General election 2020 (8 Viewers)

[magicbastarder]

The Greens are worth ignoring until they manage to get farmers on their side, we'd probably be better off focusing on getting every other party to push forward better climate legislation that works for everyone. Easy for me to say of course.

that's quite a circle to square, though.
i'd be curious if more farmers are scared of vegetarianism than they are of the green party.

 

[JohnnyRaz]

Oh I certainly can and will. These things seep into our psyche, why do we even want land to "produce," where does that come from?

Here you don't listen to that How to Save a Planet podcast do you? It's terrifically market-based neoliberal greenwashing but I listen anyway; they had an episode recently that speaks to what you were saying from a US perspective, about farmers refusing to change farming methods until they literally had no other choice, and all the other farmers being incredibly judgemental about it because they don't see this other method of farming as proper "hard work"

Soil: The Dirty Climate Solution | How to Save a Planet

On this week's episode, we meet two farmers who, at first glance, seem very different. One is a first-generation farmer in upstate New York raising fruits and vegetables for the local community. The other is a third generation farmer in Minnesota who sells commodity crops—corn and soybeans—to...

gimletmedia.com

Yeah, still gonna probably side with Twitter on this though. The Greens are worth ignoring until they manage to get farmers on their side, we'd probably be better off focusing on getting every other party to push forward better climate legislation that works for everyone. Easy for me to say of course.

given how twitter works - siding with twitter is probably always the wrong way to go

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Apropos of nothing, I only realised recently while watching a foreign tv show with subtitles that the Irish "Seomra" sounds like the French "Chambre"

I was nearly 40 when I noticed église & eaglais. For some reason I read a notice outside a church I happened to pass by in Cork. If I had listened to my Irish teachers in school maybe I'd have spotted many more of these interesting connections over the years.
Page 81 and you people are still on topic.

 

[Lili Marlene]

given how twitter works - siding with twitter is probably always the wrong way to go

Ha, well, I'm not actually siding with Twitter as such. Honestly, maybe Ryan reckons the climate bill is a better deal than defeating CETA, which is going to be pushed through eventually unless the entire system is upended.

 

[pete]

I was nearly 40 when I noticed église & eaglais. For some reason I read a notice outside a church I happened to pass by in Cork. If I had listened to my Irish teachers in school maybe I'd have spotted many more of these interesting connections over the years.
Page 81 and you people are still on topic.

Pick a European language and look up their word for rabbit.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Lapin?

 

[ann post]

We'd probably be better off focusing on getting every other party to push forward better climate legislation that works for everyone. Easy for me to say of course.

There isn't much to suggest FFG/Lab/SF would do anything other than be neoliberals though? SD mayyybbe??
Like i guess my view of the GP is that there is only the present toolset available in the present.
In reality* though, as you say cross party concensus is what is needed.


*FFG not too concerned about reality.

 

[Lili Marlene]

There isn't much to suggest FFG/Lab/SF would do anything other than be neoliberals though? SD mayyybbe??
Like i guess my view of the GP is that there is only the present toolset available in the present.
In reality* though, as you say cross party concensus is what is needed.


*FFG not too concerned about reality.

You don't think SF would do anything different? That's certainly not what they say.

I am skeptical that any party in charge could do anything different with Ireland both under the EU, having all the tech companies here, and being physically sandwiched between the UK and USA, although at the same time we might be allowed get away with some experiment by the very nature of no one taking us that seriously. FF/FG will continue to lose seats if they don't fix housing and they show no signs of doing that so who knows what'll happen.

 

[pete]

Lapin?

There’s always one.

 

[magicbastarder]

Oh I certainly can and will. These things seep into our psyche, why do we even want land to "produce," where does that come from?

i've heard the theory several times that it's a result of the christian ideal of 'thou shalt have dominion over nature', rather than the more holistic approach that might have existed before that particular meme arrived here.

 

[egg_]

Oh I certainly can and will. These things seep into our psyche, why do we even want land to "produce," where does that come from?

It comes from 12 thousand years of being farmers, not a few hundred years of being farmers under a capitalist system

 

[Lili Marlene]

i've heard the theory several times that it's a result of the christian ideal of 'thou shalt have dominion over nature', rather than the more holistic approach that might have existed before that particular meme arrived here.

Maybe, maybe, but my (weak) understanding of Christian history is that that specific argument only really took off with the advent of Protestantism and Capitalism in the USA (which came from some of the more extremist sects in Germany maybe?). There's farming, there's intensive farming, and there's what led to the Prosperity Gospel, you know what I mean?

In Ireland specifically i'd guess it's probably related to colonization and then post-colonization; small holdings, dividing up the land with all our ridiculous fences, and trying to make do with what little you own.

Even with turf, sure we only started taking turf out of the bogs in, what, the 17th century? It's not this ancient practice that's part of our DNA or anything.

 

[magicbastarder]

speaking of which, i was recently learning about how much the populations of the midlands (more so the north end of the midlands) suffered during and after the famine and have not recovered.
the island as a whole now is close to 6.8m, from 8m at the peak just before the famine IIRC.
but the population of cavan is still less than one third of what it peaked at (currently 76k from a high of 243k)

 

[Cormcolash]

I'd love to see SF get a chance at doing anything different, but I really don't think they'd be anywhere near as 'progressive' as they like to sound whilst in opposition, because to a large extent SF are opportunists that will point whichever way they think will get them votes. I'm quite confident that SF in charge would go in a very similar manner to how Syriza have gone in Greece – get some useful things done but in reality shift much more to the centre or indeed right than any of the things they said during election campaigns.
I'd love to be proved wrong by that, but can't see the Sinners ever making any actual concrete change to 'the system'.

 

[ann post]

The one thing about shifting in the centre is that, on balance, thats as close to what people want. The things we dislike about this centre right crowd are the hyperclassisms, the tiering of society and the magnification of things when somethign happens for people on the wrong end of the spectrum. If they can shift is closer to centrist, that actually would be progress.

 

[Lili Marlene]

The one thing about shifting in the centre is that, on balance, thats as close to what people want. The things we dislike about this centre right crowd are the hyperclassisms, the tiering of society and the magnification of things when somethign happens for people on the wrong end of the spectrum. If they can shift is closer to centrist, that actually would be progress.

That's politics though innit? Everyone wants to be the reasonable one in the "centre."

e.g. Obama's centre was right of Nixon on most matters. If Sinn Fein go looking for something to the left economics wise maybe the compromise wouldn't be a shift further to the right for a change.

 

[Cormcolash]

The one thing about shifting in the centre is that, on balance, thats as close to what people want. The things we dislike about this centre right crowd are the hyperclassisms, the tiering of society and the magnification of things when somethign happens for people on the wrong end of the spectrum. If they can shift is closer to centrist, that actually would be progress.

Yeah the problem is the 'centre' used to be reasonable, but for the last 20 odd years now the 'centre' has been the old 'right' innit

 

[ann post]

Yeah the problem is the 'centre' used to be reasonable, but for the last 20 odd years now the 'centre' has been the old 'right' innit

I didn't say it was a solution, i said it would be progress. We aren't on twitter here like

 

[Cormcolash]

It's hard to imagine any government in Ireland that doesn't contain FFG not automatically being progress

 

[ernesto]

It's hard to imagine any government in Ireland that doesn't contain FFG not automatically being progress

you're being facetious right?

because I genuinely believe a big part of progress is them not being in power