Fianna Fail voters "Always and Forever"

Laminations

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

You miss my point entirely. Whether or not you think there are any excellent proven FF TDs is irrelevant. The point I was making is that if we continue to vote for people purely based on the opinion that "well I dont like this party so this other party is obviously the solution to all our problems" we are going to continue to get crap governments.

Pete no one thinks that the opposition will be some kind of panacea, and no one is suggesting voting in a new government and holding them to no standards. We will continue to get crap governments if we do not punish crap governance. People have very low expectations of FF, scandal and controversy are now commonplace, hopefully with a new government, one that has been critical of the current shower, we will raise expectations. I think the opposition if voted in will be held to a far higher standard and either way we need to send FF the message that the standard of their performance is not acceptable. The definition of stupidity is continuing to do the same thing over and over and expect different results, so cast your vote with that in mind.

PeterIanStaker

Laminations wrote: »

Pete no one thinks that the opposition will be some kind of panacea, and no one is suggesting voting in a new government and holding them to no standards. We will continue to get crap governments if we do not punish crap governance. People have very low expectations of FF, scandal and controversy are now commonplace, hopefully with a new government, one that has been critical of the current shower, we will raise expectations. I think the opposition if voted in will be held to a far higher standard and either way we need to send FF the message that the standard of their performance is not acceptable. The definition of stupidity is continuing to do the same thing over and over and expect different results, so cast your vote with that in mind.

Its a shame more people dont think this way, however this mentality doesnt trickle up the way into govt. As for opposition, will they really tackle the problems or will they just resort to point scoring over non-issues? We need forward thinkers, and we dont have them.

murphaph

Laminations has summed it up: poor governance should be punished at the polls, even if one doubts the abilities of the opposition...it is the ONLY way to gradually raise the bar (it will not be raised overnight folks) until our politicians realise we will remove them if scandals etc. emerge.

I have grave concerns about Labour in government (public sector and social welfare pay NEED cutting etc.) BUT I can see that it is worth the risk to vote FG in the hope of removing FF, even though Kenny is abysmal.

I fear for some Dublin infrastructural projects under FG, but it would be absolutely hypocritical of me to vote FF because they have pledged to build metro, when I criticise people for voting for John O'Donoghue because he got some GAA hall redecorated in Kerry.

We must clean up politics, and with it wider society in Ireland if Ireland is to really grow up.

liammur

How is Kenny abysmal?

Could he be any worse than haughey, ahern, cowen?

Pete_Cavan

liammur wrote: »

How is Kenny abysmal?

Could he be any worse than haughey, ahern, cowen?

This is exactly the type of attitude I was trying to counter. "X cant be any worse than Y". Yes they can, we can always get worse and we always seem to find them. When we go to the polls we are not voting for the person we want to be Taoiseach, you are voting for the person we want to represent you. This decision should not be based on whether you want Cowen or Kenny to be Taoiseach.

P.S. Kenny is abysmal and the fact that you have to compare him to these in order to paint him in a good light is the most damning testimony.

simplistic2

Nate--IRL-- wrote: »

Cognative Dissonance

Nate

Instead of having a local politician people would benefit more from having a local psychologist. This congnative dissonance is rife throughout the population.

liammur

I'm not a fan of kenny, but people seem to think

'i can't vote for FG because of kenny, so i'll vote for FF instead'

I can't see how anyone could have been worse than ahern as a leader, he took over an economy in 1997 in excellent condition and 10 years later it was an absolute wreck.

Maybe people just can't see how limited ahern/cowen are.

Pete_Cavan

liammur wrote: »

'i can't vote for FG because of kenny, so i'll vote for FF instead'

You could vote FG because you want their candidate in your area to represent you in the Dail. Unless you are in Mayo Kenny doesnt have to come into it.

Or you could not vote FF because you dont like any of their candidates in our area and dont want them to represent you in the Dail. Unless you are in Laois-Offaly Cowan doesnt have to come into it.

liammur

Yes, but i've heard that numerous times, 'i couldn't vote for FG because of kenny'. That may be fine if we had intelligent leaders already in power.

Laminations

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

You could vote FG because you want their candidate in your area to represent you in the Dail. Unless you are in Mayo Kenny doesnt have to come into it.

Or you could not vote FF because you dont like any of their candidates in our area and dont want them to represent you in the Dail. Unless you are in Laois-Offaly Cowan doesnt have to come into it.

Rubbish. A candidate may represent their constituents but they stand for their party (unless they are an independent). They are all bound by a common allegence to the party. So the actions of FF have tarnished each member and the supporters. So voting for an individual is condoning the actions of the party in which they remain a member (however much they may declare their own disagreement with the party). You wouldn't be so overlooking of party allegiance if candidates (good or otherwise) were standing for something like the BNP. Now FF is in no way as abhorrent as the BNP but they are indeed abhorred by a large section of society for completely different reasons. The actions of a party are enabled through their members and support, so each candidate for FF is partly responsible for the mess the party has created.

So think seriously about what you stand for when you vote for a candidate that stands for FF

Ulysses Gaze

average_runner wrote: »

Well if you solely think FF are responsible for messing the country up then your the bigger idiot.

PS Not a FF supporter but knows that none of the parties differ!

Funny that, because I have never met anyone in the last 2 years who will admit to being an FF supporter.

But they must exist because 41% of the populous that voted, voted for The Soldiers of Bankruptcy.

Wide Road

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

Funny that, because I have never met anyone in the last 2 years who will admit to being an FF supporter.

But they must exist because 41% of the populous that voted, voted for The Soldiers of Bankruptcy.

You need to get out more.

View

Amm, to throw out a crazy idea...

Maybe we should vote for parties because we agree with the policies that they want to implement - not because they are not the "other party".

That way we don't vote "PD" and end up being disappointed when they don't implement "Joe Higgins" policies...

murphaph

liammur wrote: »

I'm not a fan of kenny, but people seem to think

'i can't vote for FG because of kenny, so i'll vote for FF instead'

I can't see how anyone could have been worse than ahern as a leader, he took over an economy in 1997 in excellent condition and 10 years later it was an absolute wreck.

Maybe people just can't see how limited ahern/cowen are.

Did you read the rest of my post at all, or just see the bit where I said Kenny is abysmal?

I said IN SPITE of Kenny's uselessness, I will vote for FG, in an effort to remove FF from power because they have clearly become waaay to comfortable there. I'm also not naive enough to believe that FG are whiter than white, but that's not the point: the point is to punish bad government, and FF (despite me agreeing with some of their RECENT decisions) are a bad government for a) helping to create the runaway conditions that got us into this mess and b) for being arrogant and corrupt beyond belief.

Comparing Kenny to Cowen and Ahern etc. only serves to show that you believe he is also pretty useless.

murphaph

View wrote: »

Amm, to throw out a crazy idea...

Maybe we should vote for parties because we agree with the policies that they want to implement - not because they are not the "other party".

That way we don't vote "PD" and end up being disappointed when they don't implement "Joe Higgins" policies...

To a point you are 100% correct BUT when the incumbents propose things I can broadly agree with, as FF actually do, but are at the same time so corrupt and wasteful with our money as to be arrogant with it (John O'Donoghue, Bertie Ahern, Ivor Callely, Noel Dempsey all just in the last while)then even when their policy manifesto reads well, they HAVE to be removed to remind ALL politicians that acting in their own interest ahead of the national interest will see them lose their seats.

scr123

Its very amusing to watch innocent children at play constantly starting threads on a little used section of a message board repeating the same drivel about FF. Who are you trying to impress ? When are you going to get the message that despite FF flaws the people of this country have only a shocking combination of extreme right and extreme left to turn to. In two years time when the election campaign starts in earnest FF are going to fight like never before and the famous party machine is going to tear apart the shallow empty little minds of those who dare to believe the Irish people as a whole are foolish enough to accept people of proven failure. The destruction of FF is wishful thinking for the simple reason the alternative scares the you know what out of intelligent people like me.
Have a nice day

Laminations

scr123 not to drag the thread off topic but can you give us specifics about your support.

Do you support Cowen as Taoiseach?
Do you support Dempseys use of the government jet?
Do you support Callely?
Did you support O'Donoghue, O'Dea, Ahern?
Do you support NAMA?
Did you support the Galway tent?
Do you support the government in their handling of e-voting,PPars etc?
Do you support decentralisation?
Do you support the u-turn on decentralisation?
Do you support the governments handling of abuse in this country? e.g. Their capping of church liability

So if you could kindly be specific (which I doubt you can) and reply with less of a Braveheart call to war - 'you'll never take our FF'.

um7y1h83ge06nx

The unfortunate thing is that a lot of the people that would vote against FF and the Greens will have emigrated by the time the election comes around. Most emigrants would probably be seething with anti-FF sentiment.

In less than 100 years we have went from being suppressed by a foreign power to being suppressed by our own countrymen.

scr123

Laminations wrote: »

scr123 not to drag the thread off topic but can you give us specifics about your support.

Do you support Cowen as Taoiseach?
Do you support Dempseys use of the government jet?
Do you support Callely?
Did you support O'Donoghue, O'Dea, Ahern?
Do you support NAMA?
Did you support the Galway tent?
Do you support the government in their handling of e-voting,PPars etc?
Do you support decentralisation?
Do you support the u-turn on decentralisation?
Do you support the governments handling of abuse in this country? e.g. Their capping of church liability

So if you could kindly be specific (which I doubt you can) and reply with less of a Braveheart call to war - 'you'll never take our FF'.

I suport Cowen fully - dirty work had to be done and he did it and is doing it probably at the expense of his political career
Dempsey was silly
Callely is a twat
Only time will tell with NAMA
Galway tent is dead, first thing Cowen did on becoming leader
Things go wrong whether we like it or not ppars was a farce and evoting machines I detested. Cannot understand why they were not returned to supplier when fundamental software fault was discovered
Yes to both questions on centralisation
Like any other difficult situation the abuse scandal solutions have to be teased out. The problem is still up in the air and there are many twists and turns to come. There will never be an ideal solution so yes I support present government efforts

Nothing new about recessions, property bubbles are new to us cause we were a poor country. Bank crisis is new to everyone and only reading Goerge Soros at weekend when he admitted he didnt have a clue of the extent of the problems throughout the whole financial sector across the world. Much more to this story that will never be told, Cowen kept hinting at it but was clearly told to shut up at time of publication of recent reports. Would like to follow up on it myself and try to understand but would be too time consuming and am a bit old in the tooth to try and change the world
You ABFF crowd have a basic flaw, many good things have happened under FF since 1932 but NEVER EVER do you or will you acknowledge this. This is why people like me see you as either young fools or old fools who have allowed themselves to become bitter fanatics

paddyland

scr123 wrote: »

I suport Cowen fully - dirty work had to be done and he did it and is doing it probably at the expense of his political career
Dempsey was silly
Callely is a twat
Only time will tell with NAMA
Galway tent is dead, first thing Cowen did on becoming leader
Things go wrong whether we like it or not ppars was a farce and evoting machines I detested. Cannot understand why they were not returned to supplier when fundamental software fault was discovered
Yes to both questions on centralisation
Like any other difficult situation the abuse scandal solutions have to be teased out. The problem is still up in the air and there are many twists and turns to come. There will never be an ideal solution so yes I support present government efforts

You missed a bit.

Did you support O'Donoghue, O'Dea, Ahern?

scr123 wrote: »

You ABFF crowd have a basic flaw, many good things have happened under FF since 1932 but NEVER EVER do you or will you acknowledge this.

Pray tell us some of these good things that happened under FF since 1932, because I have tried counting and I am still on the fingers of one hand.

And please don't tell us they gave us a party lifestyle during the 2000s, even you couldn't be that stupid!

mikemac

Started our application to the EU, then EEC and got us admitted.

I'd call that an achievement.
There are countries in Europe that having been trying for decades to join the EU.

paddyland

feelingstressed wrote: »

Started our application to the EU, then EEC and got us admitted.

I'd call that an achievement.
There are countries in Europe that having been trying for decades to join the EU.

Look how much money was squandered by FF in all those years, while we sat back and let European money build our roads for us.

The markets opened to us by membership should have given this country a massive boost. So where is our export economy now, then?

mikemac

It was about naming an achievement, you couldn't name five so I added one

What happened in 1973 was an achievement.
I never referred to roads or money squandered or what happened since

Anyway, it was scr123 you asked this question to.
I only added an example, that's all

scr123

paddyland wrote: »

You missed a bit.

Did you support O'Donoghue, O'Dea, Ahern?



Pray tell us some of these good things that happened under FF since 1932, because I have tried counting and I am still on the fingers of one hand.

And please don't tell us they gave us a party lifestyle during the 2000s, even you couldn't be that stupid!

Have spotted you before as someone with an undulterated hatred of FF so dismiss you entirely.
I did omit O Donoghue, O Dea and Ahern

O Donoghue I cannot believe to this day how arrogant he was in the money he spent

O Dea I like as a "character". Keep meaning to find out again why he said what he said about that SF guy. Forget what it was but remember thinking it was provocative which of course does not excuse the manner in which he retaliated. Of course the actual incident between O Dea and the SF guy became unimportant when it was realised the political value available

Ahern I greatly admire. Yes he immersed himself in politics as few people do and it seems his personal life and finances suffered as a result. However, despite his failings and as with Haughey I firmly believe they both worked tirelessly for the country. At this moment there is no evidence that Ahern gained huge amounts of money from politic connections as Haughey did.
The constant problem the ABFF have is their failure to win elections. There is only FF to keep kicking in the groin and we will never know how bad or good they would have been. What we do know is that each time they have come to office the people tossed them out at next election. If I was ABFF I would be more concerned about showing the people the skills and ability to run the country rather than the stupid single policy of battering FF.
So I say to the ABFF, what the heck have you got to offer, lets in on your thinking and forget for 5 minutes about FF !!

Laminations

scr123, firstly thank you for the answer. Now if I could tease out one point.

scr123 wrote: »

I suport Cowen fully - dirty work had to be done and he did it and is doing it probably at the expense of his political career

Why has dirty work had to be done? Who's mess is Cowen trying to clean up? I would propose that it is his previous actions that have damaged him politically - he was named in an independent report - as well as his current sluggish uninspiring response.

You ABFF crowd have a basic flaw, many good things have happened under FF since 1932 but NEVER EVER do you or will you acknowledge this. This is why people like me see you as either young fools or old fools who have allowed themselves to become bitter fanatics

ABFF is inaccurate. I will not go into the polling booth and vote for any old alternative, but I will vote for an alternative. And we are not voting on the good things FF have done since 1932, thats legacy voting. We are voting on their recent performance in government. They as a party have been in recent years led by corruption and scandal (Haughey, Ahern) and have been seen to condone it (do I need to trounce out all the names?).

Laminations

There are some people in this country who see a disconnect between parties and their members as if a party is not defined by its members and the members are not defined by their membership.

If you get many rotten apples in a punnet, it reflects badly on that punnet. And a punnet with many rotten apples is not one I care to sift through on a mission to find some gooduns

the_dark_side

Irish psyche:

'My father voted for them, my grandfather voted for the, and seeing as I am incapable of independent thinking... I will vote for them too'

...as Roy Keane famously said 'Mentally, not strong enough...'

jmayo

scr123 wrote: »

Have spotted you before as someone with an undulterated hatred of FF so dismiss you entirely.
I did omit O Donoghue, O Dea and Ahern

O Donoghue I cannot believe to this day how arrogant he was in the money he spent

O Dea I like as a "character". Keep meaning to find out again why he said what he said about that SF guy. Forget what it was but remember thinking it was provocative which of course does not excuse the manner in which he retaliated. Of course the actual incident between O Dea and the SF guy became unimportant when it was realised the political value available

Let me refresh your selective memory.
He slandered the SF guy in a media interview by claiming he had connections to a brothel.
He then later denied this in a sworn affadivit to the high court and was shown up as a lying toerag when a tape emerged of the interview.

What was provocative again ?

scr123 wrote: »

Ahern I greatly admire. Yes he immersed himself in politics as few people do and it seems his personal life and finances suffered as a result.

I think most people reckon the opposite, that his finances benefitted greatly from his immersion in politics.
Or perhaps you reckon he would have got wads of cash "as gifts" if he was just still a book keeper (not accountant mind you) in the Mater hospital.

scr123 wrote: »

The constant problem the ABFF have is their failure to win elections. There is only FF to keep kicking in the groin and we will never know how bad or good they would have been. What we do know is that each time they have come to office the people tossed them out at next election. If I was ABFF I would be more concerned about showing the people the skills and ability to run the country rather than the stupid single policy of battering FF.
So I say to the ABFF, what the heck have you got to offer, lets in on your thinking and forget for 5 minutes about FF !!

Ah yes the holy grail for ff, winning elections no matter what the cost to your non supporters and the country as a whole.

So we just forget about all the sh**e that ff have done is your only point.

BTW the opposition do have policies, but it is easier to just gloss over them and claim they have no experience and are just whingers. :rolleyes:

Isn't a bit rich asking the opposition to show us their skills and ability to run the country when you beloved party are currently showing us their lack of the above and they actually are being paid very handsomely to supposedly run the country ?

Just to add to the list...
What is you opinion on ray burke, liam lawlor, stroke fahy, padraig flynn, bev flynn, denis foley ?

Liam Byrne

The other side of this thread it becoming pretty apparent; while some people would be staunch FF no matter what, those same people can't get their head around the fact that someone with an opposing view isn't just some "enemy".

Apparently it's impossible for anyone to look at FF, judge their actions and "become" ABFF; no, the only reason they bothered to judge FF is because - in FF supporters' eyes - they were already ABFF.

It's a joke, and it's the same mentality that had Ireland avoiding questioning or examining the Catholic Church or the banks for years, and now we know that all 3 were shafting us.

I do think things are changing, though, because - like Ivor Callely refusing to reference the travel "expenses" in his most recent press release - even the quotes of scr123 above avoided mentioning how Cowen's policies as Minister for Finance led us into this mess.....making the fabled "tough decisions" to get us out.

And that blinkered mindset will never be changed, even to the point of claims that all other parties are somehow "extreme left and right" :rolleyes: this from the party in which Ahern bull****ted about being a socialist while they sold off eircom and Aer Lingus in partnership with the most right-wing party of them all!!!!

I despair sometimes, I really do. And I can almost see all of the sick-of-corruption people emigrating in disgust, leaving the 20% FF'ers here to vote their beloved party back in with a 100% majority!

Laminations

scr123 (and any other supporter of FF) read this and come back to me and tell me you are a proud FF supporter.

A party of disgrace.