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Are Irish universities spreading propaganda like in the USA/UK?

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    #32
    The_Valeyard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,452 ✭✭✭✭The_Valeyard


    TheDavester wrote: »
    Don't give the ideas to some of them .

    Right now, somewhere.....a group is formed.


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    #33
    BlinkingLights
    Closed Accounts Posts: 910 ✭✭✭BlinkingLights


    I think the main thing we need to realise it's that the USA is basically having a bit if a breakdown at the moment. You've a completely bonkers presidential administration, a legislature the hasn't really been functioning and spends all of its time blocking things and trying to rollback fundamental rights etc etc

    A lot of this safe space stuff is a reaction to an extremely right wing federal government and quite a few crazy state legislature too.

    Ireland doesn't need to and hopefully isn't adopting the US' particular brand of off the wall politics.

    We've a centrist, parliamentary democracy elected by proportional representation, not a binary two party system that swings all over the place. We also (in the Republic anyway) don't have an issue with political religious fundamentalism anymore and have moved far more into the Northern European style of pragmatism.

    We've also got none of the nasty far right politics that is seeking to rollback on things like LGBT rights or turf out religious minorities.

    You have to understand the US campuses and cities too in the sense that the federal government is quite literally out to get them. It's not even just a conspiracy theory - you've a massive anti-academic, anti urban and very far right shift in US politics that is pretty much unprecedented.

    The fact that US students are protesting isn't surprising at all. I would fully expect the US to go into a near social meltdown the way things are going. Something like France in 1968 is probably on the cards over the next few years.

    I think what you're seeing in the states is a sort of unfocused student anger starting to simmer.

    Sadly, I think unless the US (and actually the UK too) find some centrist pragmatism again, they're going to be in for absolute chaos in the short to medium term.


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    #34
    The_Valeyard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,452 ✭✭✭✭The_Valeyard


    BlinkingLights wrote: »
    I think the main thing we need to realise it's that the USA is basically having a bit if a breakdown at the moment. You've a completely bonkers presidential administration, a legislature the hasn't really been functioning and spends all of its time blocking things and trying to rollback fundamental rights etc etc

    A lot of this safe space stuff is a reaction to an extremely right wing federal government and quite a few crazy state legislature too.

    Yeah but lot of this stuff all took off during a Democratic Presidential era. Not a republican era. So it's all a bit odd.


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    #35
    BlinkingLights
    Closed Accounts Posts: 910 ✭✭✭BlinkingLights


    The_Valeyard wrote: »
    Yeah but lot of this stuff all took off during a Democratic Presidential era. Not a republican era. So it's all a bit odd.

    You're all focusing on the president though.
    It took place during an incredibly hostile Congressional period where Obama basically couldn't drive most his policies through.

    The US presidency isn't the sole wielder of power and Congress has not been functioning normally for far longer than that.

    There's a huge issue in so far as this isn't normal US politics. The GOP was a perfectly normal, right leaning, conservative party. You could disagree with them on many issues but still see them as a fair, safe political movement.

    That's changed enormously since the rise of the Tea Party and now the Trump administration.

    Trump's only the flowering phase of what has been fungus that's been destroying the US right for more than a decade now.

    You've also got a situation where because of the electoral college and widespread gerrymandering, the party in power is seeking to hold power.

    There's an unreasonable bias towards rural US votes because of how the system is constructed and a portal of cities and liberal areas as elites, even though they're now grossly underrepresented by a system that was setup for an era when the USA was far less urbanised.

    The whole system is just starting to fall apart and there's seemingly no will to come together and fix it.

    My sense is that the US could easily end up as a loose federation of very independent states looking a lot more like the EU if things keep moving the way they are. The American identity is basically starting to fragment into a whole series of media and political bubbles that can't agree on anything anymore.


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    #36
    Yourself isit
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,257 ✭✭✭Yourself isit


    BlinkingLights wrote: »
    You're all focusing on the president though.
    It took place during an incredibly hostile Congressional period where Obama basically couldn't drive most his policies through.

    The US presidency isn't the sole wielder of power and Congress has not been functioning normally for far longer than that.

    There's a huge issue in so far as this isn't normal US politics. The GOP was a perfectly normal, right leaning, conservative party. You could disagree with them on many issues but still see them as a fair, safe political movement.

    That's changed enormously since the rise of the Tea Party and now the Trump administration.

    Trump's only the flowering phase of what has been fungus that's been destroying the US right for more than a decade now.

    I don't think the universities are a reaction to the tea party. They have always been left wing. Just more radicalised.


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    #37
    The_Valeyard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,452 ✭✭✭✭The_Valeyard


    BlinkingLights wrote: »
    You're all focusing on the president though.
    It took place during an incredibly hostile Congressional period where Obama basically couldn't drive most his policies through.

    The US presidency isn't the sole wielder of power and Congress has not been functioning normally for far longer than that.

    There's a huge issue in so far as this isn't normal US politics. The GOP was a perfectly normal, right leaning, conservative party. You could disagree with them on many issues but still see them as a fair, safe political movement.

    That's changed enormously since the rise of the Tea Party and now the Trump administration.

    Trump's only the flowering phase of what has been fungus that's been destroying the US right for more than a decade now.

    You could equally argue that parts Of the left in the Democratic party went to far left they ended up off a cliff. Some liberal elements acted like a poison and stopped people voting Democrat. Could be bit of both.


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    #38
    BlinkingLights
    Closed Accounts Posts: 910 ✭✭✭BlinkingLights


    The_Valeyard wrote: »
    You could equally argue that parts Of the left in the Democratic party went to far left they ended up off a cliff. Some liberal elements acted like a poison and stopped people voting Democrat. Could be bit of both.

    To be honest, you couldn't really argue that the Democrats are much more than a centrist and even centre right neoliberal party in many ways.

    Their policies are more in line with a European centre right party across most issues.

    They've a bit of a left fringe but it's not very big and that only because American politics is so weirdly structured that everything has to fit into one of two parties.

    I mean other than on abortion (and only in an irish context), you could easily put Hilary Clinton or John Kerry or even Obama into FG, the CDU, the UMP/les républicains or even a centrist Tory.


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    #39
    marcus001
    Registered Users Posts: 528 ✭✭✭marcus001


    Some seem to be upset that I even asked the question


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    #40
    Panjandrums
    Registered Users Posts: 399 ✭✭Panjandrums


    This post has been deleted.


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    #41
    Ulysses Gaze
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,570 ✭✭✭Ulysses Gaze


    super_furry wrote: »
    I've no enemies at all, I'm just left baffled by the amount of Irish people so desperate to wrap themselves up in American online identity nonsense. There's even people declaring their support for the NRA now and getting in rows over US gun rights.

    In your original post though, you just called out the Right Wing/Alt Right.
    The Left wing/Regressive left are just as bad.

    Both sides have their quota of supporters who spend their lives wrapped up in asinine online battles over identity politics.

    The rest of the population just get on with our lives.


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    #42
    marcus001
    Registered Users Posts: 528 ✭✭✭marcus001


    Ulysses Gaze wrote: »
    In your original post though, you just called out the Right Wing/Alt Right.
    The Left wing are just as bad.

    Both sides have their quota of supporters who spend their lives wrapped up in asinine online battles over identity politics.

    The rest of the population just get on with our lives.

    I'm equally baffled by leftist friends posting Leninist memes online and tbh have never actually met someone from the radical right in real life.


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    #43
    BlinkingLights
    Closed Accounts Posts: 910 ✭✭✭BlinkingLights


    Some people seem to be living in on-line US centric media bubbles and extending largely irrelevant debates from both sides of the US arguments to Ireland.

    We need to be very careful we don't get sucked into the vortex of crazy that is American politics right now.

    Ireland could do very well by being a small, pragmatic country right now as US and UK politics go off the deep end and send a lot of people looking for new places to setup shop, away from the inability and populist flying off the deep end stuff.


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    #44
    A_Sober_Paddy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,221 ✭✭✭A_Sober_Paddy


    Had a marketing lecturer who occasionally mentioned conspiracy theories like cancer not being cured because big pharma would not make enough money...But they had the cure...Complete spastic, he also was terrible at his job, he thought some parts of models the wrong way. And it contradicted the book. Was like being told x + y =t by him...But the course book was x + y = h but when you mentioned it too him, he responded well is the author of the book correcting your exams or me


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    #45
    Dyr
    Registered Users Posts: 23,246 ✭✭✭✭Dyr


    BlinkingLights wrote: »
    I think the main thing we need to realise it's that the USA is basically having a bit if a breakdown at the moment. You've a completely bonkers presidential administration, a legislature the hasn't really been functioning and spends all of its time blocking things and trying to rollback fundamental rights etc etc

    A lot of this safe space stuff is a reaction to an extremely right wing federal government and quite a few crazy state legislature too.
    .

    The whole safe space nonsense started long before Donnie had a notion of becoming president.

    I reckon the current schism in American society started with the right wing radio hosts and the rise of the tea party. Their consumerist mindset hasn't helped, the modern american of any persuasion can't seem to cope with not getting their way

    Presume the roman empire went a bit like this before it popped its clogs


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    #46
    TheDavester
    Registered Users Posts: 3,221 ✭✭✭TheDavester


    Panjandrums wrote: »
    It's usually the Students Unions which are run by odd balls spreading nonsense.

    Agreed with them trying to get consent classes mandatory ... least most of them aren't going ahead


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    #47
    Topgear on Dave
    Registered Users Posts: 4,529 ✭✭✭Topgear on Dave


    Bambi wrote: »
    The whole safe space nonsense started long before Donnie had a notion of becoming president.

    I was over there 5 or 6 years ago and remember hearing infowars for the first time.

    What ever was on was bonkers and i was wondering where are ye going with this stuff lads :pac:


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    #48
    Ulysses Gaze
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,570 ✭✭✭Ulysses Gaze


    Bambi wrote: »
    The whole safe space nonsense started long before Donnie had a notion of becoming president.

    I reckon the current schism in American society started with the right wing radio hosts and the rise of the tea party. Their consumerist mindset hasn't helped, the modern american of any persuasion can't seem to cope with not getting their way

    Presume the roman empire went a bit like this before it popped its clogs

    Really started after 9/11 when Bush and NeoCons started throwing their weight around.


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    #49
    marcus001
    Registered Users Posts: 528 ✭✭✭marcus001


    BlinkingLights wrote: »
    To be honest, you couldn't really argue that the Democrats are much more than a centrist and even centre right neoliberal party in many ways.

    Their policies are more in line with a European centre right party across most issues.

    They've a bit of a left fringe but it's not very big and that only because American politics is so weirdly structured that everything has to fit into one of two parties.

    I mean other than on abortion (and only in an irish context), you could easily put Hilary Clinton or John Kerry or even Obama into FG, the CDU, the UMP/les républicains or even a centrist Tory.

    Trying to describe a political party with so many internal factions as one particular thing is silly. There's the corporatist faction, the neoliberal faction, there is a large socialist wing of the Democratic party, and they're taking over at the local level if Sanders' Facebook postings are to be believed.


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    #50
    suicide_circus
    Registered Users Posts: 19,802 ✭✭✭✭suicide_circus


    super_furry wrote: »
    There are too many Irish people getting too wrapped up in American right wing identity politics. All that time spent on alt-right/red pill forums and watching those creepy Youtube videos isn't going to do you any good and you don't have to start looking for "enemies" over here.

    Whatever you do, don't address the flipside of the coin


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    #51
    Yourself isit
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,257 ✭✭✭Yourself isit


    marcus001 wrote: »
    Trying to describe a political party with so many internal factions as one particular thing is silly. There's the corporatist faction, the neoliberal faction, there is a large socialist wing of the Democratic party, and they're taking over at the local level if Sanders' Facebook postings are to be believed.

    The socialist wing - which would be a good idea - is relatively new and not well funded.


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    #52
    Fathom
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Regional East Moderators, Regional Midlands Moderators, Regional Midwest Moderators, Regional Abroad Moderators, Regional North Mods, Regional West Moderators, Regional South East Moderators, Regional North East Moderators, Regional North West Moderators, Regional South Moderators Posts: 9,032 CMod ✭✭✭✭Fathom


    Content & context varies in US between universities and within universities.


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    #53
    RDM_83 again
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,116 ✭✭✭RDM_83 again


    Ulysses Gaze wrote: »
    Really started after 9/11 when Bush and NeoCons started throwing their weight around.

    Or if its a competition to see how far back you can go, it started with Reagans amnesty for migrants, this was meant to be accompanied by a non-partisan support for tougher borders and controls. The former happened and the latter didn't.

    In the UK you can argue that it started with the capture and focus on of certain minority constituencies by the Labour party. If you compare the values and people that the Labour party is traditionally meant to represent it makes no sense that the highly islamic areas vote for them so en-mass. I could say it started with Thatcher but everybody does that.

    My feeling is that a lot of the current "divide" is performative, young white middle class people hate the tories, ten years later and they vote for them. In a society with real divisions like Northern Ireland this doesn't happen.


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    #54
    riffmongous
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,630 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    Topgear on Dave wrote: »
    I was over there 5 or 6 years ago and remember hearing infowars for the first time.

    What ever was on was bonkers and i was wondering where are ye going with this stuff lads :pac:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhqUk28OwHs


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    #55
    padd b1975
    Registered Users Posts: 10,704 ✭✭✭✭padd b1975


    DontThankMe wrote: »
    The one thing I did notice is that a few of the lecturers did bash trump and complain about him but they always said this is my opinion and ppl don't have to agree with me etc.

    Yeah, it's not like they're speaking from a position of authority.....


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    #56
    Ulysses Gaze
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,570 ✭✭✭Ulysses Gaze


    riffmongous wrote: »
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhqUk28OwHs

    If Alex Jones had not made a career as a Conspiracy Theorist, he'd have made a great Televangelist.


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    #57
    Samaris
    Registered Users Posts: 6,544 ✭✭✭Samaris


    Occurs to me - wasn't this always going on? Probably even more so in the 60s and 70s.

    Seems to me that there's every possibility that this is just causing more -annoyance- now because rather than different age groups/generations having different methods of communicating, etc, we all see what everyone else is up to constantly on the internet, we share a communication space so to speak. So we're all getting a lot more hot and bothered about everyone else's stuff that really probably doesn't affect us that much.

    Students will always get notions and challenge things. Sometimes they will be challenging the wrong things and it will die off eventually. On the other hand, they might also get onto some things that actually do need to be questioned and society will gradually change as they get out into the workforce and spread those ideas.

    Not going to get wound up by every crackpot idea that originates in the Old Bar in UCC. We'll see how it goes once it gets out of the Old Bar.


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    #58
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #59
    Jesus Wept
    Registered Users Posts: 25,243 ✭✭✭✭Jesus Wept


    bodice ripper wrote: »
    Nope. I did fine art. There was a gender studies elective module, but I skipped it in favour of letter carving in stone.

    You were allowed to pick your own marks in the gender studies module, so I was alone in the shed carving letters.

    Any favourite letters?
    Ulysses Gaze wrote: »
    If Alex Jones had not made a career as a Conspiracy Theorist, he'd have made a great Televangelist.

    He was always headed for big things.


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    #60
    hatrickpatrick
    Registered Users Posts: 17,797 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    super_furry wrote: »
    There are too many Irish people getting too wrapped up in American right wing identity politics. All that time spent on alt-right/red pill forums and watching those creepy Youtube videos isn't going to do you any good and you don't have to start looking for "enemies" over here.

    You do realise that the alt right as it currently exists is largely a reactionary movement, right? The alt right and sjw left are as bad as eachother, but it wasn't the alt right who started the culture wars.


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    #61
    hatrickpatrick
    Registered Users Posts: 17,797 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    super_furry wrote: »
    I've no enemies at all, I'm just left baffled by the amount of Irish people so desperate to wrap themselves up in American online identity nonsense. There's even people declaring their support for the NRA now and getting in rows over US gun rights.

    The Internet is an international forum, so hate-mob censorship which happens online affects everybody regardless of where you live.


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