Irish Bloggers will not influence the election

This is a continuation of a rant from the previous post. I don’t have a lot of love for any party or politician in this country. None of them really care and all of them are now part of a broken system they all first want to fix and suddenly become part of, making it even worse. It amazes me that people who have all these ideals still consider voting for any party and that some voters have this really stupid fucking attitude of “well they’re not as bad as the other party.” “Not as bad” isn’t what or who should be running our country.

Simon has a post on the next election here. Auds has a reply too. Simon says it’s time for change and to vote the current Government out. I think the time has run out on ALL parties. They all need to be voted out of office. Reboot the political system in Ireland. The others will get in and fuck things up just as much. Still I also abhor the fact that voters will keep the Bertie show in office because Enda and Pat are clowns and will make it worse.

Look at all the comments in the blog posts above and how already the lines are drawn and the bitching has started between bloggers. Change will never happen with politicians the way they are and bloggers who debate politics with childish and immature attitudes and who get personal and very pathetic after two comments. Lot of political bloggers have political aspirations whether they admit it or not and want to make changes. They can make things change because they have the key element of passion but until they stop attacking each other, the current political system will remain no matter which party is in charge. Nobody takes nitpickers seriously and yet so many bloggers seriously nitpick.

If bloggers think they have the ability to make changes then they need to mature a hell of a lot and stop acting like jerks to each other and to the greater world. I wouldn’t vote for any politicians and I certainly wouldn’t vote for any of bloggers either to run a country or advise on it. Write as many articles as you want, create as many websites as you want but until as a collective bloggers mature, they have no chance of influencing the political establishment to change.

We may point to Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes and I like how Guido irks so many because of his readership as Jeff Jarvis points out but taking down someone that needs to be taken down is not enough. All that does is make the rest cover their tracks more. There’s less than a handful of bloggers who have actually contributed to real life campaigns and initiatives to make changes. I respect them and will allow them to influence me. The rest I see as spoiled kids stamping their feet when not getting their way. Until that changes then blogging for change will be futile.

Hmm, have I insulted enough people with this post?

Edit: More commentary from: The InFactahnistas, John Timmons, Richard Waghorne , Adam Maguire, Adam Maguire again, Tom Raftery, Suzy Byrne, the lovely Auds ,Simon the Dosser, a great post from Treasa and one from Fergal Crehan.

14 Responses to “Irish Bloggers will not influence the election”

  1. Adam says:

    I think bloggers having one single voice would do more harm than good.
    Places like Irishelection.com are not there to dictate policy, they are there to facilitate debate.
    Individual bloggers are perfectly capable of causing a stir under the right circumstances and if they want to enough.

    I agree that there’s no place for childishness but for the most part that doesn’t happen, no more than it does in any other online disagreement… For us all to sit quietly and get along to present some kind of united front would be odd; we’d be as bad as the politicians then

  2. Brian Greene says:

    politics & media
    I was driven out of my media as a 17 year old by rambo burke, fianna fail and the local radio bill / wireless telegraphy act 1988. Century radio module @ the tribunal made me feel sick in a progressive way it also made me feel they robbed 40 youth on the northside of dublin their past time, and some of their careers…

    i was blogging before I ever ran for political office, and I dont see running or winning as all that important. Bloggers, generally Damian, get off there backsides, as a politiko, I block bin trucks I organise against radiation companies, make planning less corrupt, drop tens of thousands of leaflets per year sell hundreds of papers, journals, raffle tickets and therefore knock of quite a lot of doors.

    In any community of say 3000 people its the same 30 (1%) who run everything, many of the rest are resting in the arms of a sofa in front of super wide HD tv screen in multichannel zapper land of crap TV, they are our problem, not leaders of FF PD FG LAB SF etc. a system that conditions these people into this state is at fault also, the celtic zombies that work 69 hours a week and can not volunteer for anything except a does of mind numbing tv to make it through the night with sleepy tired eyes, to return to work again at 7am.

    ban all non essential radio & tv (except stations launched and helped by the minister for communications) cap the ad revenue of the state broadcaster (oops tried that and all it gave us was TnaG/TG4 )

    given a choice zapper man & woman are lazy and that is the problem, the 1% are not all political but they are expected as village chieftains to carry the interests of zapper man who is first to complain about everything. I really do fear the day zapper man can vote with a red button.

    then we are all nuked.

  3. Fact Checker says:

    very good post because it points out the obvious. for all the huffing and puffing from bloggers, nothing they say or do will influence the next election, bar finding and proving some story the mainstream media misses. this though will not happen as irish bloggers prefer to attack each other or nitpick rather than do any real, readable analysis. its not for nothing that most blogs still take their cues (or oppostite view points) from what print commentators are saying.

    your post on the Labour Party trying to get into bed with bloggers was also excellent. good work

  4. Branedy says:

    You are more or less correct talk is cheap, but talking is a start, there has been a vast void of discussion and talk within the public domain. and if bloggers can stir the ‘talk a little treason’ amongst the public then so be it. Action comes after a plan, not the other way around and no amount of bin blocking actions will get support until the motovations are clear to everyone.

  5. copernicus says:

    Those bloggers who are politically active within the current millieu aren’t out to use blogs to influence voters directly, their aim is to grow activism and to have a conversation about how best a change of government can be encouraged. The contributions of the pro-Bush, PD and FF, nuttier elements of the blogosphere are irrelevant to the discussion and unwanted.

    To state that pointing out the stupidity and errors of judgment and fact by someone is immature because it discourages them from coming on board with you is daft. Those people will never come on board, they’re entrenched possessers of revealed truths and their only interest is to undermine and discredit arguments which grate on their worldview.

    Mulley is talking out his hole, to be frank and unless he’s going to produce a political party from his no doubt capacious pockets which is capable of taking 80 plus seats at the next election, his comments on the maturity or otherwise of those bloggers who live in the real world of current political discourse is just so much sour grapes.

    He should stick to trying to pry hot tubs out of businessmen and listening credulously to eircom’s pleas that nobody will buy their broadband because one of their suits was nice enough to meet him lunch.

  6. The Blogger and the Politician

    Damien decided to go off on a tangent (something heÂ’s been known to do before) and have a go at politics, blogging versus politics and the partisan party political system.

    Now if heÂ’d thrown in women (or men depending) and religion IÂ’d have been …

  7. auds says:

    I just posted another equally turgid screed about the election – it’s entitled “i’m just a blogger”.
    Of course bloggers aren’t going to influence the election – factors from readership to accessibility immediately spring to mind, let alone the actual usefulness of blogs in a political context of convincing voters – it’s like the taxi drivers a few years ago saying they had the power to through Bertie out of office – I remember being in a taxi with one who was their union shop stewart and he claimed he’d great power because when people got into his taxi he could influence them with his opinions, and they’d change their minds.
    And in terms of nitpicking – it’s certainly easier to handle over blogs than on doorsteps – I canvassed for a few different candidates in the past and it’s bloody hard.

    Copernicus – “The contributions of the pro-Bush, PD and FF, nuttier elements of the blogosphere are irrelevant to the discussion and unwanted.”
    Then you’re left with a monologue, not a discussion – why bother? And if blogs are to become something that has a role in the election, sameness is not going to attract.

  8. […] Mulley seems to think that the only chance bloggers have of influence is if they stop slagging each other and present a united front; as I point out in his comments this would make us as disingenuous as the political parties he has little time for. Bloggers are not a political force, they’re not an activist group and they’re not journalists however as Damien knows blogs can provide people with a platform from which they can launch these kinds of projects. […]

  9. Dave says:

    Damien I think you’re wrong on this. From my point of view some parties are worse than others, I have ideals and they preclude me from ever living in a country that the current SF leadership is involved in governing. Hence I will vote any non SF candidate ahead on my ballot form.

  10. Matthew says:

    People seem to care far too much about this issue. It’s not my business to dictate what people should care about, but the criticism cycle does not attract politicians. There’s enough of that in the Dáil and council chanbers all around the country.

    If blogs are to be a success, they need to ask hard questions of society and pose a challenge to the grimy side of life in Ireland Inc. This already happens to a certain extent but the amount of disagreement is beyond the stage of constructive criticism. There is too much refuting of comments and too little agreement on issues. I know it’s life but I can’t see how one way of doing things will always be wrong to a certain amount of people.

    Sometimes a line has to be drawn and we have to bite the bullet on an issue. Surely there can be a common consensus on a few issues in life?

  11. copernicus says:

    Auds, why would you seek the input of someone on the other team into your campaign? I think you’re slightly confused about what Simon is trying to achieve, and I take responsibility for that a bit because I said “everyone is invited to take part” – mounting a defence to the partisan (insubstantial by the way) arguments you’ve been putting forward wasn’t what I meant by that. I should have said, everyone who wants to change the Government is invited to discuss how to achieve that end. As in, the people involved won’t at any point be discussing which side of the fence they will be on when the election comes. You’re not going to convince them otherwise after ten years of FF/PD Government and they are not going to convince you either. Nor are they going to try.

    Which kind of leads me to another point in Damiens intemperate post above – where is the track record of the Opposition in Government he points to given that it will have been over a decade since those parties were in office by the time the House reconvenes after next year’s election?

    At any rate, I was only passing on a link to Simon’s invitation – I didn’t comment on it either way.

    And anyway, the nature of Simon’s invitation should have been clear from a reading of his original post.

  12. […] Damien’s position is more problematic. He sees no point in voting for any of the existing parties, because they’re all the same. Further, he’s amazed “that people who have all these ideals still consider voting for any party”. Well, one of my ideals is that I can vote for whoever I feel like, and for whatever reasons. It’s called democracy. This somewhat bad-tempered post, apart from lacking the insight that one has come to expect from Damien, betrays a deep distrust of democracy. The reason the entire political system won’t get rebooted is that far too many people don’t want that to happen. Thinking that they’re wrong may make you feel better, but it confers no rights. In a democracy people are presumed to know what they want. You can disagree, but scrapping the system just because they vote the “wrongâ€? way is profoundly undemocratic. There’s a difference between wanting to change things and wanting everyone to agree with you. […]

  13. Aonghus says:

    Get rid of all the political parties. Yeh, you’re right Damien. That’s what Hitler did too. Only, then, it was called Nazism. Oul Mussolini called it fascism. I’m not sure that’s a club I’d like to be a member of…..

  14. Damien says:

    Hooray for Godwin!