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About LinkBacksLike the PD's yeah?Originally Posted by Ceartgoleor
Like the PD's yeah?
Leadership is the issue ,had SF expelled him quickly they would have appeared resolute and having a direction. I wonder how many real POLITICOS there are in SF ,it seems to me that a certain type of oppertunist thought they where there for the taking ,suits that dont go up polls comes to mind.Id say theres some provie cllrs glad to see the back of Forde now is the time for them to accert themselves.
Since Thoireasa Ferris and a few more looked for a real debate on the future direction of the party and the leadership there has been nothing. The leadership of Sinn Fein and their yes men around them have their heads in the sand. We as a party have great people and great politics but the leadership have missed countless oppertunities to do the right thing and refreash the party with a new fresh top. I am convinced that they are so busy congratulating themselves with the successes in the six counties that they they have forgotten the rest of us. We are not at a crossroads anymore we have taken the wrong direction and those of us that are proud Sinn Fein people are beginning to find the party is dragging us down. I dont believe that Killian Forde should hand back the seat as he has been loyal sinn fein for many elections and he has worked hard to build up his image. In Fact is some places parading the Sinn Fein logo on your election material can work against you.To lose so many great people is an unmitigated disaster for the party who can either continue to ignore it or can do the right thing. i for one am watching the ard fheis to see if they do the right thing and if they dont i am considering my position
Killian is a super bloke who also has the ability to think big-picture strategically. This alone will mean his absence is damagiing to SInn Fein, Dublin where big-picture men are thin on the ground. His personal brand will suffer from this decision as lots of politicos accused him of joining SF as a career move in the first place. I'm sure he was encouraged by the tag that he was the only SF Cllr with a policy brain on their Council group.
My advice to Killian is that its imperative that he make his next move quickly otherwise the perception of political prostitution will take hold!!
For some reason I always thought Killian's role as Irish Times skiing correspondent didn't sit all that well with him being a Sinn Fein cllr.
Let us not read too much into this. Killian Forde is not as left wing as SF and has clearly been in the wrong party (he is in policy stand to the right of SF); it is as simple as that and it is not a consequence of anything else. Sinn Féin is an activist party where people join not for personal careerist advancement but selflessly for the interests of the party's objectives.
RIRA not in my name-Traitors to Ireland MMcGuinness; People are entitled to cultural & social equality MLMcDonald; We have a length to go understanding unionism GAdams
In that case you need to look a bit closer at the Sinn Féin leadership and their property portfolios, especially in the 6 cos where they would put bankers to shame.
Arrant nonsense. All Sinn Féin reps take only the AIW. Sinn Féin reps are not careerist, Sinn Féin is an activist campaigning party that puts policies before careerism of individuals. It is not a platform for politicians to further careerist self advancement; Killian Forde clearly has found this a frustration. Further, he has been out of step with the progressive left wing politics of Sinn Féin and thus it makes sense for him to go to another political party. The decent course of action will be for him to hand over his seat to Sinn Féin.
Last edited by factual; 9th January 2010 at 11:29 AM.
RIRA not in my name-Traitors to Ireland MMcGuinness; People are entitled to cultural & social equality MLMcDonald; We have a length to go understanding unionism GAdams
I definitely need to get my eyes tested. I thought you wrote "chum" as in shark bait!
"The rich always betray the poor"- Henry Joy McCracken
Adams was always a control freak micro-manager with authoritarian impulses. Internal debate within SF has always been stifled and controlled to the nth degree and youse have lost a lot of good intelligent passionate people over many years because of this.
That kind of party culture is understandable, even excusable, when there was a war on and party members and even elected representatives were being killed by the British and Loyalists....it's even understandable how over-the-top discipline and being constantly "on message" was seen by some to be necessary during all the long years of difficult negotiations to end the conflict - and why people went along with it at the time.
Those days are gone however, and if SF is to remain in any way relevant then this topdown command-and-control structure, attitude and internal culture needs to be decommissioned next. Along with all the old leadership, and all their local yes-men enforcers.
That's SFs real problem. Just sort it out. You have the likes of Ms Ferris already, and a party freed from the cult-like mind-control of Adams will probably attract back a lot of the people who have left over the last 10-12 years. Left not because they were "mad dissident bombers" which has always been the party line (some were physical-force types of course, but very many were not), but left because they were frustrated and disgusted at the increasingly authoritarian and conservative nature of the party.
If you don't act then within 5 years SF will be as visible and as relevant as O'Brádaigh's bunch in the south - dusty old theologians waffling on unheeded, convinced of their own righteousness and that 99.99% of the population is out of step with their One True Church. And eventually you'll wane in the Six too, the muttering amongst the ordinary voter in the street already started about 2 years ago.
You need a palace coup to persuade the Adams regime to step down and quietly retire, and you need it fast, or SF will simply wither away all over the island.
Then again, maybe it is time. Maybe all our old parties are irrelevant. Maybe they are all no longer fit for purpose, and we should dismantle all of them - SF, FF, FG, Labour, SDLP. Start fresh, without all the baggage and mistakes and grudges of the past.
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