You have voted wrong, vote again please...

by Alex Wed Dec 17, 2008 20:05

http://www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=703

--- If the Irish media and public opinion allow themselves to be taken in by the kind of presentational trickery Taoiseach Cowen and his Government are now planning, they could be making themselves the laughing stock of Europe ---

The soon to be made promise of us all getting to keep our own commissioner after Lisbon is apparently yet another blatant lie.

From 2014 nobody gets to pick their own commissioner as they will be hand picked for us from a shortlist of compliant neo-liberal lackies. No shortage of them in politics now.
Throw a shoe in the Dail and your bound to hit a couple.

by mick Wed Dec 17, 2008 00:39

Theres no doubt in my mind that if there was another march against the cuts organised in Dublin (without the kids) it would kick off a revolution.

by Michael - Human League Tue Dec 16, 2008 21:56

Cowen And Co. Are still struggling ,even after 9 and A Half Weeks of the Budget From Hell.
How much longer do we, the electorate, permit them to Continue on The Road To Hell ?
As For The Mass Exodus ,Complete With Irish Money ,To The Shops In The 6 Counties There would be an ideal Oppurtunity for them to Part Redeem
Their Tattered Image.
They Dont Have The ''Bottle'' to act in the interest of the 26 county fledging economy ,and by that alone they should be Ran Out Of Office .

Wake Up And Smell The Coffee.

by Pierce Farrell - Member of CAEUC Mon Dec 15, 2008 19:08

Above also written in a personal capacity.

by Pierce Farrell - Member of the Campaign Against the EU Consitution Mon Dec 15, 2008 18:33

I am writing in a personal capacity and my views while being informed by other members of CAEUC and reading the text of the Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union which are available at www.reformtreaty.ie While there are several positive elements in these documents which would allow national parlements and peoples to have a greater - but not necessarily more effective -say in what is proposed and decided by the EU Commission and European parlement on balance the 'Lisbon Treaty' is a retrograde step for the 500 million people who would in effect be governed under it. I write also with the aim of encouraging clear thinking required in the months ahead so the Lisbon Treaty can be defeated and the EU can be moved in a more rational direction.

To begin we must, as another writer stated earlier, be careful in drawing comparisons between the fascist dictatorships of 1930's Europe and those at the highest levels of power in Europe today. Though I personally see little difference between between them regarding their intentions their methods are substantially different to make most people dissmissive of any comparison. The vast majority of Lisbon Treaty supporters in the European parlement and EU Commission view the Irish No vote as not indicating a problem with the Treaty itself but with the way it was sold. As is often said by those on the losing side of a democratic decision they believe they failed to get their message across or that their message was twisted beyond recognition. Nonetheless this experience will not stop them from employing precisly the same tactics against their opponents the second time round. The Irish Times front page story of December 13th quoted the Danish Prime Minister's arguement that a second No vote by the people of Ireland will gurantee the loss of Ireland's Commission while a Yes vote will be the only thing that will save it. That this arguement was put on the front page of a leading national broadsheet is no surprise given the nauseating pro-EU stance of the IT's editor Geraldine Kennedy. This tactic has the sole purpose of pre-empting and disarming the main tactic used by Libertas in May/June 2008.

More cynically, the precise 'deal' secured by Brian Cowan won't be revealed in its entirety until AFTER the elections to the EU parlement in summer 2009, according to today's papers anyway. This prevents the treaty itself from becoming an issue in these elections and thus pro-treaty candidates can fudge their opinion on the issue by saying the details have not yet been released.

Overall the Lisbon2 arguement will be one set up to show how much Ireland will/could keep under Lisbon2 and this trys to take advantage of the same nationalistic, 'for ourselves' mindset that many blame on the treaty's initial rejection. The same forces that led to the overwhelming acceptance of the 2004 citizenship referendum may not come into play in Lisbon2 but this is neither guranteed or more importantly, desirable. Those parts of the Lisbon Treaty which 'bind the hands' of so many national governments, expecially those of smaller member states must be clearly spelt out so that their future negative impact can be seen by all.

Regarding the EU's past and Ireland's benefit from being a member of the EEC as it then was I fully acknowledge that. However was it our fault that DeVelera and Haughy were so inept at managing the country's finances? The latter was more lazy than inept as his first term as Taoiseach showed;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Haughey#Taoiseach_...31981

Was it our fault that our colonial masters never developed or even permitted the development of a secular school system that would have reduced the impact of catholic chauvininsm and abuse?

Ireland of the first half on the 20th century and those born in the first half of the 20th century must be seen in the context of Ireland's colonial past. Yes EU structural funds and US foreign direct investment helped remedy that past but that does not mean Ireland should vote for a future Europe that could engage in such heartless mismanagement of the EU's neighbours. The Barcelona Process appears to something worthwhile and genuinely progressive and utterly non-dependent of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. The EU should be an exemplar of 'good neighbour policy' and not a rival 'world policeman' that many want it to be.

by Pgibson Mon Dec 15, 2008 15:47

Most people I met who voted no last time had absolutely no idea WHY they voted "no".

They just didn't know what they were being asked to vote "yes" for.

So the vote was a double-barreled dose of pure ignorance.

The EU made Ireland in the '70 and '80s.

They poured billions into this bankrupt..in every sense... country.

They even had to force this backward country to give equal pay to women.

The "Tiger" was never "Celtic".
The Tiger came from Brussels' money (mainly German taxpayers' money.) and American Multinationals.

They now regard us as ungrateful jumped-up riff-raff.

Brussels won't dig us out again...as we sink once again back into the mire from whence they rescued us.

Rightly so.

by Northern boy Mon Dec 15, 2008 14:38

The Government keeps telling us that No means No, if a girl says no and a guy makes her say yes,
what happens, its rape. thats what the government are doing here with the Irish People they are raping us.

shame on them

by dissident Mon Dec 15, 2008 01:20

Brown and Cowen you will be put down! yous can expect more than a couple of shoes being thrown at ye. Disguising, miserable excuses for human-beings, rot in hell you pricks!

by Conor. M - Think Tank, Swords Sun Dec 14, 2008 16:31 liberalconormurphy at ymail dot com

Brown and Cowen, your corporate agenda WILL be put down, 500 million hadn't a voice, only a few had the choice, fist in air, time to resist.
Jose Barroso, it was a clear cut NO, now fuck off to Brussels, and leave us alone....

by pete Sun Dec 14, 2008 13:41

The treaty is dead. When i see the signs go up again they'll be tore down, and so will that EU rag they have flying over Dublin.

Its dead

by lulu Sun Dec 14, 2008 13:35

No is No
No is always no
If we say No, it means 1000 times No!
Finger pointing
Eyebrows low
Mouth in the shape of a letter O
Red means Stop - Do not go
NO NO NO!!!

by Reasoner Sun Dec 14, 2008 13:04

I baulk at this kind of sweeping and alarmist statement: " We are heading for a Fascist takeover and Ireland is the only Country stopping this..."

Who are the Fascists? Where are the brown- and black-shirted goosestepping goons?

I don't like the EU attempt to create a superstate either and think the referendum results in Ireland, France and the Netherlands should be a plain signal to the government leaders that they should not proceed with such a project without direct referral to citizens of all member states. Calling the Lisbon Treaty process Fascist is unfortunately dragging in discredited thugs and maniacs like Mussolini and Hitler. There is no elected head of government in the EU who comes any way close in temperament and methodology to these two dead historical monsters.

by Jim Paine Sun Dec 14, 2008 10:49

Set out to con the Irish

Minister Michael Martin has told Jose Barroso not to mention the fact that “not one word of the Lisbon treaty will be changed” before it is put before the Irish in another referendum next autumn.

Barroso had said this in an interview, earlier in the week.

The so-called legal guarantees that will be given to the Irish will not worth the paper they are written on because they can be discarded at any time by the Commission.

The Reichstag may not burn down this time but we will still have fascism.

Barroso and Martin

by pete Sun Dec 14, 2008 01:32

Feck the spray paint, Its petrol bombs this time! cheeky gombeen bastards better start running! CUNTS!

by Steve Sun Dec 14, 2008 00:37

Time to get the spray paint out. Some suggestions:

STUPID VOTERS! WRONG ANSWER!
PASS IT, DON'T READ IT
WE SAID NO!
WHAT DEMOCRACY?

Be creative. :)

by Jeremy de Pots Sat Dec 13, 2008 22:06

It must be because there is no word in the Irish language for no - it's just a cultural thing.

by lulu Sat Dec 13, 2008 20:20

- let's have the election again, we got the wrong goons!

by europhile but non-EU Sat Dec 13, 2008 13:02

The Lisbon Two run may require a new tack by its opponents. The establishment, including Irish Times and other loud choruses, is demonising business gent D. Ganley as somebody in league with Little Englander eurosceptics. The line to be peddled is this: If you vote NO the second time round you are falling into the hands of UKIP and other blimpish eurosceptics in Britain.

It would help the NO case if a greater effort were made to show that public opinion in France and the Netherlands (obviously) but also Germany and Italy is collectively on the side of another Irish NO vote.
That means we've got to be culturally and linguistically continental without being pro-Brussels. We should peruse the continental papers and blogsites and discover how many sympathisers we've got over there. Parlez-vous francais, Deutsch, Italiano, nederlands?

by lulu Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:53

So we're paying these incompetent, dishonest, dirty, nincompoops to tell us that we're too dumb to choose what we need? The fact that they are in power just demonstrates to them that we're eejits?
I hope, if this expensive farce takes place, that they'll get another resounding NO! If so, what, they'll want best of 3?

by Michael - Human League Sat Dec 13, 2008 02:49

should have read OCT 2009

by Michael - Human League Sat Dec 13, 2008 02:17

Is'nt October 2008 on the agenda for Brians Lisbon ( part 2 ) ?
No Bull this time round ,cram the proposals within 25 pages and leave it to Brian to appease Europeans with the Gud Nu's .
We are not dealing with a pig in a poke or a Leader in this round we are dealing with an electorate who have at last wised up to Government Incompetence on a grand scale ,With the Libertas Group growing by the day on the basis of allowing us information to which we were not priv vy to
last time ,and who really only want to warn us of the connivin and canattin going on ,Brian must be seething we now have a university of talent at our
disposal in Libertas . Sure Libertas have told us the truth last time round ,never wincing on their info and givin it to us straight in the gob as we can
attest to , educating us on most important life changing issues that may have befallen us should we have not voted NO.
Education is a great thing and when applied properly ,and with care ,can benefit an entire country ,after all WE THE ELECTORATE VOTED NO .

What We did with our vote was accepted then so whats the difference now .
AHHHH YE we get to keep our own commisioner .........

by Conor. M - Think Tank, Swords Fri Dec 12, 2008 21:16 liberalconormurphy at ymail dot com

I was on the bus on the way home today reading a copy of The Irish Times. I was not amused, almost stunned, to read the cover story, 'British concerns over Irish Lisbon poll proposals". As far as coverage goes on the Lisbon treaty, it was the same rhetoric except (its okay everybody) we get to keep our commissioner.

--- (I'm watching the RTE news right now, 9.00. It's pretty much looking like another vote.... big surprise there) ---

Anyway!
Back to original point on 'Democracy'. On the front page Brian Cowen says he wants the Government to see the Lisbon treaty enter into force as soon as possible without interfering with the ratification process - and for that to happen the Government had a duty to represent the concerns of its electorate.
Represent the electorate? I believe, to fully represent us, he should probably remind the E.U that we voted no. There is no Democracy in being told you've just voted the wrong way. I had expected Bush and Israel to tell Palestine they voted the wrong way but, in a rich vibrant Democracy like ours, how can it be possible? I dont suppose it has anything to do with the fact that we no longer exist in a 'Democracy'.
We live in frightening times. There is only one thing we can do, (we, as in, not in the 'left' parties after the SHOCKING breakdown of the SP, SWP etc...) If you want to put all differences aside, to help all groups to defeat the Lisbon treaty again, as well as help us contact me.
I would hope the Left parties consider working together to defeat the Lisbon treaty if they truly represent the people, as they claim.