tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6153845628469776909.post409373212527805927..comments2024-03-24T09:13:28.758+00:00Comments on The Plashing Vole: What's wrong with you people?The Plashing Volehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13021407602157515927noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6153845628469776909.post-90773872461240141612011-04-13T10:21:26.480+01:002011-04-13T10:21:26.480+01:00I don't disagree with any of that. It's th...I don't disagree with any of that. It's the post-colonial legacy: a public sphere predicated on lazy dependence on the past with no space to generate new responses. Connolly and Larkin promised the possibility of socialism but faded away. Sinn Fein have always talked left but are as you say utterly reactionary and largely incompetent. I think you're a little hard on Labour: there have been some decent TDs but they are basically New Labour. <br />Don't forget the Independents in your list: pork barrel cynics to a man (and I mean 'man'). <br />It's all so depressing.The Plashing Volehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13021407602157515927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6153845628469776909.post-65401134667434105102011-04-12T19:05:31.365+01:002011-04-12T19:05:31.365+01:00Just a minor point to raise here... you suggest th...Just a minor point to raise here... you suggest that we kept voting for the rightwing parties, but I know that you're well aware that it's not like there's much of a choice in Irish politics. <br />Politically speaking, there is little difference between the two main parties: the only reason that Fianna Fáil have been getting the blame for running the country into the ground (which I'm not denying they did) is because it was their turn to run the government during those years. If it had been Fine Gael in charge, I don't kid myself that things would have been any different. <br />The Labour Party in Ireland is largely a joke. With a couple of exceptions they are a pack of Smoked Salmon Socialists and are about as left wing as... similes fail me - something not very left wing at all though. <br />Which brings us to the Greens. Unfortunately for them, they lost all credibility when they climbed into bed with Fianna Fáil after the election before last. Being green doesn't come cheap and their tree-hugging (ok, I'm being deliberately facetious here) policies are really only a good fit in an affluent society that can afford them. As soon as your priorities return to keeping the roof over your family's head and food on their table, the Greens become largely irrelevant. <br />And finally, Sinn Féin. I'm sorry, but I just can't vote for them. Never mind their murky not-so-distant past and the still dodgy connections. Even if I were willing to overlook that on ideological grounds, their political and economic policies are so naive, reactionary, and callow that they'd have us begging Britain take us back into the Empire, because no amount of bail out cash would bring us back from that particular brink.<br />You know it's a bad day for national politics when you think you'd rather stay in Utah than come home and deal with the fall out from that whole SNAFU.Sinéadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16602860905255089123noreply@blogger.com