Ireland votes NO to Lisbon treaty

[zeep]

The Irish got the unique opportunity to vote for the Lisbon treaty. Most major newspapers and most of the government wanted the people to vote Yes. Well the people voted NO, and it's a good thing they did. Too bad most of europe has already fallen for that corporation designed democracy ending treaty.

In the netherlands the people voted NO when we had the referendum. After some so called 'changes' were made to the EU treaty articles our government went ahead and accepted it without giving the people another chance to vote, just like France iirc.

Thoughts on this and the EU? In the old days this would have been discussed here already..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p9VC_P3Gf8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kr0Foq3CQE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWSYMpuCFaQ

Let me just add to this that you Europeans should do some more searches on UKIP speaker Nigel Farage and the European Union.

 

[tomcat ha]

well the EU is stuck. It needs to be modernized. I dont know the full details of this treaty. Back when the netherlands could vote i was not yet 18. Now we cant vote i just havent really looked into it.

 

[Hadmar]

It needs to be modernized.

I say it needs to die.


Leave it to the Irish to save the rest of the people within the EU - who didn't have a say in this - from the EU. Thanks.

 

[JaFO]

the French are demanding a recount ... *eh* new vote.
I guess they don't understand that "NO" means "NO FF-ing way"

 

[Carpetsmoker]

I have never seen the reason for having a referendum in the first place, both in the Netherlands and in France the results are seriously skewed, it was a "no" against lots of other stuff, some connected to Europe, but a lots wasn't...

 

[Hadmar]

In this case, as long as there's a no, it doesn't really matter why it's a no.

I just heard on the radio they think about continuing the process until they are done and then "find a solution with Ireland". Fraking wankers.

 

[zeep]

..I just heard on the radio they think about continuing the process until they are done and then "find a solution with Ireland". Fraking wankers.

I feared they would. Democracy on it's way out. A people's "NO" means nothing anymore.

There should be more ****ing protests, in all countries, goddammit people wake up.

 

[Snakeye]

What did you guys expect to happen? The EU bowing before the will of of its people? Why do you think they didn't ask for permission in most states? Because they would've gotten a "No" from most countries I guess.

Also democracy (or what is nowadays considered as democracy) doesn't work the way people think - most probably because it couldn't even work. You really expect people should vote about a treaty nearly no one would even read? Hell, most politicians (at least in Austria) didn't even read it before voting a nice clear "Yes" - and those are the guys getting paid to read things before voting. (Actually here in Austria they probably get paid to do some weird other stuff and cling to their party policies, but whatever).

Now what would you expect from a peoples vote on something most people didn't read and a lot of them wouldn't even understand if they did? Yupp, before voting there would be a lot of misinformation by press and government and we'd probably end up doing the stuff that government wanted to anyway - as long as you promise enough idiots that they get more money (or whatever they want) you'll have their vote.

And as for protests: welcome to the 21st century. We don't do that stuff anymore - watching TV, internet porn and playing with our XBoxes/PS3s/PCs/Wiis or drinking too much alcohol (or any combination of the above) is much more interesting than politics or protesting against things we don't understand or influence anyway. I mean who needs personal freedom when you've got reality-soaps, superstar-contests, supermodel-contests - yeah it might be possible we end up in a state that send us into some weird country where people are trying to kill us while we liberate their natural resources, but hey, I'm not fit for duty anyay and if I were playing CoD1 to CoD4 and a bit of CounterStrike showed us that war is fun - also the superiorly equipped western (and eastern) nations can respond to any threat, as clearly seen in the easy victories in Vietnam (both French and US), Iraq and Afghanistan (both CCCP and "Coalition").

So keep (or get) some trust in your government - the EU makes all things better, as they promised a decade ago. They even take away your sorrow to place a cross beside the "YES" vote - now thats service on the citizen! Also making a vote with an explanation on how to vote for "Yes" is a bit outdated - the Nazis did that back in 1938 when they "forced" Austria to join (no, we were overrun, there was clearly no majority of our people who wanted that, nooooo Sir!)

On a more serious sidenote I read an interesting article, which raise dthe theory Irelands citizens actually voted "No" to piss off their government - and are most likely to vote "Yes" on a second try - after having shown their government they're no sheep herd. Don't know if that's true, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't matter to the rest of the EU if Ireland kept refusing to sign the treaty.

 

[Hadmar]

What did you guys expect to happen?

Governments going oww and again retrying it shortly later with a slightly different name and a few commas changed here and there. This time with no one getting a say in the matter.

The piss poor state of everything is nothing new to me. You might be happy to know that demos are not completely dead, though. There was one in Berlin against data retention with 15000 people. Granted, that's not a super big number, but it's not so bad for such an abstract topic.

 

[tomcat ha]

What do you want instead then?

 

[Hadmar]

Do I have to want something specific? What I don't want is a 3rd party that dictates law from outside the democratic process. There's enough problems with representative democracies already even without that circle jerk for politicians.

 

[Snakeye]

What I don't want is a 3rd party that dictates law from outside the democratic process.

In this case: "Welcome to Hell, Kid".

Representative democracies (at least nowadays) basically do nothing more than good old socialist states just with the illusion of people actually having influence. Yeah, the parties "in lead" may change - sometimes even drastically, but the whole concept remains. Or do you actually believe just because the "will of the people" (basically what media tells them to do, since those actually doing some thinking for themselves are a negligible minority) changed from one party to another anything gets better or worse? Last time I checked it wasn't the case here in Austria - and we've been through at least two major lead party changes in the last 15 years. I know it's an unfair generalization to assume every other country is as stupid as us Austrians, but then again some jerk already said that only the universe and human stupidity are infinite, and he's not sure about the universe.

The problem (if it even is one - people have been living without any right of speech for centuries, it seems they survived anyway, despite having no TV or PC games to waste their time on and tell them what to think) is that 3rd parties always have and always will influence decisions not only outside the democratic process but also the democratic process itself due to deliberate misinformation of the "masses". Now you can have 15,000 or 100,000 or 1.000,000 people protesting one thing or another - and they may even get a small "victory" (or rather the impression of having had one) but that always leaves 10 or 20 or 100 times the "votes" who meanwhile sit in front of their TVs, watch a 2min report of the protesters followed by a 7min news feature of what Paris Hilton fucked yesterday and a nice TalkShow or "whatever"-contest or BigBrother. Even if 50% of those clowns stay home and do not vote the other 50% will vote what media lured them into and annihilate whatever the 1% to 5% of the thinking population might have done beneficial.

Democracy is nonexistent - and representative democracy sucks donkey butt. Sadly Mr. Churchill was right that we don't really have a better choice left - it was Churchill, wasn't it? While I doubt living in a dictatorship changes thing for the general mass of people (I know there are some examples to the contrary) I'd rather prefer the government not being able to come and get whoever they feel like without making a nice media campaign before - at least this way you get some warning before a SWAT team enters your house because you're a threat to the state/democracy/free world/humanity.

 

[Hadmar]

Ahum. "The piss poor state of everything is nothing new to me.".

Why don't we just give up and give the ruling class a blanc permit to do whatever they want. It's reality anyway, right? Frak that.

I'm not going to let the crap continue without voicing my opinion just because it's easier and less effort to crawl into a corner and accept it.

 

[Snakeye]

Ahum. "The piss poor state of everything is nothing new to me.".

Didn't want to imply it wasn't. I've seen enough of your posts to assume that you're more aware than plenty of others.

Why don't we just give up and give the ruling class a blanc permit to do whatever they want. It's reality anyway, right? Frak that.

Why would we do that? So they can have a good laugh? You don't go to some medieval king and give him the right to rule. He already has that. Basically you can't give something you don't own to someone who already owns it..

I'm not going to let the crap continue without voicing my opinion just because it's easier and less effort to crawl into a corner and accept it.

It might be less effort to accept the situation as is, but IMO it sure as hell isn't easier to remove all the illusions people have taught you since you were a kid. Illusions like you can make a difference, your vote counts, democracy works. Really accepting - and I don't mean only realizing - that your personal value is negligible in a society that values individualism above all is a rather big leap.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think people should stop voicing their opinions and give up all rights they have or think to have, but I don't actually think it makes any significant difference.

 

[Hadmar]

Why would we do that? So they can have a good laugh? You don't go to some medieval king and give him the right to rule. He already has that. Basically you can't give something you don't own to someone who already owns it..

De facto yes, officially, no. I meant changing the official part.

It might be less effort to accept the situation as is, but IMO it sure as hell isn't easier to remove all the illusions people have taught you since you were a kid. Illusions like you can make a difference, your vote counts, democracy works. Really accepting - and I don't mean only realizing - that your personal value is negligible in a society that values individualism above all is a rather big leap.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think people should stop voicing their opinions and give up all rights they have or think to have, but I don't actually think it makes any significant difference.

The more people get fed up, the more weight does their voice gain. The difference between rich and poor bets bigger and bigger and some time in the future I'd imagine there will be a pretty big number of really angry people. The visibility of that trend could be a reason for how the laws regarding peoples rights and surveillance developed in the last years. And at some point when voice doesn't help and the situation gets to much to bear you start undusting those torches and pitchforks.

Or nothing changes, who knows? *shrugs*

 

[Snakeye]

The more people get fed up, the more weight does their voice gain. The difference between rich and poor bets bigger and bigger and some time in the future I'd imagine there will be a pretty big number of really angry people. The visibility of that trend could be a reason for how the laws regarding peoples rights and surveillance developed in the last years. And at some point when voice doesn't help and the situation gets to much to bear you start undusting those torches and pitchforks.

If we were twenty years in the past I'd probably agree with you - nowadays I'm afraid the only thing that could cause a common voice of angry people being sick of the status quo would be a total blackout of TV and Internet - or if the majority of people couldn't actually afford to pay for their meals - and I somehow doubt a governement will actually allow for the latter if it wants to stay in power. Power still comes from the people, they just don't realize it anymore.

 

[Carpetsmoker]

Seriously, in 1933 45% of the Germans voted for the NSDAP.
And didn't Austria join nazi-Germany willingly through a referendum?

All hail democracy!

 

[Snakeye]

Seriously, in 1933 45% of the Germans voted for the NSDAP.
And didn't Austria join nazi-Germany willingly through a referendum?

All hail democracy!

You've got seriously wrong numbers here. The percentage of Germans eligible to vote voting for the NSDAP was at 43.2% (according to Wikipedia, yeah shoot me I'm lazy..) which is SIGNIFICANTLY below the 45% mentioned by you. It also seems safe to assume that ALL Germans not eligible to vote were obviously AGAINST the NSDAP. So the real support was the 3%-5% as shown in post-war questioning of German people - *quickly taking off the Führer portrait on te wall* "What NSDAP? I didn't zupport ze NSDAP, not me Sir. Don't you see the red communist flag on my house with the burn hole in the middle?"

Also Austria was INVADED by German troops - who met only minor resistance because, uhm, we were caught off guard, or so. Also the public vote wether ot not Austria should join the Third Reich (99.73% in favor - ironically the rest of Germany had a lower figure, guess they already hated us Ösis back then) happened AFTER the invasion and was heavily influenced since basically anyone not wanting to join wasn't allowed to vote (about 8% of those eligible to vote) and once again it is safe to assume that everybody not eligible to vote was against, so we're facing the post-war number of 1%-2% in favor and everybody else not happy about it. As said numerous times Austria was a victim! In addition I'd be careful pointing in the Austrian direction if I'd live in a country which had ~50,000 people in the Waffen-SS.

PS: if you didn't realize by now the above is NOT MEANT SERIOUS you should know now.

 

[Hadmar]

If we were twenty years in the past I'd probably agree with you - nowadays I'm afraid the only thing that could cause a common voice of angry people being sick of the status quo would be a total blackout of TV and Internet - or if the majority of people couldn't actually afford to pay for their meals - and I somehow doubt a governement will actually allow for the latter if it wants to stay in power. Power still comes from the people, they just don't realize it anymore.

Well another thing is the price of oil/gasoline. If tt continues to raise like that society as we know it will collapse anyway. Pretty much everything relies on that stuff being widely available for cheap. I don't yet see a real way around that on the horizon.

 

[zeep]

Or will they break out zero point energy? Probably not, more money to make with oil.

Society collapsing seems imminent i must say, it just takes some more time but we'll see it soon enough. Signs are all around us. Haven't they always been there though?

Like said earlier, the most powerful tool that steers mankind is the media. It's more powerful than people think, if they think at all being spoonfed everything they believe, without question. There is no uniting people when the media is in the hands of the ones in power. It seems hopeless to seek a change. Every threat to existing powers is dealt with before it can mean anything.

But i'm ranting.