This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column
Michael Commane
Stopped at traffic lights while cycling on Saturday I spotted two men armed with election posters, cable ties and a ladder. I smiled, complimented them on their endeavours and said that I was impressed and went on to say that they must be convinced of what they were doing. I suggested they were conviction politicians.
One of them quipped: ‘And also maybe conflicted.’
All three of us thought it funny. They got on with the job-in-hand, the lights turned green and off I went.
That brief engagement spurred something in me and I’m now paying more heed to election posters than I might usually do.
Poster spotting is fun and I can only imagine it’s a fount of material for psychologists and anyone who has anything to do with the workings of the mind.
Do election posters work? They must, otherwise politicians would not be wasting money erecting them.
Though I have been told, this year because of our awareness of how we are destroying the planet, there may be fewer lampposts festooned with posters.
What do you make of the Fine Gael nationwide slogan, ‘A Future to Look forward to’? Is it not reprehensible to finish a sentence with a preposition?
I phoned the constituency office of a government minister and asked the person at the other end of the phone what the Fine Gael slogan was. To his embarrassment he was not able to tell me.
Then there is the Fianna Fáil one, ‘An Ireland for All’. Certainly it’s far easier to remember, crisper and clearer than the FG one. And it might even do something for GAA followers who go to the All-Ireland.
But what exactly does it mean? Who are the ‘All’? Underlying tones of a united Ireland hidden there somewhere?
And then all the mugshots. Are there rules and regulations whereby candidates have to pass certain photogenic standards before they are allowed throw their hat in the ring?
Looking at all these posters I’m reminded of something in Canon Law where candidates in the past could not go forward for priesthood if their looks were repellent. A candidate for priesthood could not have damaged hands.
Without knowing the first thing about a candidate I am finding myself looking at mugshots, making judgements and coming to conclusions about the person on the poster. Surely that can’t be right. The politicians are using the phrase ‘voter recognition’. I’m wondering what exactly that means.
How does the media coverage, all the debating on radio and television, influence us?
I find panellists interrupting someone when they are speaking infuriating. If I had anything to do with managing candidates, I would warn them under pain of expulsion that they should always refrain from interrupting the person who is speaking.
What about those candidates who sound arrogant and patronising, the toffy type, who give the impression they know best?
I kept asking myself was I any the wiser after the first Leo versus Micheál debate on Virgin Media 1 last Wednesday evening. And then all the analysis afterwards, I find my head spinning in confusion.
Winston Churchill’s words on democracy are worth noting: ‘The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.’
I’m back thinking about my encounter with the two men putting up posters.
They were pleasant and friendly, well-mannered and funny too.
Could that interaction be the cause of my voting for their party?
Is the whole exercise as ephemeral as that? That’s democracy for you.
2 comments:
..."Democracy is defined as the Government for the people by the people and of the people. ‘The people” being the majority. According to its definition, it gives power to the people to choose leaders and how our nation is governed. However this is not the case, politics is not about 99 percent of us but is about the 1 percent who controls everything in it. Our democracy is a sham. We have no say in the factors which most affect our future. Democracy is frustrated by a process which could just as effectively be decided by a coin toss.
There is a vicious cycle in our society that involves two things: money and power. Those in powerful positions either have money, or people with money put the person they want to have power in power. The illusion of democracy makes us feel like we put them there, or that we even want them there. We have been deceived into believing there is democracy. We are naïve not to realize how we are being manipulated by the 1%. The sad truth is that rich and powerful corporates directly influence your state of life by implanting or paying off that leader you think you elected, to push agendas for their own benefit." ...
taken from https://belinenyangionglobalrelations.wordpress.com/2017/10/11/democracy-the-illusion-of-choice/
It's ironic that you quote Churchill (on an unrelated subject) in an article that, at one point, questions the wisdom of ending a sentence with a preposition.
What did Churchill have to say about ending sentences with prepositions?
So the tale goes, Churchill once solicited comments on the draft of a speech. He received a criticism that included a correction to his text. One of Churchill's sentences was clumsily rearranged to comply with the 'preposition rule'. An irate Churchill responded with the following riposte:
This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.
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