An unusual Election Broadcast…… January 31, 2011
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Uncategorized.trackback
One of the more imaginative Irish Election Broadcasts…. from Dublin South East Independent candidate Dylan Haskins.
I think I know him from the Telly……
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Shame about the policies though. This could be taken straight out of the Sunday Independent:
Local government and other institutions should not just act as city management agencies, but forward-thinking support structures for innovation, creativity and
an entrepreneurial culture.
This doesn’t inspire confidence either:
Since the abolition of household rates in 1978, the funding of local authorities has come from central funds, developer levies and commercial rates. This flaw in local government finance has hindered a lot of proper reform of Ireland’s system of policy-making because local authorities have been reliant on promoting construction activity and asking for support from central
government.
It’s probably no surprise that David McWilliams is listed as a supporter. Haskins seems, essentially, to be a soft Libertarian of a type who might have found a home in Garret Fitzgerald’s FG.
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the difference between that and the Sindo is that he comes from a DIY, not-for-profit background where he actually created those structures for youth culture. so criticising him on that point because others mouth off about what he’s actually done, is a little strange. also, he at least mentions inequality as a serious political concern.
as for abolishing the rates, everyone knows that was a Fianna Fáil election stroke, not a progressive policy; rowing back on that seems eminently sensible. unless you’re too much of a libertarian for property taxes?
sure, he may not be that left (although I could argue he’s reasonably so) but as someone more or less his age – and who won’t be voting for FG, at all – his message resonates quite a lot.
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He doesn’t have a message. There’s no substance there at all.
And who gives a flying fuck if he’s from a “DIY not-for-profit” background? If he’s doing something useful, let him keep doing it, rather than mouthing vague political pieties at us. The last thing we need is another fool lecturing us about how we need an “entrepreneurial culture”.
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You’ll love this one…
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Got to agree with Mark P on this one. Empty platitudes coupled with feverish boosterism.
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Anyone who can muster support from David McWilliams, Diarmaid Ferriter, and Mick Wallace has to have some substance to their ideas. Pity he looks about 12 – bit of an electoral liability that.
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Not sure why there’s so much vitriol poured on his head, this is a Republic and anyone has the right to stand as a citizen.
Nor, to be honest, can I see anything particularly noxious in his platform, and it’s good to hear someone use the word inequality and equality.
Absolutely, he doesn’t appear to be particularly left wing but that’s no crime and it’s entirely his right to stand (and alastair is correct, if he’s able to get Ferriter, McWilliams etc to support him he’s not an empty suit).
But he sure ain’t going to be won over to the left if he’s any inclinations in that direction by people lambasting him for not following the one true path.
Democracy, folks? The right of people whatever their viewpoints to stand? And his seem fairly harmless.
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With all due respect WbS, that’s a ludicrous line of argument.
Nobody is question his right to stand for election. Or the right of any other thrusting young lady or gentleman to do so.
But if you put yourself for election, you have to expect people to comment on your ideas and policies. And when your ideas and policies are a mixture of the vacuous and the complacent, some mean people are likely to point that out.
Why exactly should we hold back on our criticism of someone who has put himself and his views up for public vote and who wants to play a role in running the country?
He has the right to stand for election. The rest of us have the right to say why we don’t think his platform and ideas are relevant, interesting, useful or valid.
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Yeah, I expect people to comment on his ideas, but not straight out of the gate saying he’s a ‘fool’ or dismiss them out of hand.
You may not like them, that’s fine, but the tone, as ever is what really undercuts your argument.
From the off you’re dismissive not of his ideas, but of him. He’s ‘vacuous’, complacent, etc.
No he’s not.
I may find him hard to take but he’s clearly not vacuous in the slightest. He’s got a fairly solid run of achievements for a guy as young as he. He’s established networks that are sufficient that he’s endorsed by a range of people in the society, some of them with fairly progressive views – Wallace et al.
You can’t really say whether he’s complacent either, neither can I. But the evidence is that he’s not so complacent he’s not willing to run for election.
In other words far from dealing with the actuality of his candidacy or the politics you’re the one who’s dealing with the superficial.
As to his ideas. Sure, centrist, but simply because an idea is centrist doesn’t make it vacuous or complacent per se. It doesn’t make it immune to criticism either.
But as I say, if the guy had even the slightest progressive bone in his body I’m sure he’d be entirely won over by the reception he’s just got here.
And by the way, even if none of the above were true, I trust Sonofstan’s judgement on these matters having a pretty good idea of how Sos might have come across people who had worked closely with this guy.
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Actually WbS, if you go through my comments a little more carefully you will find that each time I used the words “vacuous” or “complacent” they were in reference to his policies and ideas and not in reference to the man himself.
For instance:
“I really don’t feel the need to be nice to people who put themselves forward for election while mouthing complacent inanities about developing an entrepreneurial culture.”
…is not a particularly charitable statement, but is is very clearly his ideas and policies which are described as “complacent inanities”. And the same is true of each and every other use of those words.
Firstly you commented defending his right to stand for election when nobody had attacked his right to do so. Now you’ve followed up by saying that we should be criticising his policies rather than his personality, when most of your examples were precisely of people criticising his policies rather than his personality!
The only disparaging thing I said about him at all was the following “The last thing we need is another fool lecturing us about how we need an “entrepreneurial culture”, a statement of principle I’m more than willing to stand by.
On your two other points:
1) It is difficult to express how little my opinion of his candidacy will be effected by whether or not a friend of sonofstans can give him a character reference. He’s standing to be part of the Dail during the greatest economic crisis since the great depression. I do not care if he helped organise some all ages gigs.
2) Why on earth would anyone be concerned with whether or not we are going to “win over” some centre-rightish election candidate? Will you be this concerned for the possibility of winning over Michael Healy-Rae too? Or Eamonn Gilmore? Or any of the rest of them? I’m not at all concerned with winning any of those people over, just with trying to discourage people of left wing views from voting for any of them.
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Just so I have this right… He’s a ‘fool’ because he advocates greater entrepreneurialism – how ‘inane’ to suggest that economic revival might be stimulated from the ground up. Far better to piss and moan about ideological purity.
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You’ve been told to stop.
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Alastair, let me recommend that you vote for him. It seems he ticks most of your boxes.
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Just to clarify, Alastair, I added my jibe after I saw ammpletime’s comment and I was not referring to it.
I don’t like your politics, but I’m not trying to imply something that vicious.
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Jeez, you don’t know my politics. The guy’s priorities are too market-driven for my vote, but I’m not going to pretend his platform is ‘inane’.
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Actually WbS, if you go through my comments a little more carefully you will find that each time I used the words “vacuous” or “complacent” they were in reference to his policies and ideas and not in reference to the man himself.
You haven’t engaged at all with the substance of his policies. Not in the slightest. Appending the word ‘policy’ to an attack that uses the words ‘vacuous and the complacent’ isn’t a political engagement.
For instance:
“I really don’t feel the need to be nice to people who put themselves forward for election while mouthing complacent inanities about developing an entrepreneurial culture.”
…is not a particularly charitable statement, but is is very clearly his ideas and policies which are described as “complacent inanities”. And the same is true of each and every other use of those words.
Again, that’s not an engagement with policies, it’s an attack on him.
Firstly you commented defending his right to stand for election when nobody had attacked his right to do so. Now you’ve followed up by saying that we should be criticising his policies rather than his personality, when most of your examples were precisely of people criticising his policies rather than his personality!
That’s pretty much missing the point big time. I was pointing out that he was undeserving of an attack by people that seemed implicitly and in some cases explicitly see this simply as a publicity stunt by him or something to further his own ends.
The only disparaging thing I said about him at all was the following “The last thing we need is another fool lecturing us about how we need an “entrepreneurial culture”, a statement of principle I’m more than willing to stand by.
This is a statement of ‘principle’? What principle is that? The guy is talking about a very specific form of entrepreneurial culture, one in the arts as it happens. Not exactly Margaret Thatcher there, now is it?
On your two other points:
1) It is difficult to express how little my opinion of his candidacy will be effected by whether or not a friend of sonofstans can give him a character reference. He’s standing to be part of the Dail during the greatest economic crisis since the great depression. I do not care if he helped organise some all ages gigs.
Again, that’s utterly disparaging. What value do you place on others knowledge, experience or whatever? Why bother commenting here if you’re so insulated from insights others might have? And as regards Haskins, erm… I think a few people with an insight into mobilizing in certain areas might, well have some further insights into helping with an economic crisis. Not a lot, perhaps a lot less than boosters think, but it’s not something to be dismissed summarily with lofty disdain.
2) Why on earth would anyone be concerned with whether or not we are going to “win over” some centre-rightish election candidate? Will you be this concerned for the possibility of winning over Michael Healy-Rae too? Or Eamonn Gilmore? Or any of the rest of them? I’m not at all concerned with winning any of those people over, just with trying to discourage people of left wing views from voting for any of them.
The guy is 23 Mark P, he’s not a 70 plus year old died in the wool ex FF hack who isn’t going to change his mind short of hell breaking out. I’m not sure how to convey to you the realities of this if you believe the comparison between him and JHR is appropriate and if you don’t have any sense of just how alienating to others your language actually is.
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Oh my God! Mark P acts like an asshole right out of the gate, what a shock.
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Disappointing Mark.
I know people who know him, and he’s not a fool by any account, nor is he doing this ‘for the crack’.
But patronise away. It’s what you do best.
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He might not be doing it for the ‘craic’ sonofstan (neither are any of the right-wing candidates in the election) but there isn’t a single bit of substance in that whole damn video.
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Well sos, he seem to know a lot of people, judging by the endorsements on his site. I’m not sure that I regard those endorsements as such a good thing.
I don’t doubt his sincerity, nor do I think he’s doing it “for the crack”. But I’ve watched his video and read his website and to the very limited extent that there’s any political substance to be found, it’s conventional centre-right guff in slightly fresher packaging.
Maybe I’m wrong and I’m missing something those of us one the left should have some time for, but you certainly haven’t pointed it out. So what if I’m being patronising? That’s the best response to some sorts of drivel. So what if I’m not being very nice? I really don’t feel the need to be nice to people who put themselves forward for election while mouthing complacent inanities about developing an entrepreneurial culture.
Do you have a defence to make his politics which doesn’t consist of “he knows some people I know”?
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SoS, I have to agree. I have just Wiki’ed him and he seems harmless enough. Currently, currently studying History of Art and Classical Civilsation at Trinity College Dublin. And having formerly worked in the music biz I have a fondness for people who create their own scene and record label. Nothing wrong with that.
I have never understood why people running their own businesses is incompatible with the aims of achieving a socialist society. He ain’t Lenin but then again who is?
[edit] Career
[edit] Music
Haskins first received media attention for intimate gigs run in his former home, The Hideaway House which became a hub for the DIY music scene in Dublin[2][3] and his independent record label Hide Away Records.[4][1][5][6] Hide Away Records’ most notable release is the debut album of popular Irish band Heathers, whom Haskins also managed from 2007-2009. Their debut album ‘Here, Not There’ featured the popular single ‘Remember When’, which was used in a 2010 Fáilte Ireland advertising campaign. [7][8][9]
[edit] Social Entrepreneur
In May 2009, Haskins founded the Exchange Dublin arts centre in Temple Bar with the support of Project Arts Centre, where he is the youngest ever member of the Board of Directors.[10][11] The Exchange is now run by a collective of volunteers, and provides an independent space for meetings, events and exhibitions. The project received a Dublin City Council arts award in 2010, a Music Network/Arts Council Music Capital Scheme award in 2009 and Arts Council funding in 2009. It continues to receive funding from the Arts Council and Dublin City Council.[12][13][14]
[edit] Social Activism
[edit] Culture & the City
In 2009, Haskins curated and directed the event ‘Culture & the City: the debate’ for Temple Bar Cultural Trust. It took the form of a masked debate about culture in Dublin at Meeting House Square in Temple Bar. The debate focused on the question ‘Is this city fit for purpose?’. The event was praised as an innovative approach to an urban public forum.[15][16]
[edit] Change?
In 2009, Haskins collaborated with the ‘Office of Public Works’ to organize Change?, a week of film, open exhibitions and discourse on the notion of societal change that involved photographers, secondary school students and members of the public. It took place in Project Arts Centre.[17]
[edit] Broadcasting
Haskins is also a broadcaster on RTÉ television and radio. He presented the first series of Two Tube on RTÉ Two and since May 2010 has worked as a reporter for Arena, an arts programme on RTÉ Radio 1.
In the course of this work he has interviewed many high profile artists including Jools Holland, Ellie Goulding, Paolo Nutini, Villagers, Marina & the Diamonds, Pixie Lott, Plan B and Biffy Clyro.
[edit] Film
In 2008, Haskins directed his first film, a documentary called ‘Roll Up Your Sleeves’ about DIY counterculture. Prominent DIY figures including Ian MacKaye of the band Fugazi, Ellen Lupton, and Dutch band The Ex took part in the documentary. The film was funded by Broadcasting Commission of Ireland Sound & Vision Award. It was produced by Project Arts Centre for DCTV. ‘Roll Up Your Sleeves’ premiered at the 2009 Stranger Than Fiction Festival in the IFI in Dublin.[18] In January 2011, the film was made available free online garnering international media attention. [19][20][21][22]
[edit] Theatre
In 2010 Dylan Haskins was the Assistant Director on the acclaimed ‘Heroin’ at Smock Alley Theatre produced by THEATREclub as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival.[23][24][25] ‘Heroin’ won the Spirit of the Fringe award.[26] In 2009, he co-directed ‘Bands Who Shout’ at the Project Arts Centre with Tom Creed as part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival.
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I’ve never heard of him so on that wikipedia page I checked the discussion and history page. Turns out he wrote his own article on wikipedia.
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Bearing what 1798 just said, a picture of a complete bollocks is begining to emerge. Who would describe themselves thus:
‘Haskins first became known as a proponent of the DIY ethic in Ireland for his work on several projects initiated as a teenager, including the establishment of all ages, non-alcohol spaces in north Wicklow and Dublin. A common theme throughout these early projects was the empowerment of individuals and communities, encouraging the employment of alternative approaches when faced with bureaucratic or societal obstacles to achieving their objectives’
The bullshitese of the self-satisfied student careerist
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Ah, so that’s who he is. A guy who put a bit of personal money into some useful cultural ends. Fair play to him on that score. It also explains the establishment connection.
But what relevance it has to running the country at a time of enormous financial crisis, I’m not sure. Read his website. Look at the video. There’s little substance and what substance there is consists of safe guff about entrepreneurial cultures.
I note that nobody at all has defended his ideas. We’ve had people tell us about the good things he was involved in. We’ve had people tell us that he’s sincere. And that he’s not doing it for the crack. And that they know people who know him (it turns out, now that I know who he is, that I know people who know him too!).
But nobody his defending, or even explaining, his actual political ideas. Something you might have expected to be the focus of discussion.
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“Ah, so that’s who he is. A guy who put a bit of personal money into some useful cultural ends. Fair play to him on that score. It also explains the establishment connection.”
The sour grapes at play here are more than a bit sad. What have cultural ventures got to do with establishment? Who comprise this supposed establishment? Why imply that the guy has bought himself a bit of leverage?
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I thought you had to be 18 to be elected to the Dail, he looks about 12. Don’t know who he is, he’s undoubtedly an eager young fella, but his mastery of buzzword goo makes him sound like he’s about 47 and fresh from a Terry Prone course.
Great ad though. If this is a shop window for an advertising career, good on him.
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Think you have to be 21, or did they get around to changing that?
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He obviously aint’ going to make the ULA ticket but no harm in giving him a preference. Still I can see where the cynics are coming from (being one myself). A new Jonathan Philbin Bowman in the making?
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Hm… a somewhat unedifying thread.
The speeded-up cartoon (perhaps there is a neologism for this (2d-stop-frame?)) is a very effective way of communicated IMO. The cartoon version of the David Harvey on the Crises of Capitalism was particularly effective, I thought.
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Mark, do you have time for anything that doesn’t simply say back to you, in your own language, what you already think about the world anyway?
Perhaps I don’t have your ear for centre-right guff, but I don’t hear it there: I don’t hear socialism either, but, apart from a few hundred students involved in the SP/ SWP, you don’t hear socialism from the young. Sad, but it’s the case, and talking to ourselves on here is a fantastic comfort in our (well my) old age, but meanwhile the students and young workers I meet think we’re talking about lost continents.
Of course, as they are the ones putting up with the factory farming of higher education, the casualisation of employment, slave labour as creative ‘interns’, some of them do organise, but in ways that won’t look anything like what you or I think of as organisation in the old fashioned way.
Haskins is probably naive, and maybe when he’s a bit older – he’s 21 by the way, the same age as the SP candidate in Limerick -he’ll turn into a media whore, but, whatever it looks like from the CV, what I know of him says the opposite: a social activist, but in a milieu where activism is not going to look anything like it used to. Meanwhile, it might be useful for your party to engage with people where they are rather than where you’d like them to be, and, instead of telling them what the revolution will be, and ordering them to turn up, learn to listen for the distant rumble of the unknown, instead of the comforting echo of your own voice.
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That’s almost as empty of content as Mr Haskins’ election broadcast.
His broadcast and website are full of empty platitutes about change and the like, very few concrete policies and those policies which do exist are incoherent and less than “progressive” in many respects. Which presumably explains why you haven’t actually responded by defending his actual policies or ideas! A continuing thread in this discussion, I might note.
He’s pro-water tax and pro-property tax (which is to say a property tax on ordinary workers homes particularly in Dublin). He wants public spending “audited”. He wants us to “consider our international obligations”, by which he means paying billions to the bank’s bandholders but doesn’t actually come down on one side or the other. He wants the banks to “listen” to customers, but makes no proposals on how to achieve this goal. The list goes on and on and it really isn’t anything anyone on the left should swallow or support.
This is someone peddling inanities about “change” with little content beyond a focus on things like Seanad reform. He has some connections and therefore some endorsements from celebrities.
This is exactly the sort of thing everyone here would be dismissive of under almost any circumstances. Yet put a young face on the poster and have some mate of yours know him from putting on gigs, and suddenly you’re presenting him as the true voice of today’s youth!
Some lad who inherited a house and used it put on gigs before making a whole bunch of establishment connections and standing for the Dail is not any more representative of where young people “are” than your caricature of a student socialist.
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Not a broadcast but a Labour Party postcard just came through my door in Dublin North East for “Cllr Seán Kenny, Your Dáil Election Candidate.”
Hold on – candidate singular? What about Tommy Broughan?
Oh, at the bottom it says “working with Tommy Broughan TD”. Forgets to say on either side of the card that Tommy is also a Dáil candidate.
Comrades come rally?
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Some of the comments about this guy, who I don’t know, seem gratituously mean. ‘Bollocks’? ‘Fool’? It all looks a bit like Exhibit A for the old right wing canard that left wingers are driven by envy. If he’s not saying anything ground breaking, neither is he saying anything which should provoke that kind of reaction. It’s not like he’s young McDowell taking to the fray. Just my opinion. There are enough enemies out there deserving of the rhetorical lash without hammering into some young lad who doesn’t seem to be on either side of the ideological divide as yet. It’s hardly necessary to give everyone outside the tent a dose of the flamethrower.
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Well to be honest, it’s his wikipedia page, written by himself, that’s really bothering me. Just look at the very top paragraph.
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It’s a really good ad. The guy is obviously creative and has a lot of get up and go. Fair play to him for actually trying to do something and not being apathetic. I like his focus on a positive message as well.
Having said that while his social policies are noticeably left/liberal, economically, despite the reference to inequality in the video, there is nothing concrete on it in his policies which are focused on public sector reform, expenditure efficiencies and encouraging creative entrepreneurship.
He also supports two potentially regressive taxes and local rates, which tend to disproportionately advantage richer areas, without stipulating any counteracting measures. The stuff on the banks is very soft pedal for someone who’s been driven to stand by the economic crisis.
I don’t think just because he’s young we should pat him on the head and not subject his policies to the same level of scrutiny as we would anyone else. I also think it’s patronising to assume that just because he’s young maybe he’s more progressive, really, that his stated policies indicate. This is an intelligent individual who I’m sure has carefully chosen which issues to prioritise and develop concrete policies on, and which to leave in the realm of vague aspirational value-speak. I’m glad he’s standing because it might encourage more young people to take an interest in politics but I can’t see much to get excited about in his actual platform.
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I’d largely agree with that, but it’s his language, especially in his wiki page, that really annoys me.
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I wouldn’t actually vote for him, I just can’t see anything massively offensive about him.
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Very fair analysis.
Though I think it is crucial to underscore your point about potentially. There’s no reason at all that those taxes couldn’t be implemented in progressive ways [both in the technical economic sense of that term and in the broader ideological sense].
Thing is I don’t see anyone here arguing that we should rally to his standard.
But given that this is a sort of public forum and he’s not embedded yet in the sort of crap that passes for politics in some areas perhaps rhetorically people might cut him some slack and go after our real adversaries?
Addendum: Re the wiki page. I know a fair few 18 to 21 year olds and irritating and precocious self-publicity whatever their class background seems to be the order of the day.
Bah humbug… now I’m off for my cup of cocoa and a nice biscuit and I’ll sit by the fire awhile…
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‘Addendum: Re the wiki page. I know a fair few 18 to 21 year olds and irritating and precocious self-publicity whatever their class background seems to be the order of the day. ‘
Being a 21 year old, I’d have to disagree with that. It’s the sort of language you generally hear from smug careerists and right-wing student politicos. Most people my age would be just as irritated by that kind of shite-talk as you or anyone else.
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Really? Well I can only argue from my own experience. Of course some/many 21 year olds will take a different line and it could be that due to the circumstances I know many of them in that there’s some sort of winnowing effect, but what the hell… it’s still my experience.
By the way, once upon a time I was involved in student politics… ah, the tales I could tell about USI back in the day.
Actually, not really. I hated national student politics.
And there is another among us who also was involved. But I will not divulge their identity unless they want to too… 😉
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It might irritate old farts, but confidence in self-promotion is a positive trait.
Personally – I favour self-depreciation, but there’s not really much mileage in that attitude. It’s probably a good thing.
btw – If it helps make the lad seem more palatable to some – he references the failure of neo-liberalism in comments on Jim Carrol’s piece on him.
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‘Actually, not really. I hated national student politics. ‘
I can certainly sympathise with that, though the on-campus stuff is far worse. Candidates trying to simulataneously present themselves as serious student leaders while offering lollipops, chicken wings and, in one instance in UCC, free teabags. No wonders students are apolitical if this is their first encounter with politics.
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Well maybe I just hated student politics full stop. Though to be honest I kind of enjoyed the academic council or whatever meetings. It was a useful lesson in life to see how deftly stuff was managed around the SU reps including myself or how we were used, on occasions, as proxies for one thing or another.
My educative moment – kind of, I was at a meeting where there were some sort of change in staffing terms and conditions and a staff union rep I was sitting beside said to me ‘Ask the Director x y and z’. Like an effing fool I did which allowed the Director of the College to unleash a purely rhetorical but highly effective diatribe kind of directed against me kind of directed against everyone else.
I learned a valuable lesson that day – ie. ‘ask your own effing question’.
😦
I wasn’t great at that sort of game then. Bloody awful actually.
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Student Politics? …. In my time in Maynooth there was a Student Referendum (two in fact) on having a Condom machine in the Students Union Bar.
Gave rise to one of the best poster slogans I’ve ever seen….
“Self Control – Not Condoms”
*and to my eternal regret I left it there when I should have added it to my hoard.
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I don’t find a property tax to be particularly objectionable. Implementation and detail, however, is key. If a candidate supports the government’s proposed tax then they should say so or give some indication of what their alternative tax should look like. It may be that he has not given the effects of the government’s property tax full consideration rather than him being some stealth Thatcherite. Either way, I am a little wary.
That being said, his ideas about using urban space are worth a look and remind me of some the things advocated by the ‘Right to the City’ movement in the US. I wish him the best of luck with that.
He does look like Macaulay Culkin, circa ‘Home Alone’, though.
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Why don’t you get your hair cut young man? They should bring back national service and then you wouldn’t be so quick to talk back to your elders. Ah back when I was a young lad . . . only one Tv channel . . . Horslips . . . Wanderly Wagon . . . actually existing socialism . . . gur cake (repeat until fade)
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Wire. Wait. They’re still about. 🙂
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And they were used to great effect in the brilliant Carlos The Jackal movie. Did you say they were coming to Dublin?
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I don’t recall Wanderly Wagon in Carlos – was it in the Hungarian years?
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Yeah, on the 5th.
It could well have been alastair. Mr. Crow was all over the shop during that period.
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Forget the Carlos the Jackal movie – watch the French made for TV series.
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They’re one and the same (unless you’re thinking of the Freddy Forsyth jobbie) – the film was just a (severe) edit of the full length TV drama.
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As long as Dylan doesn’t decide that what we need is a new Self Aid.
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I actually think that self-promotion vs. self-deprecation is a real generational marker – at least in Ireland. Places like America and India have had it for ages but here it’s a newer thing, and probably directly relating to social networking. Not everyone would be selling themselves as a thrusting young entrepreneur on facebook, but they’d be making themselves sound cool in some way or other that as a good convent girl taught not to be blowing your own trumpet instinctively makes me wince.
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I think you’re right. I’m regularly taken aback by how forward people can be compared to when I was younger.
And I agree, it’s not entrepreneurial, but just self-promotion in every sense – mind you, that’s surely simply a case of a dynamic that existed but didn’t have the media to utlise it rather than something entirely new – no?
And I kind of agree with Alastair’s point that it’s not a bad thing to be somewhat self-promoting. I know when I was a lot younger I was very shy. It’s a bit of a curse. Though on the other hand to be in a group of eager and over enthusiastic people can be a right pain too.
Wince is the right word there.
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“as a good convent girl taught not to be blowing your own trumpet”
I thought the trick was to keep your arms outside the bedclothes?
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You’ll never work for Sky Sports again Alastair.
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Maybe ITV can hire Keys and Gray to take over Daybreak.
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Well – I had Ursaline nuns, and they’re notorious liberal floozies, so they weren’t big on bedroom ethics. My moral compass might be a bit off.
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Interesting the first time I post something incidentally indicative of my gender I get jokes about wanking and football gags riffing on a notorious incident of sexual harassment in response. Just saying.
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Yes, I noticed that too.
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That’s an interesting point you make dmfod. The gender balance (or lack thereof) here is something that we have talked about, and tried to redress as far as possible, including by inviting people to write on feminist issues. I think the fact that the gender of people here can be anonymous and never raised is a good sign.
You have me though wondering about my own contribution to this debate. Is there some misogyny in what I’ve said, unconscious or otherwise? I don’t think so, but that could just be proof of my own lack of self-awareness. I don’t think there is in the other comments either, although this isn’t the first time that remarks about masturbation here have caused comment. Maybe that’s a question of taste than anything else.
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I think they’re in negotiations with RTE to anchor the election night coverage.
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‘Capitalism, Joe, did you smash it?’
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Surely that would be the interview with Tommy Sheridan?
And besides, bound to be an improvement on what RTÉ usually offers?
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47 comments on this? Ye’re some tulips the lot of ye :). (And I’m worse for joining in).
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🙂
Ach, it’s a bit of craic. Well, not for Haskins, admittedly, thought he’s been defended doughtily.
I put it down to entirely natural pre-election jitters and adrenalin rushes. Next comes the sweaty palms, the panic attacks (both day and in the middle of the night), and eventually it will wind up with ‘did I knock on enough doors, did I, did I?’
To which the answer is always, no!
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I’m obviously a misognynist. That’s why there’s nothing at all about womens rights and related issues in the seventies and eighties in the last book I wrote.
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Ye’re the ones calling it misogynist. I was just making an observation about a flow of comments/stream of implicit associations. I’ll have some more flashcards tomorrow 😉
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On fairness – who can resist commenting on the nuns / trumpet blowing combo? If you set them up like that, someone’s going to knock them out (!?).
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I am what I am and what I am needs no excuses
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Couldn’t resist:
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More of a surprise than anything this news.
Dylan was very involved with the DIY scene and the great participatory and grassroots collectives that came with that. Many see this then as a CV move or profile builder, and out of touch completely with the ethics of that scene in the past. I’d rather see people put their energy into grassroots, youth responses to the cuts we face, or even into art-responses like the excellent We Are Upstart stuff which is getting a lot of attention.
On Twitter, he responded to those asking if he’d take the Average Industrial Wage by saying: “I’ll be donating a quarter of my annual TD’s salary to set up a Creative Investment”.
Given that he lives in what is one of the most expensive apartments in the city centre, and the campaign is focusing on particpation (I think, the video doesn’t really say much…) surely the AIW would be a good start.
A post ideological candidate for a post ideological youth?
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No, just a bit of a tit.
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My first thought upon seeing the number of responses to the post and reading some of the initial responses was that this guy is doing something right. It made me watch the video.
The left can learn some marketing lessons from this young fella. Need to learn marketing lessons, full stop.
His message: slick, quick paced, buzz-worded, soft, non-threatening and aspirational.
I’ve come to loathe aspirational politics.
Obama’s election campaign, based almost on the word “Change”, was the biggest snake oil sales pitch perpetrated upon a populace in decades. Change means so many different things to different people given their circumstances. The cruel irony is that Obama entrenched the status quo more forcefully than Bush probably could have.
I suspect when one unwraps the shiny gift wrapping, having learnt more about this young fella, all that remains is a basic Libertarian package. We hear (and see) leftist sounding verbiage like community, initiative and equality so we think our young pretender might be worth something.
However, we only have to visit Toryland in England to learn about such ideas packaged in terms of the Big Society (or some such shite) to see that DIYism and its variants are only code words for not taxing the rich by persuading the poor and disinfranchised that they require no social services; that one needs to purchase community as if it’s a commodity; that any organisation that isn’t profit oriented (and this includes political parties) cannot be deemed successful – indeed are dangerous organisations.
FG will be persuing this message during the next 5 years. There is a subtle shift in the capitalist message: from trickle down economics into every wo/man for themselves. The rich, the mega rich and those vast swathes of minions who rely upon them are floating life rafts for the poor, the vulnerable and non-conformists (in the form of DIYsim) while they (the wealthy) sail away in luxury cruise liners.
I may be wrong about this young fella, and his deeds may begin to match his message. If he organises heat for the elderly; fights for the wages of workers; raises awareness that workers are not getting paid anything like the value for their labour; that home based work is every bit as valuable as outside work; that we live in finite resource world; that if we can’t repair our local communities we face chaos outsided the gated communities of the wealthy then, and only then, will I begin to value the slick message.
[I wonder if anyone is going to do a post about political marketing?]
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A while back Lindy McDowell in the Belfast Telegraph asked the question why it was in the North that only the WP went in for slick advertising (the campaign poster at the time if I remember right was a bored looking little girl with the slogan Fed Up? This time I’m voting Workers’ Party). Compared to the usual photo of a middle aged man in front of a flag with the name and party name, this was the slickest thing around. Didn’t do much for the vote though!
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Maybe the little girl vote was the wrong one to chase?
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Was the Jesuit approach.
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“Obama’s election campaign, based almost on the word “Change”, was the biggest snake oil sales pitch perpetrated upon a populace in decades.”
Yes, it was this sense of boosterism that turned me off initially. It’s like a distillation of the worst side of politics, the marketing of hope while the reality is that you get to choose a boss.
When you couple that with a closer reading of his policies (such as they are) which include a desire to “revisit” the Croke Park agreement, coupled with support from Shane Ross and David McWilliams it’s pretty clear he’s thinking about fucking us over while making pretty sounds to soothe the gullible.
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[…] Lounge also has one of the more unusual election broadcasts, from independent candidate Dylan […]
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