As Bertie departs, some of the talk on the tv is about how we voted for that Government last year and we made the choice and gave em the mandate and so on - the Opposition weren't convincing enough etc. etc. which meant in my mind that the country is being run by 44% of the country's opinions which begs the question about the other 56% looking on ... surely we should be relieved that FF and FG are so similar because then at least we know we aren't losing out on any shiny goodies that FG might implement when in power that FF wouldn't ..

Which led me to the thought of whether politics is any good at all for getting things done and some other questions like

-could we make the current set up more representative?
-is it ok the way it is we just need to get our parties to be more holistic with economics and the environment, policy-wise?
-how do we influence our parties if something like the above it needed? meetings meetings meetings?
-do we vote with our feet/pocket/stomach and to hell with politicians?
-is there nothing wrong with the Status Quo we're only banging on because we have f-all better to do and this and other fora are just bile sinks?
-do we join militant lobby groups and seek to overthrow the rulers and establish new laws?

On the subject of available money for public services, an old lady on the radio earlier said "I know we have a low-tax economy brought in by the PDs but I'd still wonder what the likes of the HSE are doing witht the money they ARE getting - I think it's top-heavy and a load of admin staff should be culled ..." (she sounded in her seventies)

A peaceful idea that appeals to me is localising tax and being able to vote regularly on localised budgets. If budgets come up short then people can always donate time, expertise, resources or wealth to their locality if needs be.

Anyone got any other ideas for changing the world?

You want to give more power and money to gombeen councillors? That's how people will interpret that idea.

When it came to the election, people gave Bertie the benefit of the doubt, expected him to account for himself at the Mahon tribuneral. He didn't deliver and so he's gone. Easy.

The grass is always greener on the other side. No matter what form of government you have, people will complain that the country is falling apart and reform is neccessary.

You talk of voting with our feet. My instinct is to favour this approach, but it only occasionally happens. I don't know much about the internal mechanics of political parties but I imagine that party members have some say in the party's direction. The drop in party membership is a cause for concern so.

You talk of lobby groups, as if they were the only non-party/union manner of political participation. Have you forgotten NSM's? 'New social movements' are groups such as environmental groups, anti-nucleur groups, language rights groups, minority groups. They are becoming a more prominant part of the political sphere, as they are chiefly made up of upwardly mobile, knowledge-economy worker types concerned with self-fulfillment. They are not to be confused with lobby groups, who are usually self-interested.

'Culling' the public service is the default response of too many people in this country. You can't keep everyone happy; you'd only have complaints about undermanned departments.

First of all, don't blame me, I voted Labour.

So how can you say Machine Nation has not changed the world.
1 month into our existence, the Taoiseach and President of Zimbabwe are overthrown. That's a good month in my book.

The information age seems to have brought with it an awful lot of societal worry and insecurity. We worry about all sorts of stuff that didn't exist or was unimportant 50 years ago. Dealing with these concerns and anxieties robs us of time. Lack of time is bad for society.

It's a vicious circle, and politics and democracy etc. get pushed way down the list in favour of chasing our own tails.

So I think some policies that help people to relax and enjoy life a bit would help immeasurably.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

So I think some policies that help people to relax and enjoy life a bit would help immeasurably.

Bertie addresses this by spending how much on greyhound tracks and his reward is to be condemned?

There was an article in the Irish Times. I think. about how sport is creating its own little world and causing us to lose focus on politics. I think Noam Chomsky came up with that notion; that sport was a distraction from real issues, a sort of bread and circuses for today.

Because Noam Chomsky said it I immediately disagreed, but then John Waters condemned it so now I don't know what to think.

Anyway, I don't see it changing the peripheral role of politics.

The people of Clare have little say. Correct me if I am wrong but they are probably represented by 4 td's who could not give a rat's ass about anything but themselves. I also assume that it is hard for a person to get elected from outside the clique if he wanted to influence some issue that might be critical to the bannerites. If Ireland is unfortunate enough to become part of a 27 country superstate then they will be deserving of their fate. I hope fora like this one would bring more to realise that the foolishness of ff good fg bad leads nowhere. Even the Greens seem to have compremised their principles for greed. I am looking forward to how people will react as the changes that are coming will affect them

You asume youngdan. Clare has four TDs two FF and two FG. Their FG TDs are deputy spokesersons on justice and foreign affairs. One of their FF TDs is a minister of state for environment and energy. Thier fourth TD was preceded by Síle De Valera.

In the 2002 an independent TD was elected. No idea what he did.

I am not well up on these td's but remember a good quote from the Indian fellow who got elected. He reckoned that having elected so many cowboys that it was time to elect an indian. I am more familiar with the 4 beauties from east galway where I am origonally from.

So NSMs are New Social Movements not lobby groups ? (I think I used to call them the anti-globalisation hippies - no offence to anyone) Are these groups of people inter-co-ordinated or do they need to be ?

EVM That's a good focus on recreation - I do believe that Exercise should be one of the many Es we should be founding societies on and this ties in with the thread on the land access so there's a direct impact on your needs and political views if you follow a party which goes after policies like making land above 150m public or National Park ... I do feel there is systemic balance we would be wise to pursue - having a healthy population has many effects, not only on the HSE budget, nor is the only effect of having free-roaming land positive for tourism, it has holistic effects for society at large in terms of mental health, spirituality - if you're that way inclined, art, and godknowswhat else.

We're getting places..

Lovely thread! altogether brilliant! would love to join it but must look after the garden while the sun is shining. See you later.

There's nothing stopping you from bringing your laptop into the weeds with you, cactus ..

Auditor #9 wrote:

So NSMs are New Social Movements not lobby groups ? (I think I used to call them the anti-globalisation hippies - no offence to anyone) Are these groups of people inter-co-ordinated or do they need to be ?

I tried to avoid examples like S2S and Tara.

Sometimes these groups are co-ordinated. I read a book once called 'We are Everywhere', an exercise in complete crusty hippiness. But one of the themes was increased cooperation between divers groups. The Shell to Sea campaign were always citing the struggle in Nigeria and the Tara campaign had some support in Germany and the States.

Here's what Hilary Tovey had to say on the matter in his sociology textbook

Quote :

“In post-industrial society new movements emerge that are no longer concerned with the workplace or with accessing state power. They develop in civil society (the realm of social life that is neither primarily economic nor primarily political) and are mainly concerned with defending it from the state. In post-industrial society, according to Touraine (1982), those who wield power are not the owners of material production resources but the controllers of knowledge- science, technology and the media. NSMs in post-industrial society aim to defend the subordinated to technological or knowledge control, that is, all ordinary citizens whose lives are governed by the decisions of a knowledge elite. They seek not to become a part of that elite but to defend culture and civil society against it” (Tovey 2003:453).

Dunno if that helps.

905 wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

So NSMs are New Social Movements not lobby groups ? (I think I used to call them the anti-globalisation hippies - no offence to anyone) Are these groups of people inter-co-ordinated or do they need to be ?

I tried to avoid examples like S2S and Tara.

Sometimes these groups are co-ordinated. I read a book once called 'We are Everywhere', an exercise in complete crusty hippiness. But one of the themes was increased cooperation between divers groups. The Shell to Sea campaign were always citing the struggle in Nigeria and the Tara campaign had some support in Germany and the States.

Here's what Hilary Tovey had to say on the matter in his sociology textbook

Quote :

“In post-industrial society new movements emerge that are no longer concerned with the workplace or with accessing state power. They develop in civil society (the realm of social life that is neither primarily economic nor primarily political) and are mainly concerned with defending it from the state. In post-industrial society, according to Touraine (1982), those who wield power are not the owners of material production resources but the controllers of knowledge- science, technology and the media. NSMs in post-industrial society aim to defend the subordinated to technological or knowledge control, that is, all ordinary citizens whose lives are governed by the decisions of a knowledge elite. They seek not to become a part of that elite but to defend culture and civil society against it” (Tovey 2003:453)

Dunno if that helps.

Sorry to mention it, but Indymedia comes in here somewhere.

Auditor #9 wrote:

As Bertie departs, some of the talk on the tv is about how we voted for that Government last year and we made the choice and gave em the mandate and so on - the Opposition weren't convincing enough etc. etc. which meant in my mind that the country is being run by 44% of the country's opinions which begs the question about the other 56% looking on ... surely we should be relieved that FF and FG are so similar because then at least we know we aren't losing out on any shiny goodies that FG might implement when in power that FF wouldn't ..

Which led me to the thought of whether politics is any good at all for getting things done and some other questions like

-could we make the current set up more representative?
-is it ok the way it is we just need to get our parties to be more holistic with economics and the environment, policy-wise?
-how do we influence our parties if something like the above it needed? meetings meetings meetings?
-do we vote with our feet/pocket/stomach and to hell with politicians?
-is there nothing wrong with the Status Quo we're only banging on because we have f-all better to do and this and other fora are just bile sinks?
-do we join militant lobby groups and seek to overthrow the rulers and establish new laws?

On the subject of available money for public services, an old lady on the radio earlier said "I know we have a low-tax economy brought in by the PDs but I'd still wonder what the likes of the HSE are doing witht the money they ARE getting - I think it's top-heavy and a load of admin staff should be culled ..." (she sounded in her seventies)

A peaceful idea that appeals to me is localising tax and being able to vote regularly on localised budgets. If budgets come up short then people can always donate time, expertise, resources or wealth to their locality if needs be.

Anyone got any other ideas for changing the world?

I very much like your idea Auditor#9. Parts of it happen, if not all of it, in different parts of the world. The centralisation of funds and decision making in Ireland is unusual. If you go to a Greek island, you'll find a local authority mayor for every small village getting the pipework in and fixing the roads and the square.
In America in some areas you can vote on the colours people paint their front doors (wonders of the chad..) or whether a house can be built or trees cut down.
In France there is a mayor for every village. The town meeting needs to be turned into the town workshop, but otherwise it is a great idea.

We have lost our smaller town councils, and as far as I can see the new Green Paper on local government will not make it easier for communities to get local democracy. Maybe they could be persuaded to change their minds. I think every place of more than 250 people needs a local democracy.

Is not the trend in the other direction. When and if the new European president is picked then the Dail will have no reason to exist

youngdan wrote:

Is not the trend in the other direction. When and if the new European president is picked then the Dail will have no reason to exist

At the moment youngdan it is so quiet from the Dail I'm not sure if they do.

youngdan wrote:

Is not the trend in the other direction. When and if the new European president is picked then the Dail will have no reason to exist

Since the President of the Council's job is mostly arranging meetings of national Ministers, that seems unlikely.

We have changed the world.

Let no one tell you otherwise.

Machine Nation is the slight flap of a butterflys wing on a summers day.

Edward Lorentz RIP.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

We have changed the world.

Let no one tell you otherwise.

Machine Nation is the slight flap of a butterflys wing on a summers day.

Edward Lorentz RIP.

A Brief History of Chaos Theory - this fella is one for An Reilig. Ard Taoiseach ! Cá bhfuil tú?

Auditor #9 wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

We have changed the world.

Let no one tell you otherwise.

Machine Nation is the slight flap of a butterflys wing on a summers day.

Edward Lorentz RIP.

A Brief History of Chaos Theory - this fella is one for An Reilig. Ard Taoiseach ! Cá bhfuil tú?

I like Chaos Theory. That is a nice link. I like the way it allows that tiny incremental change can result in vast unpredictable leaps.

Auditor #9 wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

We have changed the world.

Let no one tell you otherwise.

Machine Nation is the slight flap of a butterflys wing on a summers day.

Edward Lorentz RIP.

A Brief History of Chaos Theory - this fella is one for An Reilig. Ard Taoiseach ! Cá bhfuil tú?

Edward Lorentz is recently dead? I shall consult with Google...

905 wrote:

You want to give more power and money to gombeen councillors? That's how people will interpret that idea.

When it came to the election, people gave Bertie the benefit of the doubt, expected him to account for himself at the Mahon tribuneral. He didn't deliver and so he's gone. Easy.

he didn't account for himself ten years ago. when he said a 'senior figure' co-signed the checks, thats accountability ten years delayed, not easy, dreadful.

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

We have changed the world.

Let no one tell you otherwise.

Machine Nation is the slight flap of a butterflys wing on a summers day.

Edward Lorentz RIP.

A Brief History of Chaos Theory - this fella is one for An Reilig. Ard Taoiseach ! Cá bhfuil tú?

Edward Lorentz is recently dead? I shall consult with Google...

He died April 18th, aged 90



Story here

Thanks EvotingMachine