The wondrous adventures of Sinn Fein (part 3) Mod Notes and Threadbanned List in OP

Deleted User wrote: »

SF operate using the principles of democratic centralism, Patrice. Mary Lou consulted with the ‘national leadership’ and Molotov Martina was stood down.

So do the other large parties in the Dáil. In fact, the only two I can definitively say don't (or at least didn't, at their inception) are the SocDems and Renua. It's possible that Aontu are also on this list but I don't know enough about their inner workings.

The very reason Renua exists as a party is because of FG's democratic centralism. It was founded by people who got kicked out of the party for thinking for themselves. Aontu was the same, with regard to SF.

This is the reason I've always voted for independent candidates and continue to do so. It is for the very reasons I mentioned above, to do with friends and family suffering the most horrific experiences due to the cost of living spiralling out of control, that I bumped SF up to second place on my ballot paper in the 2020 election. I'm sure many people acted in a similar way.

blanch152 wrote: »

One of the problems of today is limited social circles, where people surround themselves with others who think and act the same as them, sometimes deliberately, sometimes inadvertently. Social media adds to this problem, with people finding confirmation bias whereever they look.

Ridiculous assertion. Most of the Boomer / Gen X folk in my own family would be FG voters. One of my uncles is a Green Party member. The millennials are SFers. Among my close friends, two of them are card carrying FG members, one of them (my ex girlfriend, indeed) is a card carrying IFP member, former Renua. These are childhood friends, school friends, people I met in college. Over time, our political opinions have diverged and re-merged, and diverged again. Such is life. I personally don't discriminate based on politics when deciding who to be friends with.

What I can tell you is that I've been beating the leftist drum since I was a teenager and it's only in the last three years or so that people my age have come around to this way of thinking. Many of the people I'm talking about ridiculed me relentlessly for my leftist activism during the 2000s and early 2010s. The flocking to SF I've witnessed among people I literally never would have imagined voting for them even five years ago has been incredible. Dismiss it as anecdotal all you like, but as others have said, there are statistics and polls to back this up.

I honestly don't know what evidence you'll accept, if personal anecdotes are out and polling data, both opinion and exit, is also out. What exactly are you looking for, as evidence that millennials have overwhelmingly flocked to SF - regardless of their own background or that of their family - and that the horrendous housing situation they have been landed with by the previous government is the cause of this?

Denying it as you continue to do seems very pointless to me and honestly I don't quite understand it. Just to be clear, are you actually denying that Ireland's young people have overwhelmingly chosen SF over the last three or so years? And are you denying that for most of those people, the Troubles don't even register as a relevant issue as long as they're being asked to pay four figures every month for one bedroom flats?

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

SF has no housing policy other than criticize government policy. No plan to reduce land costs, to reduce the capacity to object (something their housing spokesperson is at the forefront of doing), to reduce construction costs, to increase the number of construction workers.

No health improvement policy is other than criticize the current administration.

They are in opposition, for which criticism (or the fake holding government to account) is their call, but they pursue it as a populist agenda; dual pricing in insurance as an example, in which case would only end up ensuring that no one would get cheaper quotes.

It all sounds so great which is why I can't fault people influenced by social media for falling for their bull. But it's almost a guarantee that those floating voters will be sorely disappointed with SF in government. They will be the Irish version of Brexiters who claim that they didn't get the Brexit they voted for.

They claim they want to return to the decades-long policy (until the mid-2000s) of directly building public housing on public land. That is a huge difference compared with the other two big parties.

Maybe they're lying about it. Maybe they're not lying about it but won't succeed in doing it. Sure. BUT - and this is what so many of their detractors here don't seem to ever think about - would you admit that if you have a broken leg and a choice of two doctors, the doctor who says "I'm going to try to do something to fix it" is the better option than the doctor who says "just learn to live with being in agonising pain, I'm not going to do anything to help fix your leg"?

The other two of the big three have point blank refused to do anything about this issue. One of them has openly told an entire generation that declining living standards over time are just a fact of life in a neoliberal system and essentially "tough, get used to it". SF are at least stating that this is a problem which should be addressed, and have proposed measures to address it. The other two seem to literally revel in the exploitation of the young.

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

SF has no housing policy other than criticize government policy. No plan to reduce land costs, to reduce the capacity to object (something their housing spokesperson is at the forefront of doing), to reduce construction costs, to increase the number of construction workers.

No health improvement policy is other than criticize the current administration.

They are in opposition, for which criticism (or the fake holding government to account) is their call, but they pursue it as a populist agenda; dual pricing in insurance as an example, in which case would only end up ensuring that no one would get cheaper quotes.

It all sounds so great which is why I can't fault people influenced by social media for falling for their bull. But it's almost a guarantee that those floating voters will be sorely disappointed with SF in government. They will be the Irish version of Brexiters who claim that they didn't get the Brexit they voted for.

Whatever else about you post there is some amount of bitterness in: 'or the fake holding government to account'.

How dare anyone hold or even try to hold the power swap to account.

tikkahunter

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

So do the other large parties in the Dáil. In fact, the only two I can definitively say don't (or at least didn't, at their inception) are the SocDems and Renua. It's possible that Aontu are also on this list but I don't know enough about their inner workings.

The very reason Renua exists as a party is because of FG's democratic centralism. It was founded by people who got kicked out of the party for thinking for themselves. Aontu was the same, with regard to SF.

This is the reason I've always voted for independent candidates and continue to do so. It is for the very reasons I mentioned above, to do with friends and family suffering the most horrific experiences due to the cost of living spiralling out of control, that I bumped SF up to second place on my ballot paper in the 2020 election. I'm sure many people acted in a similar way.

Ridiculous assertion. Most of the Boomer / Gen X folk in my own family would be FG voters. One of my uncles is a Green Party member. The millennials are SFers. Among my close friends, two of them are card carrying FG members, one of them (my ex girlfriend, indeed) is a card carrying IFP member, former Renua. These are childhood friends, school friends, people I met in college. Over time, our political opinions have diverged and re-merged, and diverged again. Such is life. I personally don't discriminate based on politics when deciding who to be friends with.

What I can tell you is that I've been beating the leftist drum since I was a teenager and it's only in the last three years or so that people my age have come around to this way of thinking. Many of the people I'm talking about ridiculed me relentlessly for my leftist activism during the 2000s and early 2010s. The flocking to SF I've witnessed among people I literally never would have imagined voting for them even five years ago has been incredible. Dismiss it as anecdotal all you like, but as others have said, there are statistics and polls to back this up.

I honestly don't know what evidence you'll accept, if personal anecdotes are out and polling data, both opinion and exit, is also out. What exactly are you looking for, as evidence that millennials have overwhelmingly flocked to SF - regardless of their own background or that of their family - and that the horrendous housing situation they have been landed with by the previous government is the cause of this?

Denying it as you continue to do seems very pointless to me and honestly I don't quite understand it. Just to be clear, are you actually denying that Ireland's young people have overwhelmingly chosen SF over the last three or so years? And are you denying that for most of those people, the Troubles don't even register as a relevant issue as long as they're being asked to pay four figures every month for one bedroom flats?

You are correct it was a protest vote , but these voters will unfortunately see no difference when they Vote SF in - well they will see a difference as their rent on their one bedroom flat will go up when SF tax the life out of the land lord - he will just pass on the cost.

tikkahunter wrote: »

You are correct it was a protest vote , but these voters will unfortunately see no difference when they Vote SF in - well they will see a difference as their rent on their one bedroom flat will go up when SF tax the life out of the land lord - he will just pass on the cost.

Maybe. We'll have to see. The point is that people are now backed up against the wall to the extent that they're willing to take the risk, because doing nothing is less palatable than doing something, even if that something is a coin flip as to whether it will lessen or worsen the problem.

I'd argue you're focusing on the wrong element of SF's housing policy though and ignoring the core staple which is what's causing young people to vote for them - a return to the mass-building of social housing by the state, to be rented at levels proportional to one's means - rather similar to the concept of progressive taxation. That's what SF's newfound surge of young voters really wants. SF have said they want to deliver it, FF and FG have said that they categorically do not and instead want to condemn young people to a life of neo-tenement living instead.

SF might fail to deliver what they've promised. But to use another analogy, it's a lot more palatable for a drowning man to swim towards the person who's said they'll try to throw them a life ring, than to the person who's said "tough sh!t, we're not going to help you, if you drown we don't care".

I genuinely feel a lot of people in this thread don't fully comprehend the sheer rage that Eoghan Murphy alone instilled in young people with his comments about Bartra's dystopian nightmare development in Dun Laoghaire, which happened to coincide roughly with Dublin City Council being forced by the central government to sell half of the O'Devaney site to that same developer.

No one incident did more to boost SF's electoral prospects than this. No one politician did more to boost SF's electoral prospects than FG's Eoghan Murphy.

tikkahunter

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Maybe. We'll have to see. The point is that people are now backed up against the wall to the extent that they're willing to take the risk, because doing nothing is less palatable than doing something, even if that something is a coin flip as to whether it will lessen or worsen the problem.

I'd argue you're focusing on the wrong element of SF's housing policy though and ignoring the core staple which is what's causing young people to vote for them - a return to the mass-building of social housing by the state, to be rented at levels proportional to one's means - rather similar to the concept of progressive taxation. That's what SF's newfound surge of young voters really wants. SF have said they want to deliver it, FF and FG have said that they categorically do not and instead want to condemn young people to a life of neo-tenement living instead.

SF might fail to deliver what they've promised. But to use another analogy, it's a lot more palatable for a drowning man to swim towards the person who's said they'll try to throw them a life ring, than to the person who's said "tough sh!t, we're not going to help you, if you drown we don't care".

I genuinely feel a lot of people in this thread don't fully comprehend the sheer rage that Eoghan Murphy alone instilled in young people with his comments about Bartra's dystopian nightmare development in Dun Laoghaire, which happened to coincide roughly with Dublin City Council being forced by the central government to sell half of the O'Devaney site to that same developer.

No one incident did more to boost SF's electoral prospects than this. No one politician did more to boost SF's electoral prospects than FG's Eoghan Murphy.

Agreed and the way the German pension funds are snapping up whole developments at the moment is doing the current government no favors- but on the other hand you have SF councilors all over Facebook and social media objecting to developments in areas that need them . They seem happy to see a place go to wreck and ruin.

tikkahunter wrote: »

Agreed and the way the German pension funds are snapping up whole developments at the moment is doing the current government no favors- but on the other hand you have SF councilors all over Facebook and social media objecting to developments in areas that need them . They seem happy to see a place go to wreck and ruin.

While some SFers do annoyingly engage in NIMBYism just like other parties, many of their objections over the last few years have been specifically related to the proportion of public to private units being built on public land - and this is exactly what young people paying through the nose in rent want to see more of. FG and FF gifting desperately needed state owned land to developers like Bartra is precisely why SF are enjoying the surge they're enjoying.

I'm not denying that their housing policy is a mess, by the way. It's just less of a mess than FF or FG's. I mean, you said it yourself in this post - "the way the German pension funds are snapping up whole developments at the moment is doing the current government no favors". That is literally neoliberalism 101 - corporations are people, they have the same rights as people, there's no such thing as social conscience when making policy and we can't possibly enact policies which prioritise human beings over businesses.

FG and FF are delighted to see this. It caters very explicitly to the ideology they support. And that's why young people are so furious with them.

To put it very bluntly, for your average struggling millennial, it genuinely feels like FF and FG's combined youth policy is "you are literally working every day to make money for retired boomers and people who trade property like stocks and shares. You don't matter, only the money you earn for our demographic to take from you". SF don't seem to feel this way, and so, they are popular.

Young people are also voting for other parties
Its a larger number
One of the issues here is expecting the perfect
The market doesnt allow for that
Socialism certainly doesn't
You have to work at it yourself
It was ever thus
No panacea for any other route has ever been found

Fann Linn

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

SF has no housing policy other than criticize government policy. No plan to reduce land costs, to reduce the capacity to object (something their housing spokesperson is at the forefront of doing), to reduce construction costs, to increase the number of construction workers.

No health improvement policy is other than criticize the current administration.

They are in opposition, for which criticism (or the fake holding government to account) is their call, but they pursue it as a populist agenda; dual pricing in insurance as an example, in which case would only end up ensuring that no one would get cheaper quotes.

It all sounds so great which is why I can't fault people influenced by social media for falling for their bull. But it's almost a guarantee that those floating voters will be sorely disappointed with SF in government. They will be the Irish version of Brexiters who claim that they didn't get the Brexit they voted for.

This isn't SF criticising govt housing policy. It's journalists, economists, central bank and other stake holders. If SF can offer an alternative young people, renters, are going to look there.

jimmycrackcorm

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Whatever else about you post there is some amount of bitterness in: 'or the fake holding government to account'.

How dare anyone hold or even try to hold the power swap to account.

How is the populist approach to insurance dual pricing holding the government to account?

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

They claim they want to return to the decades-long policy (until the mid-2000s) of directly building public housing on public land. That is a huge difference compared with the other two big parties.

I suggest you actually read their housing policy - there's a detailed pdf on their site.
Amusing that one of their policy tenets is to investigate why local authorities turn down NAMA offers, given that their own councilors are a part of those authorities.

There isn't a single mention of "Direct building", which is not surprising as it's totally impractical for LA's to try to become developers. They refer to using public land by housing associations such as Clúid, but I wonder if there is no push for their councilors to do that now with the public lands they control purely to keep the housing crisis as a focal political point.

Fann Linn wrote: »

This isn't SF criticising govt housing policy. It's journalists, economists, central bank and other stake holders. If SF can offer an alternative young people, renters, are going to look there.

SF has also been vocal. If they have an alternative then yes, but Eoin O'Broin could demonstrate that by not objecting to developments providing that.

piplip87

I see Joe McCanns case was thrown out yesterday. A nice timely reminder of Shinner logic.

IRA man killed = Murder
British Army man killed- Legitimate Target
UVF man killed - Legitimate Target
Child killed by IRA bomb- Collateral Damage.

Always the victim never to blame.

piplip87 wrote: »

I see Joe McCanns case was thrown out yesterday. A nice timely reminder of Shinner logic.

IRA man killed = Murder
British Army man killed- Legitimate Target
UVF man killed - Legitimate Target
Child killed by IRA bomb- Collateral Damage.

Always the victim never to blame.

McCann was a stickie. The provos would have got him if the Brits hadn’t.

Furze99

FrancieBrady wrote: »

That's your opinion.

I believe they have truly ended the military campaign. I believe they are way ahead of Unionism in reconciliation terms and have zero sectarian, culturally bigoted policies and are a political party with a mandate.

These ^ are things they have done.

That is not to deny there are some problems from time to time and I agree there are problems the party needs to overcome. But I think they are changing perceptions about themselves and appealing to an ever growing base.

Well as I say it's best to judge people and parties by what they do and how they act. History can be rewritten but it takes time.

Like many RoI voters, I think the ideal is an agreed 32 county all Ireland state of some sort. Under no circumstances would I vote for that though, unless I knew there was broad acceptance across the north in both nationalist & unionist communities for this new entity. There's a job of work to be done by SF and the other NI parties.

Furze99 wrote: »

Well as I say it's best to judge people and parties by what they do and how they act. History can be rewritten but it takes time.

Like many RoI voters, I think the ideal is an agreed 32 county all Ireland state of some sort. Under no circumstances would I vote for that though, unless I knew there was broad acceptance across the north in both nationalist & unionist communities for this new entity. There's a job of work to be done by SF and the other NI parties.

Partition ensures there will never be broad acceptance. Saying you are waiting for that to occur is just a crutch and the creation of a veto for unionism.

blanch152

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/bobby-sands-burial-wishes-ignored-in-favour-of-politically-beneficial-belfast-funeral-40388882.html

I don't know which is more sickening the exploitation of Bobby Sands by Sinn Fein (ignoring his wishes for his funeral in favour of a political pageant) or the explotation of Bobby Sands by Sinn Fein (profiting financially on his death through the sale of memorabilia) or the exploitation of Bobby Sands by Sinn Fein (encouraging a man to take his own life).

blanch152 wrote: »

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/bobby-sands-burial-wishes-ignored-in-favour-of-politically-beneficial-belfast-funeral-40388882.html

I don't know which is more sickening the exploitation of Bobby Sands by Sinn Fein (ignoring his wishes for his funeral in favour of a political pageant) or the explotation of Bobby Sands by Sinn Fein (profiting financially on his death through the sale of memorabilia) or the exploitation of Bobby Sands by Sinn Fein (encouraging a man to take his own life).

Bobby Sands went on hunger strike of his own free will and for a cause he believed in
I think its unwise and unhelpful for posters or unionist ethos newspapers to oppine otherwise
It doesn't foster moving on and working together and thats needed.

batman75

Is it fair to say that Bobby Sands was a key figure in decision of Adams and McGuinness to pursue politics as a means of achieving their aims?

nigeldaniel

blanch152 wrote: »

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/bobby-sands-burial-wishes-ignored-in-favour-of-politically-beneficial-belfast-funeral-40388882.html

I don't know which is more sickening the exploitation of Bobby Sands by Sinn Fein (ignoring his wishes for his funeral in favour of a political pageant) or the explotation of Bobby Sands by Sinn Fein (profiting financially on his death through the sale of memorabilia) or the exploitation of Bobby Sands by Sinn Fein (encouraging a man to take his own life).

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. Even though Sf and its supporters will try and dismiss it with their own prefered history of Bobby sands.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/eoghan-harris-dropped-as-sunday-independent-columnist-over-fake-twitter-account-40395774.html

You'd have to wonder what Barbara J. Pym said about the Shinners that went 'far beyond' what the Indo would say or Eoghan for that matter.

https://twitter.com/barbarapym2/status/1262023360705372162?s=19

FrancieBrady wrote: »

You'd have to wonder what Barbara J. Pym said about the Shinners that went 'far beyond' what the Indo would say or Eoghan for that matter.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/eoghan-harris-dropped-as-sunday-independent-columnist-over-fake-twitter-account-40395774.html

Here's the Twitter account

https://twitter.com/barbarapym2?s=09

smurgen

Ah this is a classic. The lads going on about SF troll accounts running troll accounts. Lol

https://twitter.com/barbarapym2/status/1385376072804540417?s=19

smurgen

Me thinks the Indo has questions to answer.
Day in day out SF SF SF. Madness.
https://twitter.com/barbarapym2/status/1373954346984034305?s=19

:D Yes Matt, you nailed it there.

https://twitter.com/cooper_m/status/1390405723910254605

Dyr

I've always found it a sign of how shameless the Shinners are that they commemorate dead IRA volunteers who's were completely against what SF have become back when they were alive.

"Babby Sawnds would hawve deffo accepted pawrtition and the awdmeenstrayshun of British rule in Norn Iron by Rapublicawnns if he was alive today so he would. "

Its a bit like if the Workers Party had commemorated Sean South.

Bambi wrote: »

I've always found it a sign of how shameless the Shinners are that they commemorate dead IRA volunteers who's were completely against what SF have become back when they were alive.

"Babby Sawnds would hawve deffo accepted pawrtition and the awdmeenstrayshun of British rule in Norn Iron by Rapublicawnns if he was alive today so he would. "

Its a bit like if the Workers Party had commemorated Sean South.

That's a bit like a tired old dissident taunt Bambi in fairness.

Party's and people evolve and change. Would the founders of the state or even FG and FF of the 50's recognise their parties today?

Fionn1952

Waiting for the Shinnister brigade to show up and tell everyone there's nothing to see here with Eoghan Harris....

Fionn1952 wrote: »

Waiting for the Shinnister brigade to show up and tell everyone there's nothing to see here with Eoghan Harris....

The accounts 'description' seems to have been updated, I wonder is it the first manifestation (albeit anonymous) of the Partitionist Political Front?

‘Babs ’ is no longer curating this site for health reasons, but ROI comrades, who oppose SF pressure for a united Ireland, will occasionally post material.

Dyr

FrancieBrady wrote: »

That's a bit like a tired old dissident taunt Bambi in fairness.

Party's and people evolve and change. Would the founders of the state or even FG and FF of the 50's recognise their parties today?

Some parties do but When Sands died he was a part of a Republican movement that had stuck to the same priniciples since 1919, thats what defined them. Its a hugh stretch to say he would have accepted partition and administering it.

SF should have the honesty to accept that they moved on, just like the stickies before them, and leave the IRA commemorations to the past or the Bobby Storeys of the world. A lot of the hunger strikers families have taken it out of SFs hands at this stage.