The wondrous adventures of Sinn Fein (part 2)

mynamejeff wrote: »

you underestimate the legacy of the terrorist aspect of sf membership

Likewise, you and many of your fellow anti-Sf posters vastly overestimate it. The vast majority of people born from 1990 onwards place current economic woes orders of magnitude higher on their list of electoral priorities than anything Sinn Fein did before they were old enough to vote.

McMurphy

mynamejeff wrote: »

is that what that was ? lol

one short sentence and you turn to anger and abuse . but I suppose your not a party member either

you underestimate the legacy of the terrorist aspect of sf membership

whats next you gona sccuse me for being a ff fg shill ?

Didn't see any anger or abuse there at all Jeffrey, could you perhaps point it out?

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Young people are suffering now, today. Getting worse every day, indeed. They couldn't give a f*ck about whatever happened years before they were born. That argument is never, ever, ever going to work on them. What they care about is dealing with the cost of living to income inflation imbalance, and literally no amount of deflection is ever going to change that.

I never personally agreed with the "it's the economy, stupid" hypothesis as a general description politics at all times, but when the economic situation is utterly dire, it describes politics perfectly.

so your theory is forget about all the murders terrorism and criminality in the past and ongoing , sure we might not be as bad as the current crop of scumbags in power , after all look how well we are doing in the north

its not a great pitch even to the less educated youth and desperate squeezed middle votes

Truthvader

Deleted User wrote: »

Mate their policies are pretty much a copy/paste of german/italian centre left parties with an irish twist on them

Despite what internet tells you,ffg arent left wing,they are centre/mid right

Mate. Their "policies" are pure Trump, Nigel Farage bullcrap with the added bonus of a hardcore criminal thug element so visible at every count at every election - and of course celebrating the life and times of the vile Bobby Story. Anyone who thinks the criminal element has gone should meet up with a few of them and go for a pint with them and just listen to the chat

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Likewise, you and many of your fellow anti-Sf posters vastly overestimate it. The vast majority of people born from 1990 onwards place current economic woes orders of magnitude higher on their list of electoral priorities than anything Sinn Fein did before they were old enough to vote.

you don't think its ongoing ,

its not like the criminality stopped in 1990 though is it . its ongoing and part of the culture of the party

McMurphy

Deleted User wrote: »

It eveidently was,but whatever

Im not angry or abusive,and resent such accusations,i dunno where yous drawing that from?

Neither am i a member,not of any party,dont see point tbh

Im sure a certain amount of its membership care about the terrorist legacy(id have certain respect for those who defendes their communities myself)

....but the fact stands the majority of those voting for shinners dont care,and the continued lurch to complaining about the ira isnt going to win any voters back or dent its support

It was a failed tactic of Leo and his buds in the last election campaign, and all it seemed to achieve was the exact opposite tbh, with the Shinners receiving record support from every age group bar the over 60s from memory.

Don't they say the definition of madness is repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

The "anger and abuse" line was just strange, constant need to paint themselves as victims.

Truthvader wrote: »

Will have to give this more consideration in the morning. Agree with a lot but some is irrelevant. Plus think our best interests are collectively served by a centre left government. Main point of disagreement. Sinn Fein are not a left wing party at all. They are a populist fascist party relying on a stupid and dangerous cocktail of nationalism and infantile economic policies. Plus a huge criminal element behind ( and indeed in front of the scenes)

Would be very interested to hear your thoughts on on the specifics of the post whenever you get around to it, but as a quick rebuttal - our best interests being collectively served by a centre left government is simply not applicable to young people whose lives are being decimated by the cost of living to income inflation imbalance. Telling people that they have to put up with this sh!te until they're in their late thirties or forties isn't going to fly, incrementalism will not be an electoral success in this instance. They want radical, rapid action to address this. Whether you believe that to be feasible or not is obviously another matter - personally I do, but I and most other young people are looking at it through a much, much wider Overton Window than previous generations did. Put simply, the extremist interpretation of private property rights implying that amassing vast collections of excess property for the purposes of passive income generation is morally acceptable is now on the table as something to be discussed politically. For most prior generations, this is absolute anathema. I reckon this is where the big disconnect is coming from.

For example, I've seen it very regularly stated on social media etc by people my age that allowing foreign "funds" and organisations to bulk buy Irish property for the purposes of charging the maximum rent they can get away with, regardless of how this hurts peoples' everyday quality of life, is the 21st century equivalent of allowing gigantic quantities of food to be exported during the famine so as it could turn a higher profit, regardless of how many Irish people starved as a result. The old paradigms of capitalism are simply not untouchable sacred cows to this generation. They do not believe that it's morally acceptable to charge as much as "the market" allows, without consideration of how it affects others. They do not believe that it's morally acceptable to hoard resources one doesn't need for one's own personal use without restriction, just because "the market" will allow it. They do not believe that unproductive, exploitative passive income is morally acceptable as a way of living.

I could go on and on, but there really is a fundamental disconnect in terms of the Overton Window between the generations flocking to SF and those who are scratching their heads over it. They don't look at people who own two or three homes which they don't live in, from which they are deriving four figure rents on which to retire, as "successful businesspeople", they look at those people as leeches on society who are actively contributing to making the world a nastier place for everybody else. It really is a fundamental difference in perspective and in my view without understanding this, nobody will be able to understand why the electorate is voting the way it is.

With regard to SF not being a true leftist party, that doesn't matter. If their leftist policies are mere window dressing to get people to vote for them so they can pursue their UI agenda, who cares? They know they have to at least attempt to deliver, or only survive one election cycle in government. Young people are desperate enough that SF's reasons for offering leftist economic policies are entirely irrelevant. All that matters is whether or not they attempt to deliver. If reducing the cost of living is merely a ploy to win votes, as long as they do it (or meaningfully attempt to do it) none of their voters will care why they're doing it.

McMurphy wrote: »

It was a failed tactic of Leo and his buds in the last election campaign, and all it seemed to achieve was the exact opposite tbh, with the Shinners receiving record support from every age group bar the over 60s from memory.

Don't they say the definition of madness is repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

The "anger and abuse" line was just strange, constant need to paint themselves as victims.

themselves ?

whos that ?

McMurphy

mynamejeff wrote: »

themselves ?

whos that ?

You didn't answer my last question Jeffrey, why accuse the lad of "anger and abuse" when he was nothing but civil and courteous in his exchanges with you?

Called you out in your absolute horse shyte and you think I'm going to let you take me off on a different tangent now, is that it?

Yeah_Right

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I presume you reckon a return to the kind of genuine social democracy Ireland used to have, resulting in a reasonably satisfied electorate and a consequent period of relative political stability, is completely out of the question?

.....

Either way, none of your arguments against SF actually address this problem. And that's why, at least in my view, all of those arguments are failures. You're completely ignoring the fact that of the big three parties, most young people genuinely and sincerely believe that it's intentional malice on the part of two of them - not mere incompetence or helplessness - which has resulted in the cost of living / income imbalance which is driving the political upheaval. And that the third one is at least willing to take a stab at fixing the problem, as opposed to allowing it to worsen because another cohort are benefitting from it.

I actually agree with a lot of your suggestions and reforms. I think they are long overdue. However I don't see SF or PBP suggesting them. All they talk about is taxing me more. That's their solution. Increase taxes. And the Apple money. They simply spout populist BS with no actual plan.

BTW, I only edited your post due to its length.

@hatrick, I agree broadly with your reasons why people have left FF and FG, but what on earth makes you think SF are the answer? I can understand why people voted for them, but totally disagree. Explain the demographics looking after themselves for a start please.

mynamejeff wrote: »

so your theory is forget about all the murders terrorism and criminality in the past and ongoing , sure we might not be as bad as the current crop of scumbags in power , after all look how well we are doing in the north

its not a great pitch even to the less educated youth and desperate squeezed middle votes

I'm not posting any of this to encourage others to vote SF, I'm posting it in an attempt to explain why so many of my generation have already decided to do so. This isn't a pitch, it's an analysis. My generations wants a fundamental, radical move away from neoliberal capitalism. FFG are utterly committed to neoliberal capitalism and as such will 100% certainly not deliver. SF are the only other party which has at least the prospect that they might deliver. It's as simple as that.

That's not a pitch. I'm not telling anyone else to vote for SF. I'm explaining why so many of my own peers chose to vote for them this year for the first time ever.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

They were only party to put forward some attempt to solve issues at last election.....ffg to my eyes essentially said it was too difficult to solve and therrfore shouldnt be attempted

Nothing will ever change,if you reward/elect lack of ambition

It was a feeble attempt, one that didn't stand up to the most basic of scrutiny. Explain the demographics looking after themselves as I said, it was a key aspect of their election campaign.

Yeah_Right

mynamejeff wrote: »

so your theory is forget about all the murders terrorism and criminality in the past and ongoing , sure we might not be as bad as the current crop of scumbags in power , after all look how well we are doing in the north

its not a great pitch even to the less educated youth and desperate squeezed middle votes

The young Sinn Fein voters are the same as Trump voters. They're willing to sell their soul and bin their morals in the hope the party might improve their lot.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Neo-liberialism which ffg are proud to support,is only essentially a rebrand of 19th century laissez-faire econmics which ultimately lead to a famine here,and we need only look to america/uk for the inequality it eventually leads to......personally long term i do not want ireland to end up with wealth inequalities that exist in either of these

Missed this edit, and it still does not go anywhere close to explaining why SF are the answer. Plenty of flaws with our current system, but roaring FAIRNESS while oozing naivety will not fix them.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Its better than no attempt though.....ffg essemtialy stood on platform.of more of the same....while rents spiralling,homelessness through the roof,serious social issues developing

(on anniversairy of lovett death,in middle of election campaign,a homeless woman gave birth on side of street in distressed state on side of street due to not wanting to return to shelter cos of drugs and we are expected to vote for more of the same??)

Ireland can and should do better

No it was not better than no attempt, it was something a 5 year old could pick flaws in and nonsensical in a lot of ways. Tell me why someone who thinks the demographics looking after themselves will be the answer please.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You cannot expect change if you do same thing over and over.(ie vote ffg)...its einstein defintion of insanity

Why are SF the answer? Are you one who believes things could not get any worse?

Jinglejangle69

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You cannot expect change if you do same thing over and over.(ie vote ffg)...its einstein defintion of insanity

Always loved this Einstein quote that suddenly makes it real if some normal Joe soap quotes it years later!!

You're real clever mate weldone:)

Jinglejangle69

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Agh yes...missed the ffg condescending sneering :yawn:

Just drop another Einstein quote in and we can all go to bed easily:)

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It was better than no attempt in my eyes,at least someone wants to stand up and sort the issues,instead of shrugging shoulders,say its too difficult and scream terrorist at anyone who proposes something different

Demographics are going to vote for those who serve their interest best,those who are paying 40% disposible income in rent are going to vote for someone who wants to at least try solve the housing crisis......

whats going on is unsustainable,but its in ffg interest to keep it going...they arent going to vote againest there interest,the preception is they are the landlord parties and they have done nothing to dispell this,only introduce rent controls,which are simply being ignored

We'll agree to disagree on SF'S nonsensical approach being better than what we have.

The demographics looking after themselves was Mary Lou's brain dead "plan" for not increasing the pension age. Explain that one to me please. Not how people vote

McMurphy wrote: »

You didn't answer my last question Jeffrey, why accuse the lad of "anger and abuse" when he was nothing but civil and courteous in his exchanges with you?

Called you out in your absolute horse shyte and you think I'm going to let you take me off on a different tangent now, is that it?

again with a the aggression ….

wild tangents and pointless diversions have been the theme of this thread since day one just ask the rest of the sinnerbots

[Deleted User] wrote: »

There is noone else to vote for??

,they've all had a go and not bothered even trying to sort the issue

So no matter how hair brained their plans, you would have voted for them?

mynamejeff wrote: »

you don't think its ongoing ,

its not like the criminality stopped in 1990 though is it . its ongoing and part of the culture of the party

Allegedly. And regardless, right now, people are willing to settle as long as they get the change in policy direction they want.

Most of this generation don't care who a politician is or what their lives are like outside the Dáil, it's about which legislation you vote yes on and which legislation you vote no on. All other considerations will be secondary until the cost of living to income inflation issue has been dealt with.

I honestly feel many here underestimate just how bad it is for so many young people. Three of best friends went through it last year, I could tell you the story but of course you'd all tell me that anecdotes are meaningless so I won't bore ye. All I'll say is that of those three, two of them had never voted SF in their lives before they found themselves out of their decent one bedroom flats - flats, not studios - in a seller's market in which rents in the areas concerned had had roughly €500 slapped on them since the same period the previous year, and Eoghan Murphy was telling them they should be excited to pay these newly inflated prices for bedrooms which didn't even have their own kitchenettes.

One of these three went from paying €1,250 per month from 2018 to paying €1,650 per month after finally finding a new place. The new place is in a former family home shoddily converted into flats by a vulture fund or REIT or whatever, much smaller, with broken windows, dodgy heating and appallingly slow response times to issues raised. And it's a miracle she managed to get this place given that literally everywhere she looked had hundreds of applications within minutes of going up on Daft.

That is an absolutely ridiculous level of inflation in just one year. That's the reality for many, many young people - anyone my age who aspires to move out of their family home without moving halfway across the country, more or less. That was not the case even three or four years ago and certainly wasn't the case when the recession was still ongoing. The sheer number of people I met in college who moved to Dublin for college in 2009 and have worked extremely hard since graduating only to be forced to move back home, often on the other side of the country, because they simply can't keep up with the cost of living is insane. And this is something which has only happened in the latter half of this decade. People are suffering. Peoples' lives are falling apart. Peoples' relationships are turning into long distance relationships, their social networks are being scattered to the four winds, etc etc etc all because they are being forced out of the areas they have come to call 'home' in their adult lives by people who don't give a f*ck who they hurt as long as they get their ever increasing passive income from someone.

Tell this generation that you're ideologically opposed to building social housing and that they should just get used to their quality of life getting sh!ttier and sh!ttier without any saving in the cost of living, and that generation will tell you to f*ck yourself. It's that simple. Tell that generation that the politician promising them social housing, rent control, and reforms to tackle the cost of living is a bad person when they're not voting in favour of legislation to make those peoples' lives orders of magnitude less difficult, and that generation will shrug their shoulders and tell you that they need a f*cking break, come what may.

The SF surge is entirely of the other parties' own making. The way they and their supporters keep lashing out and insulting those young people who have flocked to SF is a perfect example of just how out of touch they are. It's so, so easy to do that when you're not the one facing being forced out of your town or city by spiralling rent prices.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The approach we have now,is do nothing...anything is better than nothing

I dunno anything about pension age,im well away from it (iirc ff also come onboard with not increasing it?)....

Your wanting to know people motivation.....people can see what way country is going,can see themselves unable to save/build a future with excessive rents,can see immigrants bailing out as they can make a better life in eastern europe when all considered with rents etc....and ffg want to continue as we are??

I.mean like,if your happy with status quo and wau country is headed,by all means vote ffg,but i dont want any kids of mine,or nieces/nephews to grow up in ****ter,wetter version of the US or in a hotel room,of heaven forbid their parents lose a job and cant afford rent.....theres noone my age,who didnt give extended periods on dole/sh1t wages due to last recession,the likelyhood of raising kids in a hotel room is a v.real likelyhood/possibility

Regarding the pension age, yes FF were on board with it, it was a Bertie style trick- short term gain for long term pain. Ironically, this is an example of SF wanting to do nothing versus taking some steps to alleviate the problem.

I understand the motivation of voting SF, what I was asking is why SF were the answer. I cannot see SF solving any of those issues you mention given the nonsense they have come out with.

Am I happy with the status quo? No, but I think whoever I vote for should be an improvement over the current lot.

Yeah_Right wrote: »

The young Sinn Fein voters are the same as Trump voters. They're willing to sell their soul and bin their morals in the hope the party might improve their lot.

Jesus Christ. You talk as if these people are voting for SF so they can have an extra holiday in the summer and not literally because they are under threat of losing their home and their hard earned independence. Are you seriously that unaware of what's happening to the rent generation right now?

christy c wrote: »

@hatrick, I agree broadly with your reasons why people have left FF and FG, but what on earth makes you think SF are the answer? I can understand why people voted for them, but totally disagree.

As I said in my post, SF understand why young people are angry and have proposed solutions. None of the other parties have. Literally this, in black and white - Mary Lou spelled out precisely why young peoples' lives are unravelling. FF and FG are either in denial about it or don't care. It's that simple.

As I did mention, the SocDems are an exception. In my view they should have been on a par with SF in terms of popularity in the last election and I'm still genuinely puzzled as to why they weren't. But the rest of it holds true. FFG are committed to neoliberalism. Labour and Green have made it clear that they won't stand up for ordinary people if in coalition. S/PBP are too fractured to form a government by themselves. That only leaves SF and SocDem. Most young people unfortunately don't have the faith in independents that I do.

Explain the demographics looking after themselves for a start please.

How do you mean?

Yeah_Right wrote: »

I actually agree with a lot of your suggestions and reforms. I think they are long overdue. However I don't see SF or PBP suggesting them. All they talk about is taxing me more. That's their solution. Increase taxes. And the Apple money. They simply spout populist BS with no actual plan.

SF talk about returning to the early to late 20th century model of state built, state owned, cost-rental social housing on a large scale. No other party does this. The other proposals I mentioned were because so many here don't want to address the housing issue, but SF have talked about all of them. Liability insurance for starters, SF were addressing this even before the Maria Bailey sh!te. They've been talking about the state subvention to public transport for years. Etc.

[Deleted User]

christy c wrote: »

Am I happy with the status quo? No, but I think whoever I vote for should be an improvement over the current lot.

To.my eyes.....they are an improvement....whats happening now isnt working,isnt going to work either

Rents are up 40% in my area in less than 3 years,the only people wanting to tackle this are shinners

We have people working tomorrow,sleeping in cars tonight in almost every city here now.....rents are simply out of control across the state,piltown south kk is a rent pressure zone now.....

Rest of country pre-covid was at best 18 months behind dublin in terms of rents/homeless levels....and yet we are expected to vote ffg....because sf used have terrorist background/killed some lad in a shed in monahan yonks ago....while each month,people in my area fork out 1100 rent for houses,which were sold for 78K during the crash

@hatrickpatrick, quotes are all over the place. I'm asking how SF are possibly the answer to out problems. Their solution to the pension time bomb is that the demographics would look after themselves. How could anyone with their head in the clouds like this be the answer?

[Deleted User] wrote: »

To.my eyes.....they are an improvement....whats happening now isnt working,isnt going to work either

Rents are up 40% in my area in less than 3 years,the only people wanting to tackle this are shinners

We have people working tomorrow,sleeping in cars in almost every city here now.....rents are simply out of control across the state,piltown south kk is a rent pressure zone now.....

Rest of country pre-covid was at best 18 months behind dublin in terms of rents/homeless levels....and yet we are expected to vote ffg....because sf used have terrorist background/killed some lad in a shed in monahan yonks ago....while each month,people in my area fork out 1100 rent for houses,which were sold for 78K during the crash

Again just listing the problems, of which I agree there are many. Doesn’t matter what they want to tackle if their crazy pension age plan is anything to go by (again an example of where they want to do nothing).

I never mentioned a terrorist background, there are plenty of reasons to despise SF outside of the IRA.

christy c wrote: »

@hatrickpatrick, quotes are all over the place. I'm asking how SF are possibly the answer to out problems. Their solution to the pension time bomb is that the demographics would look after themselves. How could anyone with their head in the clouds like this be the answer?

I haven't looked into the pension issue since the election so I'd rather do some re-reading on this and respond tomorrow or Wednesday if that's ok. As regards other problems, I've already explained this - SF want to return to the 20th century model of social housing in which the state directly hires contractors, builds housing, and rents them to the general public at affordable prices. None of the other parties want to do this because they don't ideologically believe in public housing as a model or policy.

To go back to my doctor analogy from earlier, let's imagine once again that you have a gaping wound. One doctor is saying "well the last time you had a gaping wound, we used sutures and stitches to close it, and you recovered. Let's try that again". The other doctors are saying "well the last time you had a gaping wound, we used sutures and stitches to close it, and you recovered. Let's try some vitamin pills or some physiotherapy to see if it'll help you recover from this, ignoring the fact that you're still losing blood.".

And the quiet bit which they won't say out loud, being "we can't stitch up the wound and stop the bleeding, because our other patients need blood transfusions for elective surgeries and we're willing to let you bleed to death so they can have it". That's what FFG are saying by refusing to build social housing and by essentially telling young people that they have to continue paying obscenely high rents because the property owning class would rather rake in passive income than do something actually productive to earn their living.

To summarise, and I really don't know what else I can tell you if you don't get it from this one simple line:

SF want to relieve pressure on the private housing market by building gigantic amounts of public housing, just like Ireland did from the 1930s to the 1980s. FF and FG do not want to do this. Ergo, to those who believe that a massive Simms-esque social housing program is the answer to Ireland's cost of living issue, of the big three parties SF is the only one proposing to solve the problem. FF and FG are not. And the quiet bit out loud part of the analogy is that it's widely believed that the reason FF and FG won't do it is because their cronies are, by and large, the people who are charging such obscene rents at the moment. A case of non-jobs for the boys, if you like. "Your suffering is ok with us because the people we actually care about are the people your income is being decimated to line the pockets of".

I don't think I can put it any more simply, to be honest. Most young people want the state to intervene in the building of housing and the determination of rents to the same extent that it did when Herbert Simms built tens of thousands of flats and houses in the 1930s and his successors continued to do so until the late 1980s. Sinn Fein have stated that they want to do this. FF and FG have stated that they categorically do not want to do this. Ergo, of the big three, the former is the one young people are choosing to vote for.

Person A wants a bottle of milk. Shop A is selling bottles of milk. Shops B and C are not. Person A therefore does their shopping in Shop A.

Is this really so difficult to understand?