If humour could kill it would be safe in the hands of Will Hanafin

national | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis

Monday July 26, 2010 12:42

by indyjourno

Today’s Irish Independent features a rather poor attempt at a hatchet job of left wing activism in Ireland. Will Hanafin decided to hang around several left wing protests at the request of the Irish Independent. What emerges is a tale of him meeting middle-aged women and humourless platitudes. Of course maybe “far-left protesters” are just humourless individuals or idiots, as Hanafin seems to suggest.

Most people won’t have heard have Will Hanafin but he is ‘important’ enough for ‘somebody’ to have created a wikipedia page for him. I’m not suggesting that he created the wiki page himself, I’m just using the quotation marks in an ironic capacity just to be clear to all you humourless protestors.

Will is a producer of a radio show on Today FM and fancies himself as some sort of comedian having presented a segment on the difficulties listeners encounter in removing awkward stains. Having not had the desire or opportunity to listen to this I will presume he doesn’t view the Irish and Sunday Independent whom he writes for as the awkward stain most people do. He has also written a book called “De Little Book of Bertie” about Bertiespeak a “collection of the Taoiseach's confused and amusing utterances will keep you amused for hours”. There has been no confirmation as yet that Will’s follow up book will be ‘Little book of Sunday Independent’ about Sindospeak a collection of the Sunday Independents confused and amusing utterances. Another fact about Hanafin is that Gardaí questioned him over the nude paintings of Cowen, more of which we will come to later.

The article today contains Hanfin’s shadowing various protests and his attempt at humour to delegitimise these protests. Of course he attempts to do so while in the pay of Independent News and Media a company who has a vested interest in delegitimising these protests due to the corporate interests of its shareholders. Funny that isn’t it?

There is nothing new in the article just the standard childish repetitive nonsense that continually gets posted by right wing rags. Which must be disappointing for Hanafin as in a previous interview with the Sunday Tribune he is quoted as saying “We try to be positive and optimistic and we try not to be clichéd” he should obviously try harder.

The author was questioned by Gardaí over the 2009 paintings of Cowen that were hung in the Royal Hibernian Academy something that he branded as “crazy”. In an examiner article on the questioning “Mr Hanafin said the Garda, who had one of the two paintings — the one sneaked into the Royal Hibernian Academy depicting Mr Cowen holding his underpants — wrapped in bubblewrap under his arm, was "sheepish and apologetic" but he said he had orders from "on high" to investigate the incident.” It seems that Hanafin is all too aware of people in positions of power abusing this power for their own ends when it is he who is being questioned by Gardaí. However when a rogue state such as Israel murders members of an International flotilla in International waters he attempts to make a mockery of the activists who were arrested complaining that the Israeli soldiers used their credit cards by joking “They probably bought Israeli goods with them too!”

While there are many valid criticisms of left wing activism in this country, of which you will find plenty on this website, Hanafins article on the behalf of vested interests is not one of them. He ends his article with “you can't even agree on one speaker for a meeting of less than 100 people”. So folks, to please Hanafin, left wing parties who run separate electoral candidates under separate electoral platforms (with limited success) must all say exactly the same thing. I wonder would a sample of 100 people find his article humorous?

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Comments (9 of 9)

Change of Career needed

by Used2bSnowWhite

Mon Jul 26, 2010 22:54

So Will, you didn't make it in Law, you didn't make it in Radio and now you're trying comedy. What's that wonderful quote in the acting circles, oh yes, 'dying is easy, comedy is hard.'
Now please go away and find another career, Will Hanafin.

Typical

by Richard

Tue Jul 27, 2010 14:39

It has been a media convention for some years now that left-wing people are po-faced, sanctimonious spoilsports. This helps make right-wing people seem natural and down-to-earth by contrast. This sort of portrayal became common in the 1980s and has been common ever since.

Iconic examples of such stereotyping include Lisa Simpson and the "modern parents" cartoon in Viz magazine.

A man for all seasons ;

by Petra

Wed Jul 28, 2010 13:08

Give credit where credit is due , Will can obviously turn his hand to anything ,

so whats the problem ? if more irish people were like so i am certain this country

would be a better place for everybody concerned !!!

Credence to a lackey...no thanks

Wed Jul 28, 2010 13:33

Dermot, the canny reader can’t prostrate to a jack-of-all-trades lackey of the Independent Newspapers. A good journalist could have made some effort interviewing and engaging the various organisations involved, for e.g. the IPSC, whose campaigning output of late has been distributed by worldwide media. This has not been highlighted by the right-wing media in this country because they couldn’t compete with active volunteers* in their journalistic attempts. A good political writer with some savvy could have written a sharp and comical article but this is just inaccurate hyperbole. Publish a well-researched funny article, say by the likes of Gene Kerrigan who works for the Indo, and then I'll agree with your statement.

*Volunteer - (these are people who don't get paid for their free time for a good cause - a good cause is not working for the Indo...ha ha, oh no one's laughing...)

Hanafin has a point

by Mickned - none

Fri Aug 06, 2010 21:33

Hanafin was partly right

The guy is of course just a crude right wing propagandist but the propaganda works because there is a huge amount of truth in it. The Irish left is an ineffective, disorganised joke, its no wonder the rulers have contempt for it so do I .

I'd appeal to readers not to start on about being an apologist for the right, I'm just about as left wing as it is possible to get. But I can spot a pack of useless people when I see them as good as any other person. Just because I agree with what they are saying politically doesn't mean I am going to support them,. A left wing incompetent is still and incompetent and hardly worth supporting.

They are little more than an inward looking collection of assorted sub cultures, with no connection to the lives of ordinary people. Most of their activities are about expressing their rage and anger, telling everybody how bad the "system" is , as if they even needed to be told.

This is not a comment on all campaigns,. They are a lot of effective campaigns out there,

I don't rate a campaign as being effective just because it hasn't won. I rate a campaign as being ineffective if it has by definition no chance whatsoever of achieving its stated aims and objectives. In fact the real aims and objectives of these campaigns are never in fact the actual aims and objectives.

The problem, isn't that a few individuals engaged in abuse, That happens its human, its still wrong but its understandable. The problem is that lots of established groups and parties were there openly advocating such behaviour. Thats the problem. Their clear lack of judgement

The sight of people verbally abusing other people, spitting, calling people names like "scum" and "slut" is a real sign of their weakness and serious limitations. They go for instant gratification They are actually dis-empowering themselves and all who look to them for example.

People like that look and behave like they do not have what it takes to organise a resistance. And that perception is correct in my opinion based on the past examples. They don't do anything the rulers cant easily ignore.

People who go to an event like that feel they wasted their time.

Their useless token displays allow the rulers to say "look, Ireland is democratic because people can protest" and " the people are really aware of the realities of the situation" and look at the type of people who were last night a bunch of loo las. There is no alternative to our policies"

And still waiting for the Valid point to be made...

Tue Aug 10, 2010 23:31

Mickned,

I see that you’re still rambling away about the ineffective left who are made up of members with ‘anger’ and ‘rage’ issues. Sure they probably only need you to lead them even though you admit yourself that there are already ‘a lot of effective campaigns’ out there. Instead of the usual paranoid tirade of ‘don’t trust ‘em, someone might swear at you at a demo’ waffle, do try and make a valid point about whatever campaign you're referring to. I’m sure someone will get back to you eventually... albeit with a straitjacket and some smelling salts.

Riposte to snow white

by MickNed

Wed Aug 11, 2010 00:25

Because you cannot think of any counter argument you are reduced to personal abuse.

What funny world you live in when you have such contempt for people.

Where you one of the shouters?

Counter my arguments with rational points. Learn how to debate without sinking into abuse.

And if you are going to use pschyo babble its perhaps a good idea to learn some psychology . You don't have to work hard. A few clicks to Wikipedia is enough and I quote

"Paranoia is a thought process heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a perceived threat towards oneself. Historically, this characterization was used to describe any delusional state."

Theres no paranoia in this comment. You are just enraged because you dont like being criticized. I dont give too much of damn about your rage.

Show me how I am wrong.

mickNED

by Dorothy Gale

Wed Aug 11, 2010 12:01

mickNED you seem to have great respect for IBEC and BIFFO. Why? Many of the people along on the demo were not your average lefties, rather they were community activists. They were the most vocal in shoing their contempt for IBEC.

Why shouldnt they call them scum? These people are dining out while ordinary people suffer from cutbacks.

There will come a day when oedinary people will do more than shout scum at IBEC anmd BIFFO. I bet you wont like that either.

Clock ticking away here...

Wed Aug 11, 2010 12:06

Mickned, don’t act the offended party, it doesn’t suit you.
Haven’t your comments already been removed due to you making snide remarks and personal abuse?

“What a funny world you live in when you have such contempt for people.”
Mickned, it’s the funny world that you live in, that you should return to with your vitriolic comments, where you have contempt for peoples’ right to protest, referring to campaigners and citizens as an ‘inward looking collective’ and are ‘useless people’. And you wonder why people disagree with you?

From my own experience the majority of left-wing campaigners in Ireland are effective and well-meaning and indeed not all their direct action succeed (that by the way, is your only correct observation but that same lazy generalisation could apply to any campaign). Just because the left-wing campaigners don’t sway the public with populist slogans does not mean the general public will still support the current government in the future and the left is growing whether you like it or not.

Forunately I don’t need to counter your irrrational argument. The majority of left-wing campaigners that I know of build on their causes due to education, promotion and reasonable debate (you mightn’t like the last one…)

And I generally have ‘contempt’ for poor persuasive writing – by the way that includes yours and Will Hanafinn’s.
If you don’t like the actions of recent campaigns, then fine, but supporting a poor writer who can’t engage or research properly is hardly something to cheer about.

You come across as a cynical and burnt-out observer of the left. None of your insecure and brat-style comments make sense and that includes the cliché-ridden, ‘and that’s why the left are so ineffective’. You’ve obviously had some bad experience with some left-wing party and are now taking it out on indymedia.

And you still haven’t mentioned what campaign you are referring to regarding name-calling and spitting. You’re just ranting away for the sake of it with baseless venomous criticism thrown in for good measure.

Wikipedia- that’s a reliable source of information just like the rest of the information you provide…

Mickned, from your comments, it seems that you need the left then the other way around, otherwise why would you bother to comment?

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If humour could kill it would be safe in the hands of Will Hanafin

Comments (9 of 9)