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Cowen using the Lisbon "YES" vote as an excuse to pull us out of this mess.
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They (FF, FG, LB etc...) were predicting last year that a No to Lisbon would be the death knell to our economy.
The fact is the rot had already set in at that stage, it was convenient for them to point out Lisbon as a reason for people not being bale to hold onto their jobs and finding themselves in line for social welfare instead of in line at the airport on another skiing holiday.
The fact of the matter is that our economy was always going to crash at some stage but instead of facing up to this inevitability we as a nation decided the best policy would be to close our eyes, stick our fingers in our ears and shout "la la la" as loud as we could in the hope that by the time we opened our eyes the storm would be over.
Unfortunately as seemingly iron clad as that plan may have seemed in the days when our biggest decisions were something like whether to go for the M5 BMW or the E Class Mercedes, nowadays we have to face the reality, or do we?
Yes me may all be either struggling to keep our jobs or struggling even more to find a new one and hoping we don't end up having our home repossessed by the same banks which have being screwing us for years and continue to have their arses covered by our elected representatives in the Leinster House. But at least we can look to Europe, the shining beacon of hope for all democratically minded people, all business minded people, and we can surely, by ratifying an undemocratic treaty that has already been turned down by our people, save our economy and put ourselves on the road back to the Mercedes dealership. Come on Ireland, you're worth it, vote Yes to Lisbon, just think of all the crap you'll be able to buy and all the holidays you can go on, and what's more, there'll be no more pesky referendums to annoy you and clog up the airways when you could be watching CSI re runs. Think of yourself, not your stupid rights, you don't need them, when have they ever been any use to you? Do your rights pay for your holidays? Do your rights buy you that new luxury car? No they don't, those lousy rights what have they ever done for you? Vote Yes to Lisbon and get ready for the gold rush, put your ear to the ground! Surely you can hear it coming already?
The elephant in the room here is the fact that although no economy, our included was ever going to withstand the most basic laws of economics; we could be in a position that would be somewhat better than what it is now.
Any moron could tell you that our economy was started up by the arrival of international corporations looking to operate ion a cheaper labour market than the one they came from. These footloose companies have a simple strategy; Leave an expensive labour market for a cheaper one, in the process raise the economic profile of the new cheaper labour market. What happens then is that the once unemployed people in the cheap labour market become accustomed to good working conditions and start looking for pay increases and better working conditions from their employers. Eventually these companies see their profit margins decrease and begin to leave the once profitable labour market.
This is a big factor in the state of the Irish economy, but what is making this worse, is the introduction of new labour markets within the EU. You know, the accession states that joined the party after the Nice Treaty (which incidentally went to a second referendum).
At the time, we were told by the great Bertie that a No to Nice was bad for our economy, that it would send the "wrong message" to Europe, that it would make Ireland "outcasts". See anything in that which sounds in any way familiar? Fear tactics are great for getting what you want, make people so afraid of something that they'll do anything to stop the "worst" from happening.
With hindsight, we can see that our second Nice referendum's Yes vote didn't do our economy all that much good, in fact it pretty much sealed our fate, regardless of what Bertie and his cronies might tell you.
If anyone for one second believes that voting yes to Lisbon will benefit our economy in any way they clearly need their head examined. The Lison treaty is just a re labeled version of the European Constitution, something which was shown up and the vile piece of filth it really is in France and Holland. The European Economic Community was the best thing to ever happen to Ireland. Unfortunately the European Union is possibly the worst. We don't need centralized control in Europe, economic compliance is great, but that has long since ceased to operate in the way we assumed it was meant to.
Ireland struggled long and hard for independence, and if we ratify this treaty we swill begin down the road to dependence once again. We have hardly covered ourselves in glory in the forum of democracy, but we've not even been at it for 100 years yet.
Unfortunately I predict the Irish people will buckle to the will of the Yes campaign. If we learned anything during the boom it is that we as a nation are selfish egotistical narcissists who care little for the welfare of others or our nation. Whatever works in the short term is ok as long as we can bask in the reflection of our luxury cars or on the balconies of our Bulgarian apartments. We need a huge change in peoples perceptions in order for the Lisbon treaty to be put into perspective, but I'm afraid that 5 months will not be long enough. I'm sure the realization will come, but all too late. Probably when the real machinations of this treaty become active and we realize what a mistake we've made, a bit like the way we keep re electing the same clowns to run our country, we'll be no different in the European forum.
We love being critical of government, but it is us that elect our governments and us that ratify treaties and we only have ourselves to blame.Glazers Out!
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I really hope the Irish people open their eyes and realise a yes vote will not pull us out of this mess. Voting No didn't put us in to this mess. The greed greed greed did.
It is bad enough that we are being asked to vote a second time on the same thing.
Oh we didn't like your answer the last time so lets try again and see if we get it right this time.
Oh I am sick of this Country.
Please everyone open your eyes to the muppets that run it.
We should have proper business men running the country not the relatives of relatives and so on.
I for one will be voting no.
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nullzero wrote:Unfortunately I predict the Irish people will buckle to the will of the Yes campaign. If we learned anything during the boom it is that we as a nation are selfish egotistical narcissists who care little for the welfare of others or our nation.
Which rather invites the question as to why the electorate voted No last time - did they "buckle to the will" of the No campaigns?
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
Which rather invites the question as to why the electorate voted No last time - did they "buckle to the will" of the No campaigns?
cordially,
Scofflaw
You can find a very detailed analysis of this question here, in the report on the survey commissioned by the Dept of Foreign Affairs after the last referendum.
http://www.imsl.ie/news/Millward_Brown_IMS_Lisbon_Research_Report.pdf
There was of course a variety of reasons for people voting No, but as the report makes clear, by far the single biggest reason for voting No and for abstaining was a lack of understanding of the treaty and nothing to do with any organised No campaign. 42% of those who voted no - that is, 22% of all who voted - did so for this reason. This was without a doubt the deciding factor in the last referendum. The Libertas and Coir bogeymen had much less to do with the result than either they or many in the Yes campaign would like to believe.
This lack of understanding is unsurprising given that - according to Giuliano Amato, former Italian prime minister - the treaty was deliberately drafted to be difficult to read so as to obscure the fact that it is almost the same as the rejected Constitution. And, as I've pointed out in other posts, this problem was compounded by our government not giving the referendum commission anything like enough time to do its job - something which looks like being repeated this time round. Here's what the last commission had to say about this in its post-referendum report:
It is with a certain sense of frustration that the Commission must once again record the fact that on this occasion it was not permitted ample time to prepare properly to plan and run a fully comprehensive information campaign. This is a matter which has been raised in most of the Commission's previous reports and in particular pages 62-63 of its campaign report on the Amsterdam Treaty and the Northern Ireland Agreements published in November 1998 (see extract in Appendix 1) and pages 11-13 of its campaign report on the first Treaty of Nice published in December 2001 (see extract in Appendix 2).
A further complication in this referendum was the fact that the date of referendum was not actually finalised until the polling day order was made on 12 May 2008. The delay in finalising the actual referendum day introduced a most unwelcome degree of uncertainty and further complicated the Commission's efforts to plan its information campaign.
The Commission has already set out in detail the actions other bodies were required to take in order to ensure that this Commission could perform it role in a proper manner (see Chapter 2). The point must be emphasised that future Commissions, like this one, will be obliged to operate in accordance with Directive 2004/18/EC, in relation to procurement, provided the relevant threshold is exceeded. The table at Appendix 3 shows that a minimum period of 158 days (i.e. over 5 months) is required if the Commission is to comply with proper procurement procedures.
This additional time would also give the Commission members adequate time to plan the information campaign, identify and consider in detail the main provisions of the referendum proposal, reduce this information to the appropriate number of pages of English text, have it examined in detail by legal advisers (including senior counsel) to ensure its accuracy and comprehensiveness, have it translated to Irish (to meet the statutory requirements arising from the implementation of the Official Languages Act 2003) and have the booklet designed. By contrast, on this occasion, the Commission had barely three weeks to carry out all those tasks.
http://www.refcom.ie/en/Reports/ReportonthereferendumontheLisbonTreaty/Name,9573,en.html0 -
There was of course a variety of reasons for people voting No, but as the report makes clear, by far the single biggest reason for voting No and for abstaining was a lack of understanding of the treaty and nothing to do with any organised No campaign. 42% of those who voted no - that is, 22% of all who voted - did so for this reason. This was without a doubt the deciding factor in the last referendum. The Libertas and Coir bogeymen had much less to do with the result than either they or many in the Yes campaign would like to believe.
Plenty would have voted Yes too, so it's higher than 22%.
Though that means 58% did understand the Treaty.Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.
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Plenty would have voted Yes too, so it's higher than 22%.
Though that means 58% did understand the Treaty.
You're probably right about yes voters, but the poll didn't ask them whether they understood the treaty, so one can't tell from it.
On the no voters, you can't draw the conclusion that all of the other 58% did understand the treaty - there was a wide variety of reasons for voting no, such as general mistrust of the government.
However, only 26% of no voters voted no because of specific issues they had with provisions of the treaty (including the commissioner issue), which goes to show what relatively little influence Libertas and Coir had on the outcome as well what a charade the whole guarantee process which the Irish government is engaged in is.0 -
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... However, only 26% of no voters voted no because of specific issues they had with provisions of the treaty (including the commissioner issue), which goes to show what relatively little influence Libertas and Coir had on the outcome as well what a charade the whole guarantee process which the Irish government is engaged in is.
I don't think that is a good inference. Libertas in particular (and some of its allies, like Ulick McElvaddy) made a big deal out of claiming that the treaty was incomprehensible, and arguing that was a basis on which to vote no.0 -
You're probably right about yes voters, but the poll didn't ask them whether they understood the treaty, so one can't tell from it.
On the no voters, you can't draw the conclusion that all of the other 58% did understand the treaty - there was a wide variety of reasons for voting no, such as general mistrust of the government.
However, only 26% of no voters voted no because of specific issues they had with provisions of the treaty (including the commissioner issue), which goes to show what relatively little influence Libertas and Coir had on the outcome as well what a charade the whole guarantee process which the Irish government is engaged in is.
I don't know if the mistrust was much higher than in other Referenda.
OK, to steer this away from the normal point scoring: The Govt. addressed most of the concerns of the 26% Treaty related objections. People can argue about the guarantees, but Neutrality and Abortion are already protected in Nice2, taxation was a non issue anyway and the Commissioner issue can be changed by the looks of it. We can argue about the legality all day but I think we know that if the EU backtracked on these assurances after a Yes vote, it would cause massive damage to its authority and its unlikely it will want to do that.
On the understanding point, how much understanding of the Treaty is acceptable? The main issues, areas that have changed or do we expect normal, everyday people (most don't have the time or inclination) to read the whole damn thing?Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.
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On the understanding point, how much understanding of the Treaty is acceptable? The main issues, areas that have changed or do we expect normal, everyday people (most don't have the time or inclination) to read the whole damn thing?
Realistically, only a minute fraction of voters will themselves read and understand the treaty. However, we have a body, the referendum commission, which is tasked with explaining the issue in an unbiased non-partisan way, but successive commissions have not been given enough time to do their job properly. The last commission said they needed at least five months. At best, the next commission will get three months, if the government presses ahead with an early October referendum.
That, I think, would be a good start - appoint the new commission and consult it on what is a reasonable referendum date, instead of ignoring its needs as has been the pattern up to now.0 -
Realistically, only a minute fraction of voters will themselves read and understand the treaty. However, we have a body, the referendum commission, which is tasked with explaining the issue in an unbiased non-partisan way, but successive commissions have not been given enough time to do their job properly. The last commission said they needed at least five months. At best, the next commission will get three months, if the government presses ahead with an early October referendum.
That, I think, would be a good start - appoint the new commission and consult it on what is a reasonable referendum date, instead of ignoring its needs as has been the pattern up to now.
Yes, but its more or less the same Treaty so between the 2 campaigns they should have enough time?
I take your point, but I think that applied more to Lisbon 1 than 2.Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.
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Yes, but its more or less the same Treaty so between the 2 campaigns they should have enough time?
I take your point, but I think that applied more to Lisbon 1 than 2.
Why not appoint the commission and then set the referendum date based on what they say? Really, we're only talking about two or at most three months extra either way. What's the rush?0 -
fianna fáil will use this treaty to bolster support and for their own purposes
they come into power during the up times, and use this as an excuse along with the global crisis to throw off any blame that should be attached to them
vote however you want, but dont vote yes because you think it will pull us out of this crisis
and equally dont vote no, for irrelevant reasons0 -
Why not appoint the commission and then set the referendum date based on what they say? Really, we're only talking about two or at most three months extra either way. What's the rush?
Suppose you'd need to ask the Govt. that but still, between the 2 campaigns the Commission should have enough time. It isn't a brand new Treaty, though I would agree if it was.Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.
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Which rather invites the question as to why the electorate voted No last time - did they "buckle to the will" of the No campaigns?
cordially,
Scofflaw
Perhaps you should have read how I was using the second Nice treaty referendum as a background to portraying the Irish public as "buckling to the will" of the Yes campaign.
That would have answered the question before you felt compelled to ask it.Glazers Out!
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