Picked up the Irish Independant today somewhere and had a flick through it. I found an article in it which was making a lot of the same points I made yesterday in my Lisbon post… here’s the Independent article: ‘Pro-treatyites need to give Breakfast Roll Man something he can digest easily‘

To date, the ‘Yes’ campaign appeared to be intent on giving reasons not to vote ‘No’, rather than why to vote ‘Yes’. [...] …rather than trying to constantly debate the Treaty with the ‘No’ camp and getting drawn into rows about outrageous claims, the ‘Yes’ side needs to start emphasising its own message. The only way to get the soft ‘Yes’ vote out is to give them something they’ll understand.

The article went on to say that Willie O’Dea explained they had to fight the No myths they encounter on the doorsteps, but in my opinion, if the Yes vote had started their campaign earlier the No myths might not have been so prevalent.

meanwhile, heard on Twitter…

If I were spending money to secure a YES vote, I’d give it to these fucking lunatics we see campaigning for NO.

It’s funny because it’s true - but don’t let the lunatics make you vote Yes for the wrong reasons.

I found another great article in the Independant, entitled ‘I’ll be voting No for sake of democracy’

Go and read it, it’s a good one - here are the crucial points:

First of all, let’s recall that the Treaty is really the same as the constitution that was rejected by the voters of France and Holland. It has been dolled up and this time, no one in the EU apart from us gets the chance to vote on it. This, alone, is fantastically undemocratic and is reason on its own to vote against it.

Secondly, the Nice Treaty was supposed to be the legal document that tweaked the institutions of the EU so as to accommodate all those extra members, and then they have the nerve to use the enlargement of the EU to foist another treaty (constitution) on us?

[...]

Third, there is the Charter of Fundamental Rights. [...] the Charter’s interpretation of rights will override our own interpretation of those same rights. That is not democratic.

Finally, the Charter will ultimately be interpreted by the immensely powerful judges of the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

If we don’t like a judgment of our own Supreme Court, we can reverse it through a referendum. If we don’t like a judgment of the ECJ, there is nothing practical we can do about it. We will be stuck with it. That is also undemocratic. Radically so. Judges should never, ever, be given that much power.Don’t give it to them. Vote ‘No’.

Oh, and an interesting quote from the first article I mentioned

Just two weeks out from polling day and within Leinster House, several Fianna Fail and Fine Gael TDs, with their noses to the ground, privately predicted in recent days that the referendum would be lost if it were held right now, rather than on June 12.

It goes on to point out that last years general election, held ten days earlier, would have had a very different result - but it shows that if you are thinking of voting No and you want a No result in the referendum, keep the pressure on - you’re ahead at the moment!

Finally, you’re probably wondering what the image at the top of the post was all about. Well it’s a picture, also from today’s Independant, picturing Micheal Martin, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and director of the Fianna Fail referendum campaign, giving himself a pep talk before a press briefing at The Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin yesterday:

Thanks to JazzBiscuit for the wonderful image find!

Unless I am seriously convinced by someone otherwise, I am voting NO to the Lisbon treaty. I have been leaning this way, but I was so suspicious of a lot of the No campaign that I was almost being pushed over to the Yes side.

I’ll be honest, I don’t understand much of all this Lisbon treaty fuss. But what I do know makes me nervous. It may be that I am ill educated on it, but as I said in one of my comments on Daves Vote Yes post, I am not alone - an RTE poll at the end of April showed only 5% of people understood what it was about.

The Lisbon Treaty is obviously significant and important, so it should be reflected in the efforts to educate the public on what they are about to vote on.

Everybody I have spoken to feels that the No campaigners are sensationalist, but the Yes campaigners have not given a compelling reason to vote yes, other than ‘Trust us, we’re politicians, this is good for you’.

To illustrate the kind of thing I’m talking about, Minister for European Affairs Dick Roche was quoted in the irish Times as saying:

“There is no way the Government would have negotiated anything that was detrimental to our interests,”

Oh that’s fine then, let’s all vote Yes.

He goes on to say:

“Ireland’s interests are undoubtedly best served by continued engagement in Europe. There’s no future for us as a standalone nation cut adrift from Europe.”

Is he inferring that a No vote will result in our being cut adrift from Europe? What nonsense. Worse, it’s dangerous scaremongering nonsense.

I’m so sick of being told that we owe it to Europe, let’s not be left behind by Europe, let’s ‘be at the heart of it.’

We ARE at the heart of it. We ARE PART of the EU, stop making it sound like a No vote is a vote to LEAVE. It’s not.

Roche also said:

there was “no benefit” in frustrating the European Union when it is “more or less unanimous” on the treaty.

I find that unanimity hard to believe as far as the public in the EU goes, given that the EU Constitution was abandoned due to the no votes of the French and Dutch people. A bit of shifting of language and bit of manoevering to avoid referendums in most countries and here we are again.

No thank you.

A Yes vote is a vote of confidence that we trust the powers that be that the entire contents of the Lisbon Treaty (and the bits of it that they will make up later) are hunky dorey - it’s a vote of confidence because they have not taken the time to educate the public over a reasonable length of time for something this serious, in my opinion.

That Vote of confidence is hard to give when our Taoiseach had not read the Lisbon Treaty fully despite the fact that getting it passed was his No.1 priority.

I freely admit I am not the most politically up to speed, but this is how I feel. I am open to correction and education in the comments!

Displacements is an immersive film installation by Michael Naimark.

An archetypal Americana living room was installed in an exhibition space. Then two performers were filmed in the space using a 16mm motion picture camera on a slowly rotating turntable in the room’s center. After filming, the camera was replaced with a film loop projector and the entire contents of the room were spray-painted white.

Thanks and thanks.

I didn’t like Indy 4 but this ad is better than most like it.

You can see the making here.

Gardaí are appealing to people who knew Mr Queally to contact them, particularly those who may have seen him or been with him last Tuesday.

Ian Queally died after presenting himself in hospital with a head wound, and the gardai are trying to find out what happened to him.

Please read this RTE article it outlines some of Ian’s movements the night he injured himself.

I worked with Ian on a show in the cork Arts Theatre, he was a great guy and we would grab a coffee from time to time and catch up. I was deeply shocked when I heard this news, and I just hope that someone knows what happened to him.

My heart goes out to his family, particularly to his father Jim Queally who also worked on the same show with us.