General election 2020 (5 Viewers)

[ann post]

it does amuse me that SF are very often accused of being populist - surely FF are the most populist party? no agenda or ethos bar 'it's natural that we should be in power and we'll move whatever way the political weather vane points'? to be fair (!) to FG you at least have a better idea what their aims are.

Thats playbook for sure.

SF are populist
(Insert Smaller party name here) betrayed thier voters
SF / wild 'troubles' hand waving
(Totally rational policy) betraying the ordinary man (edited in 2021 to include ordinary woman).

Any more

 

[Lili Marlene]

Or Eamon Ryan?

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021

Information about the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021

www.gov.ie

That's some great targets to miss that he's talking about there. I'm full Gen X on this one, sorry man, may as well be declaring a climate emergency again.

Greenhouse gas emissions rebound to above pre-Covid levels in Ireland, EPA warns

Provisional 2021 figures indicate agriculture emissions rose to 37.5% of overall emissions

www.irishtimes.com

 

[Lili Marlene]

it does amuse me that SF are very often accused of being populist - surely FF are the most populist party? no agenda or ethos bar 'it's natural that we should be in power and we'll move whatever way the political weather vane points'? to be fair (!) to FG you at least have a better idea what their aims are.

Truth to that, I'm vaguely fascinated by FG though, they're not really committed when push comes to shove as we saw during the pandemic when they didn't let the market sort everything and semi-nationalized the hospitals. I suppose they're divided by a commitment to being best boy of the EU maybe?

 

[magicbastarder]

speaking of the pandemic and the government response, i'd be curious about how much irish political opinion poll results are influenced by british government performance; it was a little more explicit during lockdown, i definitely heard the 'hey, at least we're doing much better than the brits' sort of opinion expressed on multiple occasions. there could be some direct effect, e.g. where coveney's performance was seen to be boosted by british intransigence wrt brexit, and a more indirect effect of simple comparison.

 

[ann post]

That's some great targets to miss that he's talking about there. I'm full Gen X on this one, sorry man, may as well be declaring a climate emergency again.

This but also the reasong the farmers are getting dragged through the media at present for literally doing nothing. I'm not saying Eamon Ryan has now succesfully fixed earth, i'm saying that there is an actual literal thing happening right now because of it, which isn't nothing.

 

[ann post]

Green Defender:

View attachment 16050

Maybe i should make this my profile pic

 

[Cormcolash]

SF are definitely populist

 

[Unicron]

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People love saying this.

They are in govt to have that all night discussion.

If they weren't in govt, it woulda been solved under the table by ffg and there'd be no discussion.

But go unknowing or electioneering journalists anyways.

Is he trying to manifest this?

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[magicbastarder]

SF are definitely populist

oh, they are, but they're usually referred to as *the* populist party.

and in the context of the discussion, their stance on climate change is 'climate? uh? yes? we accept the climate exists, climate is a good thing'.

 

[Unicron]

and in the context of the discussion, their stance on climate change is 'climate? uh? yes? we accept the climate exists, climate is a good thing'.

There'd be an argument to be made that this is a populist stance, if you describe populism as "telling people what they want to hear" because saying "look folks, if something doesn't change we're headed for really bad stuff, and by something we mean the way that we live our lives to the detriment of our enjoyment" definitely isn't something people want to hear.

Part of the problem for "the feckin greens" (aside from all the unpopular stuff the other parties do being blamed on them) is that people think the stuff they want will make their lives less enjoyable (how enjoyable maybe having to knife a motherfucker over a few drops of water at some stage later in the century would be is questionable.) They're the take your medicine party and they can't even do a "here comes a big aeroplane" charade because they want less plane use.

 

[ann post]

Is he trying to manifest this?

You'd wonder!!
Greens walking out gives a nice path for FFG to get back in 'oh we tried to cover the farmers backs and the greens brough instability' or whatever the fuck. Some journo's are great in the moment, some have 'affiliations' some, some don't see long game...

 

[ann post]

and in the context of the discussion, their stance on climate change is 'climate? uh? yes? we accept the climate exists, climate is a good thing'.

That was pretty much what they had online for the last election. All three major parties essentially had decided 'the greens can do that unpopular shit'.

 

[Lili Marlene]

They're the take your medicine party and they can't even do a "here comes a big aeroplane" charade because they want less plane use.

I know what you're saying but it's somewhat ironic that they're the "take your medicine party" when 10+ years of austerity was imposed by Fine Gael in an economic disiplining program that has now pretty much been entirely discredited as ineffective.

Frankly i'm not afraid of the word populism or the idea that a political party should, god forbid, represent what the people of the country want. Technocrats have been telling the world that they are the grownups in the room who just respond to the facts, are against ideology, and who say "it's not our fault, it's the market" everytime it goes wrong. They're the ones who built the world that we live in, I don't trust them to get us out of it. Besides which, the things they had to scare people into never going anywhere else politically were low interest rates, cheap consumer goods, and no war in Europe, they don't even have them anymore.

What the people want though, there's a question.

 

[ann post]

What the people want though, there's a question.

I'm pretty sure the pandemic demonstrated that a significant portion of the country will willingly sacrifice the old and the weak to be able to spend saturdays in a retail park.

Anywhooo the greens shouldn't jump out of govt till this is signed into law.

https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/bill/2022/35/eng/ver_c/b35c22d.pdf

 

[Unicron]

I know what you're saying but it's somewhat ironic that they're the "take your medicine party" when 10+ years of austerity was imposed by Fine Gael in an economic disiplining program that has now pretty much been entirely discredited as ineffective.

Frankly i'm not afraid of the word populism or the idea that a political party should, god forbid, represent what the people of the country want. Technocrats have been telling the world that they are the grownups in the room who just respond to the facts, are against ideology, and who say "it's not our fault, it's the market" everytime it goes wrong. They're the ones who built the world that we live in, I don't trust them to get us out of it. Besides which, the things they had to scare people into never going anywhere else politically was low interest rates, cheap consumer goods, and no war in Europe, they don't even have that anymore.

What the people want though, there's a question.

I suppose what I meant by populism is more the FF approach to it, "we don't necessarily believe in this position but we'll talk about it as that's what the public mood is shifting to" whether or not they actually follow through on any of it if elected, maybe, maybe not. That sort of populism feels very cynical and focus groupish/reading the twitter tea leaves, triangulating your position.

Say with Sinn Fein, the noise they make on housing, that is populist but it's also in line with what a party occupying their part of the political spectrum should be saying regardless of what the housing situation is, it just so happens that public opinion (among non-home owners anyway) has coalesced into something that reflects where a left wing/left of centre party should be. But on choice, that's maybe a bit more cynical populism as during repeal they allowed people to believe they were more pro-choice then they are/were. McGuinness while he was alive was very firm that they were not a pro-abortion party, I can't find the link now but I remember reading something years ago that Doherty had made a pro-life pledge when running in one of his early dail elections.

 

[ann post]

The ultimate populism surely is to abandon the human rights of a several generations of Irish people who live within a few kilometres of you because it doesn't make for easy optics.

 

[Lili Marlene]

The ultimate populism surely is to abandon the human rights of a several generations of Irish people who live within a few kilometres of you because it doesn't make for easy optics.

If you mean future lives then it can be spun both ways as it also describes some green politics that tells people to think of how climate policy will affect the lives of the global south instead of the day to day lives right now of, say, local farmers, no?

Also, this is the argument Elon Musk and other billionaires make when it comes to letting the earth burn and starve while they chase other planets. Long termism i believe they call it.

I suppose what I meant by populism is more the FF approach to it, "we don't necessarily believe in this position but we'll talk about it as that's what the public mood is shifting to" whether or not they actually follow through on any of it if elected, maybe, maybe not. That sort of populism feels very cynical and focus groupish/reading the twitter tea leaves, triangulating your position.

Say with Sinn Fein, the noise they make on housing, that is populist but it's also in line with what a party occupying their part of the political spectrum should be saying regardless of what the housing situation is, it just so happens that public opinion (among non-home owners anyway) has coalesced into something that reflects where a left wing/left of centre party should be. But on choice, that's maybe a bit more cynical populism as during repeal they allowed people to believe they were more pro-choice then they are/were. McGuinness while he was alive was very firm that they were not a pro-abortion party, I can't find the link now but I remember reading something years ago that Doherty had made a pro-life pledge when running in one of his early dail elections.

Sinn Féin certainly don't do themselves any favours with confused and conflicting policies on different sides of the border. I find it hard to cut through all the spin both coming from them and from people attacking them.

 

[ann post]

If you mean future lives then it can be spun both ways as it also describes some green politics that tells people to think of how climate policy will affect the lives of the global south instead of the day to day lives right now of, say, local farmers, no?

No i (s)pacifically mean FF / FG ignoring the north unless it's a handy dig they can throw in the dail.

 

[Lili Marlene]

No i (s)pacifically mean FF / FG ignoring the north unless it's a handy dig they can throw in the dail.

Right yeah ok, your posts tend to be a bit subtle for a thicko like me at times I'm afraid.

I'm sure i said it earlier in the thread over the years, the Greens need to be talking to all of Ireland, they need to answer every question with a response that talks about why they're good for the lives of farmers. I'm not convinced endless defensive replies about carbon taxes are ever going to win that argument. Not sure i can square this circle myself so until someone finds a way i don't really have any faith in them. I'll still put them above FF/FG in an election, mind.

 

[ann post]

If you even want to feel like shit about Irish environmental policy under the SEAI compare it to whats on offer in NI

https://www.uregni.gov.uk/files/uregni/documents/2022-05/NISEP%20List%20of%20Schemes%202022-2023.pdf