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Tubridy is running for local elections. No not Ryan but some guy called Garret( according to P.ie his brother. ) Now there is a few things to note here. 1. He is running for Fianna Fail. Which is well hidden on the site. As if he is ashamed of the label. Seems to be doing the whole Change thing while still within the tent. More I think about FF is not a ideological tent but a mates and family tent. He is fund raising by having a US election themed evening.
Join Garrett and the Crew [me: only if he said "in the hood" could this be more cringe worthy] for a night of political thrills and spills.
Despite all that what I wanted to say is that is a very very well designed site. Borrowing heavily from the US it works. It is integrating Web 2.0 Facebook, digg etc to a better extent then another political party/person I have seen in Ireland. (Labours is the next best but far behind.) It looks like he is trying to create a grassroots organisation via the site. Now this is something I think that a Fianna Fail candidate is unlikely to do. But The opposition could certainly do something like this.
Tap the youth market via the net. The youth in Ireland are the least voting demographic in this country and are passionate about issues. But need to be reached in a certain way, FG and Labour need to tap into the Obama esque belief that something can be changed. I always thought that Irish politics was not divisive enough for the Internet to really have a big impact. Because if you look at America it has been the devisiveness of bush that has exploded politics on the web. Maybe in Ireland we are getting there. But to get there the Parties need to be a lot more proactive on the web. Certainly more then banal press releases.
P.S Garrett get yourself a blog.
FG and Labour need to tap into the Obama esque belief that something can be changed.
Given that YFG seem to have a good number of (recent) past and present members who are much closer to US Republicans than to the Democratic Party (even without counting the Libertas/Freedom Institute types), I’d say there’s little chance of that.
If anything, I’d expect young FG Turks to instead demagogue on gay rights*, emigration and similar right-wing wedge issues instead .
* and as with the modern-day GOP, that of course will include gay FG-ers!
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“Rosa sat so Martin could walk.
Martin walked so Barack could run.
Barack is running so our children can fly.”
-quote heard on NPR
From the hip-and-groovy Turgidly website:
“I live and work in the city and, as part of a young family, I face the same issues that everyone in Dublin faces; a city in gridlock, increased crime, the consequences of bad planning and a reduced sense of community. I believe Dublin can be better.”
And, by the way, I’m standing for…er…FF.
That maybe indeed Pat Rabitte had his “40 million poles comment”. but anyway. maybe I was not quiet clear. By Obamaesque Change I mean a campaign with much of its success based on the belief that something can be changed. (what that change is not the issue here )
Didn’t Mulley rumble that this is being run by one of the neutral kids Rockin’ Da Vote, Biiiaaaatttchhh?
seemingly he did. didn’t read it
seemingly he did. didn’t read it
Ditto. Though apparently being banned from commenting over there means that I don’t often visit that particular delicate flower’s blog very often these days.
By Obamaesque Change I mean a campaign with much of its success based on the belief that something can be changed
Yes, but given that We Are All PDs Now, what exactly could be sold to the electorate as difference between FF and FG? Apart from economics (on which they’re in lockstep), what is there?
Maybe EWI. then again was there much difference then Hilary and Obama? Yet one was for change and won.
Oh look, EWI surfaces and once again gets right into his gay obsession.
EWI, I suspect you’re as much in the know as to what FG or YFG would do campaignwise as Damo is.
Simon, in some sense people needed to experience the harsh come down of the last two losses before they could take the steps to support someone like Obama.
And we need to see less of our own southern version of whataboutery. Take one example, FG has been fairly consistent in its support of civil unions over the last few years but FG will attract more flack from bloggers than FF. Why? My guess is people can’t see past their own prejudices or can’t see that expressing an opinion in support with caveats of policy A from Party X doesn’t mean you have to join the party. A party or individual’s position on an issue you care about might not be 100% of what you want but 80% is better than 20% and until people are grown up enough to give even grudging respect then we’re going to continue to see the tedious trench warfare we’ve always seen. That has tendency to be the voice from the blogosphere in Ireland, it’s all about what’s wrong with the opposition and proportionately less what the government does.
If we saw a little less of the gullible hero worship as exhibited by some bloggers and members of the public more generally then the system might change. This business of (The Greens are great, the Greens are great, I love them so much, Eamon Ryan is so, so fantastic. His broadband Kung Fu is the bestest…Oh they’ve gone in with FF, the Greens have betrayed me. Aren’t theys awful, spiteful creatures? Where’s my broadband? Moan, moan whinge repeat.) There’s a name for that sort of behaviour. Less of the Violet Elisabeth type swinging between extremes and a bit more rationality and then we could start to expect some progress. Politics is supposed to be about content not the campaign methodology.
I’ve a piece in today’s IT http://tinyurl.com/5mdecy which has given rise to a half decent thread on Slugger: http://tinyurl.com/5ej5xo.
I’m aware that making allusions to someone with a success on their hands in another polity can be unhelpful. Hearing someone talk about what went wrong in getting there is probably more instructive.
I’m pretty sure that the parties are all taking the net seriously to one degree or another. But at the Dublin conference Damian Blake pointed out the quintessence of the problem facing all Irish parties: politics tends not to get you elected, how many potholes you get fixed does.
That’s why Libertas ran rings round the parties during Lisbon. Partly that’s because they don’t have to be distracted with winning representation in the Oireachtas, and partly because they knew how to eavesdrop on conversations between engaged citizens on the net to their own advantage.
I’ve a sense that some of the most relevant and useful conversations are happening here (by which I mean the asynchronous territory of the Net, not just IE). Libertas have proved that engaging online makes you smarter but does not necessarily mean you end up offering better politics.
I’ve recently started trying to rather self consciously pull more of that into a Slugger readership though our Daily Blogburst slots and make more of an effort to get our audience to look outwards rather than inwards, or just to the best on the mainstream.
In the end we just have to be good, and talk to each other. And more will join in. If we do it well enough, the parties will join in their own good time.
(The Greens are great, the Greens are great, I love them so much, Eamon Ryan is so, so fantastic. His broadband Kung Fu is the bestest…Oh they’ve gone in with FF, the Greens have betrayed me. Aren’t theys awful, spiteful creatures? Where’s my broadband? Moan, moan whinge repeat.)
My God, man, don’t you know that broadband is a human right?. “Disconnected people have disconnected rights” and all that.
Oh look, EWI surfaces and once again gets right into his gay obsession.
It’s the Apple accessorizing, darling.
Speaking of Obama, The Best Victory Graphic Ever:
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/13958.html
EWI, I suspect you’re as much in the know as to what FG or YFG would do campaignwise as Damo is.
And (speaking of Mr. Tubridy’s coyness about his own links) I am guessing that you do not suffer under this handicap yourself.
I can only judge based on my own observation of the rightward drift of FG (and YFG in particular) away from Garret FizGerald’s social democracy. And as Mr. Mulley can confirm, I am well aware of who was manning the Freedom Institute (and latterly providing aid and comfort to Libertas) in its most virulent phase - and they weren’t PDs.
I can call to mind several young FG politicians (at least some of whom have had exposure to the GOP) whom I would confidently bet on finding such a course appealing. I would say that a number of other people reading this thread can too.
[TBVGE updated link: http://i36.tinypic.com/waqa6u.gif
please people try keeping it on topic. This is about the use of internet in Irish Politics.
That has tendency to be the voice from the blogosphere in Ireland, it’s all about what’s wrong with the opposition and proportionately less what the government does.
I would have thought it is the other way the vast majority of Irish bloggers are very anti-government indeed I am probably one of the few that ever defends the government (mainly because of the former).
Actually I wonder what an Obama victory will do for the blogosphere in America. So much of blogging is about attacking which is easy to do. But now that the Dems have control of the house congress and presidency. They will have to defend more. Which is harder to do. It is easy to say raise tax to pay for health care. But when raising tax doesn’t improve health care it is harder to defend that. Also much of the blogosphere was powered by anger at Bush with that source of “inspiration” gone what will happen.
Look at the UK the successful blogs are the Guido fawles Ian Dale blogs who are on the right, i.e. conservatives. Basically the opposite from the US. When the tories get back in power what happens then?
As for Ireland we have strong left wing blogs. Dublinopinion, notes on the front, ceder lounge. What is on the pro-government side?
This is a great blog http://www.turbulenceahead.com/ but would not call it pro government at all. But certainly right
Simon,
The first big US beasts were on the right, warblogs mostly dissatisfied with the output from the MSM. There’s a few TDs, but at the moment that’s it.
The blog power on the US left has gone into campaigning, counterattacking, politically focused stuff. For my money, despite some the most interesting deliberative stuff in the UK is emerging on the left.
Our problem is that there is little ideological structure to the real political debate. Arguments on the floor of the Dail tend to be opportunist and short term. Some of the political content on blogs has, understandably, taken a similar tack.
But there is now a small cluster of bloggers who take a real and sustained interest in the business of politics. Networking that good content out across platforms we have is probably the best way to grow it and motivate new entrants into the market to keep at it, get better and expand into their own niches.
Simom, I agree that “the vast majority of Irish bloggers are very anti-government “. Their stance is anti-government for sure however they take the wrongness of the government as a given and move straight on to the fight amongst themselves aspect that one gets in student politics and in the world of the SWP,SP,WP and so on. They don’t pick apart what it is that is wrong about government policy A and then look at the range of alternatives, instead it is government is awful and wrong and I love Mary Lou McDonald (ok that’s just factual, but there area lot of near factuals out there)
Regarding Libertas, I think it is instructive to remember that we’d been done the road of one focus campaign organisation before with the pro-life groups and the anti-divorce campaign of ‘86. They too oversaw campaigns that ran rings around governments.
It’s hardly the fault of blogs and other sites that don’t agree with government policy that they exist and pro government or FF/PD to be specific sites don’t. Bash yerselves up for once why don’t you!!
Dan on the civil unions issue I think you doth protest too much - FF are getting a lot of grief on civil unions as are the greens - It’s that long since FG have been in power I don’t think their (very flawed) policy would be worth talking about anytime soon - let’s wait until the debate on the legislation and we see FG members scuttling queer families under the bus…
A final thought - other than the Politics.ie link can anyone show me how Libertas actually ran rings around the other parties with online activism, blogs and other 2.0 stuff??? Other than a website I mean???
Suzy,
Agreed on the first. Exley’s talk points out the genesis of the Obama lies with pre-existing support. You don’t have that, you don’t have nuttin’ (to paraphrase De Niro…
On your last, there is no evidence of that. Libertas’s engagement with the net started and ended with P.ie so far as I know. Why would they go any further, they had what they needed right there in the walled garden. And unlike the other parties they used it strategically and to good disruptive effect.
Suzy, it was just an example I wasn’t protesting a whole hell of a lot. I would agree that the Greens are getting heat from people but FF considerably less so. FF’s position is just taken as a given and left at that. FF get to sit back while everyone else engages in a divide and let them conquer approach that suits them.
And see you couldn’t pass up the chance to characterise FG members as scuttling queer families under a bus…I mean WTF. I think there are members of FG who are doubtless homophobic but are they fantastically more prevalent and influential than in all other parties? I hard think so. I think there are differences between the FG position and, say, the Labour one just as there are differences within the broad grouping of those directly affected by the issue. Yet if you seek to expend your energy fighting over about that which separates rather than that which unites then you’ll make considerably slower progress than if you focused what was held in common. It’s just my world view peaking through though.
As for p.ie, the key aspect I reckon was that it allowed for debate (and I’ve been happy to characterise that debate in a fairly honest manner in that Sunday Times piece but barmy would sum much of it up) and some people who read the content then took it and ran with it. p.ie provided considerable fertiliser (in multiple senses) that others made hay with, it didn’t require Libertas to be directly guiding things.
It’s hardly the fault of blogs and other sites that don’t agree with government policy that they exist and pro government or FF/PD to be specific sites don’t. Bash yerselves up for once why don’t you!!
It is not the fault of blogs but the nature of blogs that I am pointing out. They trive on controversy and anger. It is about quick sharp attacks. this post which I thought was well researched got 1 comment and I doubt many read it. It anaysised a policy shared by most parties (more police on the beat) and raised a few issues about it.
http://www.irishelection.com/05/community-policing-not-what-you-think/
This one on the other hand was a blantant attack on a pacific grouping. (and obvious a rip off of this Tailor made to get peoples goats and guess what
http://www.irishelection.com/05/dont-put-fglabgreen-in/
this got more comments then anyother post on this site ever.
It seems to me that if you want to get readership and get people to engage in blogs. You have to be blatantly partisan. Bashing the oppoition. and defending your little ideological hill. Having thought out pieces are not the way to go. Newspapers do that. People read blogs to challange the status quo. But once they change it will they still care?
We have to see what happens kos and huffpost after 4 years of basically one party rule in the states.
Dan
“…it didn’t require Libertas to be directly guiding things.”
Ba sin é go díreach! It’s that ‘investment in conversations’ I mentioned in the IT piece. You can say what you like about the site, but David understands the the value of those conversations, and Naoise (I suspect) had the strategic nouse to put it to good use with the press.
Whether or not you think Libertas was out to do good or bad, it was an audacious (and indigenous) use of the net for political ends.
Simon, Guido stressed the ‘be partisan, be controversial’ two years ago at the previous conference ye organised. It is the way to drive readership for sure. But ultimately it seems to me to be like that joke about taking a leak in dark suit, it might you a nice warm feeling for a while but few others will notice.
Guido a one man show gains more readership ( i think) then commentisfree with multiple writters and loads of money behind it. With a national paper behind it.
Also if I pissed in my pants walking down the street would you notice me?? yes. If I walked down the street without piss in my pants. would you notice me ? No
Well, the joke always seemed to refer to someone sitting in an office rather than walking down the street. I think it’s the dark suit that is key! I think the full line is “Doing a good job here is like pissing yourself in a dark suit. It gives you a warm feeling but nobody notices”
Simon, I don’t deny Guido’s readership and impact but that doesn’t mean all of us are looking to make an impact on the same way. Nor should we be. Different tools for different goals.
Whether or not you think Libertas was out to do good or bad, it was an audacious (and indigenous)
Libertas is “indigenous”, Mick?
I - and a f***ing load of other people - would take great exception to this description.
Also much of the blogosphere was powered by anger at Bush with that source of “inspiration” gone what will happen.
There’s not much I can add to Mick Fealty’s timely history lesson, which as an observer of many years of the growth of the US blogging scene I can endorse as a pretty accurate picture.
But I will say that Bush was merely one (pretty mediocre) politician. Believe me, there’s plenty of wingnuts left to come to grips with. They haven’t gone away, you know.
EWI,
Okay, it appears to have been funded by foreign money. But its theatre of operations was indigenous to Ireland. The University of Limerick is an indigenous Irish University even if it had relied heavily on foreign donations to build up its infrastructure.
Irish politicians will take none of this seriously whilst it doesn’t either offer a threat or an opportunity they find tangible in their own real world terms.
Obama’s in another, larger, richer and vastly different social structure. Libertas delivered its bloody noses at home.
OMFG, I’m in agreement with EWI. Somewhere. Up there.
I really can’t take Tubridy seriously when he says;
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I ran for Vice-President and Education Officer of the Students’ Union. While I found the election campaigning interesting, the real eye-opener came when I was elected and saw that there were things I could do to improve the lot of students;
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The entire purpose of a student union officer is to improve the lot of student and yet this guy is suprised when he discovers that!