore the Whip.The whip is an effective weapon against a single rebel, or a small handful. It doesn't work against a groundswell.
It did, I already covered the heave against Cowen in this post
and it continues to work effectively in the present government.
(getting a bit long, so I will respond to the rest in a subsequent post)0 -
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If the general public don't support Croke Park for the most part why did they elect two parties that said all along they would honor the agreement?
That's pretty easy to answer; because there was no party that said they wouldn't support the CPA.
The electorate didn't get that choice; but Fine Gael were the party that proposed the most stringent measures, and had a near majority.
At it stands, not even Fine Gael backbenchers themselves support the CPA:http://www.independent.ie/national-news/end-croke-park-deal-fg-rebels-tell-enda-2996213.html
End Croke Park deal, FG rebels tell Enda
Seven TDs speak out on behalf of widespread backbencher discontent
And disapprove of the lack of action:http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/fine-gael-backbenchers-unhappy-with-lack-of-action-on-allowances-567560.html
Fine Gael backbenchers unhappy with lack of action on allowances
Sh1t....even Keven Myers agrees and he earns a living from holding a controversial view:http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-the-hospital-that-has-up-to-20pc-of-its-staff-absent-every-single-day-3241215.html
'Governance of this state has moved from Dail Eireann to RTE, where the real Taoiseach David Begg announced that certain public service allowances could go - this, just a few days after the poor hapless minister Brendan Howlin had concluded that only one of these 1,100 perks could be scrapped.
The Begg initiative is shrewd tactics, because a review of the allowances (he says) would take years. Simplest, then, to absorb the allowances into pay: thus obduracy masquerades as reason. Brilliant - and confirmation that whereas all governments live beyond their means, governments controlled by public-service unions live beyond their grandchildren's. We are riding for a terrible fall, and only the anti-gravitational delusions created by this bizarre cult of tomorrowism could have blinded government ministers and their trade union bosses to this certainty.'
Kevin Myers
But before this goes all PvP, that's not the topic of the thread.
The topic is that the electorate do not have any mechanism to disapprove, aside from mass protest.
It would be like hiring a builder to build you a conservatory.
He decides to build a granny flat instead.
You are powerless to make him stop.
You have to wait until he is finished the job, to tell him that is not what ye agreed on, not what the contract said.
In fact, the only course of action you can take, is to picket his office - the one you're paying to do the job for you!! :pac::pac:
Do you know Watchdog (the BBC Programme)?
Could you imagine if they quietly wrote letters to rogue traders, instead of publicly pressuring them?
They wouldn't be very successful.
Part of the reason they are successful, is because the publicly pressure/publicly tackle the issues.
Roisin Shortall - publicly pressured Reilly.
etc.
etc.
Writing letters to your TD is an exercise in futility.
That's what they want you to do; it means they can 'control' the situation and spin to their hearts content.
None of the groups which have resisted change deluded themselves in this manner - they publicly protested and kicked up a storm - The Unions, The OAPs, etc. while the meek groups writing letters to their TDs are getting it in the neck, whatever the issue.0 -
Dannyboy83 wrote: »That's pretty easy to answer; because there was no party that said they wouldn't support the CPA.
The electorate didn't get that choice; but Fine Gael were the party that proposed the most stringent measures, and had a near majority.
At it stands, not even Fine Gael backbenchers themselves support the CPA:
And disapprove of the lack of action:
Sh1t....even Keven Myers agrees and he earns a living from holding a controversial view:
But before this goes all PvP, that's not the topic of the thread.
The topic is that the electorate do not have any mechanism to disapprove, aside from mass protest.
It would be like hiring a builder to build you a conservatory.
He decides to build a granny flat instead.
You are powerless to make him stop.
You have to wait until he is finished the job, to tell him that is not what ye agreed on, not what the contract said.
In fact, the only course of action you can take, is to picket his office - the one you're paying to do the job for you!! :pac::pac:
Do you know Watchdog (the BBC Programme)?
Could you imagine if they quietly wrote letters to rogue traders, instead of publicly pressuring them?
They wouldn't be very successful.
Part of the reason they are successful, is because the publicly pressure/publicly tackle the issues.
Roisin Shortall - publicly pressured Reilly.
etc.
etc.
Writing letters to your TD is an exercise in futility.
That's what they want you to do; it means they can 'control' the situation and spin to their hearts content.
None of the groups which have resisted change deluded themselves in this manner - they publicly protested and kicked up a storm - The Unions, The OAPs, etc. while the meek groups writing letters to their TDs are getting it in the neck, whatever the issue.
Step back a second (I believe your post has pretty much outlines why protesting achieves nothing)
So the public had no choice as all parties and individuals running support it. Fair enough, I'll let you off with that.
But now you say the FG backbenchers are "not happy" with how things are now regarding the CPA.
Where do you think they got the kick in the backside from to start to voice their opinions on the matter (opinions that have obviously changed for some reason since the election)?
Was it from all those mass protests against the CPA or was it from their constituents getting in their ears?
FG didn't have the most "stringent" measures in realtion to the CPA, the were supporting it and still do.0 -
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