I Will Not Listen to You

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Saturday December 03, 2005 15:36

by Sean Crudden - impero

sean.crudden at iol dot ie

Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth.

087 9739945

Can You Get Your Point Across?

In an age of spin and the sound-bite no-one is listening. Have we lost the capacity to talk and to listen? Are we all just parrots programmed by mass media which considerably undervalue the individual? Is democracy just a clash of stereotypes?

Have you ever been in the upper room where the movers and shakers stand in the background glowering into pints of Guinness in dark, unforgiving, threatening posture with their backs turned on the speakers, enthusiasts and idealists? - a silent conspiracy of connivers and manipulators casting a shadow of the dead hand of control over the proceedings.

It wasn’t politics I was watching the other night - in the party political sense. But it is a paradigm which will be replicated all over the country where democracy is supposed to reign.

Candidly I think it is time to call out the talkers, the actors, the clowns, the comedians, the artists.

If you cannot sit down and write, or stand up and state your case openly, then restrain your hand from reaching for the levers of control, dictation, legislation, power.

Really I think that the real requirement in this community and in Ireland in general is for the people who can talk to be allowed to talk freely and to be listened to. There must be some institutionalised way of breaking through the barriers of the narrow, received thinking that dominates public life in Ireland and which runs like some perverse starch through the fabric of public life here.

save preference

Comments (4 of 4)

real politicians.

by maire

Sat Dec 10, 2005 12:27

Yes it is a good isle, so why are we trying to destroy it. Our Minister for the Environment thinks he is the Minister for Trade and Commerce. Everyone needs a job, but they need the time and health to enjoy the fruits of that job. Travelling long distances to work, which reduces time spent with your children, and ignoring global warming, and carbon emissions, is not showing the duty of care we are entitled to from our elected representative. They are writing the rules for the future.

Where is the genuine politician thta is not money driven?

by Eugene Berrills - Concerned Citizen of Dundalk

Tue Dec 06, 2005 15:15

Dundalk Co Louth

Sorry I have not seen the party yet that is not money driven whether big or small.

I am still waiting for them like the jews are waiting on the birth of the Messiah!

Regards

Eugene

my veiw

by my veiw

Mon Dec 05, 2005 12:34

politics can be spin but the real person who understands politics will see the real policies from the real politicians. The parties like DUP and SF all depend on spin. Ignore them and their silly nonsense and listen to a party with real policies who care ebout the real people of this good isle.

I will not speak or see either.

by maire - chase

Mon Dec 05, 2005 12:33

Could not agree more - the three monkeys should be the emblem for Irish democracy at the moment, but particularly for statutary bodies engaged in planning and EPA oral hearings.
In Cork City for t he public who listen and reduce the material for landfill to 10% of that of seven or eight years ago, they are rewarded in a big increase in charges with bin increases charges of 25% to 60% - Remember they have just got permission for a Super Dump and the costs. If incineration comes in as an industry, what charges or penalties will we have when we cannot come up with the toxic waste because industry is doing well with in-house incineration. Lack of joined up thinking is really the problem.

Upcoming Events

New Events

Other Press

User Preferences

Feeds

Blog Feeds

Public Inquiry

Human Rights in Ireland

Lockdown Skeptics

Voltaire Network

I Will Not Listen to You

Comments (4 of 4)