We can expect plenty of hype, scaremongering and bullying from the YES side.
There will be lots of doom and gloom threated about the consequences of a NO vote.
Of course, we'll still be in the EU, and we'll still be an equal partner to the other countries and they'll just have to work with us, but it's amazing how many people seem to think otherwise.
And of course they have the recession to help fuel that fear, and dangle the idea that the Lisbon Treaty will fix it.
They can point to the elimination of Declan Ganley (the fake figurehead of the NO vote) as some sort of evidence that people have changed their minds. When of course, we want neither "Lisbon nor Libertas" and Declan Ganley's vote on Lisbon still carries the same weight as yours, mine, Brian Cowen's or any Irish MEP.
We'll hear loads about the 'mandate' for the No side being lost.
Mandate? Isn't that something you give to representatives when they vote on an issue instead of the public? This is a referendum, we all get to vote. We're not delegating it.
We have to get that idea into people's heads, it's YOUR VOTE, not theirs, and their just ticked off that they can't use their whip system to get people to vote in line, like they do in the Dáil.
Failing that, they'll try make to frame Joe Higgins as a die hard stalinist and make it a vote on whether we want a democratic EU or Communist centralised economies with Gulags.
Arguing this Treaty is difficult cos it's so big and complicated and there's loads of untruth fired out on both sides.
A big problem is the myths, thrown about by some of the no side. People who check their facts can throw them back in their face.
This is part of the problem of having ill informed figure heads being the talking heads for this. They can be discredited for throwing out red herrings (either by design or didn't check their facts) and if people are still hung up on following leaders and not their own judgement, that will have an effect.
Things like the argument about the Death Penalty, are a good example. If people go in guns blazing on a false argument, it won't matter much that the other arguments do hold water. The truth of the matter lay in a footnote to a footnote, which I eventually tracked down, and it didn't say anything like what was being claimed by the alarmists.
I think we need teach-ins, for serious voter education in this country. (if the YES side were serious about getting it passed, and believed in the treaty, they would do this as well. But of course they don't want us getting too informed about the Treaty, or much else about how we are governed or what we pay for the privilege.)
We need to get people to stop thinking of politicans as leaders, and more as employees and servants. That's the first step in seeing through hype and unquestionably accepting what they spew forth.
There will be lots of doom and gloom threated about the consequences of a NO vote.
Of course, we'll still be in the EU, and we'll still be an equal partner to the other countries and they'll just have to work with us, but it's amazing how many people seem to think otherwise.
And of course they have the recession to help fuel that fear, and dangle the idea that the Lisbon Treaty will fix it.
They can point to the elimination of Declan Ganley (the fake figurehead of the NO vote) as some sort of evidence that people have changed their minds. When of course, we want neither "Lisbon nor Libertas" and Declan Ganley's vote on Lisbon still carries the same weight as yours, mine, Brian Cowen's or any Irish MEP.
We'll hear loads about the 'mandate' for the No side being lost.
Mandate? Isn't that something you give to representatives when they vote on an issue instead of the public? This is a referendum, we all get to vote. We're not delegating it.
We have to get that idea into people's heads, it's YOUR VOTE, not theirs, and their just ticked off that they can't use their whip system to get people to vote in line, like they do in the Dáil.
Failing that, they'll try make to frame Joe Higgins as a die hard stalinist and make it a vote on whether we want a democratic EU or Communist centralised economies with Gulags.
Arguing this Treaty is difficult cos it's so big and complicated and there's loads of untruth fired out on both sides.
A big problem is the myths, thrown about by some of the no side. People who check their facts can throw them back in their face.
This is part of the problem of having ill informed figure heads being the talking heads for this. They can be discredited for throwing out red herrings (either by design or didn't check their facts) and if people are still hung up on following leaders and not their own judgement, that will have an effect.
Things like the argument about the Death Penalty, are a good example. If people go in guns blazing on a false argument, it won't matter much that the other arguments do hold water. The truth of the matter lay in a footnote to a footnote, which I eventually tracked down, and it didn't say anything like what was being claimed by the alarmists.
I think we need teach-ins, for serious voter education in this country. (if the YES side were serious about getting it passed, and believed in the treaty, they would do this as well. But of course they don't want us getting too informed about the Treaty, or much else about how we are governed or what we pay for the privilege.)
We need to get people to stop thinking of politicans as leaders, and more as employees and servants. That's the first step in seeing through hype and unquestionably accepting what they spew forth.
only got to reach this now Tim. i like it. good + clear. should we do a teach-in, in Limerick, or maybe this is already in the works? i'd like it to be in a circle, u know...so no one is the 'main' speaker, and everyone feels comfortable asking questions etc. Nancy
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