The Big Debate: Ganley vs Cohn-Bendit

[zeleneye]

Cohn-Bendit really is an extremist twat, any rational human who can't destroy him in a debate is a hopeless case

Extremist, poor debater? I think you are talking about a different Cohn-Bendit.

Twat he may be but he is a renowned debater. I don't where you get extremism from...you wouldn't like to explain what 'extreme' positions he has.

He is prone to coming out with pretty sensationalist guff himself though as Verhofstadt points out. Mr Ganley on the other hand is a bare-faced liar and a poor orator. My money's still on le rouge.

Verhofstadt, do you know this Centre, will they document the conference?

[MacCoise]

Crowley comes out more an eejit in that conversation than anything else although the arrogance from all the MEPs is something to behold.

[ibis]

April Fools Day, surely a coincidence....

Interesting - it's also the day after Libertas are supposed to be making all their SIPO declarations (according to their self-imposed 'deadline'). Will it be the day Ganley comes out and admits the whole thing was a huge practical joke?

[MacCoise]

Extremist, poor debater? I think you are talking about a different Cohn-Bendit.

Twat he may be but he is a renowned debater. I don't where you get extremism from...you wouldn't like to explain what 'extreme' positions he has.

He is prone to coming out with pretty sensationalist guff himself though as Verhofstadt points out. Mr Ganley on the other hand is a bare-faced liar and a poor orator. My money's still on le rouge.

'Extreme' position ? The man believes in a federal Europe, loony-tune stuff.

I haven't ever bothered listening to anybody as irrelevant as Gnaley but he would have to be pretty bad to come out second best. Only the French would consider Cohn Bendit a talented debater, even in Irish terms he is very very bad

[arnaudherve]

I think Ganley was tricked into a debate by DCB.

DCB is a has-been leftist from the seventies, nothing of what he says is relevant anymore. He just survives in the media. He needs mediatic coups in order for people to remember that he exists.

DCB is also considered by his left-wing as a renegade, for having turned pro-market pro-American. He needs right-wing foils to make people forget that he turned right-wing now.

Really, Ganley is helping him now.

Declan, just stop being used by all the failures who are at the end of their careers on the Continent.

[Verhofstadt]

Extremist, poor debater? I think you are talking about a different Cohn-Bendit.

Twat he may be but he is a renowned debater. I don't where you get extremism from...you wouldn't like to explain what 'extreme' positions he has.

He is prone to coming out with pretty sensationalist guff himself though as Verhofstadt points out. Mr Ganley on the other hand is a bare-faced liar and a poor orator. My money's still on le rouge.

Verhofstadt, do you know this Centre, will they document the conference?

I know of it but have never been to one of their debates before (I don't know if this is a first or not). It is neither an EU nor academic body so it is under no onus to transcribe the whole debate, how they document I don't know.

It's run by Paul Adamson, who owns e-sharp magazine (which had a big interview with Ganley last month) and used have of the biggest Public Affairs agencies.) so I imagine there will be plenty of Euro presscorp present.

[MacCoise]

I think Ganley was tricked into a debate by DCB.

DCB is a has-been leftist from the seventies, nothing of what he says is relevant anymore. He just survives in the media. He needs mediatic coups in order for people to remember that he exists.

DCB is also considered by his left-wing as a renegade, for having turned pro-market pro-American. He needs right-wing foils to make people forget that he turned right-wing now.

Really, Ganley is helping him now.

Declan, just stop being used by all the failures who are at the end of their careers on the Continent.

I think this is more of a mutually beneficial gig for two irrelevant advocates of pan-europeanism

[zeleneye]

'Extreme' position ? The man believes in a federal Europe, loony-tune stuff.

I haven't ever bothered listening to anybody as irrelevant as Gnaley but he would have to be pretty bad to come out second best. Only the French would consider Cohn Bendit a talented debater, even in Irish terms he is very very bad

Right - you're a SF staffer though, so some (not necessarily me but some) might think you were in a little bit of a glass house when it comes to talking about extremism.

An honest question though: have you ever heard either speak in a debate? I have been within spitting distance of Mr Ganley twice, and watched an amazing debate between Cohn-Bendit and Tariq Ramadam streamed online a few years ago. I know who I think is better.

BTW when you say 'in Irish terms' what do you mean? That the quality of debate in DE is high? If so, we must watch different debates.

[ibis]

'Extreme' position ? The man believes in a federal Europe, loony-tune stuff.

Hmm. Well, that makes two of them!

[arnaudherve]

There are dark rumours about Cohn-Bendit. One concerns his private life when he was an educator in Frankfurt. But the most intriguing is why he joined the German Greens.

At the end of the Seventies, you see DCB and his friend Joschka Fischer in extremist Marxist groups, not at all green, rather violent and temperamental. At the end of the Eighties, you see DCB and Fischer at the head of the Green party, and turning it righ-wing.

It is rumoured that DCB and Fischer, seeing their future barren in a has-been leftist group, joined a rather confidential organization in Frankfurt, and that it is in that organization that it was decided they would conquer the Greens. And when you realize that, you see that the entry of DCB and Fischer in the Green Party was not a personal conversion, but a Blitzkrieg.