The Pantomime of greed: the O' Donnel's
The Irish Independent, that lover of the establishment at any cost, today lauds and gives free expression without reproach to the O’ Donnel’s, whose only claim to wealth, fame and fortune, lays in the money they borrowed and the lies that they told to get it and try to hold on to. Let us be clear here: this family are not victims of the ‘norm’ when it comes to the banks and the banks for their part are as guilty for giving it to them. In recent days as the directors of the banks kneel on feigned expressions of remorse, the one word that they have commonly used to explain their actions is ‘stupidity’. Of course the word they left out with it as it’s partner was greed, the pure naked stuff and so it goes…… Ultimately it is what the whole mess of the Celtic myth was about from both sides of the counter in the bankers office.
Denis The Menace
Be that as it may these problems were of a private nature in the commerce of free people and it’s natural aftermath was that the bondholders of these private banks would go down with the ship. Instead, and as always before, the citizens en-masse of this small country were landed the bill. A bill so large that it will never be paid. That is not democracy at work but corruption.
We are still in the top five of the highest debtor nations in the world and only dropped down from number one because of simple accounting: reducing the debt owed to one by handing it to another at a reduced interest rate. Just to keep afloat week on week, we still borrow billions from Peter to pay Paul and both are laughing all the way to their banks. Clever accounting is as about as much you can say about it all, but just as the Celtic tiger was no more than a giant pyramid scheme, the optics what is left is exactly the same. Sooner or later this house of cards will fall.
The root cause of it all is parish pump politics that builds the nest for corruption to thrive. You get elected there and it is very hard to crowbar you out of just one hiding place in Government. Think Michael Lowry, Flynn, Cowen and Ahern here, and Denis O Brien, where just one small bribe bought it all. The institution of corruption itself is what glues it together. There is but a thin veneer of democracy left here now and certainly not what they fought for in 1916 and 1922, or enjoyed by the rest of democracies everywhere else today. We are at a crossroads and the nature of what politics is and it’s relationship with the money men that run this country from within and abroad. The only way forward is transparency and accountability to stop the rot enshrined in corrupt laws meant to hide and evade justice. It's as good as it ever got here.
The reality is we are treated everyday to some trial or other of a banker, politician, counsellor, civil servant, or indeed a more recognised crook such as a bank robber with just a gun, to fill the courts and entertain us. None are ever found guilty except the guy with the gun. If anyone is still laughing then I am not one of them. The legal system that defends them is more corrupt than those they are defending. This is a what the court of last resort is really about. Is there hope? Of course there is but it can only start with reform from the rotten ground up and should have started yesterday.
We can always be accused of being naive at some point in our lives, of being conned, or of being guilty of tribalism and the embracing of unforgiving beliefs of a religious ethos. Age tends to mellow these things as we look through the window of a melancholy day when the rains on the window pane slows us down long enough to think. In the end it is rather anti-climatic for it’s clarity is so clear that it can almost be depressing just before it’s liberation. Common sense it seems is just not so common after all.
All life looks towards it’s family and young as the future. As a social species we cannot survive alone for we are tethered by this socialism to help others as it ultimately helps ourselves whether we are aware of it or not. Dammit, it feels good too!! When the deluded insulate themselves by money and power, these things are very fragile and toxic in themselves, but there toxicity can burn all round them and consume others that had felt safe before. This is the perfect storm and the one that is raging across Ireland today. To help survive, you look for someone to help if you can't find a tree in a storm.
When I look at a candidate between storms, beyond the smiles and a nice suit, I start with the ‘whats in it for me’ and the ‘whats in it for them’ question. There is always a caveat for someone. And yes, I need someone that is there not just for me but the country as a whole. My intuition and instinct tell me to vote for Sinn Fein. They are here now after the civil war in the north and the civil ignorance in the south that pretended that no war existed. They have embraced the peace process warmly on both sides of the divide since, but the poisonous arrows of the establishment have and are still trying to bring them down.
It cannot be said that Sinn Fein is there for the money men, for the obscene pensions, for the benefits of power itself. Their ethos, right or wrongly, misplaced or otherwise, has been to help the lot of others and advancement of a more equal society. It is the totality of their actions going forward that does not fail to impress and the polls reflect that as much. The alternative and more truthful social media is keeping the engines fired up in that march for real change.
That has kept the Irish Independent and the other political parties in the permanency of a siege mentality. The electorate has just one more chance in the next general election to seed for change and give chance for something better and more permanent to grow for future generations, for the one's now are bereft of that one thing that drive us all forward: hope.
Barry Clifford
Barry Clifford
No comments:
Post a Comment