Direct Democracy Ireland: the split?

Pelvis Parsley

Their chairman has gone very quiet as well. Hasn't been active on the social media circuit for the last three days, and the "public figure" FB account seems to have disappeared.

benway

That's a pity, his twitter account used to be a panic. Clearly not the brightest, our Jeff.

Although I do note that he's now calling himself "Ex-National Chairman of Direct Democracy Ireland" in his twitter bio. Does this mean he only lasted a a month in the job? Curiouser and curiouser.

Unusual, also, that the "Latest News" section of their website seems to be giving more play to supporting Ben™ with his legal woes than the leadership.

Pelvis Parsley

Ooh, never spotted that!

It looks to me as if Van The Man was parachuted in because the Anti-Justin Bieber Committee was foundering on the reef, but that's only my own perception.

I wonder where this leaves the bould Jeff's electoral ambitions? He still seems to sport the DDI logos, so maybe he'll manfully struggle on.

benway

Was it not a thing that Jaananda, fresh from his "profound encounter and life changing experience with the Immortal Interdimensional Avatar Mahamuni Babaji" was anointed by Gilroy as leader with JR as chairman? In an case, seems pretty clear to me that Ben™, Whitehead and co. are still pulling the strings.

To be fair, even the DDI crowd must realise that responses to questions/criticism like the ones under this article don't represent a great look.

Passively aggressive, or aggressively passive? Which is right for you?

MilanPan!c

DDI website now down.

It's all collapsing.

Pretty hilarious.

hatrickpatrick

A real Direct Democracy party wouldn't actually have any policies, whole idea was a contradiction from the start.

Pity, a real direct democracy party is something I'd vote for

MilanPan!c

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

A real Direct Democracy party wouldn't actually have any policies, whole idea was a contradiction from the start.

Pity, a real direct democracy party is something I'd vote for

I said that exact thing to Ben™ ages ago and he accused me of being a "shill".

Says it all really.

spank_inferno

Well, seeing as their platform hinged upon massive mortgage writedowns for everyone & harassing auction rooms, its hardly a shock its running out of steam.

MilanPan!c

spank_inferno wrote: »

Well, seeing as their platform hinged upon massive mortgage writedowns for everyone & harassing auction rooms, its hardly a shock its running out of steam.

You forgot the fact that they were led by conspiracy theorists.

Hijpo

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

A real Direct Democracy party wouldn't actually have any policies, whole idea was a contradiction from the start.

Pity, a real direct democracy party is something I'd vote for

DDI didnt have policies at the start and got ridiculed for it, now that they have some they are a contradicting themselves.

MilanPan!c

Hijpo wrote: »

DDI didnt have policies at the start and got ridiculed for it, now that they have some they are a contradicting themselves.

Two things:

- If they ONLY developed policies because the internet was unimpressed, and even though it makes their entire stance a massive contradiction, then it's more evidence they don't deserve peoples trust.

- All of their policies dovetail with their leadership's conspiracy theories nicely, so it's fairly obvious that these policies say a lot about the ideology of the party. That should give people pause.

humberklog

I was waiting to see why DDI were anti fluoride. I'm not interested enough to read the full DDI message so waited on a brief snippet- the then chairman Jeff Rudd gave his reason: because the government is using fluoride to keep the population docile. JR didn't give any other reasons other than mind control of the population by the government. That's how I read it and this is how I'm reading it as DDI's policy.

At the AGM the chairman presided over a vote to elect a new leader. There were approx. 45 people in attendence from a party of 1000+. The vote was carried unanimously on the night with only about 5% of the party voting in an election that was only proposed on the night by Ben Gilroy.
(45 was an estimate given by an employee at Millmount House and 1000+ is the number of members DDI say they have).

A badly written article regarding the AGM appears in a local newspaper. When DDI were asked who wrote the piece (considering there was a media ban at the AGM) the chairman said he didn't know. The paper in question says the article was submitted into them by DDI and went to print unedited. They wrote an article and couldn't remember writing it and submitting it into a local paper?

Jeff Rudd put a post up on twitter yesterday saying he was having a rethink about something and he might make a statement on Moday. This twitter post was deleted shortly after he posted it. I wonder does he remember writing it?

Pelvis Parsley

Jeff is now championing something called "Open Democracy" on one of his many blogs.

Found via a blog post elsewhere which lists his many aliases, but which for obvious reasons I can't republish here.

On another note, Mr. Van De Ven is being very quiet about all this!

benway

MilanPan!c wrote: »

- All of their policies dovetail with their leadership's conspiracy theories nicely, so it's fairly obvious that these policies say a lot about the ideology of the party. That should give people pause.

I was always of the view that the direct democracy was attractive to that snake-oil brigade mainly because it allowed them to bat off questions about their obvious dodgy far-right conspiracy angle by saying "we'll have a referendum for that".

Ended up getting caught out because the general populace isn't quite as dumb as they seem to think.

humberklog wrote:

Jeff Rudd gave his reason: because the government is using fluoride to keep the population docile. JR didn't give any other reasons other than mind control of the population by the government. That's how I read it and this is how I'm reading it as DDI's policy.

Is this not the core reasoning for all of the anti-flouride crowd? Has anyone ever called Aisling "Girl Against Flouride" out on this? Because her super-scientific FACTS showing why it's a bad thing don't stand up on any level.

There's a whole pile of ironing here: these people are banging on about the health problems associated with fluoride, based on zero evidence, but really their thing is that flouride brainwashes the sheeple. So they're lying to the sheeple about it in order to free their minds.

Something something, Precious Bodily Fluids.

In breaking Jeff Rudd news, he now seems to have gotten rid of the DDI url from his twitter bio, replacing it with: http://www.unitedpeople.ie/. Funnily enough, seems that Scientology is a bridge too far for even our Jeff.

Still seems to be using the same Direct Democracy Ireland wallpaper, but I'm guessing that won't last...



***EDIT***

If the forum that Jeff references in this tweet is anything to go by, looks like he's out to set up a nationwide organisation. Watch out, Ben™.

@jeffrudd31 wrote:

Under construction: http://unitedpeople.boards.net/

I also note that there's no sign of DDI under "National Politics & Policies", even though FF, FG, SF, Lab ... and An Chomhdháil Phobail - The People’s Convention (CPPC) ... all get their own forum.

Pelvis Parsley

That guy has set up more tumbleweed forums than he's had bowls of soup.

Hotblack Desiato

The graphic and URL make it seem like some sort of iOnanist Institute anti-sex campaign.

That's just my impression, it's not like I'm going to click on it :pac:

humberklog

Oh ffs, not another attempt at a message board. The last one ended up with him arguing with his missus. He and she were the only people posting on it.

I take no glee in posting this link, but for those that've been keeping up...
http://unitedpeople.boards.net/

For Forks Sake

humberklog wrote: »

Oh ffs, not another attempt at a message board. The last one ended up with him arguing with his missus. He and she were the only people posting on it.

I really do hope JR's ok. I think he is essentially a good egg and if we were in a country with better political parties he'd be a member of one.

I take no glee in posting this link, but for those that've been keeping up...
http://unitedpeople.boards.net/

.

benway

humberklog wrote: »

I really do hope JR's ok. I think he is essentially a good egg and if we were in a country with better political parties he'd be a member of one.

I'd tend to agree, seems like his heart's in the right place, just tended to overdo the hyper-defensive passive aggression whenever anyone even vaguely questioned or criticised DDI.

But he's swimming with the sharks dealing with that mob, especially with the kind of skulduggery that's going on with the leadership business, really hope he's ok.

Pelvis Parsley

In my own opinion, having read this guy's extremely prolific output of late, I'd have to say that I find him a very unjustifiably bombastic, impetuous, and unreliable character with equally balanced chips on both shoulders. He tends to make a reasonable impression initially, but I couldn't see how any political movement would consider him a good bet, I'm sorry to say. You just can't take him at his word.

Anyway, anyone else think that Direct Democracy, implemented properly has any merit? I can't help thinking that more accountability, within reason, has to be a good thing.

humberklog

Pelvis Parsley wrote: »

Anyway, anyone else think that Direct Democracy, implemented properly has any merit? I can't help thinking that more accountability, within reason, has to be a good thing.

I do. I also know it's not constitutional. I also can't figure out how it could be rolled out nationally. But constitutions can change and dim people like me can learn a bigger picture.

I'd like to see a non aligned pressure group looking for it to be attempted by a county council.

MilanPan!c

humberklog wrote: »

I do. I also know it's not constitutional. I also can't figure out how it could be rolled out nationally. But constitutions can change and dim people like me can learn a bigger picture.

I'd like to see a non aligned pressure group looking for it to be attempted by a county council.

It's funny, because so many of the folks that tend to espouse DD also seem to yammer on about the "muppets" who vote for FF/FG. The fact that they can't see that these same "muppets" would control DD is testament to their myopathy.

DD sounds good, but isn't always. It did great harm to the California economy and studies have shown it being used to further racism in places like - gasp - Switzerland.

IMO the voters need two things:

- better education
- better options

Simply letting people vote away hard choices for short term gains is extremely dangerous.

benway

Pelvis Parsley wrote: »

Anyway, anyone else think that Direct Democracy, implemented properly has any merit? I can't help thinking that more accountability, within reason, has to be a good thing.

Personally, I have my doubts.

The much-touted Swiss model tends towards knee-jerk populism: attacking immigrants, the unemployed and banning minarets. GF worked in Switzerland for a few years, she definitely wouldn't be a massive fan of their system.

Nor is the Swiss National Science Foundation, by the look of things.

“More broadly, our results underline the importance of the interplay between voter preferences and political institutions in generating policy outcomes. Our study provides perhaps the most direct evidence to date that when faced with the exact same policy decision, direct democracy does suppress minority interests with greater regularity than representative democracy. Moreover, the evidence suggests that direct democracy is most harmful for the most marginalized minorities.”

Maybe I'm being elitist here, but I can easily imagine a referendum to, say, cut social welfare payments by three quarters, abolish income tax and write off all mortgages passing comfortably, then people wondering why we're seeing a huge amount of homelessness, small businesses going to the wall due to the lack of demand from lower-income groups, roads and hospitals falling apart, nobody being able to get loans or outside investment into the country ...

There's a definite tyranny of the majority element to it, imho. Now, is it any worse than representative democracy, which, from where I see it, offers a better form of negotiation between competing interests, but also relies on the bona fides of elected representatives? Couldn't say, really: both systems have massive flaws, and it's an interesting discussion, but by no means does any system of direct democracy that I'm aware of seem like a magic bullet.

K-9

Mod:

Every user has a right to privacy, it's why we can choose user names and not go by our real names.

Hence nobody can speculate as to the real names of other posters. It's common decent manners and expected etiquette on boards.

Hijpo

MilanPan!c wrote: »

Two things:
- If they ONLY developed policies because the internet was unimpressed, and even though it makes their entire stance a massive contradiction, then it's more evidence they don't deserve peoples trust.

No, the policy issue was pointed out by the members of DDI that had been speaking to the public through local meetings etc. I was simply pointing out that i noticed people focusing on the policy issue at the start asking "how can you have a political party with no policies sure no one knows what your about?" using it as a negative, now that they create policies people are ridiculing them saying its contradictory again using it as a negative. I dont know, maybe you like to think some lad or group of lads on boards.ie made DDI develope policy but it isnt, its the people that would like to see a new democratic model succeed and actively try to progress it that make the changes.

MilanPan!c wrote: »

- All of their policies dovetail with their leadership's conspiracy theories nicely, so it's fairly obvious that these policies say a lot about the ideology of the party. That should give people pause.

All of the policies?
Can you supply your opinion on each policy providing evidence as to why you think the policy dovetails with a conspiracy theory?

MilanPan!c

Hijpo wrote: »

No, the policy issue was pointed out by the members of DDI that had been speaking to the public through local meetings etc. I was simply pointing out that i noticed people focusing on the policy issue at the start asking "how can you have a political party with no policies sure no one knows what your about?" using it as a negative, now that they create policies people are ridiculing them saying its contradictory again using it as a negative. I dont know, maybe you like to think some lad or group of lads on boards.ie made DDI develope policy but it isnt, its the people that would like to see a new democratic model succeed and actively try to progress it that make the changes.


All of the policies?
Can you supply your opinion on each policy providing evidence as to why you think the policy dovetails with a conspiracy theory?

Go look at their policies. If you can't connect the dots I'd think I can't help you.

As for them being pressured into making policies because some group of people thought they were ridiculous without policies, my point still stands.

If they are designing their entire concept of a party based on disgruntled feedback they'll end up with a party no one can support.

Which is pretty much where they are.

Hijpo

MilanPan!c wrote: »

Go look at their policies. If you can't connect the dots I'd think I can't help you.

As for them being pressured into making policies because some group of people thought they were ridiculous without policies, my point still stands.

If they are designing their entire concept of a party based on disgruntled feedback they'll end up with a party no one can support.

Which is pretty much where they are.

I ask for you for your evidence to support your opinion, then you tell me to go find your evidence to back up your views using the contradictory views i have on your opinion?

Wheres the sense in your post??

MilanPan!c

Hijpo wrote: »

I ask for you for your evidence to support your opinion, then you tell me to go find your evidence to back up your views using the contradictory views i have on your opinion?

Wheres the sense in your post??

I didn't tell you to find evidence. I told you if you can't see what's plain as day then there's little chance you'll understand it if it's explained to you.

In other words, I can't really help you.

Feel free to keep trying to understand, but.... It's not looking good for you.

oscarBravo

Hijpo wrote: »

I was simply pointing out that i noticed people focusing on the policy issue at the start asking "how can you have a political party with no policies sure no one knows what your about?" using it as a negative, now that they create policies people are ridiculing them saying its contradictory again using it as a negative.

The two are not mutually exclusive. It's possible for both to be negatives, but in different ways.

A political party without policies is going to be a difficult sell to Irish voters, because Irish voters are used to their parties having policies. If you ask a voter for a preference, but tell them that the policies you'll introduce will be decided at a later date, you're selling them a pig in a poke. That's a negative.

On the other hand, it's exactly how direct democracy is supposed to work, so if instead the party does decide on its policies, it's contradicting its own core ethos. That's also a negative.

I don't know how you square that circle, but you can't just dismiss the criticisms, because they're both valid in their own way.

Hijpo

MilanPan!c wrote: »

I didn't tell you to find evidence. I told you if you can't see what's plain as day then there's little chance you'll understand it if it's explained to you.

In other words, I can't really help you.

Feel free to keep trying to understand, but.... It's not looking good for you.

I would like for you to expand on your claims that "All of their policies dovetail with their leadership's conspiracy theories"

Now can you provide an explaination where you see a conspiracy theory in all the policies or not?

If you cant provide the explanations to back up your own conspiracy theory then your claims are inaccurate and tells me you have only commented in that way so you can fit in with the lads and be in with the gang on this thread