Comparable to Kevin Spacey’s character in American Beauty, who describes his early morning shower as “the highlight of my day”, climbing into bed at night is mine, though not for the same reason.
I always look forward to those final moments before sleep,
when the conscious mind falls slient and the subconscious mind begins to wake.
In those few seconds the conscious mind must surrender its
power. All emotions are abandoned
including happiness, sadness and fear.
And when the subconscious and the conscious mind pass each other a lot
of clarity can be found and there can be moments of clarity and
reasoning and understanding.
Last night was such a night.
Spending all my waking time these days thinking about what’s
going on in our country my mind is often a chaotic whirlwind of anger,
frustration, confusion, bewilderment and indignation. Every day there seems to be more and more
evidence that our government are out of control, a rudderless ship tossed like
a cork on a raging sea of political incompetence, administrative chaos,
economic ignorance and social destruction.
In my attempts to make sense of what is happening I always
try to find perspective by looking at the bigger picture. Not the bill for water that the government
are promising me in January, but the state of the country, how we got here and
where we are heading. I may not be the man
at the wheel, but I can be the man in the crow’s nest, observing the crew as
they scurry about like rats trying to plug the holes in the ship and looking
out to sea to find some hope of dry land so that we can set a steady course and
arrive safely on dry land.
Last night one thought came to me very strongly. Ireland is a third world country.
It seems like a throw-away phrase but with simple analysis
it does stand up to scrutiny.
Ireland was a British colony.
During that time the country was destroyed by famine.
It revolted in search of its independence and identity and
although the revolt was put down and its heroes executed, the crown granted us a
type of independence.
They gave us our political system – modelled on theirs.
They gave us our judicial system – modelled on theirs.
They allowed us some independence as the Free State but kept
us under the rule of the crown … until 1937 members of the Oireachtas had to
swear an oath of allegiance to the crown and until 1949 the Queen of England
was regarded as the Head of State.
On a couple of occasions the Queen of England paid us a
royal visit. In 2011 Queen Elizabeth
popped over to see how we were doing (and some say to collect her copy of the
census, held the same year, as her claim on us as subjects).
Our government allowed our oil to be stolen by foreign corporations.
Our government allows the use of Shannon airport as a US
airbase.
Our government took our taxes to save Irish, European and
American banks.
Our government has promised our future taxes to be handed
over to investment companies, hedge funds and traders on Wall Street and London and Tokyo in the form of government bonds,
making us debt slaves in bondage to foreign powers.
Our government allows the same banks they saved with our
money to throw us out of our homes into the streets, assisted by an English Sheriff.
Our police force operates as a private company available for
hire to large private business to protect private property before public
safety.
Our civil service is also wracked with corruption. Many of its mandarins paid salaries even
greater than that of our political leader.
Our political leader is a school teacher turned tin-pot dictator, unqualified to
lead a country. He is a willing mindless
puppet backed by multi-billionaire businessmen.
Our social and economic policy is handed to us by a foreign,
unelected government and all legislation must first be authorised by bankers
and bureaucrats.
Our water is not the purified clean water that the rest of Europe enjoys. It is laced with chemical fluoride and in some parts of the country is unfit for human consumption.
Our healthcare system is under-resourced to the point of implosion.
Our education system is under-resourced to the detriment of our children.
Our water is not the purified clean water that the rest of Europe enjoys. It is laced with chemical fluoride and in some parts of the country is unfit for human consumption.
Our education system is under-resourced to the detriment of our children.
Our media only reports a scripted narrative prepared by
government and ignores the reality of life for ordinary citizens. All dissention is denied a voice. All truth is censored.
Our political system is wracked with corruption. Friends and family members are sneaked into
positions of authority and given first class seats on the gravy train.
Quangos deliver no benefit to the people while feeding on
their misery.
Our President is a puppet, or more accurately a muppet. He is the missing member of the Waldorf
Stadtler
Higgins comedy trio.
Our farmers, once the engine of our economy, have been
handcuffed by regulation, price and quota fixing and the rise of the
supermarkets, importing most of what stocks their shelves.
Our small and medium sized business have also been destroyed
by red tape and banking corruption while we allow global multi-national
corporations use us as an off-shore conduit for profits from tax evasion.
Our church as enjoyed a reign of terror and child abuse with
impunity.
Those of us with the possibility of escape have emigrated
like refugees to find a better life … indeed to find a life! across the globe.
Some of us with no possibility of escape and no hope are
taking our own lives to find peace in some other life.
And this week, in the shadow of our government’s palace, a
man was left to die in the street.
Colonisation – famine – imposed government – corporate exploitation
– political corruption – cronyism – the rise of the quangos – foreign domination
– the theft of our natural resources – exodus – debt slavery – clerical abuse suicide
– homelessness – lack of social protection for the poorest – sad, meaningless
death.
Jimmy Rabbit wasn’t wrong when he said “Ireland are the
blacks of Europe”. Barely ten years after
being hailed as the shining light of capitalism, Ireland is the ghetto of
Europe.
We have seen how our government are preparing for the 2016
orgy of false patriotism with images of our oppressors. Our slaughtered heroes have been forgotten,
written out of our history while we are all but encouraged to sing God Save The
Queen.
That’s what my uncensored subconscious showed me last
night. It is a sad image. But it is entirely accurate.
Should we leave Europe?
Yes. Absolutely. And we should apply to the African Union to
become a member of the African nations because we have more in common with
Nigeria than we do with Germany.
Maybe then Bono might think about lobbying for his own
people and make Irish poverty history…
So is there dry land anywhere in sight to beach this coffin
ship before it sinks?
There is, but it will take a mutiny of the people to set it
on its course.
We must act as one to remove the officer class and take
control of our own destiny.
No one is protecting us.
No one is helping us. We must
help ourselves and if a peaceful mutiny does
not succeed then it might take
more forceful action to remove the officers and cast them adrift.
It’s 8am. I rose
early to write these words still fresh in my mind. Tonight I will join the vigil outside Gangster
House for the man who was found yesterday.
It will not be my first vigil.
I have not been a dissident for very long … to my
shame. My second act of defiance was in
December 2012. I went to Moore Street
and bought a Christmas wreath. I found a
website with the names of victims of suicide who had died in Ireland over the
past few years. I wrote the names of
those people and stapled them to the wreath and I hung the wreath on the
railings of Gangster House and stood alone silently to honour them, remember
them and to shame the people who had abandoned them.
A Garda on duty and one or two passers-by asked me what it
was for. I said simply “it’s for those
who didn’t make it”.
I don’t remember all the names but I remember Shannon and
Erin Gallagher, Savita Halappanavar and Paul Doyle, a homeless man who died in
a Tesco doorway in Bray.
On December 10th it would be fitting to remind
ourselves and our public representatives of those they have failed, abandoned
and forgotten and place wreaths around government buildings.
And on December 11th it would be fitting to begin
seriously to think about taking control of our lives so that this coffin ship
does not become a ghost ship, filled with the crying souls of our children.
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